B

   In most towns today, it’s not surprising at all to see teenagers standing over electronic machines with flashing lights, shooting at spaceships from other planets and dropping bombs on strange monsters. The machines have names like Space Warrior, Dark Invader and so on. It used to be believed that damage was done only to those strange visitors from outer space, but now it seems that they are striking back. 

   Many teenagers like electronic games so much that they can’t stop playing. They spend hours holding the joystick controls（操纵杆）and pressing buttons marked “fire”. These actions develop pains in their fingers because of the constant pressure. They play and play so the pains have no chance to be cured properly. The players have to move their wrists quickly in order to guide the spaceship across the screen, and this causes another problem: The muscles of the wrist and arm become so swollen that they press against the bones. This condition is what doctors now call “Space Warrior’s Wrist.”

Other strange aches and pains are also likely to affect the elbows and shoulders. 

Another even more serious problem is shown by the case of a 17-year-old girl which was recently reported in the British Medical Journal. She had been playing various kinds of electronic games for more than two hours a day. Her father repaired games and machines and she could use the systems in his workshop as often as she liked. One day, after playing a game called Dark Invader, she lost consciousness and fell to the floor. 

Doctors found that she was suffering from an unusual illness caused by frequent lights flashing. Such cases are not rare but haven’t attracted enough attention from parents. Scientists warn that there may be worse symptoms resulting from these flashing lights. Therefore, the government and the school should take effective measures to teach these addicted children to protect themselves. 

31. Electronic games are found very popular with ______. 

   A. people living in towns                          B. high school students    

C. girls working in their father’s workshops           D. young people 

32. The underlined sentence in the first paragraph probably means _______. 

   A. those strange visitor are fighting their way back to the earth

   B. the game players are escaping from the games

   C. the games are becoming popular among teenagers again 

   D. the games also cause great harm to the players

33. “Space Warrior’s Wrist” is caused by _____. 

   A. quickly moving their wrists in playing spaceship games

   B. rapidly moving across the screen 

   C. tightly holding the joystick controls    

D. swollen muscles of the wrist 

34. The 17-year-old girl lost her consciousness because _____. 

   A. she had been playing games for more than two hours a day 

   B. she used the systems in her father’s workshop 

   C. flashing lights of the games made her sick    

D. dark invaders attacked her 

35. From the passage we can conclude that the author’s attitude toward electronic games is ____. 

   A. approving       B. negative         C. neutral      D objective 

C

Imagine making your own bicycle. You can do it at the Bamboo Bike Studio in New York City. The people who work at the studio teach customers how to build their own bikes from bamboo. 

“ Our goal is to create the opportunities for people to get the perfect bike, the one they build themselves, “ says Marty Odlin, one of the studio’s owners,  “Bamboo is very user-friendly. There's no way a non-expert could build a steel bike in a weekend. But with bamboo, it’s possible."

The Bamboo Bike Studio is also helping set up factories in Ghana, a country in West Africa. The factories will produce inexpensive bamboo bikes on a large scale. If this project is successful, it might mean new jobs and inexpensive transportation for the people of that country. Bamboo bikes are a natural fit in Ghana because bamboo grows abundantly throughout the country. It is a grass, not a tree, and it is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. It can grow up to 40 inches in a single day. 

Bamboo has qualities that make it as good as steel for building a durable(耐用的), comfortable vehicle. It contains a large amount of SiO2, a hard compound (化合物) that is the most abundant building block of rocks on Earth. A bamboo bike, says Odlin, is “the perfect everyday bike.”

In Ghana, bikes are in high demand. Few people have enough money to afford a car. So bikes are used to transport most of the country’s food and material goods.

The people of Ghana are also too poor to finance the construction of factories that build traditional steel bikes. But mass-producing bicycles from locally grown bamboo is a workable alternative, says Odlin. He plans to show teams of Ghanian workers how to quickly assemble bamboo bikes. He estimates each worker will be able to produce about four bikes a day.

36. What is the aim of the Bamboo Bike Studio?

   A. Protecting the environment.   

B. Helping developing countries.

  C. Reducing the pressure of traffic. 

D. Helping people to get perfect bikes.

 37. Which of the following words best describes the work of the Bamboo Bike Studio in Ghana? 

A. Experimental    B. Dangerous       C. Successful      D. Difficult

38. Bamboo is suitable for building bikes mainly because______.

A. it is a grass    B. it grows fast     C. it is strong    D. it is user-friendly

39. The underlined word “assemble” in the last paragraph can best be replaced by “_____”.

A. ride B. build C. buy D. choose

40. What would be the best title for the passage?

A. Life without steel      B. Bamboo Bike Studio

C. New uses of bamboo          D. A natural fit
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