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  3. Futurists love computers. After all,40 years ago electronic digital computers didn’t exist; today microchips as tiny as a baby’s

Futurists love computers. After all,40 years ago electronic digital computers didn’t exist; today microchips as tiny as a baby’s

admin2011-03-01  57
问题    Futurists love computers. After all,40 years ago electronic digital computers didn’t exist; today microchips as tiny as a baby’s fingernail are making all sorts of tasks faster and easier. Surely the future holds still more miracles.
   Some of the computer experiments now going on inspire exciting visions of the future. For example, scientists are working on devices that can electronically perform some sight and hearing functions, which could make life easier for the blind and deaf. They’re also working on artificial arms and legs that respond to the electric impulses produced by the human brain. Scientists hope that some day a person who’s lost an arm could still have near-normal brain control over an artificial arm.
   Video games, computerized special effects in movies, and real-life training machines now being used by the US Army are causing some people to predict new educational uses for computers. Computers could some day be used to simulate travel to other planets, to explore the ocean floor, or to look inside an atom.
   Experiments with electronic banking and shopping inspire predictions that these activities will soon be done from home computer terminals. Cars, too, might be equipped with computers to help drivers find their way around (Honda has one in an experimental car) or to communicate with home and office computers. Many people, including handicapped workers with limited ability to move around, already are working at home using computer terminals. Each terminal is connected to a system at a company’s main office. Some futurists say the day may come when few people will have to leave home to go to work -- they’ll just turn on a terminal
   A growing number of factories such as the General Motors Plant in Newark, Delaware, "hire" computerized robots to perform tasks such as spot welding. Some executives get a gleam in their eyes as they envision the spread of these "perfect workers" -- no coffee breaks, no strikes, and no vacations or sick days.
   These modern and potential computer uses are possible because of the silicon microchip.
   These chips, which have become increasingly complex since their beginning in 1959, contain a network of information pathways. Electronic impulses travel along the paths. The plans for a chip look much like a city street plan and can be as large as a football field. It can take as long as three months to complete a new chip design. Chips are used to store information, too. An entire "computer" can be put onto one chip -- called a microprocessor.
   As chips become even more complex, easier to make, and less costly, futurists predict limitless possibilities. A group of Japanese scientists is working on a new generation of computers, which they hope will be able to understand vocal instructions, talk back to their users, and automatically try out alternate solutions to a problem to come up with the best answer.
   Some people say that the humans of the future will never be without their companion -- computers. Predicting the future can be tricky, of course. In 1948 an IBM study predicted that there would never be enough demand for computers to justify going into the business!
What is the purpose of the passage?
选项 A、To tell the readers what computers will look like in the future.
B、To show the close relations between man and computers.
C、To tell the readers how important silicon microchips are.
D、To talk about the possible future uses of computers.
答案D
解析 主旨题。文章通篇是围绕着未来学家所描述的将来的电脑应用这一主题进行的，因此其写作目的也就是为了展望将来电脑对我们生活、生产等各方面的影响，答案是[D] 。
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