Проверочные работы по грамматике и чтению (английский язык). Учебное пособие

holistic point, but there’s not going to be a silver bullet for anything,” said Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in ASU’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and the study’s principal investigator. Such varying options include designing better cooling clothing, or even exoskeleton backpacks made specifically to help cool down its wearers.

1.Answer the following questions:

1.Why are the researchers at Arizona State University employing a breathing, perspiring, humanoid robot?

2.What can ANDI help to figure out?

3.Who supports ANDI financially?

4.Why can this thermal manikin be used outdoors?

5.What for does cool water circulate throughout ANDI’s “body”?

6.What does “Warm Room” do?

7.What can ANDI do within “Warm Room”?

2.Decide if the statements True/False

1.With the help of ANDI device it is possible to get Solar energy.

2.Experts and doctors know almost everything about biological reactions to high temperatures.

3.ANDI has a novel internal cooling channel.

4.Cool water helps to endure extreme heat.

5.“Warm Room” can simulate heat-exposure scenarios.

6.ANDI is getting a walking buddy inside the Warm Room.

7.Researchers have already decided how to manage the high temperatures.

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TEXT 7

The greening of planes, trains and automobiles

As the world races to decarbonize everything from the electricity grid to industry, it faces particular problems with transportation — which alone is responsible for about a quarter of our planet’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The fuels for transport need to be not just green, cheap and powerful, but also lightweight and safe enough to be carried around.

Fossil fuels — mainly gasoline and diesel — have been extraordinarily effective at powering a diverse range of mobile machines. Since the industrial revolution, humanity has perfected the art of dredging these up, refining them, distributing them and combusting them in engines, creating a vast and hard-to- budge industry. Now we have to step away from fossil fuels, and the world is finding no one-size-fits-all replacement.

Each type of transportation has its own peculiarities — which is one reason we have different formulations of hydrocarbons today, from gasoline to diesel, bunker fuel to jet fuel. Cars need a convenient, lightweight power source; container ships need enough oomph to last months; planes absolutely need to be reliable and to work at subzero temperatures. As the fossil fuels are phased out, the transport fuel landscape is “getting more diverse,” says Timothy Lipman, codirector of the

Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Every energy solution has its pros and cons. Batteries are efficient but struggle with their weight. Hydrogen — the lightest element in the universe — packs a huge energy punch, but it’s expensive to make in a “green” way and, as a gas, it takes up a lot of space. Liquid fuels that carry hydrogen can be easier to transport or drop into an existing engine, but ammonia is toxic, biofuels are in short supply, and synthetic hydrocarbons are hard to produce.

The scale of this energy transition is massive, and the amount of renewable energy the world will require to make the needed electricity and alternative fuels is

“a little bit mind-blowing,” says mechanical engineer Keith Wipke, manager of the fuel cell and hydrogen technologies program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. Everything, from the electrical grid to buildings and industry, is also thirsty for renewable power: It’s estimated that overall, the global demand for electricity could more than double by 2050. Fortunately, analyses suggest that renewables are up to the task. “We need our foot on the accelerator pedal of renewables 100 percent, as fast as we can, and it will all get used,” says

Wipke.

1.Answer the following questions:

1.What are the main problems with transportation?

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2.Why do we have to step away from fossil fuels?

3.What power source do cars need?

4.When is the transport fuel landscape getting more diverse?

5.Why do we have different formulations of hydrocarbons today?

6.What is the disadvantage of batteries?

7.What are the advantages of hydrogen?

2.Decide if the statements True/False

1.Main fossil fuels are gasoline and diesel.

2.Cars need a convenient, lightweight power source.

3.Container ships need to work at subzero temperatures.

4.Batteries have no problems with their weight.

5.Hydrogen is the lightest element on the earth.

6.Solid fuels are able to carry hydrogen.

7.Synthetic hydrocarbons are not easy to produce.

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TEXT 8

Researchers worry about AI turning humans into jerks

It has never taken all that much for people to start treating computers like humans. Ever since text-based chatbots first started gaining mainstream attention in the early 2000’s, a small subset of tech users have spent hours holding down conversations with machines. In some cases, users have formed what they believe are genuine friendships and even romantic relationships with inanimate stings of code. At least one user of Replica, a more modern conversational AI tool, has even virtually married their AI companion.

Safety researchers at OpenAI, which are themselves no stranger to having the company’s own chatbot appearing to solicit relationships with some users, is now warning about the potential pitfalls of getting too close with these models. In a recent safety analysis of its new, conversational GPT4o chatbot, researchers said the model’s realistic, human-sounding, conversational rhythm could lead some users to anthropomorphize the AI and trust it as it would a human.

This added level of comfort or trust, the researchers added, could make users more susceptible to believing fabricated AI “hallucinations” as true statements of fact. Too much time spent interacting with these increasingly realistic chatbots may also end up influencing “social norms,” and not always in a good way. Other particularly isolated individuals, the report notes, could develop an “emotional reliance” on the AI.

GPT4o, which began rolling out late last month, was specifically designed to communicate in ways that feel and sound more human. Unlike ChatGPT before it, GPT4o communicates using voice audio and can respond to queries almost as quickly (around 232 milliseconds) as another person. One of the selectable AI voices, which allegedly sounds similar to an AI character played by Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her, has already been accused of being overly sexualized and flirty. Ironically, the 2013 film focuses on a lonely man who becomes romantically attached to an AI assistant that speaks to him through an earbud.

(Spoiler, it doesn’t end well for humans). Johansson has accused OpenAI of copying her voice without her consent, which the company denies. Altman, meanwhile, has previously called Her “incredibly prophetic.”

But OpenAI safety researchers say this human mimicry could stray beyond the occasional cringe exchange and into potentially dangerous territory. In a section of the report titled “Anthropomorphism and emotional reliance,” the safety researchers said they observed human testers use language that suggested they were forming strong, intimate conventions with the modes. One of those testers reportedly used the phrase “This is our last day together,” before parting ways with the machine. Though seemingly “benign,” researchers said these types of relationships should be investigated to understand how they “manifest over longer periods of time.”

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The research suggests these extended conversations with somewhat convincingly human-sounding AI models could have “externalities” that impact human-to human interactions. In other words, conversational patterns learned while speaking with an AI could then pop-up when that same person holds down a conversation with a human. But speaking with a machine and a human aren’t the same, even if they may sound similar on the surface. OpenAI notes its model is programmed to be deferential to the user, which means it will cede authority and let the user interrupt them and otherwise dictate the conversation. In theory, a user who normalizes conservations with machines could then find themselves interjecting, interrupting, and failing to observe general social cues. Applying the logic of chatbot conversations to humans could make a person awkward, impatient, or just plain rude.

Humans don’t exactly have a great track record of treating machines kindly.

In the context of chatbots, some users of Replica have reportedly taken advantage of the model’s deference to the user to engage in abusive, berating, and cruel language. One user interviewed by Futurism earlier this year claimed he threatened to uninstall his Replica AI model just so he could hear it beg him not to. If those examples are any guide, chatbots could risk serving as a breeding ground for resentment that may then manifest itself in real-world relationships.

More human feeling chatbots aren’t necessarily all bad. In the report, the researchers suggest the models could benefit particularly lonely people who are yearning for some semblance of human conversions. Elsewhere, some AI users have claimed AI comparisons can help anxious or nervous individuals build-up confidence to start eventually dating in the real world. Chatbots also offer people with learning differences an outlet to express themselves freely and practice conversing with relative privacy.

On the flip side, the AI safety researchers fear advanced versions of these models could have the opposite effect and reduce someone’s perceived need to speak with other humans and develop healthy relationships with them. It’s also unclear how individuals reliant on these models for companionship would respond to the model changing personality through an update or even breaking up with them, as has reportedly happened in the past. All of these observations, the report notes, requires further testing and investigation. The researchers say they would like to recruit a broader population of testers who have “varied needs and desires” of AI models to understand how their experience changes over longer periods of time.

1.Answer the following questions:

1.When did the first text-based chatbots start gaining mainstream attention?

2.What do researchers at OpenAI warn of?

3.Why can “emotional reliance” on the AI be developed?

4.When did GPT4o start rolling out?

5.What was GPT4o designed for?

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6.What is the difference between GPT4o and ChatGPT?

7.What is said in the report section “Anthropomorphism and emotional reliance”?

2.Decide if the statements True/False

1.One user of Replica has virtually married the AI companion.

2.Recent safety analysis of new GPT4o says that AI can be perceived like a human.

3.GPT4o started rolling out two months ago.

4.GPT4o is able to communicate as quickly as another person.

5.According to the research the extended conversations with somewhat AI models may influence human-to human interactions.

6.Chatbots have both pros and cons.

7.Chatbots aren’t helpful for lonely people.

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TEXT 9

After 2,600 years, we finally know how static electricity really works

The first documentation of static electricity dates back to 600 BCE. Even after 2,600 years’ worth of tiny shocks, however, researchers couldn’t fully explain how rubbing two objects together causes it. But according to a team at Northwestern University, the mystery is finally solved. As explained in a September 17 study published in the journal Nano Letters, the answer is

“surprisingly simple.” It all has to do with little imperfections.

“People have tried, but they could not explain experimental results without making assumptions that were not justified or justifiable,” Lawrence Marks, a professor emeritus of materials science and engineering, said on September 18.

“We now can… Just having different deformations—and therefore different charges—at the front and back of something sliding leads to current.”

Marks and their colleagues first began exploring static electricity’s properties back in 2019, when they discovered that rubbing two materials against one another bends miniscule variations on each object’s surface. This movement then generated voltages. From there, the team created a new model that relies on the concept known as “elastic shear,” which happens whenever an object resists a sliding force and creates friction in the process. Once the friction builds up on either side of the nanosized deformations, the difference in electrical charges can create a current—and the resultant shock.

“We developed a new model that calculates electrical current. The values for the current for a range of different cases were in good agreement with experimental results,” said Marks.

Marks notes that while most people associate static electricity with demonstrations such as hair-raising elementary science experiments or touching a doorknob after rubbing your pet’s fur, the electric charge actually exerts a huge influence on the world “in both simple and profound ways.” An everyday example can be seen when a coffee grinder’s charged grains alters the flavor of beans. But static shocks are also responsible for far more serious issues, such as dosing complications for powdered medicines and industrial fires. Most experts believe the Hindenburg tragedy likely hinged on fires sparked by static electricity. By better understanding the mechanisms involved, experts across industries can help make their products more effective and working conditions safer.

“The Earth would probably not be a planet without a key step in the clumping of particles that form planets, which occurs because of the static electricity generated by colliding grains,” Marks explained. “It’s amazing how much of our lives are touched by static electricity and how much of the universe depends on it.” And now, after thousands of years, that key phenomenon has an exact explanation.

1. Answer the following the questions:

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1.When did the first documentation of static electricity date back?

2.How is the mystery of static electricity explained?

3.Who is the author of static electricity theory?

4.When did Marks and their colleagues start to explore static electricity’s properties?

5.What is the concept of new model of static electricity?

6.What is calculated according to a new model?

7.What are the believes towards the Hindenburg tragedy?

2.Decide if the statements True/False

1.After 2,600 years the researchers were able to explain the mystery of static electricity.

2.Team at Northwestern University managed to solve the mystery of static electricity.

3.Marks first started exploring the properties of static electricity in 2019.

4.The rubbing of two materials bends miniscule variations.

5.The concept of “elastic shear” is based on the creation of a current.

6.Most people associate static electricity with demonstrations like hair-raising elementary science experiments.

7.Static shocks can’t cause any serious problems.

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Список литературы

1.Клещина Н.Н. Английский язык: Практикум по грамматике, чтению и переводу с английского языка / СибГУТИ. – Новосибирск, 2008. – 96 с.

2.Загороднова И.А. Практическая грамматика английского языка. Методические указания. Новосибирск: СибГУТИ, 2004. – 80 с.

3.Севостьянова В.Г. Английский язык: Методические указания по грамматике английского языка / СибГУТИ. – Новосибирск, 2006. – 60 с.

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11.Webwise [электронный ресурс]. – URL: https://anecole.com/gayd-po- vremenam-angliyskogo-yazyka (дата обращения: 07.09.2024).

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ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ

Учебное пособие «Проверочные работы по грамматике и чтению (английский язык)» содержит тестовые задания по грамматике, а также задания на развитие навыков понимания содержания текста. Перед тестовыми заданиями представлен необходимый теоретический минимум по грамматике английского языка.

Соответствует современным требованиям Федерального государственного образовательного стандарта высшего профессионального образования и профессиональным квалификационным требованиям.

Пособие предназначено студентам профессиональных образовательных организаций всех направлений подготовки, обучающихся на младших курсах. Может использоваться для проведения практических занятий, самостоятельных работ и факультативных занятий по английскому языку.

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