Digital technology could turn the 21st century into a new dark age lost to history, one of the internet’s founding fathers has warned.

This is because we’re not keeping as many “hard” records as we did, such as diaries and other paper documents, which can easily be passed down through generations.

As operating systems and software get updated, documents and images stored using older technology are becoming increasingly inaccessible, said Dr Vinton “Vint” Cerf, vice president of Google.

In centuries to come, future historians looking back on the current era could be faced with a digital desert comparable with the dark ages — the post-Roman period in Western Europe about which relatively little is known because of the scarcity of written records. 

Dr Cerf said, “We are casually throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it. The 22nd century and future centuries after that will wonder about us but they’ll have great difficulty knowing much because so much of what we’ve left behind may be bits that are uninterpretable.”

He urged people to think about printing out their treasured photos and not rely on storing them as memory files. “We are enthusiastic to get excited about digitizing we digitize photographs thinking it’s going to make them last longer, and we might turn out to be wrong,” he said. “I would say if there are photos you are really concerned about create a physical instance of them. Print them out.”

To illustrate his point he referred to an “amazing book” by American Pulitzer prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, titled “Team of rivals: The political genius of Abraham Lincoln”.

Dr Cerf said: “Let us imagine that there’s a 22nd-century Doris Kearns Goodwin and she decides to write about the beginning of the 21st century and seeks to reproduce the conversations of the time. She discovers that there’s an awful lot of digital content that either has evaporated because nobody saved it, or it’s around but it’s not interpretable because it was created by software that’s 100 years old.”

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1.Why can digital technology turn the 21st century into a dark age lost to history?

A Because the internet will be increasingly inaccessible in the future.

B Because no diaries and docmuments about the 21st century can be passed down.

C Because today’s digital technology will be increasingly inaccessible in future.

D Because the documents about the 21st century will be uninterpretable in future.

解析：选C。C 细节理解题。根据文章第3段documents and images stored using older technology are becoming increasingly inaccessible可知，随着计算机技术的更新与发展，用21世纪储存的文件与图片在22世纪越来越难以破解。因此，21世纪将会因为缺乏纸质文件的记录而逐渐消失在历史长河中。

2.What does the underlined word “scarcity” in the fourth paragraph most probably mean?

A Preciousness.

B Sufficiency.

C Rareness.

D Effectiveness.

解析：选C。C 词义猜测题。根据第2段的we’re not keeping as many … diaries and other paper documents可知，此处的scarcity意为“缺乏，稀缺”，故选C。

3.Why do people in the 22nd century have difficulty knowing much of us?

A Because the digital documents we leave behind are not easy to understand.

B Because we don’t leave much digital documents for them to work through.

C Because we have thrown away all the information about the 21st century.

D Because they don’t have the advanced technology as we have today.

解析：选B。B 细节理解题。根据文章第5段they’ll have great difficulty knowing much because so much of what we’ve left behind may be bits that are uninterpretable可知，我们今天留下的文件难以破解，因此下一个世纪的人们将会对我们知之甚少。

4.What can we infer from the passage?

A The best way to last treasured photos long is to have them printed out.

B Scientists think that only digitizing can last treasured photos longer.

C People are enthusiastic to store treasured photos through digitizing.

D Memory files can be used to contain printed photos and store them longer.

解析：选A。A 推理判断题。根据文章第6段We are enthusiastic to get excited about digitizing we digitize photographs thinking it’s going to make them last longer, and we might turn out to be wrong可知，将图片数字化能长期保存的想法其实是错误的。由此判断，将有价值的图片印刷出来才能长久保存。

5.Why does the author write the last paragraph?

A To show the author’s imagination about Doris Kearns Goodwin.

B To explain how a 22nd-century author writes her prize-winning book.

C To prove that digital documents will be evaporated in the 22nd century.

D To illustrate how the people in the 22nd century know nothing about us.

解析：选D。D 写作用意判断题。作者在第7段说to illustrate his point he referred to an “amazing book” by…，在最后一段，作者引述了Cerf博士的比喻，对文章第5段The 22nd century and future centuries after that will wonder about us的观点进行了论证。