During the past few years, scientists the world over have suddenly found themselves productively engaged in task they once spent their lives avoiding-writing, any kind of writing, but particularly letter writing. Encouraged by electronic mail's surprisingly high speed, convenience and economy, people who never before touched the stuff are regularly, skillfully, even cheerfully tapping out a great deal of correspondence.
Electronic networks, woven into the fabric of scientific communication these days, are the route to colleagues in distant countries, shared data, bulletin boards and electronic journals. Anyone with a personal computer, a modem and the software to link computers over telephone lines can sign on. An estimated five million scientists have done so with more joining every day, most of them communicating through a bundle of interconnected domestic and foreign routes known collectively as the Internet, or net.
E-mail is starting to edge out the fax, the telephone, overnight mail, and of course, land mail. It shrinks time and distance between scientific collaborators, in part because it is conveniently asynchronous (writers can type while their colleagues across time zones sleep; their message will be waiting). If it is not yet speeding discoveries, it is certainly accelerating communication.醫(yī).學(xué)全.在.線網(wǎng)站gydjdsj.org.cn
Jeremy Bernstei, the physicist and science writer, once called E-mail the physicist's umbilical cord. Lately other people, too, have been discovering its connective virtues. Physicists are using it; college students are using it, everybody is using it, and as a sign that it has come of age, the New Yorker has celebrated its liberating presence with a cartoon-an appreciative dog seated at a keyboard, saying happily, “On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.”
41The reasons given below about the popularity of E-mail can be found in the passage EXCEPT __________.
A direct and reliable
B time-saving in delivery
C money-saving
D available at any time
42How is the Internet or net explained in the passage? __________
A Electronic routes used to read home and international journals.
B Electronic routes used to fax or correspond overnight.
C Electronic routes waiting for correspondence while one is sleeping.
D Electronic routes connected among millions of users, home and abroad.
43What does the sentence “If it is not yet speeding discoveries, it is certainly accelerating communication” most probably mean? __________
A The quick speed of correspondence may have ill-effects on discoveries.
B Although it does not speed up correspondence, it helps make discoveries.
C It quickens mutual communication even if it does not accelerate discoveries.
D It shrinks time for communication and accelerates discoveries.
44What does the sentence “On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.”imply in the last paragraph? __________
A Even dogs are interested in the computer.
B E-mail has become very popular.
C Dogs are liberated from their usual duties.
D E-mail deprives dogs of their owners' love.
45What will happen to fax, land mail, overnight mail, etc. according to the writer? __________
A Their functions cannot be replaced by E-mail.
B They will co-exist with E-mail for a long time.
C Less and less people will use them.
D They will play a supplementary function to E-mail.
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Conservation or Wasted Effort?
The black robin (旅鶇) is one of the world's rarest birds. It is a small, wild bird, and it lives only on the island of Little Mangere, off the coast of New Zealand. In 1967 there were about fifty black robins there; in 1977 there were fewer than ten.46
Energetic steps are being taken to preserve the black robin. 47 The idea is to buy an-other island nearby as a special home, a “reserve”, for threatened 醫(yī).學(xué)全.在.線網(wǎng)站gydjdsj.org.cnwild life, including black robins. The organizers say that Little Mangere should then be restocked (重新準備) with the robin's food. Thousands of the required plants are at present being cultivated in New Zealand.
Is all this concern a waste of human effort? 48 Are we losing our sense of what is reasonable and what is unreasonable?
In the earth's long, long past hundreds of kinds of creatures have evolved, risen to a degree of success and died out. In the long, long future there will be many new and different forms of life. Those creatures that adapt themselves successfully to what the earth offers will survive for a long time.49 This is nature's proven method of operation.
The rule of selection “the survival of the fittest” is the one by which human beings have themselves arrived on the scene. We, being one of the most adaptable creatures the earth has yet produced, may last longer than most, 50 You may take it as another rule that when, at last, human beings show signs of dying out, no other creature will extend a paw (爪) to postpone our departure. On the contrary, we will be hurried out.
Life seems to have grown too tough for black robins. I leave you to judge whether we should try to do anything about it.
A Some creatures, certain small animals, insects and birds, will almost certainly outlast (比……長久)man, for they seem even more adaptable.
B Those that fail to meet the challenges will disappear early.
C Detailed studies are going on, and a public appeal for money has been made.
D Both represent orders in the classification of life.
E Is it any business of ours whether the black robin survives or dies out?
F These are the only black robins left in the world.
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