Exercise 1: Read and choose the correct answer.
When computer programmers started making software systems, they programmed the
years to be in two digits. For example, instead of using the year 1995, they shortened it to ’95.
This didn’t seem like a problem until the year 2000 began to come near. The year 1999,
shortened to ’99, would become ’00 instead of 2000. Programmers worried that all computer
systems would get confused and recognize ’00 as 1900. People were concerned that computer
systems everywhere would crash. Bank information would be lost, the electricity would go out,
and the world would lose much of its information.
This problem was called “Y2K,” short for “Year 2000.” Some people gathered canned food and
bottles of water in fear that many systems would stop working when 2000 came. In reality, only
small errors occurred. Computer programmers worked hard before the year 2000 to make sure
the problems were fixed. Still, at a horse racetrack in Delaware in the U.S.A., 150 gambling
machines stopped working. In Japan, an alarm went off at a nuclear power plant. Many web
sites around the world showed errors. Instead of showing the date as 2000, they showed 19100.
Question 1. What is the best title for this passage?
(A) The Y2K Problem (B) Collecting Food in 1999
(C) Two-Digit and Four-Digit Dates (D) Computer Programmers, Our
Heroes
Question 2. In line 5, the word crash is closest in meaning to
(A) hit (B) restart (C) close off (D) break down
Question 3. In line 8, the word gathered is closest in meaning to
(A) took (B) found (C) collected (D) harvested