出自:2024年国家开放大学答案
Reading tasks
Science Times<center>Portable Phones –Walk and Talk! </center>
Have you ever called up a friend and heard this: ‘Sorry, he’s not in. Can you call back later’ Have you ever been in a dirty phone box on a cold night and found the phone out of order Have you ever thought how wonderful it would be if you could talk to your friends any time you wanted to If so, then read on …
A：
Ever since Bell patented the telephone in 1876, we’ve been living in the age of instant communication. But there has always been a restriction – you need to find a phone. And that isn’t always easy. OK, we’ve had car phones since the 1950s. But the first car phones were enormous .The machinery filled the boot of the car! More than a portable phone, it was a mobile phone box! One of the first users was a doctor in Sweden. Unfortunately, the phone needed so much power（大量的电力） that he could only make two calls before the battery went dead. The first to his patient, and the second to the garage to get someone to come and fix his flat battery.
By the mid-1960s phones were small enough to fit into the front of a car, but unfortunately, they were still too heavy for people to carry around. They were also extremely expensive. So, it was no surprise that they didn’t become popular
B：
And then Mr Cooper made a call. On 3 April 1973, while walking along a street in New York, Motorola employee Martin Cooper took out his portable phone, dialed a number and made a call to a rival phone company. I don’t know what he said – perhaps, ‘Nobody has ever done this before!’ – but I bet he felt pretty happy when he hung up. He knew that his company was ahead of the competition.
C：
Now – just over ten years later – the DynaTAC 8000X portable cellular phone has arrived in the shops, and this week I’ve been testing it. I must say I’m impressed. The first thing you notice is how small and light it is. It weighs a little less than a bag of sugar and is about the same size as a brick – about twenty centimetres long. It looks really smart, too. And you can talk for almost half an hour without rechargingthe battery! You can also turn down the volume in case the phone goes off when you’re in a meeting. The disadvantage The price. It costs almost 3,000!
But don’t worry. The price will come down and soon everyone will have one
D：
And while I have my crystal ball out, here are some more predictions about how we will communicate in the future ... . Firstly, I think people will forget how to write because all communications will be oral. And one day before too long we will have phones with 3D video screens which allow you to see your friends and watch TV! More good news: phone calls will be free – they’ll be paid for by advertising! And finally, I believe that eventually humans in the future will have phones in our brains! With a speaker in an ear, and a microphone in a tooth, we will be able to dial numbers just by saying them.
But until then, you could do worse than buy yourself a Motorola DynaTAC. Become mobile and say goodbye to those cold calls in dirty phone boxes.
Match headings 1–4 with paragraphs A-D in the text.
(1) (1) The future
(2) (2) The first call
(3) (3) Testing the product
(4) (4) The historical background__4__(完形填空)
.A
.B
.C
.D