Part I – READING COMPREHENSION (A)

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions in English. (35 points) קראו את הקטע שלפניכם וענו על השאלות שאחריו באנגלית. اقرأ القطعة التي أمامك وأجب عن الأسئلة التي تليها بالإنجليزية.

Electric Roads

I Electric cars are better than regular cars because they help reduce harmful pollution. However, charging the battery of an electric car is a big problem. There are not enough charging stations, and charging an electric car takes a long time compared to filling a tank of gas. As a result, many people choose to buy a regular car instead of an electric one.

II 5 A company named Electreon has invented an electric road that can help solve this problem. When an electric car drives on this special road, the road charges the car’s battery. These electric roads use a method called “induction charging*,” which is already used today for the wireless charging of mobile phones. In electric roads, coils** are placed under the road. The coils are connected to the city’s electricity. When an electric car drives over the road, energy from the coils under the road 10 moves through the air to the car’s battery. Such roads will hopefully encourage more people to buy electric cars because they will not have to worry so much about charging them.

*induction charging طريقة الشحن اللاسلكي שיטה להטענה אלחוטית **coils لفائف סלילים

III Detroit, a city in the United States of America, started to use an electric road in 2023, and Germany is planning to start building them over the next few years. However, building electric roads is very expensive, costing millions of dollars per kilometer. Because of this, cities need to carefully choose 15 where to build them. For example, it can be useful to build electric roads in busy areas where many buses, trucks, and cars drive. This will help increase the number of electric vehicles and will reduce air pollution. Even in the future, because of their high cost, not all roads in a city will be electric. As a result, drivers of electric cars will still need charging stations, but they will not need them as often as today.

IV 20 If we want to clean up the air in our cities, we need to do much more than install electric roads. However, changing how people travel by using these roads can help us come closer to our environmental goals.

Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240130-wireless-charging-the-roads-where-electric-vehicles-never-need-to-plug-in

Answer the following questions in English. (35 points) ענו על השאלות הבאות באנגלית. أجب عن الأسئلة التالية بالإنجليزية