上海市交大附中2017-2018学年高二下学期期末考试英语试题

context.

In a development that would have seemed hardly possible just over a decade ago, many of us have gained constant access to information. If we need to find out the score of a ballgame, learn how to perform a complicated mathematical task, or simply remember the name of the actress in the movie we are viewing, we need only turn to our 51 or smart phones and we can find the answers immediately. It has become such an ordinary 52 to look up the answer to any question the moment it occurs. It can feel like going through withdrawal when we can’t find out something immediately. We are seldom offline unless by choice and the Internet, with its search engines like Baidu and Google and the information stored there, has become an 53 memory source that we can access at any time.

Storing information externally is nothing particularly 54 , even before the invention of computers. In any group relationship, people typically develop a transactive(交换式) memory, which is a combination of memory stores held directly by individuals and the memory stores they can 55 because they are in touch with someone who knows that information. Like 56 computers that can address each other’s memories, people in groups form transactive memory systems.

In a rec arch led by Besty Sparrow of Columbia University, researchers have 57 whether having online access to search engines has become a primary transactivc memory source in itself. If asked the question whether there are any countries with only one color in their flag, for example, do we think about flags — or immediately think to go online to find out the answer?

In one experiment, the participants were asked to read 40 memorable unimportant statements of the type that they could 58 online (e.g., an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain). Then they were asked to type the statements into computer to assure memory. Half the participants believed the computer would save what was typed and the other half believed the item would be 59 . After the reading and typing task, participants wrote down as many of the statements as they could 60 . It turned out that participants who believed the computer would erase what they had typed had 61 recall than those who regarded the computer as the memory source.