1 . You are just waking up in the spring of 2030. Your Internet of Things bedroom opens solar-powered e-windows and plays gentle music while your smart lighting displays a montage(蒙太奇) of beachfront sunrises from your recent vacation.
Your shower uses very little water or soap. It recycles your grey water and puts the extra heat back into your home's integrated operating system. While you dress, your artificial intelligence (Al) assistant shares your schedule for the day and plays your favourite tunes.
You still start your day with caffeine but it comes from your loT refrigerator which is capable of providing a coffeehouse experience in your home. A hot breakfast tailored to your specific nutritional needs (based on chemical analysis from your trips to the "smart toilet") is waiting for you in the kitchen.
When it's time to leave, an on-demand transport system has three cars waiting for you, your spouse and your kids. On the road, driverless cars and trucks move with mathematical precision, without traffic jams. Accident rates are near zero.
En route, you call your R&.D team, who are wrapping up a day's work in Shanghai. Your life-sized image will be projected,which makes your colleagues see you as if you were sitting with them. It's a bit surreal(超现实的)for them to see you in the morning light given that it's dark on the Bund, Shanghai's waterfront, though the novelty fades after a few uses.
You review the day's cloud-based data from your Shenzhen manufacturing centre, your pilot project in San Diego, and your QA team in Melbourne. The massive datasets are collected in realtime from every piece of equipment and have been beautifully summarized by your company's AI. All these facilities are closely maintained and operated via a skilled predictive analytics platform. Pleased with the team's progress, you end the call and ease into a good book. This is the future and it will be here sooner than you think.
1. What will happen when you dress yourself according to the text?| A．Your schedule is sent to your boss. |
| B．Bedroom opens quickly. |
| C．Your favourite tunes are played. |
| D．Your coffee is ordered and served. |
| A．Made specially. |
| B．Mixed similarly. |
| C．Produced in advance. |
| D．Invented traditionally. |
| A．Because the team makes progress. |
| B．Because your images are wrapped up. |
| C．Because you did it ahead of time. |
| D．Because your life-sized picture is projected. |
| A．Why we need AI assistants. |
| B．What life will be like in 2030. |
| C．How we find meaningful work in the future. |
| D．How AI helps you lead an important life. |
2 . Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Some experts say that scientific advances will one day enable humans to last tens of years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life span.
“I think we are knocking at the door of immortality(永生),” said Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor and author of two books on the future. “I think by 2075 we will see it and that’s a conservative estimate(保守的估计).”
At the conference in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark said advances in using genes as well as nanotechnology(纳米技术) make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what was possible in the past. “There is a great effort so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years.”
However, many scientists who specialize in aging are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and organs will finally lead all humans to death.
Scientists also differ on what kind of life the super aged might live. “It remains to be seen if you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life?” said Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Centre. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”
1. By saying“we are knocking at the door of immortality”,Michael Zey means_________.| A．they have got some ideas about living forever |
| B．they believe that there is no limit of living |
| C．they are able to make people live past the present life span |
| D．they are sure to find the truth about long living |
| A．the human body is designed to last past about 120 years |
| B．it is possible for humans to live longer in the future |
| C．it is still doubtful how long humans can live |
| D．people can live from 120 to 180 |
| A．a great effort |
| B．the conservative estimate |
| C．the idea of living from 200 to 300 years |
| D．the idea of living beyond the present life span |
| A．No Limit for Human Life |
| B．Living Longer or not |
| C．Science,Technology and Long Living |
| D．Healthy Lifestyle and Long Living |
3 . Imagine you enter a car with no steering wheel, no brake or accelerator pedals (踏板). Under a voice-activated command, you say an address. “The fastest route will take us 15.3 minutes. Should I take it?” You say “yes” and you are on your way. The car responds and starts moving all by itself. All you have to do is sit back and relax.
How weird would it be if, one day in the future, everyone had such a car? No crazy driving, no insults, no cutting in; traffic laws would be respected and driving much safer. On the other hand, imagine the cost savings for local police enforcement and town budgets without all those speeding and parking tickets.
A new technology has the potential to change modern society in radical ways. There’s no question that self-driving vehicles could be an enormous benefit. The potential for safer cars means accident statistics would drop: some 94% of road accidents in the U.S involve human error. Older drivers and visually- or physically-impaired people would gain a new level of freedom. Maintaining safe speeds and being electric, self-driving cars would drastically reduce pollution levels and dependency on non-renewable fuels. Roads would be quieter, people safer.
But we must also consider the impact of the new technology on those who now depend on driving for their livelihoods. According to the U.S. Department of Labor. In May 2015 there were 505,560 registered school bus drivers. The American Trucking association lists approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S.
The companies developing self-driving vehicles should be partnering with state and federal authorities to offer retraining for this massive workforce, many of whom will be displaced by the new technology. This is similar to what’s happening in the coal and oil industries, a situation that fuels much of the current political discontent in this country.
New technologies will, and should, be developed. This is how society moves forward. However, progress can’t be one-sided. It is necessary for the companies and state agencies involved to consider the ethical consequences of these potential changes to build a better future for all.
1. What would be the impact of the extensive use of driverless car?| A．People would be driving in a more civilized way. |
| B．It would save local governments a lot of money. |
| C．More policemen would be patrolling the streets. |
| D．Traffic regulations would be a thing of the past. |
| A．They could enjoy greater mobility. |
| B．They would suffer no road accidents. |
| C．They would have no trouble driving. |
| D．They could go anywhere they want. |
| A．Political dissatisfaction. | B．Retraining of employees. |
| C．Fossil fuel conservation. | D．Business restructuring. |
| A．The conflict between labor and management would intensify. |
| B．The gap between various sectors of society would be widened. |
| C．Professional drivers would have a hard time adapting to new road conditions. |
| D．Numerous professional drivers would have to find new ways of earning a living. |
| A．Keep pace with technological developments. |
| B．Make new technologies affordable to everyone. |
| C．Enable everyone to benefit from new technologies. |
| D．Popularize the use of new technologies and devices |
4 . These days, it seems like everyone wants to go out into space and live on new planets.Rather than depend on another pre-existing planet, could we make a new, proper planet ourselves?
To start with, if we do want to be living on it, we should find a good place in space to put the new planet. We’d want it to be in a habitable zone, meaning the planet should be at the right distance from its star to make sure there would be perfect temperatures and most importantly, liquid(液态的) water.
We’d also need the right materials to make the planet. Our Earth is made up of many different elements(元素). If we made our own new planet we’d probably want it to have similar elements and a similar structure(结构) We’ d also want enough water to form some oceans.
But even if we get all of the materials creating a new planet like Earth could have many troubles. It might be something more like a huge space station. It would be pretty expensive if we wanted it to be super big.
We would probably also need a lot of food since there s going to be many scientists and astronauts out in space working on this project!
According to NASA, each astronaut uses about 0. 83 kilograms of food per meal, including 0.12 kilograms of packaging(包装) material. Without the weight of the packaging material, we’d need about 780 kilograms of food just to feed one astronaut for a year.
Putting all these together could make it possible to make our own planet one day! In reality, creating a new planet would probably require a very modern technology and there would be tons of other things to think about. And if this is even possible, it likely won’t happen for a very long time.
1. What's the first thing we should do if we want to create a new planet?| A．To prepare enough food. |
| B．To design its inner structure. |
| C．To find a proper place to set the planet. |
| D．To collect materials similar to our Earth. |
| A．Our Earth. | B．Outer space. |
| C．The new planet. | D．The ocean water. |
| A．About 0. 12 kilograms. | B．About 0. 71 kilograms. |
| C．About 0. 83 kilograms. | D．About 0.95 kilograms. |
| A．It is a waste of money and time. | B．It should be one of NASA’S next plans. |
| C．It is not a good idea for humans. | D．It won’t come true in the near future |
