1、大学英语四级（阅读）模拟试卷 29及答案与解析 Section B Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice. 0 Are we ready for the library of the future? L
2、ibrarians or providers of tech support? Librarians today will tell you their job is not so much to take care of books but to give people access to information in all forms. Since librarians, like so many people, believe that the entire universe of commerce, communication and information is moving to
3、 digital form, they are on a reform to give people access to the Internet to prevent them from becoming second-class citizens in an all-digital world. Something funny happened on the road to the digital library of the future, though. Far from becoming keepers of the keys to the Grand Database of Uni
4、versal Knowledge, todays librarians are increasingly finding themselves in an unexpected, overloaded role: They have become the general publics last-resort providers of tech support. It wasnt supposed to be this way. Todays libraries offer a variety of media and social-cultural events they are “blen
5、ded libraries,“ to use a term created by Kathleen Imhoff, assistant director of the Broward County Library of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At the newly remodeled San Francisco Public Library, the computers are prominently displayed in the center of the library building while the books are all but hidde
6、n on the periphery (外围 ). Imhoff s own library has word processing and other types of software for visitors to use, Internet access, audio CDs, videotapes, conceits, lectures, books and periodicals in three forms (print, microfiche and digital). Many libraries have found that this kind of “blending“
7、 is hugely popular in their communities, and librarians explain the changes in their institutions roles by pointing to the public demand for these new services. But other trends are at work, too. Can computers really help visitors to find what they want? For some time, libraries have been automating
8、 their back-end, behind-the-desk functions for reasons of cost and convenience, just like any other business. Now, the computers have moved out from behind librarians desks and onto the floor where the visitors are. This means that, suddenly, library-goers will have to know how to use those computer
9、s. This sounds reasonable enough until you take a close look. Unfortunately, the same technology that cuts costs and relieves librarians of work behind the scenes increases it for the public and for the librarians at the front desk who have to help the public figure out how to use the technology. Th
10、e unhappy result: People are simply not finding the information they seek. If you are just coming to the library to read a book for pleasure and you know what a card catalog is and you have some basic computer skills, then you are going to be OK. But if you are trying to find some specific informati
11、on say, whether software in the classroom helps kids learn better or the causes of lung cancer or the basic procedure for doing a cost-benefit analysis of computer systems (three topics I have actually tried to look up in the San Francisco library) then youre in trouble. What should a visitor of the
12、 future library be equipped with? To begin with, library visitors must now be able to type, to use a mouse and a menu and to understand the various types of computer interfaces (terminal text, windows and browsers). Its also nice if you know 17 different ways to quit a program, which electronic data
13、bases you should look in for what kinds of information, the grammar necessary to define your search and the Library of Congress controlled vocabulary. After I had been to the new San Francisco library three times, I started keeping a folder of instructions on how to do a keyword search (fi a=author,
14、 for example), since I would forget between visits. Probably half the population has never used a computer, fewer know how to type and almost nobody knows anything about electronic databases or searching grammar. As a result, the public library is now engaged in a massive attempt to teach computer l
15、iteracy to the entire country. Some librarians compare it to the adult literacy programs the library also sponsors, but this is on a far larger scale and less closely tied to the librarys traditional mission. What do libraries do to help visitors to get prepared for the future libraries? The respons
16、e at each library system has been different. Some libraries actually give courses in word processing, accounting program and so on. But even at libraries where the staff has resisted becoming computer trainers, they are still forced to devote significant resources to the problem. Such has been the c
17、ase in San Francisco, where people with disabilities can sign up to use the voice-recognition program Dragon Dictate but only if they can prove they already know how to use the software. The librarians have neither the time nor the peculiar skill (nor the time to develop the skill) to teach it to th
18、em. At the reference desks, librarians try not to spend a lot of time teaching people the basics of how to use the computer, but sometimes its unavoidable. “We try to get them started,“ says business librarian John Kenney. “We let them do as much as they can on their own and they come get us. Its ce
19、rtainly a big problem.“ The San Francisco library offers classes on its own electronic catalog, commercial periodical indexes and the Internet twice a week as well as occasional lectures about the Internet. Although it seems odd to me that people now need to take a two-hour class before they can use
20、 the library, the classes are always full. But despite the excellent teachers, two hours is simply not enough to meet the needs of the students, many of whom have never used a computer before in their lives and many of whom simply cant type. When I took the class one Tuesday, the man sitting next to
21、 me said he has used the librarys computer catalog many times, but he keeps making typing mistakes without knowing it. This unexpectedly throws him into the wrong screens and he doesnt know how to get back. On the floor, he repeatedly has to ask a librarian for help. Libraries own trouble “Providing
22、 technology does not mean people can use the technology,“ says Marc Webb, a San Francisco librarian and one of the teachers. “Half the voters are still trying to read English.“ The library has also had to deal with the practical difficulties of making its catalog accessible via the Internet, a new s
23、ervice many libraries are starting to offer. “Its absolutely overwhelming,“ Webb says. “Everyone is getting to us with multiple transports, theyre all using different software, they have Winsock or Telnet set up differently, and suddenly the library is forced to become a hardware and software help d
24、esk. When youre trying to tell someone over the telephone how to set up Winsock through AOL when this is the first time theyve ever used a computer, its very difficult.“ 1 In todays libraries, the librarians are people who _. （ A） take care of the books （ B） conduct better-reader programs （ C） provi
25、de tech support for the public （ D） help promote the popularity of the library 2 According to Kathleen Imhoff, libraries at the present time are_. （ A） traditional libraries （ B） blended libraries （ C） digital libraries （ D） high-tech libraries 3 What is said about the San Francisco Public Library?
26、（ A） There are only computer databases, without books. （ B） Books are no longer open to the general public. （ C） Computers are more prominently displayed than books. （ D） The number of librarians has been decreased sharply. 4 Libraries have been automating their back-end, behind-the-desk functions i
27、n consideration of_. （ A） cost and convenience （ B） advancement of technology （ C） the demands of readers （ D） the number of visitors 5 If you have some basic knowledge of card catalogue and computer skills, you will be able to _. （ A） find a software that helps improve learning ability （ B） find a
28、procedure for doing financial analysis （ C） know the causes of lung cancer （ D） read a book for pleasure 6 What programs are sponsored by public libraries? （ A） Wildlife protection programs. （ B） Adult literacy programs. （ C） Environmental research programs. （ D） Family planning programs. 7 Dragon D
29、ictate is the software which is used to help _ in library use. （ A） school children （ B） the blind or deaf （ C） elderly people （ D） the disabled 8 The San Francisco library requires its visitors to take a _ course before they can use the library. 9 The man sitting next to the author in the class cou
30、ld not open the right screen because of his_. 10 Recently, many libraries are trying to provide the visitors with a new service: _ 10 Of the millions of inventions, what are the eight greatest? Ive drawn up a list. And theres one thing I know about this list: You wont agree with it. Some of you will
31、 write to tell me I forgot the gun, the airplane, or whatever. Which is fine: A top-eight list is all about starting a good argument. But to draw up such a list, you have to set some guidelines, and here are mine: Im starting at the year zero. Otherwise, wed never get out of prehistory. And Im limit
32、ing inventions to physical devices. The scientific method, the university and electricity dont count they are, respectively, a concept, a social system, and something we discovered but which existed all along. This is a list of end products. That is, Im excluding components with no independent funct
33、ion. Take the gear, for example. A groundbreaking bit of technology to be sure. Without it, wed scarcely have any machines at all. But we never say, “Oh, damn, Im out of gears! “ Ditto microchips, transistors, and ball bearings. Here, then, in no particular order, are my nominees as the eight greate
34、st inventions. 1. The Mechanical Clock Before this invention, time was inseparable from events, the main one being the Sun crossing the sky. Only local time existed, no universal river of time. If you agreed to meet someone at sunset, you had to say where, because the Sun is always setting somewhere
35、. Then, mechanical clocks came around. Gradually, as these clocks all came to be coordinated, they created public time, a thing in itself: one single, universal current flowing everywhere throughout the universe, always at the same pace. People could now communicate with each other by coordinating t
36、o this universal frame of reference. Thus, clocks made factories, offices, schools, meetings, and appointments possible. 2. The Printing Press Unoriginal, I know, but still its true. Gutenbergs press, with its movable type, launched publishing. In the short term, this made the Reformation possible b
37、y putting a Bible in the hands of anybody who wanted one. The Church lost its lock on truth, and the sovereign individual soon emerged as the key unit of Western society. In the longer term, publishing universalized literacy. Before this invention, so few could read that, effectively, even those few
38、 lived in a world of oral tradition and memory. Humanitys consensual picture of reality was shaped by stories, told and retold. In this fluid world, if the big picture shifted, no one knew, because they had nothing to check it against. The proliferation of text fixed objective reality. Now, when two
39、 people disagree about what happened yesterday, they can look it up. Our modern collective picture of reality is founded on facts archived as text. 3. Immunization and Antibiotics Three centuries ago, almost everyone died of infectious diseases. When the plague broke out in 1347, it killed nearly ha
40、lf of Europe in about two years. When diseases such as smallpox reached North America, they reduced the indigenous population by about 90 percent within a century. As late as 1800, the leading cause of death in the West was tuberculosis. Hardly anyone died of old age back then, one reason why elders
41、 were revered. Today, elders are a dime a dozen: nothing unusual about surviving past 70. In the United States, 73 percent of people die of heart failure, cancer, and stroke. Its a different world, folks. 4. The Telephone Lots of people imagined the telephone before any telephone existed. Once the d
42、evice was invented, and businessmen had wrested it away from the inventors, the Network began to form. Thats the actual invention the Network. It enables anyone to talk to anyone anywhere at any given moment. So today, anyones real-time group includes people not physically present, and they could be
43、 anywhere. The infrastructure took some time to develop, but the telephone implied all this from the start. 5. The Electrical Grid Electricity existed all along, but the system of devices needed to generate this force and distribute it to individual buildings was an invention, launched initially by
44、Edison: He effectively turned electricity into a salable commodity and his Pearl Street station was the worlds first electric power station. Nikola Teslas invention of alternating current (AC) technology then made it possible to transmit electricity over long distances, leading to the nationwide gri
45、d we know today. Now, anyone in the West and throughout most of the world can tap into the grid to power everything from light bulbs to computers. We are, in fact, a social organism animated by electricity. 6. The Automobile Once cars were invented, roads were improved. Once roads were improved, cit
46、ies sprouted suburbs, because people could now live in the country, yet work in the city. And thus we have become a nation of sprawl, rather than density. Furthermore, as cars grew popular, the oil industry boomed. Oil became a key to power and wealth and one of the major factors for political and e
47、conomic unrest in the Middle East. And here we are today. 7. The Television Wherever a television set is on, it absorbs attention like no other piece of furniture. Jane Healy, in her book Endangered Minds, says television has changed the human brain itself. Our neural networks are not hardwired at b
48、irth but continue to develop for several years, new circuits forming in response to our first interactions with the environment. In much of the developed world, young children interact largely with television, so their neural networks can accommodate its warm, one-way, pacifying, activity-dampening
49、stimulus. 8. The Computer My deepest, richest, most diverse, and rewarding relationship is with my computer. It plays games with me, tells me jokes, plays music to me, and does my taxes. I have great conversations with it, too. These conversations appear as e-mail and take on the personalities of supposed “friends,“ but the human embodiments of those “friends“ are rarely with me. My concrete relationship is with this object on my desk (or in my lap). 11 The passage mainly introduces_
