2 . Could you imagine cars driving without human drivers? Recently, China has made a big step toward self-driving technology. This August, more and more driverless taxis run on roads in many big cities in China.

Why do we develop self-driving cars? Self-driving cars give us many benefits. They use computers to sense the things around them and make better use of space. This means fewer traffic jams and better parking of cars. Many people cannot drive for various reasons, including age, disability, or lack of experience. Now, they can get around more easily. Driving becomes more convenient.

According to a research, each year, over 1.3 million people die in car accidents around the world, and many more get hurt. Self-driving cars can reduce (减少) road accidents by 90% and save a lot of money. The main cause of car accidents is human mistakes. By using computers, self-driving cars don’t make poor decisions or lose attention like humans do. They can improve driving safety.

But self-driving cars aren’t perfect. If something unexpected on the road happens, self-driving cars can’t react (反应) as fast as a human driver can. Also, during weather events like heavy snow, it will be difficult for self-driving cars to see the lines on the road. It might lead to an accident. The computer system in the car can also get hacked (非法入侵) by someone, causing it to crash.

It’s clear that there is a lot of work to do to make self-driving cars a common and safe sight on our roads. And China is taking the lead in making this happen.

The world’s leading tech companies are planning to build smarter online communities（社区）. They discussed this at the World Internet Conference（会议）. The development of artificial intelligence（AI）was a hot topic at the conference. If a machine can learn and solve（解决）problems as humans do, it can be called AI.

Alibaba uses AI technology in its unmanned supermarket in Wuzhen. There is no salesperson in the supermarket, just a tablet on a desk that says “please smile”. If you smile, it will give you a special discount（折扣）for your goods. The bigger your smile is, the more discounts you will get. Payment is done automatically（自动地）through your Alipay account. When you first enter the supermarket, the supermarket’s AI knows your face and your account,

There is also AI that can read lips（唇）. Sougou brought its lip-reading system（系统）to the conference. It recognizes your mouth’s movements and turns them into voices or text messages. This could be very useful when you are trying to talk to someone on your phone in a noisy place. Police could also use the technology to help them find bad people by lip-reading recordings from video cameras.

Another type of AI works on understanding human feelings. Microsoft’s chat robot Xiao-Ice can not only provide useful information, but also chat with people like a real friend. Xiao-Ice has a WeChat account. After following the account, users can start talking with her. She knows when to comfort you or tell jokes. She keeps making herself better by talking with users.

These technologies are being put into wider use. We may see a smarter world and better lives in the near future.

6 . 阅读下面短文, 从每题所给的A、B、C、和D四个选项中选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。

Are you always busy with your schoolwork and have no time to do chores at home? Do you _________ with your parents about clearing the table, doing some washing, making your bed or tidying your room?

Do your parents find it hard to _________ that you use social networking sites（社交网站）or hang out with friends all the time? If you can’t agree with your parents, then the Family Solutions（解决办法）_________ the Family Solutions App, teenagers and parents can look at typical family arguments from both sides and find a good solution. The App gives you _________ and helps you make better choices（选择）, and it also helps your parents to see situations from your side.

How does it work? You read different kinds of _________ and then choose an answer from different options（选项）. The App _________ why one answer is the best and why other answers aren’t so good. Just imagine this _________:You’re getting ready to go out with friends but your parents want you to go to your grandparents’ home. Do you say “We always go there at the weekend. I’m meeting my friends today. ” or do you say “OK, we can go there today, but I’d like to _________ with my friends tomorrow. ” The first option doesn’t make your parents or you feel good, _________ the second option makes everybody happy.

Next time when you disagree with your parents, try to see situations from their sides.

If you need the App, you can __________ the Family Solutions App online easily — just type “Family Solution App” into your web browser（浏览器） and then follow the instructions （说明）on the screen.

7 . Developed by US company OpenAI, ChatGPT has taken the internet by storm, winning 100 million users since it came out in November 2022. People can ask the robot to write stories and emails, create instructions for cooking a certain food, translate languages, and answer all kinds of questions. In its own words, it is “a language model trained in a large amount of internet text to help users get human-like text.”

Compared with Siri or other chatbots, ChatGPT uses a much bigger information center for training. It also uses stronger software (软件) and hardware to learn things by itself. For example, if it provides a wrong answer to your question, you can tell it the right one and it will correct itself. “It’s a totally different chatbot,” computer scientist Liu Xiaoguang from Nankai University told Tianjin Daily. “The knowledge level ChatGPT shows is the same as a university student. That’s why it shocked the world.”

But one big problem with ChatGPT is that it makes mistakes or even gives false information. When Rezza, a 28-year-old from Indonesia, used the robot to write an essay (论文), it “gave out many examples which other writers actually hadn’t mentioned at all”, he told The Guardian. Since the robot is trained using words from the internet, it can also pick up biases (偏见) about certain groups. These are all things that need to be dealt with.

8 . “Turn left! Turn right!” In the IT class, Zhang Xuan was controlling a ______ to move around.

“This is part of ______ AI courses,” said a student from Beijing 101 Middle School. The school ______ AI classes for students. Besides compulsory (必修的) courses, there are also optional (选修的) courses ______ students want to learn more.

“This term, we have learned coding(编程) through a programing language called Python.” sad Zhang. Using Python to code is a ______ skill for training AI models. In recent years, Python has been tested in school exams in ______ like Beijing, Jiangsu and Anhui.

It is getting popular to have AI education in many places. Zhejiang has become a ______ example. In 2020, Zhejiang began to add AI education into ______ from Grade 5 to senior high (高中). In Wenzhou, the government is planning to ______ more schools by 2025.

“With the ______ of technology, our textbooks have been changing all the time,” said Shang Yin, an IT ______ from Beijing 101 Middle School. “From typing ______ today’s coding and AI, the courses are keeping up with the times ______ teaching students necessary skills.” “In the future, AI knowledge will be used ______. People might have to ______ things like ChatGPT. AI education will become increasingly important.” Shang added.

Mark Twain once said that everyone talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it. This     1     (be) true in his day but it may not be the case in today’s world. In fact, humans have     2     (find) many different ways to control the weather.

Cloud seeding (云催化) is a kind of technology that can control rain. It can     3     (change) the amount (量) of water inside the cloud, which helps control the amount of rain, the time     4     it rains and even where it rains.

This technology has played a key role during important events. For example, China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in     5     to stop rain from falling during the event.

However, scientists are still     6     (discuss) how to use this technology. On one hand, it is     7     (believe) that it might have side effects (副作用). For example, things it uses may be bad     8     the environment. On the other hand, no two clouds are the same, so every new experiment introduces new conditions (情况).

Besides controlling rain, scientists have also tried to find ways to     9     (weak) storms and hurricanes (飓风). US scientists think it might be possible to control hurricanes by using lasers (激光). Others believe that burning petroleum (石油) in a hurricane’s path could make the storms be     10     (slow).