Passage 3

Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:

“... We are not about to enter the Information Age but instead are rather well into it.” Present predictions are that by 1990, about thirty million jobs in the United States, or about thirty percent of the job market, will be computer-related. In 1980, only twenty-one percent of all United States high schools owned one or more computers for student use.(79) In the fall of 1985, a new survey revealed that half of United States secondary schools have fifteen or more computers for student use. And now educational experts, administrators, and even the general public are demanding that all students become “computer literate (慢点…的).” “By the year 2000 knowledge of computers will be necessary in over eighty percent of all occupations. Soon those people not educated in computer use will be compared to those who are print illiterate today.”

What is “computer literacy”? The term itself seems to imply soon extent of “knowing” about computers, but knowing what. The current opinion seems to be that this should include a general knowledge of what computers are, plus a little of their history and something of how they operate.

Therefore, it is vital that educators everywhere take a careful look not only at what is being done, but also at what should be done in the field of computer education. Today most adults are capable of utilising a motor vehicle without the slightest knowledge of how the internal-combustion engine works. We effectively use all types of electrical equipment without being able to tell their histories or to explain how they work. (80)Business people for years have made good use of typewriters and adding machines, yet few have ever known how to repair them. Why, then, attempt to teach computers by teaching how or why they work?

Rather, we first must concentrate on teaching the effective use of the computer as the tool is.

“Knowing how to use a computer is what’s going to be important, we don’t talk about ‘automobile literacy. ‘ We just get in our cars and drive them.”

11. In 1990, the number of jobs having nothing to do with computers in the United States will be reduced to ________.

A) 79 million B) 30 million C) 70 million D) 100 million(C)

12. The expression “Print illiterate” (Para. 1, Line 16) refers to ________.

A) one who has never learnt printing B) one who is not computer literate

C) one who has never learnt to read D) one who is not able to use a typewriter(C)

13. The first paragraph is mainly about ________.

A) recent predictions of computer-related jobs B) the wide use of computers in schools

C) the urgency of computer education D) public interest in computers(C)

14.According to the author, the effective way to spread the use of computers is to teach ____.

A) what computers are B) how to use computers

C) where computers can be used D) how computers work(B)

15. Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) What to teach about computers should be reconsidered.

B) Those who are not educated in computer use will find it difficult to get a job.

C) Human society has already entered the Information Age.

D) Those who want to use computers should know how computers operate.