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考研英语中阅读理解是重头戏，所占比例较大，考生在复习提高的过程中需要多付出精力。可是对于阅读理解来说，要提高并不是一蹴而就的事情，阅读能力需要日积月累，才能够提高速度和做题的技巧效率。为此，新东方在线小编为广大考生奉上20篇阅读理解，希望大家通过积累来最终提升综合阅读能力。
下面请看2015年考研英语阅读理解精选20篇(第八篇)
网络是最大的发明
Nearly two thousand years ago, three elderly Chinese men sat in the gardens
of Changle Palace, arguing about what was the greatest invention of all
time.
“Tools made of rock,” said one, banging his fist on the delicate carved
table.
“Paper,” said another, slamming the side of his hand.
“No, scissors!” cried the third, making chopping movements in the air. And
so a game was invented.
This little tale is an invention too. We do not know exactly when Rock,
Paper, Scissors was dreamed up, nor how, since in the time of Han there were
fewer ways of recording the events of the day: no photographs (invented by Louis
Daguerre in 1836), no sound recordings (the phonautograph was first used in
1857) and no reliable method of storing and passing on information (more of that
later).
But the fact that the game existed then, and did not before, means that it
is an invention. It may not be a contender for the greatest of all time, but
rock, paper and scissors most certainly are. Inventions, for the purposes of
this debate, are tangible—technologies and processes, rather than more nebulous
things such as ideas, principles and imaginings. Children might feel that Father
Christmas (first recorded in 1616) is the greatest invention of all time, but we
are ruling him out.
Tools fashioned of rock, or stone, were probably the earliest inventions
worthy of the name. First used in the Paleolithic Age, around 2.6m years ago,
they mark an essential progression, from proto-human to human. With simple
tools, fashioned by pummelling one piece of rock against another to produce a
sharp edge, early man began to shape the world according to his needs, to build
rudimentary shelters, to hunt and flay animals for food and clothing. Just about
everything else followed from there. There is virtually nothing about the way we
live today that would have been possible without those first stone tools.
But does longevity alone qualify stone tools for the crown? I’m not
convinced; theirs was a long, slow grind to efficacy, and in most forms they’ve
long been eclipsed. The blade, however—of which scissors are just a
manifestation, albeit an ingenious one—has been in constant use since it was
first invented at the start of the Ages of Metal, some 400,000 years ago. Think
of knives, swords, spears, axes, the guillotine…uh-oh. Although we depend on the
blade for much of what we now take for granted, from cutting up our food to
making the electronics which crowd our daily life, there’s a little too much of
the chop and slash about blades to make them my greatest of all time.
So how about the third of our Chinese gents’ suggestions: paper? Invented
by an imperial courtier named Ts’ai Lun in 105AD, it was deemed so precious and
important that successive Chinese dynasties kept it secret for six centuries.
Not something that the Dragons of today’s Den, with their greedy eyes and piles
of cash, would be inclined to do.
It is thanks to paper that we know about its invention. The ability to keep
a written record is the foundation of mass learning. While the alphabet was
invented around 2,000BC (at the same time as another useful device, the
umbrella), it wasn’t easy to pass around heavy stone tablets, or to manufacture
and preserve papyrus scrolls in great numbers. The invention of paper led
inexorably to books, the printing press, newspapers and magazines, to sacred
texts, art, photography and music scores, handed down through generations. And
yet, here we are at the dawn of what may, finally, become a paperless society.
Paper may cover stone, but it is cut by scissors and burned by fire—another of
the foundations of our society.
付出会有回报，提高需要努力，小编希望每一位决定了考研的考生都能够坚定自己的目标，并为实现目标努力奋斗，坚持不懈，只有这样才能收获丰厚的果实。2015年考研圆梦，大家一起努力。
课程推荐：2015 考研英语签约全程班、2015 考研英语签约全程班、2015考研政英签约全程联报班
书籍推荐：(2015)考研英语阅读理解基础进阶88篇、(2015)考研英语分类阅读高分进阶(120篇)、(2015)考研英语阅读理解精读100篇(高分版) |
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发表于 2017-8-6 15:49:00