Practice 1 Directions: Read the texts from a magazine article in which five business leaders talked about their predictions for high-tech developments in the 21st century. For Questions 1 to 5, match the name of each person to one of the statements (A to G) given below. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. Maguel de Icaza: Free software benefits people, countries and companies by giving them complete control of the software on which they depend. This is helping close the digital divide between developed and underdeveloped countries. People who previously might never have had access to this sort of technology are already leading the efforts to bring it to the developing world. Free software is the foundation on which a fairer future and a more efficient economy is being built. Austin Hill: Welcome to the future. Your mobile phone tracks your location, your interactive TV records your viewing habits. Privacy is to the information age what environmentalism was to the industrial age. Businesses will protect themselves, and their customers, by introducing privacy-promoting technologies and building better data controls into every aspect of their operation. A leading class of privacy protectors will emerge in every industry, and both they and their customers will reap the rewards of the ethical privacy brand. Ng Ede Phang: This will be the year that plain old text e-mail sits up and starts talking--and talking a lot. The human voice is powerful weapon. An e-mail doesn’t tell me whether you’re happy, sad or excited, whereas lnternet voice services provide all these key emotional characteristics. The human voice adds a very powerful element to business relationships that e-mail just cannot match. Murray Goldman: For those of us who live on airplanes, a key decision is which electronic devices to carry on a trip. The future is in the appropriate combination of communications and computing devices. Many business travelers will require the full computing power of a personal computer, with a screen large enough to do intensive work. As a result, lightweight notebooks have been introduced to the market with innovative options such as built-in DVDs, cameras and wireless capabilities. Christine Karman: We’ll see agents on portals and community websites helping people trade goods and information. Venture capitalists are shifting from dotcoms to software and hardware companies. In Europe, that shift is hard to make because we don’t have a Silicon Valley from which lots of companies are conquering the world. As a consequence, the slowly emerging Internet and software industry in Europe may not survive. If I were starting a new software company now, I’d go to California or Boston. Now match the name of each person (1 to 5) to the appropriate statement. Note: there are two extra statements. Statements
正确答案:
1.F 第一段主要讲的是免费软件。第一段第二句提到免费软件“is helping close the digital divide between developed and underdeveloped countries”,缩小差距就是为了让数字信息平等化,况且选项中只有F提到了免费软件。故选F。 2.C 整段都在讲隐私,说道“Businesses will protect themselves,and their customers,by introducing privacy-promoting technologies and building better data controls into every aspect of their operation”。这与C项“在信息时代需要保护个人隐私”相一致。故选C。 3.D 第三段第三句提到“网络音频可以将个人的情感通过网络告诉对方”与D项“声音电子邮件使得网上交流变得人性化”相符。故选D。 4.E 选项锁定在A、E两项。由第四段意思知道小巧和多功能的电子产品将会成为商业旅行者的首选,因而成为一种潮流。A项“商业旅行者将定位未来计算机市场的潮流”说得过于绝对,而且文中也未提到过。故选E。 5.G 文中说欧洲的软硬件不行,“the slowly emerging Internet and software industry in Europe may not survive. If I were starting a new software company now,I'd go to California or Boston”,欧洲很难成为硬件和软件的生产地,也就是说欧洲和美国的数码差距很难 缩小,而且差距会进一步扩大。故选G。