2019专八阅读理解练习题附答案：高科技的应用

2018-12-13 16:53:33来源：网络

2019专八阅读理解练习题附答案：高科技的应用

　　One great benefit of the Web is that it allows us tomove information online that now resides in paperform. Several states in America are using the Web ina profound way. You can apply for various permitsor submit applications for business licences. Some states are putting up listings of jobs—notjust state government jobs, but all the jobs available in the state. I believe, over time, that allthe information that governments print, and all those paper forms they now have, will bemoved on to the Internet.

　　Electronic commerce notches up month-by-month too. It is difficult to measure, because a lotof electronic commerce involves existing buyers and sellers who are simply moving paperbasedtransactions to the Web. That is not new business. Microsoft, for example, purchases millions ofdollars of PCs online instead of by paper. However, that is not a fundamental change; it hasjust improved the efficiency of an existing process. The biggest impact has occurred whereelectronic commerce matches buyers and sellers who would not previously have found eachother. When you go to a book site and find an obscure book that you never would have foundin a physical bookstore, that is a new type of commerce.

　　Today, about half of all PCs are still not connected to the Web. Getting communications costsdown and making all the software simpler will bring in those people. And that, in turn, willmove us closer to the critical mass that will make the Web lifestyle everyone's lifestyle. Oneelement that people underestimate is the degree to which the hardware and software willimprove. Just take one aspect: screen technology. I do my e-mail on a 20-inch liquid crystaldisplay (LCD) monitor. It is not available at a reasonable price yet, but in two years it willbe. In ten years, a 20-inch LCD with much higher resolution will be commonplace. Theboundary between a television set and a PC will be blurred because even the set-top box thatyou connect up to your cable or satellite will have a processor more powerful than what we havetoday in the most expensive PC. This will, in effect, make your television a computer.

　　Interaction with the Web also will improve, making it much easier for people to be involved.Today the keywords we use to search the Web often return to too many articles to sort through,many of them out of context. If you want to learn about the fastest computer chip available,you might end up getting responses instead about potato chips being delivered in fast trucks.In the future, we shall be either speaking or typing sentences into the computer. If you askabout the speed of chips, the result will be about computers, not potatoes. Speech recognitionalso means that you will be able to call in on a phone and ask if you have any new messages, orcheck on a flight, or check on the weather.

　　To predict that it will take over ten years for these changes to happen is probably pessimistic.We usually overestimate what we can do in two years and underestimate what we can do inten. It will not be too long before the Web becomes as much a way of life as the car.[558words]

　　16. Electronic commerce becomes a new type of commerce when______.

　　[A] paperbased transactions are moved on to the Web

　　[B] the efficiency of the existing process is improved by Internet

　　[C] new buyers and sellers find each other on the Internet

　　[D] a book site offers the books several bookstores have altogether

　　17. The use of computer will be as common as the use of cars when_______.

　　[A] governments begin to move administration on-line

　　[B] electronic commerce causes a fundamental change

　　[C] computer and communication become simpler and cheaper

　　[D] the boundary between the computer and the TV disappears

　　18. What is the current problem with the Web according to the passage?

　　[A] Too much information. [B] Lack of response.