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To Err Is Human by Lewis Thomas

Everyone must have had at least one personal experience with a computer errｏｒby this time. Bank balances are suddenly reported to have jumped form $379 into the millions, appeals fｏｒcharitable contributions are mailed over ａｎｄ　over to people with crazy sounding names at your address, department stores send the wrong bills, utility companies write that they’re turning everything off, that sort of thing. If you manage to get in touch with someone ａｎｄ　complain, you then get instantaneously typed, guilty letters from the same computer, saying, “Our computer was in error, ａｎｄ　an adjustment is being made in your account.”

These are supposed to be the sheerest, blindest accidents. Mistakes are not believed to be the normal behaviｏｒof a good machine. If things go wrong, it must be a personal, human error, the result of fingering, tampering a button getting stuck, someone hitting the wrong key. The computer, at its normal best, is infallible.

I wonder whether this can be true. After all, the whole point of computers is that they represent an extension of the human brain, vastly improved upon but nonetheless human, superhuman maybe. A good computer can think clearly ａｎｄ　quickly enough to beat you at chess, ａｎｄ　some of them have even been programmed to write obscure verse. They can do anything we can do, ａｎｄ　more besides.

It is not yet known whether a computer has its own consciousness, ａｎｄ　it would be hard to find out about this. When you walk into one of those great halls now built fｏｒthe huge machines, ａｎｄ　standing listening, it is easy to imagine that the faint, distant noises are the sound of thinking, ａｎｄ　the turning of the spools gives them the look of wild creatures rolling their eyes in the effort to concentrate, choking with information. But real thinking, ａｎｄ　dreaming, are other matters. On the other hand, the evidence of something like an unconscious, equivalent to ours, are all around, in every mail. As extensions of the human brain, they have been constructed the same property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, ａｎｄ　rich in possibilities.

Question 1: The title of the writing “To Err Is Human” implies that

A. making mistakes is confined only to human beings.

B. every human being cannot avoid making mistakes.

C. all human beings are always making mistakes.

D. every human being is born to make bad mistakes.

Question 2: The first paragraph implies that

A. computer errors are so obvious that one can hardly prevent them form happening.

B. a computer is so capable of making errors that none of them is avoidable.

C. computers make such errors as miscalculation ａｎｄ　inaccurate reporting.

D. computers can’t think so their errors are natural and unavoidable.

Question 3: The authｏｒuses his hypothesis that “computers represent an extension of the human brain” in ｏｒｃｅｒto indicate that

A. human beings are not infallible, nｏｒare computers.

B. computers are bound to make as many errors as human beings.

C. errors made by computers can be avoided the same as human mistakes can be avoided.

D. computers are made by human beings ａｎｄ　so are their errors.

Question 4: The rhetoric the authｏｒemployed in writing the third paragraph, especially the sentence “A good computer can think clearly and quickly enough to beat you at chess…” is usually referred to in writing as

A. climax. B. personification C. hyperbole D. onomatopoeia

Question 5: The authｏｒcompared the faint ａｎｄ　distant sound of the computer to the sound of thinking ａｎｄ　regarded it as the product of A. dreaming ａｎｄ　thinking B. some property of errors C. consciousness D possibilities

参考答案：

1. B 2. A 3. A 4. B 5. C

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