TEXT D Human beings have used
tools for a very long time. In some parts of the world you can still find tools
that people used more than two million years ago. They made these tools by
hitting one stone against another. In this way they broke off pieces from one of
the stones. These chips of stone were usually sharp on one side. People used
them for cutting meat and skin from dead animals, and also for making other
tools out of wood. Human beings needed to use tools because they did not have
sharp teeth like other meat-eating animals, such as lions and tigers. Tools
helped people to get food more easily. Working with tools also
helped to develop human intelligence. The human brain grew bigger, and human
beings began to invent more and more tools and machines. The stone chip was one
of the first tools that people used, and perhaps it is the most important. Some
scientists say that it was the key to the success of mankind.
Since 1960 a new kind of tool has appeared. This is the silicon chip --a
little chip of silicon crystal. It is smaller than a finger-nail, but it can
store more than a million" bits" of information. It is an electronic
brain. Every year these chips get cleverer, but their size gets
smaller, and their cost gets less. They are used in watches, calculators and
intelligent machines that we can use in many ways. In the future
we will not need to work with tools in the old way. Machines will do everything
for us. They will even talk and play games with us. People will have plenty of
spare time. But what will they do with it Human beings used
stone chips for more than two million years, but human life changed very little
in that time. We have used silicon chips for only a few years, but life is
changing faster every day. What will life be like twenty years from now What
will the world be like two million years from now At the end of the passage the author seems to suggest that life in future is ______