1 . Preparing Cities for Robot Cars
The possibility of self-driving robot cars has often seemed like a futurist’s dream, years away from materializing in the real world. Well, the future is apparently now. The California Department of Motor Vehicles began giving permits in April for companies to test truly self-driving cars on public roads. The state also cleared the way for companies to sell or rent out self-driving cars, and for companies to operate driverless taxi services. California, it should be noted, isn’t leading the way here. Companies have been testing their vehicles in cities across the country. It’s hard to predict when driverless cars will be everywhere on our roads. But however long it takes, the technology has the potential to change our transportation systems and our cities, for better or for worse, depending on how the transformation is regulated.
While much of the debate so far has been focused on the safety of driverless cars(and rightfully so), policymakers also should be talking about how self-driving vehicles can help reduce traffic jams, cut emissions(排放) and offer more convenient, affordable mobility options. The arrival of driverless vehicles is a chance to make sure that those vehicles are environmentally friendly and more shared.
Do we want to copy — or even worsen — the traffic of today with driverless cars? Imagine a future where most adults own individual self-driving vehicles. They tolerate long, slow journeys to and from work on packed highways because they can work, entertain themselves or sleep on the ride, which encourages urban spread. They take their driverless car to an appointment and set the empty vehicle to circle the building to avoid paying for parking. Instead of walking a few blocks to pick up a child or the dry cleaning, they send the self-driving minibus. The convenience even leads fewer people to take public transport — an unwelcome side effect researchers have already found in ride-hailing(叫车) services.
A study from the University of California at Davis suggested that replacing petrol-powered private cars worldwide with electric, self-driving and shared systems could reduce carbon emissions from transportation 80% and cut the cost of transportation infrastructure(基础设施) and operations 40% by 2050. Fewer emissions and cheaper travel sound pretty appealing. The first commercially available driverless cars will almost certainly be fielded by ride-hailing services, considering the cost of self-driving technology as well as liability and maintenance issues(责任与维护问题). But driverless car ownership could increase as the prices drop and more people become comfortable with the technology.
Policymakers should start thinking now about how to make sure the appearance of driverless vehicles doesn’t extend the worst aspects of the car-controlled transportation system we have today. The coming technological advancement presents a chance for cities and states to develop transportation systems designed to move more people, and more affordably. The car of the future is coming. We just have to plan for it.
1. According to the author, attention should be paid to how driverless cars can __________.A.help deal with transportation-related problems |
B.provide better services to customers |
C.cause damage to our environment |
D.make some people lose jobs |
A.Safety. | B.Side effects. |
C.Affordability. | D.Management. |
A.Employed. | B.Replaced. |
C.Shared. | D.Reduced. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Positive. |
C.Disapproving. | D.Sympathetic. |
2 . Holding the large and heavy “brick” cellphone he’s credited with inventing 50 years ago,Martin Cooper talks about the future.
Little did he know when he made the first call on a New York City street from a heavy Motorola prototype(原型)that our world would come to be encapsulated on a sleek glass sheath where we search,connect,like and buy.
Cooper says he is an optimist. He believes that advances in mobile technology will continue to transform lives but he is worried about risks smartphones pose to privacy and young people.
“My most negative opinion is we don’t have any privacy anymore because everything about us is now recorded someplace and accessible to somebody who has enough intense desire to get it,” the 94-year-old said in an interview in Barcelona at MWC, the Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest wireless trade show, where he was getting a lifetime award.
Cooper sees a dark side to the advances, including the risk to children. One idea, he said, is to have“various Internets intended for different audiences.”
Cooper made the first public call from a handheld portable telephone on a Manhattan street on April 3,1973,using a prototype device his team at Motorola had started designing just five months earlier.
Cooper used the Dyna-TAC phone to famously call his opponent at Bell Labs, owned by AT&T. It was literally the world’s first brick phone,weighing 2.5 pounds and measuring 11 inches.
Cooper spent the best part of the next decade working to bring a commercial version of the device to market.
The call helped kick-start the cellphone revolution (革命).
Cooper said he’s “not crazy” about the shape of modern smartphones. He thinks they will develop so that they’ll be “distributed on your body,” possibly as sensors“measuring your health at all times.”
Batteries, he said, might be replaced by human energy.The body makes energy from food,he argues, so it could possibly also power a phone.Instead of holding the phone in the hand, for example, the device could be placed under the skin.
1. What does the underlined part “a sleek glass sheath” in paragraph 2 refer to?A.A smartphone. | B.A Motorola prototype. |
C.A “brick” cellphone. | D.An original cellphone. |
A.Most negative. | B.Very subjective. |
C.Doubtful and Disapproving. | D.Optimistic but also concerned. |
A.They should be provided with a different Internet from adults. |
B.They should have easy access to various Internets. |
C.They should be introduced to different audiences. |
D.They should use various Internets for learning materials. |
A.By body sensors. | B.By human body. |
C.By solar energy. | D.By advanced batteries. |
3 . What will the future be like? Good or bad? A lot of science fiction writing imagines a dark and
There's a word to
No. A new project wants to use the power of science fiction to
It's
But will these stories actually change anything or merely keep us entertained? A good science fiction story can be
Time will tell how far we can go. Let's dream big and think
A.elegant | B.splendid | C.dynamic | D.frightening |
A.improve | B.describe | C.comprise | D.develop |
A.pictured | B.argued | C.realized | D.recognized |
A.original | B.opposite | C.alternative | D.acceptable |
A.extend | B.unfold | C.sustain | D.occupy |
A.advantage | B.result | C.motive | D.maintenance |
A.harmonious | B.permanent | C.messy | D.conventional |
A.funnier | B.harder | C.newer | D.easier |
A.challenge | B.mission | C.welfare | D.surprise |
A.disgusting | B.terrifying | C.demanding | D.promising |
A.risk | B.delay | C.prevent | D.bother |
A.abnormal | B.artificial | C.constant | D.mighty |
A.cast new light on | B.make their way to | C.gather around | D.beat down |
A.neglected | B.denied | C.exposed | D.seen |
A.inside | B.beside | C.outside | D.beneath |
4 . When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.
Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note — “Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery” — and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically (魔术般) appear.
All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.
There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.
Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch (门廊) . Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.
1. Mr. Basille gave the boy a quarter out of his coin changer to __________.A.show his magical power | B.pay for the delivery |
C.satisfy his curiosity | D.please his mother |
A.He wanted to have tea there. | B.He was a respectable person. |
C.He was treated as a family member. | D.He was fully trusted by the family. |
A.Nobody wants to be a milkman now. | B.It has been driven out of the market. |
C.Its service is getting poor. | D.It is not allowed by law. |
A.He missed the good old days. | B.He wanted to tell interesting stories. |
C.He needed it for his milk bottles. | D.He planted flowers in it. |
5 . It’s a typical day at school. You’re playing soccer with your friends. One of them kicks you the ball and you run for it. You trip. You fly through the air. You land—hard, right on your face! The next moment, you’re in the nurse’s office. Your bleeding nose is being checked by laser sensors (激光传感器) that coming out of a...robot? Has the nurse’s office been taken over by sci-fi aliens (外星人) from outer space?
No. You’ve just been pushed forward 15 years into the future. And it’s a future that Susan Epstein, a computer science professor who teaches artificial intelligence, is really excited to think about. “I am crazy about this kind of thing! You could go up to the robot, put your nose in, and the machine would decide whether you needed to be treated, and how.”
Aside from being cool, an AI nurse has other advantages. It doesn’t need to take vacations. It doesn’t need to get paid a salary. And it might figure out what’s wrong with your nose faster than a human would. There are all kinds of ways that AI could be used to help make us healthier and researchers are studying how to use AI to diagnose (诊断) lung disease, cancer, and more.
Our robot nurse isn’t meant to completely take the place of humans, though. “It would work with real, live nurses and doctors,” says Epstein, “there are things humans are good at, like building trust among members of our own species or comforting someone who’s hurt or sick. A big part of medicine is the relationship between a doctor and a patient.”
Epstein points out that AI programs will never be perfect—no matter how much we might want them to be. But if AI can diagnose a deadly disease more precisely even 10 percent of the time, think of how many lives it could save. “Besides”, says Epstein, “I think there are probably patients who might prefer to have a machine for a doctor!” Would you?
1. What’s the function of para 1?A.To introduce a scientific study. |
B.To lead to the topic of the text. |
C.To describe an experience of the writer. |
D.To give an example to support an argument. |
A.Humans are better at treating patients than AI doctors. |
B.AI doctors alone can cure patients of most of the diseases. |
C.Patients’ trust in doctors may affect their treatments positively. |
D.Patients may receive as much comfort from AI doctors as from humans. |
A.They are better at trust-building. |
B.They will take over humans. |
C.Their biggest strength is being cool. |
D.They are life-saving if properly used. |
A.Negative. | B.Favorable. | C.Doubtful. | D.Unclear. |
1.家庭:
2.工作:
3.业余生活。
注意:1.词数100左右:
2.可以适当增加细节,以使行文连贯:
3.开头语已为你写好。
I often imagine what my life will be like in the future._______________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Are all changes good?
It is a commonly held belief that as people get older, they become resistant to change. Their complaints that things used to be better in the past or
But is this automatically true? Are the views of an older person on a new development always to be disregarded? This would suggest that every new development must be a good
Take
No one can foretell the future of technology exactly, because no one can see the future. However, there are reasonable
Technology in general will probably continue to improve,
Apart from above areas, there are dozens if not hundreds of areas that will continue to advance technologically. One thing is
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 |
10 . What are your retirement plans? Keep working? Get more exercise? Or learn something new? You may put them on hold. There’s a chance that, sooner or later, you might have to move further than you were thinking, as far as mars.
On Thursday, National Geographic will show the first-ever Mars show home, giving earthlings (地球人) an idea of what their life could look like on the Red Planet. In the not-so-distant year of 2037, the igloo-shaped structure could be the home of your future.
It shows a house built using recycled spacecraft (航天器) parts and Martian soil, called regolith, which has been microwaved into bricks. Some parts of the home are recognizable—a kitchen, a bedroom—but there are fundamental differences that are important to human survival.
As the Martian atmosphere is around one hundredth as thick as the Earth’s, people will need permanent (永久的) shelter from the sun; society will move largely indoors. Most buildings will be connected by underground passages and the houses won’t have windows. The homes will have simulated solar lighting, or natural light that has been bent several times.
Walls will need to be 10 to 12 feet thick to protect people from dangerous rays (光线) that can pass through six feet of steel, and a double air-locked entrance to keep the home under proper pressure.
“We don’t think of our houses as things that keep us alive, but on Mars your house will be a survival centre,” says Stephen Petranek, author of How We’ll Live on Mars. This is not just the stuff of sci-fi. “10 to 20 years from now there will certainly be people, on Mars.” Petranek says.
“We’ve had the technology for 30 years to land people on Mars, but we haven’t had the will,” Petranek says. But two main factors have “completely swung public attitudes”.
The private companies’ participation has forced government agencies to speed up their game, and influential films such as Gravity and The Martian have caught society’s eye.
1. What can we know about the show home from the text?A.It has no windows or doors due to security concern. |
B.Its design presents the idea of environmental protection. |
C.It has thick walls keeping the home under proper pressure. |
D.Its underground passages connect all the building together. |
A.Put them off. |
B.Give them away. |
C.Carry them through. |
D.Take them seriously. |
A.The great influence of the Mars show home. |
B.The development of related technology. |
C.The competition from private companies. |
D.The popularity of influential books on Mars. |
A.Living on Mars: Possible or Not |
B.Sending People to Mars: Yes or No |
C.First-ever show home: How Is It Made |
D.Future Home on Mars: What Will It Be Like |