A. Human feet will become just one big toe.
In a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1911, a surgeon named Richard Clement Lucas made a curious prediction that the “useless outer toes” will become used less and less, so that “man might become a one-toed race” in the next century. Look and check your toes.
B. Our houses will be cleaned by hoses.
In a 1950 article titled “Miracles You’ll See in the Next 50 Years,” the New York Times’ longtime science editor Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that by the 21st century, all you’ll have to do to get your house clean is “simply turn the hose on everything.”
That’s because he imagined furniture would be made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. “After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor” all you’d have to do is “turn on a blast of hot air” to dry everything. A mercy for housewife, right?
C. We’ll live in flying houses.
Inventor, science writer, and futurist Arthur C. Clark—who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey—believed that the boring houses of 1966 would be extremely different by the time we reached the 21st century. Evidently, the houses of the future would have nothing keeping them on the ground and they would be able to move to anywhere on the earth on a whim (异想天开). So easy to travel abroad!
D. We’ll eat candy made of underwear.
In Popular Mechanics, Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that all food would be delivered to our homes in the form of frozen bricks by the 21st century. “Cooking as an art is only a memory in the minds of old people,” he wrote. And, thanks to advances in cooking technology, Kaempffert predicted it would even be possible to take ordinary objects like old table cloth and “silk-like underwear” and bring them to “chemical factories to be made into candy.” No, thanks! Not at all!
1. How many toes would become useless and disappear in his left foot, according to the surgeon?| A．Five. | B．Four. | C．Three. | D．Two. |
| A．He likes it very much. | B．He thinks it acceptable. |
| C．He completely rejects it. | D．He would like to have a try. |
| A．They were all put forward by the greatest minds at their time. |
| B．Although they sounded unbelievable, they were well received. |
| C．They appeared in the same magazine almost around the same time. |
| D．They were interesting predictions about the century we are living now. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Composer David Cope is the inventor of a computer program that writes original works of classical music. It took Cope 30 years to develop the software. Now most people can't tell the difference between music by the famous German composer J.S.Bach（1685-1750）and the Bach-like compositions from Cope's computer.
It all started in 1980 in the United States, when Cope was trying to write an opera. He was having trouble thinking of new melodies, so he wrote a computer program to create the melodies. At first this music was not easy to listen to. What did Cope do? He began to rethink how human beings compose music. He realized that composers' brains work like big databases. First, they take in all the music that they have ever heard. Then they take out the music that they dislike. Finally, they make new music from what is left. According to Cope, only the great composers are able to create the database accurately, remember it, and form new musical patterns from it.
Cope built a huge database of existing music. He began with hundreds of works by Bach. The software analyzed the data: it broke it down into smaller pieces and looked for patterns. It then combined the pieces into new patterns; Before long, the program could compose short Bach-like works. They weren't good, but it was a start.
Cope knew he had more work to do---he had a whole opera to write. He continued to improve the software. Soon it could analyze more.complex music. He also added many other composers, including his own work, to the database. A few years later, Cope's computer program, called “Emmy”, was ready to help him with his opera. The process required a lot of collaboration(合作) between the composer and Emmy. Cope listened to the computer's musical ideas and used the ones that he liked. With Emmy, the opera took only two weeks to finish. It was called Cradle Falling, and it was a great success! Cope received some of the best reviews of his career, but no one knew exactly how he had composed the work.
Since that first opera, Emmy has written thousands of compositions. Cope still gives Emmy feedback（反馈) on what he likes and doesn't like of her music, but she is doing most of the hard work of composing these days！
1. What led David Cope to invent software?| A．He had difficulties in writing an opera. |
| B．He dreamed of developing software. |
| C．He wanted to help composers. |
| D．He was fond of classical music. |
| A．His Cradle Falling wasn’t popular. |
| B．He had kept on improving his software. |
| C．He composed Bach-like works well at the beginning. |
| D．He has shifted his attention to invent different software. |
| A．Cope’s database includes Bach’s works only. |
| B．Bach’s music helped Cope a lot. |
| C．Cope is a computer programmer. |
| D．Emmy did much more work than Cope in composing. |
| A．The Invention of a Software for Creating Music |
| B．Ways to Create a Music Database |
| C．David Cope--a Music Genius |
| D．How to Start Creating Music |
【推荐2】A robot called Bina48 has successfully taken a course in the philosophy of love at Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU), in California. According to course instructor William Barry associate professor at NDNU.
Bina48 is the world’s first socially advanced robot to complete a college course, an achievement he described as “remarkable.” The robot took part in class discussions, gave a presentation with a student partner and participated in a debate with students from another institution.
Before becoming a student, Bina48 spearedasa guest speaks in Barry’s classes for several years. One day when addressing in Barry’s class, Bina48 expressed a desire to go to college, a desire that Barry and his students enthusiastically supported. Rather than enroll Bina48 in his Robot Ethics: Philosophy of Emerging Technologies course, Barry suggested that Bina48 should take his course Philosophy of Love instead. Love is a concept Bina48 doesn’t understand, said Barry. Therefore the challenge would be for Barry and his students to teach Bina48 what love is.
“Some interesting things happened in the class,” said Barry. He said that his students thought it would be straightforward to teach Bina48 about love, which, after all, is “fairly simple — it’s a feeling,” said Barry. But the reality was different. Bina48 ended up learning “31 different versions of love,” said Barry, highlighting some of the challenges humans may face when working with artificial intelligence in future. Bina48 participated in class discussions via Skype and also took part in a class debate about love and conflict with students from West Point. Bina48’s contribution to the debate was filmed and posted on YouTube. It was judged that Bina48 and NDNU classmates were the winners of this debate.
In the next decade, Barry hopes Bina48 might become complex enough to teach a class, though he says he foresees robots being used to better the teaching and learning experience, rather than replacing instructors completely.
1. What was Bina48s performance like in class?| A．Extraordinary. | B．Impractical. |
| C．Unbelievable. | D．Unattractive. |
| A．Sending a letter to. | B．Consulting with. |
| C．Dealing with. | D．Giving a speech to. |
| A．It was impossible for Bina48 to learn about love. |
| B．It was quite difficult for Bina48 to learn about love， |
| C．Artificial intelligence may somehow be superior to man. |
| D．Humans can launch a challenge to artificial intelligence. |
【推荐3】The English-language version of Wikipedia has almost six million articles. And if you’re a cheating student, that’s six million essays already written for you. But plagiarism isn’t really an effective way—just type the text into a search engine and the game is over. Then what about having a ghostwriter compose your final essay?
“Standard plagiarism software cannot detect this kind of cheating.” said Stephan Lorenzen, a data analyst at the University of Copenhagen. In Denmark, where he’s based, ghostwriting is a growing problem at high schools. So Lorenzen and his colleagues created a program called Ghostwriter that can detect the cheats.
At its central part is a neural network trained and tested on 130,000 real essays from 10,000 Danish students. After reading through tens of thousands of essays labeled as being written by the same author or not, the machine taught itself to possess the characteristics that might spot cheating. For example, did a student’s essays share the same styles of punctuation? The same spelling mistakes?
By examining inconsistencies like those, Ghostwriter was able to seek out a cheated essay nearly 90 percent of the time. The team presented the results at the European Meeting on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning. There’s one more aspect here that could help students. Your high school essays probably get better over time as you learn to write and the machine can detect that. The final idea is to detect students who are at risk because their development in writing style isn’t as you would expect. Teachers could thus give extra help to kids who really need it, while sniffing out the cheaters too.
1. When a student wants to cheat in writing an essay, ________.| A．his cheating may be detected in a certain way |
| B．essays offered by Wikipedia can’t be downloaded |
| C．he won’t hire a ghostwriter to write one for himself |
| D．ghostwriting can be detected by standard plagiarism software |
| A．Its components. | B．Its weaknesses. |
| C．Its influences. | D．Its working theory. |
| A．It never fails to find out a cheated essay. | B．It can detect a student’s progress in writing. |
| C．It can help a student to correct his pronunciation. | D．It can give extra help instead of teachers. |
| A．A guidebook. | B．A magazine. |
| C．A novel. | D．A diary. |
【推荐1】What will restaurants look like in the future? What would your dinner taste like if a robot cooked it? A robot restaurant in Tianjin may give you the answers.
Covering an area of over 400 square meters with a total of 112 seats, the X Future Restaurant is a robot restaurant opened in November 2018. The restaurant has amazed customers with its fully-automated(全自动的)technology, which covers every step of the dining experience, from ordering to cooking to serving the dishes and even taking payment.
Entering the restaurant, one can order dishes by simply scanning(扫描)the QR codes on the table. There are over 40 choices of dishes. After taking the order, "robot cooks" prepare dishes using fixed time, temperature and ingredients designed by famous Chinese cooks.
"As the cooking is controlled by a computer system, the taste and quality of dishes can be good, "said Li Xiaokui, manager of the X Future Restaurant.
Robots also complete the delivery of dishes. Without following any designed route, the robot waiters serve meals thanks to automated driving technology, which helps each robot timely change its route when something is in the way.
These eye-catching technologies have received wide praise from customers. "The dishes taste surprisingly good. I couldn't believe that they were made by robots, especially dishes that were difficult to cook" one customer said. "The application of robots has increased our efficiency(效率)and cut down our costs, "Li said, "I think robot restaurants will develop fast and have a bright future. "
1. What do we know about the X Future Restaurant?| A．It covers over 112 square meters with 400 seats. |
| B．Robot waiters deliver dishes following fixed routes. |
| C．Customers could enjoy fully-automated services |
| D．Robot cooks design dishes by themselves. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Doubtful. | C．Puzzled. | D．Worried |
| A．Robots Are Helpful in Many Restaurants. |
| B．Robots Cook Delicious Dishes like Humans. |
| C．A Robot Restaurant Was Opened in Tianjin. |
| D．The X Future Restaurant Has Become Popular. |
【推荐2】These are some ideas that some people came up with about what the life will be like in the year 2500.
We will have established a base on the moon. School kids can take field trips to the moon weekly. We will have found cures (疗法) for AIDS and cancer. The war will have ended and peace flows freely through the land. Kids will learn more and be smarter than ever before! History will be the main subject at school. Cafeteria (自助餐厅) food will be delicious! You just walk up to a machine, stick out your tongue, and it will scan your taste buds (味蕾) to see what you want to eat.
— Kristen
Here I am in the wonderful year of 2500 and life is so easy. I work in a pet store and it is so hard! I have to wake up at midnight every day and fly my car to the store. It takes so long to get there. It takes me 20 seconds to get to the store in Mississippi from my home in Florida! At work, I have to push 5 buttons and then I go home. It takes 2 seconds and that is like forever.
— Morgan
In the year 2500, I think we will have invented cars that run on things we don’t need like garbage. Tail gas will smell like whatever you like such as chocolate. I also predict that buildings will be able to go into a different dimension(维度) so your car won't hit them. The cars in 2500 don’t fly, for we haven’t got that technology yet, but they can hover (盘旋) up to seven feet. These cars are made for speed!
— Carly
Instead of cars, we may have hovering devices that float around. We could also have electric cars instead of gas powered cars. Food might be more healthy. What I believe is that the environment will change most. The environmental changes will also determine many other changes. If more people try to help the environment, then perhaps in 2500 we will have more forests and wildlife. If people won’t help the environment, then we will have no forests and little wildlife left.
— Roberta
1. What does the underlined word “scan” in the 2nd paragraph most probably mean?| A．change | B．treat |
| C．examine | D．improve |
| A．English will be the main subject at school. |
| B．Students can go to the moon every week. |
| C．Cafeteria will replace other restaurants. |
| D．AIDS and cancer will disappear. |
| A．difficult | B．meaningless | C．important | D．easy |
| A．Kristen. | B．Morgan. | C．Carly. | D．Roberta. |
| A．the environment will have changed a lot |
| B．there will be more wildlife and forests |
| C．the environment will be seriously damaged |
| D．cars will run on solar power and electricity |
【推荐3】Everything is going to change more in the next ten years than it has in the last hundred, so it’s difficult to think about 100 years in the future. I can only guess what it might be like.
After 100 years, I think that borders will disappear through the development of science and technology.
Food from Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter will become popular.
My family will live in Mangshi, but I’ll take the super airplane daily to my work office. It’ll take 30 minutes from Mangshi to New York. My wife will go to her office in London.
| A．We plan to eat dinner in Paris. |
| B．They will fly to Tokyo for shopping. |
| C．In other words, the world will be united into one. |
| D．What kinds of car will we be driving in the future? |
| E．However, I think it will be better to live then than now. |
| F．People who don’t have time will eat such things as beans. |
| G．The clothes that people will wear in the future are easy to wash. |
【推荐1】Over eight million acres of land in the US were scorched in 2020. We've lost more trees faster than nature or humans can regenerate. So we've got to have better tools to be able to reforest faster.
A Seattle—based company called DroneSeed thinks that tool could be, as its name suggests, automated seed dropping drones, which means multiple drones operating to perform a task at the same time.
Typically, reintroducing tree growth is a slow, manual process that can take up to three years. It requires growing young trees in a nursery that tree planters plant by hand. And they're using a shovel and they burn the caloric equivalent of running two marathons every day. But automated drones can cover a lot more ground and get the job done faster.
Grant Canary, DroneSeed CEO, says in groups of five, the drones can cover up to 50 acres in a day compared to about two acres by human. And he says the speed and automation can save landowners 30 to 50 percent of their reforestation costs. Eight- foot- long drones take off on pre-programmed routes carrying loads of nearly 60 pounds. They zip up and down those mountainsides, distribute seed vessels in very targeted, precise locations and make reforestation workable. But they don't drop raw seeds. Instead, Drone Seed has developed seed vessels that include a patent mixture of every thing a seed needs to survive, like fertilizers, nutrients and natural pest deterrents.
Unlike seedlings, they don't need to be buried in the ground. The vessel is a dry fiber so it absorbs moisture, soaking up and expanding so that helps it avoid drying out, which is one of the biggest causes of seed mortality.
Aerial seeding is not a new idea. But historically, raw seeds are dropped and can land in poor soil. So Drone Seed uses advanced laser mapping to identify the best locations for their seed drops, targeting healthy soil and other ideal conditions. Those are the areas that are not gravel. They don't have high competitive vegetation and so the seeds themselves are going to grow better.
1. What's the fourth paragraph mainly about?| A．The cost-reduction of planting trees. | B．The importance of reforestation. |
| C．The disadvantages of artificial tree planting. | D．The advantages of planting trees by drones. |
| A．To serve as nurseries for seedlings to grow healthily. |
| B．To prevent the young trees from rolling down hill sides. |
| C．To keep the seedlings from being damaged when landing. |
| D．To help the drones determine locations of delivery accurately. |
| A．Drones will completely replace humans. | B．They will speed up reforestation. |
| C．The diversity of forest species will increase. | D．Forest fires will be greatly reduced. |
| A．Artificial planting, slow but effective. | B．Aerial seeding, new and workable. |
| C．Drone seeding, productive and promising. | D．Forests resources, significant but fragile. |
【推荐2】A key part of protecting endangered species is figuring out where they’re living. Using environmental DNA, or eDNA, to track species isn’t new. For a few years now, researchers have been using DNA in water.
Two teams of scientists — one in Denmark led by Dr Kristine Bohmann and one in the UK led by Dr Elizabeth Clare — came up with the same question at about the same time: Could they identify the animals in an area from DNA that was simply floating in the air? DNA in the air is usually so small that it would take a microscope to see it. “I thought the chances of collecting animal DNA from air would be slim though much time had been spent on it, but we moved on,” said Bohmann who was trying to think of a crazy research idea for a Danish foundation that funds far-out science.
One team collected samples from different locations at Denmark’s Copenhagen Zoo, and the other at Hamerton Zoo Park in the UK. Clearly, they both chose the zoos. “We realized we have the Copenhagen Zoo,” Bohmann recalls. In fact, both the zoos in the UK and Denmark were almost like the zoos that were custom-built for the experiments: The animals in the zoos were non-native, so they really stuck out in DNA analyses. “If we detect a flamingo (火烈鸟), we’re sure it’s not coming from anywhere else but the zoo,” Bohmann says.
In the laboratory, by comparing their samples with examples of DNA from different animals, the scientists succeeded in identifying many different animals at the zoos.
Neither team knew that the other team was working on a similar experiment. The two were nearing submission to a scientific journal when they discovered about the other experiment. Rather than compete to rush out a publication first, they got in touch and decided to publish their findings as a pair. “We both thought the papers are stronger together,” says Clare.
“The next step is to figure out how to take this method into nature to track animals that are hard to spot, including endangered animals,” says Bohmann.
1. What did Bohmann initially think of the experiment?| A．It could be a failure. | B．It wouldn’t take long. | C．It wasn’t original. | D．It would cost much. |
| A．They raised many rare animals there. | B．The zoos were specially built for them. |
| C．They could collect enough animal DNA. | D．They could recognize animals confidently. |
| A．Competitive. | B．Inseparable. | C．Cooperative. | D．Casual. |
| A．Research Teams Test DNA in Nature | B．DNA in the Air Helps identify Animals |
| C．Different Zoos Conduct DNA Studies | D．eDNA Protects Endangered Animals |
【推荐3】For years, scientists have been mapping this remote forest in Montana for an animal that’s extremely tricky to find. Camera traps haven’t offered convincing evidence, and even experts can’t identify its tracks with certainty. But within the past decades, researchers have developed a technique called DNA metabarcoding that can detect even the most hidden species.
The world is covered in DNA. It’s all around us — on the ground, down in the ocean and up in the clouds, which begins to break down once exposed to the environment. In 2018, scientists took a sample from some well-beaten snow tracks. Lab tests showed conclusive results: the Canada lynx (山猫) was indeed present in the area. Without seeing the cat, scientists had proof it was there because of environmental DNA or eDNA.
The process of DNA metabarcoding starts with an environmental sample like a bit of soil or the blood from leeches’ (水蛭) stomachs. Researchers use enzymes (酶) that break down cellular proteins and release DNA, which they purify. The result is a “soup” of all the DNA in the sample. Scientists then apply the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which uses artificial DNA thread called universal primers. These primers bind to DNA sequences (序列) that are similar across species, then enlarge genetic barcodes (条形码) that are species-specific. A special device reads millions of these DNA parts. Finally, researchers compare them to reference databases and identify how many and which species are present.
This method has led to the discovery and identification of tens of thousands of species over the past decade. In Yosemite, researchers used eDNA to track and remove aggressive bullfrogs. DNA metabarcoding can also be used to monitor biodiversity. For example, using traditional approaches, categorizing all of the insects in a hectare of rainforest can take decades, but DNA from insect traps could produce these results in just a few months.
1. How can DNA metabarcoding help researchers?| A．By helping spot hidden animals. |
| B．By replacing camera’s functions. |
| C．By mapping remote forests accurately. |
| D．By setting up traps to catch animals more easily. |
| A．eDNA metabarcoding’s application is convincing. |
| B．DNA forms and disappears around us in a mysterious way. |
| C．Scientists did see the Canada lynx in the area. |
| D．Seeing things with our own eyes is not necessary. |
| A．The wide uses of an environmental sample. |
| B．The vital role chemistry plays in DNA metabarcoding. |
| C．The steps of carrying out a DNA metabarcoding analysis. |
| D．Scientists’ efforts in developing a device to read DNA parts. |
| A．Suspicious. | B．Positive. |
| C．Indifferent. | D．Critical. |
