2. 职称英语
  3. The other day, I walked into an airport men’s room, which was empty except f

The other day, I walked into an airport men’s room, which was empty except f

游客2024-11-18  11
问题     The other day, I walked into an airport men’s room, which was empty except for one man, who appeared to be having a loud, animated conversation with a urinal. Ten years ago, I would have turned right around and walked briskly back out of there. One rule my parents stressed when I was a child was: "Never stay in a restroom with a man who talks to the plumbing."
    But, of course, as a modern human, I knew that this man was talking on his cell phone, using one of those earpiece thingies, with the little microphone on the wire, the kind that people feel they must shout at, to make sure their vital messages are getting through.
    It’s not clear to me why so many people in airports use the earpiece thingies. Why do they need to keep their hands free? Do they expect some emergency to suddenly arise that will require them to have both hands free while talking?
    Or maybe they’re afraid that if they hold the phone next to their head, the radiation will give them brain cancer. If so, an option they might consider is wrapping their heads in aluminum foil. Granted, this would make them look stupid. But not nearly as stupid as they look shouting into their earpiece wires.
    So anyway, there I was, in this restroom, standing maybe six feet from this guy, both of us facing the wall, him shouting at his urinal about some business thing involving specifications, and at some point he said "I swear this is a direct quote—I am handling it." This caused me to emit an involuntary snorting sound (not loud; certainly nowhere near as loud as this guy was talking; just a little snortlet), which caused the guy to stop talking and—violating the No. 1 Guy Rule of Restroom Etiquette? —turn his head and look directly at me, so I could see (using peripheral vision) that he was irritated by my rude interruption of his conversation. Then he went back to shouting at the urinal.
    The point is that every key element of this scenario—the cell phone, the airplane, the zipper— is made possible by technology. We know that technology is a wonderful thing. But at what point does technology go too far? Is it fair to say that cell phones, if used thoughtfully and politely, are OK, but that if a person attaches an earpiece thingy and walks around shouting in public, bystanders should be allowed to snatch the wire and sprint off down the airport concourse, with the shouter’s earphone, and possibly even the shouter’s detached ear, bouncing gaily behind on the floor?
    I think we all agree that the answer is: Yes. When technology goes too far, ordinary citizens must take action. But the question is: How do we define "too far"? I will tell you. We define "too far" as "when scientists start putting weapons on cockroaches." This is actually happening, according to an article in the Sept. 6 issue of Science magazine, brought to my attention by alert reader Richard Sweetman. This article states that researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have been "mounting tiny cannons on the backs of cockroaches." That is correct: These researchers have been outfitting live cockroaches with backpacks containing "plastic tubes filled with explosives."
    Of course, the researchers have a scientific reason for doing this: They are on LSD. No, really, it has something to do with figuring out how cockroaches have such good balance (You almost never see a cockroach fall off a bicycle.). The researchers have used their findings to construct a working robot roach that is, according to Science, the size of a breadbox. Swell! If there’s anything this world needs more than armed cockroaches, it’s giant, mechanized cockroaches!
    Newspaper story from the year 2010:"A homeowner in Santa Rosa, California, was found shot to death in his kitchen Friday. Police said the man apparently was felled by 500 rounds of small-bore cannon fire, mostly in his ankles, indicating that this was the work of the gang of armed research cockroaches that escaped from a Berkeley lab. Police said the motive in the slaying was apparently a Ring Ding. In a related development, an escaped robot cockroach broke into an Oakland Wal-Mart and made off with an estimated 17,000 AA batteries. "Ask yourself; Is that the kind of story you want to read in your newspaper? No, seriously, this is bad. We need somebody in authority to look into this right away. Maybe Dick Cheney could handle it.  [br] A suitable title for the passage might be________.
选项 A、A Man Talking to Plumbing
B、Putting Weapons on Cockroaches
C、Modern Technology
D、Cannons, Cell Phones and Zippers
答案 D
解析 主旨题。本文主要谈论的是高科技给人们带来的一些问题，作者巧妙地以一个在机场厕所看似同便池说话，实际上却是通过耳机进行通话的男人为例，引出自己的观点：科技虽好，但是如果做得太过分，也会给人们带来问题。接着发挥自己的想象力，设想如果蟑螂武装起来，就会对人类进行攻击，以此来提醒政府当局注意适度应用高科技这一问题。文中出现了“cannons，ceu phones and zippers”，分别代表了作者用以说明问题的蟑螂的武装、男子使用的手机，它们都是高科技的代表，故[D]为答案。[A]、[B]不全面，[C]过于笼统，故均排除。
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