理工类A级:阅读理解A Phone That Knows
Its a modern problem:youre too busy to be disturbed by incessant(连续不断的)phone calls so you turn your cellphone off .But if you dont remember to turn it back on when youre less busy.you could miss some important calls if only the phone knew when it was wise to interrupt you,you wouldnt have to turn it off at all. Instead,it could let calls through when you are not too busy
A bunch of behavior sensors(传感器)and a clever piece of software could do just that,by analyzing your behavior to determine if its a good time to interrupt you.If built into a phone,the system may decide youre too busy and ask the caller to leave a message or ring back later.
James Fogarty and Scott Hudson at Camegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania based their system oil tiny microphones,cameras and touch sensors that reveal body language and activity. First they had to study different behaviors to find out which ones stongly predict whether your mind is interrupted
The potential"busyness"signals they focused on included whether the office doors were left open or closed,the time of day,if other people were with the person in question,how close they were to each other, and whether or not the computer was in use.
The sensors monitored these and many other factors while four subjects were at work . At random intervals,the subjects rated how interruptible they were on a scale ranging from"highly interruptibleto"highly not-interruptible" . Their ratings were then correlated with the various behaviors . "It is a shotgun(随意的)approach:we used all the indicators we could think of and then let statistics find out which were important," says Hudson
The model showed that using the keyboard,and talking on a landline or to someone else in the office correlated most strongly with how interruptible the subjects judged themselves to be.
Interestingly,the computer was actually better than people at predicting when someone was too busy to be interrupted . The computer got it right 82 per cent of the time,humans 77 per cent. Fogarty speculates that this might be because people doing the interrupting are inevitably biased towards delivering their message,whereas computers dont care.
The first application for Hudson and Fogartys system is likely to be in an instant messaging system,followed by office phones and cellphones."There is no technological roadblock(障碍) to it being deployed in a couple of years," says Hudson
36 A big problem facing people today is that
A they must tolerate phone disturbances or miss important calls.
B they must turn off their phones to keep their homes quiet.
C they have to switch from a desktop phone to a cellphone.
D they are too busy to make phone calls.
37 The behavior sensor and software system built in a phone
A could help store messages.
B could send messages instantly
C could tell when it is wise to interrupt you.
D could identify important phone calls.
38 Scientists at Carnegie Menon University tried to find out
A why office doors were often 1eft open.
B when it was a good time to turn off the computer.
C what questions office workers were bothered with.
D which behaviors could tell whether a person was busy
39 During the experiment,the subjects were asked
A to control the sensors and the camera.
B to rate the degrees to which they could be interrupted.
C to compare their behaviors with others.
D to analyze all the indicators of interruption.
40 The computer performed better than people in the study because
A the computer worked harder.B the computer was not busy
C people tended to be biased.
D people were not good at statistics.
参考答案:
36 A 该题问的是:当今人们面临的一个大的问题是什么?文章第~句就给出了答案:人们太忙了,不能被连续不断的电话骚扰。要么关闭手机。
37 c 第二段中的that是代词,指上段最后两旬句子的内容。而答案在第一句的后半部分:确定何时适合打扰你。
38 D 本题题干的意思是在Camegie Mellon大学的科学家试图找出……?答案在第三段最后一句,第四段第一句也给出了部分答案。
39 B 本题问的是实验中,受试者被要求干什么?答案在第五段第二句:受试者对是否可被打断工作做出评定,评定范围从"完全可以被打断"到"完全不能被打断".
40 c 本题和倒数第二段第一句有关,说的是实验中电脑比人表现得好,问原因是什么?这段最后一句说了,people doing the interrupting are inevitably biased…,即人有偏见,故c为答案。