II. Fill in the blanks in the sentences below with one of these words taken from the reading

vigorously

distracting

sensors

sipped

tasks

decipher

high-end

deploy

intoxicated

chronic

perish

staggering

gadgets

severity

pinpoint

garble

tailgated

warped

temporarily

monitoring

stray

chatting

humdrum

accommodate

1) There are some rooms at discount hotels available at Las Palmas Beach Resort for as little as $70 a night, but luxury suites in ____________________ hotels may cost as much as $1,000 a night.

2) In medicine, an acute condition is one that is only a temporary problem, such as a sprained ankle. A ____________________ one recurs over and over. Migraine headaches are an example of this kind of condition.

3) The «black box» on board every commercial airplane contains information that helps investigators determine the cause of a crash. So that searchers can ____________________ the location of this box, it sends out a radio signal.

4) Meng ordered an expensive bottle of wine to go with his dinner. In order to fully enjoy the wine, he ____________________ it slowly and savored every drop.

5) The spy wrote her message in a secret code, but government intelligence agents were able to ____________________ the message.

6) If a police officer observes a motorist driving in a careless or strange way, the officer will probably stop the driver and administer a roadside breathalyzer test to determine if the motorist is ____________________.

7) The Richter Scale is used to measure the ____________________ of earthquakes. The higher the number on the Richter Scale, the more destructive the earthquake is.

8) Ranchers put up barbed-wire fences so that their cattle don't ____________________ beyond the boundaries of their ranches.

9) Some space scientists have proposed sending a manned spacecraft to Mars, but the cost of this project is so ____________________ that it probably will not be attempted for many years.

10) No one in the airport lounge was talking to anyone else there. They were all too busy ____________________ on their cell phones.

III. These statements come from the reading «Smart Cars, Intelligent Highways». Read each statement and then answer the questions that follow.

Every car produced today has at least one computer for monitoring fuel consumption and pollution controls.

1. Monitoring means …

(A) reducing.

(B) observing.

(C) preventing.

The average car uses twelve computerized devices, and high-end cars have many more, controlling everything from the sunroof to the braking system.

2. What kind of car is a high-end car?

(A) An expensive, luxury model

(B) A fast, sporty car

(C) One with large rear wheels

That's because motorists enjoy computerized gadgets, and providing these little devices is cheaper for automakers than building a better engine or making other engineering changes that might actually be more important.

3. Find another word with the same meaning as gadgets.

To deploy airbags with the minimum necessary force, sensors determine an occupant's weight and size and the severity of impact.

4. The severity of an impact refers to its …

(A) location.

(B) seriousness.

(C) cause.

This system should reduce the number of children hurt by airbags that open too vigorously.

5. If an airbag deploys too vigorously, it opens …

(A) with too much force.

(B) unnecessarily.

(C) too slowly.

In fact, drivers using cell phones were almost as likely to be involved in accidents as those who were legally intoxicated.

6. Drivers who are intoxicated have been …

(A) driving carelessly.

(B) drinking too much alcohol.

(C) listening to loud music.

Engine noise, highway noise, and the music on the stereo tend to garble instructions, and voice recognition systems often cannot decipher strong accents.

7. Garble means to mix up or confuse something so it is no longer understandable. Find an antonym for garble.

Cars, buses, and trucks caught up in the chronic traffic jams in the cities waste vast amounts of fuel and pour pollution into the atmosphere.

8. If a problem such as traffic jams is chronic, it …

(A) is serious for a short time.

(B) can never be fixed.

(C) occurs again and again.

In the United States alone, over 40,000 people die a year. Around the world, it is believed that between 800,000 and 1.15 million perish in automobile accidents annually.

9. Find the word that has the same meaning as perish.

One expert has said that the typical highway lane today can handle 2,000 vehicles per hour but estimated that an intelligent highway lane could accommodate up to 6,000 vehicles, depending on the number of entrances and exits.

10. Find the word that has the same meaning as accommodate.

They said that traveling that fast and that close together with no control was exciting and a little frightening at first, but that, in a short time, it became rather humdrum.

11. Find an antonym of humdrum in the statement above.

Much of the public has a warped sense of risk.

12. The word warped means …

(A) informed and precise.

(B) distorted and inaccurate.

(C) cold and unemotional.

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