It's Friday morning in the year 2025, and you're running late. You got distracted watching the music video that as playing in the corner of your bathroom mirror while you were brushing your teeth. How will you get to your office at Mega Giga Industries on time? A quick check of your Internet-connected refrigerator magnet tells you your train which travels at speeds up to 250 miles an hour as it electromagnetically hovers above its guide track is a bit behind schedule, too. So you decide to drive your environmentally-friendly hydrogen fuel cell car instead or rather _ . It's programmed to know the way, and it will get you there without speeding, getting lost, or crashing. Sealing into your office chair, which changes color to match what you're wearing, you pick up yesterday morning's newspaper. Printed on reusable electronic paper, it instantly rewrites itself with today's headlines. Now it's time for your big meeting. Uh-oh! You've left your handwritten notes at home. No problem! The digital ink pen you used has stored an electronic copy of what you wrote. Your wrist watch videophone suddenly rings. Your best friend's face pops up on the organic light-emitting diode screen asking what you're doing this weekend. Will you slap on your 3D contact lenses and play virtual soccer with the US Olympic team? No, no. Your friend says, so you have to take the new nanotube elevator (made of microscopic fibers many times stronger than steel) 60,000 miles into space. Could this scene really take place in just a couple of decades? The researchers who are currently developing all this stuff think so. These things may be as common in 20 years as cell phones and DVD players are today. From the passage we know that _ . A) you can read the newspaper on TV B) the newspaper is printed on the used paper C) the newspaper can update by itself D) the newspaper is put in the changeable chair
C
There's no danger of 88-year-old Harry Ward forgetting his wife Doris's Valentine's Day card - the couple still use the same one he bought her 70 years ago. When 17-year-old Harry Ward presented Doris with a Valentine's Day card as he boarded a train to join the wartime effort on February 14, 1941, he must have been fairly confident about his affections . After all the couple had been dating since they met in a cafe three months earlier. But little can he have imagined that 70 years on, not only would he still be happy about having married Doris, but that every year she would present him with the very same card he gave her that Valentine's Day. "I bring it out of the cupboard and put it on our mantelpiece every Valentine's Day," she said. "It's a special to me now as it was 70 years ago. Harry has never bought me one since, because I have this one every year." They first met in a cafe. "Harry was in the cafe drinking and he said hello. He asked me my name and we got talking happily. He offered to walk me to the bus stop but when we got outside, a bombing raid had started and we had to run to a nearby air-raid shelter ," Doris said. Mr. Ward said,"I knew Doris was the one for me the moment I met her. I gave her the Valentine's card then and she is still my Valentine now." Mrs. Ward's card is not the only thing that has endured the passing of time. "Harry is quite romantic and we are as still in love as the day he first gave me this card,"Dorris said. When did the couple first meet? A) In 1940. B) In 1939. C) In 1941. D) In 1942
A
Q: The day before the deadline for this article,I had no clue what I was going to write about. I took my problem to the editor-in-chief, and.he said to me:"Don't worry; you're creative. " I'm not sure where the editor-in-chief reached the conclusion that I was "creative". Maybe it was through the poems I wrote. Personally, I simply enjoy writing because it's fun. There's also the fact that I can't draw or do anything else creatively, I'm equally sure that there are people in the boat on the other side who can make things look excellent, but can't write a poem. At this point you probably want to ask me what poetry and art have to do with engineering. For one, it makes you a more rounded person, making you a better engineer. More importantly, as an engineer, you will be faced with many problems every day. There are some that can be solved by consulting a textbook, but more often than not, you will need that thing in your brain to put together things in a completely original combination to solve the problem at hand. Think of the wonderful things that creative engineers have done. Civil engineers have made the road more long-lasting so we don't have to close them for repairs as often. Coming up with a new innovation is similar to writing a good poem. It's not some-thing you plan to do. The critical moment comes unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere. You don't think about what you're doing, you simply do. After some mad struggling you take a look at the end product and say to yourself, "This is a masterpiece. " This is perhaps the greatest personal satisfaction one can experience. So all you engineers out there get out and do something creative. I don't care if it's writing a poem or a computer program, just be natural and do something creative. This passage mainly deals with _ . A) the creativity of engineers B) the power of editor-in-chief C) engineering in general D) a way of thinking
A: A
(Question)
BEIJING--As China scrambles to respond to the choking smog that has _ Beijing in recent weeks, authorities in several major cities are experimenting with carbon trading platforms. The schemes are one effort to get control over greenhouse gases in an economy still hungry for cheap energy. It has been a persistent concern in recent years, but the spiking pollution levels in January are sparking a public outcry. Emissions from coal-fired electricity plants and busy factories are part of the problem that officials hope to get control over through carbon trading platforms. Seven cities are expected to open carbon markets later this year, including Tianjin. "The government has decided to start with programs because the carbon trading is something new to China," said David Tang, secretary of the board of the Tianjin Carbon Exchange. "So we want to have a number of programs to explore the use of the market." said Tang. China wants to launch a national carbon trading program by 2016. If it is successful, analysts say, the program would be one of the largest in the world and would help the country meet its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent within seven years. The platforms allow companies to earn credits for lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which can then be traded. If it works, it would encourage for-profit businesses to invest in green technology. As public concern builds pressure for the government to find a solution, Wu Changhua, greater China director of the Climate Group, says there is a broad shift under way in how Chinese weigh their quality of life. China has long put economic growth ahead of environmental concerns, making it the world's biggest polluter. Carbon trading supporters hope that the markets could be one way to curb pollution and keep the economy growing. What's the main idea of this passage? A) The choking smoke in China. B) The urge for carbon trading platforms. C) Greenhouse gases. D) The world's biggest polluter.
(Answer)
B