任务型阅读
Robot revolution
The day that a robot wakes you up, cleans your room and walks your dog might still be a few decades （十年）off. But increasingly, engineers are saying that robots are going to make the leap from the factory floor to your family room.
Companies like Sony and General Electric are working on designs for small robots. Products like the Roomba, a robot that can clean floors, are flying off the shelves. On the cover of a recent issue of Scientific American magazine, Bill Gates predicted the “Dawn of the Age of Robots”.
What’s behind this new era (时代)? It’s partly a matter of technology. Devices that can recognize and respond to a human voice have been developed. There are now a few different ways for robots to move around. They can walk, crawl or ride on wheels. They are being made smaller and smaller. They are also becoming more and more energy efficient.
A bigger part of the story is on the demand side. From the day Robert Adler invented the television remote control in the 1950s, people around the world have tirelessly searched for ways to get lazier.
Also take into consideration the increasing wealth of rich people, the time appears ripe to introduce robots to ease our daily lives.
To be sure, robots that walk on two legs and talk like people are still too complex for our present engineering abilities. Today’s robot revolution is to make them for everyday use. Robots will do basic housework such as cleaning or gardening, or just help you have more fun on the basketball court.
What makes a robot different from an ordinary cleaning machine is not the presence of computer chips (芯片). Nowadays even your microwave has a computer chip. It is the ability to sense and make changes to the environment in real time.
For example, a floor-cleaning robot should be able to sense your scared cat and move out of the way. Today’s computing ability is, for the first time, able to make machines that could “think”, at least in certain limited ways.
Robot revolution | |
What today’s robot can do | What 1. robot can do |
Recognize and respond to your voice | talk like people sense and make some changes to the 2. |
work in the factory | walk your dog |
move around, like walking or 3. on wheels | Clean your floor4. you up |
think in some limited 5. | Accompany you on the basketball court |
动词填空
1.What a heavy rain! We have no choice but ________(wait) at the bus stop.
2.Don’t miss Mayun’s wonderful speech. I’m sure each of us __________(attract)
3.---How soon ______ your friend ________(return)? ----I’m not sure, maybe in half an hour.
4.The Apple Watch young people were looking forward to ______(come) into the market at last.
5.-----Did you see a woman in a red skirt pass by just now？
------Sorry, I didn’t. I ___________(chat) with my online friends.
6.How lucky ! She _________(choose) to play the lead role in the new film directed by Zhang Yimou.
7.This book is so important that it is worth _______(read) again and again.
8.This is the first time that I ___________(play) baseball, What great fun!
根据句意和汉语注释，写出单词的正确形式。
1.She invited me to her mother’s ________(forty) birthday party the day before yesterday.
2.She left her book at home this morning because of her _________(care).
3.The silk scarf must be one of those________(act) .Look, she is looking for it.
4.I am sure China will be able to hold the Winter Olympic Games _______(success) in 2022.
根据句意，用括号内所给单词的适当形式填空。
1.The ________ (发展) of science has changed our world a lot.
2.Everyone knows that three ________ (四分之三) of the earth is covered with water.
3.The price of the vegetables has ________ (上升) greatly in Wuxi in the last few weeks.
4.Thank you for giving me some useful ________(建议). It’s of great valuable to me.
In the 1920s and 30s the airlines were just beginning. It was unusual for people to travel by air because it was expensive and dangerous. In those days, there were no flight attendants to look after the passengers. Young men ,or “stewards” helped the passengers onto the airplane and carried the passengers’ luggage(行李)but they did not provide food and drinks. But then in 1930, a woman called Ellen Church invented the “stewardess”.
Ellen Church was born in 1904 on a farm in Iowa. She was a different child. She didn’t want to work on a farm or marry a farmer —she wanted a more adventurous(冒险的)life. Ellen studied to be a nurse at the University of Minnesota and then got a job in a hospital. For the next few years she stayed at the hospital but also took flying lessons and got her pilot’s license.
Ellen was twenty-five years old when she first got in touch with Boeing Air Transport. She loved flying but she understood that airlines were a man’s world. Although women like Emelia Earheart were becoming famous, she realized it was impossible for a woman to have a career as a pilot .But she had another idea. Most people were frightened of flying because. flying was still an unreliable(不可靠的) way to travel. There were often delays(延误),many crashes and the bad weathers made many passengers sick. Ellen thought nurses could take care of passengers during flights and B.A.T. agreed.
The young woman from Iowa and seven other nurses became the first air stewardesses.
At first pilots were unhappy because they did not want stewardesses on airplanes, but passengers loved the stewardesses. In 1940 there were around 1000 of them working for different airlines. The early “stewardesses” had to be under twenty-five-year-old, single and slim. When a woman joined an airline, she had to promise not to get married or have children. It was hard job and not well paid. They worked long hours and earned ＄1 an hour.
In the 1970s, stewardesses were unhappy in their job and airlines had to make some changes. Since the 1970s, “stewardesses” have been called flight attendants. They are well paid and work fewer hours than in the past.
1. The last sentence of the first paragraph suggests that _________.
A. the word “stewardess” was made up by Ellen Church
B. Ellen Church was the first woman who flew a plane
C. Ellen Church was the first woman who worked on a plane
D. Ellen Church was the first woman passenger on a plane
2.From the second paragraph, we learn that ________.
A. Ellen did not behave in the same way as most other girls
B. Ellen’s family was not rich enough to support her education
C. Ellen was fond of working as a nurse in the hospital
D. Ellen has an unhappy childhood that changed her completely
3.The main reason for Boeing Air Transport offering Ellen the job was ________.
A. her flying experience
B. her university education
C. her nursing experience
D. her life attitudes
4.The passage mainly talks about _______.
A. the background of early flying pilots
B. the experience of flying passengers
C. the history of early flight attendants
D. the development of airplanes
For a long time, humans have used technology (科技) to study the world around us, and Mars is the latest place we’re using machines to explore. Besides the earth, the “red planet” is seen, as the one place in our solar system most likely to have life.
Early last month, the first American robot, Spirit, landed on Mars without any problem. Opportunity, the second robot, landed on the planet more than a week ago. Scientists are very excited about these machines’ safe landing on Mars. It means that now we have an excellent chance to look for water and other signs of life. So far, the robots have found some stones that could show Mars was once a wet and warm planet.
But the trips made by Spirit and Opportunity were dangerous. Mars is often called the “death planet”, because in the past its environment has been unfriendly to the robot explorers. Before Spirit and Opportunity, nearly forty spaceships had been sent to Mars since the 1960s. Two-thirds of them failed. The first spaceship, Korabl, sent in 1962 by Russia was among them. It broke apart (分裂) near the earth.
1.For a long time humans think ________.
A. they can surely find life on Mars
B. there may be life on Mars
C. it’s too late for them to explore Mars now
D. Mars is the only planet that has life on it
2.The two robots ________.
A. have found out that it is warm and wet on Mars
B. were sent to Mars to find some stones
C. were the first two American robots that landed on Mars
D. are the only machines that have landed on Mars so far
3.The third paragraph mainly tell us ________.
A. it’s a very hard and dangerous trip for spaceships to Mars
B. two-thirds of the spaceships sent to Mars have failed
C. Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars successfully
D. Mars is called the “death planet”
