As motorways become more and more blocked up with traffic, a new generation on flying cars will be needed to ferry people along skyways. That is the conclusion of engineers from the US space agency and aeronautical firms, who
envision future commuters traveling by “skycar”.
These could look much like the concept skycar shown in the picture, designed by Boeing research and development. However, such vehicles could be some 25 years from appearing on the market. Efforts to build flying vehicles in the past have not been very successful. Such vehicles would not only be expensive and require the skills of a trained pilot to fly, but there are significant engineering challenges involved in developing them. “When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that’s hard to use,” said Mark Moore, head of the personal air vehicle(PAV) division of the vehicle systems program at Nasa’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, US. But Boeing is also considering how to police the airways-and prevent total pandemonium(吵雜狂亂的喧鬧)-if thousands of flying cars enter the skies.
“The neat, gee-whiz part is thinking about what the vehicle itself would look like,” said Dick Paul, a vice president with Phantom Works, Boeing’s research and development arm. “But we’re trying to think through all the consequences of what it would take to deploy(散開) a fleet of these.”
Past proposals to solve this problem have included artificial intelligence systems to prevent collisions between air traffic. Nasa is working on flying vehicles with the initial goal of transforming small plane travel. Small planes are generally costly, loud, and require months of training and lots of money to operate, making flying to work impractical for most people. But within five years, Nasa researchers hope to develop technology for a small plane that can fly out of regional airports, costs less than $100,000(£55,725), is as quiet as a motorcycle and as simple to operate as a car.
Although it would not have any road-driving capabilities, it would bring this form of travel within the grasp of a wider section of people. The new technology would automate many of the pilot’s functions. This Small Aircraft Transportation System(Sats) would divert pressure away from the “hub-and-spoke(中心輻射型)” model of air travel. Hub-and-spoke refers to the typically US model of passengers being processed through large “hub” airports and then on to secondary flights to “spoke” airports near their final destinations.
小題1:The best title for this text would be
.
| A．Developing Skycars | B．The Traffic Jams in the Sky |
| C．How to Guide Flying Cars in the Sky | D．What Flying Cars Will Look Like |
小題2: The underlined word “
envision” in Paragraph 1 most probably means “
”.
| A．see | B．expect | C．think | D．announce |
小題3:When engineers develop the skycars, they have to deal with the following difficulties except
.
| A．how to fly out of regional airports |
| B．how to prevent the disorder of the airways |
| C．how to reduce expenses and the vehicle’s weight |
| D．how to fly the skycars to enter skies |
小題4: Now Nasa researchers’ aim is to
.
| A．make big flying cars |
| B．work out the plan——how to transform small plane travel |
| C．develop a new kind of small plane different from the traditional one |
| D．build a new kind of small plane with road-driving abilities |
口算能手系列答案
36 , and it is better to call a spade a spade. But dustmen can be as 37 as people of any other occupation, though we must 38 that their job is not a 39 one in the world. We often take dustmen for granted. Perhaps because they usually come very early in the morning, before most people are 40 .We are likely to forget their 41 .Our dustbins are 42 regularly, but we 43 stop to think about the men who do this. However, it is one of the most important jobs in the world, and when there are no dustmen to 44 the rubbish, the general 45 soon becomes aware that something is wrong. Recently, the dustmen of England went on strike for higher wages. 
e hills of rubbish around their dustbins, and they looked for other places in which to 50 it. Even Leicester Square, in the heart of West End of London, was 51 high with plastic bags full of smelly rubbish. This was a（n） 52 attraction that the people of London were not at all 53 to see. Even when the strike was over, it took several weeks for the country to get cleaned up completely. Perhaps now the English people appreciate the work of 54 dustmen rather 
(特別地) polite? Say how much you like the room,
or the pictures on the wall. But remember — it's not polite to ask how much things cost．
verything on your plate and to take more if you want it．
he or she doesn't like you
acks before the evening
ing to the passage, how many people in 900 Americans have a “weight problem”?
eful