单选题Lateral thinking, first described by Edward de Bono in 1967, is just a few years older than Edward's son. You might imagine that Caspar was raised to be an adventurous thinker, but the de Bono name was so famous, Caspar's parents worried that any time he would say something bright at school, his teachers might snap, "Where do you get that idea from?" "We had to be careful and not overdo it," Edward admits. Now Caspar is at Oxford—which once looked unlikely because he is also slightly dyslexic. In fact, when he was applying to Oxford, none of his school teachers thought he had a chance. "So then we did several thinking sessions," his father says, "using my techniques and, when he went up for the exam, he did extremely well." Soon after, Edward de Bono decided to write his latest book, "Teach Your Child How to Think", in which he transforms the thinking skills he developed for brain-storming businessmen into informal exercises for parents and children to share. Thinking is traditionally regarded as something executed in a logical sequence, and everybody knows that children aren't very logical. So isn't it an uphill battle, trying to teach them to think? "You know," Edward de Bono says, "if you examine people's thinking, it is quite unusual to find faults of logic. But the faults of perception are huge! Often we think ineffectively because we take too limited a view." "Teach Your Child How to Think" offers lessons in perception improvement, of clearly seeing the implications of something you are saying and of exploring the alternatives.

单选题From the text, we can infer that

单选题Rarely do major diseases have a single cause. They are usually the result of a complex interaction between many factors, including genetic, environmental and lifestyle components. Many media reports, however, can tead us to believe that if we gave up something that we might otherwise enjoy, we could completely escape that particular affliction. Clearly, this is not the case. Vegetarians die of cancer of the colon (结肠). Teetotallers die of liver complaints, including cirrhosis (硬化). People who never go out in the sun contract skin melanomas (黑素瘤). Always, there are other factors at work than the single element being examined in a scientific study. Quite often the alleged benefits of a particular nutritional element are the result not so much of the element itself but of the lifestyle and general diet of the people who consume it most. People who eat lots of "healthy" foods, including fiber, carrots, broccoli etc. , also tend to drink less alcohol, take more exercise, avoid too many fatty foods and smoke less. Only when a study can rule out all of these other factors and often we do not know what these factors might be can we say that there is a causal link between two things. That is not to say that things like fiber and broccoli have no beneficial effects at all. But those with sedentary lifestyles cannot expect these foods to make them healthy. There is, however, one thing which increases the likelihood of dying relatively young, even when all of the other factors have been taken into account. It is one of the biggest killers even among those who lead lifestyles which, by any criteria, are clearly healthy ones. This single, incontrovertible risk factor is that of being poor. Recent report from the Cancer Research Campaign suggested that 12 700 deaths could have been avoided between 1986 and 1990 if inequalities in cancer care did not exist in England and Wales. Comparing cancer survival rates, the study found that England and Wales fared unfavorably with Europe and the US, but the most affluent regions of these two countries exhibited similar figures to the European average. In an attempt to counter this disparity the government has announced plans for the provision of Health Action Zones which seek to encourage greater cooperation between health and social services, targeting both rural and inner city areas. The emphasis of this new scheme however appears to focus on inadequacies within health education in these areas, rather than attacking the broader issues of social inequality.

单选题During the past 15 years, the most important component of executive pay packages, and the one most responsible for the large increase in the level of such compensation, has been stock-option grants. The increased use of option grants was justified as a way to align executives' interests with shareholders'. For various tax, accounting, and regulatory reasons, stock-option grants have largely comprised " at-the-money options", rights to purchase shares at an "exercise price" equal to the company's stock price on the grant date. In such at-the-money options, the selection of the grant date for awarding options determines the options' exercise price and thus can have a significant effect on their value. Earlier research by financial economists on backdating practices focused on the extent to which the company's stock price went up abnormally after the grant date. My colleagues and I focused instead on how a grant-date's price ranked in the distribution of stock prices during the month of the grant. Studying the universe of about 19,000 at-the-money, unscheduled grants awarded to public companies' CEOs during the decade 1996-2005, we found a clear relation between the likelihood of a day's being selected as a grant date for awarding options, and the rank of the day's stock price within the price distribution of the month: a day was most likely to be chosen if the stock price was at the lowest level of the month, second most likely to be chosen if the price was at the second-lowest level, and so forth. There is an especially large incidence of "lucky grants" ( defined as grants awarded on days on which the stock price was at the lowest level of the month) : 12 percent of all CEO option grants were lucky grants, while only 4 percent were awarded at the highest price of the month. The passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in August 2002 required firms to report grants within two days of any award. Most firms complied with this requirement, but more than 20 percent of grants continued to be reported after a long delay. Thus, the legislation could be expected to reduce but not eliminate backdating. The patterns of CEO luck are consistent with this expectation: the percentage of grants that were lucky was a high 15 percent before enactment of the law, and declined to a lower, but still abnormally high, level of 8 percent afterwards. Altogether, we estimate that about 1,150 CEO stock-option grants owed their financially advantageous status to opportunistic timing rather than to mere luck. This practice was spread over a significant number of CEOs and firms: we estimate that about 850 CEOs (about 10 percent) and about 720 firms (about 12 percent) received or provided such lucky grants. In addition, we estimate that about 550 additional grants at the second-lowest or third-lowest price of the month owed their status to opportunistic timing. The cases that have come under scrutiny thus far have led to a widespread impression that opportunistic timing has been primarily concentrated in " new economy" firms. But while the frequency of lucky grants has been somewhat higher in such firms, more than 80 percent of the opportunistically timed grants have been awarded in other sectors. Indeed, there is a significantly higher-than-normal incidence of lucky grants in each of the economy's 12 industries.

单选题However important we may regard school life to be, there is no denying the fact that children spend more time at home than in the classroom. Therefore, the great influence of parents cannot be ignored or discounted by the teacher. They can become strong allies of the school personnel or they can consciously or unconsciously hinder and frustrate curricular objectives. Administrators have been aware of the need to keep parents informed of the newer methods used in schools. Many principals have conducted workshops explaining such matters as the reading readiness program, manuscript writing and developmental mathematics. Moreover, the classroom teacher, with the permission of the supervisors, can also play an important role in enlightening parents. The informal tea and the many interviews carried on during the year, as well as new ways of reporting pupils' progress, can significantly aid in achieving a harmonious interplay between school and home. To illustrate, suppose that a father has been drilling Junior in arithmetic processes night after night. In a friendly interview, the teacher can help the parent sublimate his natural paternal interest into productive channels. He might be persuaded to let Junior participate in discussing the family budget, buying the food, using a yardstick or measuring cup at home, setting the clock, calculating mileage on a trip and engaging in scores of other activities that have a mathematical basis. If the father follows the advice, it is reasonable to assume that he will soon realize his son is making satisfactory progress in mathematics, and at the same time, enjoying the work. Too often, however, teachers' conferences with parents are devoted to petty accounts of children's misdemeanors, complaints about laziness and poor work habits, and suggestion for penalties and rewards at home. What is needed is a more creative approach in which the teacher, as a professional adviser, plants ideas in parents' minds for the best utilization of the many hours that the child spends out of the classroom. In this way, the school and the home join forces in fostering the fullest development of youngsters' capacities.

单选题By saying "the golden rivers are being diverted", the author means

单选题In recent years a new farming revolution has begun, one that involves the (1) of life at a fundamental level-the gene. The study of genetics has (2) a new industry called biotechnology. As the name suggests, it (3) biology and modern technology through such techniques as genetic engineering. Some of the new biotech companies specialize in agriculture and are working feverishly to (4) seeds that give a high yield, that (5) disease, drought and frost, and that reduce the need for (6) chemicals. If such goals could be achieved, it would be most (7) . But some have raised concerns about genetically engineered crops. In nature, genetic diversity is created within certain (8) . A rose can be crossed with a different kind of rose, but a rose will never cross with a potato. Genetic engineering (9) usually involves taking genes from one species and inserting them into another (10) to transfer a desired characteristic. This could mean, for example, selecting a gene which leads to the production of a chemical with anti-freeze (11) from an arctic fish, and inserting it into a potato or strawberry to make it frost-resistant. (12) , then, biotechnology allows humans to (13) the genetic walls that separate species.Like the green revolution, (14) some call the gene revolution contributes to the problem of genetic uniformity-some say even more (15) geneticists can employ techniques such as cloning and (16) culture, processes that produce perfectly (17) copies. Concerns about the erosion of biodiversity, therefore, remain. Genetically altered plants, however, raise new (18) , such as the effect they may have on us and environment. ".We are flying blindly into a new (19) of agricultural biotechnology with high hopes, few constraints and little idea of the potential (20) ," said science writer Jemery Rifkin.

单选题Success, it is often said, has many fathers--and one of the many fathers of computing, that most successful of industries, was Charles Babbage, a 19th-century British mathematician. Exasperated by errors in the mathematical tables that were widely used as calculation aids at the time, Babbage dreamed of building a mechanical engine that could produce flawless tables automatically. But his attempts to make such a machine in the 1920s failed, and the significance of his work was only rediscovered this century. Next year, at last, the first set of printed tables should emerge from a calculating "difference engine" built to Babbage's design. Babbage will have been vindicated. But the realization of his dream will also underscore the extent to which he was a man born ahead of his time. The effort to prove that Babbage's designs were logically and practically sound began in 1985, when a team of researchers at the Science Museum in London set out to build a difference engine in time for the 200th anniversary of Babbage's birth in 1992. The team, led by the museum's curator of computing, Doron Swade, constructed a monstrous device of bronze, iron and steel. It was 11 feet long, seven feet tall, weighed three tons, cost around $500 000 and took a year to piece together. And it worked perfectly, cranking out successive values of seventh-order polynomial equations to :31 significant figures. But it was incomplete. To save money, an entire section of the machine, the printer, was omitted. To Babbage, the printer was a vital part of design. Even if the engine produced the correct answers, there was still the risk that a transcription or typesetting error would result in the finished mathematical tables being inaccurate. The only way to guarantee error-free tables was to automate the printing process as well. So his plans included specifications for a printer almost as complicated as the calculating engine itself, with adjustable margins, two separate fonts, and the ability to print in two, three or four columns. In January, after years of searching for a sponsor for the printer, the Science Museum announced that a backer had been found. Nathan Myhrvold, the chief technology officer at Microsoft, agreed to pay for its construction (which is expected to cost $373 000 with one Proviso: that the Science Museum team would build him an identical calculating engine and printer to decorate his new home on Lake Washington, near Seattle). Construction of the printer will begin--in full view of the public--at the Science Museum later this month. The full machine will be completed next year. It is a nice irony that Babbage's plans should be realized only thanks to an infusion of cash from a man who got rich in the computer revolution that Babbage helped to foment. More striking still, even using 20th-century manufacturing technology the engine will have cost over $830 000 to build. Allowing for inflation, this is roughly a third of what it might have cost to build in Babbage's day-in contrast to the cost of electronic-computer technology, which halves in price every 18 months. That suggests that, even had Babbage succeeded, a Victorian computer revolution based on mechanical technology would not necessarily have followed.

单选题Seven years ago, a group of female scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology produced a piece of research showing that senior women professors in the institute's school of science had lower salaries and received fewer resources for research than their male counterparts did. Discrimination against female scientists has cropped up elsewhere. One study—conducted in Sweden, of all places—showed that female medical-research scientists had to be twice as good as men to win research grants. These pieces of work, though, were relatively small-scale. Now, a much larger study has found that discrimination plays a role in the pay gap between male and female scientists at British universities. Sara Connolly, a researcher at the University of East Anglia's school of economics, has been analyzing the results of a survey of over 7,000 scientists and she has just presented her findings at this year's meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Norwich. She found that the average pay gap between male and female academics working in science, engineering and technology is around ￡ 1,500 ($2,850) a year. That is not, of course, irrefutable proof of discrimination. An alternative hypothesis is that the courses of men's and women's lives mean the gap is caused by something else; women taking "career breaks" to have children, for example, and thus rising more slowly through the hierarchy. Unfortunately for that idea, Dr. Connolly found that men are also likely to earn more within any given grade of the hierarchy. Male professors, for example, earn over ￡ 4,000 a year more than female ones. To prove the point beyond doubt, Dr. Connolly worked out how much of the overall pay differential was explained by differences such as seniority, experience and age, and how much was unexplained, and therefore suggestive of discrimination. Explicable differences amounted to 77% of the overall pay gap between the sexes. That still left a substantial 23% gap in pay, which Dr. Connolly attributes to discrimination. Besides pay, her study also looked at the " glass-ceiling" effect—namely that at all stages of a woman's career she is less likely than her male colleagues to be promoted. Between postdoctoral and lecturer level, men are more likely to be promoted than women are, by a factor of between 1.04 and 2.45. Such differences are bigger at higher grades, with the hardest move of all being for a woman to settle into a professorial chair. Of course, it might be that, at each grade, men do more work than women, to make themselves more eligible for promotion. But that explanation, too, seems to be wrong. Unlike the previous studies, Dr. Connolly's compared the experience of scientists in universities with that of those in other sorts of laboratory. It turns out that female academic researchers face more barriers to promotion, and have a wider gap between their pay and that of their male counterparts, than do their sisters in industry or research institutes independent of universities. Private enterprise, in other words, delivers more equality than the supposedly egalitarian world of academia does.

单选题How do people decide whether to trust a country's investment climate, or the quality of its goods and services (1) , to a degree: places with skilled workers and high technology tend to make (2) stuff; countries with clear laws and clean politicians are more trustworthy. You might suspect, (3) , that plain prejudice also affects trade and capital flows. Three economists have found evidence of (4) that. As a first (5) , the trio looked at Eurobarometer surveys, which frequently ask EU citizens how much they trust people from various countries. To the authors, it is much more (6) that different countries give different answers. When two sets of people (7) a country's reliability differently, cultural (8) may be at work. Because trading with another country may also (9) trust, the economists had to (10) out which causes the other. So (11) rely only on Europeans' direct answers about trust, they looked at these in (12) with three long-run factors that might affect prejudices—religion, a history of wars and widespread genetic differences—and used these to try to (13) the effects of cultural biases on trust and trade. The economists find that cultural biases do drive wide variations (14) trust among European countries. And after (15) for other factors (such as geography) that also foster trade, they claim to show that culturally driven trust does (16) trade and investment patterns. A one-standard-deviation increase in their trust measure is (17) with a(n) (18) to trade between two countries of 30%, and a rise in bilateral foreign direct investment of as much as 75%. They also find that high education levels and more information tend to (19) these effects by correcting misconceptions about unfamiliar countries. (20) ignorance, it seems, does even more damage than free traders thought.

单选题Perhaps more than any other profession, science places a premium on being correct. Of course, most scientists make plenty of mistakes 1 the way. Yet not all errors are created equal. Historians have 2 a number of instances in which an incorrect idea proved far more 3 than thousands of others that were trivially mistaken or 4 correct. These are the productive mistakes: errors that 5 on deep, fundamental features of the world around us and 6 further research that leads to major 7 . Mistakes they certainly are. But science would be far worse off without them. Niels Bohr, for example, created a 8 of the atom that was wrong in nearly every way, yet it 9 the quantum-mechanical revolution. 10 enormous skepticism, Alfred Wegener argued 11 centrifugal forces make the continents move (or "drift") along the surface of the earth. He had the right phenomenon, albeit the wrong 12 . And Enrico Fermi thought that he had created nuclei heavier than uranium, rather than (as we now know) having stumbled 13 nuclear fission. Two other instances of productive mistakes, one from physics in the 1970"s and one from biology in the 1940"s illustrate this 14 dramatically. The authors of the mistakes were not hapless bumblers who 15 , in retrospect, to get lucky. 16 they steadfastly asked questions that 17 of their colleagues broached and 18 ideas that not many at the time had considered. In the process, they 19 the critical groundwork for today"s burgeoning fields of biotechnology and quantum information science. They were 20 , and the world should be thankful for their errors.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} "High tech" and "state of the art" are two expressions that describe very modern technology. High tech is just a shorter way of saying high technology. And high technology describes any invention, system of device that uses the newest ideas or discoveries of science and engineering. What is high tech? A computer is high tech. So is a communications satellite. A modern manufacturing system is surely high tech. High tech became a popular expression in the United States during the early 1980's. Because of improvements in technology, people could buy many new kinds of products in American stores, such as home computers, microwave ovens, etc. "State of the art" is something that is as modern as possible. It is a product that is based on the very latest methods and techn01ogy. Something that is "state of the art" is the newest possible design or product of a business or industry. A state of the art television set, for example, uses the most modern electronic design and parts. It is the best that one can buy. "State of the art" is not a new expression. Engineers have used it for years, to describe the best and most modern way of doing something. Millions of Americans began to use the expression in the late 1970's. The reason was the computer revolution. Every computer company claimed that its computers were "state of the art". Computer technology changed so fast that a state of the art computer today might be old tomorrow. The expression "state of the art" became as common and popular as computers themselves. Now all kinds of products are said to be "state of the art".

单选题Timothy Berners-Lee, might be giving Bill Gates a run for the money, but he passed up his shot at fabulous wealth -- intentionally--in 1990. That's when he decided not to patent the technology used to create the most important software innovation in the final decade of the 20th century: the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee wanted to make the world a richer place, not amass personal wealth. So he gave his brainchild to us all. Berners-Lee regards today's Web as a rebellious adolescent that can never fulfill his original expectations. By 2005, he hopes to begin replacing it with the Semantic Web--a smart network that will finally understand human languages and make computers virtually as easy to work with as other humans. As envisioned by Berners-Lee, the new Web would understand not only the meaning of words and concepts but also theological relationships among them. That has awesome potential. Most knowledge is built on two pillars: semantic and mathematics. In number-crunching, computers already outclass people. Machines that are equally admit at dealing with language and reason won't just help people uncover new insights; they could blaze new trails on their own. Even with a fairly crude version of this future Web, mining online repositories for nuggets of knowledge would no longer force people to wade through screen after screen of extraneous data. Instead, computers would dispatch intelligent agents, or software messengers, to explore Websites by the thousands and logically sift out just what's relevant. That alone would provide a major boost in productivity at work and at home. But there's far more. Software agents could also take on many routine business chores, such as helping manufacturers find and negotiate with lowest-cost parts suppliers and handling help-desk questions. The Semantic Web would also be a bottomless trove of eureka insights. Most inventions and scientific breakthronghs, including today's Web, spring from novel combinations of existing knowledge. The Semantic Web would make it possible to evaluate more combinations overnight than a person could juggle in a lifetime. Sure scientists and other people can post ideas on the Web today for others to read. But with machines doing the reading and translating technical terms, related ideas from millions of Web pages could be distilled and summarized. That will lift the ability to assess and integrate information to new heights. The Semantic Web, Berners-Lee predicts, "will help more people become more intuitive as well as more analytical. It will foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives, so we have a better chance of finding the right solutions to the really big issues--like the environment and climate warming./

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} In Don Juan Lord Byron wrote, "Sweet is revenge—especially to women." But a study released on Wednesday, supported by magnetic resonance imaging, suggests that men may be the more natural avengers. In the study, when male subjects witnessed people they perceived as had guys being stroke by a mild electrical shock, their M.R.I. scans lit up in primitive brain areas associated with reward. Their brains' empathy centers remained dull. Women watching the punishment, in contrast, showed no response in centers associated with pleasure. Even though they also said they did not like the bad guys, their empathy centers still quietly glowed. The study seems to show for the first time in physical terms what many people probably assume they already know: that women are generally more empathetic than men. and that men take great pleasure in seeing revenge exacted. Men "expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment," said Dr Tania Singer, the lead researcher, of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London. But far from condemning the male impulse for retribution, Dr. Singer said it had an important social function: "This type of behavior has probably been crucial in the evolution of society as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest." The study is part of a growing body of research that is attempting to better understand behavior and emotions by observing simultaneous physiological changes in the brain, a technique now attainable through imaging. "Imaging is still in its early days but we are transitioning from a descriptive to a more mechanistic type of study," said Dr. Klaas Enno Stephan, a co-author of the paper. Dr. Singer's team was simply trying to see if the study subjects' degree of empathy correlated with how much they liked or disliked the person being punished. They had not set out to look into sex differences. To cultivate personal likes and dislikes in their 32 volunteers, they asked them to play a complex money strategy game, where both members of a pair would profit if both behaved cooperatively. The ranks of volunteers were infiltrated by actors told to play selfishly. Volunteers came quickly to "very much like" the partners who were cooperative, while disliking those who hided rewards, Dr. Stephan said. Effectively conditioned to like and dislike their game-playing partners, the 32 subjects were placed in scanners and asked to watch the various partners receive electrical shocks. On scans, both men and women seemed to feel the pain of partners they liked. But the real surprise came during scans when the subjects viewed the partners they disliked being shocked. "When women saw the shock, they still had an empathetic response, even though it was reduced." Dr. Stephan said. "The men had none at all." Furthermore, researchers. found that the brain's pleasure centers lit up in males when just punishment was meted out. The researchers cautioned that it was not clear if men and women are born with divergent responses to revenge or if their social experiences generate, the responses. Dr. Singer said larger studies were needed to see if differing responses would be seen in cases involving revenge that did not involve pain. Still, she added. "This investigation would seem to indicate there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment."

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} In a paper just published in Science, Peter Gordon of Columbia University uses his study of the Piraha and their counting system to try to answer a tricky linguistic question. The Piraha, a group of hunter-gatherers who live along the banks of the Maiei River in Brazil, use a system of counting called "one-two-many". In this, the word for "one" translates to "roughly one" (similar to "one or two" in English), the word for "two" means "a slightly larger amount than one" (similar to "a few" in English), and the word for "many" means "a much larger amount". This question was posed by Benjamin Lee Whorl in the 1930s. Whorl studied Hopi, an Amerindian language very different from tile Eurasian languages that had hitherto been the subject of academic linguistics. His work led him to suggest that language not only influences thought but, more strongly, that it determines thought. While there is no dispute that language influences what people think about, evidence suggesting it determines thought is inconclusive. For example, in 1972, Eleanor Rosch and Karl Heider investigated the colour-naming abilities of the Dani people of Indonesia. The Dani have words for only two colours.- black and white. But Dr. Rosch and Dr. Heider found that, even so, Dani could distinguish and comprehend other colours. That does not support the deterministic version of the Whorl hypothesis. While recognising that there are such things as colours for which you have no name is certainly a cognitive leap, it may not be a good test of Whorf's ideas. Colours, after all, are out there everywhere. Numbers, by contrast, are abstract, so may be a better test. Dr. Gordon therefore spent a month with the Piraha and elicited the help of seven of them to see how far their grasp of numbers extended. The tests began simply, with a row of, say, seven evenly spaced batteries. Gradually, they got more complicated. The more complicated tests included tasks such as matching numbers of unevenly spaced objects, replicating the number of objects from memory, and copying a number of straight lines from a drawing. In the tests that involved matching the number and layout of objects they could see, participants were pretty good when faced with two or three items, but found it harder to cope as the number of items rose. Things were worse when the participants had to remember the number of objects in a layout and replicate it "blind", rather than matching a layout they could see. In this case the success rate dropped to zero when the number of items became, in terms of their language, "many". And line drawing produced the worst results of all--though that could have had as much to do with the fact that drawing is not part of Piraha culture as it did with the difficulties of numerical abstraction. Indeed, Dr. Gordon described the task of reproducing straight lines as being accomplished only with "heavy sighs and groans".

单选题To which of the following is the author likely to agree?

单选题Cheques have largely replaced money as a mean s of exchange, for they are widely accepted everywhere. Though this is very (1) for both buyer and seller, it should not be forgotten that cheuqes are not real money: they are quite (2) in themselves. A shop-keeper always runs a certain (3) when he accepts a cheque and he is quite (4) his rights if, (5) , he refuses to do so. People do not always know this and are shocked if their good faith is called (6) . An old and very wealth friend of mine told me he had an extremely unpleasant (7) . He went to a famous jewellery shop which keeps a large (8) of precious stones and asked to be shown some pearl necklaces. After examining several trays, he (9) to buy a particularly fine string of pearls and asked if he could pay (10) cheque. The assistant said that this was quite (11) , but the moment my friend signed his name, he was invited into the manager's office. The manager was very polite, but he explained that someone with (12) the same name had them with a (13) cheque not long age. He told my friend that the police would arrive (14) any moment and he had better stay (15) he wanted to get into serious trouble. (16) , the police arrived soon afterwards They apologized to my friend for the (17) and asked him to (18) a note which had been used by the thief in a number of shop. The note (19) : "I have a gun in my pocket. Ask no questions and give me all the money in the safe." (20) , my friend's handwriting was quite unlike the thief's.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} In science fiction there is to be found the recurrent theme of the omniscient computer which ultimately takes over the ordering of human life and affairs. Is this possible? I believe is it not: but also believe that the arguments commonly advanced to refute this possibility are the worng ones. First it is often said that computers "do not really think". This I submit is nonsense: if computers do not think, then nor do human beings. For how do I define the process of thinking? I present data—say, an examination paper—to a student, which he scans with a photoelectric organ we call an "eye", the computer scans its data with a photoelectric organ we call a "tape-reader". There is then a period when nothing obvious happens, through electroencephalogram—for the student. Lastly, information based on the data is transcribed by means of a mechanical organ called a "hand" by the student and a "teleprinter" by the computer. In other words, the actions of man and machine differ only in the appliances they use. Secondly, it is said that computers "only do what they are told", that they have to be programmed for every computation they undertake. But I do not believe that I was born with an innate ability to solve quadratic equations or to identify common members of the Britain flora: I, too, had to be programmed for these activities, but I happened to call my programmers by different names, such as "schoolteacher", "lecture" or "professor". Lastly, we are told that computers, unlike human beings, cannot interpret their own results. But interpretation is always of one set of information in the light of another set of information: it consists simply of finding the joint pattern in two sets of data. The mathematics of doing this is cumbersome but well known; the computer would be perfectly willing to do the job if asked.