Question

【题目】 Professor Ashok Goel of Georgia Tech developed an artificially intelligent teaching assistant to help handle the enormous number of student questions in the online class, Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence. Professor Goel already had eight teaching assistants, but that wasn’t enough to deal with the overwhelming number of daily questions from students.

Many students drop out of online courses because of the lack of teaching support. When students feel ignored or confused and reach out with questions that go unanswered, their motivation to continue begins to taper off. Professor Goel decided to do something to improve this situation and his solution was to create a virtual assistant named Jill Watson.

Goel and his team developed several versions of Jill Watson before releasing her to the online forums. At first, the virtual assistant wasn’t too great. But Goel and his team sourced the online discussion forum to find all the 40,000 questions that had ever been asked since the class was launched. Then they began to feed Jill with the questions and answers. After some adjustments and sufficient time, Jill was able to answer the students’ questions correctly 97% of the time. The virtual assistant became so advanced and realistic that the students didn’t know she was a computer. The students, who were studying artificial intelligence, were interacting with the virtual assistant and couldn’t tell it apart from a real human being. Goel didn’t inform them about Jill’s true identity until April 26. The students were actually very positive about the experience.

The goal of Professor Goel’s virtual assistant next year is to take over answering 40% of all the questions posed by students on the online forum. Professor Goel has a much rosier outlook on the future of artificial intelligence.

【1】What problem did Professor Goel meet with?

A.Students’ questions were too many to deal with.

B.Teaching assistants were not professional at all.

C.Many students were lack of interest in his class.

D.He felt confused about how to teach online.

【2】Which of the following best explains the underlined phrase in Paragraph 2?

A.grow dramaticallyB.increase sharply

C.decrease graduallyD.decline unreasonably

【3】What do we learn about Jill Watson?

A.She could answer all questions without mistakes.

B.She turned out to be a great success.

C.Her performance was remarkable all the way.

D.Her true identity was still a secret to students.

【4】What’s the main idea of the text?

A.A robot gives an online course.

B.Virtual assistant is getting popular in school.

C.Robots will replace humans in online classes.

D.One Georgia Tech’s teaching assistant isn’t human.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】A

【2】C

【3】B

【4】D

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。文章说明了佐治亚理工学院的Ashok Goel教授开发了一个人工智能助教，以帮助处理在线课程中大量的学生问题，即基于知识的人工智能。文章还介绍了这一做法的产生的原因是学生的问题太多，教授无法处理。以及这个名为Jill Watson的虚拟助理投入的过程，以及学生们对此的反馈。

【1】细节理解题。根据第一段中Professor Goel already had eight teaching assistants, but that wasn’t enough to deal with the overwhelming number of daily questions from students.可知Goel教授已经有了8名助教，但这还不足以应付学生每天提出的大量问题。由此可知，Goel教授遇到的问题是学生的问题太多了，无法处理。故选A。

【2】词义猜测题。根据上文When students feel ignored or confused and reach out with questions that go unanswered, their motivation to continue begins to可知当学生感到被忽视或困惑，和一些问题没有被回答时，他们继续学习的动力就开始逐渐taper off了，由此可知，划线短语意思为C项“逐渐减少”。故选C。

【3】推理判断题。根据第三段中The virtual assistant became so advanced and realistic that the students didn’t know she was a computer. The students, who were studying artificial intelligence, were interacting with the virtual assistant and couldn’t tell it apart from a real human being. Goel didn’t inform them about Jill’s true identity until April 26. The students were actually very positive about the experience.可知虚拟助理变得如此先进和现实，以至于学生们不知道她是一台电脑。这些学生正在学习人工智能，他们与虚拟助手进行互动，无法将其与真人区分开来。Goel直到4月26日才告诉他们Jill的真实身份。学生们对这次经历给予肯定。由此可推知，虚拟助理Jill Watson很非常成功。故选B。

【4】主旨大意题。根据第一段中Professor Ashok Goel of Georgia Tech developed an artificially intelligent teaching assistant to help handle the enormous number of student questions in the online class, Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence.可知佐治亚理工学院的Ashok Goel教授开发了一个人工智能助教，以帮助处理在线课程中大量的学生问题，即基于知识的人工智能。结合文章还介绍了这一做法的产生的原因是学生的问题太多，教授无法处理。以及这个名为Jill Watson的虚拟助理投入的过程，以及学生们对此的反馈。这篇文章的主旨是介绍一个佐治亚理工学院不是人类的虚拟助教Jill Watson。故选D。