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      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.
     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.
     One turned upside down. One took off in entirely the wrong direction and had to be disabled by
remote  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.
     "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  can do all these tasks
effortlessly . It's very hard for us to put these abilities into our machines."
     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.

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

A. the road was too rough for the drivers      
B. they did not have any human guidance
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. train more people to drive in the desert
C. build up body.
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 move from place to place without being driven by human beings
D. can show off their ability to turn themselves upside down

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

A. about eight miles    
B. six miles 
C. almost seven miles    
D. about nine mile

5. In the last paragraph, we can conclude that____

A.  a long way to go for a robotic vehicle to finish a 142-mile race without any difficulties
B.  a long way to go for a little child who has just learned to walk to reach the cookie .
C. a long way for a robotic vehicle to deal with a simple one that a little child can solve
D. a long way for a little child to understand the importance of wiping apple juice off its face

Answer 1

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