Cast your mind back to the past twenty years and hardly did anyone have their own email account. The Internet had just taken off in 1991 and people were only using office and PC­based email exchanges.
In the mid 1990s external email providers appeared. The most famous of these was Hotmail, the first free email provider and web­based email service. Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail on July 4, 1996. And Microsoft took note of and bought Hotmail for $400 million on December 30, 1997, a nice birthday present for Bhatia who turned 29 that day. It was relaunched as MSN Hotmail and in 2007 was relaunched again as Windows Live Hotmail.
Fast forward the present day and most of us have at least a personal web­based email account. It seems impossible to live without them. One of the biggest advantages of email is the fact that communication has become so much easier, especially with those across different time zones. Email takes seconds to send a message whereas letters, as we used to communicate by, could take weeks. Of course there was the fax, that beeping invention from the 1980s, but it wasn’t as secure as email and you never knew if the person on the other end had picked up your fax or if it had got lost somewhere in the office.
In conclusion, one of the best inventions from the 1990s has to be email. But sometimes people are too closely connected to their email and have a compulsion to check it several times a day. At work, people have become lazy and instead of going to speak to the person sitting next to them, they send an email，causing an in box to pile up with more time spent reading email and responding rather than working. Clearly, an invention that saved time because of its quick and speedy connection can now also cause us to waste a lot of time.
小題1:The earliest web-based email came into being probably _______.
A．in 1991B．in 1996C．in 1997D．in 2007
小題2:The author mentions “fax” in the third paragraph in order to tell us that _______.
A．it is exactly as good as email
B．it is much better than email
C．it is less convenient than email
D．it is easier and faster than email
小題3:The underlined word “compulsion” in Paragraph 4 probably means “_______”.
A．strong desireB．common senseC．special curiosityD．general idea
小題4:Which is the main idea of the last paragraph?
A．We should check email boxes frequently.
B．Lazy people like sending an email.
C．Email brings us great convenience.
D．Good inventions also cause problems.

小題1:B
小題2:C
小題3:A
小題4:D

試題分析：文章介紹了通信方式的發(fā)展變化。自從有了互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，電子郵件快速發(fā)展，得到了廣泛的應(yīng)用。幾乎每個人都有一個電子郵件賬號。但是，發(fā)明給我們帶來便利的同時，也會附帶有一些問題的出現(xiàn)。
小題1:根據(jù)“In the mid 1990s external email providers appeared. The most famous of these was Hotmail, the first free email provider and web­based email service. Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail on July 4, 1996.”可知，基于網(wǎng)絡(luò)的最早的電子郵件出現(xiàn)在二十世紀九十年代中期，故選B。
小題2:根據(jù)第三段“Of course there was the fax, that beeping invention from the 1980s, but it wasn’t as secure as email and you never knew if the person on the other end had picked up your fax or if it had got lost somewhere in the office.”可知，傳真沒有電子郵件安全，無法知道對方是否接收了傳真，或者把傳真的文件放丟了。傳真沒有電子郵件方便，故選C。
小題3:根據(jù)最后一段“But sometimes people are too closely connected to their email and have a compulsion to check it several times a day.”可知，有時候，人們與電子郵件的聯(lián)系過于密切，以至于有一種一天查收好幾次的欲望。故選A。
小題4:根據(jù)最后一段“Clearly, an invention that saved time because of its quick and speedy connection can now also cause us to waste a lot of time.”可知，好的發(fā)明在帶來便利的同時，也會引起許多問題。故選D。
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A．suggest Beijing should learn from other countries
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During the 1970s, people started becoming concerned about the pollution that is created when coal and gas are burned to produce electricity. People also realized that the supply of coal and gas would not last forever. Then, wind was rediscovered, though it means higher cost. Today, there is a global movement to supply more and more of our electricity through the use of wind.
小題1:From the text we know that windmills________.
A．were invented by European armies
B．have a history of more than 2,800 years
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B．Producing electricity.
C．Grinding wheat into flour.
D．Pumping water from underground.
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