第三部分：阅读理解（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）

请阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

A The latest addition to the Gtech garden power tools range is a lightweight yet powerful wireless Leaf Blower. This autumn makes short work of clearing leaves and garden pieces. High Performance The 36V Lithium-ion Gtech Leaf Blower has the ability to clear pieces from your lawn, courtyard and driveway. Using a turbo fan design that allows for a straight air passage from intake to outlet, offering maximum airflow and efficiency that turns the fan at 11,500 times a minute. Complete control The Leaf Blower is lightweight, at just 4.3 kg. The product has been designed so that battery and body weight are reasonably distributed. When in use, it will naturally point towards the ground to direct airflow. So, you won’t have to worry about injuring your wrists, even if you use it for the entire 20-minute run-time on full power. The variable trigger allows for complete control, when you squeeze or release the trigger you will feel the airflow change to suit your garden needs. Easy to use The Gtech Wireless Leaf Blower is easy to use. There is no need to pull wires or top up with fuel, simply attach the battery and pull the trigger to start. The product’s wireless convenience means there are no wires to trip you up or limit your access, and no petrol to store or pour—simply charge and it’s ready to go. When you’re done, you can remove the detachable nozzle（管嘴）, so the Gtech Leaf blower is compact enough to be stored in small places. Don’t just take our word for it... We really do care what you think. Go online to see the thousands of independent reviews our customers have given us, and check out our product videos at www.gtech.co.uk. 56. What should you pay attention to when using the Leaf Blower? A. Filling it up with good petrol. B. Taking care not to be tripped up. C. Charging it when the battery is dying. D. Wearing the wrist-band if you use it for long. 57. Which is not the advantage of the tool? A. Truly portable.

B. Fast delivery. D. Quite powerful.

C. Environmentally friendly.

B

In English the sky is blue, and the grass is green. But in Vietnamese there is just one color category for both sky and grass: xanh. For decades cognitive（认知）scientists have pointed to such examples as evidence that language largely determines how we see color. But new research with four-to six-month-old babies indicates that long before we learn language, we see up to five basic categories of color — a finding that suggests a stronger biological element to perceive（感知）color than previously thought.

The study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, tested the color-discrimination abilities of more than 170 British babies. Researchers at the University of Sussex in England measured how long babies spent staring at color swatches, a system known as looking time. First babies were showed one swatch repeatedly until their looking time decreased — a sign they had grown bored with it. Then the researchers showed them a different sample and noted their reaction. Longer looking times were explained to mean the babies considered the second sample to be a new color. Their increasing responses showed that they distinguished among five colors: red, green, blue, purple and yellow.

The finding “suggests you come by nature to make color distinctions, but given your culture and language, certain distinctions may or may not be used.” explains lead author Alice Skelton, a doctoral student at Sussex.

The study systematically explored babies’ color perception, revealing how we perceive colors before we have the words to describe them, says Angela M. Brown, an experimental psychologist at the Ohio State University’s College of Optometry, who was not involved with the new research. The results add a new challenge to the long nature-versus-nurture debate and the so-called SapirWhorf hypothesis（假设）— the idea that the way we see the world is shaped by language.

In future work, Skelton and her colleagues are interested in testing babies from other cultures. “The way language and culture interact is a really interesting question,” she says. “We don’t yet know the exact systems, but we do know how we start off.” 58. What’s the finding of the new research? A. It clarifies what makes babies perceive colors. B. It proves human color recognition is inborn. C. It finds how many colors babies can perceive. D. It shows the color culture is shaped by language. 59. According to the new research, we can learn that_________. A. swatches affect babies in memory and attention B. longer looking times are based on the psychology C. researchers determine babies’ color perception

D. babies can tell the differences of some colors

60. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage? A. Rainbow in the Baby’s World B. A Journey to the World of Colors C. A New Challenge: Language vs. Culture D. Different Babies, Different Color Perception

C

Atticus was weak: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, “My father—”

Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him, Atticus would say, “I’m too old for that, son.”

Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the police officer, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.

Besides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal（家族的）curse of the Finches. Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.

He did not do the things our schoolmates’ fathers did: he never went hunting; he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the living room and read.

With these characteristics, however, he would not remain as inconspicuous（不显眼）as we wished him to: that year, the whole school talked about him defending Tom Robinson, none of which was complimentary. After my fight with Cecil Jacobs when I committed myself to a policy of chicken, word got around that Scout Finch wouldn’t fight any more, her daddy wouldn’t let her. This was not entirely correct: I wouldn’t fight publicly for Atticus, but the family was private ground. I would fight anyone from a third cousin upwards tooth and nail. Francis Hancock, for example, knew that.

When he gave us our air-guns Atticus wouldn’t teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us therefore; he said Atticus wasn’t interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit them, but remember it’s a sin（罪过）to kill a mockingbird.”

That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.

“Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

61. Who is telling the story? A. Francis Hancock. C. Scout Finch.

B. Tom Robinson. D. Miss Maudie.

62. What did the children think of their father Atticus in the beginning? A. He was not manly or skilled. B. He was willing to fight for his family. C. He was interested in nothing in his spare time. D. He was still energetic though he was nearly 50.

63. What does the underlined word “complimentary” in the 6th paragraph probably mean? A. Reasonable argument.

B. Good remarks. D. Strong criticism. B. disabled but devoted D. harmless and helpful D

Computer security is a contradiction in terms. The arrival of the “Internet of Things” will see computers baked into everything from road signs and MRI scanners to artificial body parts and insulin（胰岛素）pumps. There is little evidence that such equipment will be any more trustworthy than desktop computers. Hackers have already proved that they can take remote control of connected cars and pacemakers.

However, it is tempting to believe that the security problem can be solved with yet more technical wizardry（魔法）and a call for further watchfulness. And it is certainly true that many firms still fail to take security seriously enough. That requires a kind of lasting insistence which does not come naturally to non-tech firms. Actually, there is no way to make computers completely safe. Software is hugely complex. Across its products, Google must manage around 2 billion lines of source code—errors are unavoidable. The average program has 14 separate bugs, each of them a potential point of illegal entry. Such weaknesses are worsened by the history of the internet, in which security was an afterthought.

This is not necessarily in despair. The risk from cheats, car accidents and the weather can never be avoided completely either. But societies have developed ways of managing such risk—from government regulation to the use of legal liability（责任）and insurance to create more safer behaviours.

Start with regulation. Governments’ first priority is to control from making the situation worse. Terrorist attacks often bring calls for codes to be weakened so that the security services can better monitor what individuals are up to. But it is impossible to weaken codes for terrorists alone. The C. Wrong judgment. A. able but modest C. intelligent and entertaining

64. Mockingbirds can be compared to people who are _______.

same protection that guards messaging programs like WhatsApp also guards bank business and online identities. Computer security is best served by encoding that is strong for everyone.

The next priority is setting basic product regulations. A lack of professional knowledge will always block the ability of computer users to protect themselves. So governments should promote “public health” for computing. They could insist that internet-connected contents be updated with fixes when faults are found. They could force users to change default（默认）usernames and passwords. Reporting laws, already in force in some American states, can require companies to report when they or their products are hacked, which encourages them to fix a problem instead of burying it.

Most important, the software industry has for decades disclaimed liability for the harm when its products go wrong. Such an approach has its benefits. Silicon Valley’s fruitful “go fast and break things” style of innovation is possible only if firms relatively have freedom to put out new products while they still need perfecting. But this point will soon be illegal. As computers spread to products covered by established liability arrangements, such as cars or domestic goods, the industry’s disclaimers will increasingly be against existing laws.

Firms should recognize that, if the courts do not force the liability issue, public opinion will. Fortunately, the small but growing market in cyber-security insurance offers a way to protect consumers while preserving the computing industry’s ability to innovate. A firm whose products do not work properly, or are repeatedly hacked, will find its insurance rising, urging it to solve the problem. A firm that takes reasonable steps to make things safe, but which is damaged nevertheless, will ask for an insurance payout that will stop it from going bankrupt（破产）. It is here that some problems could perhaps be negotiated. Once again, there are examples: when countless claims against American light-aircraft firms threatened to bankrupt the industry in the 1980s, the government changed the law, limiting their liability for old products.

One reason computer security is so bad today is that few people were taking it seriously yesterday. When the internet was new, that was forgivable. Now that the consequences are known, and the risks posed by bugs and hacking are large and growing, there is no excuse for repeating the mistake. But changing attitudes and behavior will require economic tools, not just technical ones.

65. The first paragraph mainly tells us __________. A. computers are used more widely B. computers may never be secure C. future computers are less trustworthy D. computer hackers are almost everywhere

66. Which is the reason for the computer security problem nowadays? A. People tend to rely on technical solutions. B. Technology firms take security less seriously. C. Warnings from relevant departments are absent.