1 . Dutch officials toasted on Tuesday the opening of what is being called the world’s first 3D-printed concrete bridge, which is meant to be used by cyclists. There was applause as officials wearing hard hats and workmen’s jackets rode over the bridge on their bikes at the opening ceremony in the southeastern town of Gemert.

“The bridge is not very big, but it was rolled out by a printer which makes it unique,” Theo Salet, from the Eindhoven University of Technology, told Dutch broadcaster NOS. Work on printing the bridge, which has some 800 layers, took about three months after starting in June and it is made of pre-stressed concrete, according to the university. “One of the advantages of printing a bridge is that much less concrete is needed than in the conventional technique in which a mould (泥浆) is filled,” it said on its website, adding “a printer deposits the concrete only where it is needed.”

The eight-metre (26-foot) bridge crosses a water-filled channel to connect two roads, and it was tested for safety to bear loads of up to two metric tons in cooperation with the BAM Infra Construction Company. “Although designed for bikes, it could take up to 40 trucks,”the designers said. “We are looking to the future,” said the head of BAM, Marinus Schimmel. “3D printing meant fewer rare resources were needed and there was significantly less waste,” he added.

The Netherlands is among countries, with the United States and China, taking a lead in this cutting-edge technology, using computers and robotics to construct objects and structures from scratch without using much traditional manpower. Last year a Dutch architect unveiled (提示) a unique 3D printer with which he hopes to construct an “endless loop” building. And a Dutch start-up called MX3D has begun printing a stainless-steel bridge, of which a third is already completed. The aim is to finish printing by March and lay the bridge over an Amsterdam canal in the future.

1. According to the text, what makes the bridge unique?

A．It adopts 3D printing.

B．It opens only to cyclists.

C．It is made of new material.

D．It uses much less concrete.

2. Which does Marinus Schimmel agree ?

A．In theory, it can support up to 40 bicycles.

B．The kind of bridge is energy-saving.

C．The kind of bridge is safer than traditional ones.

D．The technology has been used widely.

3. Which statement is true based on the last paragraph?

A．The project of an “endless loop” building has begun.

B．A stainless-steel bridge has been half constructed.

C．China is a country with advanced 3D printing.

D．3D printing technology needs no manpower.

4. Where can you read this passage?

A．News report.	B．Engineering paper.
C．History textbook.	D．Advertisement.

2 . Computer scientists have hoped to give robots technical skills to help them recognize, process and react to humor. But these attempts have mostly failed. AI (人工智能) experts say that in many cases, attempts to make robots understand humor end up producing funny results, but not in the way they were supposed to.

Tristan Miller studied more than 10,000 puns (双关语) in one research project. The pun is a kind of joke that uses a word with two meanings. For example, you could say, “Balloons do not like pop music.” The word “pop” can be a way of saying popular music; or can mean the sound a balloon makes when it explodes. But a robot might not get the joke. Tristan Miller says that is because humor is a kind of creative language that is extremely difficult for computer intelligence to understand.

Allison Bishop is a computer scientist and she also performs stand-up comedy. She explained that machines are trained to look for patterns. Comedy, on the other hand, relies on things that stay dose to a pattern, kit not completely within it. To be funny, humor should also not be predictable, Bishop said. This sets a great obstacle for a machine to recognize and understand what is funny.

Bishop says since robots have great difficulty understanding humor, she feels like it gives her better job security as a comedy performer. It even made her parents happy when her brother decided to become a full-time comedy writer because it meant he wouldn’t be replaced by a machine, she added.

Despite the difficulties, Darmstadt University’s Miller says there are good reasons to keep trying to teach humor to robots. It could make machines more relatable, especially if they can learn to understand sarcasm (讽刺), he noted. Humans use sarcasm to say one thing but mean another. But Kiki Hempelmann thinks differently. “Teaching AI systems humor may make them find it where it isn’t, and they may use it where it’s inappropriate,” he said. “Maybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks something is funny,” he added.

1. What does the author most probably want to show in Paragraph 1?

A．Robots’ influence on the scientific development.

B．Robots’ challenges of making sense of humor.

C．Computer scientists’ devotion to technical skills.

D．Computer scientists’ concern about AI’s development.

2. Examples mentioned in Paragraphs 2 and 3 are intended to ___________-.

A．prove robots do poorly in funny work

B．explain robots aren’t as intelligent as humans

C．describe language is complex and changeable

D．show language can’t be taught in a set pattern

3. What does the underlined word “obstacle” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Barrier.	B．Record.
C．Message.	D．Possibility.

4. What can we infer about teaching AI system humor from the last paragraph?

A．It will end up in vain.

B．It may be a double-edged sword.

C．It may help improve humans’ humor.

D．It will attract more computer scientists.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

China has once again proved its     1     (able) to change the world with the “new four great inventions”: high-speed railways, electronic payments, shared bicycles and online shopping. They’re related to China’s high-tech innovation (创新),     2     has improved the quality of people’s lives, according to a survey     3     (make) by the Belt and Road Research Institute of Beijing Foreign Studies University.

“My wallet is no longer in use. I can buy and eat whatever I want simply with a fingertip on my phone,” said     4     university student, adding that “even pancake sellers are using mobile payment”.

The bikes     5     (them) are not new, but the operating model of bike-sharing     6     (base) on satellite navigation system, mobile payment, big data and other high technologies.

China has entered a new innovative era, thanks to the large amounts of capital China has invested in     7     (encourage) innovation, said Bernhard Schwartlander, WHO Representative in China.

It is increasingly clear that China is innovating and no longer copying Western ideas. This is especially true in mobile, where China is leading     8     many ways such as…social messaging app WeChat, she said. This is partly     9     China skipped over the PC era and went directly to mobile. China has a     10     (large) mobile use than any other country in the world.