Your House Will Take Care of You in Old Age

Have you ever thought what your life would be like in old age?

Everyone talks about the “ageing” society with large numbers of elderly people needing home care. Now German researchers have set up a “smart” house, programmed to help the elderly live at home with dignity. Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Society say the house combines existing technology with future-riented technology.

For example, the “smart” bathroom has a touchscreen mirror that can remind people to take their medicine, wash their hands or brush their teeth. The hardware behind Fraunhofe’s electronic bathroom is not new, and the software runs on a regular personal computer.

When the medicine cabinet is opened, a display in the middle of the mirror tells the person how many pills to take. The mirror is linked to a care provider, who can remotely check whether a patient at home is actually taking medicine and brushing his or her teeth. As many elderly people have arthritic (关节炎的) conditions that make it difficult to operate water taps, the mirror also has displays that turn the water tap on or off or control the water temperature.

The bathroom is only the start. Kitchens, bedrooms and all other parts of the “intelligent” home will become “user-friendly” to meet all kinds of individual needs. Sensors in doors, toilets, taps, light switches and carpets detect every activity and record them electronically. Doctors or care staff can see from the computer records what personal hygiene (卫生) tasks have been completed, how often the elderly person visits the bathroom or uses the toilet. In case of an emergency, the computer automatically alerts the chosen contact person or calls the care centre.

【小题1】The underlined part “ them” in the last paragraph refers to __________ .

A．sensors

B．individual needs

C．doors, toilets, taps, light switches and carpets

D．every activity

【小题2】The house mentioned in the passage can be described as __________ .

A．intelligent and convenient

B．smart but expensive

C．advanced and environmentally friendly

D．fashionable and energy-saving

【小题3】How is the passage mainly developed?

A．By inferring.	B．By comparing.
C．By listing examples.	D．By introducing a practical method.

【小题4】What is the purpose of the passage?

A．To call on people to care for the old.

B．To encourage the old to live with dignity.

C．To stress the importance of developing technology.

D．To introduce a new intelligent house.

   Perhaps you have heard a lot about the Internet, but what is it, do you know? The Internet is a network. It uses the telephone to join millions of computers together around the world.

Maybe that doesn’t sound very interesting. But when you’re connected (连接) to the Internet, there are a lot of things you can do. You can send e-mails to your friends, and they can get them in a few seconds. You can communicate with your friends through social software such as QQ, WeChat, and Facebook. You can also do with all kinds of information on the World Wide Web (WWW) .

There are many different types of computers now. They all can be linked to the Internet. Most of them are small machines sitting on people’s desks at home, but there are still many others in schools, offices or large companies. These computers are owned by people or companies, but no one really owns the Internet itself.

There are lots of places for you to surf the Internet. For example, your school may have the Internet. You can explore the Internet to search for useful information or knowledge in your classroom. However, in order to prevent yourself from playing with computer games, you should use it in limited time. Libraries often have computers joined to the Internet. You are welcome to use it at any time.

Thanks to the Internet, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. It is possible for you to work at home with a computer in front, receiving and sending the information you need. You can buy or sell whatever you want through the Internet. But do you know 98% of the information on the Internet is in English? So what will English be like tomorrow?

【小题1】What is the passage mainly about?

A．The Internet.	B．Information.
C．Computers.	D．English.

【小题2】According to the passage, you can do all the following things through the Internet except for_______.

A．sending and receiving e-mails	B．chatting with your friends
C．buying and producing things	D．dealing with information

【小题3】Who is the owner of the Internet?

A．The headmaster.	B．The government officer.
C．The user.	D．No one.

【小题4】What does the writer try to tell us in the last two sentences of the last paragraph?

A．The Internet is more and more popular.

B．English is important in using the Internet.

C．The information on the Internet is all in English.

D．Every computer must be joined to the Internet in English.

   Self-driving cars are so popular that the University of Michigan has even established a town called Mcity to allow car manufacturers to safely test their autonomous cars.

While Mcity can be used to simulate（模拟）many real-life road conditions，it can't help test gestures drivers use to communicate their intention（意图）to other drivers，pedestrians or cyclists. To find a solution，US car manufacturer Ford，with researchers from Virginia Tech，at the beginning considered using text as a way to communicate the car's intention，but decided it would probably not work universally. The option of using symbols was also rejected，because research shows that a majority of people do not have a good understanding of what they mean.

Finally, the researchers settled on light signals. A white light warned that there were no humans in the car. A slow blinking one indicated that the car was coming to a stop, while a rapidly flashing light cautioned passersby that the car was about to speed up.

Then came the big challenge—testing the signals on real roads. "We needed to try out this new lighting to communicate the intention of the vehicle, but if you've got a driver behind the seat, you still have natural communication between humans," said Andy Shaudt, who led the research team. "So we needed to make it look like a driverless car."

The team designed a car seat costume（戏装）that the driver would wear to cover his or her face and upper body. Of course，the drivers could see very clearly. The researchers then equipped the car with cameras to capture human reactions to a light bar，which flashed one of the three signals when appropriate. Six drivers，all keeping their hands low on the wheel so as not to be noticed，took turns to test driving the car through the busy streets.

The overall reaction to the flashing lights was very encouraging. Who knew costumes could be useful for more than Halloween？

【小题1】What did the team first consider using as a way to communicate the car's intention?

A．Light.	B．Language.
C．Symbols.	D．Sound.

【小题2】The underlined word "they" in the second paragraph refers to ________.

A．symbols	B．drivers
C．researchers	D．flashes

【小题3】What does a rapidly flashing light mean?

A．The car was coming to a stop.

B．There was no driver in the car.

C．The car was about to speed up.

D．The car was about to slow down.

【小题4】The car seat costume was intended to ________.

A．amuse the driver	B．attract the pedestrians
C．warn the cyclists	D．confuse the people

   Government intelligence agencies have a plan to build computers that store information inside DNA and other organic molecules（分子）.

Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity（IARPA）announced plans to develop tabletop-sized machines that can store and retrieve（取回）data from large batches of polymers — a term that refers to a wide variety of long，string-like molecules. Polymers can store data in individual atoms or groups of atoms.

The project is an attempt to solve a basic problem of the modern era:the vast and growing costs of data storage. Datacenters around the world sucked up 416. 2 terawatt hours of electricity in 2016. That's about 3 percent of the global supply，and it accounts for 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

A 2016 paper found that DNA，in particular，could store computer information more densely，require less energy，and survive higher and lower temperatures than conventional hard drives. The authors of that paper reported on the successes of prototype（雏形）DNA computers that used the genetic molecules for both long-term storage and random access memory（RAM）.

But no one has yet figured out how to handle DNA data storage on large scales.

IARPA officials said the new effort, called Molecular Information Storage, will be broken up into three periods:a two-year program to figure out how to store data in DNA or other molecules at high speed,a two-year program to figure out how to retrieve that data at high speed, and a two-year effort to develop an operating system that can run on that DNA.

Many of the technologies IARPA wants to develop are untested at these scales, so it's unclear how far away that proposed tabletop device really is.

【小题1】What would be the best title for the text?

A．Store Data on DNA Computers

B．Develop Computers of Future

C．Polymers Used to Store Data

D．Information Stored in DNA

【小题2】Which of the following best explains“sucked up”underlined in Paragraph 3?

A．Consumed.	B．Stored.
C．Delivered.	D．Produced.

【小题3】What can Molecular Information Storage do compared to traditional hard drives？

A．Produce and save less energy.

B．Store more information faster.

C．Be better for the environment.

D．Control temperatures more easily.

【小题4】Where can you find the course of the test about Molecular Information Storage？

A．In Paragraph 3.	B．In Paragraph 4.
C．In Paragraph6.	D．In Paragraph 7.