Barcodes(條形碼) aren’t given much thought by the majority of consumers, but these codes were fairly recently applied in a working fashion in 1970.
A small food store owner decided one day that keeping records of the inventory(存貨) of his stock and the associated prices were an extremely laborious process, and so, in 1948, he contacted The Drexel Institute of Technology in a bid to work towards a solution. Bernard Sliver rose to the challenge and set out to study the problem and began working on a solution involving an automatic way of keeping track of items that had been sold. Sliver and a group of students from the institute realized their answer in the form of ultraviolet light (紫外線), ink and a scanner.
The system worked initially, but possessed some negatives. It was incredibly costly to carry out on a large scale and the system was also unstable. If the invention was to become commonplace（尋常的事）in grocery stores, these two problems had to be solved.
The patent (專利) for the bar code system was filed by Sliver and one of his students, Woodland. The patent was not granted immediately; in fact, it took three years for the patent agency to grant their invention patent for the barcode, occurring on 7^th October, 1952.
Despite the patent being issued, the system was still not welcomed by the majority of store owners. It was not until 1966 that the system began moving its way into more and more grocery stores. This system was soon criticized, as there was no central mechanism for controlling uniformly（統(tǒng)一地）coded items. In 1970, Logicom developed the Universal Grocery Products Identification code( UGOIC), soon shortened to Universal Identification Number (UPC). It was Marsh’s superstore, in Troy, which was the very first store to install this complex barcode reading system, and its popularity has soared(升溫) ever since, and is obviously now commonplace in all types of stores worldwide.
【小題1】What is stressed in the second paragraph?

It was ______ in the exam that ______ how much time I had wasted. 

第二節(jié)  完形填空（共20小題；每小題1.5分，滿分30分）

閱讀下面短文，掌握其大意，從短文后所給的四個選項(xiàng)（A、B、C和D）中，選出可以填入空白處的最佳選項(xiàng)，并在答題卡上將該項(xiàng)涂黑。

Like most people , I was brought up to look upon life as a process of getting. It was not until in my late thirties that I made this important   36  :giving-away makes life so much more exciting. You need not worry if you  37  money.

This is how I  38  with giving-away. If an idea for improving the window display of a neighborhood store  39  to me, I step in and make the suggestion to the  40  .If an accident takes pace, the  41  of which I think the local police could use, I  42  him up and tell him about it, though I am mot in  43  here. One discovery I made about this world is to give  44  getting something back, though the  45  often comes in an unexpected form.

One Sunday morning the local post office delivered an important  46  letter to my home, though it was  47  to me at my office. I wrote the postmaster a note of  48  .More than a year later I needed a post-office box for a new business I was  49  .I was told at the window that there were  50  boxes left, and that my name would have to go on a long  51  list. As I was about to  52  , the postmaster appeared in the  53  . "Wasn't it you that wrote us that letter a year ago about delivering a special delivery to your home?" I said it was. "Well, you certainly are going to have a box in this post office  54  we make one for you. You don't know what a letter like that means to us. We usually get  55  but complaints."

36. A. decision B. research      C. speech          D. discovery

37. A. earn       B. lack      C. spend  D. steal

38. A. experienced  B. connected   C. combined     D. agreed

39. A. happens         B. flashes          C. sticks   D. leads

40. A. postmaster   B. headmaster         C. storekeeper         D. policeman

41. A. story      B. damage        C. challenge     D. material

42. A. call          B. hold      C. break   D. pick

43. A. need       B. trouble         C. common       D. charge

44. A. within    B. without        C. for        D. before

45. A. process B. goal      C. return  D. concern

46. A. curious  B. immediate   C. special D. heavy

47. A. realized B. addressed   C. forgotten     D. brought

48. A. invitation        B. apology        C. instruction   D. appreciation

49. A. dealing  B. providing      C. operating     D. starting

50. A. enough  B. some   C. no         D. more

51. A. admitting       B. relating        C. examining    D. waiting

52. A. leave      B. shout   C. guess   D. conduct

53. A. window B. doorway       C. library  D. yard

54. A. in case   B. now that      C. even if         D. as if

55. A. anything         B. everything   C. nothing         D. something

Although man has known asbestos （石棉） for many hundreds of years, it was not until 160 years ago that it was mined for the first time on the North American continent. H.W.Johns, owner of a New York City Supply Shop for roofers, was responsible for the opening of that first mine．
Mr.Johns was given a piece of asbestos which had been found in Italy． He experimented with the material and then showed its surprising powers to his customers. After putting on a pair of asbestos gloves, which looked much like ordinary work gloves, he took red-hot coals from the fireplace and played with them in his hands.How astonished the customers were to discover that he was not burned at all．You can well imagine that he had increasing business in asbestos roofing materials． However, because it was very expensive to transport them from Italy to the United States, Mr.Johns sent out a young scientist to seek a source nearer home. This young man found great vein（巖脈）, in the province of Quebec in Canada．
Ever since 1881 Quebec has led the world in the production of this unusual mineral, which is made up of magnesium, silicon, iron, and oxygen．When it is mined, the asbestos is heavy, just as you would expect a mineral to be．When it is separated, a strange thing happens: the rock breaks down into fine, soft, soapy fibres．
Scientists do not know why the rock can be separated easily into threads, but they have found thousands of uses of this fireproof material, of the so-called “cloth of stone”．
【小題1】Which title best expresses the main idea of this passage?

He never believed that true love existed.
His parents divorcedwhen he was young and he didn’t think that true love was able to survive in today’s world.
He was   36  wrong.
His grandparents were always supportive to the kids and tried to help them when their parents   37 . He knew they loved each other, he just wasn’t sure it was true love. He had   38  heard them say, “I love you” or they hadn’t shown any affection   39  hugging. They had been married for over fifty years and he thought that their true love was gone.
But again he was wrong. His grandfather, Ralph, was struck ill in his junior year of college and he didn’t know how serious it was until he fell and hurt his hip (臀). While in the hospital, the doctors   40    a tumor (瘤) in his lungs. They told him that he had lung cancer and due to previous illnesses, they could not operate and he was too   41  for chemotherapy (化療).
It was around Thanksgiving and by Christmas his condition worsened. The cancer spread and in late January his sister away at college too, called him crying and said she was on her way home because the doctors told their family that their   42  had only a week to live, that by the weekend he would   43   be with them. Their family came in from around the country and stayed next to his side.
It was not until then that he   44  that true love did exist and would survive beyond death. Every night as his grandfather grew more fragile, he would   45  sweet words to grandmother, Madge. The night before he died grandmother was walking out of his room and he said to her “I love you Madgie baby”.
The next morning he received a phone call at work that grandfather had passed during the night. Throughout his short battle   46  cancer, he realized how much two people can love each other and he realized how much it means to be loved and give love. It is the greatest   47  on earth and it lasts beyond life because you never forget your one true love.