Here’s my simple test for a product of today’s technology: I go to the bookstore and check the shelves for remedial books. The more books, the more my suspicions are raised. If computers and computer programs supposedly are getting easier to use, why are so many companies still making a nice living publishing books on how to use them?
　　 Computers manipulate information, but information is invisible. There’s nothing to see or touch. The programmer decides what you see on the screen. Computers don’ t have knobs like old radios. They don’ t have buttons, not real buttons. Instead, more and more programs display pictures of buttons, moving even further into abstraction and arbitrariness. I like computers, but I hope they will disappear, that they will seem as strange to our descendants as the technologies of our grandparents appear to us. Today’s computers are indeed getting easier to us, but look where they started: so difficult that almost any improvement was welcome.
　　 Computer have the power to allow people within a company, caress a nation or even around the world to work together. But this power will be wasted if to-morrow’s computers aren’t designed around the needs and capabilities of the human beings who must use them — a people-centered philosophy, in other words. That means retooling computers to mesh with human strengths — observing, communicating and innovating — instead of asking people to conform to the unnatural behavior computers demand. That just leads to error.
　　 Many of today’s machines try to do too much. When a complicated word processor attempts to double as a desktop pulsing program or a kitchen appliance comes with half a dozen attachments, the product is bound to be unwieldy and burdensome. My favorite example of a technological product on just the right scale an electronic dictionary. It can be made smaller, lighter and far easier to use than a print version, not only giving meanings but even pronouncing the words. Today’s electronic dictionaries, with their tiny keys and barely legible displays, are primitive but they’re on the right track.
　　 1. The reason why the author often checks the remedial books is that _____________.
　　 A. he is interested in reading books
　　 B. he wants to find out whether they are helpful to readers
　　 C. he intends to test a new technological product
　　 D. he tries to make it clear why there are so many remedial books
　　 2. In the author’s view, the picture of button on the computer screen ____________.
　　 A. has the same function as knobs of a radio
　　 B. cause more complexity and ambiguity
　　 C. will certainly disappear in the near future
　　 D. presents the development in technology
　　 3. The main idea of the 3rd paragraph is ________.
　　 A. computers will enable people work more efficiently
　　 B. there will be a wide gap between computers and their users
　　 C. computers should he re-designed so as to make them able to observe, communicate and innovate like man
　　 D. computers should abide by the people-phi1osophy
　　 4. "Machine" in the 4th paragraph refers to _______________.
　　 A. computers
　　 B. a word processor and a kitchen appliance
　　 C. technological devices
　　 D. electric dictionaries
　　 5. Concerning the author’s attitude towards computers, which of the following is most suitable?
　　 A. He doubts the convenience of computers
　　 B. He loves them, but proposes to change them.
　　 C. He doesn’t like them at all, but has to rely on it for his job.
　　 D. He is dissatisfied with nowadays-technological development.
　　 答案：CBDAB