The robotic vehicles

机器人汽车

Thirteen vehicles lined up last March to race across the Mojave Desert, seeking a million in prize money. To win, they had to finish the 142-mile race in less than 10 hours. Teams and watchers knew there might be no winner at all, because these vehicles were missing a key part －drivers.

去年三月，十三辆车在莫哈韦沙漠排成一条线，寻求一百万的比赛奖金。为了赢，他们必须在不到10个小时的时间里完成142英里的比赛。所有团队和观赛者都明白这次可能没有赢家，因为这些车辆了一个关键部分-----司机。

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, organized the race as part of a push to develop robotic vehicles for future battlefields. But the Grand Challenge, as it was called, just proved how difficult it is to get a car to speed across an unfamiliar desert without human guidance. One had its brake lock up in the starting area. Another began by throwing itself onto a wall. Another got tied up by bushes near the road after 1.9 miles.

美国国防部高级研究计划局，国防高级研究计划局，组织比赛的目的是为未来的战场开发机器人汽车的试用一步。但这个大挑战,正如其名，已经证明让一辆无人驾驶的汽车在一个陌生的沙漠行驶是多么困难。一辆车在起始地区锁定其制动。另一辆撞到墙上。又一辆人在行驶1.9英里处被附近灌木丛拖住。

One turned upside down. One took off in entirely the wrong direction and had to be disabled by remote (远距离的) control. One went a little more than a mile and rushed into a fence; another managed to go for six miles but stuck on a rock. The “winner,” if there was any; reached 7.8 miles before it ran into a long, narrow hole, and the front wheels caught on fire.

一辆车翻了。一辆向完全错误的方向飞去，而且远距离控制失控。有一辆行驶了一英里多，然后冲进向栅栏；另一辆走了六英里之后被一块岩石困住。如果说有“赢家”的话，就是那辆走到7.8英里后，冲进一个又长又狭窄的洞中，导致前轮着火了。

“You get a lot of respect for natural abilities of the living things,” says Reinhold Behringer, who helped design two of the car-size vehicles for a company called Sci-Autonics. “Even ants (蚂蚁) can do all these tasks effortlessly . It’s very hard for us to put these abilities into our machines.”

“你会特别尊重生物的生存能力，”莱因霍尔德•勃林格说，他帮助一家名为西奥托尼克斯公司设计的两辆车。“即使是蚂蚁也能毫不费力地完成所有任务。我们很难把这些能力运用在我们的机器上。”

The robotic vehicles, though with necessary modern equipment such as advanced computers and GPS guidance, had trouble figuring out fast enough the blocks ahead that a two-year-old human recognizes immediately, Sure, that very young child, who has just only learned to walk, may not think to wipe apple juice off her face, but she already knows that when there’s a cookie in the kitchen she has to climb up the table, and that when she gets to the cookie it will taste good. She is more advanced, even months old, than any machine humans have designed.

机器人汽车，尽管配备了现代设备诸如先进的电脑和GPS导航，也很难快速识别街区，而一个两岁的孩子却能快速做到。当然，幼小的孩子，刚刚学会走路，可能不会因为苹果汁弄花脸而擦掉它，但她已经知道，如果有一块曲奇饼干在厨房，她不就会爬上桌子，而且她拿到饼干时会觉得它会很好吃。她是更高级的，尽管只有几个月大，却胜过人类设计过的任何机器。

1．Watchers doubted if any of the vehicles could finish the race because        

A．they did not have any human guidance 

B．the road was not familiar to the drivers 

C．the distance was too long for the vehicles 

D．the prize money was unattractive to the drivers 

2．DARPA organized the race in order to         .

A．raise money for producing more robotic vehicles 

B．push the development of vehicle industry 

C．train more people to drive in the desert 

D．improve the vehicles for future wars 

3．From the passage we know “robotic vehicles” are a kind of machines that         

A．can do effortlessly whatever tasks living thing can 

B．can take part in a race across 142 miles with a time limit 

C．can show off their ability to turn themselves upside down 

D．can move from place to place without being driven by human beings 

4．In the race, the greatest distance one robotic vehicle covered was          

A．about eight miles    B．six miles 

C．almost two miles     D．about one mile 

5．In the last paragraph, the writer implies that there is a long way to go         

A．for a robotic vehicle to finish a 142-mile race without any difficulties 

B．for a little child who has just learned to walk to reach the cookie on the table 

C．for a robotic vehicle to deal with a simple problem that a little child can solve 

D．for a little child to understand the importance of wiping apple juice off its face 

【答案】

1. A这是一道细节推测题。因为第一段最后一句表明这些汽车都没有驾驶员。

2. D根据第二段for future battlefields可以推测是军事目的，选D。

3. D这是一道猜测词义题。根据第二段第二句“without human guidance”可以推断选D。

4. A这是一道细节题。根据第三段最后一句可知获胜者跑了7.8英里，接近8英里。

5. C这是一道推断题。a long way to go远远不能。根据最后一段“she is more advanced...than any machine...”可知机器远不如人的智力。其他没有提到。