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Culture and customs
In less than twenty years, the mobile telephone has gone from being rare, expensive equipment of the business elite to a pervasive, low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile telephones
1 _______________________, in the U.S., 50 per cent of children have mobile telephones. In many young adults’ households it has supplanted the land-line telephone. The mobile phone is 2 _______________________, such as North Korea.
Paul Levinson in his 2004 book Cellphone argues that by looking back through history we can find many precursors to the idea of people simultaneously walking and talking on a mobile phone. Mobile phones are the next extension in portable media, that now can be 3 _______________________into one device. Levinson highlights that as the only mammal to use only two out of our four limbs to walk, we are left two hands free 4 _______________________- like talking on a mobile phone. Levinson writes that “Intelligence and inventiveness, applied to our need to communicate regardless of where we may be, led logically and eventually to telephones that we 5 _______________________.”
Given the high levels of societal mobile telephone service penetration, it is a key means for people 6 _______________________. The SMS feature spawned the «texting» sub-culture. In December 1993, the first person-to-person SMS text message was transmitted in Finland. Currently, texting is the most widely-used data service, 1.8 billion users generated $80 billion of revenue in 2006.
A. to perform other actions
B. outnumber traditional telephones
C. to communicate with each other
D. combined with the Internet
E. to serve basic needs
F. banned in some countries
G. carry in our pockets
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I don’t mind staying after school,» I said to Professor Herbert, «but I’d rather you’d whip me with a switch and let me go home early. Pa will whip me anyway for getting home two hours late.» «You are too big to whip,» said Professor Herbert, «and I have to punish you for climbing up in that cherry tree. The other five boys have paid their dollar each. You have been the only one who has not helped pay for the tree. Can you borrow a dollar?» «I can’t,» I said. «I’ll have to take the punishment. I wouldn’t mind. My father believes that if you spare the rod you spoil the child. I’ll never be able to make him understand about the cherry tree.”
«You must take the punishment,» said Professor Herbert. «You must stay two hours after school today and two hours after school tomorrow. I’m allowing you twenty-five cents an hour. That is good money for a high-school student. You can sweep the schoolhouse floor, wash the blackboards, clean windows. I’ll pay the dollar for you.»
It was six o’clock when I left the schoolhouse. I hurried home. I saw Pa spreading fodder on the ground to the cattle. That was my job. I ran up to the fence. I said, «Leave that for me, Pa. I’ll do it. I’m just a little late.» «I see you are,» said Pa. He turned and looked at me. His eyes danced fire. «What in the world has kept you so? Why ain’t you been here to help me with this work?» I didn’t want to tell him why I was late from school. Pa stopped scattering the bundles of fodder. He said, «Why are you getting in here this time of night?» I said, «I had to stay after school.»
I couldn’t lie to Pa. He’d go to school and find out why I had to stay. If I lied to him it would be too bad for me. I said, «Our biology class went on a field trip today. Six of us boys broke down a cherry tree. We had to give a dollar apiece to pay for the tree. I didn’t have the dollar. Professor Herbert is making me work out my dollar. He gives me twenty-five cents an hour. I had to stay in this afternoon. I’ll have to stay in tomorrow afternoon!» “Are you telling me the truth?” asked Pa. «Yes,» I said, «go and see for yourself.» «That’s just what I’ll do in the morning,» said Pa.
It was early when we got to the county high school the next morning. Professor Herbert had just got there. «You’re the Professor here, ain’t you?» asked Pa. «Yes,» said Professor Herbert, «and you are Dave’s father.» «Yes,» said Pa, «just a few things about this school I want to know. I’m trying to make a scholar of Dave. He’s the only one out of eleven young ones I’ve sent to high school. Here he comes in late and leaves me all the work to do! He says you all were out bug hunting yesterday and he broke a cherry tree down. He had to stay two hours after school yesterday and work out money to pay on that cherry tree! Is that right?» «I guess it is,» said Professor Herbert. «Well,» said Pa, «this ain’t no high school. It’s a bug school, a lizard school, a snake school! It ain’t no school nohow!»
«I was only doing my duty, Mr. Sexton, and following the course of study the state provided us with.» said Professor Herbert. «Course o’ study,» said Pa, «what study, bug study? Taking young ones to the woods and their poor old Ma’s and Pa’s at home slaving to keep them in school and give them education!” «We were not only hunting snakes, toads, flowers, butterflies, lizards,» said Professor Herbert, «but I was hunting dry timothy grass to put in an incubator and raise some protozoa.» «I don’t know what that is,» said Pa. «The incubator is the new-fangled way of cheating the hens and raising chickens. I ain’t so sure about the breed of chickens you mentioned.»
«You’ve heard of germs, Mr. Sexton, haven’t you?» said Professor Herbert. «Yes,» said Pa, «but I don’t believe in germs. I’m sixty-five years old and I ain’t seen one yet!» «You can’t see them with your naked eye,» said Professor Herbert. «Just stay with me in the high school today. I have a few things to show you. That scum on your teeth has germs in it.» «What,» said Pa, «you mean to tell me I’ve got germs on my teeth! «Yes,» said Professor Herbert. «I don’t mean to dispute your word,» said Pa, «but I don’t believe it. I don’t believe I have germs on my teeth!» «Stay with me today and I’ll show you”, said Professor Herbert. «I’ll stay with you,» said Pa. » I want to see the germs on my teeth. I’ve never seen one in my life.”
1. The narrator thought that the most suitable punishment for him under the circumstances was to
A) be detained after school.
B) be whipped by the Professor.
C) be whipped by his father.
D) find a way to pay the money.
2. The pedagogical credo of the narrator’s father “If you spare the rod you spoil the child” implies that
A) the corporal punishment is the most effective way to bring up children.
B) you should use the rod sparingly when you deal with children.
C) the more you use the rod, the more spoilt the child becomes.
D) parents shouldn’t spoil children by giving them too much freedom.
3. Professor Herbert suggested that the narrator should
A) do some odd jobs to earn the money he had to repay his teacher.
B) take up the job of a school cleaner to help his family.
C) help Professor Herbert with the household chores like cleaning windows.
D) look for a job for at least twenty-five cents an hour.
4. The narrator’s Pa was angry with his son because
A) his son was reluctant to help him with the farm work.
B) his son was unwilling to explain why he was late.
C) he had to do his son’s share of routine work on the farm.
D) his son had broken down a cherry tree.
5. The narrator’s father went to the county high school in order to
A) find out if his son had really been offered a job.
B) forbid Professor Herbert to detain his son after school.
C) apologise for his son and pay the money for the broken tree.
D) express his dissatisfaction with the school curriculum.
6. When Professor Herbert used the word “protozoa”, which the narrator’s Pa didn’t know, the father
A) felt humiliated by his own ignorance.
B) asked the Professor to clarify the meaning of the word.
C) understood the meaning of the word from the context.
D) thought it was a new breed of chickens.
7. The narrator’s father made up his mind to stay at school for a day in order to
A) make sure his son was taught properly.
B) satisfy his natural curiosity.
C) expose Professor Herbert as a charlatan.
D) prove that his teeth were absolutely clean.