单选题 Amazon is looking at drastically reducing its delivery times—to 30 minutes or less—as it plans a new service called Prime Air that it says could debut in a few years. The giant online retailer plans to use semi-autonomous drones to carry purchases to customers. CEO Jeff Bezos announced the plan Sunday on CBS" 60 Minutes.
Bezos tells Charlie Rose that Amazon"s "octocopter" could be airborne within four to five years, using GPS coordinates to find customers.
The drones would depart from the retailer"s "fulfillment centers," the huge warehouses it has built near many large population centers in the U. S. and elsewhere. They can carry about five pounds, Bezos says, a figure that covers around 85 percent of Amazon"s products.
The delivery drones would be particularly useful in densely populated urban areas, Bezos says. Powered by electricity, their current range of operation is around 10 miles from the point of origin.
Writing that "drones can explode, or run into things," the Quartz technology blog"s Heather Timmons notes that safety concerns may limit where the new delivery devices could be used.
In addition to safety concerns, drones could face another challenge before they"re widely used for delivery: overcoming the possible suspicions of citizens who have mostly seen the unmanned aircraft mentioned in conjunction with military and surveillance uses.
Rose"s interview of Bezos also touched on the retailer"s 10-year, $600 million contract with the CIA, through its Amazon Web Services unit. The company is using its technological expertise to build a computing cloud for the agency, Bezos said.
When asked by Rose if that presented a conflict, Bezos answered, "We"re building what"s called a private cloud for them, Charlie, because they don"t want to be on the public cloud."
Amazon isn"t alone in pursuing drone delivery. Earlier this year, a pilot project by Domino"s Pizza looked at flying hot pizzas to customers in Britain, posting a video of a successful test run.
That led the site Singularity Hub to observe:
"So why are drones such a big deal? In our robotic future, anything that can reduce urban congestion, minimize carbon emissions, save money and save trips to the emergency room (car accidents kill, you know) will drive huge value in the economy and make our lives better, to boot."
单选题 In order to shorten the delivery times, what has Amazon planned to do?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。根据题干中的关键词shorten the delivery times定位到原文第一段。该段第一句中提到，亚马逊提出一项名为“Prime Air”的新服务，力求将送货时间缩短到30分钟以内。接着具体指出，这个电商巨头计划使用半自动无人机将货物运送给顾客。即为了减少送货时间，亚马逊计划使用半自动无人机送货，故选B。
单选题 Which statement is TRUE about Amazon"s delivery drones?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。文章第三段中提到，贝佐斯指出，无人机可以运送5磅左右的货物，而亚马逊85%的商品都在这个重量范围内。可知，无人机可运送亚马逊85%的货物，故选B。文章开头就提到这种使用无人机派送的服务将在几年内投入使用，而不是现在，排除选项A；文章第四段提到由于无人机的动力来源是充电电池，所以它只能在10英里的范围内工作，排除选项C和D。
单选题 According to the passage, what is the safety concern about delivery drones?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。由题干中的safety concern定位到第五段。该段中引用希瑟·蒂蒙斯的话指出，无人机可能会出现爆炸或碰撞的安全问题，这些安全问题有可能会限制这个新型运输工具的使用范围，故选C。
单选题 What does the phrase "save trips to the emergency room" (Para.13) mean?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 词组语义题。根据题干要求直接定位到文章的最后一段。由上文以及括号中的car accidents kill可以推知，大量使用无人机送货可以减少车辆的使用，从而间接降低交通事故的发生率，那么发生交通事故，产生伤亡而送往急救室盼的情况也就减少了，故选B。
单选题 What can be learned from this passage?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。由A选项中的octocopter可定位到第二段。octocopter是指有八个螺旋桨的无人机，故排除A。由B选项中building a private cloud可定位到第七段，该段提到亚马逊正在为美国中央情报局建立私有云，而不是为其自身建立的，故排除B。由C选项中pursuing drone delivery可定位到倒数第三段，该段提到除亚马逊之外，已有一家英国餐厅尝试过用无人机送餐，故排除C。全文介绍了无人机送货的优势和潜在问题，并在最后一段中引用了Singularity Hub网站对无人机价值的肯定，可见作者对无人机送货的未来持乐观的态度，故选D。