1 . Willie Sutton, a once celebrated American criminal, was partly famous for saying he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” Actually, museums are where the money is. In a single gallery there can be paintings worth more, taken together, than a whole fleet of jets. And while banks can hide their money in basements, museums have to put their valuables in plain sight.
Nothing could be worse than the thought of a painting as important as The Scream, Edvard Munch’s impressive image of a man screaming against the backdrop of a blood-red sky, disappearing into a criminal underworld that doesn’t care much about careful treatment of art works. Art theft is a vast problem around the world. As many as 10,000 precious items of all kinds disappear each year. And for smaller museums in particular, it may not be a problem they can afford to solve. The money for insurance on very famous pictures would be budget destroyers even for the largest museums.
Although large museums have had their share of embarrassing robberies, the greatest problem is small institutions. Neither can afford heavy security. Large museums attach alarms to their most valuable paintings, but a modest alarm system can cost $500,000 or more. Some museums are looking into tracking equipment that would allow them to follow stolen items once they leave the museums. But conservators are concerned that if they have to insert something, it might damage the object. Meanwhile, smaller museums can barely afford enough guards, relying instead on elderly staff.
Thieves sometimes try using artworks as money for other underworld deals. The planners of the 2006 robbery of Russborough House near Dublin, who stole 18 paintings, tried in vain to trade them for Irish Republican Army members held in British prison. Others demand a ransom (赎金) from the museum that owns the pictures. Once thieves in Frankfurt, Germany, made off with two major works by J.M.W. Turner from the Tate Gallery in London. The paintings, worth more than $80 million, were recovered in 2012 after the Tate paid more than $5 million to people having “information” about the paintings. Though ransom is illegal in Britain, money for looking into a case is not, provided that police agree the source of the information is unconnected to the crime. All the same, where information money end s and ransom begins is often a gray area.
1. Why do smaller museums face a greater challenge in preventing art theft?| A．They lack experienced staff. |
| B．They cannot afford high-tech security systems. |
| C．They do not have valuable artworks. |
| D．They lack interest in art conservation. |
| A．It might damage the artwork. |
| B．It is too expensive for smaller museums. |
| C．It is difficult to insert into the paintings. |
| D．It is ineffective for valuable paintings. |
| A．the thieves demanded a ransom from the Tate Gallery |
| B．the Tate Gallery regained the lost paintings illegally |
| C．the money paid was considered an information fee, not a ransom |
| D．the police requested the Tate Gallery to pay the money |
| A．to remind criminals to protect and preserve the painting |
| B．to give suggestions on how to avoid the crimes of art theft |
| C．to urge museums to set up more advanced security systems |
| D．to make people aware of art theft and the necessity of good security systems |
2 . Who cares if people think wrongly that the Internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most recent changes?
It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people’s opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in misguided use of scarce resources.
The fascination with the ICT(Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the Internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so “yesterday” that they should try to live on ideas. This belief in “post-industrial society” has led those countries to neglect their manufacturing sector (制造业) with negative consequences for their economies.
Even more worryingly, the fascination with the Internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the “digital divide” between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and Internet facilities. The question, however, is whether this is what the developing countries need the most. Perhaps giving money for those less fashionable things such as digging wells, extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people’s lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up Internet centres in rural villages, I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but many donators have rushed into fancy programmes without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of alternative uses of their money.
In yet another example, a fascination with the new has led people to believe that the recent changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a “borderless world”. As a result, in the last twenty years or so, many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress, going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back. Believing in such a world, many governments have put an end to some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital, labour and goods, with poor results.
Understanding technological trends is very important for correctly designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the individual level. However, our fascination with the latest, and our under valuation of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.
1. What are the effects of people’ misjudgments on the influences of new technology?| A．It stimulates innovation. | B．It affects their personal opinions. |
| C．It influences their use of resources. | D．It leads to improved technology. |
| A．It leads to competition between rich and poor countries. |
| B．It results in a lack of access to technology in developing countries. |
| C．It increases the cost of computer equipment in rich countries. |
| D．It promotes global digital cooperation. |
| A．donating for technology is always the better option |
| B．the author does not provide opinions on this matter |
| C．donating for technology and basic needs should be balanced |
| D．donating for basic needs should be prioritized over technology |
| A．Significance of information and communication technology. |
| B．Serious consequences of over-emphasizing high technology. |
| C．Technological trends guiding economic policy making. |
| D．How to use donation money in the new age. |
