2. 外语
  3. Everyone must have had at least one personal experience with a computer error by this time. Bank balances are suddenly reported

Everyone must have had at least one personal experience with a computer error by this time. Bank balances are suddenly reported

admin2012-04-05  65
问题     Everyone must have had at least one personal experience with a computer error by this time. Bank balances are suddenly reported to have jumped from $379 into the millions, appeals for charitable contributions are mailed over and over to people with crazy sounding names at your address, department stores send the wrong bills, utility companies write that they’re turning everything off, that sort of thing. If you manage to get in touch with someone and complain, you then get instantaneously typed, guilty letters from the same computer, saying, "Our computer was in error, and an adjustment is being made in your account."
    These are supposed to be the sheerest, blindest accidents. Mistakes are not believed to be the normal behavior of a good machine. If things go wrong, it must be a personal, human error, the result of fingering a button getting stuck, someone hitting the wrong key. The computer, at its normal best, is infallible (没有错误的).
    I wonder whether this can be true. After all, the whole point of computers is that they represent an extension of the human brain, vastly improved upon but nonetheless human, superhuman maybe. A good computer can think clearly and quickly enough to beat you at chess, and some of them have even been programmed to write obscure verse. They can do anything we can do, and more besides.
    It is not yet known whether a computer has its own consciousness, and it would be hard to find out about this. When you walk into one of those great halls now built for the huge machines, and standing listening, it is easy to imagine that the faint, distant noises are the sound of thinking, and the turning of the spools (线轴) gives them the look of wild creatures rolling their eyes in the effort to concentrate, choking with information. But real thinking and dreaming are other matters. On the other hand, the evidences of something like an unconscious, equivalent to ours, are all around, in every mail. As extensions of the human brain, they have been constructed the same property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities.
What does the author mean by "they represent an extension of the human brain" (Lines 1-2, Para. 3)?
选项 A、Human beings are not infallible, nor are computers.
B、Computers are bound to make as many errors as human beings.
C、Human mistakes can be avoided so computers errors can be avoided.
D、Computers are the same as the human brains.
答案A
解析 作者在文章第三段首句提出疑惑：我想知道这(电脑错误必定是其使用者造成的，电脑在最佳状态下是没有错误的)是否是真的。文章末段末句提到，作为人脑的延伸，它们(即电脑)制造(和人类)相同属性的错误，同样是自发的、不可控的、充满可能性的。由此可知，作者是为了说明人类大脑会犯错，作为人类大脑延，申的电脑同样也会犯错，故答案为A)。末段末句提到the same property of error(相同属性的错误)，而非同样多的错误，故排除B)。人的错误可避免与文意相反，故排除C)。第四段首句提到，电脑是否拥有自己的意识尚无定论，且难以考证，由此可知，作者并未认为电脑和人脑一样，故排除D)。
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大学英语四级

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