To what degree can a computer achieve intelligence? The answer to this question may lie in a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child and the Internet.
If you ran into Smarter Child online, you would be surprised at this kid’s huge memory. It can recite many facts. For example, Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season.
He knows every word in the dictionary and the weather in every major city areas across the US. However, if you ask Smarter Child other questions, you get strange answers. A question about Smarter Child’s age returns. “One year, 11 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes, and 47 seconds!” Asking where he lives，you get, “In a clean room in a high-tech building in California.”
Smarter Child uses the vast information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank. To answer questions about spelling, for instance, Smarter Child goes to American Heritage Dictionary online. For the weather, he visits www.intellicast.com.
Some scientists believe that by joining the many systems of the Internet, an artificial being with the combined knowledge of, say, Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears can be born. However, if Smarter Child wants to think and learn on his own like the boy-computer David in the movie A. I. (Artificial Intelligence), he must overcome two problems.
The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files are labeled in different ways. That’s why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather. It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it himself.
Another problem is that while Smarter Child can process information more exactly and faster than any human, he lacks common sense—a basic grounding of knowledge that is obvious to any young child. From the text we can infer that www.intellicast.com is a website .
| A．which is specially designed to help Smarter Child |
| B．where we people can find Smarter Child |
| C．where weather forecasts are made |
| D．which is about artificial intelligence |
It is probably most difficult for Smarter Child to .
| A．tell us how to spell a difficult word |
| B．tell us how the American government is run |
| C．provide us with a famous poem by Shakespeare |
| D．learn the ability to tell right behaviors from wrong ones |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
A. Smart Child has his own memory bank big enough for all kinds of information.
B. A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is probably the name of a film about a boy-computer.
C. Smart Child can recognize different files and find information needed on his own.
D. We have similar product now which has the knowledge of Einstein, Nixon and Spears.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．A New Web Child | B．Smarter Child |
| C．The Future of Internet | D．Intelligence Development |
What will people die of 100 years from now? If you think that is a simple question, you have not been paying attention to the revolution that is taking place in bio-technology(生物技术). With the help of new medicine, the human body will last a very long time. Death will come mainly from accidents, murder and war. Today's leading killers, such as heart diseases, cancer, and aging itself, will become distant memory.
In discussion of technological changes, the Internet gets most of the attention these days. But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times. How long can humans live? Human brains were known to decide the final death. Cells(细胞) are the basic units of all living things, and until recently, scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells, such as those of brain cells, would not last forever. But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine. Sometime between 2050 and 2100, medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so, people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs(器官). The medicine, made up of the basic building materials of life, will build new brain cells, heart cells, and so on---in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.
It is exciting to imagine that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic conditional human existence, but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future. According to the passage, human death is now mainly caused by _______.
| A．diseases and aging | B．accidents and war |
| C．accidents and aging | D．heart diseases and war |
In the author's opinion, today's most important advance in technology lies in _____.
| A．medicine | B．the internet | C．brain cells | D．human organs |
Humans may live longer in the future because ______.
| A．heart disease will be far away from us |
| B．human brains can decide the final death |
| C．the basic materials of cells will last forever |
| D．human organs can be repaired by new medicine |
All of my childhood and early, adult life, my mom weighed over 220 pounds (one pound =" 0.454" kilograms). I could feel the pain that my mom experienced with her fatness.
I was never uncomfortable about my mother, but I think she was uncomfortable about herself, and that feeling was painful for all of us. And she began to lose weight.
After more than twenty years of battling obesity（肥胖）, my mother completed a forceful eighteen-month diet that left her ninety pounds lighter than before. A new woman was born! At age twenty-eight, I got a new mom! For the first time, I met the woman my mother truly was, the beautiful little lady under the fatness. It wasn’t so much her new body that was the surprise, but rather her new spirit.
To celebrate her new size and to devote herself to dancing again, my mother joined a “Mrs. Forty-Plus” competition, where she would have to model, give a speech and provide a dance performance. She told our family that she did not care if she won — she simply had always wanted to perform on stage.
She told each one of us, “I’m not doing it to win; I’m doing it to dance!”
The competition was exciting! I prayed(祈祷) that my mom would win, but while watching her on stage I was simply overjoyed just by her effort. To me, she had already won. She posed to perfection, her speech brought tears to everyone’s eyes, and her performance was wonderful.
That night, at age fifty-three, my mother was crowned (为......加冕) “Mrs. Forty-Plus”. She was the first person in our family to ever win such a title. The first two paragraphs mainly show that the author’s mom was __________.
| A．experienced | B．painful | C．comfortable | D．fat |
After the author’s mom completed a forceful eighteen-month diet, she was about ______.
| A．85 kilograms | B．41 kilograms |
| C．130 pounds | D．90 pounds |
In order to join in the “Mrs. Forty-Plus” Competition, the author’s mom has to do the following EXCEPT __________.
| A．providing a dance performance |
| B．telling a funny story about herself |
| C．giving a speech to a large number of people |
| D．wearing special clothes to show to people |
The underlined part in Paragraph 6 means that __________.
| A．the author’s mom succeeded in modeling and speaking |
| B．the author’s mom’s performance was very wonderful |
| C．the author’s mom was not successful in modeling |
| D．the author’s mom succeeded in making a speech |
The deserts of the world are not all covered with sand. Many of them have surfaces of rock or clay or small stones. They are not flat, either. They often have high hills and deep valleys. There is some plants’ life in many parts of the desert. There is little rain in the desert, but it does fall often enough for most plants.
The deserts of the world are not uninhabited(not lived by people). People also live outside oases(绿洲), but these people are not farmers. They have camels, goats, donkeys, sheep, etc. These animals can live on the desert plants and do not need much water.
The people of the desert have to move constantly from place to place, they must always look for grass or desert plants for their animals. They usually live in tents. When there is no more food for their animals, they fold up their tents, pat them on their camels and donkeys, and move to another place. In good years, when there is enough food for their animals, they trade their skins and their goats and camel hairs with the people of oases for wheat and fruit. But in bad years, when there is not enough food for their animals, the people of the desert would attack the oases people. But they are also hospitable, no man in the desert would ever refuse to give a stranger food and water.According to the passage, deserts are mostly made up of _______.
| A．clay | B．rock | C．sand | D．stones |
The underlined word “hospitable” has the meaning of being _______.
| A．brave | B．cruel | C．strange | D．kind |
In the desert _______.
| A．it rains in spring only |
| B．it rains for a short time every month |
| C．there is some rain, but far from enough |
| D．the rainfall is just enough for the plants |
People live _______.
| A．only inside the oases | B．only outside the oases |
| C．both inside and outside the oases | D．in places with regular rainfalls |
From the passage we know that life _______.
| A．is hard in deserts | B．is happy in deserts |
| C．is impossible in deserts | D．in deserts is much better now |
In a new article, Zehr, a professor at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, describes his success in using the Caped Crusader (披篷骑士) to engage students in the study of physiology.
"Batman (蝙蝠侠) has such powerful influence on readers because he is a fictional human with superpowers that seem within reach if we only work at it," writes Zehr, in a new article published in Advances in Physiology Education, a journal of the American Physiological Society. Zehr believes that it is not Batman's vast wealth that allows him to protect the citizens of Gotham City (哥谭市) , but his dedication to developing a wide range of physical skills.
Zehr uses Batman to establish a framework, grounded in his fictional universe as well as our real one, in order to discuss the various components of exercise and physical training and illustrate how the body's physiological systems respond. His experiences in teaching undergraduate courses in physiology and neurophysiology made him realize that connecting science to popular culture helped students understand the lessons better.
He first presented a formal analysis of the personal and physical discipline that would be required to transform an ordinary person into a superhero in his book, Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero. The book drew on Zehr's understanding and work in human movement and the plasticity of nerves and muscles associated with exercise. By coincidence, the book was published in the wake of The Dark Knight, the blockbuster movie which recounts Batman and his arch-enemy, the Joker.
With the casting almost complete for the sequel(续集), The Dark Knight Rises, Dr. Zehr writes about his experiences connecting science to popular culture, which is captured in the Advances, article, "A Personal View: From Claude Bernard to the Batcave and Beyond: Using Batman as a hook for physiology education."In Zehr's opinion, what makes Batman be able to defend his citizens?
| A．his large amount of fortune | B．his devotion to developing varieties of physical skills |
| C．his habit of wearing a cape | D．his developing so wide range of magic power |
Which one of the following statements is TRUE according to the third paragraph?
| A．Students of physiology and neurophysiology should have more physical training |
| B．To become a batman needs developing a wide range of physical skills |
| C．Only Batman can illustrate the respond of the body’s physiological system |
| D．combining science with popular culture can be beneficial to students’ study |
To help students study physiology well, Dr.Zehr uses Batman to do the following EXCEPT___
| A．set up his theoretical principles of teaching physiology |
| B．discuss the different components of physical training |
| C．illustrate the ways of body’s physiology system responding |
| D．perform many physiology experiments on the body movement |
.According to the book Becoming Batman, what does the possibility of becoming a superhero mainly lie on?
| A．Dr. Zehr’s formal analyses of the body's movement rules |
| B．the flexibility of nerves and muscles when being trained well |
| C．the physical training conducted by Dr. Zehr |
| D．the final influence of Batman on one person |
This passage is mainly about .
| A．Batman’seducation significance in physiology | B．introduction to Zehr’ s books on physiology |
| C．how to become a superhero like Batman | D．Batman’s powerful effects on the readers |
Heavy downpours last month in Rhode Island led to widespread flooding, causing millions of dollars in property damage and leaving thousands homeless. The floodwaters also poured vast amounts of raw sewage (污水) into the rivers and streams that flow into Narragansett Bay.
It sounds like the makings of an environmental nightmare, but in fact it’s just the opposite. To scientists’ delight, the sewage-loaded floodwaters have caused a well-timed growth of phytoplankton, the microscopic creatures that form the foundation of marine food chains. With more food available for fish, clams and other sea creatures, the bay’s fisheries industry is expected to benefit.
In decades past, Narragansett Bay typically experienced a late winter/early spring algal (海藻) bloom that fed creatures up and down the water column. But in recent years, the waters of Narragansett Bay have warmed greatly, interrupting this seasonal event.
Mark Berman, an oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the flood seemed to have sent the bay back to its normal state.
However, local, state and federal officials in Rhode Island have been battling other algal blooms that, by contrast, are causing widespread harm to the Narragansett Bay ecosystem. During summer months, sewage and agricultural runoff flows into the bay, causing large blooms. But instead of becoming food for sea creatures, much of the phytoplankton is consumed by bacteria, which grow fast in the warmer waters. The rapid bacteria growth leads to hypoxia – a decrease of oxygen in the water that can cause large fish kills. One such die-off occurred in 2003, when millions of oxygen-starved fish washed up on the beaches of Narragansett Bay.
The flood’s positive impact will probably be a one-time event, Mr. Berman said. Meanwhile, efforts to curb the harmful summer blooms continue; in 2008, for instance, Providence completed a $359 million sewage tunnel under the city designed to reduce the polluted storm overflow into Narragansett Bay. Scientists believe that the raw sewage flowing into the bay will _______.
| A．pollute the island’s environment | B．cause lots of property damage |
| C．increase the fisheries production | D．destroy the food chains in the bay |
The potential benefit of fisheries industry relies on the _______.
| A．warm temperatures of the bay | B．growth of phytoplankton |
| C．large summer alga blooms | D．consumption of oxygen by bacteria |
People struggle against the summer blooms because they will ________.
| A．pollute the local natural environment | B．increase the production of fishery industry |
| C．cause large fish kills of the bay indirectly | D．provide too much food for sea creatures |
It can be inferred that _______.
| A．money spent on the summer blooms has been wasted |
| B．the government is investing to promote the local fisheries |
| C．research of oceanology should be encouraged |
| D．opinions on the raw sewage impact are currently contradictory |
The underlined word “curb” in the last paragraph can be defined as “______”.
| A．control | B．consume | C．cause | D．cure |