The Internet began in the 1960s as a small network of academic and government computers primarily in volved in research for the U.S. military. Originally limited to researchers at a handful of universities and government facilities, the Internet has quickly become a worldwide network providing users with information on a range of subjects and allowing them to purchase goods directly from companies via computer. By 1999, 84 million U.S. citizens had access to the Internet at home or work. More and more Americans are paying bills, shopping, ordering airline tickets, and purchasing stocks via computer over the Internet.
Internet banking is also becoming increasingly popular. With lower overhead costs in terms of staffing and office space, Internet banks are able to offer higher interest rates on deposits and charge lower rates on loans than traditional banks. "Brick and mortar" hanks are increasingly offering online banking services via transactional websites to complement their traditional services. At present, 14 percent of Internet households conduct their banking by means of the Internet, and the figure is expected to double or triple during the next two or three years.
Increasing commercial use of the Internet has heightened security and privacy concerns. With a credit or debit card, an Internet user can order almost anything from an Internet site and have it delivered to his home or office. Companies doing business over the Internet need sophisticated security measures to protect credit card, bank account, and social security numbers from unauthorized access as they pass across the Internet. Any organization that connects its networks to the global Internet must carefully control the access point to ensure that outsiders cannot disrupt the organization's internal networks or gain unauthorized access to the organization's computer systems and data.
According to the text, Internet banking ______.
A. requires minimal usage fees
B. offers price advantages to users
C. is more efficient than traditional banking
D. is environmentally-conscious
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
Three Yale University professors agreed in a panel discussion tonight that the automobile was what one of them called "Public Health Enemy No. 1 in this country. ' Besides polluting the air and congesting the cities, cars are involved in more than half the disabling accidents, and they contribute to heart disease "because we don't walk anywhere anymore," said Dr. H. Richard Weinerman, professor of medicine and public health.
Relating many of these manmade hazards to the automobile, Arthur W. Galston, a professor of biology, said it was possible to make a keroseneburning turbine car that would "lessen smog by a very large factor." But he expressed doubt that Americans were willing to give up moving about the countryside at 90 miles an hour in a large vehicle. "America seems wedded to the motor car—every family has to have at least two, and one has to be a convertible with 300 horsepower," Professor Galston continued. "Is this the way of life that we choose because we cherish these values?"
For Professor Sears, part of the blame lies with "a society that regards profit as a supreme value, under the illusion that anything that's technically possible is, therefore, ethically justified." Professor Seam also called the country's dependence on its modem automobiles "lousy economics" because of the large horsepower used simply "moving one individual to work". But he conceded that Americans have painted themselves into a comer by allowing the national economy to become so reliant on the automobile industry.
The solution, Dr. Weinerman said, "is not to find a less dangerous fuel but a different system of innercity transportation. Because of the increasing use of cars, public transportation has been allowed to wither and degenerate, so that if you can't walk to where you want to go, you have to have a car in most cities," he assorted. This in turn, Dr. Weinerman contended, is responsible for the "arteriosclerosis' of public roads, for the blight of the inner city and for the middleclass movement to the suburbs.
The main idea of the passage is that ______.
Americans are too attached to their cars
B. public transportation in America is welldeveloped
C. American cars are too fast
D. automobiles endanger health