2000年3月 section2 6-10

　　Questions 6～10

　　Reading Objectives: 进一步理解时间强对比的写法，理解example的功能

　　You saw the stories of the embarrassment at Encyclopedia Britannica last week as the company's highly advertised free Web site was jammed into nonfunctioning.

　　Encyclopedia Britannica：大英百科全书

　　jam：堵塞，拥挤

　　nonfunctioning.：瘫痪

　　句子的主体：the stories of the embarrassment

　　The stories were of some 10 million hits a day clogging the site, www. britannica. com; of three separate apologies given to would be users of the free reference service; of promises to get the thing up and running, perhaps as early as this week.

　　考点：

　　分号引出并列(细节)

　　三个细节用;连接，细节非常具体，不是重点部分，可以略看，

　　More striking, though, is what the stories didn't say: What an extraordinary thing it is that people around the world suddenly have access—free access—to knowledge that would have been the envy of a university professor earlier in my own lifetime.

　　考点：although, though, even though, in spite of，despite, albeit后面的内容鄙视

　　What an extraordinary：感叹句，这种奇怪的事情非常值得报道。

　　have access to=have=be accessible to

　　第一段典型结构：anecdote/story(轶事)引出主题，目的是讲道理，跳过故事不看。若在文章出现例子，则看其上下文

　　相关题目解析：

　　6. The author cites the example of Encyclopedia Britannica at the beginning of the passage mainly to show that ________.

　　(A) its Web site is the target of millions of hackers

　　(B) the Web site can be repaired soon

　　(C) it is one of the major signs of knowledge explosion

　　(D) it is the symbol of the arrival of encyclopedic age

　　Example题分两种：考example的function或者content，section 2考前者较多，遇到这种题目不要留恋细节内容，要看上下文比较抽象和概括的内容。

　　小帖士：如果文章是一个小故事，我们应该关注隐藏在故事背后的深层抽象道理。

　　As for ordinary people, I remember how the encyclopedia salesmen would come around with their sample volumes, their memorized spiels and their offers of “easy” terms if you'd only sign up for Compton's or World Book.

　　本句也是细节描写，可以略读。

　　另外，本句是对过去的描写，隐藏了时间强对比的信息。

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