题目内容
The Voice of America began during the World WarⅡ, when Germany was broadcasting a radio program to get international 36 . American officials believed they should 37 the German broadcast with words that they thought were the facts of world events. The first VOA news report began with words in 38 . “The 39 may be good or bad, but we shall tell you the truth.” Within a week, other VOA 40 were broadcasting in Italian, French and English.
After the World War Ⅱended in 1945, some Americans felt VOA’s 41 had to be changed, 42 the Soviet Union（苏联）became enemy of America. They wanted to 43 Soviet listeners. Then VOA began broadcasting in Russian.
In the early days VOA began adding something new to its Broadcast that was 44 “Music USA”. Another new idea came along in 1959. VOA knew that many listeners did not know _ 45 English to completely understand its 46 English broadcast. So VOA 47 a simpler kind of English, 48 uses about 1,500 words and is spoken 49 . Of course, it is special English.
In the 50 of most VOA listeners, the most 51 program is the news report. News from around the world 52 into the VOA news room in Washington 24 hours a day. It comes from VOA reporters in 53 cities and also from other 54 like BBC. VOA writers and editors use these materials to 55 news reports, which are being broadcast in 43 languages.
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1.C
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【解析】略
IMAGINE if there was a device that could do everything for you – wake you up every morning, chat with you and type your e-mails.
The piece of technology in question would be smart, able to tell you about the weather and where the nearest restaurants are.
The good thing is you no longer need to wonder, because something like this already exists. And its name is Siri.
Siri is a voice recognition application designed for Apple products and the concept has been around for almost a year.
When Siri first came out it could only speak English, but now it has “learned” lots of new languages, including Chinese, Cantonese and Taiwanese, reported The Wall Street Journal. So, you can give it orders in your mother tongue.
But how could a cell phone or a computer “hear” what you are saying and understand it? This is all because of voice recognition technology.
When you speak, your voice creates vibrations (振动) in the air – a bit like waves in the water when you throw a rock into the lake. The microphone receives the vibrations and the computer changes them into digital data that is then divided into many parts. They are analyzed one by one to see what pronunciations each part stands for. The computer then puts these pronunciations together into possible words according to its built-in dictionary.
But figuring out the words is far from enough; building words into meaningful sentences is the most difficult part. The computer has to compare what it hears to a large library of known phrases and sentences to determine what the user is saying.
However, people don’t always talk in the most standard way and sometimes make grammatical mistakes. This is why traditional voice recognition software always requires you to remember keywords and to speak in a certain way.
Fortunately, Siri isn’t like that. It’s not just “voice recognition”; it’s “natural language understanding (NLU)”. You can ask it things like “Do I need an umbrella today?” and it will know that you are asking about the weather, according to ABC News.
“The key thing is NLU – understanding what you mean and what you want,” Neil Grant from Nuance, a software company in the US, told The Guardian. “Historically, you had to learn a huge long list of commands . As NLU progresses, you can say what you want in a way that’s natural to you.”
【小题1】What is the function of the first two paragraphs?
| A．To show that invention usually results from need. |
| B．To clear doubts about voice recognition technology. |
| C．To introduce something that offers these helpful services. |
| D．To show how the voice recognition works. |
| A．Changing the received vibrations into digital data. |
| B．Analyzing the digital data to see what pronunciations it represents. |
| C．Putting the pronunciations together into possible words. |
| D．Figuring out meaningful sentences based on the words. |
| A．You can speak in a natural way as you would to a person. |
| B．You can only speak English and Chinese. |
| C．You have to say things in a certain way. |
| D．You have to remember keywords and speak specific commands. |
| A．Siri can record and save what you say frequently into a computer dictionary. |
| B．Siri will fail to understand what you say if you make grammatical mistakes. |
| C．The biggest advantage of Siri is that it’s NLU is rather than just voice recognition. |
| D．Since first applied to Apple products a year ago, Siri has made great improvements. |
| A．the convenience of future life. |
| B．an introduction to the Apple products. |
| C．the working system of voice recognition |
| D．the introduction to Siri |
Western New Bridge Library Announcement
| Shortened Library Hours for Spring Break |
| Library Hours have been shortened to 7 hours a day (9:00 a.m. – 4:00p.m.) for Spring Break from March 24 to March 30. |
| Coming Events |
| On Monday, March 24, at 10:30 a.m., Scott Sutton, a children’s writer, will tell stories to kid over seven. Sutton’s attractive style will surely inspire everyone present! At 1:00 p.m., on March 26, the Geogetown Musicians will present an Irish Folk Concert, which will be entertaining for the entire family. Come for the music and stay to check out some relevant books for the rest of the week! On Thursday, March 27, at 2:00 p.m., the annual Children’s Gathering will take place in Room 201, the second-floor. Pick up an invitation in the Children’s Room and return your RSVP(回复) to reserve your seat at the table by 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25. Only children are allowed in the Gathering. At 10:30 a.m. on Friday, March 28, Enzo Monfre of the hit kid’s science show, Enzoology, will bring Fossils Live! Surely Enzo will take the audience back in time, deep beneath the surface of the earth, to uncover the mysteries of killer dinosaurs, and more. Enzo recently appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show—come and see him at the library! |
| Please note：In case of emergency, please call the Help Desk at 926-3736 and follow the procedures outlined on the voice message. The call-down service is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for emergencies. The Help Desk supplies service to you all the year around! For questions about all these, please contacthld@wnbl.corg. |
| Come for the great Fun; Stay for the relevant Books! |
| A．buy a ticket | B．apply in advance |
| C．make a reservation | D．contact the call-down service |
| A．show the children around a zoo |
| B．tell stories to children over seven |
| C．be present at the science show in person |
| D．lead the children to the Ellen DeGeneres Show |
| A．attend all the activities with their parents |
| B．borrow some relevant books for the activities. |
| C．participate in the activities form 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. |
| D．choose only one of the activities according to their interest |
A funny thing happened on the way to the communications revolutions: we stopped talking to one another.
I was walking in the park with a friend recently，and his cell phone rang, interrupting our conversation. There we were, walking and talking on a beautiful sunny day and…I became invisible, absent from the conversation.
The telephone used to connect you to the absent. Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent. Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected I feel? Every advance in communications technology is a tragedy to the closeness of human interaction. With email and instant messaging over the Internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another, With voice mail, you can conduct entire conversations without ever reaching anyone. If my mom has a question, I just leave the answer on her machine.
As almost every contact we can imagine between human beings gets automated, the alienation index goes up. You can't even call a person to get the phone number of another person my more. Directory assistance is almost always fully automated.
I am not against modern technology. I own a cell phone, an ATM card a voice mail system, and an email account. Giving them up isn't wise…they're a great help to use. It's some of their possible consequences that make me feel uneasy.
More and more .I find myself hiding behind e-mail to do a job meant for conversation. Or being relieved that voice mail picked up because I didn't really have time to talk, The industry devoted to helping me keep in touch is making me lonelier…or at least facilitating my antisocial instincts．
So I've put myself on technology restriction: no instant messaging. with people who live near me，no cell phoning in the presence of friends, no letting the voice mail pick up when I'm at home.
1.Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?
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A．The Advance of Communications Technology |
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B．The Consequences of Modern Technology |
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C．The Story of Communications Revolution |
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D．The Automation of Modern Communications |
2.The sentence “Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent，”means that .
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A．the people sitting beside you have to go away to receive a phone call |
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B．you can hardly get in touch with the people sitting beside you |
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C．modem technology makes it hard for people to have a face-to-face talk |
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D．people can now go to work without going to the office |
3.The writer feels that the use of modern communications is ．
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A．encouraging |
B．disappointing |
C．satisfying |
D．embarrassing |
4.The passage implies that .
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A．modern technology is bridging the people. |
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B．modern technology is separating the people |
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C．modern technology is developing too fast |
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D．modern technology is interrupting our communications |