第三篇 Calculating Crime

When you think about math, you probably don't think about breaking the law, solving mysteries or finding criminals. But a mathematician in Maryland does, and he has come up with mathematical tools to help police find criminals.

People who solve crimes look for patterns that might reveal （揭示） the identity of the criminal. It's long been believed, for example, that criminals will break the law closer to where they live, simply because it's easier to get around in their own neighborhood. If police see a pattern of robberies in a certain area, they may look for a suspect who lives near the crime scenes. So, the farther away from the area a crime takes place, the less likely it is that the same criminal did it.

But Mike O'Leary, a mathematician at Towson University in Maryland, says that this kind of approach may be too simple. He says that police may get better clues to the location of an offender's home base by combining these patterns with a city's layout and historical crime records.

The records of past crimes contain geographical information and can reveal easy targets - that is, the kind of stores that might be less difficult to rob. Because these stores are along roads, the locations of past crimes contain information about where major streets and intersections (十字路口) are. O'Leary is writing a new computer program that will quickly provide this kind of information for a given city. His program also includes information about the people who live in the city, and information about how a criminal's patterns change with age. (It's been shown, for example, that the younger the criminal, the closer to home the crime.)

Other computer programmers have worked on similar software, but O'Leary's uses more math. The mathematician plans to make his computer program available, free of charge, to police departments around the country.

The program is just one way to use math to fight crime. O'Leary says that criminology - the study of crime and criminals - contains a lot of good math problems. "I feel like I'm in a gold mine and I'm the only one who knows what gold looks like," he says. "It's a lot of fun."

41 Which of the following statements about math is true?

A It is too difficult for the police to use in finding criminals.

B Few people associate it with finding criminals.

C Some criminals make use of it when committing crimes.

D it has long been employed in solving crimes.

42 People tend to think there is a relationship between

A the time of a crime and the age of the criminal.

B the type of a crime and the identity of the criminal.

C the pattern of a crime and the equipment of the criminal.

D the location of a crime and the residence of the criminal.

43 O'Leary includes all the following information in writing his program EXCEPT

A the records of past crimes.

B the locations of police bureaus.

C the people living in the city.

D the change of a criminal's patterns with age.

44 O'Leary's program is different from other similar software in that

A it is inexpensive.

B it uses more math.

C it is more user-friendly.

D it is available all over the world.

45 It can be inferred from the last paragraph that O'Leary

A will develop programs for other governmental departments.

B is going to use math in looking for gold.

C thinks it's interesting to learn math.

D will further use math in studying crimes and criminals.

41 B 文章第一段顯示很少有人用數學來破案，但一個數學家做到了。選項 B 符合文章的本意。

42 D 文章第二段提到 "很長時間以來，人們認為罪犯會在離他居住地近的地方作案"，可 以得知人們傾向于認為案件發生地與罪犯的居住地有聯系。選項 D 符合文章本意。

43 B 文章第三段最后一句話提到 Mike O'Leary 的程序中包括對過去違法的記錄;文章第四段提到他的程序中還包括居住在這個城市的人民和不同年齡罪犯的犯罪模式的信息。 文章并沒有提及他的程序還包括警察局的位置。選擇 B。

44 B 文章第六段第一句話提到 Mike O'Leary 的程序與其他軟件的不同之處在于他更多地使用了數學。答案 B 符合文章本意。

45 D 從文章最后一段話的第二句話 "O'Leary says that criminology 一the study of crime and criminals -contains a lot of good math problems" 可以看出 Mike O'Leary認為犯罪學里包 含著很多好的數學問題。并且本段最后一句話也可以看出這位數學家對這種研究犯罪學的方式非常熱衷。選擇 D。

（責任編輯：vstara）

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