Part C

Directions:

Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2.(10 points)

Not long ago, technology in the home was carved up into well-defined territories: The PC — care of Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and the like — presided over the home office. The television and stereo were king and queen of the living room. These days, though, the digital revolution is shaking up that comfortable ease. (26)With the advent of MP3 music files, personal video recorders, game machines, digital cameras, and a host of other media and services, it’s no longer clear who controls which bit of home floor. And that has set off a battle for dominance in home entertainment.

The shake-up covers the technology spectrum. Microsoft Corp. is spending billions on entertainment initiatives such as its X-box video game comfort. Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett��Packard Co. sell MP3 music players that plug into home-stereo systems. Philips Electronics sells a stereo that hooks into a high-speed Internet connection to play music from the Web.

Consumers are getting the message. (27) Sales of many of these devices should take off this year and next: U.S. shipments of MP3 digital music players for listening to songs downloaded from the Net are expected to jump by more than 50% this year, to 7 million units, according to researchers International Data Corp. Sales of personal video recorders, such as TiVo, which let you record TV shows for later viewing, should nearly triple this year in the U.S., to 2.2 million units.

Even high-definition television(HDTV) — the durable Next Big Thing — may soon take off. (28) By the end of 2003, nearly 6 million U.S. homes should have HDTV sets, and by yearend, some 7.7 million American homes are expected to have networks to tie their digital gear together, with strong growth spurred by a new standard for wireless links called WiFi.

Call it the next big wave of technology. (29) After the PC era and the Internet Age, many consumers have grown comfortable with tech: Two-thirds of U.S. homes own PCs today, while 60%  have Internet access, according to researchers Gartner Data��quest. To reach the rest of the market, technology companies need to build simpler devices that offer more entertainment. (30) And these new machines need to work together as readily as stereo components do today, and should be nearly as easy to set up and use as a telephone or a television. That is leading to the consumerization of technology over the next five to ten years. The future is about MP3 players, digital video, and the like.

參考答案

Part A

Text 1: 1. A 2. C 3. D 4. B 5. A

Text 4: 16. C 17. D 18. B 19. D 20. A

Part C

26. 隨著MP3音樂文檔、個人錄像機、游戲機、數碼照相機及許多其它媒體和服務器的問世，究竟誰會占據家庭中的哪塊地盤，就很難說了。

27. 今明兩年，這些電器中許多產品的銷售量會急劇上升，據國際數據公司的研究人員估計，能收聽從網上下載歌曲的MP3數碼音樂播放機，美國今年出貨預計躍升50%以上，達到700萬套。

28. 到2003年末，近600萬美國家庭擁有高清晰電視機，而到年終，隨著稱作WiFi 的無線連接新技術標準所激發的迅猛發展，預計約有770萬美國家庭用網絡系統把他們的數碼裝置聯成一體。

29. 許多消費者在經歷過個人電腦時代和互聯網時代之后，對新技術業已應付自如；據Gartner數據調查公司的研究人員統計，現在2/3的美國家庭擁有個人電腦，而60%的家庭有互聯網接口。

30. 而且，這些新機器需要像現在的立體音響部件那樣容易地組合起來運行，同時它們還應該幾乎像電話機或電視機一樣容易安裝和使用。

(詳盡答案解析請參見書本)

（選自學苑出版社《畢金獻閱讀理解》）