2001年Passage 2

A great deal of attention is being paid today to the so called digital divide-the division of the world into the info（information）rich and the info poor. And that divide does exist today. My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago. What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic.��

There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access-after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together. As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we've ever had.

Of course, the use of the Internet isn't the only way to defeat poverty. And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.

To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure （the basic structural foundations of a society）in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn't have the capital to do so. And that is why America's Second Wave infrastructure-including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on-were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain's former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now? The Americans believe the same thing would be true in places like Brazil or anywhere else for that matter. The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you're going to be. That doesn't mean lying down and becoming fooled, or letting foreign corporations run uncontrolled. But it does mean recognizing how important they can be in building the energy and telecom infrastructures needed to take full advantage of the Internet.��

55．Digital divide is something _________.
[A]getting worse because of the Internet 
[B]the rich countries are responsible for
[C]the world must guard against        
[D]considered positive today

[答案] C

[解題思路]

本題對應信息在文章的第一段，其中第二句指出，"My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago"（我和我妻子20年前就曾談及這個隱約顯現的危險），因而C選項與原文相符。A選項與原文意思相反，因為第一段最后一句表明作者的態度是optimistic。B選項在文中沒有提及，可以排除。至于D選項，盡管該段最后兩句話用了positive forces和reaasons to be optimistic，但并不認為信息化可以被"considered positively"。

[題目譯文]

信息化分化是一種            的東西。
[A] 因為互聯網而變得更壞
[B] 由富國負責
[C] 全世界都要警惕
[D] 現在看來積極

56．Governments attach importance to the Internet because it _________.
[A]offers economic potentials 
[B]can bring foreign funds
[C]can soon wipe out world poverty 
[D]connects people all over the world

[答案] A

[解題思路]

本文的對應信息為文章的第二段，該段先在第二句話中討論互聯網帶來的商機"As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access-after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are"（隨著互聯網的日趨商業化，上網普及符合商家的利益--畢竟，上網人數越多，潛在的客戶就越多），緊接著在第三句話中指出"More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access"（現在越來越多的政府惟恐自己的國家落后，紛紛推廣互聯網的使用范圍），可見各國政府也不愿錯過互聯網蘊含的巨大經濟利益的潛力，正確答案相應為A選項。B選項的錯誤在于對網絡的討論中并沒有談到foreign funds，后者關系到的是后文討論的infrastructure。而C和D選項都不是各國政府關注的重點，也可以排除。

[題目譯文]

政府重視互聯網的原因在于它            。
[A] 可以提供經濟潛力
[B] 能帶來外資
[C] 能很快消除世界貧困
[D] 可以把全世界的人聯接在一起

58．It seems that now a country's economy depends much on _________.
[A] how well developed it is electronically
[B] whether it is prejudiced against immigrants
[C] whether it adopts America's industrial pattern
[D] how much control it has over foreign corporations

[答案] A

[解題思路]

文章最后一段的倒數第三句提到"The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you're going to be"（你擁有越多的外國資金去建造第三次浪潮基礎設施（今天主要指電子基礎設施），那么你的情況就會越好），"electronic infrastructure"說明了當代社會經濟發展的重點在電子產業，正確答案為A選項。B選項屬于無中生有，可以排除。C選項有一定干擾性，但文中用美國工業基礎設施建設這個例子的目的在于說明應該利用外國投資，而不是要各國盲目效仿美國的工業模式。D選項的錯誤在于原文只談及堯對外企有一定控制，但控制程度并不是經濟發展的關鍵因素。

[題目譯文]

看起來現在一個國家的經濟在很大程度上取決于           。
[A] 其在電子方面的發展狀況
[B] 該國是否對移民存在偏見
[C] 該國是否采取了美國的工業模式
[D] 該國是否收到了外國公司的控制