(每题3分，共45分) 1、 第一篇 Insomnia
Insomnia is the inability to sleep restfully. It is a problem to nearly everyone at some time. A person may be awake for an hour in the middle of the night and then, next morning, feel that he hardly slept all night. Normally, worry about not getting enough sleep is the worst aspect of most insomnia. If insomnia occurs repeatedly, it is important to find its possible causes and try to correct them.
Any of large number of simple factors may make it difficult for someone to fall asleep. His mattress may be too soft or too hard. If there are too many blankets on a hot night, he may be too warm;if the mattress is too light he may feel cold during the night. The bedroom itself may be overheated or too cold. If it is not dark enough, or too noisy, this may cause difficulty in sleeping. Eating shortly before going to bed may also be responsible for insomnia. Drinks, such as tea or coffee, can also keep people awake.
Inability to fall asleep is sometimes a symptom of emotional or mental disorder.
The cause of insomnia may be easy to correct. The sufferer should check the mattress, and bedroom temperature, and make any necessary changes. He should relax for an hour or two before bedtime, perhaps by reading a book, watching television or taking a warm bath. If he wakes during the night he should try turning on the light and reading for a while. Taking warm milk and a biscuit or two may be helpful. Above all, he should try not worry about sleeplessness—when someone is tired enough he nearly always falls asleep.

1According to the passage, insomnia is

A.a serious disease

B.a common complaint

C.a sign of illness

D.an unusual problem

2According to the passage, people who has difficulty in sleeping should sleep in

A.a dark and quiet room

B.a light and warm room

C.a cold and quiet room

D.a dark and warm room.

3According to the passage, if a person wants to fall asleep fast he shouldn’t

A.eat anything during supper time

B.read any books before he goes to bed

C.watch television shortly before going to bed

D.drink anything that will keep him awake

4 According to the passage, what is the worst aspect of insomnia?

A.Watching too much television

B.Eating too much before going to bed

C.Worrying about sleeplessness.

D.Reading too much at night

5According to the author, insomnia shouldn’t be a serious problem because

A.its cause can be corrected by making oneself feel tired enough

B.doctors can cure it easily

C.some people can catch up on their sleep during the day

D.some people don’t need so much sleep

2、 第二篇 Mind-reading Machine
A team of researchers in California has developed a way to predict what kinds of objects people are looking at by scanning what''s happening in their brains.
When you look at something, your eyes send a signal about that object to your brain. Different regions of the brain process the information your eyes send. Cells in your brain called neurons are responsible for this processing.
The fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) brain scans could generally match electrical activity in the brain to the basic shape of a picture that someone was looking at.
Like cells anywhere else in your body, active neurons use oxygen. Blood brings oxygen to the neurons, and the more active a neuron is, the more oxygen it will consume. The more active a region of the brain, the more active its neurons, and in turn, the more blood will travel to that region. And by using fMRI, scientists can visualize which parts of the brain receive more oxygen- rich blood--and therefore, which parts are working to process information.
An fMRI machine is a device that scans the brain and measures changes in blood flow to the brain. The technology shows researchers how brain activity changes when a person thinks, looks at something, or carries out an activity like speaking or reading. By highlighting the areas of the brain at work when a person looks at different images, fMRI may help scientists determine specific patterns of brain activity associated with different kinds of images.
The California researchers tested brain activity by having two volunteers view hundreds of pictures of everyday objects, like people, animals, and fruits. The scientists used an fMRI machine to record the volunteers'' brain activity with each photograph they looked at. Different objects caused different regions of the volunteers'' brains to light up on the scan, indicating activity. The scientists used this information to build a model to predict how the brain might respond to any image the eyes see.
In a second test, the scientists asked the volunteers to look at 120 new pictures. Like before, their brains were scanned every time they looked at a new image. This time, the scientists used their model to match the fMRI scans to the image. For example, if a scan in the second test showed the same pattern of brain activity that was strongly, related to pictures of apples in the first test, their model would have predicted the volunteers were looking at apples.

1 What is responsible for processing the information sent by your eyes?

A.A small region of the brain

B.The central part of the brain

C.Neurons in the brain

D.Oxygen-rich blood

2Which of the following statements is NOT meant by the writer?

A.Cells in your brain are called neurons

B.The more oxygen a neuron consumes, the more blood it needs

C.fMRI helps scientists to discover which parts of the brain process information

D.fMRI helps scientists to discover how the brain develops intelligently

3"Highlighting the areas of the brain at work" means

A.marking the parts of the brain that are processing information

B.giving light to the parts of the brain that are processing information

C.putting the parts of the brain to work

D.stopping the parts of the brain from working

4What did the researchers experiment on?

A.Animals, objects, and fruits

B.Two volunteers

C.fMRI machines

D.Thousands of pictures

5Which of the following can be the best replacement of the title?

A.The Recent Development in Science and Technology

B.Your Thoughts Can Be Scanned

C.A Technological Dream

D.Device that can Help You Calculate

3、 第三篇 Listening Device Provides Landslide Early Warning
A device that provides early warning of a landslide by monitoring vibrations in soil is being tested by UK researchers. The device could save thousands of lives each year by warning when an area should be evacuated, the scientists say. Such natural disasters arc common in countries that experience sudden, heavy rainfall, and can also be triggered by earthquakes and even water erosion.
Landslides start when a few particles of soil or rock within a slope start to move, but the early stages can be hard to spot. Following this initial movement, "slopes can become unstable in a matter of hours or minutes," says Nell Dixon at Southborough University1, UK. He says a warning system that monitors this movement "might be enough to evacuate a block of flats or clear a road, and save lives. "
The most common way to monitor a slope for signs of an imminent landslide is to watch for changes in its shape. Surveyors can do this by measuring aside directly, or sensors sunk into boreholes or fixed above ground can be used to monitor the shape of a slope. Slopes can. however, change shape without triggering a landslide, so either method is prone to causing false alarms. Now Dixon''s team has developed a device that listens for the vibrations'' caused when particles begin moving within a slope.
The device takes the form of a steel pipe dropped into a borehole in a slope. The borehole is filled in with gravel around the pipe to help transmit high-frequency vibrations generated by particles within the slope. These vibrations pass up the tube and are picked up by a sensor on the surface. Software analyses the vibration signal to determine whether a landslide may be imminent.
The device is currently being tested in a 6-metre-tall artificial clay embankment in Newcastle2, UK. Early results suggest it should provide fewer false positives than existing systems. Once it has been carefully and thoroughly tested, the device could be used to create a complete early-warning system for dangerous Slopes.
" Locations with a significant risk of landslides could definitely benefit from a machine like this," says Adam Poulter, an expert at the British Red Cross. "As long as it doesn''t cost too much, " But, Poulter adds that an early-warning system may not be enough on its own. "You need to have the human communication," he says. "Making systems that get warnings to those who need them can be difficult. "

1What does "Such natural disasters" in the first paragraph refer to?

A.Sudden, heavy rainfall

B.Earthquakes.

C.Water erosion.

D.Landslides

2Which of the following statements is true of landslides?

A.The initial movement is hard to spot.

B.They start with a movement of a few particles of soil or rock

C.They can be destructive in a matter of hours or minutes

D.All of the above

3Why do researchers develop a new device to monitor signs of landsides?

A.Because the new device can measure the site directly

B.Because the new device can be sunk into boreholes or fixed above ground

C.Because the common methods .can cause false alarms

D.Because the common methods are useless

4According to the context, what does the word "positives" in the fifth paragraph mean?

A.Positive electric charges

B.Evidences.

C.Warnings

D.Predictions

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