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  3. As citizens of advanced but vulnerable economies, we must either relentlessly increase the quality of our skills or see our stan

As citizens of advanced but vulnerable economies, we must either relentlessly increase the quality of our skills or see our stan

admin2009-02-10  56
问题      As citizens of advanced but vulnerable economies, we must either relentlessly increase the quality of our skills or see our standard of living erode. For the future, competition between nations will be increasingly based on technological skill. Oil and natural resources will still be important, but they no longer will determine a nation’s economic strength. This will now be a matter of the way people organize themselves and the nature and quality of their work. Japan and the "new Japans" of East Asia are demonstrating this point in ways that are becoming painfully obvious to the older industrial countries.
     There is simply no way to rest on our past achievements. Today’s competition renders obsolete huge chunks of what we know and what forces us to innovate. For each individual, several careers will be customary, and continuing education and retraining will be inescapable. To attain this extraordinary level of education, government, business, schools, and even individuals will turn to technology for the answer.
     In industry, processing the information and designing the changes necessary to keep up with the market has meant the growing use of computers. The schools are now following close behind. Already some colleges in the United States are requiring a computer for each student. It is estimated that 500,000 computers are already in use in American high schools and elementary schools. Although there is an abysmal lack of educational software, the number of computers in schools expands rapidly.
     The computer is the Proteus of machines, as it takes on a thousand forms and serves a thousand functions. But its truly revolutionary character can be seen in its interactive potential. With advanced computers, learning can be individualized and serf-paced. Teachers can become more productive and the entire learning environment enriched.
     It is striking how much current teaching is a product of pencil and paper technology. With the computer’s capacity for simulation and diverse kinds of feedback, all sorts of new possibilities open up for the redesign of curriculums. Seymour Papert, the inventor of the computer language LOGO, believes that concepts in physics and advanced mathematics can be taught in the early grades with the use of computers. On every-day level, word-processing significantly improves the capacity for written expression. In terms of drill and practice, self-paced computer-assisted instruction enables the student to advance rapidly-without being limited by the conflicting needs of the entire class. In short, once we learn to use this new brain outside the brain, education will never be the same.
     Industry, faced with the pressures of a rapidly shifting market, is already designing new methods to retrain its workers. In the United States, a technological university has been set up to teach engineering courses by satellite. And the advances in telecommunications and computational power will dramatically expand the opportunities for national and international efforts in education and training.
     Without romanticizing the machine, it is clear that computers uniquely change the potential for equipping today’s citizens for unprecedented tasks of the future. Particularly in Europe and the United Sates, innovation will be the basis for continued prosperity. New competitors are emerging to challenge the old economic arrangements. How successfully we respond will depend on how much we invest in people and how wisely we employ the learning tools of the new technology.
The main idea of this passage is ______.
选项 A、Knowledge of a Computer
B、Importance of a Computer
C、Function of Knowledge
D、Function of Technology
答案B
解析 B项意为“计算机的重要性”。整篇文章都显示了这一点。第三段“工业上，信息处理和制定必要的改革计划以适应市场需要意味着越来越多使用计算机。学校紧跟工业之后……”第四段“计算机是一种变化多端，神通广大的机器，因为它显示千种图象，发挥千种功能。而它的真正的革命性可在其相互作用的潜能中看出。有了先进的计算机，学习可以个别进行，速度自行规定。教师变得更有成效……”第五段“……由于利用计算机，在学校低年级就能教授物理学和高等数学概念……”最后一段画龙点睛地指出“计算机独一无二地改变着那种使今天公民能担当未来空前任务的
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