Word Study
1. dismiss (下课)让走掉，使（会）解散；解雇；打消（想法），不考虑；认为（不重要）而不加考虑：
1) The teacher dismissed the class ten minutes earlier. (老师提前10分钟下课了。)
2) No lecturer may be dismissed from his post for misconduct without proper inquiry being held. (没有进行好好的调查就认为行为不端是不可以解聘老师的。)
3) She did her best to dismiss the thoughts. (她尽力打消这些想法。)
4) He dismissed the suggestion with a shake of his head. (他摇摇头不考虑这项建议。)
5) He just laughed, and dismissed the idea as unimportant. (他只是大笑，认为这个主意不重要而不加考虑。)
6) He dismissed the story as mere rumor. (他认为这件事是谣言不屑一顾。)
同根词：dismissal 解雇：Martin was not free from a fear of dismissal if he refused to obey. (如果马丁不肯服从，那他就无法摆脱担心被解雇。)
2. reserve vt. 保留；预定；留到以后（再宣布讨论等）：
1) I reserve the right to make my own decision. (我保留做出我自己决定的权利。)
2) I will reserve my opinion at this time. (这次我将保留我的看法。)
3) The use of this room is reserved to members of the staff. (这个房间的使用权留给内部人员。)
4) He reserved a table for two.
reserve n. 保留或储备的东西，储备金，储量；后备军人；自然保护区：
1) As I require money quickly I must draw on my reserve. (当我马上需要钱时，我必须利用我的储备金。)
2) The old man keeps a large reserve of firewood for cold weather. (这位老人保存了大量生火木柴天冷时用。)
3) the bank’s reserves银行储备金；the gold reserve 黄金储备。
4) Animals are kept in reserves lest they should be shot. (动物关在自然保护区以免被射杀。)
5) He is a person of reserve. (他是一个沉默寡言的人。)
用于成语：in reserve 保存起来：I still have a little money in reserve. with reserve 有保留地：Clearly, he spoke with reserve, but even so his meaning was quite plain. without reserve 无保留地：We accept your statement without reserve.
reserved adj. 沉默寡言的；有保留的：
1) He was naturally thoughtful and reserved.
2) reserved consent (有保留的同意)。
reservation 保留(意见)；定（票、座）；保留地：
1) I have no reservation about hiring him.
2) We make reservations of rooms at a hotel.
3) The government has set apart Indian reservations. (政府已经划出印第安人保留地。
Text 3
[2002 RC 2]
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics – the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close.
As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy – far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.
But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves – goals that pose a real challenge. “While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, “we can’t yet give a robot enough ‘common sense’ to reliably interact with a dynamic world.”
Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year of 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.
What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain’s roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented – and human perception far more complicated – than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer system on Earth can’t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don’t know quite how we do it. (418 words)
Notes: ingenuity 心灵手巧，发明创造。plain adv. (=simply)简直是。teller 出纳员。confer… on…把…赋予…。for themselves 独立地。a spell of 一阵。panel控制板；论坛。panel discussion 论坛讨论会。
1. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in ____________.
A. the use of machines to produce science fiction B. the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry
C. the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work D. the elite’s cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work
2. The word “gizmos” (line 1, paragraph 2) most probably means ____________.
A. programs B. experts C. devices D. creatures
3. According to the text, what is beyond man’s ability now is to design a robot that can ____________.
A. fulfil delicate tasks like performing brain surgery B. interact with human beings verbally
C. have a little common sense D. respond independently to a changing world
4. Besides reducing human labor, robots can also ____________.
A. make a few decisions for themselves B. deal with some errors with human intervention
C. improve factory environment D. cultivate human creativity
5. The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are ____________.
A. expected to copy human brain in internal structure
B. able to perceive abnormalities immediately
C. far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information
D. best used in a controlled environment
