高中英语人教版（新课程标准）2017-2018学年高二下册选修七Unit 2 Robots同步练习2

    Kinsey French has taught children with Down syndrome(唐氏综合征) for the past three years. The teacher of 1education at the Christian Academy's Providence School, developed a(n) 2with her students in her first year. That was 3when it came to her wedding day, she invited the class to 4her wedding party as flower girls and ring bearers. "They were like a 5to me," Kinsey told WLKY about the students, 6from seven to eleven years old. "So I knew I couldn't have this important day7them, my lovely 'kids'."

    Kinsey's now-husband, Josh, was 8too — in fact, knowing how much it would mean to her, he 9proposed (求婚) to her in front of the class. The wedding went10on the Internet after photographer Lang Thomas Leichhart 11on his Facebook photos of Kinsey in her wedding dress, 12by her students."The scene of their being together was so moving that I was brought to 13many times during the day," he told CNN. "You can tell how14she is to these kids."

    And while the children loved 15their wedding responsibilities and posing for photos, they said that their 16of the night was the dancing. For Kinsey, it was making 17that would last a lifetime. "It was so exciting," she told WLKY. "It was18for Josh and me just to have them as a19of the day, and have them come and 20with us."

    Oh my God, the robots are taking over! We're doomed! Doomed! Now that I've gotten that out of my system, it's become clear that while we may or may not be doomed, the robots are taking over. The latest example is the government's new guidelines for self-driving cars.

    Tesla, Google and Uber are already testing driverless cars in cities across America. Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick is among those predicting that by 2021, self-driving cars will play a big part in urban settings.

    Nearly 40,000 people died last year in this nation in automobile-related accidents, and we believes driverless cars can save tens of thousands of lives annually.

    Makes sense. Robot drivers are less likely to get drunk, drive without a license, text while driving or feel agitated at the scene of a pileup. On the other hand, I wonder how these highly sensitive cars will react, with walkers constantly dashing into the street. Will they jam on the brakes every 10 seconds?

    But there's a bigger picture. Not only are robots replacing humans behind the wheel, but behind the work desk, in warehouses, senior homes, you name it. Robots aren't just taking over in the workplace.

    The question is, where can't a robot function better than a human? How about writing songs? A robot can go through every combination of notes in record time and come up with a pleasing melody. The lyrics might be a different story. Is a Grammy-winning song co-written by Hank Human and R-3071 in our future?

    Finally, it's only a matter of time until we have robot politicians and presidential candidates. Why not? They can be programmed to be experts in world and domestic affairs and come up with the best solutions without corruption and bad humors.

    Actually, it's too bad such technology isn't available in 2016. Pretty sure the robot would win in a landslide.

    There is no doubt that many parents want to mold (塑造)their child to be better, faster, smarter and more skilled. Even though human parents can't do that, a robot that builds its own children can. Scientists at the University of Cambridge in England have created a mother robot that not only creates its own children, but tests out their performance.

    The mother robot analyzes(分析)the performance of each of the “children” it creates, and passes down good characters to the next generation

    For example, as the mother creates them and puts them to work, she measures how they're behaving, and she uses data from this behavior to create the next generation of robots.

    The mother robot can actually build hundreds of child robots and see the performance of these child robots. And if their performance is good, keep their design for the next generation. And if bad, just let it go.

    “We program the robots based on some functions that define(规定)the reward the robots are going to get, depending on the construction that they make. They cannot change their own reward. For the child robot, the longer the distance the robot walks, the better the reward it receives,” said Fumiya Iida, the lead researcher.

    After several generations, the “children” were running twice as fast.

    “The mother robot produced 500 robots to see which one is good and which one is bad,” said Iida.

    The researchers believe that the machines can be used in a car factory, for example, where robot cameras examine each ear in production line, find out any mistakes, and then design a better car.

    "Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell." Picture this:You're rushing (finish) your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings. Suddenly the computer goes blank and you lose all your work. Now you have to stay up to get it (do). How can you feel calm and happy?

    (invention) have speeded up our lives so much that they often leave us feeling stressed and tired. Why do you think people who live far away from (noise) cities often seem to be happier? Perhaps because they lead simple life.

    One family in the UK went "back in time" to seelife was like without all the inventions we have today. The grandparents, with their daughter, and grandsons Benjamin, 10, and Thomas,7, (spend) nine weeks in a house dating back to 1940. They had no microwave, computer or mobile phones.

    The grandmother, Molly, said, "It was hard (physical), but not mentally." She believed life was less materialistic."The more things you have, the more difficult life becomes," she said. The boys said they had less to fight over, their computer, for example. Benjamin also noticed that (he)grandmother had changed from being a trendy, beer-drinking granny to oneliked cooking things.