Robots Reading Answers

Dec 27, 2022

Robots Reading Answers is a topic which discusses about how the robots comes with a blessing for the mankind. The given IELTS topic has been originated from the book called “The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS Student's Book with Answers with DVD-ROM”. The topic named Robots Reading Answers comes with 14 sets of questions. The topic has been enclosed with four different segements of questions, like, choose the correct heading, Yes/No/Not Given, and no more than three words. The candidates should read thoroughly the IELTS reading passage in order to recognize the synonyms and identify the keywords and for answering the questions below. Similar kinds of topics like Robots Reading Answers are included in the IELTS reading practice papers, which the candidates can take into their consideration for performing a good score in this section.

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Section 1

Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions

Robots Reading Answers

Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has culminated in robotics the science of conferring various human capabilities on - machines.

The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose creeping ubiquity has removed much human drudgery. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with rote politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo drivers. Our mine shafts are dug by automated moles, and our nuclear accidents such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are cleaned up by robotic muckers fit to withstand radiation.

Such is the scope of uses envisioned by Karel Capek, the Czech playwright who coined the term 'robot' in 1920 (the word 'robota' means 'forced labour' in Czech). As progress accelerates, the experiment becomes exploitable at a record pace.

Other innovations promise to extend the abilities of human operators. Thanks to the incessant miniaturisation 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. At the same time, techniques of long-distance control will keep people even farther from hazard. In 1994 a ten-foot-tall NASA robotic explorer called Dante, with video-camera eyes and with spider-like legs, scrambled over the menacing rim of an Alaskan volcano while technicians 2,000 miles away in California watched the scene by satellite and controlled Dante's descent.

But if robots are to reach the next stage of labour-saving 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 formidable challenge. 'While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,' says one expert, 'we can't yet give a robot enough common sense to reliably interact with a dynamic world.' Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence (AI) has produced very mixed results. Despite a spasm of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s, when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to perform in the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers lately have extended their forecasts by decades if not centuries.

What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion neurons are much more talented - and human perception far more complicated - than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimetre 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 woodchuck at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a tumultuous crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.

Nonetheless, as information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer experts pool their talents, they are finding ways to get some life-like intelligence from robots. One method renounces the linear, logical structure of conventional electronic circuits in favour of the messy, ad hoc arrangement of a real brain's neurons. These 'neural networks' do not have to be programmed. They can 'teach' themselves by a system of feedback signals that reinforce electrical pathways that produce correct responses and, conversely, wipe out connections that produce errors.

Eventually, the net wires itself into a system that can pronounce certain words or distinguish certain shapes.

In other areas researchers are struggling to fashion a more natural relationship between people and robots in the expectation that someday machines will take on some tasks now done by humans in, say, nursing homes. This is particularly important in Japan, where the percentage of elderly citizens is rapidly increasing. So experiments at the Science University of Tokyo have created a 'face robot' - a life-size, soft plastic model of a female head with a video camera embedded in the left eye - as a prototype. The researchers' goal is to create robots that people feel comfortable around. They are concentrating on their face because they believe facial expressions are the most important way to transfer emotional messages. We read those messages by interpreting expressions to decide whether a person is happy, frightened, angry, or nervous. Thus the Japanese robot is designed to detect emotions in the person it is 'looking at' by sensing changes in the spatial arrangement of the person's eyes, nose, eyebrows, and mouth. It compares those configurations with a database of standard facial expressions and guesses the emotion. The robot then uses an ensemble of tiny pressure pads to adjust its plastic face into an appropriate emotional response.

Other labs are taking a different approach, one that doesn't try to mimic human intelligence or emotions. Just as computer design has moved away from one central mainframe in favour of myriad individual workstations and single processors have been replaced by arrays of smaller units that break a big problem into parts that are solved simultaneously many experts are now investigating whether swarms of semi-smart robots can generate a collective intelligence that is greater than the sum of its parts. That's what beehives and ant colonies do, and several teams are betting that legions of mini-critters working together like an ant colony could be sent to explore the climate of planets or to inspect pipes in dangerous industrial situations.

Section 2

Solution with Explanation
Questions 14-19:
Write the appropriate numbers (i-x) in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of headings i. Some success has resulted from observing how the brain functions. ii. Are we expecting too much from one robot? iii. Scientists are examining the humanistic possibilities. iv. There are judgements that robots cannot make. v. Has the power of robots become too great? vi. Human skills have been heightened with the help of robotics. vii. There are some things we prefer the brain to control. viii. Robots have quietly infiltrated our lives. ix. Original predictions have been revised. x. Another approach meets the same result.

Paragraph A

Answer: viii
Supporting Sentence: The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose creeping ubiquity has removed much human drudgery.
Keywords: modern world, quasi-intelligent, creeping ubiquity, human drudgery
Keywords Location: Paragraph A, 1st line
Explanation: The beginning line of paragraph A states that the presence of semi-intelligent devices, whose encroaching pervasiveness has reduced much of human drudgery, is becoming more common in the modern world.

Paragraph B

Answer: vi
Supporting Sentence: Other innovations promise to extend the abilities of human operators.
Keywords: innovations, extend, abilities, human operators
Keywords Location: Paragraph B, 1st line
Explanation: The first line of paragraph B suggets that the capabilities of human operators may be increased by other developments.

Paragraph C

Answer: ix
Supporting Sentence: Despite a spasm of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s, when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to perform in the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers lately have extended their forecasts by decades if not centuries.
Keywords: transistor circuits, microprocessors, human brain, 21st century, extended
Keywords Location: Paragraph C, last line
Explanation: The concluding sentence of paragraph C clarifies that although an initial burst of excitement in the 1960s and 1970s, when it seemed like transistor circuits and microprocessors could be able to work in the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers recently have stretched their estimates by decades, if not centuries.

Paragraph D

Answer: iv
Supporting Sentence: They have built robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimetre in a controlled factory environment.
Keywords: robots, misalignment, factory environment, human mind
Keywords Location: Paragraph D, 3rd and 4th line
Explanation: Lines 3-4 of paragraph D implies that the robots are created so that can point the loophole in a machine panel slight misalignment to the millimetre, when placed in a regulated factory setting.

Paragraph E

Answer: i
Supporting Sentence: Nonetheless, as information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer experts pool their talents, they are finding ways to get some life-like intelligence from robots.
Keywords: neuroscientists, computer experts, life like, intelligence, robots
Keywords Location: Paragraph E, 1st line
Explanation: The beginning sentence of paragraph E clarifies that information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer specialists are combining their skills to discover approaches of giving robots some resemblance to human intelligence.

Paragraph F

Answer: iii
Supporting Sentence: In other areas researchers are struggling to fashion a more natural relationship between people and robots in the expectation that someday machines will take on some tasks now done by humans in, say, nursing homes.
Keywords: researchers, natural relationships, people, robots
Keywords Location: Paragraph F, 1st line
Explanation: Line 1 of paragraph F states that in some fields, researchers are attempting to create a more organic interaction between humans and robots with the hope that someday, machines could take over some duties currently carried out by humans, such those in, example, nursing homes.

Questions 20-24:
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 277? In boxes 20-24 on your answer sheet write -

YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage

Karel Capek successfully predicted our current uses for robots.

Answer: Yes
Supporting Sentence: Such is the scope of uses envisioned by Karel Capek, the Czech playwright who coined the term 'robot' in 1920 (the word 'robota' means 'forced labour' in Czech).
Keywords: scope, envisioned, Karel Capek, robot
Keywords Location: Paragraph A, 6th line
Explanation: According to the sixth line of paragraph A suggests that the definition of robot by Czech playwright Karel Capek, whose word "robota" which means forced labour in English, was first used in 1920, foresaw applications in this wide range. Therefore, the statement is correct.

Lives were saved by the NASA robot, Dante.

Answer: Not Given
Explanation: There is not any available justified information in the context for the purpose of proving the validation of the above statement.

Robots are able to make fine visual judgements.

Answer: Yes
Supporting Sentence: Thanks to the incessant miniaturisation 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.
Keywords: robot systems, perform, brain and bone surgery, precision
Keywords Location: Paragraph B, line 2
Explanation: Line 2 of paragraph B portrays that robot systems are already capable of doing various types of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy, which is much more precise than highly competent doctors can achieve with their hands alone. This is made possible by the relentless miniaturisation of electronics and micro-mechanics. Moreover, the robots have better insights so this assertion is correct.

The internal workings of the brain can be replicated by robots.

Answer: No
Supporting Sentence: They have built robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimetre in a controlled factory environment.
Keywords: robots, misalignment, machine, fraction, milimetre
Keywords Location: Paragraph D, line 2
Explanation: The second line of paragraph D clarifies that in a controlled production setting, they have created robots that can detect a machine panel's misalignment to within a millimetre. However, the human mind is able to instantly ignore the 98 percent of a fast shifting landscape that is irrelevant and focus on a single suspicious face or a woodchuck by the side of a meandering woodland road.

The Japanese have the most advanced robot systems.

Answer: Not Given
Explanation: No pertinent information is available in the passage in order to justify this sentence.

Questions 25-27

Complete the summary below with words taken from paragraph F. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 25-27 on your answer sheet.

The prototype of the Japanese 'face robot' observes humans through a 25.......... which is planted in its head. It then refers to a 26 ............. of typical 'looks' that the human face can have, to decide what emotion the person is feeling. To respond to this expression, the robot alters its own expression using a number of 27......

Question 25:

Answer: video camera
Supporting Sentence: So experiments at the Science University of Tokyo have created a 'face robot' - a life-size, soft plastic model of a female head with a video camera embedded in the left eye - as a prototype.
Keywords: experiments, face robot, prototype, science university tokyo
Keywords Location: Paragraph F, line 3
Explanation: The third line of paragaph F suggests that the Science University of Tokyo has therefore developed a "facial robot" as a prototype, which is a life-size soft plastic replica of a female head with a video camera placed in the left eye.

Question 26:

Answer: Database
Supporting Sentence: It compares those configurations with a database of standard facial expressions and guesses the emotion.
Keywords: configuration, standard, facial expression
Keywords Location: Paragraph F, 2nd last line
Explanation: The concluding part of paragraph F explains that a person's eyes, nose, brows, and lips are positioned in relation to a database of typical facial expressions (humans' typical "looks"), which is how the Japanese robot infers the emotion, according to paragraph F. (decide what emotion the person is feeling).

Question 27:

Answer: (tiny/small) pressure pads
Supporting Sentence: The robot then uses an ensemble of tiny pressure pads to adjust its plastic face into an appropriate emotional response.
Keywords: robots, plastic face, emotional response
Keywords Location: Paragraph F, last line
Explanation: The ending portion of paragraph F describes that the robot adjusts its plastic face to the proper emotional response using a collection of small pressure pads.

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