It was a February afternoon in a Brooklyn classroom. Sixteen-year-old Taylor Engler came face to face with a cow. But it was all in her head. She was transported by a virtual reality (VR) headphone. It took the Berkeley Carroll School junior and eight other classmates to a northern New York farm. The farm was 250 miles away. For students, the technology means field trips are no longer kept within the length of a bus ride.
It's unknown how many classrooms have or will use the technology, but experts say few classrooms do or will do. Headphones that require a user's phone can cost as little as $20 or $30, but systems and software for classes run into thousands of dollars. The problem of not having good software is disappearing as more companies enter the market. But the rules for use haven't kept abreast of the development of the technology. In New York, for example, virtual reality lab experiments are not included in the state's hands-on lab time requirements.
Experts say science classes are where virtual reality holds promise for classrooms. “The biggest problem, I think, is going to be how closely it mimics the real world." That's according to David Evans, the director of the National Science Teachers Union. However, he said, “The ability to do dangerous things and to run many, many more cases in a virtual space as opposed to the real physical space stands for a huge learning chance.”
Lamb taught chemistry and he agreed. “Too often in schools, when you do experiments in labs, you mix these together, you mix those together and you get this result. And if you don't get that result, you have done something wrong. But we don't have enough resources for you to redo it, “he said. “In virtual reality, all I do is hit reset on the computer. I don't have to actually use chemicals.”
1. What was Taylor Engler doing?| A．Riding a bus. | B．Giving a lesson. | C．Designing a farm. | D．Experiencing VR. |
| A．Led to. | B．Focused on. | C．Caught up with. | D．Broken away from. |
| A．Helpful. | B．Troublesome. | C．Interesting. | D．Challenging. |
| A．To point out the importance of practice. | B．To introduce the use of VR in teaching. |
| C．To give information about modern schools. | D．To show the appearance of VR technology. |
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【推荐1】Famous Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping and his research team’s experiment of planting saltwater-tolerant(耐盐的) rice in desert areas of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates(阿拉伯联合酋长国) proved to be a success, with one type of rice producing more than 7.5 tons per hectare(公顷), Xinhua reported.
Saltwater-tolerant rice is designed to grow in tidal flats (潮滩地) or other areas with heavy salt content. It was the world’s first successful case of planting rice in a tropical(热带的) desert area, standing as China’s contribution to improving the ability of people in desert areas to be self-sufficient(自给自足的) in main foods, a move that can protect global food security and improve the desert ecological environment.
In January, the center chose dozens of types of hybrid rice and planted them on small places of desert areas near Dubai. After five months of growth, the center invited experts from India, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other countries for evaluation, and found three types of rice producing more than 6 tons per hectare. In June, a second evaluation will be carried out for middle-season rice.
The technology of saltwater-tolerant rice plays a key role in the success as the natural environment of the Dubai desert is terrible for rice growth. The daytime temperatures could be as high as over 50 ℃, and nighttime temperatures could drop by 30 ℃. Humidity(湿度) stays below 20 percent and there are sandstorms from time to time. The biggest challenge is the desert soil, which is low in organic matter and unable to keep soil moisture as it is totally sand. To make it worse, sea water remains just 7.5 meters below the soil, which makes it easy to be full of salt.
With this success, the center and the private investment office of the ruler of the Emirate of Dubai plan to set up a 100-hectare experimental farmland in Dubai, to test the production costs and cultivation techniques(耕种技术) of the saltwater-tolerant rice and prepare for promotion. The two parties will construct a 100-hectare standard farmland in 2019 and speed up rice planting in 2020.
1. What can we infer from the second paragraph?| A．The tropical desert areas have done well in being self-sufficient. |
| B．Planting saltwater-tolerant rice can be easily achieved in many tropical desert-areas. |
| C．Chinese team play a great role in planting saltwater-tolerant rice in desert areas. |
| D．Saltwater-tolerant rice is designed to grow in areas with heavy salt content. |
| A．Its daytime temperature could be up to 50 ℃ and humidity stays below 20%. |
| B．It’s just 6.5 meters above the sea water and easy to be full of salt. |
| C．It is extremely expensive to conduct experiments in tropical desert areas. |
| D．Its soil is short of organic matter and hard to keep soil moisture. |
| A．Dubai still has a lot to do before the saltwater-tolerant rice benefits other areas. |
| B．The natural environment is the key factor of the success of the experiment. |
| C．No evaluation will be performed again as the experiment has been successful. |
| D．The ruler of the Emirate of Dubai thinks little of the result of the experiment. |
| A．The United Arab Emirates tries to improve the desert ecological environment. |
| B．Chinese team succeeds in planting saltwater-tolerant rice in Dubai’s desert. |
| C．The rice experiment is of great importance for the tropical desert-areas. |
| D．Chinese team help expand the farming of saltwater-tolerant rice. |
【推荐2】The race to introduce the first commercial flying taxi is officially on. Google, Boeing and Porsche are among 20 companies testing their machines, laying the groundwork for wider production and starting to encourage government officials to bring autonomous all-electric vehicles into the skies in just a few years. Lilium, a German start-up company, has raised more than US $100 million from investors. Its prototype jet—which is still seeking certification from European regulators—is able to take off and land like a helicopter, and is quiet enough "to land in some areas that are traditionally off-limits to aircraft"—even midtown Manhattan.
However, the possibility of air vehicles over New York already represents a clear and present danger to public safety. New York skies are already filled with helicopters. Since 1983, there have been at least 30 helicopter crashes in the city. “There are several challenges to overcome before commuters are flying through the air,” said Dalvin Brown in USA Today. Many of the vehicles now being imagined require “magical electric batteries that doesn't exist—yet.” The best that anyone can do right now with an electric battery is 20 minutes of flight. An even bigger obstacle is gaining approval from the FAA(American Federal Aviation Administration), which has strict rules and guidelines for small aircraft, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
That's why the first practical commercial tests of autonomous taxis are likely to be outside the US, said Jeremy Bogaisky on Forbes.com. “EHang became the first company to receive approval from Chinese aviation regulators to establish an autonomous air-taxi service in Guangzhou.” To succeed in the US, air taxi companies will need much more than that. Taking a small aircraft through the regulatory forest of safety certification to production can cost US $75 to US $100 million.
1. Which is special about the Lilium prototype jet, according to the passage?| A．It's the most expensive model. | B．It's already available on the market. |
| C．It's suitable to be used in cities. | D．It's suitable for midtown Manhattan. |
| A．The problems to overcome. | B．Public concerns about safety. |
| C．Related official policies. | D．Potential market risks. |
| A．Quick and economical. | B．Strict and expensive. |
| C．Difficult and time-saving. | D．Unsafe and impractical. |
| A．Environment | B．Travel | C．Entertainment | D．Technology |
【推荐3】When most people think of drones (无人机), they think of technology and fun. Safe to say, few people would think about farming. However, a group of students from York College of Pennsylvania have been building a drone that will not only help local farmers but the environment, as well.
Samantha Gotwalt and Blayde Reich, two senior Mechanical Engineering majors at York College in the group, both found the work to be quite fascinating. According to Samantha, the idea came from a York College professor, who has worked with drones, and wanted to get students involved with a project beneficial to the community. “We really want to help farming and agriculture. It’s super-important to America and our economy,” Blayde says. “We want to help the smaller farmers, and one of the perks is not having to spend their money on fertilizer and pesticides (杀虫剂).”
The idea is to design and build a drone that will take video imagery of the fields to determine what is needed to produce the best crop, while saving money and sparing the environment by reducing pollutants in the water runoff. Ideally, that data gained will help the farmers better determine what chemicals they need — and what they don’t.
However, finding the right equipment for the project was a challenge, starting with what drone the team would design for this particular usage. Samantha says she researched durability and control of drones to help make the proper determination.
“We are flying over the field and we want to have enough efficiency and go relatively slow enough that our pictures turn out well - and fly low enough that it is not using up all of its power,” she says. “The fields are a couple hundred acres(英亩), so you need your drone to be able to fly the length of that field.”
Blayde says the team continues to learn a great deal of information that will help the farmers and the environment.
1. What does the underlined word “perks” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Challenges. | B．Features. | C．Benefits. | D．Solutions. |
| A．Spreading proper quantities of pesticides. |
| B．Helping to determine the chemicals needed. |
| C．Assisting to monitor the state of crops. |
| D．Measuring the areas of the fields. |
| A．Its camera capacity. | B．Its data collection ability. |
| C．Its durability and control. | D．Its material and efficiency. |
| A．Disciplined and realistic. | B．Experienced and reliable. |
| C．Humble and reserved. | D．Responsible and creative. |
【推荐1】My 9-year-old son spends a lot of time on the computer surfing the Internet and sending instant messages to his friends. But I worry about him getting into trouble with strangers online.What can I do to protect him?
—Brian
Simple surfing and instant messaging with friends are common activities for kids—and generally safe, if you’ve discussed some rules of use with them. Chatting with strangers, however, may be a different story. Although there’s no way to know the actual risk, the FBI (联邦调查局) warns that kids whose Internet activity isn’t monitored are most at the risk of being exploited (利用).
Keep the computer in a common room in the house rather than in your son’s bedroom. Take an interest in the sites your son is visiting and the people with whom he is chatting.Warn him never to give out his personal information (his phone number, name, address, school name, etc.), agree to meet in-person anyone he meets in a chat room,or share any photographs.
Urge your son to introduce you to any new “friends” he meets online and to tell you if he ever feels uncomfortable about conversations that take place. Most importantly, talk to him about the dangers of interacting with strangers online and remind him that people online often don’t tell the truth. The FBI also recommends that parents maintain access to young kids’ online accounts and often check their email.
Finally, you can use parental controls offered by your Internet service provider or through blocking and filtering (过滤) software.
1. How can the parents protect their children from strangers online?| A．Keep the computer in their children’s bedroom. |
| B．Allow children to give out their personal information. |
| C．Encourage children to treat friends online sincerely. |
| D．Try to get in touch with children’s new “friends”. |
| A．Forbid the children to chat online. | B．Avoid checking the children’s e-mail. |
| C．Monitor the children’s online accounts. | D．Provide comfortable family environment. |
| A．answer how to protect children from strangers online |
| B．describe children’s problems on making friends online |
| C．advise parents to prevent children from cheating online |
| D．stress the importance of keeping children’s online safety |
【推荐2】The World Health Organization (WHO) says people around the world are eating more sugar. As a result, health problems related to weight gain and tooth damage are increasing. Sugary foods and drinks also weaken the bone.
The WHO finds that, on average, the amount of sugar in the foods we eat has risen about 10 percent over the past 10 years. But it has risen at a faster rate in some areas.
In the Middle East and North Africa, sugar intake (摄入) has risen about 15 percent over the past 10 years. In some Asian and Pacific countries, sugar intake is 20 percent higher. And in South America, people eat more sugar than anywhere else in the world.
Francesco Branca is director of the WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health. He said, “In South America, it is about 130 grams per person, per day, so much more than twice the WHO’s recommendations, but we also have some parts of the world where the intake is still low, such as in Equatorial and Southern Africa, where it is about 30 grams per person, per day.”
Mr. Branca says reducing the sugar intake can be difficult because so many cooks and foodmakers add sugar. He says researchers found that 80 percent of the food items in the US markets included some kind of sugar.
The WHO is calling on governments to take measures to reduce the sugar intake. It advises taxing (对……征税) products with a lot of sugar and requiring foodmakers to list how much sugar is added to their products. Another advice is to restrict (约束) marketing of sugary foods and drinks to children.
However, the WHO says it is fine to eat foods that naturally have sugar, such as fresh fruits, vegetables and even milk.
1. Who eat the least sugar?| A．People from South America. |
| B．People from the Middle East. |
| C．People from Pacific countries. |
| D．People from Southern Africa. |
| A．human bodies need sugar |
| B．most products contain sugar |
| C．people enjoy eating sugary foods |
| D．sugary foods are cheaper than healthy foods |
| A．products with a lot of sugar should be taxed |
| B．the markets of sugary foods should be closed |
| C．sugary foods should be replaced by fruits, vegetables and milk |
| D．food makers should be punished for adding sugar to their products |
| A．overeating | B．overweight |
| C．weak bone | D．tooth damage |
【推荐3】Jaguar Land Rover has released new technology designed to constantly monitor drivers and passengers in order to adjust settings to match their mood. The car maker has tested a special system which uses a camera to film drivers to monitor their facial expressions.
If the system detects a driver who is stressed, it can automatically turn on calming mood lighting. The car could respond to a driver who was tired by lowering the car’s temperature, or by beginning to play a specific playlist of music. The car maker has also developed headrest cameras to monitor the facial expressions of passengers. If the cameras detect sleepiness, then the car can automatically dim (使变暗) the passenger lighting to help people go to sleep. Jaguar Land Rover said that the system also uses artificial intelligence to learn people’s preferences, so that it could automatically adjust a car’s settings based on their previous interactions with the car.
Dr SteveIley, Jaguar Land Rover chief medical officer, said, “As we move towards a self-driving future, the focus for us remains as much on the driver as it ever has.”
“By considering the overall behavior of drivers, and using much of what we’ve learned from the advances in research around personal well-being over the last 10 or 15 years, we can make sure our customers remain comfortable, involved and alert (警觉的) behind the wheel in all driving situations, even motorway journeys.”
The system is still being developed and is not yet available in cars, Jaguar Land Rover said.
In 2015, the company released a similar system which monitors drivers to detect signs of sleepiness. The system is now in use in Jaguar cars, and alerts drivers when they become too sleepy.
1. What is Jaguar Land Rover’s new invention?| A．An automatically adjusted headrest. | B．An intelligent alarm system. |
| C．A mood-detection system. | D．A self-driving car. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By setting down general rules. | D．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| A．It is customer-friendly. | B．It is environmentally friendly. |
| C．It fails to meet drivers’ needs. | D．It should focus greatly on passengers. |
| A．It has already been banned. | B．It is doubted by customers. |
| C．It still needs to be improved. | D．It is widely used in Jaguar cars. |
【推荐1】Cornell University researchers have found people have more efficient conversations, use more positive language and perceive each other more positively when using an artificial intelligence-enabled chat tool. However, apart from that, the group also found that when participants think their partner is using more AI-suggested responses, they perceive that partner as less cooperative, and feel less connection with them.
“Technology companies tend to emphasize the use of AI tools to accomplish tasks faster and better, but they ignore the social dimension,” said Malte Jung, associate professor of information science. “We do not live and work alone, and the systems we use impact our interactions with others.”
In an experiment, researchers developed a smart-reply platform the group called “Moshi”, patterned after the no longer existing Google “Allo”, the first smart-reply platform, released in 2016. Smart replies are generated from LLMs (large language models) to predict reasonable next responses in chat-based interactions.
Participants were asked to talk about a policy issue and assigned to one of three conditions: both participants can use smart replies; only one participant can use smart replies; or neither participant can use smart replies.
Researchers found that using smart replies increased communication efficiency, positive emotional language and positive evaluations by communication partners. On average, smart replies accounted for 14.3% of sent messages.
But participants who their partners suspected of responding with smart replies were evaluated more negatively than those who were thought to have typed their own responses, consistent with people’s common assumptions.
“While AI might be able to help you write,” Hohenstein, lead author and postdoctoral researcher, said, “it’s altering your language in ways you might not expect, especially by making you sound more positive. This suggests that by using text-generating AI, you’re sacrificing some of your own personal voice.”
1. How do people probably view a man using AI-suggested responses?| A．He has strong opinions. |
| B．He lacks cooperativeness. |
| C．He is incapable of working on his own. |
| D．He is efficient in positive communication. |
| A．They explained how they used the platform. |
| B．They predicted possible responses from AI. |
| C．They evaluated replies made by their partners. |
| D．They paired AI-generated questions and answers. |
| A．It helps highlight your personal style. |
| B．It increases your productivity. |
| C．It changes the tone of your writing. |
| D．It polishes your writing as you wish. |
| A．The advance in AI-based chat tool |
| B．The significance of AI in social context |
| C．The efficiency of AI-involved conversation |
| D．The effect of AI on interpersonal perception |
【推荐2】First the robots came for our jobs. Now they’re coming for our hobbies. Google’s DeepMind AI lab has been busy the past few years, creating programs to take on human players across a variety of games. In 2016 its AlphaGo beat the best Go player in the world. Earlier this year, its Alpha Star defeated two middle-tier players at the popular online game StarCraft II. Now it’s learning to win at multiplayer games.
“Artificially intelligent agents are getting better and better at two-player games, but most real-world endeavors require teamwork,” DeepMind’s researchers wrote in a paper published in Science in June.
To be sure, computers have been proving their dominance (优越) over humans in one-on-one turn-based games such as chess ever since IBM’s Deep Blue beat Russian chess master Garry Kasparov in 1997.
However, successfully using teamwork to win in multiplayer games with complex environments was difficult to achieve.
For this purpose, DeepMind’s researchers designed AI agents that taught themselves how to play first-person game Quake III Arena. The team, led by Max Jaderberg, worked on a modified (修改的) version of Quake III Arena.
The game mode they chose was “Capture (抢) the Flag”. All the players must work together to steal the other team’s flag while safeguarding their own.
The AI agents “trained” with 12 hours of game data, then matched up against professional game testers. The AI won 75 percent of the time, even when its reaction time artificially slowed down to human levels and when their aiming ability was similarly reduced.
And in order to make improvements, the programmers used various kinds of “rewards” to help the AI players weigh their goals and actions to help them cooperate in the teamwork. They also used randomized maps for each new match.
“That meant the solutions that the agents find have to be general –– they cannot just memorize a sequence (系列) of actions,” said co-author Wojciech Czarnecki.
The only time humans were able to beat the AI agents was when they teamed up together. A team consisting of one human and one AI agent had a five percent greater win probability than a team of just AI agents.
Ethan Gach said at the video game news website Kotaku, “It suggests that the AI program is able to adapt to playing with non-AI teammates.” In the near future, AI may cooperate with human beings in some other fields, such as medicine and other branches of science.
1. What might be the most difficult task for AI agents in multiplayer games?| A．Understanding the rules. |
| B．Cooperating with other players. |
| C．Memorizing complex actions. |
| D．Increasing reaction speed. |
| A．They gave various “punishments” when AI agents lost the games. |
| B．They made AI agents team up with non-professional human players. |
| C．They limited the time for AI agents to complete difficult tasks. |
| D．They put them through thousands of games with different situations. |
| A．AI players perform better than humans in a team game. |
| B．AI programs should be offered more game data. |
| C．AI players are able to do well with human players. |
| D．AI programs have been successfully applied in the field of medicine. |
| A．generalized | B．specialized | C．updated | D．memorized |
| A．Researches on DeepMind AI | B．Training AI Agents |
| C．Teaming up with AI | D．AI Competing with Human Beings |
【推荐3】Felix Ruppert and Alexander Badri-Sprowitz at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, designed a half-metre-high robot called Morti and gave it the capacity to teach itself how to walk, rather than to perform a pre-programmed step. The four-legged robot took only an hour to learn how to walk steadily, roughly the same amount of time as newborn horses need. And it’s the first time that a machine learning technique has been so successfully applied to four-legged robots.
Morti is controlled by an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm (算法) that doesn’t have much information about the robot’s legs, such as the exact shape of each element. “The AI, working like the central nervous system, gives walking instructions for Morti to follow. It then adjusts them on the basis of readings from foot sentences that signal when the robot falls and loses contact with the ground. Initially, Morti falls down, but after about an hour the AI finds the best way to make it walk,” said RUppert.
Because the AI learns rather than calculating details of each leg’s movement in advance, which can use a lot of energy, Morti walks using 42 percent less energy than when it first starts at the end of an hour-long learning process. Morti’s process copies the way baby animals learn to move, as they also find the most efficient way to use their muscles by trying and initially tripping.
Dhireesha Kudithipudi at the University of Texas at San Antonio said that AI robots can often learn a specific task very well but can’t make readjustments when the environment changes and that Morti’s design, which relies on continually adjusting the robot’s movement, may perform better in that regard. Ruppert said he and the team are working on adding more sensors and range of motion to Morti in a gesture to make it a more animal-like robot.
1. What is special about Morti?| A．It is pre-programmed to walk. |
| B．It can learn to walk by itself. |
| C．It is the first four-legged robot. |
| D．It can help teach the newborns. |
| A．Its body structure. | B．Its design concept. |
| C．Its learning process. | D．Its working conditions. |
| A．By predicting Morti’s leg movement. |
| B．By training Morti’s muscles to the best. |
| C．By lowering Morti’s energy consumption. |
| D．By strengthening Morti’s bond with others. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Cautious. | C．Subjective. | D．Favorable. |
