Extracurricular Reading
＼Text C＼
Automakers Are on the Road to Smarter Cars
Alex Fitzpatrick
Every year，the average American driver____1__hundreds of hours in traffic，hundreds of minutes fiddling with dashboard controls and hundreds—if not thousands—of dollars on auto care and maintenance．But what if cars could solve these____2__by design？
That’s the question many automakers_____3___at the recent Consumer Electronics Show（CES）in Las Vegas and North American International Auto Show in Detroit．They unveiled an array of car models that eschew traditional selling points such as horsepower and handling in____4__of technologies to enhance the modern commute．Among them：General Motors’ OnStar system，which can monitor car parts and____5__drivers before they need fixing，and Ford’s revamped Sync infotainment system，which better____6__human speech．
But some advances aren’t as close as they appear．____7__self-driving concept cars sound enticing—BMW’s can be summoned via a smart-watch app，while Mercedes-Benz’s touts front seats that swivel to create a lounge-like interior—they can’t go mainstream until myriad legal and insurance issues are resolved，which could take years．Other features，like gesturebased navigation，are too buggy for prime time．
Nonetheless，the CES unveilings portend great things for the auto industry—and for drivers．“Automatic breaking，adaptive cruise control，traffic-jam assist．．．we’ve got this technology on the road today，”says Jeremy Carlson，a senior analyst for automotive technology at the____8__firm IHS Technology．“And it’s going to serve____9__building blocks for what’s to___10___．”
（277 words）(https://www.daowen.com)
＼Banked Cloze＼
Directions：Read the above passage through carefully and select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in the following word bank．
＼Further Reflection on Reading＼
Directions：Think about and answer the following questions．
1．After you read the above three passages，what ideas impress you most？
2．Search for information on the Internet to find out how digital technologies influence the ways of teaching and learning in colleges．