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 “l(fā)earned” 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 (振動(dòng)) 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.”
小題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.
小題2:Which step is the most complicated in the process of voice recognition according to the article?
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.
小題3:How can you get Siri to respond according to the article?
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.
小題4:What can be concluded from the article?
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.
小題5:The text is mainly about ________.
A．the convenience of future life.
B．a(chǎn)n introduction to the Apple products.
C．the working system of voice recognition
D．the introduction to Siri

小題1:C
小題2:D
小題3:A
小題4:C
小題5:D

試題分析：本文主要介紹了一種新的產(chǎn)品--- Siri，它自帶先進(jìn)的人工智能技術(shù)，想要知道明天的天氣怎樣，問問Siri就知道了。它比其他的語音識(shí)別系統(tǒng)最大的優(yōu)勢是，不用記住關(guān)鍵字，想說什么就說什么。
小題1:這是推理判斷題。根據(jù)前兩段是一個(gè)引子，目的引出本文要說的新型的Siri ，故選C。
小題2:這是細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)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.把聽到的聲音根據(jù)存在它里面的單詞它再分析出意思來最復(fù)雜了，故選D。
小題3:這是細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)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.按照人說話的方式去說就行，故選A。
小題4:這是細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)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”
The key thing is NLU – understanding what you mean and what you want NLU 你可以你想說什么就說什么，這是不同于其他的功能，故選C。
小題5:這是主旨大意題。根據(jù)從全文來看，這篇短文主要介紹Siri 的功能，故選D。
點(diǎn)評(píng)：細(xì)節(jié)題為閱讀考題的重頭戲，所占比例很高，相對(duì)而言較簡單，因?yàn)檫@類題雖然要求理解準(zhǔn)確，但基本上限于字面意義的理解，范圍也限于局部，因此是我們可望得高分的部分。細(xì)節(jié)題絕大部分體現(xiàn)“中心思想是解”這一原理。本文都是細(xì)節(jié)理解題，在文中比較容易找到答案。
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Allison Williams Activity Center
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