2. 外语
  3. It’s one of the world’s most celebrated theories - that it takes just six steps to link any two people on the planet. Person A w

It’s one of the world’s most celebrated theories - that it takes just six steps to link any two people on the planet. Person A w

admin2010-11-29  11
问题     It’s one of the world’s most celebrated theories - that it takes just six steps to link any two people on the planet. Person A would have danced at a ball with B, who once shared a flat with C who bought a bicycle from D... and so on. Now a few computer whizzes have put the theory to the test and found that it is true - almost. Rather than six degrees of separation, we are linked by 6.6. In other words, we really are just a handful of acquaintances away from the likes of Madonna and the Queen. Eric Horvitz, one of the Microsoft researchers who tested the theory using electronic messages, said he was shocked at the result.
    The concept of six degrees of separation came to public attention after an experiment in the Sixties, but is seen today as more of an urban legend. However, the Microsoft study shows that neither the growing population - nor advances in communication technology - have markedly changed the result. "What we’re seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity," he said. "People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore."
    The researchers studied the addresses of 30 billion instant messages sent through the Microsoft network in a single month in 2006. Two people were considered to be acquaintances - or separated by one degree - if they communicated with one another through the email-like system. Calculations showed the majority of users, or 78 per cent, could be connected by just 6.6 messages or steps.
    The phrase "six degrees of separation" came into usage after the 1960s study by academic Stanley Milgram. Milgram sent letters to a random selection of people in American cities, telling them that they were to pass the note to a certain stockbroker living in Boston if they knew him by name. If they did not, they were to pass the letter to someone they knew who they thought might have a better chance of being acquainted with him. The average number of times the letters had to be passed on to reach the broker was six, or 6.2 to be exact - and a new phrase was born.
    The concept was not a new one even then, and had been written about in the 1920s by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy. Karinthy said that any two individuals could be connected by at most five acquaintances.
    But after Milgram’s experiment the idea captured the world’s imagination, later spawning a play and film. In the 1993 film Six Degrees of Separation, based on the 1990 play of the same name, one of the characters said: "Six degrees of separation between us and everybody else on the planet." "The president of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names." "I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people." However, others claim we are not as well connected as we think, and that a few quality friendships are more important that a host of loose links. Barriers such as education, class and race mean the world is not as small as we might like to believe, it is argued.
What is the main idea of this passage?
选项 A、The passage explains the theory of six degrees of separation.
B、The passage states that Microsoft researchers have proved the theory of six degrees of separation.
C、The passage questions whether the theory six degrees of separation can be proved.
D、The passage reviews the development of the theory of six degrees of separation.
答案B
解析 主旨题。通读全文可以发现“six degrees of separation”六度分隔理论是主题词，但是，文章本身关注更多的是关于这一理论是如何被微软公司的研究人员证实的，不是主要解释该理论的。所以A犯了以偏概全的错误，C也是只提到了理论被质疑的一方面，不能概括全文主旨。D是最具迷惑性的选项，因为文中花了不少篇幅介绍理论的发展和证实过程，但是所有一切都是因微软公司的最新发现引起，所以D也不是最佳答案。
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