In the past years, it is always believed that robots cannot think like humans. In recent years, with the development of the technology, it seems not difficult for robots to think like us. Some people are worried that might happen in the future.
Where is the robot technology heading (朝向)? Can robots and humans work together?
| Yes—they’re here to help humans Robots were created by humans. Robots do jobs that are too dangerous for people to do by themselves. Although robots might take some people’s jobs, they will create new types of work, and they will probably create more jobs than those they take away. Besides, robots’ programme could actually make them more trustworthy (值得信任的) than humans, because they are not influenced by feelings. |
| No—humans should not trust robots Robots are nearly controlling the world. Jobs that used to be done by humans are now being taken by robots. Although robots are under our control now, that might not always keep the same. An experiment (实验) found that some robots had learned how to lie (说谎) to each other. With the development of AI (人工智能), robots could start to act in their own interests. |
1. Is it difficult for robots to think like humans recently?
2. Who created robots?
3. Why are robots actually more trustworthy than humans?
4. Can robots lie to each other according to the experiment?
5. What will happen with the development of AI?
2 . Imagine a tiny robot crawling（爬）through your body, helping doctors with their work. It’s not from a science novel. Doctors are now using robots to do operations（手术）. This is because robots can do some work that doctors can’t. The robots carry small cameras, which allow doctors to look inside patients’ bodies. The robots also have tiny scissors and other tools. “It’s like having little hands inside the patients,” said Dr. Wang from a hospital in Beijing.
Here’s how they work: The doctor makes a small cut in a patient. Then, the doctor puts the robot through the cut. Next, the doctor controls the robot to reach where it needs to go. Finally, with the help of the robot, the doctor looks inside the patient’s body and begins to work.
The robots have many advantages for doctors and patients. They help cut medical costs and make difficult operations quicker and easier. They allow doctors to operate with less damage（伤害）to patients’ bodies, too. This helps them to heal（治愈）faster.
However, the robots aren’t perfect. They can be expensive. What’s more, they are just tools to help humans, and they must be used by skilled doctors. Even the best robots can’t do everything that humans can do.
Scientists are working to make robots, smarter. Someday, robots may do even more than expected for humans.
1. The robots carry ________ to help doctors look inside patients’ bodies.| A．small cameras | B．little hands | C．common tools | D．tiny scissors |
a. Look inside the patient’s body and begin to work.
b. Control the robot to reach where it needs to go.
c. Put the robot into the patient’s body through the cut.
d. Make a small cut.
| A．d→b→c→a | B．d→c→a→b | C．d→a→c→b | D．d→c→b→a |
| A．The size of the robots. |
| B．The future of the robots. |
| C．The costs of the robots. |
| D．The advantages of the robots. |
| A．Doctors Cut Medical Costs |
| B．Scientists Make Robots Smarter |
| C．Robots Help Doctors with Operations |
| D．Patients Do More than Expected |
Nowadays, more and more service robots have become a part of people’s daily life. According to a recent report, the average annual (年均的) growth of the Chinese robotics industry (机器人行业) over the past five years has reached 22 percent.
Many Chinese companies have made robotic dogs. For example, one company in Hangzhou made a robotic dog and it could carry 3 kilograms of things and it could serve as a running partner for its owner. In 2021, a company also made a robot that was able to “see” and “sense” its environment with face and body recognition (识别) technology. The robot could follow its owner and avoid obstacles (障碍) automatically (自动地).
Robots are now helping people in many ways. They are widely used in houses, acting as people’s personal helpers, such as robot cleaners and cooking robots.
In education, robots are used as great teachers and coaches. Recently, a board game robot was used in Guangzhou. Besides teaching students to play Chinese chess, it could also tell the culture and rules of the game.
Robots are also used in elderly (年长的) care. Some products that could improve old people’s self-care have already been in use on the market.
Now, service robots are made to offer more convenient and intelligent services. Our life will be different with the help of these robots in the future. Do you think so?
1. What percent has the average annual growth of the Chinese robotics industry reached over the past five years?2. Is there a robot that can “see” and “sense” its environment?
3. According to Paragraph 3, what can robots do in houses as people’s personal helpers?
4. In which ways can robots be used according to the passage?
5. What do you think of service robots?
The science and technology backyard program was started by China Agricultural University in Beijing. This program sends students to help solve practical (实际的) farming problems. Hou Yulin, 25, studies at this university. He has taken part in the program. On a recent afternoon, he went to a green field. He walked around to spread fertilizer (肥料) over crops (庄稼) together with several farmers in Handan, Hebei.
Under the program, students do research in fields and use their knowledge to help farmers. On May 3rd, Chinese President Xi Jinping replied to a letter from students taking part in the program. Xi Jinping praised (C) them for their work on the front line of farming. Zhang Fusuo, a professor (教授) at China Agricultural University, started the first science and technology backyard project in 2009 in Hebei province.
His idea is simple. “The farmers don’t understand our research. We need to find a way to go down to the countryside. (A) That will make technology truly useful in solving practical problems,” Zhang said. His wish has come true. Take Hou for example, Hou studies resource utilization (资源利用) and plant protection to help improve crop output (产量).
So far, the university has developed 139 science and technology backyard projects in 24 provincial-level (省级) areas in China. (B) Another 780 such projects will be set up across the country in the future. The program has also been introduced in eight countries in Africa.
1. 把（A）处画线句子翻译成汉语。2. 把（B）处画线句子翻译成汉语。
3. 写出（C）处画线单词指代的内容。
4. 在文中找出侯同学为了帮助提高庄稼产量进行的两项研究。（名词短语）
5. 找出或概括能体现本文大意的句子。
5 . Nowadays, it seems that we cannot live without technology. We learn, work and relax by using phones, computers, iPads, AI robots and so on. Now, let’s see what’s going on in Julie’s life.
Julie usually wakes up at the ring of a mobile phone. Then, she eats her breakfast to a video on the phone. When she gets to her company, she deals with the business on the computer. And she often downloads（下载）and stores things that she needs on her iPad. When she needs something, she can just turn on the iPad and search for it. She carries the iPad wherever she is on business because it’s light. When she is at home in the evening, she sometimes uses ChatGPT, a smart AI chat robot, to write her projects. She only needs to type in some key words and then she can get some ideas in a second. It can make her use less time to do more things. In the late evening, she always falls asleep at the soft music from Xiaodu.
Julie lives with technology, and so do we. However, technology brings us some problems at the same time. Staring at screens too much is bad for our eyes. Many of us are near-sighted（近视的）or have other eye problems. AI is making some of us unwilling to think and explore on our own. We may copy ideas from AI robots. We may even like chatting in the virtual（虚拟的）world better because of so many chat robots.
So, I think that technology is a double-sided sword（双刃剑）. We should use technology correctly and wisely to make our life easy, colorful and convenient.
1. What does Julie probably do?| A．She is a student. | B．She is a writer. | C．She is a manager. |
| A．A computer. | B．An iPad. | C．An AI robot. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By providing reasons. | C．By expressing opinions. |
| A．ChatGPT is a smart AI chat robot. |
| B．AI robots will take the place of us one day. |
| C．People may communicate less with each other in real life. |
| A．How Does Julie Spend Her Day? |
| B．How Does Technology Help Us? |
| C．How Does Technology Influence Our Life? |
6 . Chinese researchers reached the top of Qomolangma on May 4th, 2022. They set up the world’s highest automatic（自动的）weather station at an altitude（海拔）8,830 meters. The station helps Chinese scientists to directly collect data （数据） from the top of the world’s highest mountain and study the effects of climate（气候）.
Collecting and studying data from Qomolangma is not easy. But the data will give valuable information about the condition of local glaciers（冰川）and mountain snow. The water from the glaciers and mountain snow has been the source（源头）for over 10 main rivers in Asia and it has fed more than 2.5 billion people.
It will also help scientists study and understand the global monsoon system（全球季风系统）, so experts can make proper decisions about climate change and sustainable（可持续的）development.
With the efforts of Chinese government and many years’ hard work by scientists, China has become a global front-runner in fields related to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
阅读短文，根据短文内容判断所给句子正（T）误（F）。
1. Chinese researchers reached the top of Qomolangma on May 4th, 2023.
2. Chinese researchers set up the world’s highest automatic weather station.
3. Collecting and studying data from Qomolangma is easy.
4. The station will also help scientists study and understand the global monsoon system.
5. China has become a global front-runner in fields related to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
7 . It might be strange to wear clothes made out of plastic bottles. But in fact, some clothing companies are already making such clothes.
Fashion（时尚）brand JUMA recently showed its newest collection at a workshop in Shanghai. Eighteen clothing items from the collection, including jumpsuits, shirts and dresses, were made from recycled plastic bottles.
“We realized that billions of water bottles were being thrown into landfills and oceans every year and that these bottles take hundreds of years to decompose （分解）. We thought we should use them to create our clothes and help the environment,” said Alia Juma.
Many other fashion companies are finding similar ways to save our planet these days. The process is rather simple. First, the plastic bottles are washed and cut into small pieces. Then they are melted（融化）and shaped into small balls. The balls are melted again to form thread（线）. People can use the thread to make different kinds of clothes.
According to Juma, it takes 67, 000 bottles to create one ton of thread. This cuts down carbon emission（碳排放）.
“Three bottles can make one glove. Five can make a skirt, ten a dress, and twenty a short coat.”
Some people might have doubts about wearing something made out of plastic bottles. But according to Causeartist, a website that focuses on innovation（创新）, clothes made from plastics could even be better than nylon and polyester（涤纶）. Plastic thread can be made into different textures（质地）, such as cotton, silk, or even wool. It seem that this innovation may lead to a greener future of fashion.
1. The underlined word “landfills” probably mean “________” in Chinese.| A．填埋池 | B．游乐场 | C．栖息地 | D．风景区 |
| A．To compete with other companies. |
| B．To create a new fashion. |
| C．To meet the needs of the design director. |
| D．To help improve the environment and cut down pollution. |
| A．How plastic bottles are collected. |
| B．How plastic bottles are turned into thread. |
| C．How other fashion companies make clothes. |
| D．How other fashion companies melt the bottles. |
| A．Food and Health |
| B．Sports and Fashion |
| C．Environment and Technology |
| D．History and Culture |
8 . Sending astronauts to Mars is a big challenge. Astronauts will have to take everything they need, including food, air and water. The room inside the spaceship is too limited to hold many things. So packing a spaceship is a huge challenge for a trip to Mars.
Six astronauts on an eight-month trip to Mars will need at least 18,000 kilograms of water for drinking and washing. They’ll also need water to protect themselves from space rays which can pass right through spaceship walls and harm astronauts’ living cells. But a layer of water placed around the ship can stop the harm.
That’s a lot of water. And sending water into space is too expensive. It costs $33,000 to send one cup of water to Mars. The more you take, the more it costs. We have the technology to get to Mars, but the problem is that it’s too expensive.
But Flynn, an engineer at NASA, thinks he has a way of solving the problem. Instead of building a heavy spaceship and packing it full of stuff (物料), why not use the stuff as part of the spaceship?
Imagine a spaceship that blows up like a balloon. Inside, the walls have pockets like a big honeycomb (蜂巢). These hold lots of plastic bags filled with water, dried food and algae (水藻). All these make hard walls and great radiation (辐射) protection. And stopping radiation doesn’t influence the food or water itself—it’s safe to eat and drink. And what if the same water could be reused again and again? Flynn and his team call their packed-pocket idea Water Walls.
Making oxygen and taking away CO2—the waste gas you breathe out—is another problem in space. “Water Walls will take away CO2 the same way it’s done here on our Earth—with living plants,” Flynn says. Living plants take in CO2 to make their food, and give off oxygen. “Plants are hard to grow in a spacecraft, so we use algae,” he says.
Algae are tiny plants that live in water. The algae will live in bags in the walls too, fed by human waste and sunlight, eating up CO2 and making oxygen for the astronauts to breathe.
Flynn thinks his onboard recycling system has many advantages. He hopes it will help make flying to Mars a reality very soon.
1. What does the underlined phrase “packing a spaceship” in paragraph 1 most probably mean?| A．repairing things in a spaceship | B．recycling things in a spaceship |
| C．checking things in a spaceship | D．putting things into a spaceship |
| A．Cost is saved. | B．Travelling time is saved. |
| C．Plastic bags are saved. | D．Food is saved. |
| A．To prevent space rays during the space trip. | B．To make the whole spaceship stronger. |
| C．To control the temperature in the spaceship. | D．To produce water in the spaceship. |
| A．To prevent water from being polluted. | B．To serve as food for astronauts. |
| C．To provide oxygen for astronauts. | D．To help other plants grow in a spaceship. |
9 . The Drama Festival will run in and outside China from June 20 to July 7. Sixty-five works will be put on both in theaters and online. “The festival is all about imagination connecting drama with the latest technology,” says Liu Chang, manager of the festival, who is also a drama director. Technology has improved design, performances and so on. Artists like Liu aren’t sure if the new technology can take drama to the future.
A Chinese play directed by Meng Jinghui, inspired (赋予灵感) by the two-part drama Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, will be on as the opening play of the festival. In the first half of the play, Meng introduces the story to 400 real audiences (观众) sitting in the Fengchao Theater in Beijing. The second half of the play will have more audiences, who use their cellphones, computers and headsets to be part of the play online.
Zhang Zhouxiang is a director full of imagination. His work, inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, will be shown from June 30 to July 2. Supported by AI, audiences can explore the fictitious scene, similar to the feeling in the real world, as the painting describes.
“The stage (舞台) design is done by AI, which is like an assistant realizing the ideas of me and my team,” says Liu, “Now I try to use the latest technology, such as ChatGPT, to write the script, and I am still working on it because the language model is difficult to understand.”
Now technology is playing a more and more important role. Many artists want to use it to improve drama. They are very interested in the relationship between people and the latest technology, especially when connected in drama—a scene to dream.
1. Which of the following is true according to this passage?| A．Liu doubts whether technology can greatly improve drama. |
| B．Meng’s two-part drama Faust will be on at the opening. |
| C．Audiences can explore the scene of Liu’s work by AI. |
| D．Liu has managed to write the script by ChatGPT. |
| A．colorful | B．unreal | C．fantastic | D．boring |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．A drama festival | B．Human imagination |
| C．Drama of the future | D．AI-assisted technology |
10 . The development of science and technology makes a difference to people’s life. The creation of special robots has helped farmers a lot.
The population on the earth grows larger each year. As a result, more and more food needs to be grown in order to feed everyone. Because climate (气候) changes all the time, it’s becoming even more difficult to grow more food. When farmers tried to grow more food in the past, some farming methods were used. However, those farming methods weren’t always healthy for the environment. In fact, they were harmful to the environment sometimes.
Could this problem be solved? Some scientists spent several years talking to farmers. They wanted to see what problems farmers were having and how these problems could be solved. This led to the creation of special robots. These special robots move around on farms and collect information about crops (庄稼). They can take pictures of plants and track (追踪) each plant’s growth.
By collecting information about plants, the robots can help farmers predict the growth of the plants. That means farmers can know how their plants will grow. By studying each plant, the robots can also help farmers look after plants better. For example, if the robots find out which plants get sick, farmers can quickly throw them away before they are about to influence other plants beside them. With the help of these robots, farmers can take better care of the plants in need.
根据短文内容选择最佳答案。
1. Farmers need to grow more and more food because ________.
| A．climate changes all the time |
| B．there are more and more people on the earth |
| C．farmers try to grow more food |
| A．farmers | B．scientists | C．farming methods |
| A．The special robots can track the growth of each plant. |
| B．The farmers spent several years creating special robots. |
| C．Thanks to the robots, none of the plants gets sick. |
| A．回顾 | B．照料 | C．预测 |
| A．Farmers have information about weather and the earth. |
| B．The special robots can help farmers grow plants well. |
| C．Scientists can grow healthy crops. |
