Call it the geek Superbowl（超级联赛）. Six-hundred and eight teams of high school students from 40 countries competed last week in St. Louis, Missouri, to build robots capable of performing tasks related to recycling. Each team had to use the same set of parts and were given only weeks to build their robots.

A crowd of 40,000 cheered while the competitors nervously watched their robots moving around the field with almost athletic precision（运动精度）, picking up empty recycle bins and putting them in designated areas, with a trash can balanced on top.

It's been like this since 1992, high school teams, robots and their fans gather on Einstein Field, in St. Louis, Missouri, for the yearly world championship, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, known as FIRST.

Like any competition there was the struggle of defeat ... breakdowns, with teams working busily to repair their robots and get them back on the field.

Christopher Pulicken was the driver for Team 118, “I feel amazing right now," he said. "We have been striving to get this world championship for 18,19, 20 years and counting. It's always escaped us but now, now it hasn't.”

These games got Bethany Rispoli, of Team 225, “Tech Fire,” into science and math.

“It showed me that engineering, technology, science and math can be so much more than just paper doing problems," she said. "It showed me that it can be exciting, it can be just as fun as any sports any time.”

The technical mentor（指导者） for Team 254, E.J. Sabathia, started as a member of the same team 15 years ago. He's now an engineer at Tesla Motors.

“I want these kids to be able to see professionals doing those things day in and day out," he said. "See that we're normal people and see where they can go.”

This year’s coveted（垂涎的）FIRST Robotics Competition was won by one team from Texas and three teams from California.

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1.How many teams entered this year’s FIRST competition?

A 680

B 40

C 40000

D 608

解析：选D。D。细节理解题。由第1段可知参赛队有608支，故选D。

2.What all the robots do in this competition was__________.

A watching the others moving

B collecting waste things

C building capable recycling machines

D building the same set of robots

解析：选B。B。推理判断题。根据文章可知，今年所有参赛的机器人所做的事与垃圾回收有关，所以B是正确答案。

3.What does the underlined word “strive” in paragraph 5 mean?

A try

B hope

C plan

D continue

解析：选A。A。词义判断题。根据文章可知，冠军多次与我们擦肩而过，而今年我们如愿以偿，说明他们一直努力争取夺冠。

4.Which of the following statements about Bethany Rispoli is correct?

A She always liked engineering, technology, science and math.

B Science and math mean much more than doing paper problems to her.

C She became interested in science and math because of the competition.

D Taking part in the competition is as fun as any sports any time.

解析：选C。C。句子理解题。从The game got Bethany Rispoli ...into science and math可知是这项比赛让她喜欢上科学课和数学（C选项）。

5.There are___________winning teams this year.

A one

B two

C three

D four

解析：选D。D。细节理解题。最后1段说一支来自Texas,三支来自California的比赛队获得今年的比赛。