A. Human feet will become just one big toe.
In a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1911, a surgeon named Richard Clement Lucas made a curious prediction that the “useless outer toes” will become used less and less, so that “man might become a one-toed race” in the next century. Look and check your toes.
B. Our houses will be cleaned by hoses.
In a 1950 article titled “Miracles You’ll See in the Next 50 Years,” the New York Times’ longtime science editor Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that by the 21st century, all you’ll have to do to get your house clean is “simply turn the hose on everything.”
That’s because he imagined furniture would be made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. “After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor” all you’d have to do is “turn on a blast of hot air” to dry everything. A mercy for housewife, right?
C. We’ll live in flying houses.
Inventor, science writer, and futurist Arthur C. Clark—who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey—believed that the boring houses of 1966 would be extremely different by the time we reached the 21st century. Evidently, the houses of the future would have nothing keeping them on the ground and they would be able to move to anywhere on the earth on a whim (异想天开). So easy to travel abroad!
D. We’ll eat candy made of underwear.
In Popular Mechanics, Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that all food would be delivered to our homes in the form of frozen bricks by the 21st century. “Cooking as an art is only a memory in the minds of old people,” he wrote. And, thanks to advances in cooking technology, Kaempffert predicted it would even be possible to take ordinary objects like old table cloth and “silk-like underwear” and bring them to “chemical factories to be made into candy.” No, thanks! Not at all!
【小题1】How many toes would become useless and disappear in his left foot, according to the surgeon?| A．Five. | B．Four. | C．Three. | D．Two. |
| A．He likes it very much. | B．He thinks it acceptable. |
| C．He completely rejects it. | D．He would like to have a try. |
| A．They were all put forward by the greatest minds at their time. |
| B．Although they sounded unbelievable, they were well received. |
| C．They appeared in the same magazine almost around the same time. |
| D．They were interesting predictions about the century we are living now. |
