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ELECTRICITY IS AT THE CORE OF MODERN LIFE. DESPITE THIS, THE FULL STORY OF THIS REVOLUTIONARY FORCE HAS REMAINED UNTOLD—UNTIL NOW.
Simply Electrifying offers the comprehensive story of one of mankind’s most important journeys: from a time when only a few could even imagine a world with electricity to today when, for most of us, a world without electricity would be unimaginable.
Since the birth of the modern science of electricity 265 years ago, mankind has built an impressive structure to produce, deliver, and use electricity, thanks to a combination of pioneering science, innovative technology, wise business strategy, and pervasive (到处存在的)economic and environmental regulation.
Simply Electrifying brings to life the stories of the people that made it all possible—from early pathfinders like Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Albert Einstein to innovators such as Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla. In modern times, business strategists and economic and environmental regulation driven by many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rachel Carson, and even President Barack Obama, have shaped how we use and understand electricity in crucial ways. Today, Elon Musk and others are on the edge of again changing the way we think about and interact with it.
Simply Electrifying is painstakingly researched and beautifully written, showing us how both profit-makers and policy-makers must use a wide-angle lens to truly understand the past and predict the future.
1.According to the passage, the book Simply Electrifying is written to tell us .
A. pioneering science of electricity
B. significant journeys of electricity
C. the people who invented electricity
D. the research which was about electricity
2.Why is President Barack Obama mentioned in the book Simply Electrifying?
A. Because a policy-maker is usually a top dog that can arouse the readers’ interest.
B. Because a policy-maker can help promote the better use of electricity.
C. Because policy-makers can decide the future of the use of electricity on the market.
D. Because policy-makers can take control of the economy through electricity.
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
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As countless unmade beds and unfinished homework assignments prove, kids need rules. Yet how parents make demands can powerfully influence a child’s social skills, psychologists at the University of Virginia recently found after the conclusion of a study investigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Initially 184 13-year-olds filled out multiple surveys, including one to assess how often their parents employed psychologically controlling strategies, such as inducing guilt or threatening to withdraw affection. The kids rated, for example, how typical it would be for Dad to suggest that “if I really cared for him, I would not do things that caused him to worry”or for Mom to become “less friendly when I did not see things her way. ”
The researchers followed up with the subjects at ages 18 and 21, asking the young adults to bring along a close friend and, later, a romantic partner if they had one. These pairs were asked to answer hypothetical (假设的) questions that were purposefully written to inspire a difference of opinion. “We wanted to see whether they could navigate a disagreement in a healthy way, ” says study leader Barbara Oudekerk, now at the U. S. Department of Justice’s bureau of statistics.
In the October issue of Child Development, Oudekerk and her colleagues report that the 13-year-olds who had highly controlling parents struggled in friendly disagreements at age 18. They had difficulty stating their opinions in a confident, reasoned manner in comparison to the kids without controlling parents. And when they did speak up, they often failed to express themselves in warm and productive ways.
The researchers suspect that pushy parents ruin their child’s ability to learn how to argue his or her own viewpoint in other relationships. Although parents do need to set boundaries, domineering strategies imply that any disagreement will damage the bond itself. Separate findings suggest that parents who explain the reasons behind their rules and turn disagreements into conversations leave youngsters better prepared for future arguments.
The consequences of tense or domineering relationships appear to get worse with time. This study also found that social difficulties at 18 predicted even poorer communication abilities at age 21. Psychologist Shmuel Shulman of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, who did not participate in the work, thinks these conclusions convincingly reveal how relationship patterns “carry forward” into new friendships.
1.What will happen to the teenagers with pushy parents?
A. They lose social skills.
B. They have trouble presenting opinions.
C. They express themselves in an aggressive way.
D. They fail to inspire a difference of opinion.
2.What does the underlined word “domineering”in Paragraph 5 mean?
A. alternative
B. conservative
C. powerful
D. forceful
3.It can be inferred from the findings that parents should .
A. communicate with children when setting rules
B. learn new ways to establish new friendships
C. seek more controlling strategies
D. help children develop abilities to follow rules
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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Exposing living tissue to subfreezing temperatures for long can cause permanent damage. Microscopic ice crystals (结晶体) cut cells and seize moisture (潮气), making donor organs unsuitable for transplantation. Thus, organs can be made cold for only a few hours ahead of a procedure. But a set of lasting new antifreeze compounds (化合物)—similar to those found in particularly hardy (耐寒的) animals—could lengthen organs’ shelf life.
Scientists at the University of Warwick in England were inspired by proteins in some species of Arctic fish, wood frogs and other organisms that prevent blood from freezing, allowing them to flourish in extreme cold. Previous research had shown these natural antifreeze molecules (分子) could preserve rat hearts at -1.3 degrees Celsius for up to 24 hours. But these proteins are expensive to extract (提取) and highly poisonous to some species. “For a long time everyone assumed you had to make synthetic (人造的) alternatives that looked exactly like antifreeze proteins to solve this problem, ”says Matthew Gibson, a chemist at Warwick who co-authored the new research. “But we found that you can design new molecules that function like antifreeze proteins but do not necessarily look like them. ”
Most natural antifreeze molecules have a mixture of regions that either attract or repel water. Scientists do not know exactly how this process prevents ice crystal formation, but Gibson thinks it might throw water molecules into push-pull chaos that prevents them from tuning into ice. To copy this mechanism, he and his colleagues synthesized spiral-shaped molecules that were mostly water-repellent—but had iron atoms at their centers that made them hydrophilic, or water-loving. The resulting compounds were surprisingly effective at stopping ice crystals from forming. Some were also harmless to the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, indicating they might be safe for other animals.
“These compounds are really cool because they are not proteins—they are other types of molecules that nonetheless can do at least part of what natural antifreeze proteins do, ”says Clara do Amaral, a biologist at Mount St. Joseph University, who was not involved in the research. Gibson’s antifreeze compounds will still need to be tested in humans, however, and may be only part of a solution. “We don’t have the whole picture yet, ”do Amaral adds. “It’s not just one magical compound that helps freeze-tolerant organisms survive. It’s a whole suite of adaptations.
1.What will happen if organs are kept for a long time in temperatures below zero?
A. They will have ice crystal formation inside.
B. They will not suffer permanent damage.
C. They will have longer shelf life.
D. They will be fit for transplantation.
2.What can we learn about natural antifreeze proteins?
A. They look like Gibson’s antifreeze compounds.
B. They are composed of antifreeze molecules harmless to other species.
C. They are spiral-shaped and have iron atoms at their centers.
D. They can be found in organisms living in freezing cold weather.
3.How are antifreeze molecules prevented from ice crystals?
A. By creating compounds both water-repellent and water-loving.
B. By extracting the proteins from some hardy animals.
C. By making synthetic alternatives like antifreeze proteins.
D. By copying spiral-shaped molecules mostly water-resistant.
4.What’s the main idea of the passage?
A. Push-pull chaos might prevent water molecules from turning into ice.
B. The final solution to preserving donor organs has been found recently.
C. Chemicals inspired by Arctic animals could lengthen organs’ shelf life.
D. Gibson’s antifreeze compounds can do what natural antifreeze proteins do.
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
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I remember my childhood summers fondly, as many of us do. Those golden days in which I would leave the house after a still sleepy, leisurely breakfast and come home only for lunch in the middle of a day spent entirely outdoors. We did not live in town and, thus, playmates were limited to siblings (兄弟姐妹) and the cousins who lived down the road.
Our backyard became the playground in which our imaginations would run wild—turning those few acres into magical forests, the creek (小溪) into a violent river and our trusty dog, Rex, into the many roles of horse, monster and any other creature that we children did not want to play. By the end of the three months of summer break we were sunburned from our hours in the sun, full of the memories of a thousand magical moments and bonded to our siblings in a way that winter’s forced hibernation (冬眠) never seemed to connect us.
Today, I live on the same acreage that I did as a child. My children have the blessing of having the same grassy patches to scratch their bare feet as they run through it, the same creek to stomp(跺脚)through, and not the same dog—but their very own energetic pup to imagine away the days with.
However, this is not the same world as it was twenty, thirty years ago. There are screens everywhere in the house to demand attention—televisions with hundreds of channels, computers with access to a thousand entertaining sites, tablets stocked with apps. There is also no longer the expectation of a stretch of an unscheduled three months. Their school friends tell competitive stories of carefully planned vacations, spending time traveling to all of the local attractions—various parks, the zoo, the science center, all of the festivals which come breezing through town. On the very first day of school they will be asked to list their favorite activities of the summer and no longer are these lists filled with things like finding wood to make a bridge over a creek or a day spent in imaginative play with their siblings. The lists are now full of trips, overscheduled days and “camps” that no longer offer a stay in nature.
Our children have become used to being entertained every minute. In our house, we have limits on electronics and kick the kids outside on a nice day. Even as we try as parents to set limits and get our children out in nature, the new cry of childhood seems to be “I’m bored,” which is not really just meaning “I’m bored,” “but “Please find something to entertain me, as I no longer can entertain myself even for a short period of time.” Our children no longer know how to sit in silence, entertain themselves while even waiting for a few minutes and have lost the awe of nature as they have become addicted to screen time.
We have made a choice in this household to do what is no longer expected of children in many households—we will ensure that there are days of “boredom.” We refuse to spend our days scheduling our children’s every hour. There will be many days with no plans at all, when they will be sent outside with only the grass and the trees and their own imaginations to entertain them.
The screens will be turned off and our children will find that times of quiet can be just as or even more entertaining. They will bond with their brother and sister, making memories that they will replay in their minds well into adulthood. Even though sunscreen will be religiously applied, they will leave summer with sunburned and scratches coming from climbing trees, stomping through creeks and chasing the dog in the field.
This summer I will be giving my children the greatest gift of all—boredom. For inside boredom is the gift of getting to know your own mind, of finding comfort and joy in nature and in the realization that the greatest gifts are experience, not things.
1.From the first two paragraphs we can know that the author .
A. participated in many organized activities
B. enjoyed an unscheduled vacation
C. explored magical forests and a violent river
D. realized the strength of patience
2.The author thinks today’s children’s activities are .
A. less meaningful
B. less accessible
C. more related to nature
D. more in line with the nature of play
3.What is the real reason for children’s feeling of boredom?
A. Children are addicted to screen time.
B. Children are limited to using electronics.
C. Children have no patience with everything.
D. Children lack the experience of exploring entertainment.
4.What is the author’s attitude towards his children’s childhood?
A. Sympathetic.
B. Envious.
C. Unsatisfactory.
D. Indifferent.
5.What is he author’s purpose to ensure children the days of “boredom”?
A. To keep children away from electronics.
B. To encourage children to climb trees and stomp through creeks.
C. To set aside more time to improve their academic performance.
D. To provide children with the opportunity to seek happiness in nature.
6.What might be the best title of the passage?
A. The gift of boredom
B. The memory of childhood
C. The attraction of nature
D. The experience of two generations
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
