23) The main culprit is carbon doxide, more than half of which is produced by burning fossil fuels. Global temperatures are predicted to rise 3 degrees above the current average by 2080, which may mean that the sea will rise by 40 cm, flooding 94 million people.
At the next Times Frontiers debate, a panel, including Professor Elliott, will discuss solutions to our energy problem. "It is a great time to be involved in the energy business," says one of the speakers, Dr Bernie Bulkin, chief scientist for BP. "When people talk about exciting technologies such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, they don't realise that they are all dependent on creating new mobile power sources. After all, what good is a nano device if the power supply to run it is a million times bigger?"
Professor Elliott believes that the future of energy lies in multiple, small scale power generators which use non-polluting, renewable energy. 24)
However, some people think that wind alone will not solve our energy crisis - and ,indeed, some of the most promising new research has been in tidal power. 25) Moreover, they are completely reliable, since tidal power comes from the constant pull of the Moon which tugs the tide up or down every 12 hours.
One company looking at this issue is Marine Current Turbines. It has developed hydroelectric turbines that look like giant propellers. They sit on the seabed, in effect acting like underwater windmills-except that they can generate twice as much energy as a conventional windmill, since water is 800 times denser than air. The company plans to place them in undersea farms in areas with high currents, and is currently carrying out tests off the north Devon coast.
A many of us are aware, global warming has become an increasingly serious issue due to the build-up of greenhouse gases.
B Of all the renewables, wind power is probably the most successful: around 24 megawatts of electricity are produced throught out the world from wind, and it costs less than gas.
C The Government recently made ￡ 20 million available in the form of grants for conversion to solar energy.
D Dr Tom Delay, the third panellist and chief executive of the Government-funded Carbon Trust, believes that hydrogen is the way forward and may become the dominant fuel.
E Tidal power generators have little or no visual impact, they are silent, environmentally benign and will not harm marine life.
F But despite this positive prognosis, we still have a problem-we cannot risk using these fuels.
G Thirty years ago scientists predicted that we would run out of the three main fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas.
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Like most people, you may have heard a lot about online banking but probably haven' t tried it yourself. You still pay your bills by mail and deposit checks at your bank branch, much the way your parents did. Actually, online banking isn' t out to change your money habits. (26) Instead, it uses today' s computer technology to give you the option of by-passing the time-consuming, paper-based aspects of traditional banking in order to manage your finances more quickly and efficiently.
The advent of the Internet and the popularity of personal computers presented both an opportunity and a challenge for the banking industry. For years, financial institutions have used powerful computer networks to automate millions of daily transactions. (27) Now that their customers are connected to the Internet via personal computers, banks begin to envision similar economic advantages by adapting those same internal electronic processes to home use.
Banks view online banking as a powerful "value-added" tool to attract and retain new customer while helping to eliminate costly paper handling and teller interactions in an increasingly competitive banking environment.
Today, most large national banks, many regional banks and even smaller banks and credit unions offer some form of online banking, variously known as PC banking, home banking, electronic banking or Internet banking. (28) Online banks are sometimes referred to as "brick-to-click" banks, both to distinguish them from "brick-and-mortar" banks that haven't yet offer online banking, as well as from "virtual" banks that have no physical branches or tellers whatsoever.
The challenge for the banking industry has been to design this new service channel in such a way that its customers will readily learn to use and trust it. Most of the large banks can now offer fully secure, fully functional online banking for free or for a small fee. (29) As more banks succeed online and more customers use their sites, fully functional online banking likely will become as commonplace as automated teller machines.
Online banking has a lot of advantages. Unlike your corner bank, online banking sites never close; they' re available 24 hours a day, seven days a week ,and they' re only a mouse click away. If you' re out of state or even out of the country when a money problem arises, you can log on instantly to your online bank and take care of business. Online bank sites generally execute and confirm transactions at or quicker than ATM processing speeds.(30) Many online banking sites now offer sophisticated tools, including account aggregation, stock quotes, and portfolio managing programs to help you manage all of your assets more effectively.
Part A
Text 1
一、词语解释
pastel 彩色粉笔，蜡笔
preponderance 优势
rack 搁物架
proceed through 穿行
strobe 频闪灯
propensity 倾向
ambience 环境，气氛
perimeter 周围、四周、周边、边缘
二、文章分析
本文主要讲述了创造出适合顾客口味的购物环境对于零售商有重大意义。
Para.1：不同商店有不同的风格，店面的整体气氛是一店区别于他店的关键。
Para.2：购物者在不同的商店能体会到不同气氛，不同的气氛可以吸引不同的购物者。
Para.3：零售商们创造出自己独具一格的购物环境显得尤为重要，因为这是吸引顾客到他们商店而不是去百货商店购物的关键。
Para.4：商店的布局图可使购物者对本店的基本情况有个大概的印象，从而帮助他们购物。
Para.5：商品的摆放方式也是吸引顾客的一大技巧。要把好卖的商品放在后面，把不好卖的商品放在顾客必经之地。
Para.6：商品的摆放的重要性。
三、答案解析
1Bstore atmosphere,store layout和merchandise display是文章阐述的商家吸引顾客的三个方法。
2C第二段列举了三种不同的store atmosphere,作者并未评价何种更有优势，而是说"Each type of atmosphere is aimed at a particular target market"。可见不同设计是为了取悦不同顾客，各有千秋。
3Dmargin本意为"页边的空白"，由上下文可推断出"highmargin merchandise"是与"the most desired merchandise"相对的，意即需求较小的商品。
4C商品的布置包括store layout和merchandise display两个层面，因而A的说法不够准确。文章最后一句提到"the display also needs to be consistent with the store′s atmosphere"，因而D项错误。从倒数第二段中可以推出有效的商品布局能够起到吸引顾客多购物的作用，因此选C。
5A全文介绍的是从三个层次上商店给购物者传递信息，再由第一句"the shopper receives continuous messages at three levels"可确定A为正确答案。B、C、D只提供一个片面信息。
四、难句点评
①参考译文：不同的零售商越是出售相同的商品，就越有必要创造出独特的购物环境。
译文透析：the more……the more，越……越。
②参考译文：百货商店在商品种类和数量上占有绝对优势，在其他任何商店能买到的东西，在这儿都能买到。
译文透析：注意将preponderance翻成汉语时，要根据句子的意思补充出其具体的含义。
③参考译文：商店的布局应该是把需求较少的商品放在客流量最大的地方，把最受欢迎的商品放在后面，这样顾客要想买到自己想要的商品必须经过其他许多商品。
译文透析：理解本句的关键是：把the highmargin merchandise和the most desired merchandise结合起来理解，这样就可得出 highmargin merchandise是指需求量不大的商品。
