一、Part Ⅱ Listening Comprehension
1、Question 1 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、A man was pulled to safety after a building collapse.
B、A beam about ten feet long collapsed to the ground.
C、A rescue worker got trapped in the basement.
D、A deserted 100-year-old building caught fire.
2、Question 2 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、He suffered a fatal injury in an accident.
B、He once served in a fire department.
C、He was collecting building materials.
D、He moved into his neighbor’s old house.
3、Question 3 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、Improve the maths skills of high school teachers.
B、Change British people’s negative view of maths.
C、Help British people understand their paychecks.
D、Launch a campaign to promote maths teaching.
4、Question 4 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、Children take maths courses at an earlier age.
B、The public sees the value of maths in their life.
C、British people know how to do elementary calculations.
D、Primary school teachers understand basic maths concepts.
5、Question 5 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、He owns a fleet of aircraft.
B、He is learning to be a pilot.
C、He regards his royal duties as a burden.
D、He held a part-time job for over 20 years.
6、Question 6 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、He can demonstrate his superior piloting skills.
B、He can change his focus of attention and relax.
C、He can show his difference from other royalty.
D、He can come into closer contact with his people.
7、Question 7 is based on the news report you have just heard.
A、They enjoyed his company.
B、They liked him in his uniform.
C、They rarely recognised him.
D、They were surprised to see him.
8、Question 8 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、They were skilled carpenters themselves.
B、It didn’t need much capital to start with.
C、Wood supply was plentiful in Romania.
D、They saw a business opportunity there.
9、Question 9 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、Provide quality furniture at affordable prices.
B、Attract foreign investment to expand business.
C、Enlarge their company by hiring more workers.
D、Open some more branch companies in Germany.
10、Question 10 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、They are from her hometown.
B、They are imported from Germany.
C、They all come from Romania.
D、They come from all over the continent.
11、Question 11 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、All across Europe.
B、Throughout the world.
C、Mostly in Bucharest.
D、In Romania only.
12、Question 12 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、Go to a concert with him and his girlfriend.
B、Try out a new restaurant together in town.
C、Go with him to choose a pearl for Susan.
D、Attend the opening of a local restaurant.
13、Question 13 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、It is sponsored by local restaurants.
B、 It specializes in food advertising.
C、It is especially popular with the young.
D、It provides information on local events.
14、Question 14 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、They design a special set of menus for themselves.
B、They treat themselves to various entertainments.
C、They go to eat at different stylish restaurants.
D、They participate in a variety of social events.
15、Question 15 is based on the conversation you have just heard.
A、More restaurants will join Restaurant Week.
B、This year’s Restaurant Week will start soon.
C、Bigger discounts will be offered this Restaurant Week.
D、More types of food will be served this Restaurant Week.
16、Question 16 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Rewarding them for eating vegetables.
B、Exposing them to vegetables repeatedly.
C、Improving the taste of vegetable dishes for them.
D、Explaining the benefits of eating vegetables to them.
17、Question 17 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、They were disliked most by children.
B、They were considered most nutritious.
C、They were least used in Belgian cooking.
D、They were essential to children’s health.
18、Question 18 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Vegetables differ in their nutritional value.
B、Children’s eating habits can be changed.
C、Parents watch closely what children eat.
D、Children’s choices of food vary greatly.
19、Question 19 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Space exploration has serious consequences.
B、India has many space exploration programs.
C、There is quite a lot to learn about the moon.
D、A lot of garbage has been left on the moon.
20、Question 20 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、It is costly to bring back.
B、It is risky to destroy.
C、It is of no use on Earth.
D、It is damaged by radiation.
21、Question 21 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Record details of space exploration.
B、Monitor the change of lunar weather.
C、Study the effect of radiation and vacuum on its materials.
D、Explore the possibility of human settlement on the moon.
22、Question 22 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、It is likely to remain a means of business communication.
B、It is likely to be a competitor of various messaging apps.
C、It will gradually be replaced by social media.
D、It will have to be governed by specific rules.
23、Question 23 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Save the message in their file.
B、Make a timely response.
C、Examine the information carefully.
D、See if any action needs to be taken.
24、Question 24 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、It is to be passed on.
B、It is mostly junk.
C、It requires no reply.
D、It causes no concern.
25、Question 25 is based on the passage you have just heard.
A、Make it as short as possible.
B、Use simple and clear language.
C、Adopt an informal style of writing.
D、Avoid using capitals for emphasis.
二、Part III Reading Comprehension
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
26、(1)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
27、(2)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
28、(3)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
29、(4)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
30、(5)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
31、(6)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
32、(7)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
33、(8)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
34、(9)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a persistent bad cough. No matter how many different (26)_____ I tried, I still couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it (27)_____ my teaching but also my life as a whole. Then one day after class, a student came up to me and (28)_____ traditional Chinese medicine. From her description, Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that worked wonders. I was (29)_____ because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. Eventually, my cough got so much (30)_____ that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a try. The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were new (31)_____ to me because they are both non-existent in Western medicine. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little (32)_____ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders. A few minutes later, the (33)_____ strokes started to produce a relieving effect and my body and mind began to (34)_____ deeper into relaxation. I didn’t feel any improvement in my condition in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to (35)_____. Then, within a matter of weeks, it was completely gone!
35、(10)
A、licenses
B、experiences
C、temporary
D、inconvenience
E、tremble
F、worse
G、deepen
H、lessen
I、hesitant
J、scared
K、pressured
L、recommended
M、sink
N、sensitive
O、remedies
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
36、A research project found bacteria made their way to the food on the floor in five seconds.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
37、Whether food is contaminated depends much on the number of bacteria that get onto it.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
38、Food contamination may result from various factors other than food dropping on the floor.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
39、Males are less likely than females to eat food that may have been contaminated.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
40、The author’s research centers around how food gets contaminated.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
41、Keeping everything clean is the best way to stay healthy.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
42、Chances are you will not fall sick because of eating food picked up from the floor.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
43、For a long time people have had the experience of deciding whether or not to eat food picked up from the floor.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
44、Some strains of bacteria are so harmful that a tiny few can have deadly consequences.
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
Is it really OK to eat food that’s fallen on the floor?
【A】When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
【B】While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it’s still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.
【C】So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It’s a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.
【D】Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it’s dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it’s probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.
【E】In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stovetop, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, “But you can always pick it up and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who’s going to see it?” But the misremembered story persists. It’s harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.
【F】So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn’t report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.
【G】But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5, 30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.
【H】We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall amount of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.
【I】We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 48%-70% of bacteria were.
【J】Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or have eaten food fallen on the floor.
【K】Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.
【L】And it’s not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various “media”, which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.
【M】So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.
【N】Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is to keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.
45、Researcher found how many bacteria got onto the food did not have much to do with how long the food stayed on a contaminated floor.
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
The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a basic grasp on both the laws of physics and the ins and outs of cause and effect.
According to a newly published study, cats seem to be able to predict the location of hiding prey (猎物) using both their ears and an inborn (天生的) understanding of how the physical world works.
In a recent experiment, Japanese researchers taped 30 domestic cats reacting to a container that a team member shook. Some containers rattled (发出响声), others did not. When the container was tipped over, sometimes an object fell out and sometimes it didn’t.
It turns out that the cats were remarkably smart about what would happen when a container was tipped over. When an object did not drop out of the bottom of a rattling container, they looked at it for a longer time than they did when the container behaved as expected.
“Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects,” lead researcher Saho Takagi says in a press release. The researchers conclude that cats’ hunting style may have developed based on their common-sense abilities to infer where prey is, using their hearing.
Scientists have explored this idea with other endearing creatures: babies. Like cats, babies appear to engage in what’s called “preferential looking”—looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.
When babies’ expectations are violated in experiments like the ones performed with the cats, they react much like their animal friends. Psychologists have shown that babies apparently expect their world to comply with the laws of physics and cause and effects as early as two months of age.
Does the study mean that cats will soon grasp the ins and outs of cause effect? Maybe. Okay, so cats may not be the next physics faculty members at America’s most important research universities. But by demonstrating their common sense, they’ve shown that the divide between cats and humans may not be that great after all.
46、46. What do we learn from a newly published study about cats?
A、They can be trained to understand the physical world.
B、They know what kind of prey might be easier to hunt.
C、They have a natural ability to locate animals they hunt.
D、They are capable of telling which way their prey flees.
The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a basic grasp on both the laws of physics and the ins and outs of cause and effect.
According to a newly published study, cats seem to be able to predict the location of hiding prey (猎物) using both their ears and an inborn (天生的) understanding of how the physical world works.
In a recent experiment, Japanese researchers taped 30 domestic cats reacting to a container that a team member shook. Some containers rattled (发出响声), others did not. When the container was tipped over, sometimes an object fell out and sometimes it didn’t.
It turns out that the cats were remarkably smart about what would happen when a container was tipped over. When an object did not drop out of the bottom of a rattling container, they looked at it for a longer time than they did when the container behaved as expected.
“Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects,” lead researcher Saho Takagi says in a press release. The researchers conclude that cats’ hunting style may have developed based on their common-sense abilities to infer where prey is, using their hearing.
Scientists have explored this idea with other endearing creatures: babies. Like cats, babies appear to engage in what’s called “preferential looking”—looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.
When babies’ expectations are violated in experiments like the ones performed with the cats, they react much like their animal friends. Psychologists have shown that babies apparently expect their world to comply with the laws of physics and cause and effects as early as two months of age.
Does the study mean that cats will soon grasp the ins and outs of cause effect? Maybe. Okay, so cats may not be the next physics faculty members at America’s most important research universities. But by demonstrating their common sense, they’ve shown that the divide between cats and humans may not be that great after all.
47、47. What may account for the cats’ response to the noise from the containers?
A、Their inborn sensitivity to noise.
B、Their unusual sense of direction.
C、Their special ability to perceive.
D、Their mastery of cause and effect.
The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a basic grasp on both the laws of physics and the ins and outs of cause and effect.
According to a newly published study, cats seem to be able to predict the location of hiding prey (猎物) using both their ears and an inborn (天生的) understanding of how the physical world works.
In a recent experiment, Japanese researchers taped 30 domestic cats reacting to a container that a team member shook. Some containers rattled (发出响声), others did not. When the container was tipped over, sometimes an object fell out and sometimes it didn’t.
It turns out that the cats were remarkably smart about what would happen when a container was tipped over. When an object did not drop out of the bottom of a rattling container, they looked at it for a longer time than they did when the container behaved as expected.
“Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects,” lead researcher Saho Takagi says in a press release. The researchers conclude that cats’ hunting style may have developed based on their common-sense abilities to infer where prey is, using their hearing.
Scientists have explored this idea with other endearing creatures: babies. Like cats, babies appear to engage in what’s called “preferential looking”—looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.
When babies’ expectations are violated in experiments like the ones performed with the cats, they react much like their animal friends. Psychologists have shown that babies apparently expect their world to comply with the laws of physics and cause and effects as early as two months of age.
Does the study mean that cats will soon grasp the ins and outs of cause effect? Maybe. Okay, so cats may not be the next physics faculty members at America’s most important research universities. But by demonstrating their common sense, they’ve shown that the divide between cats and humans may not be that great after all.
48、48. What is characteristic of the way cats hunt, according to the Japanese researchers?
A、They depend on their instincts.
B、They rely mainly on their hearing.
C、They wait some time before attack.
D、They use both their ears and eyes.
The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a basic grasp on both the laws of physics and the ins and outs of cause and effect.
According to a newly published study, cats seem to be able to predict the location of hiding prey (猎物) using both their ears and an inborn (天生的) understanding of how the physical world works.
In a recent experiment, Japanese researchers taped 30 domestic cats reacting to a container that a team member shook. Some containers rattled (发出响声), others did not. When the container was tipped over, sometimes an object fell out and sometimes it didn’t.
It turns out that the cats were remarkably smart about what would happen when a container was tipped over. When an object did not drop out of the bottom of a rattling container, they looked at it for a longer time than they did when the container behaved as expected.
“Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects,” lead researcher Saho Takagi says in a press release. The researchers conclude that cats’ hunting style may have developed based on their common-sense abilities to infer where prey is, using their hearing.
Scientists have explored this idea with other endearing creatures: babies. Like cats, babies appear to engage in what’s called “preferential looking”—looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.
When babies’ expectations are violated in experiments like the ones performed with the cats, they react much like their animal friends. Psychologists have shown that babies apparently expect their world to comply with the laws of physics and cause and effects as early as two months of age.
Does the study mean that cats will soon grasp the ins and outs of cause effect? Maybe. Okay, so cats may not be the next physics faculty members at America’s most important research universities. But by demonstrating their common sense, they’ve shown that the divide between cats and humans may not be that great after all.
49、49. In what way do babies behave like cats?
A、They focus on what appears odd.
B、They view the world as normal.
C、They do what they prefer to do.
D、 They are curious about everything.
The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a basic grasp on both the laws of physics and the ins and outs of cause and effect.
According to a newly published study, cats seem to be able to predict the location of hiding prey (猎物) using both their ears and an inborn (天生的) understanding of how the physical world works.
In a recent experiment, Japanese researchers taped 30 domestic cats reacting to a container that a team member shook. Some containers rattled (发出响声), others did not. When the container was tipped over, sometimes an object fell out and sometimes it didn’t.
It turns out that the cats were remarkably smart about what would happen when a container was tipped over. When an object did not drop out of the bottom of a rattling container, they looked at it for a longer time than they did when the container behaved as expected.
“Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects,” lead researcher Saho Takagi says in a press release. The researchers conclude that cats’ hunting style may have developed based on their common-sense abilities to infer where prey is, using their hearing.
Scientists have explored this idea with other endearing creatures: babies. Like cats, babies appear to engage in what’s called “preferential looking”—looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.
When babies’ expectations are violated in experiments like the ones performed with the cats, they react much like their animal friends. Psychologists have shown that babies apparently expect their world to comply with the laws of physics and cause and effects as early as two months of age.
Does the study mean that cats will soon grasp the ins and outs of cause effect? Maybe. Okay, so cats may not be the next physics faculty members at America’s most important research universities. But by demonstrating their common sense, they’ve shown that the divide between cats and humans may not be that great after all.
50、50. What can we conclude about cats from the passage?
A、They have higher intelligence than many other animals.
B、They interact with the physical world much like humans.
C、They display extraordinarily high intelligence in hunting.
D、They can aid physics professors in their research work.
Imagine you enter a car with no steering wheel, no brake or accelerator pedals (踏板). Under a voice-activated command, you say an address. “The fastest route will take us 15.3 minutes. Should I take it?” You say “yes” and are on your way. The car responds and starts moving all by itself. All you have to do is sit back and relax.
How weird would it be if, one day in the future, everyone had such a car? No crazy driving, no insults, no cutting in, traffic laws would be respected and driving much safer. On the other hand, imagine the cost savings for local police enforcement and town budgets without all those speeding and parking tickets.
A new technology has the potential to change modern society in radical ways. There’s no question that self-driving vehicles could be an enormous benefit. The potential for safer cars means accident statistics would drop: some 94% of road accidents in the U.S. involve human error. Older drivers and visually- or physically-impaired people would gain a new level of freedom. Maintaining safe speeds and being electric, self-driving cars would drastically reduce pollution levels and dependency on non-renewable fuels. Roads would be quieter, people safer.
But we must also consider the impact of the new technology on those who now depend on driving for their livelihoods. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in May 2015 there were 505,560 registered school bus drivers. The American Trucking Associations lists approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S.
The companies developing self-driving vehicles should be partnering with state and federal authorities to offer retraining for this massive workforce, many of whom will be displaced by the new technology. This is similar to what’s happening in the coal and oil industries, a situation that fuels much of the current political discontent in this country.
New technologies will, and should, be developed. This is how society moves forward. However, progress can’t be one-sided. It is necessary for the companies and state agencies involved to consider the ethical consequences of these potential changes to build a better future for all.
51、51. What would be the impact of the extensive use of driverless cars?
A、People would be driving in a more civilized way.
B、It would save local governments a lot of money.
C、More policemen would be patrolling the streets.
D、Traffic regulations would be a thing of the past.
Imagine you enter a car with no steering wheel, no brake or accelerator pedals (踏板). Under a voice-activated command, you say an address. “The fastest route will take us 15.3 minutes. Should I take it?” You say “yes” and are on your way. The car responds and starts moving all by itself. All you have to do is sit back and relax.
How weird would it be if, one day in the future, everyone had such a car? No crazy driving, no insults, no cutting in, traffic laws would be respected and driving much safer. On the other hand, imagine the cost savings for local police enforcement and town budgets without all those speeding and parking tickets.
A new technology has the potential to change modern society in radical ways. There’s no question that self-driving vehicles could be an enormous benefit. The potential for safer cars means accident statistics would drop: some 94% of road accidents in the U.S. involve human error. Older drivers and visually- or physically-impaired people would gain a new level of freedom. Maintaining safe speeds and being electric, self-driving cars would drastically reduce pollution levels and dependency on non-renewable fuels. Roads would be quieter, people safer.
But we must also consider the impact of the new technology on those who now depend on driving for their livelihoods. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in May 2015 there were 505,560 registered school bus drivers. The American Trucking Associations lists approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S.
The companies developing self-driving vehicles should be partnering with state and federal authorities to offer retraining for this massive workforce, many of whom will be displaced by the new technology. This is similar to what’s happening in the coal and oil industries, a situation that fuels much of the current political discontent in this country.
New technologies will, and should, be developed. This is how society moves forward. However, progress can’t be one-sided. It is necessary for the companies and state agencies involved to consider the ethical consequences of these potential changes to build a better future for all.
52、52. How would the elderly and the disabled benefit from driverless cars?
A、They could enjoy greater mobility.
B、They would suffer no road accidents.
C、They would have no trouble driving.
D、They could go anywhere they want.
Imagine you enter a car with no steering wheel, no brake or accelerator pedals (踏板). Under a voice-activated command, you say an address. “The fastest route will take us 15.3 minutes. Should I take it?” You say “yes” and are on your way. The car responds and starts moving all by itself. All you have to do is sit back and relax.
How weird would it be if, one day in the future, everyone had such a car? No crazy driving, no insults, no cutting in, traffic laws would be respected and driving much safer. On the other hand, imagine the cost savings for local police enforcement and town budgets without all those speeding and parking tickets.
A new technology has the potential to change modern society in radical ways. There’s no question that self-driving vehicles could be an enormous benefit. The potential for safer cars means accident statistics would drop: some 94% of road accidents in the U.S. involve human error. Older drivers and visually- or physically-impaired people would gain a new level of freedom. Maintaining safe speeds and being electric, self-driving cars would drastically reduce pollution levels and dependency on non-renewable fuels. Roads would be quieter, people safer.
But we must also consider the impact of the new technology on those who now depend on driving for their livelihoods. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in May 2015 there were 505,560 registered school bus drivers. The American Trucking Associations lists approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S.
The companies developing self-driving vehicles should be partnering with state and federal authorities to offer retraining for this massive workforce, many of whom will be displaced by the new technology. This is similar to what’s happening in the coal and oil industries, a situation that fuels much of the current political discontent in this country.
New technologies will, and should, be developed. This is how society moves forward. However, progress can’t be one-sided. It is necessary for the companies and state agencies involved to consider the ethical consequences of these potential changes to build a better future for all.
53、53. What would be the negative impact of driverless cars?
A、The conflict between labor and management would intensify.
B、The gap between various sectors of society would be widened.
C、Professional drivers would have a hard time adapting to new road conditions.
D、Numerous professional drivers would have to find new way of earning a living.
Imagine you enter a car with no steering wheel, no brake or accelerator pedals (踏板). Under a voice-activated command, you say an address. “The fastest route will take us 15.3 minutes. Should I take it?” You say “yes” and are on your way. The car responds and starts moving all by itself. All you have to do is sit back and relax.
How weird would it be if, one day in the future, everyone had such a car? No crazy driving, no insults, no cutting in, traffic laws would be respected and driving much safer. On the other hand, imagine the cost savings for local police enforcement and town budgets without all those speeding and parking tickets.
A new technology has the potential to change modern society in radical ways. There’s no question that self-driving vehicles could be an enormous benefit. The potential for safer cars means accident statistics would drop: some 94% of road accidents in the U.S. involve human error. Older drivers and visually- or physically-impaired people would gain a new level of freedom. Maintaining safe speeds and being electric, self-driving cars would drastically reduce pollution levels and dependency on non-renewable fuels. Roads would be quieter, people safer.
But we must also consider the impact of the new technology on those who now depend on driving for their livelihoods. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in May 2015 there were 505,560 registered school bus drivers. The American Trucking Associations lists approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S.
The companies developing self-driving vehicles should be partnering with state and federal authorities to offer retraining for this massive workforce, many of whom will be displaced by the new technology. This is similar to what’s happening in the coal and oil industries, a situation that fuels much of the current political discontent in this country.
New technologies will, and should, be developed. This is how society moves forward. However, progress can’t be one-sided. It is necessary for the companies and state agencies involved to consider the ethical consequences of these potential changes to build a better future for all.
54、54. What is the result of the introduction of new technologies in energy industries?
A、Political dissatisfaction.
B、Retraining of employees.
C、Fossil fuel conservation.
D、Business restructuring.
Imagine you enter a car with no steering wheel, no brake or accelerator pedals (踏板). Under a voice-activated command, you say an address. “The fastest route will take us 15.3 minutes. Should I take it?” You say “yes” and are on your way. The car responds and starts moving all by itself. All you have to do is sit back and relax.
How weird would it be if, one day in the future, everyone had such a car? No crazy driving, no insults, no cutting in, traffic laws would be respected and driving much safer. On the other hand, imagine the cost savings for local police enforcement and town budgets without all those speeding and parking tickets.
A new technology has the potential to change modern society in radical ways. There’s no question that self-driving vehicles could be an enormous benefit. The potential for safer cars means accident statistics would drop: some 94% of road accidents in the U.S. involve human error. Older drivers and visually- or physically-impaired people would gain a new level of freedom. Maintaining safe speeds and being electric, self-driving cars would drastically reduce pollution levels and dependency on non-renewable fuels. Roads would be quieter, people safer.
But we must also consider the impact of the new technology on those who now depend on driving for their livelihoods. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in May 2015 there were 505,560 registered school bus drivers. The American Trucking Associations lists approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S.
The companies developing self-driving vehicles should be partnering with state and federal authorities to offer retraining for this massive workforce, many of whom will be displaced by the new technology. This is similar to what’s happening in the coal and oil industries, a situation that fuels much of the current political discontent in this country.
New technologies will, and should, be developed. This is how society moves forward. However, progress can’t be one-sided. It is necessary for the companies and state agencies involved to consider the ethical consequences of these potential changes to build a better future for all.
55、55. What does the author suggest businesses and the government do?
A、Keep pace with technological developments.
B、Make new technologies affordable to everyone.
C、Enable everyone to benefit from new technologies.
D、Popularize the use of new technologies and devices.
三、Part IV Translation
56、由于通信网络的快速发展，中国智能手机用户数量近年来以惊人的速度增长。这极大地改变了许多人的阅读方式。他们现在经常用智能手机上看新闻和文章，而不买传统报刊。大量移动应用程序的开发使人们能用手机读小说和其他形式的文学作品。因此，纸质书籍的销售受到了影响。但调查显示，尽管手机阅读市场能稳步增长，超半数成年人仍喜欢读纸质书。
参考答案：
Due to the rapid development of communication network, the number of Chinese smartphone users in China has dramatically increased in recent years, which has greatly changed many people’s way of reading. Now, they often read news and articles on their smartphones instead of buying traditional newspaper. The development of a large number of mobile applications enables people to read novels and other forms of literary works on mobile phones. Therefore, the sale of paper books has been affected. However, the survey shows that although the market of mobile phone reading grows steadily, more than half of adults still like to read paper books.
四、Part I Writing
57、Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the challenges of living in a big city. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
参考答案：
参考范文
Urbanization is accelerating and now more than half the population lives in cities. Big cities are extremely favorable for modern workforce, especially for college graduates. Glamorous as metropolitan life seems, its opportunities also coexist with unexpected challenges.
Most of the population who flood in big cities pursue better salary, health care and education. However, most of these so-called advanced resources are already occupied by first-comers. Job market is shrinking, hospitals are filled with queuing patients and parents are striving for “school district housing”. Even some people do find a satisfactory job, few of them have time for three meals a day and enough sleep, let alone personal interests. It is true that metropolitan workers can earn a decent salary, but it is also true that they are faced with massive pressure.
All in all, we must admit that living in big cities is not only exhausting but also stressful. This type of lifestyle consumes us a lot of energy to fit in but we may love it once we adapt. After all, people are much more likely to realize their personal value in big cities.
参考译文
城市化进程正在加速，现在超过半数的人都住在城市里。大城市特别吸引现代劳动力，尤其是大学毕业生。大城市的生活看起来也许很光鲜，但机遇也与意料之外的挑战共存。
大部分涌入大城市的人是为了追求高薪、高质量的医疗和教育。然而，这些所谓更佳的资源已经被先到者而占满了。就业市场正在缩水，医院里病人排起长龙，家长们对“学区房”抢得头破血流。即使有些人确实找到了满意的工作，但也没多少人有时间一日吃三餐、有充足的睡眠，更不要说发展个人兴趣了。在大城市工作的人的确会拿到不错的薪水，但他们也面临着巨大的压力。
总的来说，我们必须承认生活在大城市里不仅累而且压力大。这种生活方式需要我们投入大量的精力去适应，但一旦适应以后，我们或许会很热爱这种生活。毕竟，人们在大城市里更有可能实现个人价值。
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