单选题
Superconductor Ceramic (陶瓷)

An underground revolution begins this winter. With the flip (轻击) of a switch, 30,000 homes in one part of Detroit will soon become the first in the country to receive electricity transmitted by ice-cold high-performance cables. Other American cities are expected to follow Detroit"s example in the years ahead, which could conserve enormous amounts of power.
The new electrical cables at the Frisbie power station in Detroit are revolutionary because they are made of superconductors. A superconductor is a material that transmits electricity with little or no resistance. Resistance is the degree to which a substance resists electric current. All common electrical conductors have a certain amount of electrical resistance. They convert at least some of the electrical energy passing through them into waste heat. Superconductors don"t. No one understands how superconductivity works. It just does.
Making superconductors isn"t easy. A superconductor material has to be cooled to an extremely low temperature to lose its resistance. The first superconductors, made more than 50 years ago, had to be cooled to-263degrees Celsius before they lost their resistance. Newer superconducting materials lose their resistance at-143 degrees Celsius.
The superconductors cable installed at the Frisbie station is made of a ceramic material that contains copper, oxygen, bismuth (铋) , strontium (锶) , and calcium (钙). A ceramic is a hard, strong compound made from clay or minerals. The superconducting ceramic has been fashioned into a tape that is wrapped lengthwise around a long tube filled with liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is super cold and lowers the temperature of the ceramic tape to the point where it conveys electricity with zero resistance.
The United States loses an enormous amount of electricity each year to resistance. Because cooled superconductors have no resistance, they waste much less power, other cities are watching the Frisbie experiment in the hope that they might switch to superconducting cable and conserve power, too.
单选题 What is the benefit of the revolution mentioned in the first paragraph?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 根据第一段最后一句可知,此段提到的地下革命能节省大量能量。
单选题 Compared to common electrical conductors, superconductors ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 根据第二段第二句可知,超导体几乎没有电阻;根据第二段第四句可知,所有的普通导体都有一定的电阻。由此可推出,与普通导体相比,超导体的优点是有少量的或没有电阻。
单选题 At what temperature does the superconducting ceramic lose its resistance?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 第三段最后一句表明,新型超导材料在-143摄氏度时,会失去电阻。结合上下文可知,陶瓷超导体就是一种新型超导材料。故选A。
单选题 What element enables the ceramic tape to lower its temperature?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 根据第四段最后一句可知,液氮极冷,可给陶瓷降温,使其失去电阻。
单选题 According to the last paragraph, which of the following statements is NOT true?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 由最后一段最后一句可知,冷却的超导体没有电阻,可以节省很多能量,其他城市也希望能用上超导体电缆,以节省电能。由此可知,A、B、C三项正确。故选D。