問題詳情

   The biggest house of cards, the longest tongue, and of course, the tallest man: these are among the thousands of recordslogged in the famous Guinness Book of Records. Created in 1955 after a debate concerning Europe’s fastest game bird, whatbegan as a marketing tool sold to pub landlords to promote Guinness, an Irish drink, became the bestselling copyright title of alltime (a category that excludes books such as the Bible and the Koran). In time, the book would sell 120 million copies in over100 countries— quite a leap from its humble beginnings.    In its early years, the book set its sights on satisfying man’s innate curiosity about the natural world around him. Its twoprincipal fact finders, twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, scoured the globe to collect empirical facts. It was their task to findand document aspects of life that can be sensed or observed, things that can be quantified or measured. But not just any things.They were only interested in superlatives: the biggest and the best. It was during this period that some of the hallmark GuinnessRecords were documented, answering such questions as “What is the brightest star?” and “What is the biggest spider?”    Once aware of the public's thirst for such knowledge, the book’s authors began to branch out to cover increasingly obscure,little-known facts. They started documenting human achievements as well. A forerunner for reality television, the GuinnessBook gave people a chance to become famous for accomplishing eccentric, often pointless tasks. Records were set in 1955 forconsuming 24 raw eggs in 14 minutes and in 1981 for the fastest solving of a Rubik’s Cube (which took a mere 38 seconds). In1979 a man yodeled non-stop for ten and a quarter hours.    In its latest incarnation, the book has found a new home on the Internet. No longer restricted to the confines of physicalpaper, the Guinness World Records website contains seemingly innumerable facts concerning such topics as the most powerfulcombustion engine, or the world’s longest train. What is striking, however, is that such facts are found sharing a page with therecord of the heaviest train to be pulled with a beard. While there is no denying that each of these facts has its own, individualallure, the latter represents a significant deviation from the education-oriented facts of earlier editions. Perhaps there is usefulknowledge to be gleaned regarding the tensile strength of a beard, but this seems to cater to an audience more interested inseeking entertainment than education.    Originating as a simple bar book, the Guinness Book of Records has evolved over decades to provide insight into the fullspectrum of modern life. And although one may be more likely now to learn about the widest human mouth than the highestnumber of casualties in a single battle of the Civil War, the Guinness World Records website offers a telling glimpse into thefuture of fact-finding and record-recording.
26. Which of the following statements would best serve as the headline for this passage?
(A) The encyclopedia of the extremes reflects the changing interests of modern society.
(B) A book of simple origins makes it to the top as sales total a staggering 120 million copies.
(C) Facts are often displayed in a boring, uninteresting manner, but not in the Guinness Book of Records.
(D) Where other books fall short, the index of superlative sciences never ceases to amaze.

參考答案

答案：A
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)

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