Live with Computer
After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend's Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes indecipherable after the clarity of his words on screen; a secretary's tone seems more rejecting than I'd imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid — hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days.
For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer, I have done much of my work as a telecommuter. I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in U.K.; so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.
If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries.
But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I've merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. We have become the Net opponents' worst nightmare.
What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.
41. Compared to the clear words of her boyfriend on screen, his accent becomes ______.
A. unidentifiable
B. unbearable
C. unreal
D. misleading
42. The passage implies that the author and her boyfriend live in ______.
A. different cities in England
B. different countries
C. the same city
D. the same country
43. The author feels her life unreal because ______.
A. she has become a machine
B. she has to deal with data
C. she loses the interest in social life
D. she often has nightmares
44. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
A. To live with computer is luxury.
B. To care about your appearance has become an avoidance
C. We should not be controlled by computers and the Internet.
D. Having computers, people do not need human contact anymore.
45. What is the author's attitude to the computer?.
A. She likes it because it is a very important means of communication.
B. She likes it because it is very convenient.
C. She dislikes it because TV is more attractive.
D. She dislikes it because it makes her life monotonous and boring.