2015年湖北高考英语提分专练：科普知识【河北省邯郸市2015届高三上学期1月份教学质量检测】Since Henry Ford turned it into a mass-market product a century ago, the car has delivered many benefits. It has promoted economic growth, increased social mobility and given people a lot of fun. But the car has also brought many problems. It pollutes the air, creates traffic jams and kills people. An astonishing 1.24 million people die, and as many as 50 million are hurt, in road accidents each year.Drivers and passengers waste around 90 billion hours in traffic jams each year. In some car-choked cities as much as a third of the petrol used is burned by people looking for a space to park.Fortunately, a new technology promises to make motoring safer, less polluting and less tendency to hold-ups. “Connected cars”-which may eventually develop into driverless cars but for the foreseeable future will still have a human at the wheel-can communicate wirelessly with each other and with traffic-management systems, avoid walkers and other vehicles and find open parking spots.Some parts of the transformation are already in place. Many new cars are already being fitted with equipment that lets them keep their distance and stay in a motorway automatically at a range of speeds. Soon, all new cars in Europe will have to be able to warn the emergency services if their on-board sensors(传感器) discover a crash. Singapore has led the way with using variable tolls(道路通行费) to smooth traffic flows during rush-hours; Britain is pioneering “smart motorways”, whose speed limits vary constantly to achieve a similar effect. Combined, these new inventions could create a much more highly effective system in which cars and their drivers are constantly warned of dangers and showed the ways, traffic always flows at the proper speed and vehicles can travel closer together, yet with less risk of crashing.In the past, more people driving meant more roads, more jams, more death and more pollution. In future, the connected car could offer mankind the pleasures of the road with rather less of the pain.【小题1】According to Paragraph 2, the problem of parking has resulted in _.A. more time on the road B. a great waste of fuelC. even heavier traffic jams D. increased death and injuries【小题2】What does “a similar effect” in the Paragraph 4 refer to?A. Reducing traffic jams. B. Building smart motorways.C. Setting proper speed limits. D. Keeping steady traffic flows.【小题3】What is the authors attitude towards connected cars?A. Curious. B. Doubtful. C. Supportive. D. Disappointed.【小题4】Which of the following can be the best title of the text?A. The Future of Cars: Wireless Wheels B. The Future Traffic Management SystemC. The Benefits and Problems of Cars D. The Promising Future of Car Production【答案】【小题3】C【小题4】A【解析】考点：C【江西省吉安市第一中学2015届高三上学期第二次阶段考】Talking plants might sound like characters in a fairy tale. But recent scientific studies have shown that plants communicate with each other and with other living things in a surprising number of ways. To understand them, scientists say, we just have to learn their language. Farmers are especially interested in what plants have to say.“Plants are able to communicate with all sorts of organisms(有机体). They can communicate with giant bacteria, with other plants and with insects. They do this chemically, ”said Cahill, an Ecology Professor of the University f Alberta in Canada.Plant scientists are just beginning to understand this chemical “language”. Cahill says studies have shown, for example, that plants can evaluate conditions in their immediate environment and take appropriate actions. Plants have an ability, for example, to signal pain or discomfort caused by anything from temperature extremes to an insect attack. Jack Schultz, a professor of chemical ecology at the University of Missouri, says when a plant senses that its being eaten, it cannot walk away from trouble;on the contrary, it will release a chemical vapor that alerts other plants nearby.“Their language is a chemical language, and it involves chemicals that move through the air, which are easily to be changed, and most of all are smells that we are familiar with, ” Schultz explained.“All plants responded to the attack by changing their chemistry to defend themselves, ” Schultz recalled. “But we were quite surprised to find that nearby plants also changed their chemistry to defend themselves, even though they were not part of the experiment. ”Studies have also shown that plants under attack release pleasant chemicals. Those chemicals attract friendly insects that attack the pests eating the plant.In the end, plants ability to communicate their needs-and our ability to understand them-could help farmers reduce the use of poisonous chemicals, cut operating costs and limit damage to the environment.【】. The recent scientific