《2026年名校金典课堂九年级英语上册人教版成都专版》

五、任务型阅读。根据短文内容，按要求回答问题。
Self-driving cars are believed to be the future of driving. Companies including Toyota， Uber and Google are all competing to be the first to bring them to market.
However， carmakers need to solve one problem first： How driverless cars communicate with passers-by(行人)， bikers and other drivers.
Most drivers today use gestures to show their purposes. They wave their hands or nod at passers-by and bikers to let them cross the street. But self-driving cars don't have this ability. What can they do? US carmaker Ford and its partner Virginia Tech think they have the answer. The team is testing a method that uses light signals(信号) to show what self-driving cars are doing.
For example， if a driverless car is trying to let the passers-by or others go， it could flash two white lights side to side. A white light tells there are no humans in the car. A slow flashing light shows the car is coming to a stop. A rapidly flashing light tells passers-by that the car is about to speed up.
To test the method on real roads， the team designed a special suit that looks exactly like a car seat. When a driver wears it， it appears to people that the car is really driverless. The team then successfully got more than 1，500 hours of data after about 2，900 kilometers of ‘self-driving’ through busy cities. The data recorded how people communicate with a driverless car.
1. What will be the future of driving?

2. What's the meaning of the underlined word gestures?

3. How can self-driving cars show their purposes in Ford's test?

4. What do two white lights flash side to side mean?

5. What did the 1，500 hours of data in the last paragraph record?

答案： Self-driving cars.; Body language.; By flashing lights.; It means a driverless car is trying to let the passers-by or others go.; It recorded how people communicate with a driverless car.