单选题 Twenty years ago people had one telephone in the house or in the office. Today, people have telephones at home, in cars, in offices, almost everywhere. You can even see people talking into cell phones(手机) on the streets. Once I asked a newspaper reporter for his telephone number. He answered, "Which number do you want? Home number, work number, weekend number, or car number?"
Now there are even answering machines, but it seems that nobody likes them. For callers there is the problem of how to talk to them because it is very difficult to have a conversation with a machine. For owners of answering machines, there are problems, too. What kind of message(信息) should be recorded(录音) for the caller? If the message is too short, like "This is an answering machine. Speak now", the caller may not have enough time to get ready. Others may be too long. One long message goes like this: "This is Nathan's answering machine. Please leave your name, telephone number, what you are like, name of your school or work place and your mother's first name. Speak now." Probably, people will never call Nathan again.

单选题 Telephones develop very slowly.

单选题 Twenty years ago people usually had no more than two telephones.

单选题 The newspaper reporter had several cars.

单选题 The long message on the answering machine may annoy people.

单选题 Today people have more messages to give to each other than twenty years ago.