We are all aware of the damaging pollution that’s created by driving petrol and diesel (柴油) vehicles. Many of the world’s cities are blocked with traffic, creating fumes containing gases such as nitrogen oxides. The solution for a cleaner, greener future could be electric vehicles. But how optimistic should we be? There was much excitement last year when the UK government announced it will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. But is that easier said than done?
The road to global traffic being totally electric is still a long way off. Currently, battery life is an issue — a fully charged battery won’t take you as far as a full tank of petrol. There are also limited numbers of charging points to plug an EV into. Of course, technology is always improving. Some of the biggest tech companies, like Google and Tesla, are spending huge amounts of money developing electric cars. And most of the big car manufacturers are now making them too. Colin Herron, a consultant on low-carbon vehicle technology, told the BBC: “The big leap forward will come with solid state batteries, which will appear first in mobile phones and laptops before they progress to cars.” These will charge more quickly and give cars a bigger range. Cost is another issue that may discourage people switching to electric power. But some countries offer incentive, such as cutting prices by reducing import taxes, and not charging for road tax and parking. Some also provide exclusive lanes for electric cars to be driven on, overtaking traditional cars which might be stuck in jams.
These kinds of measures have made Norway the country with the most electric cars per capita (人均) at more than thirty electric cars per 1000 inhabitants. But Colin Herron warns that “electric motoring” doesn’t mean a zero-carbon future. “It’s emission-free motoring, but the car has to be built, the battery has to be built, and the electricity does come from somewhere.” Maybe it’s time to think about making fewer journeys or using public transport.
1. What can we infer from the question at the end of paragraph 1?| A．We should not be too optimistic about the future. |
| B．Electric vehicles may not solve the traffic problems. |
| C．It’s not a good idea to replace petrol vehicles with electric ones. |
| D．It is not easy to obtain a greener future by means of electric vehicles. |
| A．payment | B．income | C．encouragement | D．method |
| A．Electric motoring will create a zero-carbon future. |
| B．Electric cars might not get stuck in traffic jams in the future. |
| C．There are four obstacles on the road to global traffic being totally electric. |
| D．Putting solid-state batteries in electric cars first will be a “great leap forward”. |
| A．Total Electric Traffic: a Long Way to Go |
| B．Electric Vehicles: a Road to a Greener Future |
| C．Electric Power or Petrol: a Tough Decision to Make |
| D．Petrol and Diesel Vehicles: a Main source of Gases |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Robots have certain advantages compared to humans: They are efficient, tireless, can be repaired when damaged and they never get sick. This last trait has made them the star during our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. While hundreds of thousands of medical workers have fallen ill dealing with this highly infectious virus and a lot more are forced to stay at home for fear of getting the disease, this isn’t a problem for robots.
This is why the COVID-19 outbreak is seen as the “tipping point” — noted The Independent Science reporter Anthony Cuthbertson — for robots to start to replace humans in certain jobs.
In areas like hospitals and healthcare facilities, robots are used to perform high-risk tasks. In China, for example, a hotel in Hangzhou employed a robot named “Little Peanut” to deliver food to people under quarantine（隔离期）. In Spain, robots are about to be used to test people for the coronavirus.
“Hospitals around the world are waking up to autonomous disinfection,” Per Juul Nielsen, CEO of Denmark’s UVD Robots, a leading company manufacturing disinfection robot, told Forbes. “We can’t build these robots fast enough.”
In non-medial companies, robots are also replacing human employees since they don’t have the problem of social distancing and will never take sick leave. Walmart and Amazon, for example, where robots are already used in sorting, packing and shipping, are planning to increase the number of robots in their facilities.
According to futurist Martin Ford, using more robots than human employees can prove to be rewarding for companies even when the pandemic is over. “People will prefer to go to a place that has fewer workers and more machines because they feel they can lower overall risk,” Ford told the BBC.
But this sudden surge（激增）in robot demand doesn’t mean that they triumph over humans in every aspect.
According to Bill Smart, a roboticist at Oregon State University, the human contact between doctors and patients is still important. Doctors comfort the patients and guide them through hard decisions while robots are only doing routine tasks, like cleaning and giving tests, just to free up doctors and nurses.
It might be true that robots have certain advantages over humans, but they are still secondary to human interaction.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．The advantages of robots compared to humans. |
| B．Why the COVID-19 outbreak has fueled robot demand. |
| C．Why humans play a less important role in fighting the pandemic. |
| D．Different views on applying robots to fight against COVID-19. |
| A．They can be repaired when damaged. |
| B．They do not get infected with diseases. |
| C．They test people for coronavirus more precisely. |
| D．They are tireless and can replace medical staff. |
| A．Human interaction is essential in some areas. |
| B．The demand for robots is too great to meet. |
| C．Doctors can make more accurate judgments than robots. |
| D．Robots need updating to improve contact with humans. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Indifferent | C．Objective. | D．Favorable. |
【推荐2】If you have an iPod or a phone that plays music, the Sony Walkman may look like ancient history. But when it came out forty years ago, it completely changed how people listened to music.
On July 1, 1979, Sorry introduced a product called the “Walkman”. The “walk” part of the name was important.
Many people thought it wouldn’t sell very well because it couldn’t record music. However, the Walkman was hugely popular.
On a phone or other music player today, you might have hundreds or thousands of songs. But the selection on the Walkman was much more limited.
The cassette Walkman a big success. It started the trend of “personal” music that led to the iPod, the iPhone, and the other music-playing devices we use today.
| A．The Walkman then could only play cassette tapes. |
| B．Soon other companies were imitating Sony’s device. |
| C．It almost felt like the music was playing inside your head. |
| D．The tape needed be taken out and turned over to play the other side. |
| E．It meant that you could listen to your own music as you walked around. |
| F．The first Walkman actually allowed you to share your music with a friend. |
| G．Before the Walkman came out, there wasn’t a good portable way to listen to music. |
【推荐3】The exhibit, Digital Dunhuang — Tales of Heaven and Earth, which was held at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, brought to Hong Kong more than 100 exhibits including the visual murals and other related programs that could allow visitors to learn about the art and history of the Mogao Caves in a fun way.
“Dunhuang was an international city, a place where East met West, on the old Silk Road. So the Mogao Caves, which were completed in a period of over 1,000 years, record the ways of life and beliefs of the different peoples that crossed paths there,” explained Fion Lin of Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
Visitors can now get up close and personal with these faraway treasures without having to step into the caves, thanks to the digitization project of the Dunhuang Academy, a pioneer that has made great progress in the digitization and 3D scanning of the Dunhuang treasures.
“Studies have shown that in a cave, both temperature and CO2 concentration level can rise with 15 tourists inside for ten minutes. As a result, the wall paintings are going to eventually fade. Digital technology has helped to strike a balance between sharing the treasures and protecting them,” said Lin.
However, digitization of the caves faces many challenges such as poor lighting and rough wall surfaces. On average, 40,000 pictures have to be taken to cover 300 m2. Great amount of efforts have been made to piece the pictures together. What the exhibition presented is the result of years of hard work.
During the exhibition period, a mini display on Dunhuang music culture was also being held at the Museum for public participation.
1. What could visitors see at the Digital Dunhuang exhibit?| A．The Mogao Caves. | B．About 40,000 Dunhuang pictures. |
| C．Digital Dunhuang wall paintings. | D．Ancient records of Dunhuang. |
| A．It helps Dunhuang become an international city. |
| B．It lets people better appreciate the Dunhuang art. |
| C．It is effective in cutting the CO₂ level in the caves. |
| D．It attracts more tourists from East and West to Hong Kong. |
| A．They are brightly lit. | B．They are very rough. |
| C．It is very hard to protect them. | D．It is impossible for the tourists to see them. |
| A．In paragraph 2. | B．In paragraph 3. |
| C．In paragraph 4. | D．In paragraph 5. |
【推荐1】Nearly 10,000 protesters came out in support of the Black Lives Matter rally in London. Londoners filled Victoria Park in support of the Black Lives Matter movement against the systemic racism and police brutality (暴行) happening in the United States and Canada.
The Black Lives Matter movement has seen thousands of people across Canada, the United States and the world join together following the death of George Floyd, a black man died in police custody after a white police officer was filmed kneeling on his neck. Floyd’s death in Minneapolis was only the latest in a number of cases of Black men dying while in police custody.
“Racism happens here, it happens to me, it happens to my son, it happens to my friends, and we have just been quiet and silent for far too long,” said Alexandra Kane, a spokesperson for Black Lives Matter London movement. She is hoping that from the Black Lives Matter movements they can see reform and changes within the government so that both Black and Indigenous people are “viewed and treated fairly”. “We want people within our own Black community to know we support each other. We don’t often congregate and come together, but now we can do so safely without the fear of being put into a stereotypical category.”
“I can’t even begin to name all of the times in the 18 years of my life that someone or something has made me feel less than because of the color of my skin,” one of the organizers, Simone Schacht, said when speaking at the rally. Meanwhile, “It disgusts me because we are human beings just like anyone else and we should not be treated differently,” cried 10-year-old Noah.
Nichelle Samuel was there with her husband and daughter in solidarity with her fellow Black Canadians calling for change. “Every time my husband leaves the house, it’s a constant worry something may happen,” she said. “Seeing what happens in the states only kind of effects here on a silent level. I want this rally to let people know this stuff happens silently, and if you see it, you hear it, do something about it.”
1. What does the author indicate to us by the example of Floyd in Paragraph 2?| A．American police are very violent. |
| B．Floyd’s tragic death was caused by a white cop. |
| C．People all over the world sympathized with Floyd. |
| D．Black people have long suffered from racial discrimination. |
| A．Nichelle Samuel. | B．Alexandra Kane. | C．Simone Schacht. | D．Noah. |
| A．unite | B．defeat | C．transform | D．congratulate |
| A．The government should not be blamed for the failure of white police. |
| B．The death of Floyd was a trigger for the Black Lives Matter. |
| C．Discrimination based on skin color is bad but inevitable. |
| D．Black Lives Matter rally may not work. |
【推荐2】Ai-Da sits behind a desk, a paintbrush in her hand. She looks up at the person posing for her, and then back down as she applies another drop of paint onto the canvas(画布). A lifelike portrait is taking shape. If you didn’t know a robot produced it, this portrait could pass as the work of a human artist.
Ai-Da produces portraits of sitting subjects using a robotic hand attached to her lifelike figure. She’s also able to talk, giving detailed answers to questions about her artistic process and attitudes towards technology. She even gave a TEDx talk titled “The Intersection of Art and AI” in Oxford several years ago. Ai-Da’s creators have also been experimenting with having her write and perform her own poetry.
But how are we to interpret Ai-Da’s output? Should we consider her paintings and poetry original and creative? Are these works actually art?
What discussions about AI and creativity often overlook is the fact that creativity isn’t an absolute quality that can be defined, measured and reproduced objectively. When we describe an object-for instance, a child’s drawing—as being creative, we project our own assumptions about culture onto it. Indeed, art never exists in isolation. It always needs someone to give it “art” status. And the criteria for whether you think something is art are formed by both your expectations and broader cultural conceptions.
If we extend this line of thinking to AI, it follows that no Al application or robot can objectively be “creative”. It is always we—humans—that decide whether works created by AI are art.
Some may see robot-produced paintings as something coming from creative computers, while others may be skeptical, given the fact that robots act on clear human instructions. In any case, attribution (归属)of creativity never depends on technical arrangement alone—no computer is objectively creative. Rather, the attribution of computational creativity is largely inspired by contexts of reception. Through particular social information, some people are inspired to think of AI output as art, systems as artists, and computers as creators. Therefore, as with any piece of art, your appreciation of AI output ultimately depends on your own interpretation.
1. What can we learn about Ai-Da?| A．She has a complex many-sided personality | B．She beat others in the debate on art and AI. |
| C．She is capable of drawing high-quality portraits. | D．She can write poems without being programmed. |
| A．That art is content-based. | B．That art can take many forms. |
| C．That creativity is closely related to cultures. | D．That creativity is often measured subjectively. |
| A．Every coin has two sides. | B．Great minds think alike. |
| C．Four eyes see more than two. | D．Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. |
| A．Is AI-created Art Really Art? | B．Will People Accept AI Artists? |
| C．Can We Use AI to Create Portraits? | D．Do We Need to Improve AI’s Creativity? |
【推荐3】Last August, Joe and Mary Mahoney began looking at colleges for their 17-year-old daughter, Maureen. With a checklist of criteria(标准) in hand, the Dallas family looked around the country visiting half a dozen schools. They sought a university that offered the teenager's intended major, one located near a large city, and a campus where their daughter would be safe.
“The safety issue is a big one,” says Joe Mahoney, who quickly discovered he wasn't alone in his worries. On campus tours other parents voiced similar concerns, and the same question was always asked: what about crime? But when college officials always gave the same answer—“That’s not a problem here.”—Mahoney began to feel uneasy.
“No crime whatsoever?” comments Mahoney today, “I just don’t buy it.” Nor should he: in one year alone, the U. S. Department of Education had reports of nearly 400,000 serious crimes on or around our campuses. “Parents need to understand that times have changed since they went to college,” says David Nichols, author of Creating a Safe Campus. “Campus crime mirrors the rest of the nation.”
But getting accurate information isn’t easy. Colleges must report crime statistics(统计数字) by law, but some hold back for fear of bad publicity, leaving the honest ones looking dangerous. “The truth may not always be obvious,” warns S. Daniel Carter of Security on Campus, Inc, the nation's leading campus safety watchdog group.
To help concerned parents, Carter promised to visit campuses and talk to experts around the country to find out major crime issues and effective solutions.
1. The Mahoneys visited quite a few colleges last August _________.| A．to express the opinions of many parents | B．to choose a right one for their daughter |
| C．to check the cost of college education | D．to find a right one near a large city |
| A．receive too many visitors | B．mirror the rest of the nation |
| C．hide the truth of campus crime | D．have too many watchdog groups |
| A．believe | B．admit | C．mind | D．expect |
| A．that are protected by campus security | B．that report campus crime by law |
| C．that are free from campus crime | D．that enjoy very good publicity |
| A．Exact campus crime statistics. | B．Crimes on or around campuses. |
| C．Concerns about kids'campus safety. | D．Effective solutions to campus crime. |
