PASSAGE 29

　　Live with Computer

　　After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriends Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes indecipherable after the clarity of his words on screen; a secretarys tone seems more rejecting than Id imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid - hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, and now just two ordinary days.

　　For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a telecommuter. I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England, so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.

　　If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard of 96 on TV.

　　But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though Ive merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. Its like attending an A. A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents; worst nightmare.

　　What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.

　　At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that Id never done previously. The voices of the programs soothe me, but then Im jarred by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or compulsively needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. Dateline, Frontline, Nightline, CNN, New York 1, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves from foreground to background.

　　練習：

　　1. Compared to the clear words of her boyfriend on screen, his accent becomes

　　A) unidentifiable.

　　B) unbearable.

　　C) unreal.

　　D) misleading.

　　2. The passage implies that the author and her boyfriend live in

　　A) different cities in England.

　　B) different countries.

　　C) the same city.

　　D) the same country.

　　1. When we talk about ears, we usually mean the oddly wrinkled appendages on the sides of our heads.

　　2. We are aware that at the end of the central hole in this outer ear there is something called the middle ear, with an eardrum and a few little bones. Even deeper lies the inner ear, the organ with which we hear.

　　3. Animals such as dogs and cats also have conspicuous outer ears, but few of us probably ever stopped to think whether there might be such a thing as a middle and inner ear beneath those pointed tips. Yet, we know very well that these animals hear.

　　4. Birds are even more mysterious, because here we do not even see an outer ear. The same is true to still a larger degree of such animals as frogs and fishes, although in the frog we can at least see an eardrum.

　　5. Again, at one time or another, you may have found that all such animals hear. Hunters know that birds are attracted by artificial calls, and fishermen emphasize that you should be as quiet as possible if you dont want to go home empty handed. And if you ever hunted frogs in your childhood, you know how softly you had to tread! Moreover, it seems absurd that birds should sing and frogs croak, if they could not even hear their own voices.

　　6. By direct observations and many experiments, biologists have discovered that practically all animals have some sense of hearing or vibration. Earthworms feel vibrations in the soil, fish can be trained to respond to certain tones, male mosquitoes are attracted by the sound of the female, and frogs will respond to a tape recording of their own voices.

　　7. The inner ear is composed of delicate membranes which bear dense patches of specialized cells called maculae. Each of these collections of cells can carry a message to the brain. What message is carried by a macula depends upon how it is affected. The message which is carried is not, however, always connected with the hearing sense. For instance, a certain kind of tadpole can tell the depth of the water it is swimming in by the pitch of a tone which is produced by its own lungs.

　　8. In the human and all other mammals, the macula has developed into an organ which can easily be seen. This organ is called the cochlea. This spiral shaped organ contains the macula itself and it is called organ of Corti after its discoverer. If you have ever seen a snail shell, you know how a cochlea looks.

　　9. When sound waves enter the cochlea, which is really a tube coiled around, they set a membrane into a back and forth motion and cause a new wave. This is something like the way in which high and low sounds are produced by a flute or whistle. The high sounds are produced when the air is prevented by the holes from going through, while the low sounds are produced by allowing more of the air to pass. All this is what produces the differences between high and low sounds. The loudness of a sound is evidently produced by how much the membrane is cause to move.

　　10. Whether or not hearing is really produced in all animals by the effect of pressure is not definitely known by scientists as yet. We do know, however, that nature has set up some very delicate hearing mechanisms for its creatures. Scientists must explore much further for more knowledge about how animals use their ears.

　　3. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

　　A) she is so absorbed in the TV programs that she often forgets her work.

　　B) In order to keep up with the latest news and the weather, she watches TV a lot.

　　C) In order to get some comfort from TV programs she, sometimes, turns on the television.

　　D) Having worked on the computer for too long, she became a bit odd.

　　4. What is the authors attitude to the computer?

　　A) She dislikes it because TV is more attractive.

　　B) She dislikes it because it cuts off her relation with the outside world.

　　C) She has become bored with it.

　　D) She likes it because it is very convenient.

　　5. The phrase coming back out of the cave in the fifth paragraph means

　　A) coming back home.

　　B) going back home.

　　C) living a luxurious life.

　　D) restoring direct human contact.

　　Keys：ABCCD

　　PASSAGE 29

　　Live with Computer

　　After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriends Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes indecipherable after the clarity of his words on screen; a secretarys tone seems more rejecting than Id imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid - hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, and now just two ordinary days.

　　For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a telecommuter. I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England, so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.

　　If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard of 96 on TV.

　　But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though Ive merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. Its like attending an A. A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents; worst nightmare.

　　What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.

　　At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that Id never done previously. The voices of the programs soothe me, but then Im jarred by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or compulsively needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. Dateline, Frontline, Nightline, CNN, New York 1, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves from foreground to background.

　　練習：

　　1. Compared to the clear words of her boyfriend on screen, his accent becomes

　　A) unidentifiable.

　　B) unbearable.

　　C) unreal.

　　D) misleading.

　　2. The passage implies that the author and her boyfriend live in

　　A) different cities in England.

　　B) different countries.

　　C) the same city.

　　D) the same country.

　　1. When we talk about ears, we usually mean the oddly wrinkled appendages on the sides of our heads.

　　2. We are aware that at the end of the central hole in this outer ear there is something called the middle ear, with an eardrum and a few little bones. Even deeper lies the inner ear, the organ with which we hear.

　　3. Animals such as dogs and cats also have conspicuous outer ears, but few of us probably ever stopped to think whether there might be such a thing as a middle and inner ear beneath those pointed tips. Yet, we know very well that these animals hear.

　　4. Birds are even more mysterious, because here we do not even see an outer ear. The same is true to still a larger degree of such animals as frogs and fishes, although in the frog we can at least see an eardrum.

　　5. Again, at one time or another, you may have found that all such animals hear. Hunters know that birds are attracted by artificial calls, and fishermen emphasize that you should be as quiet as possible if you dont want to go home empty handed. And if you ever hunted frogs in your childhood, you know how softly you had to tread! Moreover, it seems absurd that birds should sing and frogs croak, if they could not even hear their own voices.

　　6. By direct observations and many experiments, biologists have discovered that practically all animals have some sense of hearing or vibration. Earthworms feel vibrations in the soil, fish can be trained to respond to certain tones, male mosquitoes are attracted by the sound of the female, and frogs will respond to a tape recording of their own voices.

　　7. The inner ear is composed of delicate membranes which bear dense patches of specialized cells called maculae. Each of these collections of cells can carry a message to the brain. What message is carried by a macula depends upon how it is affected. The message which is carried is not, however, always connected with the hearing sense. For instance, a certain kind of tadpole can tell the depth of the water it is swimming in by the pitch of a tone which is produced by its own lungs.

　　8. In the human and all other mammals, the macula has developed into an organ which can easily be seen. This organ is called the cochlea. This spiral shaped organ contains the macula itself and it is called organ of Corti after its discoverer. If you have ever seen a snail shell, you know how a cochlea looks.

　　9. When sound waves enter the cochlea, which is really a tube coiled around, they set a membrane into a back and forth motion and cause a new wave. This is something like the way in which high and low sounds are produced by a flute or whistle. The high sounds are produced when the air is prevented by the holes from going through, while the low sounds are produced by allowing more of the air to pass. All this is what produces the differences between high and low sounds. The loudness of a sound is evidently produced by how much the membrane is cause to move.

　　10. Whether or not hearing is really produced in all animals by the effect of pressure is not definitely known by scientists as yet. We do know, however, that nature has set up some very delicate hearing mechanisms for its creatures. Scientists must explore much further for more knowledge about how animals use their ears.

　　3. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

　　A) she is so absorbed in the TV programs that she often forgets her work.

　　B) In order to keep up with the latest news and the weather, she watches TV a lot.

　　C) In order to get some comfort from TV programs she, sometimes, turns on the television.

　　D) Having worked on the computer for too long, she became a bit odd.

　　4. What is the authors attitude to the computer?

　　A) She dislikes it because TV is more attractive.

　　B) She dislikes it because it cuts off her relation with the outside world.

　　C) She has become bored with it.

　　D) She likes it because it is very convenient.

　　5. The phrase coming back out of the cave in the fifth paragraph means

　　A) coming back home.

　　B) going back home.

　　C) living a luxurious life.

　　D) restoring direct human contact.

　　Keys：ABCCD