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  3. This section measures your ability to write in English to communicate in an academic environment. There are two writing question

This section measures your ability to write in English to communicate in an academic environment. There are two writing question

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问题 This section measures your ability to write in English to communicate in an academic environment.
There are two writing questions in this section.
For question 1, you will read a passage and listen to a lecture about the same topic. You may take notes while you read and listen. Then you will write a response to a question based on what you have read and heard. You may look back at the passage when answering the question. You may use your notes to help you answer the question. You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response.
For question 2, you will write an essay based on your own knowledge and experience. You have 30 minutes to plan and complete your essay.
Directions: Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
    Soon technology will provide smart cars: cars that virtually drive themselves. A computer in the car determines the speed and route to the desired destination. The computer is in continuous contact with a global positioning system and other technologies that will provide extremely accurate information about the location of the car, other cars on the road, congestion, accidents, and so forth. The human driver will be little more than a passenger. Smart cars promise to make driving safer, quicker, and less expensive.
    First of all, smart cars will prevent many accidents, thereby saving lives. The cars will be equipped with a variety of sensors that very accurately detect cars and other obstacles in their path, and they will have automatic programs that control braking and turning to avoid collisions. Given the hundreds of accidents that occur on highways daily, it is clear that humans do a poor job of avoiding accidents and that computer control would be a great improvement.
    Second, with the wide use of smart cars, traffic problems will practically disappear. These computer-controlled cars can follow each other closely, even at high speeds. This ability will result in increased highway speeds. Today commuting by car can take hours a day. So the increased speed of smart cars will be a great benefit, welcomed by the many people who commute by car.
    Finally, smart cars will bring a reduction in the costs of driving. Because smart cars are programmed to drive the most direct routes, car owners will have to spend less money on repairs and replacement parts. Expensive items such as brakes, tires, and transmissions will last much longer in smart cars than in other cars.
Listen to Track 105.

Directions: You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge specific points made in the reading passage.
Narrator
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor
Even if computerized smart cars meet all the technological expectations set for them, it’s not clear that they’d produce the benefits some have predicted.
Smart cars will still get into some accidents. After all, even the most technologically advanced devices fail occasionally. And since the smart car technology will allow cars to be more tightly packed together on the roads, these accidents will be pileups that involve many more cars and so be much worse than accidents that occur today. Overall, there is little reason to believe that smart cars will save lives or reduce the number of injuries in automobile accidents.
Second, let’s talk about the potential to increase highway speeds and therefore decrease commuting time. Well, history has consistently shown that when some driving convenience is introduced, more and more people decide to drive because they expect an easier driving experience. But then the increased number of drivers in the case of smart cars of the future would not decrease commuting time. This is because the traffic congestion caused by the additional cars on the road would not allow the drivers to take advantage of the smart cars’ potential for higher speeds.
And finally, it’s not reasonable to expect that smart cars will save drivers money. The global positioning technology required to direct smart cars to their desired destinations is very expensive, and smart cars will need other costly technologies too, such as sensors that control how far a smart car stays behind the car in front of it. Moreover, the advanced technology of smart cars will make repairs to them more expensive than repairs on conventional automobiles. These new expenses will more than offset the expected savings on the repair and replacement of traditional mechanical car parts.
选项
答案 What is important to understand from the lecture is that the professor disagrees with the advantages of smart cars presented in the reading, namely that smart cars will reduce the number of accidents; that smart cars will reduce commuting time; and that smart cars will save their owners money. In your response, you should convey the reasons presented by the professor for why smart cars will not produce the benefits predicted in the reading. A high-scoring response will include the following points made by the professor that cast doubt on the points made in the reading: [*]
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