单选题
Artificial Speech

Because speech is the most convenient form of communication, in the future we want essentially natural conversations with computers. The primary point of contact will be a simple device that will act as our window into the world. It will have to be small enough to slip into our pocket, so there will be a screen but no keyboard: you will simply talk to it. The device will be permanently connected to the Internet and will keep relevant information up to you as it comes in. Such devices will evolve naturally in the next five to ten years.
Just how quickly people will adapt to a voice-based Internet world is uncertain. Many believe that, initially at least, we will need similar conventions for the voice to those we use at present on screen: click, back, forward, and so on. But soon you will undoubtedly be able to interact by voice with all those IT-based services you currently connect with over the Internet by means of a keyboard. This will help the Internet serve the entire population.
Changes like this will encompass (围绕,包围) the whole world. Because English is the language of science, it will probably remain the language in which the technology is most advanced, but most speech-recognition techniques are transferable to other languages provided (假如,若是)there is sufficient motivation to undertake the work.
Of course, in any language there are still huge problems for us to solve. Carefully dictated, clear speech can now be understood by computers with only a 4~5 percent error rate, but even the most advanced technology still records 30~40 percent errors with spontaneous speech. Within ten years we will have computers that respond to goal-directed conversation, but for a computer to have a conversation that takes into account human social behaviors is probably 50 years off. We are not going to be chatting to the big screen in the living room just yet.
In the past, insufficient speed and memory have held us back, but these days they are less of an issue. However, there are those in the IT community who believe that current techniques will eventually hit a brick wall. Personally, I believe that incremental (不断增长的) developments in performance are more likely. But it is true that by about 2040 or so, computer architectures will need to become highly parallel (并行的) if performance is to keep increasing. Perhaps that will inspire some radically new approaches to speech understanding that will replace the methods we are developing now.
单选题 In the future, people will talk to a computer instead of typing and clicking.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 第一段第三句表明,电脑将会变小,可以放进口袋,只有屏幕没有键盘,你只需和它说话就行了。由此可知,未来的人们不必敲击键盘,可以与电脑直接交流。
单选题 In the future, computers will be as small as match boxes.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 文章只在第一段第三句提到,未来的电脑小得可以放进口袋,但并没有提到它与火柴盒一样小。
单选题 Besides English, French is another frequently used language of science.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 文章只在第三段第二句提到,作为科技用语,英语很可能会成为最尖端科技用语,但若有足够的动因,绝大多数的语音识别技术是可以转化为其他语言的。然而,文章并未提到,法语是除了英语之外的常用科技用语。
单选题 Within ten years, computers can make conversations which take human social behaviors into account.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 根据第四段倒数第二句后半句可知,很可能50年后,而不是10年后,电脑能够进行将人类社会行为考虑在内的交流。
单选题 Computers can understand clear and carefully dictated speech more accurately than spontaneous speech.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 根据第四段第二句可知,电脑识别清晰话语的错误率为4%到5%,而最先进的技术识别自发话语的错误率为30%到40%。由此可知,与自发话语相比,电脑能更准确地理解清晰话语。
单选题 Insufficient memory of the computer is still a problem.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 第五段第一句表明,内存不足在过去是一个问题,现在已经基本得到解决。由此可知,如今内存不足对电脑并非是问题。
单选题 According to the writer, current technique has no room for improvement.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 第五段第三句表明,就个人而言,作者认为电脑性能的不断改善极有可能。