Unit5 Virtual Reality
passage c: person of the year: it’s you!at the end of every year, the us magazine time chooses the person who has the biggest influence on the world, whether for better or for worse. usually famous people are chosen. for example, you can find late chinese leader deng xiaoping and german-born scientist albert einstein there.but for , time chose "you" as "the person of the year" because almost everyone in the world is using the internet now. they are changing the world by using blogs, youtube and wikipedia. in china, according to a report this july, 28 million people read or write blogs. many of them are students.some also put videos online. the most famous video website is youtube. people can put whatever they shoot with a video camera or mobile phone on this site. every day, 100 million people visit youtube. "once only journalists had the power to tell you the news. but now a student in baghdad with a video can let you see a bombing," said rick stengel, an editor of time magazine. he said that the internet makes ordinary people have the power to report news to the world.the web also helps people to work together for greater achievements. wikipedia, the web encyclopedia, is the most successful example. anyone can write and edit stories for it over the internet. with the efforts of millions of people, wikipedia is now the biggest encyclopedia in the world.passage d: cutting a frog on the netmany people remember the day in school when they had to cut up a dead frog. students often perform this dissection as a requirement for biology class. smelly formaldehyde preserves the body of the frog. the students remove and identify the organs as part of learning about the science of life.but some schools no longer require students to cut apart frogs. cost may be an issue. also, animal rights activists may object.today, more and more students learn about frogs by computer, through "virtual dissection." a company called froguts () sells educational services to schools. but it also offers a free demonstration on its web site. first, the image of a whole bullfrog appears on the screen. users of the site direct cutting tools with clicks of their computer mouse. lines show where to cut. several steps later, the frog is open. the next steps are to remove and identify the heart, lungs and other organs.some educators praise virtual dissection. others say nothing can replace the real thing.other virtual activities are also increasingly popular in schools. some schools cannot send their students to places like museums and zoos. distance and money may prevent them. but children can still "visit" zoo animals, museum collections and historic places by computer.