Throughout history, technology has provided artists with new tools for expressio

Throughout history, technology has provided artists with new tools for expression. Now, technology is increasingly becoming a fundamental force in the development of art.

I had my first experience with the internet in the early 1990s. I used our 300-baud modem, allowed it to begin its R2-D2-like hissing and whistling, and began to telnet(远程登录). A window on our Macintosh’s screen began filling with text and announced our connection to the computers at the local university. After exploring a series of text menus, I began my first download: a text document containing Plato’s The Republic, via Project Gutenberg. After what felt like a significant chapter of an hour, I was fascinated. I can distinctly remember jumping up and down, celebrating that I had this entire book on our computer using nothing but phone lines and a lot of dull beeping.

It took me almost a decade to actually get around to reading The Republic. By the time I did, the conception that I expressed wonder at such a mundane activity as downloading a text document seemed strange. In 2012, people stream movies onto their computers nightly without praising the modem gods. We have gone from the days of early web pages, with their splendid backgrounds and blinking text, to slick interactive sites with enough bells and whistles to make the entire experience smooth and multimedia based. No one thinks any longer about modems or the details of bandwidth speeds. And certainly no one uses the word baud anymore.

The changes haven’t ended there. To store data, I have used floppy disks, diskettes, zip discs, rewritable CDs, flash drives, burnable DVDs, even the Commodore Datasette. Now, I save many of my documents to storage that’s available anytime I have access to the internet: the cloud.

The technological revolution we’re currently experiencing is not a one-off, technology has been changing over the centuries. But what’s surprising is that if you look below the surface you discover that this progress is not random, it almost always follows a pattern. And understanding this pattern helps us to appreciate far more than faster download speeds or improved data storage. It helps us to understand something fundamental to our success as a species. It helps us to understand how our knowledge changes and evolves.

59. How did the author feel when he first downloaded a text document?

A. Frightened.      B. Ambitious.    C. Desperate.       D. Excited.

60. What can be indicated from the fourth paragraph?

A. Data storage has many different ways.

B. Data storage is an unavoidable method now.

C. Data storage experienced a thorough revolution.

D. Data storage develops from floppy disks to internet: the cloud.

61. What does the author mean in the last paragraph?

A. Technological revolution develops randomly.

B. Technological revolution develops with great storage.

C. Technological revolution develops far more than speed.

D. Technological revolution develops with a surprising force.

62. What is the best title for this passage?

A. My experience in internet revolution.

B. Internet revolution gives us a big surprise.

C. Internet revolution becomes a force in art.

D. My download and data storage from the internet.

试题答案

DCCA