阅读理解To Err Is Human by Lewis Thomas Everyone must have had at least one personal experience with a computer error by this time. Bank balances are suddenly reported to have jumped from $379 into the millions, appeals for charitable contributions are mailed over and over to people with crazy sounding names at your address, department stores send the wrong bills, utility companies write that they''re turning everything off, that sort of thing. If you manage to get in touch with someone and complain, you then get instantaneously typed, guilty letters from the same computer, saying, "Our computer was in error, and an adjustment is being made in your account." These are supposed to be the sheerest, blindest accidents. Mistakes are not believed to be the normal behavior of a good machine. If things go wrong, it must be a personal, human error, the result of fingering, tampering a button getting stuck, someone hitting the wrong key. The computer, at its normal best, is infallible. I wonder whether this can be true. After all, the whole point of computers is that they represent an extension of the human brain, vastly improved upon but nonetheless human, superhuman maybe. A good computer can think clearly and quickly enough to beat you at chess, and some of them have even been programmed to write obscure verse. They can do anything we can do, and more besides. It is not yet known whether a computer has its own consciousness, and it would be hard to find out about this. When you walk into one of those great halls now built for the huge machines, and standing listening, it is easy to imagine that the faint, distant noises are the sound of thinking, and the turning of the spools gives them the look of wild creatures rolling their eyes in the effort to concentrate, choking with information. But real thinking, and dreaming, are other matters. On the other hand, the evidence of something like an unconscious, equivalent to ours, are all around, in every mail. As extensions of the human brain, they have been constructed the same property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities.

阅读理解A total of 4.6 million digital televisions have been sold, and the sales of HDTV sets have quadrupled since last year. Consumers have bought HDTVs to play their DVDs and to have clearer pictures and wide screens. Only a small percentage of the people who have purchased HDTVs, however, have actually ^hooked their TVs up# to receive high-definition television digital signals. Perhaps television viewers are having trouble keeping up with the changes in technology. Even the manufacturers of HDTVs, like Mitsubishi, Thomson Multimedia, Sony, and Samsung seem to have a tough time learning how to make their sets work with the various digital TV formats because little standardization has been required or implemented in the industry. Some of the HDTVs weigh over 200 lbs., and a variety of retailers offer a delivery service to the buyer''s home to help install the heavy sets. This is known as a white-glove service and usually comes with an extra fee. After HDTV purchasers get their sets home and hook them up, they will still need to work to get the digital signals to their systems. Most of the industry''s cable providers do not yet offer high-definition programing, and only about 15% of commercial television stations have switched over to even the lowest improved digital pictures. Worse yet, viewers may need to install antenna before they can even get the digital signals to their new HDTV sets. Another frustration for home-theater seekers is that the current HDTV sets allow owners only to watch high-definition programs, not to record them.

阅读理解The field of medicine has always attracted its share of quacks and charlatans — disreputable women and men with little or no medical knowledge who promise quick cures at cheap prices. The reasons why quackery thrives even in modern times are easy to find. To begin with, pain seems to be a chronic human condition. A person whose body or mind "hurts" will often pay any amount of money for the promise of relief. Second, even the best medical treatment cannot cure all the ills that beset men and women. People who mistrust or dislike the truths that their physicians tell them often turn to more sympathetic ears. Many people lack the training necessary to evaluate medical claims. Given the choice between (a) a reputable physician who says a cure for cancer will be long, expensive and may not work at all, and (b) a salesperson who says that several bottles of a secret formula "snake oil" will cure not only cancer but tuberculosis as well, some individuals will opt for "snake oil". Many "snake oil" remedies are highly laced with alcohol or narcotic drugs. Anyone who drinks them may get so drunk or stoned that they drown their pains in the rising tide of pleasant intoxication. Little wonder that "snake oil" is a popular cure-all for minor aches and hurts! But let there be no misunderstandings. A very few "home remedies" actually work. However, most remedies sold by quacks are not only useless, but often can be harmful as well.

阅读理解Modern industrial society grants little status to old people. In fact, such a society has a system of built-in obsolescence. There is no formal system for continuing our education throughout our life in order to keep up with rapidly changing knowledge. When our education and job skills have grown obsolete, we are treated exactly like those who have never gained an education or job skills and are not encouraged or given the opportunity to begin anew. As a society becomes more highly developed, the overall status of older people diminishes. Improved health technology creates a large pool of old people, who compete for jobs with the young. However, economic technology lowers the demand for workers and creates new jobs for which the skills of the aged are obsolete, forcing older people into retirement. At the same time, young people are being educated in the new technology and are keeping pace with rapid changes in knowledge. Finally, urbanization creates age-segregated neighborhoods. Because the old live on fixed incomes, they must often live in inferior housing. All these factors — retirement, obsolete knowledge and skills, inferior standards of living — lower the status of the aged in society. A century ago, when one could expect to live only to 50 or so, the life span more or less coincided with the occupation and family cycle. But today the average life span allows for fifteen to twenty years of life after these cycles. It appears that our life span is outpacing our usefulness in society.

单选题Human beings are superior to animals that they can use language as a tool of communication.

单选题This is________work. It calls for a good eye and a steady hand.

单选题Over a very large number of trials, the probability of an event ________ is equal to the probability that it will not occur.

单选题If you are an energetic person with strong views as to the right way of doing things, you find yourself________ under pressures.

单选题He was completely ________by her tale of hardship.

单选题That boy is suffering from unrequited love and pines away.

单选题The list of things we need to think about which will be ________by climate change is endless.

单选题The recent conference on the effective use of the seas and oceans was another attempt resolving major differences among countries with conflicting interests.

单选题Now a single cell phone is able to store a large ________of information about an individual life.

单选题He remained calm in the face of the impending danger.

单选题Justices of the peace have jurisdiction over the trials of some civil suits and of criminal cases involving minor offenses.

单选题When a hurricane is about to occur , the National Weather Bureau issues a warning.

单选题Your blunt treatment of disputes would put other people in a negative frame of________, with the result that they would not be able to accept your proposal.

单选题The thief was apprehended, but his accomplice had disappeared.

单选题The belief is the legendary lost continent of Atlantis may someday be found.

单选题Water makes up some 70 percentage points of the body, and drinking enough water — either tap water or expensive mineral water — will ensure that the body is properly lubricated and flushed.