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  3. The simple wooden house sits in an unremarkable old neighborhood in an Osaka

The simple wooden house sits in an unremarkable old neighborhood in an Osaka

游客2025-03-18  29
问题     The simple wooden house sits in an unremarkable old neighborhood in an Osaka suburb, the kind of place people forget still exists in modern Japan. There are no pachinko parlors or cyber cafes—no shops of any kind, really. It’s an unlikely place to encounter the next version of Japan’s technological evolution. But listen to what happens when a gray-haired septuagenarian named Kazuko Komiyama returns after visiting friends, "Welcome home," a voice chirps. "Isn’t it a nice day?"
    The high-pitched greeting belongs to a robot. It’s a simple machine, to be sure. This isn’t a thoughtful robotic character like those found in a Star Wars movie, or like Japan’s own popular creation Astro Boy. But it’s a robot nonetheless: a chocolate-brown wombat that eventually will be able to flutter its eyes when Komiyama, 77, enters the room and giggle when she scratches its fuzzy little head. It tells her what the weather is like. It reminds her when it’s time to take her medicine. It sings sweet songs to her.
    For Komiyama, a mechanical companion is a guard against the dreadful loneliness many elderly Japanese must endure. She saw one such tragic story on a TV news show recently. "An old man’s death went unnoticed because he lived alone," she says. "Day after day, his diary read, ’I didn’t meet anybody today. Again. ’I don’t want to end up like that. " So when welfare workers from the Osaka suburb of Ikeda asked for volunteers to test the prototype of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.’s pet robot, she jumped at the chance. She keeps the robot sitting in her living room. After a month, she’s starting to warm up to the thing, despite one irritating habit. "It speaks with a childish voice," she complains. "That makes me feel like I’m treated as an old person. I would rather have an equal relationship with a robot. "
    This is modern Japan, a Gizmo Nation where even grandmothers make friends with their gadgets. For half a century, the Japanese have made it a cultural mission to turn out a succession of cool, elegant and increasingly human machines. And what machines they have become: robotic geishas; headgear that projects computer screens in midair in front of wearers’ eyes; toilets that measure a person’s weight, body fat and urine sugar levels. The country that gave the world transistor radios, the Walkman and hand-held videogames is now positioned to turn its love of gadgetry into a profitable national enterprise once again. [br] We can learn from the first paragraph that______.
选项 A、it is impossible for people to find high-tech robots in a simple wooden house
B、it is easy for people to think of a simple wooden house in the modern Japan
C、Komiyama usually goes to a coffee restaurant to release her loneliness
D、Komiyama has a mechanical companion whose voice is very sharp and short
答案 D
解析 文章第一段指出，在大阪市郊区一条很不起眼的老街上有一座简陋的木屋。这是一个很容易被现代日本人遗忘的角落。这条街上没有弹球盘游戏厅，没有网吧，可以说一个店铺也找不到。在这个地方似乎不可能会出现下面这个有关日本技术革命的故事。不过，各位不妨先听我讲述一下年逾七旬、头发花白的小宫山和子访友回家后发生的事情。一个尖细的声音道：“请进。今天天气还不错，是吧?”另外，再结合第二段的第一句话，原来这尖细的问候声是由一个机器人发出的。因此，本题的正确答案应是D。
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