单选题
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever
more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or
just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics-the science of
conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to
create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come
close.
As a result, the modem world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micromechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy-far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.
But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves-goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave La-very, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can't yet give a robot enough 'common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world."
Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.
What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human
As a result, the modem world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micromechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy-far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.
But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves-goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave La-very, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can't yet give a robot enough 'common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world."
Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.
What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human
单选题
Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in ______.
A. the use of machines to produce science fiction
B. the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry
C. the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work
D. tile 
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[考点] 此题考查考生对文首细节的捕捉。
[解析] 解题的关键在于准确理解第一句话的含义，句中并没有强调the elite精英人才，只提到“people have devised cunning tools”，因此排除选项D精英人才机智地应付危险和枯燥的工作，而A、B两项都不符合题中initially最初、最早这一要求，故选C。
单选题
The word "gizmos" (Line 1, Paragraph 2) most probably means "______".
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[考点] 此题考查考生依据上下文推测词义的能力。
[解析] 本题要判断gizmos这一单词的含义，由第一段提到robotics，而“conferring human capabilities on machines”与修饰gizmos的定语从句中remove，much human labor相照应，联系上下文句意，gizmos应该是与机器人有关，因此排除A、B、D，选C。
单选题
According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a
robot that can ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[考点] 此题考查对文章细节的捕捉。
[解析] A强调“fulfill delicate tasks”，第二段最后一句指出，已经有机器人系统，能完成某些大脑或骨科外科手术，因此排除A；B强调与人进行言语上的交流，第二段第三句则指出“automated teller terminals”可以“thank us with mechanical politeness”，因此B亦被排除；C强调“have a little common sense”，从第三段Dave Lavery的话可以看出，机器人不是没有common sense，而是没有enough common sense，排除C；只有D符合第三段原意，机器人尚不能“reliably interact with a dynamic world”。
单选题
Besides reducing human labor, robots can also ______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[考点] 此题考查对文章细节的捕捉。
[解析] 由第三段第一句可以看出，机器人尚不能“make at least a few decisions for themselves”，故排除A自己作一些决定。C、D在文中根本没有出现这样的字眼，可不予考虑，而在第三段中，由“We know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error”可得出B项正确。
单选题
The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are
______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[考点] 此题考查对细节进行推理的能力。
[解析] 本题monkey一词出现在第五段第三句，由“the human mind can… immediately disregard the 98% that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey…”，可看出，这里谈的是人脑能迅速捕捉相关信息，而忽略无关信息，由第四句“the most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability”，可知，最先进的计算机系统都不能有这样的能力，故选C。A、B、D三项都与此例无关，可排除。