Phones make our lives easier. Usually they are a convenient type of technology to have around because they can help us communicate with all types of people for any reason whatsoever. As long as somebody else has a phone, you can contact them. This means you can keep in touch with friends and family, contact businesses, and generally communicate with people no matter where they are. Sometimes, however, phones can cause problems or be an annoyance. One phenomenon that is dreaded in the United States is telemarketing. Telemarketers call your phone in order to try and convince you to buy their products. They often start the conversation with a friendly voice or tone to try and convince you they can be trusted. Once most people realize they are talking to a telemarketer, they will end the conversation as quickly as possible. Some will be polite and make up an excuse to end the conversation. Others are less tactful and criticize the telemarketer, yell at them, or simply hang up the phone. Although most people don't buy things from telemarketers, a few people do, so telemarketers keep on calling. If you have a phone in America you most likely have received a call from a telemarketer. To avoid telemarketers some people buy new technology. "Caller ID" allows you to see the number that is calling your phone before you answer. If you do not recognize the name and number of a caller you can simply ignore the call. Unfortunately there usually is no way to tell if an unknown number is somebody important, but unknown, or a telemarketer. Even though technology can help some people eschew annoying telemarketers, they can't be avoided altogether. How do most people react when they realize they are talking to a telemarketer? A) They hang up the phone without saying another word. B) They hang up the phone as soon as possible. C) They are very polite and thank the telemarketer. D) They are first polite, then rude to the telemarketer.
B
Movie fans know that their action hero Superman does not really fly.And, in the movie Superman Returns, another visual trick is played on viewers.The man they see flying is not real.He is what is called a virtual actor.The first step in creating this digital actor is to have a real person stand in a room called a light stage.A computer then captures the outlines and shapes of his face and records how they throw off light .Paul Debevec is with the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. "We can light them with very specially computer-controlled illumination and take photos of them from seven different viewpoints with high quality digital still cameras." Mr.Debevec is part of a team working to create computerized images of people, objects and environments that look and act real.The light stage permits actors to be turned into digital versions of themselves much like the blue creatures in the movie Avatar.The real world could soon be using a similar technology.Computer experts at the Institute are developing a 3-D video teleconferencing system.It would send a video image of a person into a meeting room.That image would be able to work with the people in the room, who would see it in 3-D without special eyeglasses.Paul Debevec says: "The person who is being transmitted to a remote location can actually look around at the people in the room and everybody in that room knows who they're looking at .And that's such a fundamental part of human communication." He believes the business world will begin to use3-D video teleconferencing in the next five years." It's also a medium with which young people today are particularly comfortable," he said.A demonstration of an interaction between an earthquake survivor and students may be possible in a year.In 10 years, we may be able to play 3-D video games without special glasses. Why does the author mention the movies Superman Returns and Avatar in the passage? A) To compare their different styles. B) To explain 3-D film-making technology. C) To attract more readers to watch3-Dfilm. D) To describe the origin of 3-D film industry.
B
Q: Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the United States today because it is about simple but strong human feelings and events-love, sadness, good times, and bad times. It tells real-life, stories and sounds the way people really talk. As life becomes more complicated , it is good to hear music about ordinary people. Country music, sometimes called country-western, comes from two kinds of music. One is the traditional music of the people in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern Unite States. The other is traditional cowboy music from the west. The singers usually play guitars, and in the 1920s they started using electric guitars. At first city people said country music was low class. It was popular mostly in the South. But during World War II, thousands of Southerners went to the Northeast and Midwest to work in the factories. They took their music with them. Soldiers from the rest of the country went to army camps in the South. They learned country music. Slowly it became popular all over the country. Today country music is also popular everywhere in the United States and Canada--in small towns and in New York City, among black and white, and among educated and uneducated people. About 1, 200 radio stations broadcast country music twenty-four hours a day. English stars sing it in British English, and people in other countries sing it in their own languages. The music that started with cowboys and poor southerners is now popular all over the world. Before World War II country music was popular mainly in_. A) the north B) the south C) the Midwest D) the Northeast
A: B
The past week was possibly the most eventful in the history of customer technology markets,or to be precise, the 7-inch (17.8-cm) tablet market. Never before have three of thebiggest players in the industry scheduled what could be truly historic productlaunches so close together. Despite its name, the 7.9-inch iPad Mini is one of the largest among the mini-tablets. It's gotall the aesthetics of its earlier 9.7-inch iPad and is unbelievably thin-just 7.2 mm, 23 percentthinner than the iPad. Apple's iPad Mini Release date: Nov 2,2012 (Wi-Fi version) Operating system: iOS 6 Size: 19.9 x 13.5 x 0.7 cm Prices: $329 (16GB Wi-Fi), $429 (32GB Wi-Fi), $519 (64GB Wi-Fi), or $459 (16GB Data) $559 (32GB Data), $659 (64GB Data) Google may have been forced to cancel its Android event in New York City on Oct 29 due to the threat of hurricane Sandy, but that isn't stopping it from making same big announcements. For starters, Google has confirmed that the Nexus 10 will be running Android 4.2 out of the box, so get excited. It will also come equipped with a 10-inch display running at an impressive 2560x1600 resolution. On the inside, it'll have a A15 dual-core processor running alongside 2GB of RAM ,so expect the Nexus 10 to be a speedy little tablet. Google's Nexus 10 Release date: Nov 13,2012 Operating system: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Size: 26.4 x 17.8x0.9 cm Prices: $399 (16GB), $449 (32GB) Microsoft's Surface is a bold product with some great touches. It doesn't feature a camera and focuses on Office software, which suggests Microsoft is focusing this product on an executive toy. There's no 3G connection (only Wi-Fi) so owners won't have to worry about an extra contract. The real delight, however, is Metro, the impressive navigation interface .It is beautifully designed with brightly colored squares for navigation. Pre-orders for Surface in the US sold out over the weekend, so it would seem customers are excited. Microsoft's Surface Release date: Oct 26,2012 Operating system: Windows 8 RT Size: 27.5 x 17.2 x 0.9... How many technologies will be introduced to the Nexus 10 according to Google? A) 6 B) 5 C) 4 D) 3
D