The opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games on the evening of Feb 4 was
7 . Tokyo University laboratory has developed a robot that never loses at the game of Rock Paper Scissors. That is because its visual processing abilities and fingers work together faster than any human brain. A video of the robot has been watched by more than 3 million viewers on YouTube since going online at the end of June.
Tokyo University engineering professor Masatoshi Ishikawa has a good-natured response to frustrated human losers who accuse him of essentially creating a robot that cheats. “It is not cheating. Every one millisecond (千分之一秒) the image processor decides and recognizes the shape the human hand is going to make. And then the robot can make a winnable shape one millisecond later than a human being. Only one millisecond, but a human cannot see this difference because the human eye is very slow,” explained Ishikawa.
At the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory there has been amazing progress which shows the near perfect accuracy of robotics, such as a robot that can catch a falling egg without breaking it, another one that can tie a knot, and a robot that may not be quite ready for the NBA, but is able to dribble (运球) a ball.
In sports such as baseball and cricket, the misses outnumber (比......多) successes for even the most skilled athletes. That is not so in this award-winning school laboratory. For instance, an intelligent robot is the result of five years of research and a lot of trial and error. And the cost of just one finger on the robot is equal to that of a mini car.
The technology obviously has uses beyond fun and games. Corporations are eager to take advantage of the lab’s technology for industrial and other practical uses. And there is talk of applying it to assisting disabled people and improving human capabilities.
1. What brings the robot so much attention on the YouTube?| A．It plays online games much better than any human. |
| B．Its eyes and fingers can work at the same time. |
| C．It can do whatever people tell it to do. |
| D．It never loses in the game against humans. |
| A．proves to be dishonest | B．responds faster than humans |
| C．works slower sometimes | D．is lucky to win the game |
| A．performing an experiment | B．telling an interesting story |
| C．offering some practical examples | D．ordering it to do something hard |
| A．Science and technology. | B．Human and society. |
| C．Sports and games. | D．Relaxation and entertainment. |
注意：1.词数80左右；
2．可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3．开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Thomas，
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Yours，
Li Hua
In the summer of 1405, Zheng He set sail from Taicang on his first voyage. His ships
Columbus was born in a port city of Italy in 1451. As a teenager, he loved sailing, and he showed great interest in geography,
10 . Hell comes to Pearl Harbor
It was Sunday, December 7,1941. As usual, the wakeup call came at 5:45 a.m. The men aboard the warship USS Arizona stretched and rubbed their eyes. Seaman Russell Warriner was awakened by Quartermaster Louis Conter. Russell made his bed and helped clean the huge, shared room. The men went to the washroom, dressed in their uniforms and sat down to breakfast. It looked like it would be a normal day on board the ship.
But nobody ate their breakfast: at that moment, there was a huge crashing sound from above. The ship shook violently and the men looked at each other in horror. Above their heads, hundreds of Japanese planes circled like eagles. They were diving down to drop bombs on Pearl Harbor. The scream of their engines was deafening. As bombs thundered all around, clouds of black smoke rose into the sky and hung over the sea. Russell felt his blood freeze, but he quickly came to himself and rushed up to the deck. Moments later, a bomb hit the USS Arizona and Russell was thrown more than 100 meters across the ship. He suffered serious burns on his hands, arms and legs, and watched many of his friends die.
Louis, meanwhile, also standing on the deck, was lucky not to be thrown into the sea. With only minor injuries, he was able to help others who were severely burnt and in terrible pain. After receiving the order to abandon ship, Louis saved more men from the water, dragging them into the lifeboat. In the chaos and confusion after the attack, the US Navy sent a message to his family that Louis had been killed in the attack. Luckily, he was able to get in touch with them before the message arrived. Despite his remarkable actions, Louis did not think that he was a hero. “The heroes are the ones that gave their lives that day,” he said.
Russell was saved from the water, but he was badly burnt, bleeding heavily. Fortunately, he was taken to hospital and survived. For many years, Russell refused to talk about what happened that morning, describing it simply as “hell”. His wife Elsa said, “When he opened up later on, he always mentioned the horror of it.”
Louis and Russell would never forget the terrible scene of the attack, but they were fortunate enough to be among the few survivors from the Arizona. Nobody had expected the bombing. Japan had hatched a plot to launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, so the attack began without warning and without declaring war on the United States. The attack destroyed nearly 20 American ships and over 180 airplanes. In total, more than 2,000 American people were killed and over 1,000 others were wounded that day. More than 1,000 people aboard the Arizona lost their lives. Out of 37 sets of brothers, Russell and his brother were the only full pair to survive the attack．
The surprise attack came as a great shock to the whole nation. The next day, President Roosevelt delivered his famous Pearl Harbor Speech, in which he described December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy” and asked that the US Congress declare war on Japan. In response to the attack and the president’s address, the United States joined the Second World War.
Today, the USS Arizona lies where it sank: in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Its location is marked with a memorial shaped like a bridge, which crosses the ship’s sunken remains . Each year, more than two million people visit the memorial. They come to see the shadow of the ship at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, to learn about the attack, to show respect for those who had lost their lives in the attack and to pray for world peace. Although about eight decades has passed, the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the darkest episodes in American history, will never be forgotten.
1. When did Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor?| A．In the morning. | B．At noon. |
| C．In the afternoon. | D．At midnight. |
| A．Russell lost his hands, arms and legs in the attack. |
| B．Russell was seriously burned in the attack. |
| C．Louis’s family were sad to hear that he was killed. |
| D．Louis was proud of his remarkable actions. |
| A．Kind and skilled. |
| B．Helpful and clever. |
| C．Brave and clever. |
| D．Brave and modest. |
| A．Many American ships and airplanes were destroyed in the attack. |
| B．More than 1,000 people aboard the Arizona were killed. |
| C．2,000 Americans were killed and 1,000 others were wounded in the war. |
| D．Both Russell and his brother survived the attack. |
