Passage Four
We all know people who say they have "no sense of direction." Yet for some people that description is true in all circumstances: If they take a single wrong turn on an established route they often become totally lost. This happens even when they are just a few miles from where they live.
This condition is called developmental topographic disorientation (DTD), the inability to orient within the environment. It didn’t even have a formal name until 2009, when Giuseppe I aria reported his first case in the journal Neuropsychologia.
Ellen Rose had been a patient of mine for years before I realized that she had this life-long learning disability. Like other people with DTD, she can follow a route in pieces, but it never becomes part of a larger spatial understanding. That's because she does not have a larger spatial understanding of her environment.
I asked her to draw a diagram of the second floor of the house she shares with her daughter and son-in-law. It was a difficult task for her (she lives on the first floor but is very familiar with the second). She described her effort not as a bird looking down from above, but as a spider crawling across the paper tracing a route from one room to the Ellen has always wondered what was wrong with her. She knew that when others ascribed her problems to simply not paying attention they were mistaken She worried that her problems in traveling might be a sign of something more serious than jut getting lost easily, but | had no idea what that might be.
Finding out that she had DID was a relief. Knowing that something has a name can be a liberating experience. All of a sudden it is a thing, a concept with defining characteristics. It is in a way, a kind of map.
36. What is the relation between Ellen and the author?
A. Student and teacher
B. Subject and researcher
C. Employee and employer
D. Patient and doctor.
37. It can be learned that people with DTD .
A. are unable to find their position in an environment
B. Find it difficult to remember where they have been
C. dislike traveling to a faraway place on their own
D. are characterized by their inability to concentrate
38. From Ellen*s difficulty in drawing her own house, we can infer that .
A. observing from high above is more effective than from the bottom
B. common people tend to perceive a space from a bird's eye view
C. it is useful to get familiar with our living environment
D. people with DTD have a poor sense of vision
39. How did Ellen feel about her DTD?
A. She had a clear idea what it was and how to deal with it.
B. She worried that she might misunderstand people around her.
C. She thought she could improve her condition by paying more attention.
D. She was afraid that it might bring problems other than disorientation.
40. The word “map” in the last paragraph probably means"
A. cure
B. design
C. proposal
D. clue
Section B
Directions: In this section, you are required to read one quoted blog and the comments on it. The biog and comments arc followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet.
Face masks are one of the best defenses against the spread of COVID-19, but their growing adoption is having a second, unintended effect: breaking facial recognition algorithms（算法）.
Wearing face masks that adequately cover the mouth and nose causes the error rate of some of the most widely used facial recognition algorithms to rise to between 5 percent and 50 percent, a study by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found. Black masks were more likely to cause errors than blue masks, and the more of the nose covered by the mask, the harder the algorithms found it to identify the face.
“We need to understand how face recognition technology deals with masked faces,” said the author of the report and NIST computer scientist. "We have begun by focusing on how an algorithm developed before the pandemic (大流行病)might be affected by subjects wearing face masks. Later this summer, we plan to test the accuracy of algorithms that were intentionally developed with masked faces in mind.”
Facial recognition algorithms such as those tested by NIST work by measuring the distances between features in a target\ face. Masks reduce the accuracy of these algorithms by removing most of these features, although some still remain. This is slightly different from how facial recognition works on iPhones, for example, which use depth sensors for extra security, ensuring that the algorithms can't be fooled by showing the camera a picture (a danger that is not present in the scenarios NIST is concerned with).
Comment 1
Well, that's one good thing to come out of the pandemic. Mass surveillance is nonsense. Time to pair masks up with sunglasses to deliver the decisive stroke.
Comment 2
"Wearing face masks that adequately cover the mouth and nose causes the error rate of some of the most widely used facial recognition algorithms to rise sharply" Rubbish technology! I would've never guessed.
Comments
There9s a reason why some country is already using gait（步态）analysis. Facial recognition is too easy to block or to fool.
Comment 4
Pretty soon they are going to do...analysis. With the development of Al, there will be a way out.
Comment 5
The Al's getting better, though, so soon it won't matter. Just like how you can pick out a relative or close friend even in bad CCTV footage, so too can AI. Your height, walking gait, mannerisms, voice, ears, clothing, etc, all add up to YOU.
41. What is the passage mainly about?
A. The best way to defend against COVID-19.
B. Efforts to improve facial recognition technology.
C. Methods to fool the facial recognition system.
D. The impact of masks on facial recognition accuracy.
42. The NIST study found that compared with blue masks, black masks .
A. were more widely used by the public
B. caused more errors in facial recognition
C. provided better protection against the virus
D. required less complex algorithms
43. Comment 1 seems to be .
A. in favor of the rules for wearing face masks
B. in favor of the facial recognition technology
C. against the wide use of facial recognition
D. against the requirements for wearing face masks
44. Which comment views the current facial recognition technology with contempt?
A. Comment 2.
B. Comment 3.
C. Comment 4.
D. Comment 5.
45. Which of the following is positive about the future technological advance?
A. Comment 2 and Comment 3.
B. Comment 1 and Comment 4.
C. Comment 3 and Comment 5.
D. Comment 4 and Comment 5.