英语阅读材料Word格式.docx

1、B （节奏极强的一种美国音乐） （your daughters favorite） to your preferred all-news station. The cars electric motor runs on hydrogen, and has already been topped off （装满）, automatically, from an appliance in your garage. So far, so good.2. You glide onto the freeway ramp （高速公路匝道） and decide to get a jump on the w

2、orkweek. Setting the automatic pilot, you call up the office e-mail through the on-board computer. Guided by advanced cruise control, GPS, and sensors embedded in the roadway, the car stays in its lane, maintains a safe distance from other vehicles, and alerts you to your exit. Once in the parking l

3、ot, you check the fuel gauge （燃油面指示器） and figure youve got more than enough juice to make it home. So you plug into the citys power grid to feed it electricity generated by your car - for which youll get an energy credit later on.3. Sounds great, doesnt it? What this cheery vision of a morning commu

4、te （上下班） hides is a growing sense of urgency on the part of the worlds automakers. The current model for making and selling cars in the United States - big vehicles with big fuel tanks and sky-high costs - has almost driven the auto industry off the road. No ones predicting that gasoline prices will

5、 come down dramatically anytime soon, if ever. The pollution and energy consumption, plus the traffic, created by so many cars will simply force the industry to change.4. The questions are what, and how soon. Experts generally agree that were on the verge of an era of new fuels. “We have to find alt

6、ernatives,” says Larry Burns, vice president of Research and Development and Strategic Planning for General Motors Corp., and one of the industrys most optimistic visionaries. “By 2020, were expecting 1.1 billion cars and trucks on the planet, compared to 750 million today. Imagine 125 freeway lanes

7、 running side by side, bumper （汽车的保险杆） to bumper, going all the way around the world.”5. The leading candidate to replace good old smelly gasoline is hydrogen （氢）, the most plentiful and available element on the planet. No one geographical region has a monopoly on it - so theres little chance of a p

8、roduction cartel, like OPEC. And in theory at least, hydrogen will deliver superior fuel efficiency with no air pollution. Already, the major automakers are working on hydrogen-fed fuel cells. Demonstration hydrogen-powered vehicles are on the roads, and Burns predicts real consumers will be behind

9、the wheels by 2010.6. Others, however, believe hydrogen cars are much further in the future, maybe even a half-century away. For starters, the fuel cells made with todays technology are hugely expensive. Science knows how to make them - just not how to make them cheaply. Add to that the lack of a hy

10、drogen-fueling infrastructure （基础设施）, and technical difficulties of storing and handling hydrogen, and youre looking at years of work ahead. 7. “Fundamentally, we see no game-changing technology available by 2020,” says Bob Rivard, vice president of Advanced Technology and Product Marketing for auto

11、motive supplier Robert Bosch Corp. “Well see evolutionary steps, not a paradigm shift.” Among the stages he envisions are cleaner, more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered vehicles, along with alternative fuels and new propulsion systems （动力装置）. Gasoline-electric hybrids, like the Toyota Prius, Ford Esc

12、ape, and Honda Civic and Insight, will be more common. “As much as wed like to be getting around in flying saucers, the reality is that by 2020 well still be driving vehicles that use fossil fuels,” says Mary Ann Wright, Ford Motor Co.s director of Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicl

13、e Programs. “But I do think there will come a point in time when every vehicle will have some kind of hybrid technology.”8. Within the next decade, expect to see more clean diesel-powered engines, like those available from Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz. These vehicles are up to 40 percent more fuel-e

14、fficient than gasoline cars, and produce about 15 percent less carbon dioxide. The downside of diesel? Oxides of nitrogen - known as NOx - are potent irritants （有效的刺激剂）. Other new gasoline replacements to watch for: biofuel and biodiesel, and natural gas. 9. If theres disagreement over just what wil

15、l power the car of the future, theres no debate about how cool the actual vehicles will be - very, very cool. Electronic functions, driver preferences, wireless connectivity - its all in the pipeline, coming at us fast. Picture this: Its 2020 and youre driving home from work on the freeway. But ther

16、e are no road signs anywhere, not for stores, gas stations, restaurants or even the local exits and interchanges （立体交叉道）. Theres no need for them - your cars computer keeps you oriented and on track. （It also knows the speed limit, so youll have no excuses with the local cop.） Cant recall if you nee

17、d milk for breakfast? Your cars computer contacts your home inventory system （存储系统） to check. Sure enough, you need milk - and OJ too. The interactive systems take over. Your car spots a convenience store at the next exit and zaps （快速备好） your grocery list ahead. When you arrive, everything is bagged

18、 and ready for pickup.10. “By 2020, it will no longer be a big deal to have Internet connectivity almost anywhere, anytime,” says K. Venkatesh Prasad, technical leader in Fords Infotronics Technologies Department. He notes that the youngest of the year 2020s new generation of car buyers is about thr

19、ee years old right now. “That means everyone coming into the auto market will have known nothing but the Internet, and he or she will take it for granted,” he says. Far-fetched? Prasad thinks no more so than what was once another radical idea - distributing money from machines called ATMs.Unit 3 Les

20、son 1The Pursuit of HappinessModern science and ancient wisdom agree: what will really make you happy might not be what you think.1 A good friend of mine was driving one rainy morning when his car suddenly hit an oily patch（小块土地） and spun out of control. His attempts to regain control of the vehicle

21、 were futile. The car swerved down the road and began to roll. After what seemed like an eternity, the car came to a stop right side up. As he sat clutching （紧紧抓住） the steering wheel in a hot sweat shaken but uninjured the radio started playing the song “Dont Worry, Be Happy.” Laughable now, the sen

22、timent was a good one at the time, but a little challenging to implement（执行）under the circumstances. The Pursuit 2 Anne Frank once asserted, “We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” Indeed, we are all on a common quest the pursuit of happiness. S

23、o how can we discover it?3 A good place to start is to identify the things that do not guarantee happiness. A common misconception is that money, and plenty of it, is integral to a happy life. Research indicates that in order to be happy we do need the basics （it is certainly more challenging to be

24、cheery when you are sitting in the rain because you dont have a roof over your head while your tummy screams at you for some filling）, but, after our basic needs are met, it seems that money contributes little to our level of happiness. It is true: happiness cant be bought. 4 Career doesnt guarantee

25、 happiness either. If it is happiness you are seeking, pursuing it by climbing the corporate ladder could find you staring at the wrong wall. Studies within companies have found similar levels of happiness from the entry-level workers up through senior management. Essentially, it is not the type of

26、work we do that promotes or reduces our level of happiness; it is what that work means to us that makes the difference. 5 Finally, even love doesnt promise happiness. Married people report similar levels of happiness to single individuals, except around the dating and wedding times when there is an

27、upward trend in happiness scores. This peak tends to level out once married life becomes routine and happiness scores return to baseline. Yet while love does not promise happiness, it may provide the opportunity for it. In one survey individuals commonly reported that family （especially children） an

28、d friends brought them the greatest joy in their life. Indeed, relationships have the effect of magnifying our emotions the good get better and the bad get worse. It would seem then that if times with family and friends are mostly happy ones, then our lives will be significantly enriched. 6 If money

29、, career, and relationships arent happiness guarantors, what is the best path to happiness? The answer depends on the type of happiness youre seeking. Pioneer happiness researcher Dr. Martin Seligman has identified three levels of happiness. Level 1: Pleasure 7 A good giggle（大笑） does us a world of g

30、ood. Laughter stimulates the release of stress-relieving hormones （荷尔蒙） similar to that released during strenuous exercise, and so the “high” we get from laughter is a real one. 8 Undeniably, to laugh is pleasurable, and pleasure makes us happy, but there is a downside. Laughter is not limitless. Pl

31、easure is never permanent. Even the best jokes lose their punch（吸引力）the third or fourth time around, and our most enjoyed activities wear thin unless there is a new twist. So in the pursuit of happiness, pleasure is problematic. If our happiness is founded in our ability to attain and maintain pleasure, we are destined for discontent. John D. Rockefeller once asserted, “I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.” 9 This is not to denigrate（诋毁