1997年6月国家英语四级考试试题

The fridge is considered a necessity. It has been so since the 1960s when packaged food first appeared with the label:” store in the refrigerator.”

In my fridgeless Fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthy. The milkman came daily, the grocer, the butcher（肉商）, the baker, and the ice-cream man delivered two or three times a week. The Sunday meat would last until Wednesday and surplus（剩余的）bread and milk became all kinds of cakes. Nothing was wasted, and we were never troubled by rotten food. Thirty years on, food deliveries have ceased, fresh vegetables are almost unobtainable in the country.

The invention of the fridge contributed comparatively little to the art of food preservation. A vast way of well-tried techniques already existed-natural cooling, drying, smoking, salting, sugaring, bottling…

What refrigeration did promote was marketing—marketing hardware and electricity, marketing soft drinks, marketing dead bodies of animals around the globe in search of a good price.

Consequently, most of the world’s fridges are to be found, not in the tropics where they might prove useful, but in the wealthy countries with mild temperatures where they are climatically almost unnecessary. Every winter, millions of fridges hum away continuously, and at vast expense, busily maintaining an artificially-cooled space inside an artificially-heated house-while outside, nature provides the desired temperature free of charge.

The fridge’s effect upon the environment has been evident, while its contribution to human happiness has been insignificant. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself, invest in a food cabinet and turn off your fridge next winter. You may miss the hamburgers（汉堡包）, but at least you’ll get rid of that terrible hum.

The human brain contains 10 thousand million cells and each of these may have a thousand connections. Such enormous numbers used to discourage us and cause us to dismiss the possibility of making a machine with human-like ability, but now that we have grown used to moving forward at such a pace we can be less sure. Quite soon, in only 10 or 20 years perhaps, we will be able to assemble a machine as complex as the human brain, and if we can we will. It may then take us a long time to render it intelligent by loading in the right software（软件）or by altering the architecture but that too will happen.

I think it certain that in decades, not centuries, machines of silicon（硅）will arise first to rival and then exceed their human ancestors. Once they exceed us they will be capable of their own design. In a real sense they will be able to reproduce themselves. Silicon will have ended carbon’s long control. And we will no longer be able to claim ourselves to be the finest intelligence in the known universe.

As the intelligence of robots increases to match that of humans and as their cost declines through economies of scale we may use them to expand our frontiers, first on earth through their ability to withstand environments, harmful to ourselves. Thus, deserts may bloom and the ocean beds be mined. Further ahead, by a combination of the great wealth this new age will bring and the technology it will provide, the construction of a vast, man-created world in space, home to thousands or millions of people, will be within our power.

After the violent earthquake that shook Los Angeles in 1994, earthquake scientists had good news to report: The damage and death toll（死亡人数）could have been much worse.

More than 60 people died in this earthquake. By comparison, as earthquake of similar intensity that shook America in 1988 claimed 25,000 victims.

Injuries and deaths were relatively less in Los Angeles because the quake occurred at 4:31 a.m. on a holiday, when traffic was light on the city’s highways. In addition, changes made to the construction codes in Los Angeles during the last 20 years have strengthened the city’s buildings and highways, making them more resistant to quakes.

Despite the good new, civil engineers aren’t resting on their successes. Pinned to their drawing boards are blueprints（蓝图）for improved quake-resistant buildings. The new designs should offer even greater security to cities where earthquakes often take place.

In the past, making structures quake-resistant meant firm yet flexible materials, such as steel and wood, that bend without breaking. Later, people tried to lift a building off its foundation, and insert rubber and steel between the building and its foundation to reduce the impact of ground vibrations. The most recent designs give buildings brains as well as concrete and steel supports. Called smart buildings, the structures respond like living organisms to an earthquake’s vibrations. When the ground shakes and the building tips forward, the computer would force the building to shift in the opposite direction.

The new smart structures could be very expensive to build. However, they would save many lives and would be less likely to be damaged during earthquakes.

Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away-straight up. A decade ago, adapting the infrared（红外线）scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely target pesticide（杀虫剂）spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don’t have pest（害虫）problems.

Even better, Paley’s Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running “fevers”. Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.

The bad news is that Paley’s company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. “This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States,” says George Oerther of Texas A&M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago.

Most children with healthy appetites are ready to eat almost anything that is offered them and a child rarely dislikes food ___61___ it is badly cooked. The ___62___ a meal is cooked and served is most important and an ___63___ served meal will often improve a child’s appetite. Never ask a child ___64___ he likes or dislikes a food and never ___65___ likes and dislikes in front of him or allow ___66___ else to do so. If the father says he hates fat meat or the mother ___67___ vegetables in the child’s hearing he is ___68___ to copy this procedure. Take it ___69___ granted that he likes everything and he probably ___70___. Nothing healthful should be omitted from the meal because of a ___71___ dislike. At meal times it is a good ___72___ to give a child a small portion and let him ___73___ back for a second helping rather than give him as ___74___ as he is likely to eat all at once. Do not talk too much to the child ___75___ meal times, but let him get on with his food; and do not ___76___ him to leave the table immediately after a meal or he will ___77___ learn to swallow his food ___78___ he can hurry back to his toys. Under ___79___ circumstances must a child be coaxed (哄骗) ___80___ forced to eat.