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  3. Not many 25-year-olds can reasonably claim to have changed the world. The IBM personal computer, which was launched in 1981 and

Not many 25-year-olds can reasonably claim to have changed the world. The IBM personal computer, which was launched in 1981 and

admin2009-04-26  80
问题     Not many 25-year-olds can reasonably claim to have changed the world. The IBM personal computer, which was launched in 1981 and celebrates its 25th birthday in August, is a rare exception. Other personal computers had been launched before; but it was the IBM PC that ended up defining the standard around which a vast new industry then coalesced. IBM, the titan of the computing World at the time, quickly lost control of its own creation, allowing others to reap the benefits. But leave aside what the PC has done for the fortunes of particular companies, and instead step back and consider what the PC has done for mankind.
    The PC’s most obvious achievement has been to help make computers cheaper, more widely available and more useful than ever before. Before it appeared, different computers from different manufacturers were mostly incompatible with each other. The PC’s architecture was not perfect, but its adoption as an industry standard made possible economies of scale in both hardware and software. This in turn reduced prices and enabled the PC to democratise computing.
    But although the PC has its merits, it also has its faults. Its flexibility has proved to be both a strength and a weakness: it encourages innovation, but at the cost of complexity, reliability and security. And for people in the developing world, PCs are too bulky, expensive and energy-hungry. W. hen it comes to extending the benefits of digital technology—chiefly, cheap and easy access to information to everyone on the planet, the PC may not be the best tool for the job.
    Look on the streets of almost any city in the world, however, and you will see people clutching tiny, pocket computers, better known as mobile phones. Already, even basic handsets have simple web-browsers, calculators and other computing functions. Mobile phones are cheaper, simpler and more reliable than PCs, and market forces—in particular, the combination of pie-paid billing plans and microcredit schemes—are already putting them into the hands of even the world’s poorest people. Initiatives to spread PCs in the developing world, in contrast, rely on top-down funding from governments or aid agencies, rather than bottom-up adoption by consumers.
    All kinds of firms, from giants such as Google to start-ups such as CellBazaar, are working to bring the full belle, fits of the web to mobile phones. There is no question that the PC has democratised computing and-unleashed innovation, but it is the mobile phone that now seems most likely to carry the dream of the "personal computer" to its conclusion.
选项 A、Personal computer is an amazing invention.
B、IBM lost control of personal computer.
C、The birth of IBM personal computer makes drastic changes in our society.
D、Among the firms making the biggest splash in personal computer world is IBM.
答案C
解析 第一段开头第二句：The IBM personal computer...is a rare exception.…but it was the IBM PC that ended up defining the standard around which a vast new industry then coalesced.本题是针对文章开头引入的话题提出问题的。文章第一句话提到很少有人或公司在25岁的时候就能够影响世界了，而IBM公司的个人电脑则是例外，它确立了PC标准，使之成为新产：业的结合点。由此可以推断它使世界产生了巨大的变化。因此C正确。个人电脑的确是一项神奇的发明，但是不是IBM第一个发明的，文章没有提到。况且IBM的成功在于其建立了PC的标准，故A不对。B在文章的后半段也讲到了，但这是IBM失败之处。谨记：正确的观点不一定是正确的答案，错误的观点也未必是错误的选项。D选项的难点在于其句法和词组。make a splash是"引起轰动效应"的意思。在很多同学的主观印象中认为IBM是最好的电脑，但其市场运作并不好。此句要想成为正确答案，需要一个限定状语，即：在制定PC标准方面，IBM引起了轰动效应。
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