Question

When Barbra ­Streisand discovered in 2003 that a photograph of her California beach house was among 12,000 photos on the Internet as part of a ­collection by photographer Kenneth Adelman, she did what any famous person would do: hit him with a $50 million lawsuit. But in trying to hold back the images, she caused a different outcome. Her legal actions led to almost half a million people visiting the website, viewing and copying the photos within a month.

Ever since then, the effect of letting public know something you are trying to keep secret has been called the “Streisand effect”. The problem for anyone trying to suppress information is that the Internet is the world’s biggest and most efficient copying machine. Put a ­document on to a connected machine and it will spread. So when you want to be famous, you can’t, but if you find ­yourself in the spotlight and want to erase ­yourself, you cannot.

There is no shortage of examples of the Streisand effect. Nine-year-old Martha Payne created a simple blog, posting the meals her school served. She took a photo of what was barely a filling meal by anyone’s standards. With the photo, she filled a comment, “Now Dad understands why I am hungry when I get home.” The thing did not go too far, until the local authority banned little Martha from doing that again. Martha posted a supposedly final post called “Goodbye”, explaining everything. Once the media found this out, things went from bad to worse for the authority. Now the blog has more than 9.5 million page views. Martha has even expanded her blog by including pictures of school meals taken by other kids from all over the world, like Germany and Japan.

We can find similar examples throughout history, to be frank. Man has experienced the Streisand effect ever since the birth of mass communication. Why does it exist? Every time you are told not to see what’s in the secret shiny box wrapped in gift paper, you’re going to do everything in your power to do exactly that! Just realizing that knowing something about someone is harmful to their status, we will want to know that piece of information. This is exactly the human nature. This is what lawyers and authorities should be familiar with. Unfortunately, a few of them fail to grasp it.

1.The underlined word “suppress” in Paragraph 2 probably means________.

A. give away B. look into

C. cover up D. search for

2.What speeded up the spread of Martha’s story?

A. Parents’ complaints.

B. The authority’s order.

C. The photos of other kids.

D. Supporting from the school.

3.What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A. The root of Streisand effect.

B. The influence of Streisand effect.

C. People’s reaction to Streisand effect.

D. Historical examples of Streisand effect.

4.What can be inferred from the passage?

A. Streisand effect benefits most famous people.

B. It’s not a good idea to argue against authorities.

C. The ban on something may have opposite effect.

D. Turning to the law is a perfect way to get one out of trouble.

Answer 1

1.C

2.B

3.A

4.C

【解析】

试题分析:本文由史翠珊效应，9岁玛莎佩恩创建的有关学校食堂的博客这两个例子揭示人类的本性——仅仅意识到了解了一些对于别人地位不利的事情，,我们仍想要知道更多的信息。

1. effect of letting public know something you are trying to keep secret has been called the “Streisand effect”让公众知道你试图保密的事情的效应被称为“史翠珊效应”。由此句的keep secret可知The problem for anyone trying to suppress information意思就是任何人试图掩盖信息的问题。cover up ,掩盖，盖住。故选C。

2.The thing did not go too far, until the local authority banned little Martha from doing that again直到地方当局禁止小玛莎再次这样做，这件事情才走的很远。以及Martha posted a supposedly final post called “Goodbye”, explaining everything. Once the media found this out, things went from bad to worse for the authority. 玛莎发布所谓最终篇帖子，叫做"再见"，解释一切。一旦媒体发现这一点，事情就会因为官方变得很更糟。由此可知是官方的命令加速了这件事的传播。故选B。

3. effect，然后Why does it exist?它为什么存在？以及Just realizing that knowing something about someone is harmful to their status, we will want to know that piece of information. This is exactly the human nature. This is what lawyers and authorities should be familiar with. Unfortunately, a few of them fail to grasp it. 仅仅意识到了解了一些对于别人地位不利的事情，,我们会想要知道那片信息。这完全是人类的本性。这是律师和当局应该很熟悉的。不幸的是，他们没有几个未能把握住它。故选A。

4.禁止可能产生相反的效果。故选D。

考点：考察科普说明类阅读。