根据下列文章,请回答 23~30 题。
Ford
1 Ford’s great strength was the manufacturing process——not invention. Long before he stoned a car company,he was a worker. known for picking up pieces of metal and wire and turning them into machines. He started putting cars together in 1891'.Although it was by no means the first popular automobile,the Model T showed the world just how creative Ford was at combining technology and market.
2 The company’s assembly line alone threw America’s Industrial Revolution into overdrive(高速运转)。Instead of having workers put together the entire car,Ford’s friends,Who were great toolmakers from Scotland. Organized teams that added parts to each Model T as it moved down a line. By the time Ford's Highland Park plant was humming(嗡嗡作响)along in 191 4,the world's first automatic conveyor belt could turn out a car every 93 minutes.
3 The same year Henry Ford shocked the world with the$5.a.day minimum wage scheme,the greatest contribution he had ever made. The average wage in tile auto industry then was$2.34 for a 9-hour shift. Ford not only doubled that. he also took an hour off the workday. In those years it was unthinkable that a man could be paid that much,f0.r doing something that didn't involve an awful lot of training or education. The Wall Street Journal called the plan” an economic crime",and critics everywhere laughed atF0rd.
4 But as the wage increased later to daily$10,it proved a critical component of Ford’s dream to make the automobile accessible(可及的)to all. The critics were too stupid to understand that because Ford had lowered his costs per car,the higher wages didn't matter——except for making it possible for more people to buy cars.
第 23 题 Paragraph l____________
根据下列文章,请回答 41~45 题。
Hacking
People tend to think of computers as isolated machines, working away all by themselves. Some do -- personal computer without an outside link, like someone's hideaway (隐蔽的) cabin in the woods. But just as most of homes are tied to a community by streets, bus rootes and electric lines, computers that exchange intelligence are part of a community -- local, national and even global network joined by telephone connections.
The computer network is a creation of the electric age, but it is based on old-fashioned trust. It cannot work without trust. A rogue loose (为所欲为的无赖) in a computer system called hacker (黑客) is worse than a thief entering your house. He could go through anyone's electronic mail or add to, change, distort or delete anything in the information stored in the computer's memory. He could even take control of the entire system by placing his own instructions in the software that runs it. He could shut the computer down whenever he wished, and no one could stop him. Then he could program the computer to erase any sign of his ever having been there.
Hacking, our electronic-age term for computer break-in, is more and more in the news- brainy kids vandalizing university records, even pranking (胡闹) about in supposedly safeguarded systems. To those who understand how computer networks are increasingly regulating life in the late 20th century, these are not laughing matters. A potential for disaster is building: A dissatisfied former insurance-company employee wipes out information from payroll (工资表) files. A student sends out a "virus", a secret and destructive command, over a national network. The virus copies itself at lightning speed, jamming the entire network -- thousands of academic, commercial and government computer systems. Such disastrous cases have already occurred. Now exists the possibility of terrorism by computer. Spoiling a system responsible for air-traffic control at a busy airport, or knocking out the telephones of a major city, is a relatively easy way to spread panic. Yet neither business nor government has done enough to toughen its defenses against attack. For one thing, such defenses are expensive; for another, they may interrupt communication -- the main reason for using computers in the first place.
第 41 题 The writer mentions "a thief" in the second paragraph
A. to show that a hacker is more dangerous than a thief.
B. to tell people that thieves like to steal computers nowadays.
C. to demand that a protective computer system should be set up against thieves.
D. to demonstrate that hackers and thieves are the same people.
根据下列文章,请回答 41~45 题。
Giving Up Smoking
A numberof devices are available to help a person quit smokin9。Nicotine(尼古丁)patches aresmall,nicotine—containing adhesive(粘着性的)discs applied to the skin.The nicotine isslowly aborted through the skin and enters the bloodstream(血流).Over time。thenicotine dose is reduced and eventually the desire for nicotine is eased.Nicotinegum(口香糖)works in a similar manner, providing small doses of nicotine when chewed(咀嚼).
Thebenefits of giving up smoking include the immediate reduction of harm to the healthof the smoker and easier admission to social activities and institute ions thatban smoking.In a l988 report,the U.S.Surgeon General declared cigarette smokingto be more harmful and expensive than the use of cocaine(可卡因)alcohol.or heroin。Recentevidence supports this claim.
TheUnited States government has collected a special tax on cigarettes for several decades.Therate rose from 8 cents per pack of 20 cigarettes in 1951 t0 24 cents per packin 1993.In other developed countries,the cigarette tax rate is much higher,ranging from 50 percent in Swaziland to 85 percent in Denmark.
In the UnitedStates。the first direct action to check smoking was the regulation of a warningon cigarette packages by the Federal Trade Commission.This warning took effect in1964 and was strengthened in 1969 to read:"Warnin9:The Surgeon General HasDetermined That Cigarette Smoking IS Dangerous 10 Your Health.”in 1971 cigaretteadvertising was banned from radio and television,and cities and states passed lawsrequiring nonsmoking sections in public places and workplaces.
第 41 题 Which of the following can help a personquit smoking?
A. reading cigarette advertisements.
B. Using nicotine patches.
Chewingordinary gum.
D. Participating in social activities.