单选题 Passage Two
The potential of computers for increasing the control of organizations or society over their members and for invading the privacy of those members has caused considerable concern.
The privacy issue has been raised most insistently with respect to the creation and maintenance of data files that assemble information about persons from a multitude of sources. Files of this kind would be highly valuable for many kinds of economic and social research, but they are bought at too high a price if they endanger human freedom or seriously enhance their opportunities of blackmailers. While such dangers should not be ignored, it should be noted that the lack of comprehensive data files has never before been the limiting barrier to the suppression of human freedom.
Making the computer the villain in the invasion of privacy or encroachment on civil liberties simply divers attention from the real dangers. Computer data bank files can and must be given the highest degree of protection from abuse. But we must be careful also, that we do not employ such crude methods of protection as to deprive our society of important data it needs to understand its down social processes and to analyze its problems.
Perhaps the most important question of all about the computer is what it has come and will do to man's view of himself and his place in the universe. The most heated attacks on the computer are not focused on its possible economic effects, its presumed destruction of job satisfaction, or its threat to privacy and liberty, but upon the claim that it causes people to be viewed, and to view themselves, as machines.
What the computer and progress in artificial intelligence challenge are an ethic that rests on man's apartness from the rest of nature. An alternative ethic, of course, views man as a part of nature, governed by nature law, subject to the forces of gravity and the demands of his body. The debate about artificial intelligence and the simulation of man's thinking is, in considerable part, a confrontation of these two views of man's place in the universe.
单选题 Why is it important to prevent the abuse of computer data banks?
  • A. To protect the right of the individual.
  • B. To maintain discipline in society.
  • C. To encourage economic and social research.
  • D. To collect wide-ranging information.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】从第二段可知，防止计算机数据库被滥用是基于对“human freedom”的考虑，即保护个人权利(right of the individual)。因此，A项为正确答案。
单选题 Too much caution in the use of computers will ______.
  • A. prevent the solution of economic problems
  • B. cause more suppression of human freedom
  • C. lead to clumsy methods of protection
  • D. interfere with our study of society
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】由第三段最后一句“But we must be careful also…”可知，粗鲁的保护方法会“interfere with our study of society”，故D项正确。
单选题 What lessons can be learned from the past in this decade?
  • A. Private issue has always been associated with data collection.
  • B. Attacks on freedom are new.
  • C. The accumulation of data encourages oppression.
  • D. Privacy has been a neglected issue.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】从第二段开头“The privacy issue has been raised most insistently with…”可知A项符合题意。
单选题 The arrival of the computer has made man ______.
  • A. have more difficulty understanding himself
  • B. think more like a machine
  • C. look at himself in a different way
  • D. gain less satisfaction from his work
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章第四段说计算机带来的最大改变是“man's view of himself”，因此C为正确答案。
单选题 The best title for the passage would be ______.
  • A. Privacy on Data Files
  • B. Heated Attacks on the Computer
  • C. Privacy Issue caused by Computer
  • D. Privacy Has Been Long Neglected
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】纵观全文可知，本文核心的内容是计算机与个人隐私的问题(Privacy issue caused by computer)，选C项。