外研社英语课文：Module 4 Great inventions

Dad, can I ask a favour? Can I borrow your digital camera?

Why?

I'd like to take some photos on the school visit to the museum next week.

Is this for your school magazine? Has it been published yet?

Yes, two issues have been published. But it's going to be an online magazine from now on.

What's wrong with an ordinary magazine?

Do you mean using paper? It's too expensive. If the magazine is online, paper won't be needed. That's an important advantage. It'll be published on the school website, and it can be read on screen.

Well, that makes me think. Paper and printing have been used for ages. We once got information from books, but now the same information can be read or even listened to on computers.

I wonder … Can books be replaced by computers? Maybe I'll write something for the magazine! Anyway, about the camera…?

Here it is. The battery hasn't been charged for a couple of months. It's been turned off since your mum's birthday party.

It doesn't matter. I'll see to that.

But you must promise that it won't be lent to anyone, and it won't be left at school! Just look after it. Is that clear?

Promise!

Can books be replaced by computers?

By Tony Smith

Every morning my father buys a newspaper on his way to work. Every day I open my books in class and start my lessons. Every evening my mother looks through magazines at home. And every night, I look at the posters with photos of David Beckham and Yao Ming on my bedroom wall before I go to sleep. Can we imagine life without paper or print?

Paper was first created about 2000 years ago, and has been made from silk cotton, bamboo, and, since the 19th century, from wood. People learned to write words on paper to make a book. But in those days, books could only be produced one at a time by hand. As a result, they were expensive and rare. And because there weren't many books, few people learned to read.

Then printing was invented in China. The first printed books were made by putting ink on a wooden block and holding the paper against it. When printing was developed greatly at the beginning of the 11th century, books could be produced more quickly and cheaply. As a result, more people learned to read. After that, knowledge and ideas spread quickly, in a way that can be compared with introduction of the internet in the 20th century.

But will books be needed in the future? Today information can be received online, downloaded from the Internet rather than found in books, and information can be kept on CD -ROMs or machines such as MP3 players. These machines are smaller and lighter than books so that they can be carried very easily.

Computers are already used in classrooms, and newspapers and magazines can already be read online. So will books be replaced by computers one day? No, I don't think the Yao Ming poster on my bedroom wall will ever be replaced by a computer two metres high! #p#分页标题#e#

　　 欢迎使用手机、平板等移动设备访问中考网，2025中考一路陪伴同行！>>点击查看