Question

Anyone driving between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have seen a Toyota Prius (丰田普锐斯) with a curious chimney-like cylinder (汽缸) on the roof. It is hard to notice that the person at the wheel was not actually driving.

   The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car. “The car is never unmanned,” the project leader Dr. Thrun wrote on Google’s company blog. He said a driver was always behind the wheel to take control if something went wrong.

The unmanned cars are still years from mass production, but technologists who have long dreamed of them believe that they can transform society as greatly as the Internet has.

Engineers consider the cars are safer because they react faster than humans, having 360-degree perception and never getting absent-minded, sleepy or drunk. And they state that lives may be saved and injuries avoided, as more than 30,000 people are killed by car accidents in the United States per year. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than, say, today’s personal computers, which crash on occasion and are frequently infected with virus.

Google has started doing what might seem like a technology area unrelated to its bread-and-butter business as the king of Internet search and advertising. The self-driving car is an example of Google’s willingness to gamble on technology that may not pay off for years, Dr. Thrun said. One way Google might be able to profit is to provide information and navigation (导航) service for makers of unmanned vehicles, with a plan to make traveling safer, avoid accidents and reduce the carbon emission (排放).

But the arrival of driverless vehicles arouse legal issues, the Google researchers acknowledged. Under current law, a human must be in control of a car at all times. And in the event of an accident, who would be liable — the person behind the wheel or the maker of the software?

58. According to Google, the driverless car ______.

A. is without a human presence at all times         B. will react faster but be less reliable

C. will increase efficiency of road and fuel         D. will safely navigate the roadways

59. With its new invention, Google hopes the following except ______.

A. the driverless car will make a lot of sense       B. its business will reach beyond its usual range

C. it will profit by making unmanned vehicles      D. laws will have to catch up with the technology

60. The underlined word “liable” in last paragraph probably means “______”.

   A. dependable          B. responsible               C. trusted                            D. sensible

61. The best title of the passage might be ______.

A. Google Cars Drive Themselves in Traffic       B. Driverless Cars Could Be the Wave of Future

C. Google Hopes to Reduce Traffic Accidents            D. Unmanned Cars Closer to a Commercial Reality

                                             

Answer 1

 CCBA