2012高考二轮复习英语专题训练（江苏专用）专题2 阅读理解33

　　2012高考英语二轮复习专题限时训练（江苏专用）

　　专题2 阅读理解 33

　　（25分钟）

　　A

　　One night, I was partying in central London, near Piccadilly Circus. Running short of money, I set off to find the nearest ATM to withdraw some cash. At Shaftesbury Avenue, I saw a huge queue for one ATM machine, but no one was using the neighboring “hole in the wall”. Assuming that the second machine was broken, I asked one queuing man if it was out of order. He replied, “It’s working, but this one pays out twenties for tenners!”

　　So the reason for the weirdly long queue is that these folks wanted to “double their money” by getting £20 notes for each £10 note requested. Being an honest man, I didn’t hang about; I simply used the idle machine and walked off.

　　Last week, customers took similar advantage of Commonwealth Bank in Sydney, Australia. Following overnight maintenance, a computer virus caused CommBank’s ATMs to fail to function properly and begin paying out extra money, with unrestricted withdrawals. They allowed customers with little or no cash in their accounts to withdraw large sums that they didn’t have. After about 5½ hours, CommBank managed to restart these ATMs and stop the flood of cash.

　　You stole your own cash!

　　By withdrawing money they didn’t have in their accounts, some of these greedy customers have gone heavily overdrawn. News reports indicate that some people were withdrawing as much as AU$2,500 (£1,563) in a single dealing.

　　Alas, both CommBank and the New South Wales police said that they will use ATM records and cameras to track down those who took advantage of the error. As Detective Superintendent Col Dyson of the New South Wales police department warned, “People should realise that they don’t have the right to take that money and are committing a criminal offence if they keep it.”

　　What about overpayments?

　　What about when you key in a £20 withdrawal and you get two £20 notes, not two £10 notes?

　　In English law (covering England and Wales), you have the right to keep money paid to you in error “under mistake of fact”, but only if you honestly believe that the money is yours.

　　However, if you requested £20, got £40 and £40 was allowed to be lent to you, then the cash is yours to keep, as neither you nor the bank has suffered any loss.

　　1. The words “hole in the wall” refer to _______.

　　A. a real hole in the wall

　　B. another ATM

　　C. the mouth of a neighbour

　　D. a common machine

　　2. We learn from the passage that the writer _______.

　　A. saw a huge queue on his way to a party and joined them

　　B. people queued up to withdraw money because the other ATMs were broken

　　C. had to use the unoccupied ATM to get some cash because he was in a hurry

　　D. was critical of what he saw when withdrawing cash from an ATM

　　3. According to the passage, _______.

　　A. last week, an ATM in Sydney, Australia paid out AU$10 for every request for AU$20

　　B. an ATM in Sydney, Australia was paying out more money than asked for because the bank owner had lifted the restriction

　　C. the machine paid out more money than requested even when a person had no money in his account

　　D. some people have been arrested on charge of getting extra money in the two happenings

　　4. From the part subtitled “What about overpayments?”, we can know _______.

　　A. some English laws don’t cover all Britain

　　B. if the money you asked for was more than requested, you’d always have to return the extra money

　　C. if people kept the extra money they got at a bank they might pretend they did not know it

　　D. people committed a crime by getting the extra money even if they had that much in their account

　　B

　　TOKYO — Lonely astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) may soon be getting a robot friend from Japan.

　　Japan’s space agency is considering putting a talking humanoid (有人的特点的) robot on the ISS to watch the work while astronauts are asleep, monitor their health and stress levels and communicate to Earth through the micro-blogging site Twitter.

　　Japan’s space agency JAXA announced this week that it is looking at a plan to send a humanoid robot to the space station in 2016 that could communicate with the ground through Twitter — primarily feeding photos, rather than original ideas — and provide astronauts with “comfort and companionship”.

　　Following up on US NASA’s “Robonaut” R-2 program, which is set for launch on the Discovery shuttle next week, the Japanese robot would be part of a larger effort to create and refine robots that can be used by the elderly, JAXA said in a statement.

　　Japan is one of the leading countries in robotics and has a rapidly aging society with one of the world’s longest life expectancies.

　　Improving robot communication capabilities could help elderly people on Earth by providing a nonintrusive (无干扰的) means of monitoring the robot owner’s health and vital signs and sending information to emergency responders if there is an abnormality, JAXA said.

　　“We are thinking in terms of a very human-like robot that would have facial expressions and be able to talk with the astronauts,” said JAXA’s Satoshi Sano.

　　The robot was being developed with the advertising and communications giant Dentsu Inc and a team at Tokyo University.

　　The NASA project has a human-like head, hands and arms and uses the same tools as station crew members. The “Robonaut” called R-2 is intended to carry out maintenance tasks in the station’s Destiny lab.

　　NASA says it hopes that humanoid robots could one day stand in for astronauts during spacewalks or perform tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans.

　　For now, the $2.5 million NASA robot is limited to activities within the lab.

　　1. According to the passage, a humanoid robot, put on the ISS, shall carry out the tasks except _______.

　　A. take care of the ISS sometimes

　　B. keep an eye on the health of the astronauts

　　C. keep in contact with Earth

　　D. get a friend for astronauts from Japan

　　2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to this passage?

　　A. The robot program will eventually benefit the elderly.

　　B. R-2 program is in the charge of Japan’s JAXA.

　　C. NASA is planning to communicate with the space station through Twitter.

　　D. Japan has the largest number of elderly people.

　　3. From the passage we can know _______.

　　A. many Japanese universities joined in the robot program

　　B. future astronauts will become less lonely and more comfortable with the help of the robot

　　C. robots could completely take the place of human astronauts in the future

　　D. the robot program, having cost $2.5 million, can carry out all tasks

　　C

　　When Americans in the manufacturing sector (制造业) cried out, “The Chinese are coming,” some years ago, they expressed a restless concern and warning about a possible loss of job opportunities. Now Americans in the tourism industry issued the same cry on June 17 — but this time, it was a welcome call to greet the first organized group of Chinese tourists to the United States. U.S. tourism officials have high expectations that well-off Chinese visitors, who are ready and willing to spend loads of yuan, will give a big help to their industry.

　　“We’re very excited,” said Helen N. Marano, Director of the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries under the U.S. Department of Commerce. Before she talked to Beijing Review on June 17, Marano and her colleagues had been waiting for more than two hours at Washington Dulles International Airport to give a warm welcome to the first organized group of Chinese tourists to visit the United States.

　　The first group consisted of 250 tourists, who left from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong on June 17, the day when newly appointed Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson started the fourth round of the China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in Annapolis, Maryland. Each was backed by a big group of heavyweight ministerial officials.

　　Coincidence (巧合) could not provide a satisfactory explanation to the two events taking place on the same day. As a perfect example of one of the concrete results of the high-level dialogue between the two countries started by Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President George W. Bush in 2006, the first Chinese tourist group’s arrival in the United States was widely reported by the Chinese media.

　　At the previous SED meeting last December, Chairman of the Chinese National Tourism Administration Shao Qiwei and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez signed an agreement between China and the United States to advance tourist group travel from China to the United States. Under this agreement, China agreed to give an “approved destination status” to the United States, allowing Chinese travel agencies to market tourism to American destinations and permitting U.S. destinations to advertise directly to the Chinese public.

　　The agreement “is estimated to bring up to 100 million Chinese travelers to the United States over the next 15 years,” Paulson said.

　　But what people in the U.S. tourism industry care more about is how they can get a big slice of the pie.

　　“I’m getting calls already from people saying things like, ‘How do we get to do this?’ and ‘How do we attract Chinese tourists to our area?’” Marano told Beijing Review. Marano said she had been waiting for this market to be open for more than five years and that she was so excited now to see it finally happen.

　　1. When, a few years ago, some Americans shouted “the Chinese are coming”, they _______.

　　A. were worried that the Chinese language would take the place of English

　　B. were concerned that the number of the Chinese tourists would be bigger than the locals

　　C. wanted to warn that the U.S. economy would suffer heavy losses

　　D. feared that large numbers of Chinese moving into the U.S. would make many Americans jobless

　　2. Helen N. Marano was excited because _______.

　　A. large numbers of Chinese touring the U.S. would tip her and her colleagues

　　B. the Chinese touring in the U.S. would help improve its industry

　　C. the Chinese are usually well organized when travelling

　　D. Wang Qishan and Henry Paulson started the fourth round of the China-U.S. SED

　　3. We can infer from the passage that _______.

　　A. Chinese tourist agencies could organize groups of Chinese to go to the U.S. without the agreement

　　B. Marano and her colleagues waited at the airport to see how well organized the Chinese were

　　C. many Americans take a positive attitude toward Chinese tourists

　　D. about 100 million Americans will travel to China in the next 15 years

　　4. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?

　　A. The Chinese are coming

　　B. The fourth-round China-U.S. SED

　　C. More Chinese, more job opportunities

　　D. How can we attract more Chinese to our area

　　BDCA

　　DAB

　　DBCA