3."Indeed,"George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785,"some kind of fly,or bug,had begun to eat the leaves before I left home."But the father of America was not the father of bug.When Washington wrote that,Englishmen hade been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century,and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫).But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language,leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American bug could also be a person,referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity.Although fan became the usual term,sports fans used to be called racing bugs,baseball bugs,and the like.
Or the bug could be a small machine or object,for example,a bug-shaped car.The bug could also be a burglar alarm,from which comes the expression to bug,that is,"to install (安装) an alarm".Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others'conversation.Since the 1840s,to bug has long meant"to cheat",and since the 1940s it has been annoying.
We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design.That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison.In 1878he explained bugs as"little problems and difficulties"that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product.In 1889it was recorded that Edison"had been up the two previous nights discovering‘a bug'in his invented record player."
68.We learn from Paragraph 1thatD.
A.Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug
B.George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug
C.the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century
D.both Englishman and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century
69.What does the word"flaw"in the last paragraph probably mean?D.
A.Explanation. B.Finding. C.Origin. D.Fault.
70.The passage is mainly concerned withB.
A.the misunderstanding of the word bug
B.the development of the word bug
C.the public views of the word bug
D.the special characteristics of the word bug.
分析 本文属于记叙文阅读,作者通过这篇文章向我们介绍了"bug"一词的演变过程,并列举了历史上著名的名人的例子帮助读者理解.
解答 68.D 细节理解题.根据第一段"Indeed,"George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785,"some kind of fly,or bug,had begun to eat the leaves before I left home.提到乔治华盛顿在1785年用到这个词汇,而第一段最后一句话But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language英国很快就不用这个词,美国却在19和20世纪继续使用.推断出18世纪英国还在用,故选D.
69.D 细节理解题.根据最后一段We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design.That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison.我们也知道错误是一个计算机程序或其他设计的一个缺陷,故这个单词用来说明电脑出现故障,故选D.
70.B 主旨大意题,通读全文可知本文主要讲述了"bug"一词的演变过程,故选B.
点评 考查学生的细节理解和推理判断能力.做细节理解题时一定要找到文章中的原句,和题干进行比较,再做出正确选择.在做推理判断题时不要以个人的主观想象代替文章的事实,要根据文章事实进行合乎逻辑的推理判断.