Question

A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

1.The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that ________.

A. they had no model in their mind

B. they did not have sufficient time

C. they had no ready-made components

D. they could not assemble the components

2.It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly ________.

A. consists of a flight device and a control system

B. can just fly in limited areas at the present time

C. can collect information from many sources

D. has been put into wide application

3.Which of the following can be learned from the passage?

A. The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects.

B. Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C. There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D. Wood’s design can replace animals in some experiments.

4.Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A. Father of Robotic Fly

B. Inspiration from Engineering Science

C. Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect

D. Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study

Answer

1.C

2.B

3.D

4.C

【解析】

试题分析：主要讲述的是哈佛大学从自然界的昆虫那里得到了灵感，设计开发了第一款机器苍蝇。文章介绍了该项研究存在的困难，研究将要发展的方向和该研究会带来的好处。

1. 细节理解题。根据第二段的“The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own”（类似这样的项目的一个额外的困难就是，这些组成部件从来就没有现成的，我们不得不靠自己去开发）可知，困难就是没有现成的组成部件，故选C项。

2. 推理判断题。根据第三段的“The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems”可知，A项是错误的。根据第四段的“While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source”和“Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,”可知，目前由于电池等的限制，只能在有限的区域飞行，因此B项是正确的。根据第四段的“so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield”可知，该飞行器是在将来的某一天才能从不同的地方收集信息，而不是现在，因此排除C项。纵观全文，讲述的是该飞行器尚处于开发的初级阶段，有很多地方需要改善，因此D项广泛投入使用是错误的。综上所述，选B项。

3. 推理判断题。根据第四段的it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield可知，A项是错误的。B项中animals are not allowed是错的，应该是difficult with animals，即有些用动物来做试验是困难的，不是不允许。C项在文中并没有提到以前方法的多少，文中只是说offers a new way to study，提供了新的方法，故排除C项。根据最后一段的you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead可知，用动物作研究的方式很困难，但是可以用机器人来替代，故选D项。

4. 主旨大意题。文章的主旨大意在第一段，主要讲述的是哈佛大学从自然界的昆虫那里得到了灵感，设计开发了第一款机器苍蝇，因此选C项。A重点在father，与文章中心不符，B项没有突出得出的灵感是什么，不够具体，D项讲的是在昆虫研究方面的突破，与文章中心不符。

【名师点拨】

推理判断题要求在理解原文表面文字信息的基础上，做出一定的推理判断，从而得到文章的隐含意义和深层意义。推理判断题所涉及的内容可能是文中的某一句话，也可能是某几句话，所以，推理题的答案只能是根据原文表面文字信息一步推出的答案：即对原文某一句话或某几句话所作的同义改写或综合。推理判断题的题干中通常含infer,suggest,imply,conclude indicate等标志性词语。 这种题型主要包括细节判断题、态度观点推断题、写作意图推断题、文章出处判断题和猜测想象推断题。5.

考点：考查科技类阅读