Half a century ago, Japan built the world’s first high-speed rail network—a network that remains the gold standard in train travel today. Currently the country is now helping Texas build its own bullet train, a potential game-changer for transportation in the state.
When it launched on October 1, 1964, the world’s first high-speed rail network was known as the “super-express of dreams.” The first line in Japan’s now world-famous shinkansen network was built against all odds, in the face of fierce public opposition, technical difficulties and astronomical costs.
Half a century ago, the system was far humbler. In 1964, the first track was a 320-mile-long link between Tokyo and Osaka that reduced the trip from six-and-a-half hours (on conventional trains) to three hours and 10 minutes, traveling at a maximum speed of 200 miles per hour. For the first time, workers could get to meetings in one city during the day and be back home drinking a beer in the local pub that night.
Not only did the train expand mobility profoundly, but also businesses appeared around the major stops as a growing emphasis on productivity swept across Japan. Today, the shinkansen network has 1,487 miles of track, with more set to open in the coming years. It seems that everything the shinkansen touches turns to city, and regions that are off the beaten track, so to speak, benefit greatly from the economic jumpstart brought by the train. New shinkansen lines are often proceeded by aggressive marketing campaigns promoting tourism in those areas, a strategy that seems to work.
Despite its astronomical costs, it actually has saved more. Today, over 350,000 annual trips transport tens of millions of passengers all over Japan with efficiency—the average delay time is less than a minute. A research report titled 30 Years of High-Speed Railways: Features and Economic and Social Effects of The Shinkansen by Hiroshi Okada, estimates that the economic impact from the shinkansen train network, based on the time saved from faster travel, is approximately ¥500 billion ($4.8 billion USD) per year. Okada stresses that the cultural impact is also significant, a shinkansen offers people living far from urban centers “easy access to concerts, exhibitions, theaters, etc., enabling them to lead fuller lives.”
Japan has a plan, known as the One-Day Travel Initiative. Its goal: regardless of where you are in Japan, it should only take you three hours to get to the nearest major regional city (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo or Fukuoka). The planned impact of this hyper-mobility is to discourage the tide of migration toward urban centers, like Tokyo, and encourage decentralization.
1.The underlined phrase in Paragraph 2 probably means “________”.
A. opposed to traditional belief s B. despite some major barriers
C. based on impractical fantasies D. in spite of poor planning
2.According to Okada, what benefit does a shinkansen bring to people living far from urban centers?
A. Saving more travelling time. B. Creating massive employment.
C. Enjoying a more colorful life. D. Accumulating vast wealth.
3.What is the main purpose of the One-Day Travel Initiative?
A. To promote even distribution of population.
B. To advocate urban lifestyle among migrants.
C. To satisfy the increasing needs of urban centers.
D. To include more citizens in urban centers.
Behind most of the bad things we do to our bodies as adults, eating more than we should is the idea we carry with us from childhood. On one hand, we assume that we are indestructible. On the other hand, we think that any damage we impose on ourselves can be undone when wβfinally clean up our act.
If the evidence for how wrong the first idea is isn’t apparent when you stand naked in front of the mirror, just wait. But what if you eat right and drop all your bad habits? Is there still time to repair the damage?
To a surprising degree, the answer is yes. Over the past five years, scientists have collected a wealth of data about what happens when aging people with bad habits decide to turn their lives around.
The heartening conclusion: the body has an amazing ability to heal itself, provided the damage is not too great.
The effects of some bad habits-smoking, in particular-can haunt you for decades. But the damage from other habits can be largely healed.
“Any time you improve your behavior and make lifestyle changes, they make a difference from that point on.”says Dr. Jeffey Koplan.“Maybe not right away. It’s like slamming on the brakes. You do need a certain distance.”
But the distance can be remarkably short. Consider the recent announcements from the front lines of medical research: ---A study concluded that women who consume as little as two servings of fish a week cut their risk of suffering a stroke to half that of women who eat less than one serving of fish a month. ---The day you quit smoking, the carbon monoxide levels in your body drop dramatically. Within weeks, your blood becomes less sticky and your risk of dying from a heart attack starts to decline ... Adopting healthy habits won’t cure all that bothers you, of course. But doctors believe that many chronic diseases-from high blood pressure to heart disease and even some cancers-can be warded off with a few sensible changes in lifestyle.
Not sure where to start? Surprisingly, it doesn’t matter, since one positive change usually leads to another. Make enough changes, and you'll discover you’ve adopted a new way of life.
1.Most people with bad habits of eating more than they should believe that .
A.their bodies cannot be damaged by the bad habits
B.they can force themselves to clean up the had habits later
C.their bodies can heal all the damage without the help from outside
D.they can never change the habits that have developed for decades
2.The evidence against the assumption that we are indestructible .
A.is seldom apparent B.is clearly shown in the mirror
C.is still a question D.will appear obvious sooner or later
3.According to the recent announcements .
A.women should eat as much fish as possible
B.men don’t have to eat as much fish as women
C.eating a little more fish can improve women’s health
D.women are at a higher risk of suffering a stroke than men
4.It is implied in the passage that .
A.the blood of smokers is more sticky than that of non-smokers
B.chronic diseases can be cured ifwe drop our habit of smoking
C.smokers have lower levels of carbon monoxide than non-smokers
D.smokers will be unlikely to die from heart attack if they quit smoking
When David Edwards founded the oPhone, he hoped scent (嗅觉的) messages would become the next big thing in the digitization of our online lives.
The device looked like a high-tech cruet set (调味瓶)， and allowed a friend with an iPhone app to send you scent messages alongside photos. Send a picture of your dinner, tag it with four different tones, and whoever is on the receiving end can sniff it from the vase-like tubes of the oPhone.
The oPhone didn’t take off, and the company has now shifted focus to a “scent speaker” called the Cyrano, which similarly uses a range of scent capsules to emit “play lists” of smells.
Compared to our real world interactions, our online lives are lacking in scent. Our digital culture, so soaked in visual and aural stimuli, is odorless (没有气味的). So why didn’t his marriage of smell and picture messaging excite more interest?
From a technical point of view, smell is simply harder to mass communicate than sounds and pictures. “There are two main technological obstacles to making smell transmissible by digital means,” explains biophysicist and author of Perfumes: The A -Z guide, Dr Luca Turin.
“First, there are no odor ‘primaries’like RGB or CMYK. Second, it has proved impossible to stimulate the olfactory epithelium (上皮组织) directly by any means tried so far. This means that it is currently impossible to induce a sensation of smell without there being an actual chemical in the inhaled air (吸入的空气).”
“The more we’re plugged into the virtual world, the more we deeply appreciate thecontrast-moments in our human, experience，” says designer and olfactory artist Mindy Yang.
“Intuitively, we realize that we are starved of certain sensations. With the rise of digital culture, society has become more interested in the missing sense-c-what we smell.”
This interest in scent isn’t only happening within the worlds of perfume and fashion. Over the past few years a number of cultural projects have set out to focus on the power of sensory experiences, from the use of a smell map, to the Tate Sensorium, which in 2015 let users experience visual art alongside smells, tastes and sounds.
Whether it’s devices like the oPhone that仕y to introduce scent into digital messaging, organizations are growingly aware of our culture’s desire for sensory experiences. In a time of virtual reality and scentless social networks, it’s perhaps no wonder that we as a culture have such a desire for something that instinctively feels real and authentic-even if it was made in a lab.
1.What can we learn about the oPhone?
A.The oPhone has defended our interest in what we smell.
B.The oPhone hasn’t caught on yet since it was founded.
C.The oPhone has swapped visual and aural stimuli for scent.
D.The oPhone is a vase tube to sniff specific messages from.
2.What makes it challenging to introduce scent into digital messaging?
A.The relevant tissue is impossible to stimulate directly.
B.Scent capsules should be applied to send out smells.
C.There exists no actual chemical in the inhaled air.
D.Sounds and pictures are easier to mass communicate.
3.What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
A.To promote the oPhone which can send scent messages.
B.To reveal the problems of the invention of the oPhone.
C.To predict the trend of the digitization of our online lives.
D.To introduce the oPhone based on smell-digital-technology.
If you’ve ridden any New York subway, chances are good that you’ve watched your cellphone clock tick while seated on an unmoving, delayed train. You wouldn’t wish to have such a _________ feeling of being stuck on public transportation anymore. No one knows the feeling as _________ as Jerich Marco Alcantara does particularly when he had _________ in his life to celebrate. He _________ his graduation ceremony at Hunter College’s Brookdale campus due to a delay.
There were two _________ ceremonies that day, but Alcantara specifically wanted to _________ the early ceremony, because students were only _________ two tickets for friends and family at the latter event. He wanted all of his family and friends in attendance.
Stuck on the train in full baccalaureate gown (学士服), Alcantara still got to experience a formal _________, sort of. Some friends and strangers improvised (即兴创作) a ceremony on the subway. _________ a cellphone, a friend presented Alcantara with a “diploma”; __________ somebody else on the train played Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day. Another passenger __________ the ceremony and posted the video to Facebook.
________ he wasn’t able to attend the full ceremony, in a way this will end up being a more memorable __________ for Alcantara down the road. He will be able to point to his __________ and not just think of the hard work it took to earn it, but the __________ missing his real graduation ceremony created.
Moments like these help us get a little more __________ of our fellow man during a __________time. Although these aren’t all strangers, it’s still wonderful to see people __________ to make sure someone feels the proper __________, or at least their big achievement should be __________. Though Alcantara missed his official graduation ceremony, he said his subway experience meant a lot.
1.A.rising B.sinking C.spinning D.floating
2.A.vividly B.casually C.plainly D.fiercely
3.A.milestones B.promotions C.festivals D.parties
4.A.spoiled B.quitted C.overlooked D.missed
5.A.separate B.continuous C.relevant D.contradictory
6.A.join B.make C.abandon D.ignore
7.A.appointed B.allocated C.approved D.accumulated
8.A.assembly B.situation C.occasion D.meeting
9.A.Via B.On C.In D.From
10.A.instead B.afterwards C.therefore D.meanwhile
11.A.filmed B.took C.interviewed D.reported
12.A.Since B.As C.Although D.When
13.A.exploration B.moment C.impression D.stage
14.A.video B.ticket C.diploma D.cellphone
15.A.pain B.inconvenience C.excitement D.memory
16.A.convinced B.tired C.reliant D.faithful
17.A.messy B.extreme C.acute D.disorganized
18.A.get together B.gather together C.put together D.band together
19.A.acquisition B.cooperation C.recognition D.evaluation
20.A.welcomed B.applauded C.calculated D.encouraged
以“An Outstanding Woman—Madame Curie”为题目按下列表格的内容写一篇100词左右介绍居里夫人的短文。
Name | 居里夫人 |
Nationality | 波兰 Poland（n.）; Polish （adj.） |
Experience | 结婚后，她继续在法国学习物理和化学 |
Quality | 受过良好教育；刻苦勤奋；意志坚强，遇到困难从不失去信心； 毕生奉献于科学事业 |
Achievement | 1903年因发现镭元素获诺贝尔物理奖；1911年获诺贝尔化学奖 |
注意：1. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
2. 标题及开头已给出，不计入总词数。
参考词汇：诺贝尔物理（化学）奖 The Nobel Prize for Physics (Chemistry)
镭元素 radium element
An Outstanding Woman-Madame Curie
Madame Curie was an outstanding woman, who was a Polish woman scientist.
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假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处错误，每句中最多有两处.每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加:在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧) 并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除:把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改:在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意:1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Elias was a poor black worker. The time that he first met Nelson Mandela was very difficult period of his life. Nelson Mandela offered guidance to poor black people with their legal problems. Elias was not at school for long, for his family could not afford his school fees and the bus fare. When he worried about if he would be out of the work because he didn’t have one passbook. Nelson Mandela told him what to do. That day was one of Elias’ happiest day in his life. Later, Elias joined the ANC Youth League organizing by Nelson Mandela. In 1963, Elias helped Mandela blew up some government buildings. It was very dangerous and Elias was happy because he thought it would help them achieve their dream of making black and white people equally.
