单选题

Passage 3

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 control led 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 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______
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. the elite's cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 文意理解题。本文的对应信息为文章的第一句话“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(从人类萌发了创造力，他们就一直在设计各种日益精巧的工具来处理那些危险、枯燥、繁重或者只是一般肮脏的工作)。”四个选项中只有c选项符合这句话的意思，答案非常容易定位。

单选题 The word "gizmos" (line 1, paragraph 2) most probably means______
A. programs B. experts C. devices D. creatures

单选题 According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can ______
A. fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery
B. interact with human beings verbally
C. have a little common sense
D. respond independently to a changing world

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 本题可以与原文进行一一对应。首先，文章第二段最后一句话指出“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”(已有一些机器人系统能够进行精确到亚毫米的脑部和骨髓手术)，”A 选项的表述与这句话的意思相反，因此是错误答案。B选项在文中没有提及，根据常识判断也是一个错误选项。同时，第三段的最后一句话指出“we can，t yet give a robot enough ‘common sense’to reliably interact with a dynamic world(我们仍然不能赋予机器人以足够的‘常识’，使它们能够与不断变化的动态世界进行可靠的交流)。因此，C选项不正确。 D选项之所以正确，可以从这句话中判断：机器人无法对外界变化做出可靠的反应，但是却是可以独立做出反应的。