Robots make me nervous--especially the ones which seem to think for themselves. I was embarrassed to admit this till I heard that Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, felt the same way. Gates said in an interview with the social networking and news website Reddit: "I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent.That should be positive if we manage well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern." Well, maybe I don't have to worry about my computer and kitchen equipment yet. After I use them I can always pull the plug. But in the future, machines might find a way to prevent us from switching them off. There's a terrible thought! Maybe the problem with computers too clever for us is not that they are evil like some we've seen in sci-fi movies. What could put us in danger is that they might be too efficient. That's what philosopher Nick Bostrom from Oxford University believes. He says that machines are indifferent to humans and in pursuit of their own goals,the destruction of people might be just additional damage. Bostrom gives us an example: A machine which might have as its only goal to produce as many paperclips as possible might look at human bodies as extra material for paperclips and go after you. Because it is, well, a machine, it would not take pity on you. It's a good thing that American writer Isaac Asimov thought about how far robots can go and left us his three rules of robotics. They state that a robot may not hurt a human being or allow the human being to come to harm. I'm glad my machines at home are "dumb". All my cleaner wants to take over is the carpet in my living room. Let's hope they don't create an appliance which wants to take over the world!. What does the text mainly focus on? A) The benefits of future robots. B) The new applications of robots. C) The concern for super intelligence. D) The popularity of robots in the future.
C
(Question)
The news that China bans time-travel TV dramas and movies got a lot of attention on the Internet. Yet, time travel in China is a bit different from time travel in common sense. It is anything but science fiction and always goes backwards in time. There is minimum imagination involved--no ever-ending circles that mess up present and future, no advanced technology, no new social orders or new human forms from the twenty--whatever century, everything is a known historical fact when you travel through in China. It is not even called time travel; rather the Chinese people refer to it as time crossover. Time crossover has been an extremely popular theme for online novels for years (in fact, it is an indispensable part of China's online culture), and didn't get picked up by TV and the big screen until recent two years. Most of time-travel dramas and movies are adapted from popular online novels and like in other cases adaptations are never better than the original books. The main plot of time-travel novels or TV dramas can be very well summarized in one sentence: from nobody to somebody. Time travel in China is more about escaping from the reality than about realizing wild dreams. In China, there is no need of time machine either. People travel backwards in time via the possession of antiques presence at historical places of interest encounter of life-threatening accidents or simple a look into the mirror. Some time-travel novels even start with ''I wanted togo back to history so much that one morning when I opened my eyes I was back.'' Technology is not relevant at all. Though China is not short of histories to go back to, people have their own preferences and it is pretty much a gender thing.If the main character is male then he usually goes back to special times in history when he is able to help build up or tear up a dynasty. A typical example is A Step Into the Past , the first time-travel TV drama in China, which tells the story of how a SWAT member helps to unite China and build up Qin Dynasty. On the other... The news mentioned in the very beginning is intended to _ . A) prove author's view B) give an example C) work as a topic sentence D) introduce the topic
(Answer)
D
Ques: When I was about twelve, I headed to a restaurant for dinner with my family. It was a windy winter night. As my mom and I headed towards the restaurant from our car, a girl about my age and her mother came up to us. They asked if we had any spare dollars. My mom immediately asked where they kept their things. They pointed to an old car in the parking across the street. The girl said there were six of them living in that car, the same size as my own family. My mom said she had something to do after handing the people a few dollars. She sent me inside the restaurant with my dad and my three siblings .But she didn't come. Later, I found out she had gone home and emptied our cupboards into a few bags. Then, she brought that food over to the car and handed the bags to the family. I wasn't there when that part happened, but I can imagine the joy it brought to their faces. A few days later, when I actually found out about what she had done, I asked her why she helped those people. She told me that they were not lucky. I remember the face of that girl who had asked us for dollars; she was the same age as me, yet our lives were so different. Here I stood, dressed in almost new clothes, headed to a restaurant and then back home to the bedroom I shared with my younger sister. I remember thinking that the girl didn't have any food to eat and that she was heading back to a cold car shared with five other people. After painting this picture in my mind, I understood my mom. I will never forget what she did that night. And that night I also learned one of the best lessons she taught. It can be inferred from the passage that the writer will _ . A) visit the girl in the near future B) learn from her mother C) save as much money as possible D) deal with the world's food problem
Ans: B
Electronic book publishing has many of the same risks and opportunities as electronic music publishing. By delivering text direct to the user's computer screen, the e-book could cut down costs, and allow creators to deal directly with their audience, bypassing traditional publishers and readers. But it also raises the possibility of mass piracy . Phil Rance, founder and managing director of Online Originals, a London-based e-book publisher, sums it up. "No one wants Napster to happen to books." Indeed, the most popular MP3 have put the frighteners on an industry that generally operates some way behind the "bleeding edge". The Mata Group, a leading US-based market researcher, says publishers are far too concerned about protecting their rights, "We believe all the recent legal control over Napster is like putting a finger in a river that is already overflowing. Publishers need to deal with reality and come up with new ways to develop wide electronic distribution , asking the question: 'How can we use the certainty of wide distribution to our advantage?'" At the moment, most publishers would like to limit the use of e-books to the person who bought them, or to the computer used to download them. If that can be done, e-books become just an extra income stream in a publishing industry that would continue to operate the way it does today, according to Terry Robinson, business manager for Adobe's e-paper group. "If you've cracked digital rights aspect, you've cracked the market," he says. Robert Nichols, Books Director at BOL agrees, "Rights management is absolutely important. Publishers just say that 'until copyright is secure, we're not going to talk'." According to the text, what do e-books and electronic music have in common? A) They result in piracy. B) They lead to price reduction. C) They avoid industry management. D) They bring in more money to creators.
B