今天沪江四六级教研继续为大家推出四六级的阅读理解预测题，今天的主题是“科技”，这也是一大热门话题哦！

Passage One

预测话题：科技发展

Hospital workers often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day, but now new devices could reduce the task to just four second, cleaning even hard-to-reach areas under fingernails. Instead of scrubbing, the workers would put their hands into a small box that bathes them with plasma (等离子). This plasma is at room temperature and pressure, and is engineered to kill germs.

The technology is being developed in several laboratories. Gregor Morfill, who created several prototypes using the technology at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, says the plasma quickly inactivates not only bacteria but also viruses and fungi (真菌).

Plasmas engineered to kill microorganisms aren't new. During the last decade, they have come into use to sterilize (消毒) some medical instruments. But using them on human tissue is another matter, said Mark Kushner, director of the Michigan Institute for Plasma Science and Engineering and a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "Many thousands of volts drive the generation of plasma," he said, "and normally one doesn't want to touch thousands of volts." But the design of the new hand sanitizers, he said, protects people from doing so.

He said that there were many documented cases of plasmas being applied for sanitizing skin or other body parts, and for speeding the rate of blood clotting in wound healing.

Dr. Morfill, who has a plasma research laboratory inside the international space station, took an unusual route to studying medical uses of plasmas. He was researching the natural plasmas of space, including the charged dust in Saturn's (土星) rings, and decided to develop plasmas for health on earth. He has developed several prototypes of hand-cleaning devices that can be mounted on walls, as well as a portable, battery-operated model the size of a large electric toothbrush. The devices can probably be built for $100 or less, as no expensive parts are used, he said.

Many other cleaning applications of plasma are being researched. In addition to hand sanitisers, Michael G. Kong, a professor of bioelectrics engineering at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, England, has developed a prototype for plasma jets that can be built into air-conditioning systems. As air is transmitted through the system from one hospital room to another, for example, the jets inactivate microorganisms, fungi and viruses in the air.

In the Netherlands, Gerrit M. W. Kroesen, a professor of plasma physics at the Eindhoven University of Technology, is focusing on the treatment of burn wounds. "We have seen that plasmas help with disinfection," he said. "They also stimulate regeneration of tissue."

The first products to reach hospitals, after surface cleaners and instrument disinfectants, will probably be hand sanitisers, said Alexander Fridman, a professor and director of the Drexel Plasma Institute at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

"Hand sanitisers are the low-hanging fruit here," he said, as their safety can be demonstrated relatively easily. But other potential applications, including treatment of burns or cancers, are further away.

1. What is said about plasma used in the new hand-cleaning devices?
[A] It is designed mainly to save water.
[B] It simplifies the process of hand sterilizing.
[C] It can't clean hard-to-reach areas under fingernails.
[D] It only makes hospital workers free from live bacteria.

2. What does Mark Kushner say about the new hand-cleaning devices?
[A] They do not need energy to generate power.
[B] Their design can keep people from contacting high volts.
[C] They generate plasma at room temperature and pressure.
[D] They can be used to sterilise medical instruments.

3. The hand-cleaning devices developed by Dr. Morfill _______.
[A] are easily carried and not expensive
[B] is difficult to apply to medical use
[C] have just come onto the market
[D] use the natural plasmas of space

4. Gerrit M. W. Kroesen hoped plasmas can be used in _______.
[A] air-conditioner cleaning
[B] hospital sterilizing
[C] the treatment of medical wastes
[D] the treatment of burn wounds

5. What does the passage mainly talk about?
[A] The advantages of hand-cleaning devices.
[B] The development of medical technology.
[C] The applications of plasma in medicine.
[D] The new ways to fight germs.

1.
答案：B
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词plasma和new hand-cleaning devices定位到第一段。第一句说有一种新装置可以将医务工作者的洗手时间缩短至四秒中，而第二句就提到实现的方式就是把手放进一个内含等离子的小盒子里。由此可知，新型装置简化了消毒手的过程。故答案选B。

2.
答案：B
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词Mark Kushner定位到第三段。第三句提到库什纳说生成等离子需要上千伏的电压，正常情况下谁都不会想去接触几千伏的高压。后来又补充说这种新型的洗手机会保护人们在使用时避免接触高压。故答案选B。

3.
答案：A
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词Dr. Morfill定位到第五段。第五段提到莫菲尔博士发明了好几种样式的洁手装置，有的就是可便携的。第四句提到莫菲尔博士的装置不需要昂贵的部件，造价可能最多只有100美元。由此可知，答案应选A。

4.
答案：D
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词Gerrit M. W. Kroesen定位到倒数第三段第一句。该句提到Gerrit M. W. Kroesen专注于等离子体在烧伤伤口处理上的应用。由此可知，答案应选D。

5.
答案：C
解析：
本题为主旨题。文章前5段讲述了等离子体可以用来制造消灭病毒的洁手装置，6-9段讲述了等离子体在其他方面的研究及应用。故答案应选C。

Passage Two

（预测话题：美国教育问题、文化种族歧视）

In American high schools today, it's taken as a given that extracurricular (课外的) activities bring students of different races together. What's more, it's in clubs and sports teams that the conditions of Allport's Contact Theory are actually met—students are working together towards a single goal, rather than competing against each other.

If school districts can widely integrate their sports teams and clubs, then they might see less self-segregation in the hallways and lunchrooms.

It fell to a Duke University scholar, Dr. Charles Clotfelter, to figure out a way to measure how well schools are doing on this front.

Clotfelter could easily look up the racial composition of every school—those numbers are tracked by the National Centre for Education Statistics. But the racial make-up of clubs and sports teams wasn't as easy. How to go about getting a tabulation (列表) of who's in the drama club, belongs to the engineering society, and runs the school newspapers?

Then Clotfelter landed on an ingenious solution. In nearby Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was a printing company called Jostens. Inc. Jostens is one of the biggest printers of high school yearbooks. Clotfelter got permission to drive over and haul away a huge random sample of yearbooks from the previous year, which represented a fairly good mix of public, private independent, and Catholic high schools throughout the Midwest, Northeast and South.

Then his graduate students found every photograph of every track team, French club and Yearbook Club that existed in those yearbooks. There are over 4,400 sports teams and another 4,400 more clubs, each with roughly a couple dozen members on average—ultimately equivalent to a poll of over 150,000 students. It was painstaking work to catalogue the race of every kid in every photo.

Clotfelter found that extracurricular activities were far from the desegregating force they should be. The average club was 39% less diverse than the school itself. Fully one-third of all clubs and teams are mono-racial. In fact, there seemed to be a curious phenomenon: white students almost never belonged to a team or a club that was less than 3/4 white. If a club's racial composition got too diverse, it was hard to find a white face, save for clubs in the most diverse schools. There were also a small proportion of ethnic-identity clubs that whites probably did not feel welcome to join.

We couldn't help but wonder what if school districts were more proactively (积极地) getting kids involved in these activities—making sure that their participation includes kids from all races, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds. To do so, districts and schools would need to actively recruit students into various clubs and activities. They would need to make sure that fees for participation don't prohibit children from low-income families from joining. Bus schedules, too, would likely also have to be addressed, since they often make it hard for kids from other neighborhoods to participate.

It would take a real effort, but so many good things come from diverse extracurricular activities, shouldn't these be fostered?

6. What do we know about extracurricular activities in American high schools?
[A] Students are united and work to reach the same goal.
[B] There still exists prejudice and racial discrimination.
[C] Students from different races have equal access.
[D] They are organised according to Allport's Contact Theory.

7. What problem did Clotfelter face when he studied the effect of schools' extracurricular activities?
[A] Students were unwilling to cooperate when he conducted the poll.
[B] There was no available data of the racial composition of every school.
[C] He found it impossible to catalogue the structural feature of all high schools.
[D] It was difficult to compare the racial makeup of the clubs and sports teams.

8. How did Clotfelter manage to solve the problem in the end?
[A] By seeking cooperation with heads of the school clubs and sports teams.
[B] By hiring some graduate students to carry out a poll in the schools.
[C] By cataloguing the races from the pictures presented in the yearbooks.
[D] By getting the racial data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

9. What did Clotfelter's study reveal about the extracurricular activities?
[A] Most of them were exclusive to white and rich students only.
[B] They contributed to the forming of interracial friendships.
[C] They didn't help eliminate racial segregation as expected.
[D] They seemed to be neglected by American school districts.

10. To promote extracurricular mixing, the author suggests districts and schools _______.
[A] rearrange the school shuttles
[B] set stricter rules for the activities
[C] offer free buses for poor students
[D] make some curricular changes

1.
答案：B
解析：
本题为推断题。根据题干关键词extracurricular activities定位到第一段。该段提到课外活动让不同种族的学生聚在一起被视为一种假设。第二段也提到了自我种族隔离。由此可推断，当今美国中学的课外活动仍存在种族歧视。

2.
答案：D
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词Clotfelter，problem和studied定位到第三四段。第四段最后两句提到搞清俱乐部和运动队的种族成分没有那么容易。由此可知，要进行两者的比较很难是研究遇到的问题。因此答案应选D。

3.
答案：C
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词solve the problem定位到第5、6段。两段提到Clotfelter从乔斯滕斯印刷公司中随机抽取上一年的年鉴的样品，并从中获得每个俱乐部和运动队的照片。由此可知答案选C。

4.
答案：C
解析：
本题为细节题。根据题干关键词Clotfelter's study定位到倒数第三段。首句提到Clotfelter发现课外活动远未发挥其应发挥的消除种族隔离的作用。故答案选择C。

5.
答案：A
解析：
本题为态度题。根据题干关键词districts and schools定位到倒数第二段。该段提到学区和学校需要积极动员学生参加各种俱乐部和活动；确保参加费用不至于阻碍低收入家庭孩子的参与，以及校车时刻表问题要设法解决。故答案应选A。