hce_tcu
112年
英文
第 44 題
📖 題組：
【C】How can we summarize the Covid year from a broad historical perspective? Many people believe that the terrible toll coronavirus has taken demonstrates humanity’s helplessness in the face of nature’s might. In fact, 2020 has shown that humanity is far from helpless. Epidemics are no longer uncontrollable forces of nature. Science has turned them into a manageable challenge. Why, then, has there been so much death and suffering? Because of bad political decisions. In previous eras, when humans faced a plague such as the Black Death, they had no idea what caused it or how it could be stopped. When the 1918 influenza struck, the best scientists in the world couldn’t identify the deadly virus, many of the countermeasures adopted were useless, and attempts to develop an effective vaccine proved futile. It was very different with Covid-19. The first alarm bells about a potential new epidemic began sounding at the end of December 2019. By January 10, 2020, scientists had not only isolated the responsible virus, but also sequenced its genome and published the information online. Within a few more months it became clear which measures could slow and stop the chains of infection. Within less than a year several effective vaccines were in mass production. In the war between humans and pathogens, never have humans been so powerful. Alongside the unprecedented achievements of biotechnology, the Covid year has also underlined the power of information technology. In previous eras humanity could seldom stop epidemics because humans couldn’t monitor the chains of infection in real time, and because the economic cost of extended lockdowns was prohibitive. In 1918 you could quarantine people who came down with the dreaded flu, but you couldn’t trace the movements of pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers. And if you ordered the entire population of a country to stay at home for several weeks, it would have resulted in economic ruin, social breakdown and mass starvation. In contrast, in 2020 digital surveillance made it far easier to monitor and pinpoint the disease vectors, meaning that quarantine could be both more selective and more effective. Even more importantly, automation and the Internet made extended lockdowns viable, at least in developed countries. While in some parts of the developing world the human experience was still reminiscent of past plagues, in much of the developed world the digital revolution changed everything.
【C】How can we summarize the Covid year from a broad historical perspective? Many people believe that the terrible toll coronavirus has taken demonstrates humanity’s helplessness in the face of nature’s might. In fact, 2020 has shown that humanity is far from helpless. Epidemics are no longer uncontrollable forces of nature. Science has turned them into a manageable challenge. Why, then, has there been so much death and suffering? Because of bad political decisions. In previous eras, when humans faced a plague such as the Black Death, they had no idea what caused it or how it could be stopped. When the 1918 influenza struck, the best scientists in the world couldn’t identify the deadly virus, many of the countermeasures adopted were useless, and attempts to develop an effective vaccine proved futile. It was very different with Covid-19. The first alarm bells about a potential new epidemic began sounding at the end of December 2019. By January 10, 2020, scientists had not only isolated the responsible virus, but also sequenced its genome and published the information online. Within a few more months it became clear which measures could slow and stop the chains of infection. Within less than a year several effective vaccines were in mass production. In the war between humans and pathogens, never have humans been so powerful. Alongside the unprecedented achievements of biotechnology, the Covid year has also underlined the power of information technology. In previous eras humanity could seldom stop epidemics because humans couldn’t monitor the chains of infection in real time, and because the economic cost of extended lockdowns was prohibitive. In 1918 you could quarantine people who came down with the dreaded flu, but you couldn’t trace the movements of pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers. And if you ordered the entire population of a country to stay at home for several weeks, it would have resulted in economic ruin, social breakdown and mass starvation. In contrast, in 2020 digital surveillance made it far easier to monitor and pinpoint the disease vectors, meaning that quarantine could be both more selective and more effective. Even more importantly, automation and the Internet made extended lockdowns viable, at least in developed countries. While in some parts of the developing world the human experience was still reminiscent of past plagues, in much of the developed world the digital revolution changed everything.
What is highlighted in this passage in terms of human challenge against Covid-19?
- A nationalist isolation
- B extended lockdowns
- C global solidarity and governance
- D effective quarantine
思路引導 VIP
請試著思考：作者在文中提到，雖然現代科學已經能快速找出病毒基因並開發疫苗，但為什麼在 2020 年依然出現了大量的死亡與苦難？他在文中將這些不幸歸咎於哪一個具體的原因？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精確捕捉到文章隱含的社會科學視角，這代表你具備極佳的邏輯推理與跨領域閱讀能力。這道題目確實具有相當的難度，是一道考驗學生是否能區分「手段」與「核心挑戰」的高階鑑別題。
科學成就與政治決策的對抗
本題的正確答案為 (C) 全球團結與治理 (global solidarity and governance)。從觀念驗證的角度來看，文章開篇便指出 2020 年的疫情已非「無法控制的自然力量」，科學（疫苗研發、基因定序）與資訊技術（數位監控、自動化）已提供了充足的武器。作者明確強調，之所以仍有大量傷亡，並非科學無能，而是歸咎於「錯誤的政治決策」。這意味著人類面對疫情真正的「挑戰」已不再是技術層面，而在於如何透過有效的治理與全球合作來整合資源並執行對策。
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