"We are not about to enter the Information Age, but instead are rather well into it." Present predictions are that by 1990, about thirty million jobs in the United States, or about thirty percent of the job market, will be computer-related. In 1980, only twenty-one percent of all American high schools owned one or two computers for student use. In the fall of 1985, a new study showed that half of United States secondary schools have fifteen or more computers for student use. And now educational experts, administrators, and even the general public are demanding that all students become "computer-literate". By the year 2000 knowledge of computers will be necessary in over eighty percent of all occupations. Soon those people not educated in computer use will be compared to those who are print-illiterate today.
What is "computer literacy"? The term itself seems to imply some degree of "knowing" about computers, but knowing what? The present opinion seems to be that this should include a general knowledge, of what computers are, plus a little of their history and something of how they operate.
Therefore, it is important that educators everywhere take a careful look not only at what is being done, but also at what should be done in the field of computer education. Today most adults are able to use a motor car without the slightest knowledge of how the internal combustion engine (内燃机) works. We effectively use 'all types of electrical equipment without being able to tell their histories or to explain how they work.
Business people for years have made good use of typewriters and adding machines, yet few have ever known how to .repair them. Why, then, attempt to teach computers by teaching how or why they work?
Rather, we first must fix our mind on teaching the effective use of the computer as the tool is.
"Knowing how to use a computer is what' s going to be important. We don' t talk about ' automobile literacy'. We just get in our cars and drive them. "
1.In 1990, the number of jobs having nothing to do with computers in the United States will be reduced to _____
A. 79 million B. 100 million C. 30 million D. 70 million
2.The underlined part "print-illiterate" in the text refers to _____
A. one who has never learnt printing
B. one who has never learnt to read
C. one who is not a computer literate
D. one who is not able to use a typewriter
3.What is the first paragraph mainly about?
A. Recent predictions of computer-related jobs.
B. The wide of computers in schools.
C. The urgency of computers education.
D. Public interest in computers.
4.According to the author, the effective way to spread the use of computers is to teach _____
A. how to use computers
B. what computers use
C. where computers can be used
D. how computers work
5.From the text, we can infer that _____
A. computers will be easy to operate
B. automobile will be move comfortable
C. illiteracy rate will be down
D. computers will be set in automobiles
