Choose the best answer for each of thefoilowing questions according to the text.
The Land of Free Stuff
1.Cyberspace is a veritable heaven for those looking for something for nothing —— or nearly nothing. FreeStuff-Net. com provides access to an assortment of sites offering handouts. There's "Just Free Stuff," "Freebie Land," "It's Free 4U," "Planet Freebie," "Free Love," "Free Samples," and "Free.com." Beware — the goal of many such sites is simply to get your name and address.
2.It would be unfair to leave the wonderful world of free stuff without mentioning Blue Mountain Arts Publishing, launched11 by two former hippies as a "spiritual and emotional center for the Web." Their stroke of genius was to give away billions of online greeting cards in nine different languages,absolutely free. This concept was so exciting that the owners of the Excite # 064 ； Home Web site agreed to pay about $ 1 billion for the company if it met certain sales targets during the holidays when most greeting cards are sold.
3.But why would any serious business agree to give away so much stuff? The answer is that the bluemountain, com site gets about a million hits a day from people ordering free cards for dozens of occasions, and most of them also order flowers, candy, and gifts, which is where Excite # 064；Home sees a potential gold mine. It's even introduced a new high-tech card that can be used to send loved ones electronic flowers.
4.From time to time, we need an expert. In such situations, the Internet has been like a gift from the gods. In the old days, authorities were near at hand for expert advice： the village seamstress on how to make a buttonhole, the blacksmith on how to take care of a horse's hooves, or the apothecary on what to do about warts. On the Internet, advice and answer sites are popping up all over the place, with self-proclaimed experts at the ready.
5.Exp. com claims to have “tens of thousands of experts who can help you," while the more restrained Abuzz, com, owned by The New York Times, limits its pitch to “Ask Anything! Real People. Real Answers. " It's said that expert sites or knowledge networks represent the latest stage in the Internet's evolution, audemocratization of expertise. ” However, if your question is about something other than "Who invented the light bulb?"，the answers are likely to be a wild potpourri191 of personal opinions.
Online Education
6.Top colleges and universities are rushing into online education, but the big news is the proliferation of a new breed of for-profit online institutions bringing Internet education to the masses. "The Internet will probably be the single most democratizing force in education,"says Columbia Business School Dean Meyer Feldberg, who envisions educational programs being routed through the Net to hundreds of millions of people.
7.The largest online institution is the University of Phoenix(http：//onl.uophx.edu/) , with some 6,000 students today and hopes of reaching 200,000 students in 10 years. The University offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in business management, technology, education, and nursing. The institution boasts that if you're a student "you can earn your degree via the Internet whenever and wherever you want." The University notes that its degree programs cost far less and may take some students far less time to complete.
8.On the other hand, a Business Week survey of 247 companies found that only a handful would consider hiring applicants who earned their MBA degrees online. Whether that will change as for-profit online universities improve their offerings — and graduates prove their worth — is anyone's guess.
"Old" Economy Greets the “New”
9.Corporations have suddenly awakened to the fact that the Internet can save them billions of dollars in conducting their everyday affairs, with some of it showing up in lower prices for the consumer. And it's only the beginning. "Where do you think we are as an economy as far as e-business goes?" Fortune magazine recently asked General Electric's legendary CEO Jack Welch, who immediately replied, "First inning."
10.How right he is can be seen in a two-story brick building on Chicago's industrial South Side, home to the Corrugated Supplies Corporation, which manufactures corrugated sheets for boxes and other products. Despite the company's low-tech image, owner Rick Van Horne may have moved e-business into a second inning and then some： The computerized production system that he built by hand can fill customers'orders — to their exact specifications — and deliver the goods in less than 24 hours, with a 35% reduction in waste.
11.This success hiked; Corrugated Supplies, sales from $ 40 million in 1997 to $ 100 million in 2000. Van Horne is now offering to teach other companies everything he knows about building high-tech factories.
12.The billions of dollars a year that American companies are saving thanks to the Internet's ability to slash their cost of doing business is making them even more successful competitors on world markets. This is reflected in better prices for their customers and increased profits for themselves, with much of it coming from greatly improved ways of cutting costs.
13.Ford,General Motors, and Daimler Chrysler, among others, have created Covisint, a $ 300-biliion mega 16 market for buying auto parts. It's a new world out there, with companies large and small banding together to force suppliers to trim their prices or lose the business. Still others are doing this on their own, such as the big airconditioner parts manufacturer Trane Company, which set up its own private online exchange that forced its 5,000 dealers to continually bid against each other for its business.
Where Do We Go Next?
14.The rest of the world is moving into cyberspace more slowly than the United States, and, in the developing world, the Internet has hardly penetrated at all. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is determined to change this through the United Nations Information Technology Service, which will train large numbers of people to tap into the income enhancing power of the Internet. Annan is also proposing an Internet health network that will provide state-of-the-art medical knowledge to 10,000 clinics and hospitals in poor countries.
15.The onrushing Cyber Age has given newfound power to us all, as seen in Jody Williams's one-woman organization using e-mail to promote a global ban on land mines. Yet, this is but a glimpse of what's ahead in the minds of those immersed in this great and accelerating transformation.
2.Which of the following statement is true about "bluemountain. com site"?
A、The goal of it is simply to get visitors' names and addresses.
B、It gets about 10 million hits a day from people ordering free cards.
C、It was initiated by 2 hippies who speak 9 different languages as a "spiritual and emotional center for the Web."
D、If it met certain sales targets during the holidays the owner of the company of this site will get paid about $ 1 billion.
【正确答案】：D
【题目解析】：P297
