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  3. We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing

We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing

admin2013-07-30  61
问题     We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who’s responsible? Actually, it’s more like, What is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it — Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.
    There’s been a warning about the imminent(即将发生的)death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before — there are more and more readers, and more and more books.
    The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example. Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.
    As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.
    On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization(简单化). One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long "digests" of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation(破碎)of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span — that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.
    In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.
    In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.  
Besides knowledge of modern technology, what do people need to survive in a fast-changing society?
选项 A、Sense of direction.
B、The ability to understand.
C、Good imagination.
D、The ability to change.
答案B
解析 根据题干中的modern technology将本题出处定位到第六段末句。题干中need knowledge of modern technology与该句前半句提到的人们应具备的第一点能力：in tune with modern technology(与现代科技完全合拍)对应，后半句提到需具备的另一点能力; to make sense of a dynamic，confusing world(弄懂动态的、混乱的世界)，[B]项是对文中able to make sense of的同义转述，故为答案。[A]是根据make sense设的干扰项。[C]是针对imagine the possibility 设的干扰项。[D]是针对we need the ability to focus设的干扰项。
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