阅读理解。
It"s not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We
all use them, often without noticing what we"re doing.
I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and
my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!
Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax,
which is a shortening of facsimile originally, an exact copy of a book or document. We all got used
to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising
we"d fax it immediately. So, nouns turn into verbs in two easy stages. Then along came email, and we
were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without
my daily emails.
Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple
of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think
I"ll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up
from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don"t bookmark; I favorite-coming from
“favorite pages”, so the verb is derived from an adjective not a noun. I wasn’t really sure whether
people said this, but someone told me recently that they had favorited a site I was looking for and so
they could easily give me its address.
In the late 1980s I noticed that lots of my friends had acquired pagers, and kept saying things like
“I’ll page you as soon as I know what time we’re meeting”. They couldn"t say it to me, though; I
refused to have one. So my children bought me a mobile phone, now known simply as a mobile and
I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message (either
spoken or written)for them on their phone.Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when
and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them
using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself!
1. “I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means .
A. it was a firm arrangement
B. it was an uncertain arrangement
C. the arrangement should be written as a diary
D. he prefers a pencil to a pen
2. A website address can be easily found if it has been .
A. emailed
B. messaged
C. favorited
D. texted
3. Which of the following has not been used as a verb yet?
A. message
B. page
C. email
D. mobile
4. The best title for this passage is .
A. New Verbs from Old Nouns
B. The Development of the English language
C. New Technology and New words
D. Technology and Language
Today, there’s hardly an aspect of our life that isn’t being upended(颠覆) by the tons of information
available on the hundreds of millions of sites crowding the Internet, not to mention its ability to keep us in
constant touch with each other via electronic mail. “If the automobile and aerospace technology had
exploded at the same pace as computer and information technology,” says Microsoft, “a new car would
cost about $ 2 and go 600 miles on a small quantity of gas. And you could buy a Boeing 747 for the cost
of a pizza.”
Probably the biggest payoff, however, is the billions of dollars the Internet is saving companies in
producing goods and serving for the needs of their customers. Nothing like it has been seen since the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when power-driven machines began producing more in a day than
men could turn out in nearly a year. “We view the growth of the Internet and e-commerce as a global
trend,” says Merrill Lynch, “along the lines of printing press, the telephone, the computer, and electricity.”
You would be hard pressed to name something that isn’t available on the Internet. Consider: books,
health care, movie tickets, construction materials, baby clothes, stocks, cattle feed, music, electronics,
antiques, tools, real estate, toys, autographs of famous people, wine and airline tickets. And even after
you’ve moved on to your final resting place, there’s no reason those you love can’t keep in touch. A
company called FinalThoughts.com offers a place for you to store “afterlife e-mails” you can send to
Heaven with the help of a “guardian angel”.
Kids today are so computer literate that it in fact ensures the United States will remain the unchallenged leader in cyberspace for the foreseeable(能预测的) future. Nearly all children in families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year have home computers, according to a study by the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation. Youngsters from ages 2 to 17 at all income levels have computers, with 52% of those
connected to the Internet. Most kids use computers to play games (some for 30 hours or more a week),
and many teenage girls think nothing of rushing home from school to have e-mail chats with friends they
have just left.
What’s clear is that, whether we like it or not, the Internet is an ever growing part of our lives and there is no turning back. “The Internet is just 20% invented,” says cyber pioneer Jake Winebaum. “The last 80% is happening now.”
1. What can we learn from the Microsoft’s remark?
A. Today’s cars and airplanes are extremely overpriced.
B. Information technology is developing at an amazing speed.
C. Information technology has reached the point where improvement is difficult.
D. There’s more competition in information technology industry than in car industry.
2. The author gives the example of FinalThoughts.com to make the point that____.
A. there are some genius ideas on the Internet
B. almost anything is available on the Internet
C. people can find good bargains on the Internet
D. some websites provide novel services to increase hits
3. What can we learn from the fourth paragraph?
A. There is a link between income and computer ownership.
B. Many American children don’t put computers to good use.
C. Studies show that boys are more computer literate than girls.
D. The U.S. will stay ahead in the information technology in years.
4. Which sentence has the phrase that possesses the same meaning as the one underlined in the fifth
paragraph?
A. Some can tell you that he has changed their lives, while others think nothing of him.
B. Think nothing of it. It was my pleasure.
C. He thinks nothing of staying up all night in the Caf? bar.
D. He thinks nothing of the pain in his back for the moment.
5. What is the message the author intends to convey?
A. The Internet is going to get firm hold of our lives some day.
B. The Internet is going to influence our lives even more greatly.
C. We should have a positive attitude towards the changes the Internet brings.
D. Children should be well prepared for the challenges in the information age.
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