2020考研英語閱讀理解精讀100篇：Unit 39

Unit 39

The United Nations, notorious for endless deliberations, ①is trying a technological quick fix. Its Global Compact Office, which promotes corporate responsibility, has embraced a once marginal social technology—the wiki—in the hope that it will help staff in 80 countries share information and reach consensus with less deliberation and more speed. The office has done this by enlisting the public in its review of progress reports from more than 2,000 companies—an effort to make sure each is complying with established social and environmental guidelines. It’s debatable whether encouraging public input is a good way to increase efficiency, but the move is the latest example of a quickly growing trend.

②Wiki software—easy-to-use programs that let anyone with Internet access create, remove and edit content on a Web page—first gained popularity thanks to Wikipedia, the user-generated encyclopedia that has come to be praised as one of the Web’s greatest resources. Now the technology is increasingly spreading outside the world of bizarre tech people and into the mainstream, being adopted by workplaces, corporations and even governments. In what’s been called the “wiki workplace,” a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software—a basket of technologies that include wikis, blogs and other tools—to foster innovation across organizational and geographic boundaries. Executives say the new tools make it easier for teams to collaborate and share information, and to get projects up and running on the fly. “Collaborative software has become a very important part of how businesses will invent and innovate,” says Ken Bisconti, IBM’s vice president of messaging and collaboration software.

That the United Nations is embracing wikis is an indication that organizations are beginning to get over their fear that this technology could introduce chaos into their operations. As Wikipedia has demonstrated, Web sites that are open to the public are vulnerable to deliberate injury, bias, inconsistency and other problems. But most corporate wikis are closed to the public, limiting access to employees inside the company firewall. These quasi-closed systems, say technology experts, impose accountability simply by keeping a record of every change and who made it.

IBM has used internal wikis since 2005, with an eye to selling the concept to its clients. One of its first applications was a wiki that employees could use to collaborate on writing a blogging manifesto: a set of policies for appropriate use of blogs in and out of the office. Thousands of employees contributed and edited that manifesto, which after receiving corporate approval—became the company’s official policy.

注（1）：本文選自Newsweek；

注（2）：本文習題命題模仿對象：第1~3題分別模仿2001年真題Text 3第1~3題，第4、5題模仿2004年真題Text 1第4、5題。

1. What is the passage mainly about?

A) It is about how the United Nations is forced to adopt the wiki software to improve efficiency.

B) It is an introduction to the wiki technology and its growing trend.

C) It reviews the advantages and disadvantages of wiki technology.

D) It is about the immaturity of the wiki technology and its future development.

2. The application of the wiki technology turns out to be _______.

A) very reliable

B) rather superficial

C) somewhat contradictory

D) quite encouraging

3. The basic problem of applying wiki technology lies in that _______.

A) some people doubt it is a communist plot

B) the technology is still not mature enough to be used widely

C) there might be purposeful injury and damage from the public

D) the technology can only be used internally

4. Which of the following is NOT the advantage of wiki technology?

A) It is a safe technology when being applied both externally and internally.

B) The public can participate in the creation of web contents.

C) It can enhance communication at least within an organization.

D) It helps promote innovation and improve work efficiency.

5. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

A) UN has gained positive results by using wiki technology.

B) IBM’s adoption of wikis turns out to be a failure.

C) Wiki software is changing some corporate network structure.

D) Wiki websites will replace conventional websites.

篇章剖析

本文是一篇介紹維客技術的說明文。第一段先通過一個實例——聯(lián)合國采用了一項新技術——來引出話題。第二段具體介紹了什么是維客技術，該技術的優(yōu)勢及發(fā)展趨勢等。第三、四段則進一步通過組織機構和公司對于維客技術的使用來說明該技術的實用性。

詞匯注釋

marginal /?mɑ?d??n?l/ adj. 邊緣的，邊際的

consensus /k?n?sens?s/ n. 一致同意

enlist /?n?l?st/ v. 征召；謀取（支持、贊助等）

comply /k?m?plai/ vi. 遵守，答應，順從

bizarre /b??zɑ?/ adj. 奇異的，古怪的

hierarchical /?ha???rɑ?k?k?l/ adj. 分等級的

foster /?f?st?/ vt. 培養(yǎng)，鼓勵；養(yǎng)育，撫育

chaos /?ke??s/ n. 混亂，混沌

vulnerable /?v?ln?r?bl/ adj. 易受攻擊的

quasi- /?kwɑ?zi/ 類似；準；半

impose /?m?p?uz/ vt. 強加；以…欺騙

難句突破

① Its Global Compact Office, which promotes corporate responsibility, has embraced a once marginal social technology—the wiki—in the hope that it will help staff in 80 countries share information and reach consensus with less deliberation and more speed.

主體句式：Its Global Compact Office has embraced a technology.

結構分析：該長句結構比較復雜。首先，which引導的定語從句用來補充說明Global Compact Office，兩個破折號中間的內(nèi)容則是具體說明前面提到的這項技術，而后面的that引導的從句則是對于hope的說明。

句子譯文：旨在增進組織機構責任的全球微縮辦公室，利用了一種曾經(jīng)是邊緣化的技術——維客——以幫助分布在80個國家的員工分享信息，減少達成決議前的各種討論并加快速度。

② Wiki software—easy-to-use programs that let anyone with Internet access create, remove and edit content on a Web page—first gained popularity thanks to Wikipedia, the user-generated encyclopedia that has come to be praised as one of the Web’s greatest resources.

主體句式：Wiki software first gained popularity thanks to Wikipedia.

結構分析：這個句子結構比較簡單，但是由于附加了很多內(nèi)容使得句子結構看上去有一些復雜。兩個破折號中間的內(nèi)容是對wiki software的定義，而第二個逗號后面的內(nèi)容是對什么是Wikipedia的說明。

句子譯文：維客軟件——讓任何能夠上網(wǎng)的人可以輕松地創(chuàng)造、刪除和編輯一個網(wǎng)頁上的內(nèi)容——由于維基百科的廣泛使用而變得流行，而維基百科由于讓網(wǎng)民來編寫百科全書的內(nèi)容而被譽為網(wǎng)上最偉大的資源。

題目分析

1. B 主旨題?？v觀全篇文章，主要是在介紹wiki這項技術及其發(fā)展趨勢。A選項的錯誤原因在于聯(lián)合國采用維客技術只是一個引出文章的例子。C選項的錯誤原因在于文章的主旨并不是評論維客技術的優(yōu)缺點。D選項的錯誤原因在于維客技術尚不成熟這一點同樣不是文章的主題。

2. D 細節(jié)題。從全文來看，現(xiàn)在聯(lián)合國和其他一些大的公司和組織機構都已經(jīng)開始采用維客技術，文章第二段第二句話也說明了維客技術現(xiàn)在不僅僅屬于那些bizarre tech people，而是變得越來越普遍，說明其應用前景是令人看好的。

3. C 細節(jié)題。文章第三段中提到“As Wikipedia has demonstrated, Web sites that are open to the public are vulnerable to deliberate injury, bias, inconsistency and other problems”，而這個問題尚未得到解決，因此C為正確答案。

4. A 細節(jié)題。該題的B、C、D選項都可以在文章第二段中找到答案，但是全文沒有任何關于維客技術安全性的明確表述。文章第三段指出了對外使用維客技術存在的弱點和問題，而內(nèi)部由于責任明確而相對比較安全。

5. C 細節(jié)題。C選項的原文對應信息為“a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software”。A選項中，關于聯(lián)合國這項新措施的結果我們尚未得知。B選項表述錯誤。D選項的表述并沒有在文章中出現(xiàn)。

參考譯文

聯(lián)合國一向以冗長拖沓的審議而聞名，現(xiàn)在該機構正在嘗試使用一種新的技術手段來迅速改善這種狀況。旨在增進組織機構責任的全球微縮辦公室，利用了一種曾經(jīng)是邊緣化的技術——維客——以幫助分布在80個國家的員工分享信息，減少達成決議前的各種討論并加快速度。全球微縮辦公室通過使公眾參與到對2000余家公司的進展報告進行審查來實現(xiàn)這一點——這一努力的目的在于每一家公司都充分遵守已建立起來的社會和環(huán)境方針綱要。鼓勵公眾的參與是否能夠增進效率還有待證實，但是聯(lián)合國的這一行動是一種迅速發(fā)展的趨勢的最新例證。

維客軟件——讓任何能夠上網(wǎng)的人可以輕松地創(chuàng)造、刪除和編輯一個網(wǎng)頁上的內(nèi)容——由于維基百科的廣泛使用而變得流行，而維基百科由于讓網(wǎng)民來編寫百科全書的內(nèi)容而被譽為網(wǎng)上最偉大的資源?，F(xiàn)在這種技術正在大規(guī)模地傳播，并已沖破那些技術怪人的世界而進入了主流世界，應用于工作場所、公司甚至是政府。在所謂的“維客工作場”中，越來越多的組織已經(jīng)通過使用維客軟件開始從傳統(tǒng)的等級架構轉變?yōu)橐环N自我組織和合作的網(wǎng)絡——維客軟件是一組技術組合，包括維客、博客以及其他工具——從而進行跨組織和跨地域的創(chuàng)新。管理人員們稱這些新工具使得團隊之間更容易合作和分享信息，并使得各個項目高效地進行。IBM 的信息和合作軟件部門副總裁肯·比斯康蒂稱“合作軟件在公司如何創(chuàng)造和創(chuàng)新的過程中起到了非常重要的作用”。

聯(lián)合國采用維客這一事件證明了一些組織正在開始克服維客技術會給操作帶來混亂的恐懼。正如維基百科證明的那樣，對于公眾開放的網(wǎng)站非常容易引來各種傷害、偏見、矛盾和其他問題。但是大多數(shù)企業(yè)維客都是不對公眾開放的，只允許在公司的防火墻內(nèi)部的員工訪問。技術專家稱這些準封閉系統(tǒng)通過記錄每一個改動以及改動者來使人們做到負責任。

IBM從2005年開始使用內(nèi)部維客，并在考慮將這種概念賣給客戶。其中的第一個用途就是雇員們通過維客來合作撰寫一個博客宣言：一組如何在辦公室內(nèi)外合理使用博客的政策。成千上萬的員工參與了宣言的撰寫和修訂，該宣言最后得到了公司的批準，成為了公司的官方政策。