1 . You are just waking up in the spring of 2030. Your Internet of Things (IoT) 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 (AI) assistant shares your schedule for the day and plays your favourite tunes.
You still start your day with caffeine but it comes from your IoT 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.
On route, you call your R&D team, who are wrapping up a day’s work in Shanghai. Your life-sized image will be projected, making 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 water-front, 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 Melbourme. 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 breakfast is ordered and served. | B．E-windows open quickly. |
| C．Your favourite songs are played. | D．Your schedule is sent to your boss. |
| A．Produced specially. | B．Made in advance. |
| C．Mixed similarly. | D．Changed randomly. |
| A．Because you did it beforehand. | B．Because you were on the scene. |
| C．Because your images are wrapped up. | D．Because your life-sized picture is projected. |
| A．Why We Need AI Assistants | B．How Life Will Be in the Future |
| C．How AI Helps Us Succeed | D．How AI Does Meaningful Work |
2 . Forecasting the technological future is difficult. Back in the 1980s, the thought of carrying around a small, portable phone seemed to belong in the world of science fiction. Then in the 1990s, imagining a phone that would allow you to surf the Internet something that didn’t even exist until 1990 was unheard-of. Today, smartphones can surf the Web, run applications and play games,and those with a near field communication (NFC) chip can act as a way to make purchases. And they can still make phone calls, too.
So what will phones look like in 2050? Based upon phone customer behavior, I imagine the future phones will rely more on combiningour physical lives with our digital lives. They probably won’t be similar to the ones we’re reusing now. They’ll be built into other devices and products. Imagine a pair of glasses that can display a digital overlay on top of your physical surroundings.
I don’t think video chat is taking off despite services like Skype and FaceTime. Rather, the trend seems to be toward asynchronous (非同步的) communication. That means the two or more people in a conversation complete a discussion over time.
We might even see the phone part of phones disappear. Recent phone customer behavior suggests that texting is a more popular way to communicate than telephone calls. Future phones will need a way to display messages but don’t necessarily include voice communication.
Since we’re talking about 2050 here, there’s even the possibility that research into brain-computer interfaces (脑机接口) will have reached a point in which we won’t need a physical screen or microphone at all. Electronics could be built into clothing. You’d link the devices to an interface connected to your brain and post messages just through thought. I’d be a form of telepathy (心灵感应).
But what do you think? Will we be wearing devices that let us communicate easily? Or will we be carrying around the iPhone 47 and answering texts between games of Angry Birds? Let us know your predictions.
1. What will future phones be like according to the author?| A．Texting may disappear. |
| B．NFC chips can be used for purchasing. |
| C．Phones will combine our lives with our work. |
| D．Phones may be built into other products. |
| A．we may send messages just through thought |
| B．phones can be connected directly to your brain |
| C．clothing may be made into the screen of phones |
| D．telepathy between people and animals may come true |
| A．people started surfing the Internet in the 1980s |
| B．we will be carrying around the iPhone 47 in 2050 |
| C．the author’s prediction about phones is based on phone customer behavior |
| D．the author is negative about the development of brain-computer interfaces |
| A．Economy. | B．Science. |
| C．Health. | D．Entertainment. |
3 . It’s 2035. You have a job, a family and you’re about 40 years old. Welcome to your future life. Getting ready for work, you pause in front of the mirror, “Turn red,” you say. Your shirt changes from sky blue to deep red. Tiny preprogrammed electronics are rearranged (重新设置) in your shirt to change its color. Looking into the mirror, you find it hard to believe that you are 40. You look much younger. With amazing advances in medicine, people in your generation may live to be 150 years old. You’re not even middle-aged.
As you go into the kitchen and prepare to pour your cereal (谷类)breakfast into a bowl, you hear: “To lose weight, you shouldn’t eat that,” from your shoes. They read the tiny electronic code on the cereal box to find out the nutrition details. You decide to listen to your shoes. “Kitchen, what can I have for breakfast?” A list of possible foods appears on the counter as kitchen checks its food supplies.
“Ready for your trip to space? ”You ask your son and daughter. In 2005 only specially trained astronauts went into space, — and very few of them. Today anyone can go to space for day trips or longer vacation. Your best friend even works in space. Handing your children three strawberries each, you add, “The doctor said you need these for space travel.” Thanks to medical advances, vaccination shots (疫苗注射) are a thing of the past. Ordinary foods contain specific vaccines. With the berries in their mouths, the kids head for the front door.
It’s time for you to go to work. Your car checks your fingerprints and unlocks the doors. “My office. Autopilot (自动驾驶).” you command. Your car drives itself down the road and moves smoothly into traffic on the highway. You sit back and unroll your e-newspaper. The latest news downloads and fills the viewer. Looking through the pages, you watch the news as video films rather than read it.
1. What changes the color of your shirt?| A．The mirror. | B．The shirt itself. | C．The counter. | D．The medicine. |
| A．By pouring the breakfast into a bowl. | B．By listening to the doctor’s advice. |
| C．By testing the food supplies in the kitchen. | D．By checking the nutrition details of the food. |
| A．breakfast | B．lunch | C．vaccines | D．nutrition |
| A．In order of time. | B．In order of character. |
| C．In order of preference. | D．In order of importance. |
4 . 2050 seems a long way away, but it is not impossible to predict the future though. With the speed we are moving now so many amazing things are going to happen in the future.
◆The Internet will be free for everyone.
The Internet is really a key driver these days. But it is not free for everyone yet. There have already been attempts like Facebook’s Free Basics.
◆
With the increasing population, it is not very hard to predict that common methods of transportation will not be enough. There will be much heavier traffic on the road. So in this case personal airplanes will be a handy method of transportation for common people.
Of course, there will be proper air traffic control for these personal airplanes.
◆Most cancers will be treated successfully.
◆Humans will live on other planets.
There will be great achievements in space research. In the year 2050, humans will be able to live on Mars. We will receive more intelligent signals from space.
| A．Though it hasn’t happened yet |
| B．So where is technology going in the future |
| C．The world’s population will cross 9.6 billion |
| D．What do you think of my predictions of 2050 |
| E．Chances are we will be able to find the next Earth-like planet |
| F．Personal airplanes will be used widely for short journeys |
| G．The number of deaths caused by cancers will be greatly reduced |
5 . Most of the 20th century has been a development on the Industrial Revolution taken to an extreme（极端）: people now own more products than ever before; there are enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth several times over; there is hardly any forest left and pollution has got to the point where we buy water. Within a few years I predict you will be able to buy air—there once was a time when you didn't need to buy food or shelter either.
Important developments in the last century are the breaking down of the class structures left over from the Industrial Revolution stage, bringing with it the empowerment（授权）of the "common man": the working day is set by law to only 8 hours a day; everyone has the vote; the media has less obvious government control; people have landed on the moon, sent spacecraft to Mars and so on. Families have also been shrinking; the nuclear family came about, and especially in the last half of the 20th century, one-parent families are becoming more common. The smaller size of the family shows the increased independence of people—once upon a time people had to live in large groups to survive.
Humans have realized their personality and independence and taken their control of the world to an extreme. In many countries the land is almost completely used in the production of food and as living space. People live in small cities which are entirely human constructed ,made from materials which are also entirely human constructed（concrete bricks）with hardly any remains of nature. Weeds are poisoned because they are messy; even parks have trees grown in tidy lines; grass is mowed to keep it short and soon. I think the massive drug "problem" troubling people is a result of too much of this influence, humans needing to escape the dull world they have created by entering fantasy worlds.
Over the last 100 years, the 20th century consciousness has spread throughout the world. Most of Asia has been thoroughly "Westernized", and most of the Third World is being over-run by Western ways of doing things and living.
1. How is the text mainly developed?| A．By giving examples and stating facts. |
| B．By stating facts and making comparisons. |
| C．By listing facts and arguing. |
| D．By predicting and concluding. |
| A．Becoming smaller. | B．Getting better off. |
| C．Disappearing sharply. | D．Becoming popular. |
| A．Effects of pollution. | B．Changes in people's way of living. |
| C．Development in science and technology. | D．Control of population. |
| A．Birth rate is over controlled. | B．Population quality has greatly improved. |
| C．People have more rights and freedom. | D．Government has lost control of society. |
6 . Don’t you want to talk less and smile more? That seems to be Amazon’s vision for the future of the smart home. According to the company, talking to their devices is just a temporary stage. Next, their gadgets (小玩意) will just know what we want and do it for us without a single command. To plot this route, the consumer tech giant showed off a series of new gadgets at its annual hardware event in September, 2020.
This vision of a smart home has been the road map for home automation for decades. A true smart home doesn’t just react to commands, it can foresee what will happen and take action accordingly. This could include lights switching on when you arrive home, heating turning off when the house is empty, or security drones (无人机) activating when somebody breaks in. Amazon says it’s ready for this domestic revolution, even if it’s still a few decades off.
Connectivity is the guarantee of a true smart home. The updated Echo smart speaker line that was recently displayed doesn’t just have a showy new look, it comes with a suite of tech to keep everything connected. This extended network, which will be launched in the US in later 2021, is designed to support expanding the smart home out to the smart garden and the smart driveway and beyond to the smart neighbourhood.
At the event, Amazon also showed off an actual robot. The Ring Always Home Cam ($ 250, coming in 2021) was perhaps the most fancy offering from the event, and certainly raised a fair number of eyebrows. At roughly 13cm high, the Always Home Cam is a drone with a camera. It rises up from its docking station and flies on pre-set paths. If a security event is detected, it will send warnings to your phone.
Ultimately, a true smart home won’t just rely on voice commands or drones. The less aggressive tech such as sensors, computer vision, and AI will work together to respond to our needs without violating our privacy. But, as Limp says, the true smart home “is a long-term vision, and there’s still lots to be done to make that a reality”.
1. According to Amazon’s vision, a true smart home ______.| A．is already available to the consumers last September |
| B．will be active and predictive |
| C．will be limited to indoor activities |
| D．can only act at its owner’s request |
| A．it only connects things in one’s own home | B．it is necessity for a true smart home |
| C．it has an attractive new look | D．it enjoys great popularity |
| A．Call the police. | B．Detect invaders. | C．Send messages | D．Take photos. |
| A．Introducing the company of Amazon. |
| B．Advertising the benefits of the smart home. |
| C．Talking about how Echo smart speaker line works. |
| D．What the true smart home is like and some related gadgets. |
7 . The future of the city is here. Sidewalk Labs, a company owned by Alphabet(which also owns Google), won a competition to design a neighborhood by Lake Ontario, Canada. The competition was held as a way to improve the building, public spaces, and transportation in the area .
The city of Toronto has promised $1.25 billion for roads, sidewalks, electricity, water, and so on. Sidewalk Labs has already put $50 million into the project.
The neighborhood has already been given the name "Quayside. "When finished, it will include many high-tech and environmentally friendly designs. These include heated sidewalks and cycle tracks to melt（融化）snow and self-driving buses. There will also be narrower street with less car and more room for public spaces like parks. The buildings will be made of plastic to make them more affordable and easier to change. Underground passages will be used for rubbish collection and for repair.
There will also be environmentally friendly energy use, changeable traffic lights, and continuous improvement through data (数据) collection and studies. This data will come from sensors(传感器) collecting information about traffic or noise levels, energy use, waste output, etc.
There are, of course, some worries about the project. One is that there is already a housing shortage in Toronto, and making an expensive, high-tech neighborhood won't help with that. It is important for Quayside to be used by the elderly, the disabled, the poor and people of different races, not only by people who work at tech companies.
Another worry is about data collection and people' s privacy. Dan Dctoroff, the CEO of Sidewalk Labs, said that the data collection will only be used to improve people's life in Quayside. He added that privacy can be put into every part of the neighborhood.
Since this kind of neighborhood is new, no doubt there will be many problems, and new laws will have to be made for this kind of high-tech housing. But hopefully, we will be able to see such a futuristic neighborhood soon.
1. How will Sidewalk Labs carry out its project?| A．By developing advanced technology |
| B．By cooperating with the city of Toronto |
| C．By collecting enough money. |
| D．By calling on people to take part in it. |
| A．Details of upcoming neighborhood. |
| B．Technologies offered by project |
| C．High-tech designs of Quayside |
| D．Equipment in the unique neighborhood |
| A．Because they have to spend much time on it |
| B．Because Quayside is only available to the elderly, the disable and the poor |
| C．Because they fear their privacy will be probably given away |
| D．Because not all people want to live in such a neighborhood. |
| A．Positive | B．Negative. | C．Worried | D．Doubtful |
8 . What will man be like in the future – in 5000 or even 50,000 years from now? We can only make guesses, of course, but we can be sure that he will be different from what he is today, for man is slowly changing all the time.
Let us take an obvious example. Man, even five hundred years ago, was shorter than he is today. Now, on average, men are about three inches taller. Five hundred years is a relatively short period of time, so we may assume that man will continue to grow taller. Again, in the modern world we use our brains a great deal. Even so, we still make use of only about 20% of the brain's capacity. As time goes on, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more, and eventually we shall need larger ones! This is likely to bring about a physical change too: the head, in particular the forehead, will grow larger.
Nowadays our eyes are in constant use. In fact, we use them so much that very often they become weaker and we have to wear glasses. But over a very long period of time it is likely that man's eyes will grow stronger.
On the other hand, we tend to make less use of our arms and legs. These, as a result, are likely to grow weaker. At the same time, however, our fingers will grow more sensitive because they are used a great deal in modern life.
But what about hair? This will probably disappear from the body altogether in course of time because it does not serve a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald.
Perhaps all this gives the impression that future man will not be a very attractive creature to look at! This may well be true. All the same, in spite of all these changes, future man will still have a lot in common with us. He will still be a human being with thoughts and emotions similar to our own.
1. The passage mainly tells us ________.| A．man's life will be different in the future |
| B．what man will look like in the future |
| C．man is growing taller and uglier as time passes |
| D．human's organs' functions will become weak |
| A．he makes use only 20% of the brain's capacity |
| B．his brain has grown larger over the past centuries |
| C．the other 80% of his brain will grow in due time |
| D．he will use his brain more and more as time goes on |
| A．He will be hairless because hair is no longer useful. |
| B．He will have smaller eyes and will wear better glasses. |
| C．His fingers will grow weaker because he won't have to make use of them. |
| D．He will think and feel in a different way. |
| A．human beings will become less attractive in the future. |
| B．less use of a bodily organ may lead to its degeneration (退化). |
| C．human beings hope for a change in the future life. |
| D．future life is always predictable. |
9 . By the year 2050, a fifth of the world’s cities will experience unprecedented climate conditions and environments that currently don’t exist in any major cities, according to new research. A team of scientists at the Crowther Lab in Switzerland produced the report, which described the climate for 520 major cities 30 years in the future.
The results showed that 77 percent of the world’s cities will experience a surprising change in climate conditions by 2050, and 22 percent of the 520 cities will see conditions that are not currently experienced by any existing major cities.
In China in 2050, the climate of Xi’an, in Shanxi province, will be similar to that of current day Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho in southern Africa, with the maximum temperature of the warmest month likely to increase by 4.59℃. Chongqing in southwest China will resemble the climate of Swaziland capital Mbabane, as the warmest temperature is predicted to rise by 5.1℃.
Scientists predict summers in Europe will get warmer by an average of 3.5℃ and European winters will see temperature rises of 4.7℃. London’s climate will be more similar lo Barcelona, and Madrid’s to Marrakech.
The Crowther Lab hopes the analysis will motivate decision-makers to take necessary steps to prevent or address some of the climate effects due to the threat of climate change. The report also found that cities in tropical regions will experience smaller changes in average temperature but will be controlled by shifts in rainfall regimes. This may lead to a noticeable increase in unexpected events, and severe droughts.
“Across all scientific fields, the greatest challenge in climate science is no longer the precise measurement of climate change impacts, but inspiring people to picture is actual effects in order to motivate action,” said Tom Crowther, senior scientist und founder of the Crowther Lab.
1. According to the research, among the 520 cities by 2050, about ________ cities will experience the climate conditions that no major cities currently have experienced.| A．400 | B．114 | C．260 | D．104 |
| A．By listing figures. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By doing experiments. | D．By explaining theory. |
| A．To compare the climate change of the major cities of the world. |
| B．To inspire people to picture its actual effects in order to motivate action. |
| C．To inspire decision-makers to take necessary steps to prevent some climate effects. |
| D．To show most word’s cities will experience a striking change in climate conditions. |
| A．World Temperature | B．Current Climate Change |
| C．Big Titles in the World | D．Future Climate Change in Most Big Cities |
10 . From self-driving cars to carebots (care+robots) for elderly people, rapid development in technology has long represented a possible threat (威胁) to many jobs normally performed by people. But experts now believe that almost 50 percent of occupations existing today will be completely unnecessary by 2025 as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to change businesses.
“The next fifteen years will see a revolution in how we work, and a revolution will necessarily take place in how we plan and think about workplaces,” said Peter Andrew, Director of Workplace Strategy for CBRE Asia-Pacific. A growing number of jobs in the future will require creative intelligence, social skills and the ability to use artificial intelligence.
The report is based on interviews with 200 experts, business leaders and young people from Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. It shows that in the US technology already destroys more jobs than it creates. But the report states, “Losing occupations does not necessarily mean losing jobs—just changing what people do.” Growth in new jobs could occur as much, according to the research. “The growth of companies that have the speed and technological know-how will directly challenge big companies,” it states.
A 2014 report by Pew Research found 52 percent of experts in artificial intelligence and robotics were optimistic about the future and believed there would still be enough jobs in the next few years. The optimists pictured “a future in which robots do not take the place of more jobs than they create,” according to Aaron Smith, the report’s co-author.
“Technology will continue to affect jobs, but more jobs seem likely to be created. Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a few billion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change,” Microsoft’s Jonathan Grudin told researchers.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The result of job reduction. |
| B．The fast development of AI. |
| C．The future life of elderly people. |
| D．The influence of technology on jobs. |
| A．Take the place of AI. |
| B．Work in a traditional way. |
| C．Take up jobs requiring creativity. |
| D．Enjoy life without working anymore. |
| A．Job unemployment will stay high. |
| B．More jobs tend to appear in the future. |
| C．Job competition is likely to grow fiercer. |
| D．Technology will have less control over jobs. |
| A．Are People Losing Their Jobs? |
| B．The Requirements for Future Jobs |
| C．The Challenging Life in the Future |
| D．Does Technology Simplify Everything? |
