Again, the Racoon reflects this race between the old and the new. It uses conventional steel and what Renault describes as a new "high-limit elastic steel" in its chassis. This steel is 30% lighter than the usual kind. The Racoon also has parts made from composites. Renault plans to replace the petrol engine with a small gas turbine, which could be made from heat-resisting ceramics, and use it to run a generator that would provide power for electric motors at each wheel.
With composites it is possible to build many different parts into a single component. Fiat, Italy's biggest car maker, has worked out that it could reduce the number of components needed in one of its car bodies from 150 to 16 by using a composite shell rather than one made of steel. Aircraft and cars may increasingly be assembled as if they were plastic kits.
Advances in engine technology also make cars lighter. The Ultralite, which Scaled Composites helped to design for General Motors, uses a two-stroke engine in a "power pod" at the rear of the vehicle. The engine has been developed from an East German design and weighs 40% less than a conventional engine but produces as much power. It is expected to run cleanly enough to qualify as an ultra-low emissions vehicle under California's tough new rules.
Questions 1 - 6
These five companies are mentioned in Reading Passage 1. Which company is each of the following design features associated with?
Write the letters of the appropriate company in boxes 1 - 6 on your answer sheet.
SC if it is Scaled Composites
R if it is Renault
GM if it is General Motors
F if it is Fiat
B if it is Boeing
1. a power pod
2. electronic controls
3. a composite body
4. elastic steel
5. aircraft prototypes
6. ultrasonic sensors
第十二课时
List of headings
注意事项：1）任何选项只能使用一次；2）要首先阅读主标题
考试分为三种类型：
1）给出10个选项，5 - 6个段落，然后把选项的标号写在段落的后面
2）题目给出5 - 6个已确定标题，把段落的标号写在给出标题的后面
3）选项有6个，题目有10个，空出4道题目
做题的三种方法：
1）首先分析选项及已给出标题
2）如何阅读首末句
3）如何阅读整段
The Birth Of The Microwave
A Chances are, you'll use a microwave oven at least once this week-probably (according to research) for heating up leftovers or defrosting something. Microwave ovens are so common today that it's easy to forget how rare they once were. As late as 1977, only 10% of U.S. homes had one. By 1995, 85% of households had at least one. Today, more people own microwaves than own dishwashers.
B Magnetrons, the tubes that produce microwaves, were invented by British scientists in 1940. They were used in radar systems during World War II, and were instrumental in detecting German planes during the Battle of Britain. These tubes—which are sort of like TV picture tubes—might still be strictly military hardware if Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon (a U.S. defense contractor), hadn't stepped in front of one in 1946. He had a chocolate bar in his pocket; when he went to eat it a few minutes later, he found that the chocolate had almost completely melted. That didn't make sense. Spencer wasn't hot—how could the chocolate bar be? He suspected the magnetron was responsible, so he tried an experiment. He put a bag of popcorn kernels in the tube. Seconds later, they popped. The next day, Spencer brought eggs and an old tea-kettle to work. He cut a hole in the side of the kettle, put an egg in it, an laced it next to the magnetron. Just as a colleague went to see what was happening, the egg exploded.
C Spencer shared his discovery with his employers at Raytheon, and suggested manufacturing magnetron-powered ovens to sell to the public. Raytheon was interested. They had the capacity to produce 10,000 magnetron tubes per week, but with World War II over, military purchases had been cut down to almost nothing. What is the better way to recover lost sales than to put a radar set disguised as a microwave oven in every American home? Raytheon agreed to back the project. The company patented the first "high frequency dielectric heating apparatus" in 1953. Then they held a contest to find a name for their product. Some came up with "Radar Range", which was later combined into the single word—Radarange.
D Raytheon had a great product idea and a great name, but they didn't have an oven anyone could afford. The 1953 model was 51/2 feet tall, weighed more than 750 pounds, and cost $3000. Over the next 20 years, railroads, ocean liners and high-end restaurants were virtually the only Radarange customers. In 1955, a company called Tappan introduced the first microwave oven for average consumers; it was smaller than the Radarange, but still cost $1,295—more than some small homes. Then in 1964, a Japanese company perfected a miniaturized magnetron, and Raytheon soon after introduced a Radarange that used the new magnetron. It sold for $495. But that was still too expensive for the average American family. Finally, in the 1980s, technical improvements lowered the price and improve the quality enough to make microwave ovens both affordable and practical. By 1988, 10% of all new food products in the U.S were microwaveable.
E Here is the first thing you should know about "microwaves": Like visible light, radio waves and X-rays, they are waves of electromagnetic energy. What makes the four waves different from each other? Each has a different length (wavelength) and vibrates at a different speed (frequency). Microwaves get their name because their wavelength is much shorter than electromagnetic waves that carry TV and radio signals. The microwaves in a microwave oven have a wavelength o about four inches, and they vibrate 2.5 billion times per second—about the same natural frequency as water molecules. That's what at makes them so effective at heating food. A conventional oven heats the air in the oven, which then cooks the food. But microwaves cause water molecules in the food to vibrate at high speeds, creating heat. The heated water molecules are what cook the food. Glass, ceramics and plastics contain virtually no water molecules, which is why they don't heat up in the microwave. When the microwave oven is turned on, electricity passes through the magnetron, the tube that produces microwaves. The microwaves are then channeled down a metal tube (waveguide) and through a slow rotating metal fan (stirrer), which scatters them into the part of the oven where the food is placed. The walls of the oven are made of metal, which reflects microwaves the same way that a mirror reflects visible light. So when the microwaves hit the stirrer and are scattered into the food chamber, they bounce off the metal walls and penetrate the food from every direction. Some ovens have a rotating turntable that helps food cook more evenly.
F Do microwaves cook food from the inside out? Some people think so, but the answer seems to be no. Microwaves cook food from the outside in, like conventional ovens. But the microwave energy only penetrates about an inch into the food. The heat that's created by the water molecules then penetrates deeper into the food, cooking it all the way through. This secondary cooking process is known as "conduction".
G When sales of microwave ovens took off in the late 1980s, millions of cooks discovered the same thing: Microwaves just don't cook some foods as well as regular ovens do. The reason: Because microwaves cook by exciting the water molecules in food, the food inside the microwave oven rarely cooks at temperature higher than 212°F, the temperature at which water turns to steam. Conventional ovens, on the other hand, cook to temperatures as high as 550°F. High temperatures are needed to caramelize sugars and break down proteins, carbohydrates and other substances, and combine them into more complex flavors. So, microwave oven can't do any of this, and it can't bake, either. Some people feel this is the microwave's Achilles heel. "The name 'microwave oven' is a misnomer," says Cindy Ayers, an executive with Campbell Soup. "It doesn't do what an oven does." "It's a glorified popcorn popper," says Tom Vierhile, a researcher with Marketing Intelligence, a newsletter that tracks microwave sales. "When the microwave first came out, people thought they had stumbled on nirvana. It's not the appliance the food industry thought it would be. It's a major disappointment." Adds one cooking critic: "Microwave sales are still strong, but time will tell whether they have a future in the American kitchen."
Questions 1 - 6
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A - G. State which paragraph discusses each of the points below. Write the appropriate letters A - G in boxes 1 - 6 on your answer sheet.
Examples The Discovery That Spencer Made
Answer B
1. The Introduction of the Radarange
2. The Conduction Process of Heating Food
3. Basic Cooking Method of Microwave oven
4. The Commercial Development of the Microwave
5. Popularity of Microwaves Today
6. Limitations of the Microwave
Twist in the Tale
A Less than three years ago, doom merchants were predicting that the growth in video games and the rise of the Internet would sound the death knell for children's literature. But contrary to popular myth, children are reading more books than ever. A recent survey by Books Marketing found that children up to the age of 11 read on average for four hours a week, particularly girls.
B Moreover, the children's book market, which traditionally was seen as a poor cousin to the more lucrative and successful adult market, has come into its own. Publishing houses are now making considerable profits on the back of new children's books and children's authors can now command significant advances. "Children's books are going through an incredibly fertile period," says Wendy Cooling, a children's literature consultant." There's a real buzz around them. Book clubs are happening, sales are good, and people are much more willing to listen to children's authors."
C The main growth area has been the market for eight to fourteen-year-olds, and there is little doubt that the boom has been fuelled by the bespectacled apprentice, Harry Potter. So influential has J.K. Rowling's series of books been that they have helped to make reading fashionable for pre-teens. "Harry made it OK to be seen on a bus reading a book, "says Cooling." To a child, that is important." The current buzz around the publication of the fourth Harry Potter beats anything in the world of adult literature.
D "People still tell me, 'Children don't read nowadays', "says David Almond, the award-winning author of children's books such as Skelling." The truth is that they are skilled, creative readers. When I do classroom visits, they ask me very sophisticated questions about use of language, story structure, chapters and dialogue." No one is denying that books are competing with other forms of entertainment for children's attention but it seems as though children find a special kind of mental nourishment within the printed page.
E "A few years ago, publishers lost confidence and wanted to make books more like television, the medium that frightened them most," says children's book critic Julia Eccleshare. "But books aren't TV, and you will find that children always say that the good thing about books is that you can see them in your head. Children are demanding readers," she says. "If they don't get it in two pages, they'll drop it."
F No more are children's authors considered mere sentimentalists or failed adult writers. "Some feted adult writers would kill for the sales," says Almond, who sold 42,392 copies of Skelling in 1999 alone. And advances seem to be growing too: UK publishing outfit Orion recently negotiated a six-figure sum from US company Scholastic for The Seeing Stone, a children's novel by Kevin Crossley-Holland, the majority of which will go to the author.
G It helps that once smitten, children are loyal and even fanatical consumers. Author Jacqueline Wilson says that children spread news of the books like a bushfire. "My average reader is a girl of ten," she explains. "They're sociable and acquisitive. They collect. They have parties—where books are a good present. If they like something, they have to pass it on." After Rowling, Wilson is currently the best-selling children's writer, and her sales have boomed over the past three years. She has sold more than three million books, but remains virtually invisible to adults, although most ten-year-old girls know about her.
H Children's books are surprisingly relevant to contemporary life. Provided they are handled with care, few topics are considered off-limits for children. One senses that children's writers relish the chance to discuss the whole area of topics and language. But Anne Fine, author of many awardwinning children's books is concerned that the British literati still ignore children's culture. "It's considered worthy but boring," she says.
I "I think there's still a way to go," says Almond, who wishes that children's books were taken more seriously as literature. Nonetheless, he derives great satisfaction from his child readers. "They have a powerful literary culture," he says. "It feels as if you're able to step into the store of mythology and ancient stories that run through all societies and encounter the great themes: love and loss and death and redemption."
J At the moment, the race is on to find the next Harry Potter. The bidding for new books at Bologna this year¬—the children's equivalent of the Frankfurt Book Fair—was as fierce as anything anyone has ever seen. All of which bodes well for the long-term future of the market—and for children's authors, who have traditionally suffered the lowest profile in literature, despite the responsibility of their role.
Questions 15 - 21
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs A - I.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers i - xi in boxes 15 - 21 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
i Wide differences in leisure activities according to income
ii Possible inconsistencies in Ms Costa's data
iii More personal income and time influence leisure activities
iv Investigating the lifestyle problem from a new angle
v Increased incomes fail to benefit everyone
vi A controversial development offers cheaper leisure activities
