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 modern 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 micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with sub millimeter 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 Lavery, 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 brain"s roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can"t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don"t know quite how we do it.

单选题 Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in ______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。利用定位关键词可以定位到第一段“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”，即“从人类最初有了智慧至今，人们一直在设计日益巧妙的工具来处理那些危险的、枯燥的、繁重的或者只是一般肮脏的工作”，由此可知选项C(发明工具来处理困难和危险的工作)与原文信息一致，其中原文的“Since the dawn of human ingenuity”与题干中的“Human ingenuity...initially”为同义改写，原文中的“devise cunning tools”与选项C中的“invention of tools”为同义改写。因而，该题的答案为C。

单选题 The word "gizmos" (Line 1, Paragraph 2) most probably means ______.

单选题 According to the text, what is beyond man"s ability now is to design a robot that ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。利用定位关键词可以定位到第三段中“goals that pose a real challenge...we can"t yet give a robot enough "common sense" to reliably interact with a dynamic world”，即“这些目标给我们提出了一个真正的挑战……我们仍然不能赋予机器人以足够的‘常识’，使它们能够与动态的世界进行可靠的交流”，其中“goals that pose a real challenge”与题干中的“what is beyond man"s ability now”是同义改写，由此可知选项D(独立地应对环境变化)为正确答案，其中原文的“a dynamic world”与选项中的“a changing world”是同义改写。选项C(有一点共同感)迷惑性较大，但是原文是“give a robot enough "common sense"”(人们没法给予机器人足够的常识)，所以该选项与原文信息不一致。

单选题 Besides reducing human labor, robots can also ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题干关键词不好定位可改为利用选项关键词定位。利用选项A的关键词可以定位到“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”，即“但是如果机器人要进入节省劳力的下一个阶段，他们必须能够在更少的人工监控下运行，并且至少能够独立地做一些决定。这些目标给我们提出了一个真正的挑战”，由此可知目前的机器人是无法做出自我判断的；利用选项B的关键词可以定位到第三段“While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error”，即“我们知道如何告诉机器人去处理一个具体的错误”，与选项B(处理一些人为的错误)信息一致；利用选项C的关键词可以定位到最后一段“They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment”，即“他们建造的机器人在严格控制的工厂环境里，能够在仪表盘上识别毫米以下的误差”，与选项C(改善工厂环境)信息不对称；利用选项D(培养人类的创造力)的关键词进行定位，没有定位到相关信息。因而，该题的正确答案为B。