专题02 阅读理解(说明文)-【好题汇编】2024年高考英语二模试题分类汇编（新高考九省专用）

专题02 阅读理解说明文 1.【2024届广西柳州高中、南宁三中高三联考试题】 In Japan, the new year began with disaster as a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula (能登半岛) on the country’s western edge on Monday. More than 2,000 active fault lines (断层线) lie beneath Japan, making it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. Many scientists have long considered earthquake forecasting to be impossible. But given recent improvements in artificial intelligence, some researchers have been studying whether that could change. Last fall, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin increased such hopes for earthquake prediction with a seven-month trial in China. In all, the algorithm (演算法) successfully forecast 14 earthquakes, each within about 200 miles of its actual epicenter (震中). Meanwhile, it missed one quake and predicted eight that never happened. The trial was part of an international A．I.-design competition, one of a few such events held in recent years to advance earthquake prediction technologies. Sergey Fomel, a geoscientist at UT Austin and a member of the research team, says in a statement. “We’re not yet close to making predictions for anywhere in the world, but what we achieved tells us that what we thought was an impossible problem is solvable in principle.” Additionally, machine learning could help detect hidden patterns in data or collect more data to better inform earthquake forecasting, Hutchison writes for MIT Technology Review. For example, some researchers are showing how A．I. might use recordings from a specific seismic site to anticipate an earthquake’s magnitude. One team has built and trained neural networks to predict where aftershocks may occur after an initial strike. And others are using machine learning to identify and extract seismic waves—the vibrations that spread through the earth during tectonic activity (构造活动)—from other noises in the ground. 8．What’s the function of the first paragraph? A．To explain a concept. B．To introduce a new topic.