【推荐1】It has been a year since I first saw UBTech’s Walker robot at CES 2019. I was blown away by its ability to perform many tasks.

A year later, it had come a long way, gaining much better motor skills and the ability to maintain balance. During a CES 2020 demo, UBTech showed how far Walker had come. The robot walked over to a table, picked up a bottle opener and used it to remove the cap from a bottle of soda. It picked up the bottle and a glass and poured the liquid in, without spilling. During the demo, Walker also performed a number of serious Yoga poses, including standing on one foot and leaning back.

UBTech said that the ability to pour drinks required visual servo technology using its cameras to judge the position of objects. The same methods allowed Walker to uncap a marker and draw a picture of a flower on a piece of paper at another point in the demo.

All of the betterment was made via software as UBTech hasn’t made any physical adjustments to the robot since we saw it last year. On the inside, the robot uses a combination of a few different operating systems on these internal PCs, including Ubuntu, ROS and Android. Its battery promises up to 2 hours battery life after a 2-hour charge time.

UBTech continues development on this pioneering robot, but doesn’t have public launch date. The company is targeting Walker toward the home, with an emphasis on helping seniors or just doing house cleaning. To make it stable enough to adapt to all these different conditions is a huge challenge. However, if development of Walker continues, this robot could eventually be a game-changer.

1. How did the author feel when first seeing the robot?

A．Amazed.	B．Proud.
C．Awkward.	D．Disappointed.

2. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．The demos of CES 2019.	B．The improvements of the robot.
C．The robot’s motor ability.	D．The robot’s ability to remain steady.

3. What enables the robot to draw pictures?

A．The cap of the marker.	B．The ability to pour drinks.
C．The using of more cameras.	D．The system of position judging.

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．The robot is stable enough to help the old.

B．The robot has been available to the public.

C．Our life could be greatly influenced by the robot.

D．The basic concept of robot making will be changed.

【推荐2】For some people, music is no fun at all. About 4% of the population is what scientists call “amusic”. People who are amusic are born without the ability to enjoy musical notes. Amusic people often cannot tell the differences between two songs.

As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amusics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. In fact, most people cannot understand what it feels like to be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping center can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics have to stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in social loneliness. “I used to hate parties,” says Margaret, a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists are finally learning how to identify (辨别) this unusual condition.

Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different from those of people who can enjoy music. The difference is complex(复杂的), and it is not connected with poor hearing. Amusics can understand other non-musical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding common speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can ’t see certain colors.

Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed (诊断). For years, Margaret felt embarrassed about her music problem. Now she knows that she is not alone. That makes it easier for her to explain. “When people invite me to a concert, I just say   ’No, thanks. I ’m amusic, ’” says Margaret.

1. Amusics are the people who ______.

A．like music	B．are born unable to enjoy music
C．don ’t like music	D．have poor listening

2. Life is hard for amusics mainly because ______.

A．they know they cannot enjoy music

B．they hate parties, restaurants or shopping centers

C．they try to stay at the place full of music

D．they are not understood by others

3. What causes amusics to be different from most people according to scientists?

A．Their lack of colors.	B．Their poor hearing.
C．Their brains.	D．Their problems with speech.

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Some people ’s inability to enjoy music.

B．Some people ’ s musical ability.

C．Amusics ’ strange behaviors.

D．Diagnosis and treatment of amusics.

【推荐3】The Victorians’ Way of Having Fun

Whether it was visiting a human zoo, taking a bull on a hot-air balloon ride, or singing beautiful songs, Victorian Londoners loved to have fun. As performance managers came up with increasingly well-designed ways to make money from the capital’s huge potential audience, Victorians effectively invented the modern leisure industry – including theme parks, pubs and professional football. As a new book by historian Lee Jackson explains, the hunt for profit involves surrounding morality, class and empire. So where did Victorians go for fun? And what still exists today?

Dancing Rooms: Argyll Rooms, Piccadilly

It’s now a building site near Leicester Square, but when the Argyll Rooms lost its licence in 1878, there was a riot (暴乱). Drunken students were so angry at the closure of their favourite place that they took to the streets. The Argyll closed as the dance craze came to an end, and Bignell turned the space into the Trocadero music hall. It kept that name through the 20th century when it was transformed into one of London’s most tasteless tourist attractions. The site currently awaits development into a hotel.

Pleasure gardens: Gremorne Gardens, Chelsea

Gremorne was run by three West End pub owners, popular among the young people then. It closed in 1877 after losing its licence. Pleasure gardens more generally lost their meaning of existence with the establishment of public parks. London’s rapid growth meant the valuable land was usually sold to big companies for other purposes, which is why so little of London’s great pleasure gardens remain.

Pleasure gardens were also overshadowed by larger exhibition grounds such as the Crystal Palace, which tried to find a way of balancing entertainment with cultural education. Little physically remains of the Crystal Palace itself, which moved to Sydenham from Hyde Park in 1854, but the grand 200-acre grounds still exist as a public park.

On the site of the Methodist Central Hall was a short-lived attraction that attempted to transport the seaside to central London. It was railways that made Margate and Southend accessible to Londoners, and some of the leisure activities peculiar to the seaside soon made it back to the capital.

Football grounds: Craven Cottage, Stevenage Road, Fulham

Fulham FC, London’s oldest professional football club, still works at their first ground, built by the Victorians in 1896. Versions of the sport had been around for centuries, but it was the Victorians who created the game and then professionalized it. This led to enclosed grounds where spectators paid for admittance, with the income spent on acquiring new players. The modern game was born.

1. Which of the following is not similar in meaning to “took to the streets” in Para. 2?

A．gathered together in the streets	B．enjoyed window shopping
C．went outside on the streets	D．protested on the streets

2. The reason why fewer great pleasure gardens are left in London is that        .

A．people built more factories	B．they were turned into farming land
C．the land was sold to developers	D．they became university campuses

3. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．The money from football is used to buy new players.

B．London has much on its football history.

C．Fulham F.C. is more than 200 years old.

D．The Victorians have cultivated many footballers.

4. Which of the following is the main idea of this passage?

A．The building of railways led to the theme parks.

B．The West End’s gardens became big hotels.

C．The Victorians largely invented modern leisure industries.

D．The income from modern football supports new players.

【推荐3】Artificial intelligence (AI) technology may soon be a useful tool for doctors. For example, it may help them better understand and treat diseases like breast cancer (乳腺癌) in ways that were not possible.

Rishi Rawat teaches AI at a University in Los Angeles. He is part of a team of scientists who are researching how AI and machine learning can more easily recognize cancerous growths in the breast. He says, “You put information about cancer cells (细胞) into a computer and it will learn the cancerous growth patterns. The pattern recognition is very important to making decisions.”

At present, researchers have to take a thin piece of tissue (组织), put it on a small piece of glass and add color to better see the cell-growth patterns. That process could take days or even longer. Scientists say artificial intelligence can do it better than just count cells. Through machine learning, it can quickly recognize patterns, or structures, and learn how the cells are organized.

The hope is that machines will soon be able to make a quick recognition of cancerous cell-growth patterns that is free of human mistakes. Rawat adds that the process could be done “for almost no cost for the patients”. But having a large amount of information about cells is important for a machine to effectively do its job. Once the cancerous growth pattern is recognized, doctors still have to treat the patient. The form of treatment depends on the kind of cancer.

David Agus is another researcher of the team. He believes, “Computers will help doctors make better decisions and look for those patterns that the human brain can’t recognize by itself. But they will not treat patients.”

1. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．The process of adding color to cells.

B．The process of taking a piece of tissue.

C．The process of recognizing the cell-growth.

D．The process of treating cancers by machine learning.

2. Why may AI technology be a useful tool?

A．It treats breast cancer all by itself.

B．It provides free cancer treatment for the patients.

C．It recognizes the cancerous growth patterns faster.

D．It helps doctors make fewer mistakes in cancer treatment.

3. What can we know from David Agus’ words?

A．AI will not replace doctors.	B．AI will develop fast in the future.
C．AI can be useless in treating cancers.	D．AI can provide the doctors with treatments.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．AI makes better doctors.	B．AI helps pattern recognition.
C．AI functions well in cancer growth.	D．Future cancer treatments will be successful.