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The Sensorwake, first appearing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, takes a completely different approach to getting your attention when it’s time to wake up. Instead of using sound to wake you up, the clock uses smells. It works with reusable smell capsules(胶囊) inserted into a narrow opening along the top edge of the clock.

As the idea of 19-year-old Guillaume Rolland, an engineering student from France, the Sensorwake was successfully crowd-funded last year to the amount of $200,000. Rolland is now taking pre-orders for retail units that will ship in the first half of 2016.

However, do scents work as well as a regular audio alarm in terms of waking you up? While we might hate the sound of conventional alarms, they seem to be effective for most regular sleepers. Rolland claims that the Sensorwake is just as good as audio alarms, with testing showing his scent-based alarm wakes 99 percent of people in 2 minutes.

While the Sensorwake could be as effective as Rolland claims, the previous research on the awaking abilities of scents hasn’t been so positive. A 1997 study by fire and rescue workers in Irondale, Alabama was designed to test whether adults woke up in the presence of smoke, water and orange smells. Of 10 sleeping participants, only two woke up when exposed to the smells.

A following study at Brown University in 2004 also found that scents were not particularly effective at awaking sleepers. Different scents were presented in different containers to sleepers at different stages of sleep. The smells scored mixed results, while the sound alarm clock played over a speaker were significantly more effective at rousing the sleepers, leading the researchers to conclude that “smells are not reliably able to wake up a sleeper.”

The Sensorwake comes with an insurance policy for any sleepers who can’t be woken up by its primary feature. For extra-heavy sleepers, there is a backup audio alarm that is started to go off if the smell hasn’t woken you up within 3 minutes.

1.According to the passage, the Sensorwake ______.

A will come into market soon

B has got popular around the world

C never uses sound but just smells

D is better than the traditional alarm clock

解析：选A。细节理解题。根据第二段最后一句Rolland is now taking pre-orders for retail units that will ship in the first half of 2016.可知气味闹钟即将进入市场，故选A。

2.What can be inferred from the second paragraph?

A The Sensorwake was invented by a young scientist.

B The Sensorwake is intended for regular sleepers.

C Many people are interested in the Sensorwake.

D The Sensorwake is too expensive to buy.

解析：选C。推理判断题。根据第二段可知，法国19岁的工科学生Rolland想出了气味闹钟这个主意后成功地利用这个想法筹到了20万美元，由此可推断有许多人对他的气味闹钟感兴趣，故选C。

3.The two studies are mentioned in the passage in order to ______.

A show the advantages of sound over smells

B question the effects of the scent-based alarm

C show scientists’ interest in doing research about sleep

D show the ways in which people did research on scents

解析：选B。推理判断题。根据第三段和第四段第一句可推断此处提到这两个研究旨在质疑气味闹钟的效果，故选B。

4.The underlined word “rousing” in Paragraph 5 most probably means ______.

A picking up

B bringing up

C calling up

D waking up

解析：选D。词义猜测题。研究者们给陷入不同睡眠阶段的参与者闻不同的气味，参与者们的反应不一，但发出声音的闹钟效果明显更好。这促使研究人员们得出“气味不足以叫醒一名沉睡者”的结论,由此语境可判断rousing 跟waking up 同义，故选D。

5.To make his alarm effective enough to wake up extremely heavy sleepers, Rolland ______.

A combines the use of smell and sound

B makes the smell last longer than usual

C makes the capsules give off worse smells

D increases the use of smell capsules

解析：选A。推理判断题。根据最后一段可知，对于那些酣睡者，如果气味闹钟在3分钟内还没有叫醒他们，那么备用的声音闹钟就会被触发。即可推断气味与声音结合使用，故选A。