1 . Robots and computers are weakening wages by simplifying jobs and turning skilled work into unskilled labour. Automation is spreading into office jobs and the services sector, meaning middle-class careers and professions whose wages risk being cut down were influenced in a way never seen before. It will squash pay packets severely for years or even decades to come, a new report from Barclays has warned, which said several careers have already been destroyed as routes to prosperity.
Lorry drivers were once highly paid, but as the technology of vehicle is improving, real wages have crashed. The average US trucker earned $38 000 (£26 000) in 1980, but only $46 000 now—but to keep up with price inflation (通胀率), the wage should be several multiples of this. Similarly London’s black cab drivers have to learn the knowledge, training hard to learn the capital’s streets in detail by memory. However, satnavs (卫星导航) and apps such as Uber have led to a large inrush of drivers who have not had to pass this test, driving down earning for cabbies.
Industries soon to be affected include medicine with even complex tasks such as surgery becoming simpler. Surgeons already use robots widely in surgeries, microrobots can perform surgeries at microscopic levels that surgeons cannot manually perform. Human judgement is sill necessary, but might become less so with the development of machine, learning platforms in the medical field. With the development of machine vision, machines could also be better equipped to make medical diagnoses.
It could take many years before new technologies such as artificial intelligence (人工智能) becomes fully embedded (嵌入) in the economy to the extent that they boost productivity and wages once more. So far the effect has broadly been positive. It is estimated that 15.8 million jobs have been created overall by computer technology in the past 40 years, counting those both created and destroyed.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．Robots will replace humans soon. |
| B．Robots have influenced humans’ wages. |
| C．Robots have a negative effect on humans. |
| D．Robots will steal your wages but not your job. |
| A．Tested drivers rushed in. | B．Price inflation is very serious. |
| C．Apps such as Uber appeared. | D．Black cab drivers are too many. |
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. | C．Neutral. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Fast Spread of Automation. | B．Advantages of Automation. |
| C．Potential Market for Automation. | D．Great Influence of Automation. |
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 . In the Hollywood movie The Martian, actor Matt Damon plays an astronaut who grows food on Mars(火星)to survive alone on the red planet.
After seeing the movie, Washington State University physicist Michael Allen and University of Idaho food scientist Helen Joyner decided to carry out a case study helping students figure out how to farm on Mars. In the case study, students have to imagine they are mining(采矿) on Mars and decide how to feed themselves there before starting on the journey. They get advice from Allen and Joyner on how to select crops and take the challenges of growing crops over long periods on Mars. Students use a scoring system to select three foods to plant on Mars.
Allen found the results impressive: among 30 students, “no two people have ever gotten the same answer”, he said.
Human travelers to Mars will likely have to make use of resources on the planet rather than take everything they need with them on a spaceship. This means farming their own food on another planet, one that has a very different ecosystem (生态系统) from Earth’s.
One challenge for those who would like to live on Mars is the fact that there can be no farming tools. Like real astronauts, students taking part in the study cannot take a lot of farming tools with them. As Joyner put it to his student astronauts, “You are starting with nothing.”
Besides, students also have to deal with a very limited choice of diet. “If I had to eat a single food for the rest of my life, could I do it?” Joyner asked.
But Allen believes the case study is about more than farming and eating on the Red Planet.
“I’m not teaching about growing food on Mars,” Allen said. “I’m teaching about living with choices. I’m teaching about problem solving.”
1. In the case study, students have to __________.| A．watch the movie to know the conditions on Mars |
| B．decide which crop to grow on Mars with the help of the teachers |
| C．design different types of diets on Mars for them to choose |
| D．understand how to farm on Mars with their favorite farming tools |
| A．increases students’ knowledge about farming |
| B．helps student know more about Mars |
| C．develops students’ skills of solving problems |
| D．teaches students how to make proper choices |
| A．to describe a research on how to farm on Mars |
| B．to prepare us to deal with problems on Mars |
| C．to teach us how to survive on Mars alone |
| D．to introduce a Hollywood movie, The Martian |
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 |
