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  3. To live in the United States today is to gain an appreciation for Dahrendorfs assertion that social change exists everywhere. Te

To live in the United States today is to gain an appreciation for Dahrendorfs assertion that social change exists everywhere. Te

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问题     To live in the United States today is to gain an appreciation for Dahrendorfs assertion that social change exists everywhere. Technology, the application of knowledge for practical ends, is a major source of social change.
    Yet we would do well to remind ourselves that technology is a human creation; it does not exist naturally. A spear or a robot is as much a cultural as a physical object. (46)Until humans use a spear to hunt game or a robot to produce machine parts, neither is much more than a solid mass of matter. For a bird looking for an object on which to rest, a spear or robot serves the purpose equally well. The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle and the Russian nuclear accident at Chernobyl drive home the human quality of technology: they provide cases in which well-planned systems suddenly got into a mess and there was no ready hand to set them right. Since technology is a human creation, we are responsible for what is done with it. Pessimists worry that we will use our technology eventually to blow our world and ourselves to pieces. But they have been saying this for decades, and so far we have managed to survive and even flourish. Whether we will continue to do so in the years ahead remains uncertain. Clearly, the impact of technology on our lives deserves a closer examination.
    Few technological developments have had a greater impact on our lives than the computer revolution. Scientists and engineers have designed specialized machines that can do the tasks that once only people could do. (47)There are those who assert that the switch to an information-based economy is in the same camp as other great historical milestones, particularly the Industrial Revolution.
    Yet when we ask why the Industrial Revolution was a revolution, we find that it was not the machines. The primary reason why it was revolutionary is that it led to great social change. (48)It gave rise to mass production and, through mass production, to a society in which wealth was not confined to the few. (49)In somewhat similar fashion, computers promise to revolutionize the structure of American life, particularly as they free the human mind and open new possibilities in knowledge and communication.
    The Industrial Revolution supplemented and replaced the muscles of humans and replaced some aspects of the mind of human beings by electronic methods. (50)It is the capacity of the computer for solving problems and making decisions that represents its greatest potential and that poses the greatest difficulties in predicting the impact on society.

选项
答案电脑也可能会以有些相似的方式使美国人的生活结构发生革命性剧变，尤其是当它解放人的大脑，并为知识和交流创造新的可能性时。
解析 本题要注意词义的选择，有时候一些常见词在句子中可能不是它的常用词义，而是根据上下文，产生了引申词义。promise本义是"答应，允诺"，在本句中的意思是"可能会有"；open本义是"打开"，在句中的意思引申为"创造，提供"。词汇方面，In somewhat similar fashion"以有点相似的方式"；revolutionize"使发生革命性剧变，突破性变革"。
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