写作方法与文章大意
文章论述了“计算机的重要性”，采用一般到具体写作手法。一开始就提出：‘作为经济上先进而又脆弱的公民，必须始终不懈地提高技术素质，否则生活水平就会下降。因为未来国际竞争取决于技术，一切部门必须迎合这一要求。具体到工业和学校必须使用计算机。重点在学校，因为它是培训新人才的基地。所以三，四，五，七段涉及计算机在学校的种种功能。最后的结论：人才和计算机是决定性因素。

答案祥解
1. B. 工艺技术。这在第一段就讲到“在未来，国与国之间的竞争越来越以工艺技术为基础。尽管石油和其他自然资源仍很重要，但它们不会再对一个国家的经济实力起决定性的作用。”
A. 石油。        C. 自然资源，这两项不是决定性因素。        D. 教育。文内教育作为改革的一个方面，其重点是在学校内应用计算机，来改变教学质量，达到革新人才的目的。并不是直接参与竞争。可参看第2题的答案及译注。
2. B. 计算机的重要性。整篇文章都显示了这一点。第三段“工业上，信息处理和制定必要的改革计划以适应市场需要意味着越来越多使用计算机。学校紧跟工业之后……”第四段“计算机是一种变化多端，神通广大的机器，因为它显示千种图象，发挥千种功能。而它的真正的革命性可在其相互作用的潜能中看出。有了先进的计算机，学习可以个别进行，速度自行规定。教师变得更有成效……。”第五段“……由于利用计算机，在学校低年级就能教授物理学和高等数学概念……。”最后一段画龙点睛地指出：“计算机独一无二地改变着那种今天公民能担当未来空前任务的潜能……新的竞争对手正在崛起，自由的经济布局提出挑战。我们如何才能顺利的应战，取决于我们对人的投资的多寡，取决于我们怎么聪慧地应用新技术的学习工具。”所以
A. 计算机知识。         C. 知识的功能。         D. 技术功能，这三项只是计算机重要性中涉及到的一个方面，不能作为中心思想。
3. D. 因为我们知道的一切变得陈旧。第二段头几句话“我们决不能吃老本，当今的竞争使我们的大部分知识变得陈旧，非加以革新不可。对每个人来说，他们将惯常从事某几种职业，并且非继续学习进修和从新接受训练不可……。”都说明进修学习的原因。
A. 人们要做更多工作。文内没有提到。         B. 人们要到达非同一般的教育水平。这是目的，不是原因。         C. 人们不能吃老本。这话并没有完全讲清楚全部原因。
4. A. 灵活多变。 Proteus 一词，原义是指希腊神话中变幻无常的海神，普罗狄斯，他可以随心所欲边成各种形状。这里指灵活多变。

Passage Thirty-four
(The Relationship between Brain Process with Mental Experience)
   By 1950, the results of attempts to relate brain processes to mental experience appeared rather discouraging. Such variations in size, shape, chemistry, conduction speed, excitation threshold, and the like as had been demonstrated in nerve cells remained negligible in significance for any possible correlation with the manifold dimensions of mental experience.
   Near the turn of the century, it had been suggested by Hering that different modes of sensation, such as pain, taste and color, might be correlated with the discharge of specific kinds of nervous energy, However, subsequently developed methods of recording and analyzing nerve potentials failed to reveal any such qualitative diversity. It was possible to demonstrate by other methods refined structural differences among neuron types; however, proof was lacking that the quality of the impulse or its conduction was influenced by these differences, which seemed instead to influence the developmental patterning of the neural circuits. Although qualitative variance among nerve rigidly disproved, the doctrine was generally abandoned in favor of the opposing view, namely, that nerve impulses are essentially homogeneous in quality and are transmitted as “common currency” throughout the nervous system. According to this theory, it is not the quality of the sensory nerve impulses that determines the diverse conscious sensations they produce, but, rather, the different areas of the brain into which they discharge, and there is some evidence for this view. In one experiment, when an electric stimulus was applied to a given sensory field of the cerebral cortex of a conscious human subject, it produced a sensation of the appropriate modality for that particular locus, that is, a visual sensation from the visual cortex, an auditory sensation from the auditory cortex, and so on. Other experiments revealed slight variations in the size, number, arrangement, and interconnection of the nerve cells, but as for as psychoneural correlations were concerned, the obvious similarities of these sensory fields to each other seemed much more remarkable than any of the minute differences.
However, cortical as diverse as those of red, black, green and white, or touch, cold, warmth, movement, pain, posture and pressure apparently may arise through activation of the same cortical areas. What seemed to remain was some kind of differential patterning effects in the brain excitation: it is the difference in the central distribution of impulses that counts. In short, Brain theory suggested a correlation between mental experience and the activity of relatively homogenous nerve-cell units conducting essentially homogeneous impulses through homogeneous cerebral tissue. To match the multiple dimensions of mental experience psychologists could only point to a limitless variation in the spatiotemporal patterning of nerve impulses.

Vocabulary
1. Up until 1950, efforts to establish that brain processes and mental experience are related would most likely have been met with
[A]. vexation.        [B]. irritability.       [C]. discouragement        [D]. neutrality
2. The author mentions “common currency” primarily in order to emphasize the
[A]. lack of differentiation among nerve impulses in human beings.
[B]. similarities in the views of the scientists.
[C]. similarity of sensations of human beings.
[D]. continuous passage of nerve impulses through the nervous system.
3. Which of the following theories is reinforced by the depiction of the experiment in lines 16—19?
[A]. Cognitive experience manifested by sensory nerve impulses are influenced by the area of the brain stimulated.
[B]. Qualitative diversity in nerve potentials can now be studied more accurately.
[C]. Sensory stimuli are heterogeneous and are greatly influenced by the nerve sensors they produce.
[D]. Differentiation in neural modalities influences the length of nerve transmissions.
4. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following exhibit the LEAST qualitative variation?
[A]. Nerve cells.                   [B]. Nerve impulses.
[C]. Cortical areas.                 [C]. Spatial patterns of nerve impulses.

Vocabulary
1. mental experiences                    精神感受
2. discharge                            释放
3. negligible                            微小的，可以忽略不计的
4. manifold                            多种多样的，多方面
5. neuron                              神经元/细胞
6. neural                              （中枢）神经的（系统）
7. qualitative diversity                    质的多样性，量变的
8. disprove                             反驳，反证
9. homogeneous                         相似的
10. sensory nerve                         感觉神经
11. cortical                              外皮的，皮质的
12. cerebral cortex                        大脑皮层
13. locus                                地点，区域