1 . "Changing the world" might seem like an unrealistic goal. When faced with huge problems such as air pollution or energy shortages, where do you start? Taoyuan-based Gogoro believes you start with a scooter.

Proof of concept In 2015, Gogoro broke onto the scene by releasing an electric scooter called the Smartscooter. Unlike most electric scooters, this one wouldn't need to be plugged in to recharge. Instead, users would stop by GoStations to exchange drained batteries for fully charged ones. Gogoro was taking a risk. If people were not happy with the system of changing batteries the whole project could fail. They didn't need to worry, though. Only one year later Gogoro sold their 10,000th Smartscooter!

Setting the bar Fast forward to 2019 and the release of the Series 3 Smartscooter. Gogoro scooters are as popular and revolutionary as ever. Their bright colors are chosen by Beatrice Santiccioli, a famous color designer who helped shape major brands like Apple, Nike and Swatch. In addition to the scooters' bright colors, plenty of cool accessories (配件) are available so you can make your scooter your own. But most important of all, Gogoro continues to pave the way toward a future of responsible energy consumption.

Looking forward Multiple cities and countries have committed to making their transportation all-electric in the coming years, and Gogoro is helping make that possible. Ordered a package? Companies like DHL and Taiwan Post now have fleets of Smartscooters to make deliveries. Need a ride? Unlock a Gogoro in Berlin, Paris or Madrid, thanks to scooter sharing services. The Smartscooter is definitely ingenious, but there's more "At Gogoro, I think the essential thing is that we want to change how people use energy. And the Smartscooter is only the beginning," says Horace Luke, Gogoro co-founder and CEO. This is where the GoStation comes in.

Tomorrow's energy Gostations are Al-equipped. They track battery health to maximize each battery's life. They recharge batteries during off-peak hours to reduce strain on the city's power grid (输电网). But they also learn when users usually visit and prioritize supplying charged batteries at those times. The fact of the matter is, cities are only getting bigger. There are already dozens of megacities (特大城市) in the world, and there will only be more in the future. Gogoro's dream is the transformation of megacities into smart cities, where power is plentiful and responsible. They hope to be a big part of that transformation.

1. Compared with other electric scooters, the Smartscooter ______.

A．can recharge itself in Gostations in megacities

B．only needs to change batteries in Gostations

C．wouldn't need to be recharged at all in life

D．can be recharged by its users in Gostations

2. Gogoro scooters are popular and revolutionary mainly because ______.

A．their colors are chosen by a famous color designer

B．their colors are different from those of others

C．it is a good way for people to consume energy

D．it can help us solve the problem of energy shortage

3. What can we conclude from the passage?

A．The more megacities there are, the more GoStations may appear.

B．GoStations will soon entirely take the place of traditional stations.

C．People need not go to GoStations especially during peak hours.

D．More megacities will appear throughout the world in the future.

2 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Search for a Human Face for Robots

Looking for a $130,000 payday? Geomiq, a British engineering and manufacturing firm is searching for a “kind and friendly” face to be the face of a robot once it goes into production. “This will entail（需要）the selected person’s face being reproduced on potentially thousands of versions of the robots worldwide,” Geomiq says in a blog post about the project.

Robots have been at the forefront of technology for decades, and are widely considered the future of our technological advancement. With the number of adults over 85 expected to triple by 2050, according to some estimates, robots designed to keep the elderly company are becoming increasingly common.     1    

They do things like responding to voice commands, offering proactive（积极主动的）notifications and advice and letting relatives monitor conditions at home. There is still a long way to go but new robotic products are coming into fruition all the time. Geomiq says the robot line has been in the works for five years and will result in a companion for seniors.

The designer has noted in an interview with a select press pool that they can’t release too many details at this stage.     2     The designer has also stressed that unsuccessful candidates will not be contacted. The company says the need for anonymity（匿名）is due to the secretive nature of the project. However, it believes the robot will soon be “readily available” to the public and hopes the campaign will create extra buzz ahead of its eventual release. “We know that this is an extremely unique request, and signing over the licenses to your face is potentially an extremely big decision,” Geomiq said.

    3     The designer has said that the project has been in development for five years, and in that time frame taken on investment from some independent venture capitals as well as a top fund based in Shanghai. the company says the robots’ purpose will be to act as a “virtual friend” for elderly people and is set to go into production next year.

The blog past doesn’t share age or gender parameters（参数）.     4     Candidates who make it to the next phase will get full details on the project. “The secrecy,” Geomiq says, “is due to non-disclosure agreement it’s signed with the robot’s designer and investors.”

A．A technology company wants to buy the rights to use someone’s face for its robots.

B．It just asks people who want to license their face to submit a photo via email for     the chance at $130,000.

C．It is a once - in - a - while opportunity for the right person.

D．They also serve a practical purpose.

E．The company is privately - funded.

F．However, ideal candidates will be given the specifics of the project.

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

How Much of the Jetsons' World Has Become a Reality?

For most of our readers, The Jetsons may be an unfamiliar name. However, for many Americans born in or before the 1980s, it is a name we fondly remember. The Jestsons was a popular cartoon that featured a family living in an advanced world     1    people settle in houses built in the sky, work only three days a week and drive flying cars that resemble flying saucers. While sky-high houses and three-day workweeks don’t appear to be on the horizon, other visions of the future     2    (turn) into practical realities.

Flying cars have been on the minds of scientists and inventors for decades. They are part of a typical imaging of the future fast-paced and luxurious,     3    (allow) us to speed through the skies. As     4     (see) in The Sky’s No longer the Limit, this flight of fancy may soon be a reality in Dubai. Aiming     5     (become) the world’s most advanced city, Dubai is currently testing the first-ever flying taxi.

    6     money still exists in its current cash-based form in The Jetsons, people today are looking toward a world where even cash is out-of-date. Bitcoin is a type of digital money that has taken the world by storm. Since its introduction, the money’s price     7     (increase) to rates as high as US$ 19,000. This, however, may not predict well for the future of digital currency, as experts warn that Bitcoin is a bubble and     8     crash soon. It’s possible that some dreams of the future may still be     9     our reach.

Other more probable technologies already exist, for example, future flying eye hospitals in A Hospital with Wings, unusual-engineered folding paper in Clever Folding and the population of endangered corals(珊瑚) in Lab-Bred Coral to the Rescue, etc. All these show     10    humans are already capable of. So, what else could the future have in store for us?

4 . In a world where science has made almost anything imaginable, think outside the box and imagine if the everyday things we all take for granted were different!

Situations 1. How would the world change if we learnt to communicate with other species, like dogs or cows? 2. If we had the power to read each other’s thought—how would life be different? 3. Imagine if everyone could choose their children’s appearance—how would the human race change? 4. Suppose that men could give birth just like women—how would the world change? 5. Imagine that a harmless drug was invented so that we no longer needed to sleep. What would the effects be? 6. Supposing people had to pass an exam before they could become parents—how would society change?

Comments Katy K I think this would be horrible! I wouldn’t be able to spend all those hours under my lovely duvet(羽绒被), I would have to spend more hours at work with my horrible boss! No, no, no! Fabgirl 17 I really wish we could do this! I’ve got a dog and two cats and I wish I knew what they were thinking and what they really wanted. It would be so cool to have a chat with them. PaulfromOz It would be a bit difficult to carry on eating them, wouldn’t it? It might feel a bit like cannibalism(同类相识), I guess. JeremyJ Actually, I think it’s time that people got some kind of qualification or training to become a parent. A lot of the world’s problems are due to bad parenting if you look around. JennyEp LOL … if only this was true! I guess a painless way of giving birth would be invented pretty quickly, wouldn’t it? Amir K. If we found out what our friends really thought of us, we’d get a few shocks, I imagine. I’m not sure this would be such a great idea!

1. According to the passage, which of the following situations receives no comments?

A．Situation 2.	B．Situation 3.
C．Situation 4.	D．Situation 6.

2. According to the comments, what do people think of being able to communicate with other species?

A．It may turn out to be a shocking situation.

B．It may have people working longer hours.

C．It may make it unbearable to have animals as food.

D．It may require a safe and painless way of communication.

3. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．What if....?	B．If only ... !
C．How come?	D．No wonder!

5 . No one knows what the future will look like. New technology and climate change might make the world more different than we can possibly imagine. So we had better keep an open mind and hope for the best.

We have no idea what the job market will look like in 2050. It is generally agreed that machine learning and robotics will change almost every line of work – from producing yoghurt to teaching yoga. However, there are conflicting views about the nature of the change and its urgency. Some believe that within a mere decade or two, billions of people will become economically redundant (多余的). Others maintain that even in the long run automation will keep creating new jobs and greater prosperity for all.

So are we on an edge of a terrifying sudden change, or are such forecasts yet another example of ill-founded Luddite hysteria(勒德分子的歇斯底里)? It is hard to say. Fears that automation will create massive unemployment go back to the nineteenth century, and so far they have never materialized. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, for every job lost to a machine at least one new job was created, and the average standard of living has increased dramatically.

Yet there are good reasons to think that this time it is different, and that machine learning will be a real game changer. Humans have two types of abilities – physical and cognitive(认知的). In the past, machines competed with humans mainly in raw physical abilities, while humans still had a great advantage over machines in cognition. Hence as manual jobs in agriculture and industry were automated, new service jobs emerged that required the kind of cognitive skills only humans possessed: learning, analysing, communicating and above all understanding human emotions. However, AI is now beginning to outperform humans in more and more of these skills, including in the understanding of human emotions.

We don’t know of any third field of activity — beyond the physical and the cognitive — where humans will always maintain a secure advantage. It is crucial to realize that the AI revolution is not just about computers getting faster and smarter. It is fuelled by breakthroughs in the life sciences and the social sciences as well. The better we understand the biochemical mechanisms that support human emotions, desires and choices, the better computers can become in analyzing human behavior, predicting human decisions, and replacing human drivers, bankers and lawyers.

In the last few decades, research in neuroscience and behavioural economics allowed scientists to gain a much better understanding of how humans make decisions. It turned out that our choices of everything from food to mates result not from some mysterious free will, but rather from billions of neurons calculating probabilities within a split second. Boasting ‘human intuition’(直觉) is actually pattern recognition.

1. The second paragraph tells us about ________.

A．predictions about the role of machine learning in future job market

B．the speed at which robotics will take the place of human beings

C．the urgency of creating new jobs with the help of automation

D．the nature of applying new technology to every line of work

2. The underlined expression “ill-founded” in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ________.

A．unidentified	B．badly-managed
C．unproven	D．ill-intended

3. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Lack of job security might force people to pick up machine learning.

B．There is possibility that AI can perform a consulting role as a psychologist.

C．The use of automation will make humans more needed than ever before.

D．A real game changer lies in making computers become faster and smarter.

4. What can be concluded from the passage?

A．AI revolution is similar to the industrial revolution in causing unemployment.

B．It’s crucial that humans maintain an advantage in the third field of activity.

C．The process of human decision is controlled by free will rather than neurons.

D．The nature of preference at first sight is the result of recognizing patterns.