I expect the travel of the future to become less physical, more mental. Through the use of technology, you’ll be able to let your brain experience the sensations of a new place without actual going there. Robots and computer simulation（模仿）will enable you to visit remote exotic places without ever leaving home---the wreckage of the Titanic, the Galapagos Island, even the moon.
As an oceanographer, I’ve spent decades developing robots to explore the depths, and now we’re putting that technology to use in our JASON Project, a cooperative effort between industry, science, and educators that’s designed to be a world classroom for children. In auditoriums throughout the country, we bring kids together and transmit back to them on large screens our live explorations of far-flung areas of the globe. Not only are the kids observers, but they truly participate. They have the sensation of really being at the site with us---through the “eyes”, “ears”, and motions of the robot.
This year we’re taking the project to the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos are an exceedingly fragile environment, so fragile that only 60,000 people are allowed to visit them each year. But with JASON we will be able to let some 300,000 children experience those unique islands.
I believe advances in robot technology will one day be the key to an entirely new kind of travel. In the next 10 or 15 years I foresee people having rooms in their houses that will be able to simulate other environments. I like to call these rooms “home domes”---miniature theatres with wrap-around screens and sophisticated equipment that can reproduce the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of a desert, or a forest, or a meadow in high mountains.
Today, much of the world’s population never travels more than 50 or 60 miles from home. And even a person with abundant wealth and time can see only a fraction of the earth’s sights. But this new era of travel will cost so much less in both time and money that many more people will be exposed to a lot more of the globe. And simulated travel will help protect our planet. You can’t take large groups of tourists trooping up to look at Dian Fossey’s gorillas. But a small robot can get very close to a silverback and send the sights, sounds, and smells back to a million people.
I like to use this analogy（类比）to compare traditional travel with future travel: riding a horse is wonderful, but I don’t need to ride one to work anymore. That’s how I feel about traditional travel. Sometimes I still might want to hop on a plane and see a place firsthand, but sometimes I may simply want to walk into my home dome and take the trip from there.
1.Which statement best expresses the main idea of this article?
A. Protecting fragile environments like the Galapagos Islands.
B. Building home domes to meet people’s desire of travelling
C. Traveling globally without even leaving home in the future.
D. Owning rooms called “home domes” to be put into reality.
2.According to the article, simulated travel _______.
A. is a piece of equipment made for traveling
B. provides virtual access to actual traveling
C. has a negative effect on future environment
D. will be available in around fifty years’ time
3.Which question is NOT answered in the article?
A. Why is the “home dome” designed and produced?
B. When might a “home dome” be available to us?
C. What will be like in a “home dome” in future?
D. How much does a “home dome” probably cost?
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题
I expect the travel of the future to become less physical, more mental. Through the use of technology, you’ll be able to let your brain experience the sensations of a new place without actual going there. Robots and computer simulation（模仿）will enable you to visit remote exotic places without ever leaving home---the wreckage of the Titanic, the Galapagos Island, even the moon.
As an oceanographer, I’ve spent decades developing robots to explore the depths, and now we’re putting that technology to use in our JASON Project, a cooperative effort between industry, science, and educators that’s designed to be a world classroom for children. In auditoriums throughout the country, we bring kids together and transmit back to them on large screens our live explorations of far-flung areas of the globe. Not only are the kids observers, but they truly participate. They have the sensation of really being at the site with us---through the “eyes”, “ears”, and motions of the robot.
This year we’re taking the project to the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos are an exceedingly fragile environment, so fragile that only 60,000 people are allowed to visit them each year. But with JASON we will be able to let some 300,000 children experience those unique islands.
I believe advances in robot technology will one day be the key to an entirely new kind of travel. In the next 10 or 15 years I foresee people having rooms in their houses that will be able to simulate other environments. I like to call these rooms “home domes”---miniature theatres with wrap-around screens and sophisticated equipment that can reproduce the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of a desert, or a forest, or a meadow in high mountains.
Today, much of the world’s population never travels more than 50 or 60 miles from home. And even a person with abundant wealth and time can see only a fraction of the earth’s sights. But this new era of travel will cost so much less in both time and money that many more people will be exposed to a lot more of the globe. And simulated travel will help protect our planet. You can’t take large groups of tourists trooping up to look at Dian Fossey’s gorillas. But a small robot can get very close to a silverback and send the sights, sounds, and smells back to a million people.
I like to use this analogy（类比）to compare traditional travel with future travel: riding a horse is wonderful, but I don’t need to ride one to work anymore. That’s how I feel about traditional travel. Sometimes I still might want to hop on a plane and see a place firsthand, but sometimes I may simply want to walk into my home dome and take the trip from there.
1.Which statement best expresses the main idea of this article?
A. Protecting fragile environments like the Galapagos Islands.
B. Building home domes to meet people’s desire of travelling
C. Traveling globally without even leaving home in the future.
D. Owning rooms called “home domes” to be put into reality.
2.According to the article, simulated travel _______.
A. is a piece of equipment made for traveling
B. provides virtual access to actual traveling
C. has a negative effect on future environment
D. will be available in around fifty years’ time
3.Which question is NOT answered in the article?
A. Why is the “home dome” designed and produced?
B. When might a “home dome” be available to us?
C. What will be like in a “home dome” in future?
D. How much does a “home dome” probably cost?
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
If you expect to work in the future in the travel industry, you should begin learning Chinese.
That’s because Chinese people spent nearly$258 billion in total on international travel last year. That’s more than twice the combined amount spent on international travel by people from the United States and Germany, the next two biggest-spending nations. The Chinese are relative(相对的)newcomers when it comes to traveling beyond their nation’s borders and only a small percentage of them travel outside of China each year. Given the size of that nation’s population. even that small percentage represents well over 100 million Chinese travelers to foreign destinations.
Yet Chinese citizens flew, on average, just 65 miles last year versus(与……相对)the 227 miles flown on average by US residents(居民), the 285 miles flown on average by Germans, the 271 miles flown on average by those from the United Kingdom, and the 632 miles flown by the average Canadian last year.
China’s high total spending on international travel and its low average number of miles flown on international travel may show that while only a small percentage of China’s residents actually travel outside their homeland, and those who do spend a lot of money don’t go that far. But there are reasons for China’s low average of miles travel on international trips. A small percentage of Chinese now have enough money to travel internationally, though the number of people who do travel outside of China is growing fast every year. Besides, a large percentage of Chinese people traveling abroad stay close to home.
However, as more and more Chinese gain the financial ability to travel internationally and as Chinese become more and more interested in visiting destinations farther and farther away from home, their spending on international travel and the average distances flown will both rise rapidly.
1.Why does the author suggest learning Chinese for the future work in travel industry?
A.Being good at Chinese is a must for future work.
B.Chinese is most commonly used in travel industry.
C.Travel industry requires employees to learn Chinese.
D.China is a big-spending nation in international travel
2.What can we infer from paragraph 3?
A.People from different countries have different preferred destinations.
B.China has a relatively low average number of miles flown on travel.
C.Chinese people are more willing to travel abroad compared with Canadians.
D.People going on a journey around the world hate taking international planes.
3.What are many Chinese people who travel abroad likely to do?
A.Try to save their money. B.Improve their ability to travel.
C.Choose to stay close to home. D.Travel in America and Germany.
4.What does the last paragraph say about the future of Chinese people’s traveling abroad?
A.It’s bright. B.It’s confusing.
C.It’s hopeless. D.It’s unclear.
高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析
Japans biggest airline is betting that the future of travel isn't traveling at all. For the last month, a married couple has been interacting with a robot -called an Avatar -that's controlled by their daughter hundreds of miles away. Made by ANA Holdings Inc. it looks like a cleaner with an iPad attached But the screen displays the daughter's face as they chat, and its wheels let her move slowly about the house as though she's really there.
"Virtual travel"is nothing new, of course. Storytellers, travel writers and artists have stimulating(刺激)the sense of armchair tourists for centuries. It's only in recent decades that frequent, safe travel has become available to the non-wealthy.
Yet even as the world's middle classes climb out of the armchair and into economy-class seats, there are signs of a post-travel society coming into being. Concerns about sustainability(可持续发展)are having an negative influence on carbon-intensive airlines. And the aging of wealthy societies is both slowing down physical travel and creating demand for various ways to experience the world. For the travel industry, virtual (虚拟的)reality offers an attractive response to these trend.
Of course, far- out technologies encourage far-out claims. ANA doesn't plan to start selling Avatars until next year. Profits, too, will probably be difficult to achieve: according to one investigation, the global market for this kind of technology will be worth only about $300 million by 2023. By contrast, ANA's traditional travel business brought in more than $19 billion last year .
But if the business case for virtual vacations is still weak, the market for technologies that bridge physical distances between families and coworkers seems likely to soy expand.ANA's robots may not replace its airplanes any time soon, but they ' ll almost certainly be a part of travel’s high-tech future.
1.“Avatar” is mentioned in paragraph 1 to_________.
A.display how people travel with the robot “Avatar”.
B.introduce a new service offered by Japan's biggest airline.
C.lead in the topic of virtual travel by providing a vivid scene.
D.describe what the robot"Avatar" looks like and how it works.
2.It can be inferred from paragraph 3 that people's choice of virtual travel may be the result of________.
A.the demand for safe travel
B.wealthy people's growing old
C.worries about low-carbon airlines
D.the support of advanced technologies
3.By saying “far-out technologies encourage far-out claims”, the writer means_______.
A.traditional travel business is not profitable
B.global market for virtual travels is hard to predict
C.the time is ripe for selling Avatars in term of technology
D.virtual travels will take the place of traditional ones very soon
4.What's the writer's attitude to virtual technology?
A.Uncertain. B.Cautious.
C.Enthusiastic. D.Optimistic.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
People tend to become more personal and hide less of themselves when using email. Researchers from Open University in Britain have found in a recent study that there are good reasons for this.
The team of researchers asked 83 pairs of students, all strangers to each other, to solve a problem. They had to discuss this question: If only five people in the world could be saved from a world disaster, who should they be? The pairs of students had to talk over the problem either face to face or by computers. Dr. Johnson said, “They told their partners four times as much about themselves when they talked over the Internet as when they talked face to face. When the computers were fitted with cameras so that students could see each other, this limited the personal side of the conversation.”
Generally the information was not extremely personal. It was mainly about things such as where they went to school, or where they used to live. But some students discussed their love stories, and personal childhood experiences.
Dr Johnson believes that emailing encourages people to focus on themselves. And when they do this, they become more open, especially if there are no cameras. “If you cannot see the other person, it becomes easier to talk about yourself. This is because you are not thinking what the other person is thinking of you. So emailing has become the modern way of talking,” said Dr. Johnson. However, this style of talking is not entirely new. “In the 19th century people started to use the ‘telegraph’ to communicate. Now the same kind of thing has happened and people ended up speaking more freely.”
Dr. Johnson thinks that emailers need to know about these effects of emailing, especially when they start work in a company. “ If you don’t know about them, you could find yourself saying more about yourself than you wanted to.”
1.The subject discussed in this passage is _______.
A. how people do research studies
B. how people open up when emailing
C. how to communicate at work
D. how to discuss and solve a problem
2.The reason that some couples talked freely about themselves is that _______.
A. they didn’t talk about very personal things
B. they couldn’t see each other
C. the cameras on the computers were turned on
D. they had to discuss a question
3.In the writer’s opinion, one should ______.
A. focus on oneself when emailing
B. talk more freely in emails than usual
C. consider how one uses email at work
D. discuss any subject that one wants to
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
As global warming increases, the Earth will become less and less suited to life, and many species will face ______.
A.extinction B.direction C.calculation D.application
高二英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
What does the man expect the woman to do?
A. Study in university. B. Travel to Singapore. C. Write a recommendation letter for him.
高二英语短对话简单题查看答案及解析
Researchers found that people become happier and experience less worry after they reach the age of fifty. In fact, they say by the age of eighty-five, people are happier with their life than they were when they were eighteen years old.
The findings came from a survey of more than 340,000 adults in the United States. The Gallup(民意调查) Organization questioned them by telephone in 2008. At that time, the people were between the ages of eighteen and eighty-five.
The researchers asked questions about emotions like happiness, sadness and worry. They also asked about mental or emotional stress.
Arthur Stone at Stony Brook University in New York led the study. His team found that levels of stress were highest among adults between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five. The findings showed that stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their fifties. Happiness was highest among the youngest adults and those in their early seventies. The people least likely to report feeling negative emotions were those in their seventies and eighties.
Researchers say they do not know why happiness increases as people get older. One theory is that, as people grow older, they grow more thankful for what they have and have better control of their emotions. They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences.
Professor Stone says the emotional patterns could be linked to changes in how people see the world, or maybe even changes in brain chemistry.
The researchers also considered possible influences like having young children, being unemployed or being single. But they found that influences like these did not affect the levels of happiness and well-being related to age.
The study also showed that men and women have similar emotional patterns as they grow older. However, women at all ages reported more sadness, stress and worry than men.
1. What can be the best title of the text?
A. Happiness Varies with Ages
B. Experience More, Worry Less
C. The Older, the Wiser
D. Being Young, Being Happy
2.We can learn from the research that _________.
A. only when people get older will they feel happier
B. stress levels among the youngest are the highest
C. older people tend to be grateful
D. older people usually have no worries
3.According to the research, when people get older, _________.
A. they miss the old days
B. they are physically weak
C. they have better self-control
D. they are more emotional
4.What would the author probably talk about next?
A. What influences happiness.
B. How to live better.
C. How to keep happier.
D. Why women are less happier.
5.The author is intended to _________.
A. advise how to reduce stress
B. introduce a scientific finding
C. describe how to do research
D. talk about human emotions
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Researchers found that people become happier and experience less worry after they reach the age of fifty. In fact, they say by the age of eighty-five, people are happier with their life than they were when they were eighteen years old.
Arthur Stone in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University in New York led the study. His team found that levels of stress were highest among adults between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five. The findings showed that stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their fifties. Happiness was highest among the youngest adults and those in their early seventies. The people least likely to report feeling negative emotions were those in their seventies and eighties.
The findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers say they do not know why happiness increases as people get older. One theory is that, as people grow older, they grow more thankful for what they have and have better control of their emotions. They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences.
The researchers considered possible influences like having young children, being unemployed or being single. But they found that influences like these did not affect the levels of happiness and well-being related to age.
The study also showed that men and women have similar emotional patterns as they grow older. However, women at all ages reported more sadness, stress and worry than men.
1.What is the best title of the passage?
A. The older a person is, the more stressed he feels.
B. The more lighthearted a person is, the happier he is.
C. The older a person is, the more clever he grows.
D. The older a person is, the happier he grows.
2.According to the researchers, what is probably the reason why people grow happier when they get older?
A. When people get older, they can’t remember bad experiences.
B. When people get older, they have no young children to care about.
C. When people get older, they learn to adjust their feelings.
D. When people get older, they don’t care about their feelings.
3.What do you think the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is?
A. A Gallup organization. B. A popular science magazine.
C. A university in New York. D. A research institution
4.What would the writer probably deal with in next paragraph?
A. Advice to the young people on how to keep happy.
B. Advice to the old people on how to live longer.
C. Why women at all ages are more sad, stressed and worried.
D. Why people will grow happier with their ages.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Have you ever wanted to travel back in time? What about traveling into the future? There’s an easy way to do it.
One way you can make a time travel journey is by writing a letter to your future self to be opened in the future. To your future self, the letter will be a visit from the past. What can be gained by writing a letter to yourself? It depends on how good your letter is. You have the chance to say something to your future self. What would you want to communicate? You’ll be able to talk to yourself 5, 10, 15 years down the road. There may be instructions for your future self, or you may have goals that you will want to check up on.
There are a lot of things you could include in your letter or letters to yourself. The more you include, the better the letter will be to you. Here are some ideas of things to include in your letter:
Your thoughts and feelings about life, religion, politics, society, etc.
Your feelings for your family.
Your likes and dislikes.
Your dreams.
The type of person you want yourself to become.
…
Be creative with what you put in your letter. Include a picture of yourself or family to show the period from which the letter came.
You can store your letter in many different ways. You can give your letter to a friend or family member to keep and mail to you. If you can get others to take part, have them write letters to themselves as well and ask someone to be the letter holder until it’s time to send the letters. You can also use a service online to store your letter and e-mail it to you.
Make the most of your letter writing, and you will help your future self make the most of the present.
1.How can you travel into the future?
A. By traveling back in time.
B. By writing a letter to your future self.
C. By opening a letter from the past.
D. By paying a visit to the future.
2.If you want to gain more in the future, you should ________.
A. have the chance to say something to your future self
B. talk to yourself 5, 10, 15 years down the road
C. write more about instructions for your future self
D. include as many things as possible in your letter
3.Why do you put a picture in your letter?
A. To check up on your goals.
B. To share your feelings with your family.
C. To show the time when the letter was written.
D. To find out your thoughts and feelings now.
4.Which can be the best title for the passage?
A. How to Write a Letter to Your Future Self.
B. What to Communicate with Your Future Self.
C. What to Include in a Letter to Your Future Self.
D. How to Make the Most of Your Letter.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
People tend to become more personal and hide less of themselves when using email. Some Britain researchers have found in a recent study that there are good reasons for this.
The team of researchers asked 83 pairs of students, all strangers to each other, to solve a problem. They had to discuss this question: ___1.___ The pairs of students had to talk over the problem either face to face or by computers. Dr. Johnson said, “They told their partners four times as much about themselves when they talked over the Internet as when they talked face to face. When the computers were fitted with cameras so that students could see each other, this limited the personal side of the conversation.”
___2.__ It was mainly about things such as where they went to school, or where they used to live. But some students discussed their love stories, and personal childhood experiences. Dr. Johnson believes that emailing encourages people to focus on themselves. _3._ “If you cannot see other person, it becomes easier to talk about yourself. This is because you are not thinking what the other person is thinking of you. So emailing has become the modern way of talking,” said Dr. Johnson. ___4.___ “In the 19th century people started to use the „telegraph' to communicate. Now the same kind of thing has happened and people ended up speaking more freely.” Dr. Johnson thinks that emailers need to know about these effects of emailing, especially when they start work in a company, “___5._”
A. Love stories are a popular choice.
B. However, this style of talking is not entirely new.
C. Generally, the information was not extremely personal.
D. The more personal information you give, the more friends you can make.
E. And when they do this, they become more open, especially if there are no cameras.
F. If only five people in the world could be saved from a world disaster, who should they be?
G. If you didn’t know about it, you could find yourself saying more about yourself than you wanted to.
高二英语七选五中等难度题查看答案及解析