The connection between the two news items is simple: computer – the best invention of the 20th century. The telephone bill came from a computer which made a terrifying mistake that was only £23.36. The other item was not so amusing. A man walked into the unguarded computer room of a large packaged food company (袋装食品生产公司) and expertly programmed the computer (给计算机编程序) to pay him £2,000 a month for raw meat which he “supplied” to the company. Of course he never sent the meat, but he certainly received the money. The computer wrote out a bill, and even “signed”it. It was only a random (随便的) check that uncovered the trick. It could be happening in thousands of other companied all over the world.
Computers are not the magical workers that some people say they are. They make mistakes, they’re sometimes slower than human beings and they’re easily fooled. The US used to conscript (征兵) people with the help of a computer. The army sent out a card, which had to be filled in and sent back. It was easy to avoid being called up simply by spreading candle-waxon on the card. The computer couldn’t read the card and did nothing with it.
It’s in our everyday life that computers cause many problems. Let’s get back to using people instead of computers, before a mistake that we can’t put right.
The writer’s main idea is __________.
A we’d better use people instead of computers in our everyday life.
B we should not use computers because they always make mistakes
C computers are widely used in our everyday life
D if we want to work well, don’t use the computers.
Key:A
