2.
These days, if you want to travel from New York to Beijing, the flight takes about 16 hours. You
also have to wait at the airport, and sometimes you have to transfer onto a different airplane. If you add all
of that extra time, the trip takes at least 20 hours. But in the future, the trip from New York to Beijing
might only take two hours.
Right now, a private company is developing something called ET3. ET3 stands for "evacuated
tube transport technology". Here is how it works. A tube goes all the way from New York to Beijing. The
tube is only a few meters wide. Capsules move through the tube. Six people can sit in one capsule. The
capsules use electricity instead of gasoline. For international travel, the capsules can travel at about 6,500
kilometers per hour. That is much faster than airplane - most modern airplanes usually only fly at about
800 kilometers per hour.
So how is this possible? How can these capsules travel so fast? The answer is that there is no air
inside the tube. When airplanes fly, they have to move through the air. The air slows the airplanes down.
Because there is no air in the ET3 tubes, the capsules are able to move at a very high speed. Besides, the
capsules are quite light. They only weigh 183 kilograms. It is exciting to think of how ET3 will change
travel in the future. Maybe someday, you will be able to have lunch in New York and dinner in Beijing.
Questions:
1. How long will it take to travel from New York to Beijing if you travel by ET3?
2. What does ET3 stand for?
3. What does ET3 use to make engine?
4. How far do most modern airplanes usually fly in one hour?
5. Why does ET3 can travel that fast?
D. WRITING:
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