一、Part Ⅱ Listening Comprehension
1、Question 1 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、A deadly fish has been spotted in the Mediterranean waters.
B、Invasive species are driving away certain native species.
C、The Mediterranean is a natural habitat of Devil Firefish.
D、Many people have been attacked by Devil Firefish.
2、Question 2 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、It could add to greenhouse emissions.
B、It could disrupt the food chains there.
C、It could pose a threat to other marine species.
D、It could badly pollute the surrounding waters.
3、Question 3 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、Cars will not be allowed to enter the city.
B、About half of its city center will be closed to cars.
C、Buses will be the only vehicles allowed on its streets.
D、Pedestrians will have free access to the city.
4、Question 4 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、The rising air pollution in Paris.
B、The worsening global warming.
C、The ever-growing cost of petrol.
D、The unbearable traffic noise.
5、Question 5 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、Many of his possessions were stolen.
B、His house was burnt down in a fire.
C、His fishing boat got wrecked on a rock.
D、His good luck charm sank into the sea.
6、Question 6 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、Change his fishing locations.
B、 Find a job in a travel agency.
C、Spend a few nights on a small island.
D、Sell the pearl he had kept for years.
7、Question 7 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、A New York museum has the world’s biggest pearl.
B、The largest pearl in the world weighs 14 pounds.
C、His monstrous pearl was extremely valuable.
D、His pearl could be displayed in a museum.
8、Question 8 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、It boasts a fairly long history.
B、It produces construction materials.
C、It has 75 offices around the world.
D、It has over 50 business partners.
9、Question 9 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、It has about 50 employees.
B、It was started by his father.
C、It is a family business.
D、It is over 100 years old.
10、Question 10 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、Shortage of raw material supply.
B、Legal disputes in many countries.
C、Outdated product design.
D、Loss of competitive edge.
11、Question 11 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、 Conducting a financial analysis for it.
B、Providing training for its staff members.
C、Seeking new ways to increase its exports.
D、 Introducing innovative marketing strategies.
12、Question 12 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、She is a real expert at house decorations.
B、She is well informed about the design business.
C、She is attracted by the color of the sitting room.
D、She is really impressed by the man’s house.
13、Question 13 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、From his younger brother Greg.
B、From home design magazines.
C、From a construction businessman.
D、From a professional interior designer.
14、Question 14 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、The effort was worthwhile.
B、The style was fashionable.
C、The cost was affordable.
D、The effect was unexpected.
15、Question 15 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、She’d like him to talk with Jonathan about a new project.
B、She wants him to share his renovation experience with her.
C、She wants to discuss the house decoration budget with him.
D、She’d like to show him around her newly-renovated house.
16、Question 16 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Providing routine care for small children.
B、Paying hospital bills for emergency cases.
C、Doing research on ear, nose and throat diseases.
D、Removing objects from patients’ noses and ears.
17、Question 17 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Many children like to smell things they find or play with.
B、Many children like to put foreign objects in their mouths.
C、Five- to nine-year-olds are the most likely to put things in their ears.
D、Children aged one to four are often more curious than older children.
18、Question 18 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、They tend to act out of impulse.
B、They want to attract attention.
C、They are unaware of the potential risks.
D、They are curious about these body parts.
19、Question 19 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、It paid for her English lessons.
B、It gave her a used bicycle.
C、It delivered her daily necessities.
D、It provided her with physical therapy.
20、Question 20 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Expanding bike-riding lessons.
B、Asking local people for donations.
C、Providing free public transport.
D、Offering walking tours to visitors.
21、Question 21 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、It is a language school.
B、It is a charity organization.
C、It is a counseling center.
D、It is a sports club.
22、Question 22 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、How mice imitate human behavior in space.
B、How low gravity affects the human body.
C、How mice interact in a new environment.
D、How animals deal with lack of gravity.
23、Question 23 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、They were not used to the low-gravity environment.
B、They found it difficult to figure out where they were.
C、They found the space in the cage too small to stay in.
D、They were not sensitive to the changed environment.
24、Question 24 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、They tried everything possible to escape from the cage.
B、They continued to behave as they did in the beginning.
C、They already felt at home in the new environment.
D、They had found a lot more activities to engage in.
25、Question 25 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、They repeated their activities every day.
B、They behaved as if they were on Earth.
C、They began to eat less after some time.
D、They changed their routines in space.
二、Part III Reading Comprehension
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
26、(1)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
27、(2)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
28、(3)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
29、(4)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
30、(5)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
31、(6)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
32、(7)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
33、(8)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
34、(9)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories (26)_____ . And that disruption is surely coming. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensors and new computers to make them quicker, more (27)_____, and more efficient.
Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long (28)_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is (29)_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be (30)_____many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a (31)_____ of factory life.
Greater efficiency (32)_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled workers—and see (33)_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a (34)_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to (35)_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significance.”
35、(10)
A、interaction
B、inevitably
C、shape
D、moving
E、matters
F、enormously
G、leaning
H、automation
I、fascinated
J、flexible
K、promised
L、spared
M、fantastic
N、feature
O、concerns
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
36、36. Lunch containers were not necessary for school kids in cities.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
37、37. Putting TV characters on lunch boxes proved an effective marketing strategy.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
38、38. Smaller lunch boxes are preferred because they fit easily into backpacks.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
39、39. Lunch boxes have evolved along with the transformation of schools.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
40、40. Around the beginning of the nineteen fifties, some school kids started to use metal meal containers.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
41、41. School kids are eager to get a new lunch box every year to stay in fashion.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
42、42. Rural kids used to walk a long way to school in the old days.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
43、43. The author was proud of using a lunch box in her childhood.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
44、44. The most probable reason for the popularity of plastic lunch boxes is that they are less expensive.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
The History of the Lunch Box
【A】It was made of shiny, bright pink plastic with a Little Mermaid sticker on the front, and I carried it with me nearly every single day. My lunch box was one of my first prized possessions, a proud statement to everyone in my kindergarten: “I love Mermaid-Ariel on my lunch box.”
【B】That bulky container served me well through my first and second grades, until the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians hit theaters, and I needed the newest red plastic box with characters like Pongo and Perdita on the front. I know I’m not alone here—I bet you loved your first lunch box, too.
【C】Lunch boxes have been connecting kids to cartoons and TV shows and super-heroes for decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, they weren’t even boxes. As schools have changed in the past century, the midday meal container has evolved right along with them.
【D】Let’s start back at the beginning of the 20th century—the beginning of the lunch box story, really. While there were neighborhood schools in cities and suburbs, one-room schoolhouses were common in rural areas. As grandparents have been saying for generations, kids would travel miles to school in the countryside (often on foot).
【E】 “You had kids in rural areas who couldn’t go home from school for lunch, so bringing your lunch wrapped in a cloth, in oiled paper, in a little wooden box or something like that was a very long-standing rural tradition,” says Paula Johnson, head of food history section at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
【F】City kids, on the other hand, went home for lunch and came back. Since they rarely carried a meal, the few metal lunch buckets on the market were mainly for tradesmen and factory workers.
【G】After World War II, a bunch of changes reshaped schools—and lunches. More women joined the workforce. Small schools consolidated into larger ones, meaning more students were farther away from home. And the National School Lunch Act in 1946 made cafeterias much more common. Still, there wasn’t much of a market for lunch containers—yet. Students who carried their lunch often did so in a re-purposed bucket or tin of some kind.
【H】And then everything changed in the year of 1950. You might as well call it the Year of the Lunch Box, thanks in large part to a genius move by a Nashville-based manufacturer, Aladdin Industries. The company already made square metal meal containers, the kind workers carried, and some had started to show up in the hands of school kids.
【I】But these containers were really durable, lasting years on end. That was great for the consumer, not so much for the manufacturer. So executives at Aladdin hit on an idea that would harness the newfound popularity of television. They covered lunch boxes with striking red paint and added a picture of TV and radio cowboy Hopalong Cassidy on the front.
【J】The company sold 600,000 units the first year. It was a major “Ah-ha!” moment, and a wave of other manufacturers jumped on board to capitalize on new TV shows and movies. “The Partridge Family, the Addams Family, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman—everything that was on television ended up on a lunch box,” says Allen Woodall. He’s the founder of the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia. “It was a great marketing tool because kids were taking that TV show to school with them, and then when they got home they had them captured back on TV,” he says.
【K】And yes, you read that right: There is a lunch box museum, right near the Chattahoochee River. Woodall has more than 2,000 items on display. His favorite? The Green Hornet lunch box, because he used to listen to the radio show back in the 1940s.
【L】The new trend was also a great example of planned obsolescence, that is, to design a product so that it will soon become unfashionable or impossible to use and will need replacing. Kids would beg for a new lunch box every year to keep up with the newest characters, even if their old lunch box was perfectly usable.
【M】The metal lunch box craze lasted until the mid-1980s, when plastic took over. Two theories exist as to why. The first—and most likely—is that plastic had simply become cheaper. The second theory—possibly an urban myth—is that concerned parents in several states proposed bans on metal lunch boxes, claiming kids were using them as “weapons” to hit one another. There’s a lot on the internet about a state-wide ban in Florida, but a few days worth of digging by a historian at the Florida State Historical Society found no such legislation. Either way, the metal lunch box was out.
【N】The last few decades have brought a new lunch box revolution, of sorts. Plastic boxes changed to lined cloth sacks, and eventually, globalism brought tiffin containers from India and bento boxes from Japan. Even the old metal lunch boxes have regained popularity. “I don’t think the heyday (鼎盛时期) has passed,” says D. J. Jayasekara, owner and founder of lunchbox.com, a retailer in Pasadena, California. “I think it has evolved. The days of the ready-made, ‘you stick it in a lunch box and carry it to school’ are kind of done.”
【O】The introduction of backpacks changed the lunch box scene a bit, he adds. Once kids started carrying book bags, that bulky traditional lunch box was hard to fit inside. “But you can’t just throw a sandwich in a backpack,” Jayasekara says. “It still has to go into a container.” That is, in part, why smaller and softer containers have taken off—they fit into backpacks.
【P】And don’t worry—whether it’s a plastic bento box or a cloth bag, lunch containers can still easily be covered with popular culture. “We keep pace with the movie industries so we can predict which characters are going to be popular for the coming months,” Jayasekara says. “You know, kids are kids.”
45、45. The durability of metal meal containers benefited consumers.
A、A
B、B
C、C
D、D
E、E
F、F
G、G
H、H
I、I
J、J
K、K
L、L
M、M
N、N
O、O
P、P
A growing number of U.S. bike riders are attracted to electric bikes for convenience, health benefits and their fun factor. Although ebikes first appeared in the 90s, cheaper options and longer-lasting batteries are breathing new life into the concept.
Established bike companies and startups are embracing ebikes to meet demand. About 34 million ebikes were sold worldwide last year, according to data from eCycleElectric Consultants. Most were sold in Europe and China, where the bikes already have exploded in popularity. Recently, the U.S. market has grown to 263,000 bikes, a 25% gain from the prior year.
The industry is benefiting from improved batteries as suppliers over the years developed technology for laptops, smartphones and electric cars. In 2004, the price of batteries used on ebikes fell, spurring European sales.
But lower cost options are emerging, too. This month, three U.S. bikeshare companies, Motivate, LimeBike and Spin, announced electric bicycles will be added to their fleets. New York-based Jump Bikes is already operating an electric bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and is launching in San Francisco Thursday. Rides cost $2 for 30 minutes.
The system works like existing dockless bikeshare systems, where riders unlock bikes through a smartphone app. “This is the beginning of a long-term shift away from regular pedal (踏板) to electric bikes,” said Jump Bikes CEO Ryan Rzepecki. “When people first jump on an ebike, their face lights up. It’s exciting and joyful in a way that you don’t get from a regular bike.”
Two years ago, CEO Chris Cocalis of Pivot Cycles, which sells high-end mountain bikes, found that U.S. bike shops weren’t interested in stocking ebikes. Some retailers warned Cocalis that they’d drop the brand if it came out with an electric bike.
Now that sales are taking off, the vast majority of bike dealers are asking Cocalis when he’ll make an ebike available. “There’s tremendous opportunity to get a generation of people for whom suffering isn’t their thing,” Cocalis said. “Ebike riders get the enjoyable part of cycling without the massive suffering of climbing huge hills.”
46、46. What do we learn from the passage about ebikes?
A、Their health benefits and fun values outweigh their cost.
B、They did not catch public attention in the United States until the 1990s.
C、They did not become popular until the emergence of improved batteries.
D、Their widespread use is attributable to people’s environmental awareness.
A growing number of U.S. bike riders are attracted to electric bikes for convenience, health benefits and their fun factor. Although ebikes first appeared in the 90s, cheaper options and longer-lasting batteries are breathing new life into the concept.
Established bike companies and startups are embracing ebikes to meet demand. About 34 million ebikes were sold worldwide last year, according to data from eCycleElectric Consultants. Most were sold in Europe and China, where the bikes already have exploded in popularity. Recently, the U.S. market has grown to 263,000 bikes, a 25% gain from the prior year.
The industry is benefiting from improved batteries as suppliers over the years developed technology for laptops, smartphones and electric cars. In 2004, the price of batteries used on ebikes fell, spurring European sales.
But lower cost options are emerging, too. This month, three U.S. bikeshare companies, Motivate, LimeBike and Spin, announced electric bicycles will be added to their fleets. New York-based Jump Bikes is already operating an electric bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and is launching in San Francisco Thursday. Rides cost $2 for 30 minutes.
The system works like existing dockless bikeshare systems, where riders unlock bikes through a smartphone app. “This is the beginning of a long-term shift away from regular pedal (踏板) to electric bikes,” said Jump Bikes CEO Ryan Rzepecki. “When people first jump on an ebike, their face lights up. It’s exciting and joyful in a way that you don’t get from a regular bike.”
Two years ago, CEO Chris Cocalis of Pivot Cycles, which sells high-end mountain bikes, found that U.S. bike shops weren’t interested in stocking ebikes. Some retailers warned Cocalis that they’d drop the brand if it came out with an electric bike.
Now that sales are taking off, the vast majority of bike dealers are asking Cocalis when he’ll make an ebike available. “There’s tremendous opportunity to get a generation of people for whom suffering isn’t their thing,” Cocalis said. “Ebike riders get the enjoyable part of cycling without the massive suffering of climbing huge hills.”
47、47. What brought about the boost in ebikes sales in Europe at the beginning of the century?
A、Updated technology of bike manufacture.
B、The falling prices of ebike batteries.
C、Changed fashion in short-distance travel.
D、The rising costs for making electric cars.
A growing number of U.S. bike riders are attracted to electric bikes for convenience, health benefits and their fun factor. Although ebikes first appeared in the 90s, cheaper options and longer-lasting batteries are breathing new life into the concept.
Established bike companies and startups are embracing ebikes to meet demand. About 34 million ebikes were sold worldwide last year, according to data from eCycleElectric Consultants. Most were sold in Europe and China, where the bikes already have exploded in popularity. Recently, the U.S. market has grown to 263,000 bikes, a 25% gain from the prior year.
The industry is benefiting from improved batteries as suppliers over the years developed technology for laptops, smartphones and electric cars. In 2004, the price of batteries used on ebikes fell, spurring European sales.
But lower cost options are emerging, too. This month, three U.S. bikeshare companies, Motivate, LimeBike and Spin, announced electric bicycles will be added to their fleets. New York-based Jump Bikes is already operating an electric bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and is launching in San Francisco Thursday. Rides cost $2 for 30 minutes.
The system works like existing dockless bikeshare systems, where riders unlock bikes through a smartphone app. “This is the beginning of a long-term shift away from regular pedal (踏板) to electric bikes,” said Jump Bikes CEO Ryan Rzepecki. “When people first jump on an ebike, their face lights up. It’s exciting and joyful in a way that you don’t get from a regular bike.”
Two years ago, CEO Chris Cocalis of Pivot Cycles, which sells high-end mountain bikes, found that U.S. bike shops weren’t interested in stocking ebikes. Some retailers warned Cocalis that they’d drop the brand if it came out with an electric bike.
Now that sales are taking off, the vast majority of bike dealers are asking Cocalis when he’ll make an ebike available. “There’s tremendous opportunity to get a generation of people for whom suffering isn’t their thing,” Cocalis said. “Ebike riders get the enjoyable part of cycling without the massive suffering of climbing huge hills.”
48、48. What is the prospect of the bike industry according to Ryan Rzepecki?
A、More will be invested in bike battery research.
B、The sales of ebikes will increase.
C、It will profit from ebike sharing.
D、It will make a difference in people’s daily lives.
A growing number of U.S. bike riders are attracted to electric bikes for convenience, health benefits and their fun factor. Although ebikes first appeared in the 90s, cheaper options and longer-lasting batteries are breathing new life into the concept.
Established bike companies and startups are embracing ebikes to meet demand. About 34 million ebikes were sold worldwide last year, according to data from eCycleElectric Consultants. Most were sold in Europe and China, where the bikes already have exploded in popularity. Recently, the U.S. market has grown to 263,000 bikes, a 25% gain from the prior year.
The industry is benefiting from improved batteries as suppliers over the years developed technology for laptops, smartphones and electric cars. In 2004, the price of batteries used on ebikes fell, spurring European sales.
But lower cost options are emerging, too. This month, three U.S. bikeshare companies, Motivate, LimeBike and Spin, announced electric bicycles will be added to their fleets. New York-based Jump Bikes is already operating an electric bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and is launching in San Francisco Thursday. Rides cost $2 for 30 minutes.
The system works like existing dockless bikeshare systems, where riders unlock bikes through a smartphone app. “This is the beginning of a long-term shift away from regular pedal (踏板) to electric bikes,” said Jump Bikes CEO Ryan Rzepecki. “When people first jump on an ebike, their face lights up. It’s exciting and joyful in a way that you don’t get from a regular bike.”
Two years ago, CEO Chris Cocalis of Pivot Cycles, which sells high-end mountain bikes, found that U.S. bike shops weren’t interested in stocking ebikes. Some retailers warned Cocalis that they’d drop the brand if it came out with an electric bike.
Now that sales are taking off, the vast majority of bike dealers are asking Cocalis when he’ll make an ebike available. “There’s tremendous opportunity to get a generation of people for whom suffering isn’t their thing,” Cocalis said. “Ebike riders get the enjoyable part of cycling without the massive suffering of climbing huge hills.”
49、49. What prevented Chris Cocalis from developing ebikes sooner?
A、Retailers’ refusal to deal in ebikes.
B、High profits from conventional bikes.
C、Users’ concern about risks of ebike riding.
D、His focus on selling costly mountain bikes.
A growing number of U.S. bike riders are attracted to electric bikes for convenience, health benefits and their fun factor. Although ebikes first appeared in the 90s, cheaper options and longer-lasting batteries are breathing new life into the concept.
Established bike companies and startups are embracing ebikes to meet demand. About 34 million ebikes were sold worldwide last year, according to data from eCycleElectric Consultants. Most were sold in Europe and China, where the bikes already have exploded in popularity. Recently, the U.S. market has grown to 263,000 bikes, a 25% gain from the prior year.
The industry is benefiting from improved batteries as suppliers over the years developed technology for laptops, smartphones and electric cars. In 2004, the price of batteries used on ebikes fell, spurring European sales.
But lower cost options are emerging, too. This month, three U.S. bikeshare companies, Motivate, LimeBike and Spin, announced electric bicycles will be added to their fleets. New York-based Jump Bikes is already operating an electric bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and is launching in San Francisco Thursday. Rides cost $2 for 30 minutes.
The system works like existing dockless bikeshare systems, where riders unlock bikes through a smartphone app. “This is the beginning of a long-term shift away from regular pedal (踏板) to electric bikes,” said Jump Bikes CEO Ryan Rzepecki. “When people first jump on an ebike, their face lights up. It’s exciting and joyful in a way that you don’t get from a regular bike.”
Two years ago, CEO Chris Cocalis of Pivot Cycles, which sells high-end mountain bikes, found that U.S. bike shops weren’t interested in stocking ebikes. Some retailers warned Cocalis that they’d drop the brand if it came out with an electric bike.
Now that sales are taking off, the vast majority of bike dealers are asking Cocalis when he’ll make an ebike available. “There’s tremendous opportunity to get a generation of people for whom suffering isn’t their thing,” Cocalis said. “Ebike riders get the enjoyable part of cycling without the massive suffering of climbing huge hills.”
50、50. What makes Chris Cocalis believe there is a greater opportunity for ebike sales?
A、The further lowering of ebike prices.
B、The public’s concern for their health.
C、The increasing interest in mountain climbing.
D、The younger generation’s pursuit of comfortable riding.
The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are used by many, seemingly interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing?
Scientists shaped the history of the terms while attempting to accurately describe how humans continue to alter the planet. Later, political strategists adopted the terms to influence public opinion.
In 1975, geochemist Wallace Broecker introduced the term “climate change” in an article published by Science. In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences report used the term “global warming” to define increases in the Earth’s average surface temperature, while “climate change” more broadly referred to the numerous effects of this increase, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification (酸化).
During the following decades, some industrialists and politicians launched a campaign to sow doubt in the minds of the American public about the ability of fossil-fuel use, deforestation and other human activities to influence the planet’s climate.
Word use played a critical role in developing that doubt. For example, the language and polls expert Frank Luntz wrote a memo encouraging the use of “climate change” because the phrase sounded less scary than “global warming”, reported the Guardian.
However, Luntzi’s recommendation wasn’t necessary. A Google Ngram Viewer chart shows that by 1993 climate change was already more commonly used in books than global warming. By the end of the next decade both words were used more frequently, and climate change was used nearly twice as often as global warming.
NASA used the term “climate change” because it more accurately reflects the wide range of changes to the planet caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The debate isn’t new. A century ago, chemist Svante Arrhenius started one of the first debates over the potential for humans to influence the planet’s climate. Arrhenius calculated the capability of carbon dioxide to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but other chemists disagreed. Some argued that human weren’t producing enough greenhouse gases, while others claimed the effects would be tiny. Now, of course, we know that whatever you call it, human behavior is warming the planet, with grave consequences ahead.
51、51. Why did politicians use the two terms “global warming” and “climate change”?
A、To sway public opinion of the impact of human activities on Earth.
B、To more accurately describe the consequences of human activities.
C、To win more popular votes in their campaign activities.
D、To assure the public of the safety of existing industries.
The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are used by many, seemingly interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing?
Scientists shaped the history of the terms while attempting to accurately describe how humans continue to alter the planet. Later, political strategists adopted the terms to influence public opinion.
In 1975, geochemist Wallace Broecker introduced the term “climate change” in an article published by Science. In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences report used the term “global warming” to define increases in the Earth’s average surface temperature, while “climate change” more broadly referred to the numerous effects of this increase, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification (酸化).
During the following decades, some industrialists and politicians launched a campaign to sow doubt in the minds of the American public about the ability of fossil-fuel use, deforestation and other human activities to influence the planet’s climate.
Word use played a critical role in developing that doubt. For example, the language and polls expert Frank Luntz wrote a memo encouraging the use of “climate change” because the phrase sounded less scary than “global warming”, reported the Guardian.
However, Luntzi’s recommendation wasn’t necessary. A Google Ngram Viewer chart shows that by 1993 climate change was already more commonly used in books than global warming. By the end of the next decade both words were used more frequently, and climate change was used nearly twice as often as global warming.
NASA used the term “climate change” because it more accurately reflects the wide range of changes to the planet caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The debate isn’t new. A century ago, chemist Svante Arrhenius started one of the first debates over the potential for humans to influence the planet’s climate. Arrhenius calculated the capability of carbon dioxide to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but other chemists disagreed. Some argued that human weren’t producing enough greenhouse gases, while others claimed the effects would be tiny. Now, of course, we know that whatever you call it, human behavior is warming the planet, with grave consequences ahead.
52、52. As used in a National Academy of Sciences report, the term “climate change” differs from “global warming” in that ____ .
A、it sounds less vague
B、it looks more scientific
C、it covers more phenomena
D、it is much closer to reality
The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are used by many, seemingly interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing?
Scientists shaped the history of the terms while attempting to accurately describe how humans continue to alter the planet. Later, political strategists adopted the terms to influence public opinion.
In 1975, geochemist Wallace Broecker introduced the term “climate change” in an article published by Science. In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences report used the term “global warming” to define increases in the Earth’s average surface temperature, while “climate change” more broadly referred to the numerous effects of this increase, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification (酸化).
During the following decades, some industrialists and politicians launched a campaign to sow doubt in the minds of the American public about the ability of fossil-fuel use, deforestation and other human activities to influence the planet’s climate.
Word use played a critical role in developing that doubt. For example, the language and polls expert Frank Luntz wrote a memo encouraging the use of “climate change” because the phrase sounded less scary than “global warming”, reported the Guardian.
However, Luntzi’s recommendation wasn’t necessary. A Google Ngram Viewer chart shows that by 1993 climate change was already more commonly used in books than global warming. By the end of the next decade both words were used more frequently, and climate change was used nearly twice as often as global warming.
NASA used the term “climate change” because it more accurately reflects the wide range of changes to the planet caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The debate isn’t new. A century ago, chemist Svante Arrhenius started one of the first debates over the potential for humans to influence the planet’s climate. Arrhenius calculated the capability of carbon dioxide to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but other chemists disagreed. Some argued that human weren’t producing enough greenhouse gases, while others claimed the effects would be tiny. Now, of course, we know that whatever you call it, human behavior is warming the planet, with grave consequences ahead.
53、53. What did industrialists of the late 20th century resort to in order to mislead Americans?
A、Made-up survey results.
B、Hired climate experts.
C、False research findings.
D、Deliberate choice of words.
The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are used by many, seemingly interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing?
Scientists shaped the history of the terms while attempting to accurately describe how humans continue to alter the planet. Later, political strategists adopted the terms to influence public opinion.
In 1975, geochemist Wallace Broecker introduced the term “climate change” in an article published by Science. In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences report used the term “global warming” to define increases in the Earth’s average surface temperature, while “climate change” more broadly referred to the numerous effects of this increase, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification (酸化).
During the following decades, some industrialists and politicians launched a campaign to sow doubt in the minds of the American public about the ability of fossil-fuel use, deforestation and other human activities to influence the planet’s climate.
Word use played a critical role in developing that doubt. For example, the language and polls expert Frank Luntz wrote a memo encouraging the use of “climate change” because the phrase sounded less scary than “global warming”, reported the Guardian.
However, Luntzi’s recommendation wasn’t necessary. A Google Ngram Viewer chart shows that by 1993 climate change was already more commonly used in books than global warming. By the end of the next decade both words were used more frequently, and climate change was used nearly twice as often as global warming.
NASA used the term “climate change” because it more accurately reflects the wide range of changes to the planet caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The debate isn’t new. A century ago, chemist Svante Arrhenius started one of the first debates over the potential for humans to influence the planet’s climate. Arrhenius calculated the capability of carbon dioxide to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but other chemists disagreed. Some argued that human weren’t producing enough greenhouse gases, while others claimed the effects would be tiny. Now, of course, we know that whatever you call it, human behavior is warming the planet, with grave consequences ahead.
54、54. Why did NASA choose the term “climate change”?
A、To obtain more funds.
B、For greater precision.
C、For political needs.
D、To avoid debate.
The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are used by many, seemingly interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing?
Scientists shaped the history of the terms while attempting to accurately describe how humans continue to alter the planet. Later, political strategists adopted the terms to influence public opinion.
In 1975, geochemist Wallace Broecker introduced the term “climate change” in an article published by Science. In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences report used the term “global warming” to define increases in the Earth’s average surface temperature, while “climate change” more broadly referred to the numerous effects of this increase, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification (酸化).
During the following decades, some industrialists and politicians launched a campaign to sow doubt in the minds of the American public about the ability of fossil-fuel use, deforestation and other human activities to influence the planet’s climate.
Word use played a critical role in developing that doubt. For example, the language and polls expert Frank Luntz wrote a memo encouraging the use of “climate change” because the phrase sounded less scary than “global warming”, reported the Guardian.
However, Luntzi’s recommendation wasn’t necessary. A Google Ngram Viewer chart shows that by 1993 climate change was already more commonly used in books than global warming. By the end of the next decade both words were used more frequently, and climate change was used nearly twice as often as global warming.
NASA used the term “climate change” because it more accurately reflects the wide range of changes to the planet caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The debate isn’t new. A century ago, chemist Svante Arrhenius started one of the first debates over the potential for humans to influence the planet’s climate. Arrhenius calculated the capability of carbon dioxide to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but other chemists disagreed. Some argued that human weren’t producing enough greenhouse gases, while others claimed the effects would be tiny. Now, of course, we know that whatever you call it, human behavior is warming the planet, with grave consequences ahead.
55、55. What is the author’s final conclusion?
A、Global warming is the more accurate term.
B、Accuracy of terminology matters in science.
C、Human activities have serious effects on Earth.
D、Politics interferes with serious scientific debate.
三、Part IV Translation
56、 生活在中国不同地区的人们饮食多种多样。北方人主要吃面食，南方人大多吃米饭。在沿海地区，海鲜和淡水水产品在人们饮食中占有相当大的比例，而在其他地区人们的饮食中，肉类和奶制品更为常见。四川、湖南等省份的居民普遍爱吃辛辣食物，而江苏和浙江人更喜欢甜食。然而，因为烹饪方式各异，同类食物的味道可能会有所不同。
参考答案：
参考译文
People who live in different parts of China have a variety of diets. Those living in the north mainly eat food made of flour, while those in the south mostly eat rice. In coastal areas, seafood and freshwater products account for a large proportion in people’s diets, whereas in other areas, meat and dairy products are more common. Residents in provinces such as Sichuan and Hunan generally like spicy food, yet people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang prefer sweet food. However, the taste of similar food may be different due to various cooking methods.
四、Part I Writing
57、Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write on the topic Changes in the Way of Education. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
参考答案：
参考范文
Thanks to the development of modern technology, China has witnessed great changes in ways of education in recent years. It has been common that many people choose to study online instead of studying in classrooms. In my opinion, this change of education has brought various benefits to both learners and educators.
Firstly, the convenience of online study has benefited many learners because they can easily get access to the rich learning materials on the Internet without the limit of time and space. Online learning is convenient and effective especially when we need short-term training for exams on skills or techniques. Secondly, the school teachers can use online courses to teach students, which helps them to be flexible with the curriculum. The fact that numerous students have taken classes through the Internet during the epidemic illustrates this point well.
In summary, the shift from classroom education to online education provides more choices to learners and educators. These two ways of education can complement each other efficiently if we are able to use them in a flexible way.
参考译文
近年来，由于现代科技的发展，中国的教育方式发生了巨大的变化。许多人选择在线学习而不是在教室里学习，这种现象已变得很常见。在我看来，教育上的这种改变给学习者和教育者都带来了各种各样的好处。
首先，网上学习的便利性使许多学习者受益匪浅，因为他们可以在网上轻松获取丰富的学习资料，而不受到时间和空间的限制。尤其是当我们需要短期的技能或技术考试培训时，在线学习是非常方便且有效的。其次，学校教师能够使用在线课程来教授学生，这有助于他们灵活安排课程。疫情期间众多学生通过互联网来上课就很好地说明了这一点。
综上所述，课堂教育向网络教育的转变为学习者和教育者提供了更多的选择。如果我们能灵活运用，这两种教育方式还可以有效互补。
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