阅读理解
At
England's University of Plymouth, Professor Eduardo Miranda has been
programming pairs of robots to compose music. Miranda's robots have simple "vocal
cords" (声带) and
are programmed to sing and to listen to each other. The robots' unique warbling
sounds (颤音) do not perfectly match the human voice, but
each machine is exactly sharing music with the other in a new and unique way.
Each
robot is equipped with speakers, software that mimics the human voice, a
mouth that opens as it "sings," a microphone for ears, and a camera
for eyes. The robots also move. Miranda hopes that by studying his robot
vocalists, he can discover something about how and why humans create, perform,
and listen to music.
When
the robots sing, first one robot makes six random sounds. Its partner responds
with more sounds. The first robot analyzes the sounds to see if their sequences
(序列) are similar. If
they are, it nods its head and commits the sounds to memory, and the second
robot notices and "memorizes" the musical sequence, too. If the first
robot thinks the sounds are too different, it shakes its head and both robots
ignore the sounds. Then the process continues.
Miranda
set up an experiment in which he left the two robots alone in his study for two
weeks. When he returned, his little warblers had, by imitating each other, not
only shared notes but combined them. The product of their cooperation was far
from symphonic, but the robots had begun to combine the notes into their own
self-developed "songs".
With
the help of his warbling robots, one of Miranda's goals is to create music that
no human would ever compose. Miranda believes the robots are ideal for this
purpose because they would not be influenced by any existing musical styles or
rules.
(1)
Which is closest in meaning to the underlined word "mimics" in Paragraph 2?
A . Controls.
B . Copies.
C . Substitutes.
D . Interrupts
(2)
What did the two robots do during Miranda's experiment?
A . They ignored the unique sound.
B . They interacted with each other.
C . They learned to sing better than humans.
D . They committed random sounds to memory.
(3)
What does Miranda want his robots to do?
A . Sing as well as humans do.
B . Memorize a variety of music.
C . Create new styles of music.
D . Promote traditional musical styles.
(4)
What is the text mainly about?
A . Experiments by Miranda.
B . Music by robots.
C . Future robots.
D . Special songs.
答案: B
B
C
B