Wikipedia: The Online Know-It-All
If you want to find out a piece of information about anything, the best place to search for it is Wikipedia. The name “Wikipedia” is from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”. This online encyclopedia (百科全书) is written by thousands of people around the world. Anyone with Internet access can write, add or make changes to Wikipedia articles if he or she finds it incorrect or not well written. In this way, people who know a lot about a certain subject can write about it even if they are not university professors. But contributions cannot damage Wikipedia because many experienced editors are watching pages and techies (技术专家) can write editing programs to keep track of or correct bad edits. Where there are disagreements on how to present facts, editors work together to arrive at an article that fairly represents current expert opinion on the subject.
Wikipedia is quite different from paper-based reference sources in important ways. Unlike printed encyclopedias, it is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years.
What’s more, Wikipedia includes articles written in about 285 languages. This fact makes it one of the few websites on the Internet that are truly international. It was started in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, as a free online English-language encyclopedia project. Since its creation, it has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting nearly 500 million unique visitors monthly. There are more than 77,000 active contributors working on more than 22,000,000 articles in different languages. As of today, there are 4,396,866 articles in English.
So, if you are looking for some information, why not try Wikipedia? It’s free, multilingual，and informative.
【小题1】According to the passage, what is Wikipedia?A．A free website encyclopedia.B．A puter game.C．A free encyclopedia in book form.D．An online university.【小题2】From the passage we know that .A．Wikipedia only charges users a small feeB．Wikipedia catches a wide audienceC．incorrect editions might do great harm to WikipediaD．it will take long to update the information on Wikipedia【小题3】Where can we probably read the passage?A．In a story book.B．In a research report.C．In a science magazine.D．In a travel brochure.A
网友回答
(答案→)A
解析：文章大意：这篇短文主要介绍了维基百科的主要内容及相关的各种问题。
【小题1】A细节理解题。文章的第一段联系下文This online encyclopedia(百科全书) is written by thousands of people around the world及文章最后一句It’s free, multilingual，and informative.描述可以得出答案。故A正确。
【小题2】B细节理解题。根据文章倒数第二段Since its creation, it has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting nearly 500 million unique visitors monthly. There are more than 77,000 active contributors working on more than 22,000,000 articles in different languages.可以得出答案。故B正确。
【小题3】C推理判断题。本文主要介绍了维基百科的主要内容及相关的各种问题。故这类文章可能出自于科学杂志。故C正确。