1 . "It can't be done．" Boyan Slat heard this over and over when he first proposed a way to clean up millions of tons of plastic polluting our oceans． Almost anyone else would have given up in frustration and despair． But 20﹣year﹣old Slat hasn't： been discouraged but committed to his dream． "Human history is basically a list of things that couldn't be done， and then were done，" he says．Today， slat and his team at The Ocean Cleanup are well on their way to proving the critics wrong． Good news for the planet．
（1）_______
Slat， who grew up in the city of Delft in the Netherlands， was on a diving trip in Greece three years ago when he was deeply impressed by plastic， "There were more plastic bags than fish，" he says． "That moment I realized it was a huge issue and that environmental issues are really the biggest problems my generation will face．"
That fall， Slat， then 17， decided to study plastic pollution as part of a high school project． Soon， Slat learned that no one had yet come up with practical way to clean up this massive garbage patches． Most proposed solutions involved "fishing" up the plastic using ships equipped with nets﹣which， as Slat discovered， would likely take more than 1，000 years， cost too much， let off too much sea life along with the trash．
Slat proposed an alternative that mostly avoided these problems﹣a solar﹣powered system using a floating plastic tube which will go around the garbage and trap it is 600 meters long， A big screen hangs down from it， about three metres into the water． Wind， waves and ocean currents will push the trash toward the tube． （Fish can swim under the screen） A ship will pick up the trash and take it back to the shore to sort and recycle it into oil and other products． Best of all， Slat predicted his system could clean up the North Pacific Garbage Patch between California and Hawaii where a lot of floating garbage exists， within five to 10 years．
（2）________
The following， Slat entered the aerospace engineering program at the Delft University of Technology and officially announced his ocean cleanup concept at TEDx Delft． But nothing much moved forward，
Slat found himself continually absent﹣minded in classes， looking for ways． to improve his concept． "It wouldn't let go． I finally decided to put both university and my social life on hold to focus all my time on developing this idea． I wasn't sure if it would succeed， but considering the scale of problem I thought it was important to at least try．" He says．
With this family's blessing， Slat began in earnest organizing a team of volunteers and employees for The Ocean Cleanup， which now numbers about 100．
（3）_______
In answer to opposition， Slat and his team raised ＄100，000 from a crowdfunding campaign and began testing a 40﹣meter collecting barrier near the Azores Islands last March． In June， they released a 500+ page possibility study．
Over the next three to four years， Slat will push toward a fully operational large﹣scale project by testing a series of longer and longer barriers． He's currently seeking to crowd fund ＄2 million to finance it． Incidentally， The Ocean Cleanup is also working on a plan to stop plastic from washing into the oceans in the first place． "It's just the other problem that is equally important．" Slat says． "It's something everyone is able to help with， and we also have some technologies in the pipeline．"
As for school， Slat doesn't miss it ﹣ except maybe for the social﹣part， which he hopes to （恢复） a bit once his team takes on more of the workload． " I don't have time for things like that right now， but I really can't complain． I can imagine doing something more fun than being able to have an idea and then actually making it into a reality．" he says．
1. What is the function of the first paragraph？| A．An introduction to the main topic． |
| B．An overview of the whole article |
| C．The background information of the story |
| D．Raising a problem for later solution |
a． But is it possible？
b． Drowning in plastic
c． An idea wouldn't die
| A．a﹣b﹣c |
| B．c﹣b﹣a |
| C．b﹣a﹣c |
| D．b﹣c﹣a |
| A．One of his high school projects． |
| B．Others' opposition to his proposal． |
| C．Humans' failure in cleaning up the ocean． |
| D．The shockingly heavy plastic pollution in ocean． |
| A．It is powerful but only used in California and Hawaii |
| B．It is huge but causes great damage to sea lives |
| C．It makes full use of natural forces and is friendly to nature． |
| D．It was welcomed by all the public and worked very well． |
| A．"Human history is basically a list of things that couldn't be done， and then were done．" |
| B．"That was the moment I realized it was a huge issue and that environmental issues are really the biggest problems my generation will face．" |
| C．"I finally decided to put both university and my social life on hold to focus all my time on developing this idea．" |
| D．"It's something everyone is able to help with， and we also have some technologies in the pipeline．" |
| A．Explain a creative idea |
| B．Introduce a fascinating person． |
| C．Describe a social phenomenon |
| D．Praise a point of view |
2 . 
News anchors(主播) must have been reluctant to read out the following news: Xin Xiaomeng began working as the world’s first female artificial(人工的) intelligence news anchor at Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, three months after a male robot joined the profession.
Unlike previous news robots though, Xin does not read news like a cold machine; she reads it almost like a human being. The muscles on her face stretch and relax-and her reactions change-as she continues reading. That’s why many news anchors were worried: Will AI replace us in the near future?
To find the answer, we have to analyse the technologies that support Xin at her job. Three key technologies are used to support Xin. First, samples of human voices are collected and synthesized (合成). This is followed by the collection and synthesis of human muscle movement samples. And third the voices and movements are married in a way that when the Al news anchor reads, the micro -electric motors behind her face move to make her expressions seem more human.
Yet we need a thorough knowledge of deep leaning technology to make a robot imitate a person’s voice. The developer needs to collect tens of thousands of pieces of pronunciations, input them Into the machine and match them with the text or the Al to lean and read. The process for imitating facial movements is similar. The developer has to analyse the movements of the 53 muscles in the human face, make a model set from the collected data for the AI news anchor to lean, and imitate the movements of facial muscles via programs
Both the technologies used to make Xin’s performance impressive are mature. The real difficulty lies in the third -the technology to match the pronunciations with facial movements so that Xin expressions vary according to the content of the news report. In fact, Xins expressions don' t always change according to the content. As a result, her expressions look anything but human. Actually. AI is still no match for human qualities.
1. What does the underlined word "reluctant "in the first paragraph mean?| A．Delighted. | B．Unwilling. | C．Confused. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．They read news without expressions. | B．They looked like a human being |
| C．They could interview sports stars | D．They could interact with audience. |
| A．This technology is very perfect so far |
| B．This technology is quite popular now |
| C．This technology remains at the theoretical stage |
| D．This technology is far from mature. |
| A．human news anchors should learn from AT anchors to save their jobs |
| B．Al anchors perform much better than human news anchors at present |
| C．Al news anchors won 't replace human news anchors in the near future |
| D．Xin Xiaomeng s expressions vary so naturally that they are true to life |
