Question

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How long are you willing to wait for a webpage to open before you start to lose your patience? Half a minute? A few seconds? Google engineers have discovered that even 400 milliseconds―as short as the blink of an eye―is too long for most Internet users.

A millisecond is one thousandth of a second. People hardly notice such a small time difference, but it does cause them to stop searching, reported The New York Times. “Without question, nobody likes to wait,” said Arvind Jain, a Google engineer. “Every millisecond matters.”

Nowadays, millions of smart-phones and computers are continually gathering and sending out information. With so many people downloading maps, sports videos, news and restaurant recommendations, you can get digital “traffic jams”. Meanwhile, users are expecting faster and faster service.

Google found that if one website is 250 milliseconds slower than another website, then people will visit it less often. This is why technology companies are now competing to be the fastest. Google said people do expect different things from different websites because they realize not all loading times are the same. For example, a person will be more patient waiting for a video to load than for a search result.

Even so, four out of five online users will click away if a video takes too long to load. This makes it difficult for video websites to choose between the quality of pictures and fast loading times.

Trying to get a higher speed has always been part of the history of the Internet. In the 1990s, when the World Wide Web first started to become popular, it was very crowded and slow; people called it the “World Wide Wait”. But engineers managed to fight the problem with new inventions. They laid a lot of fiber optic cables (光纜)for sending in high speed; they improved software so it would work more smoothly; they placed computer servers all around the world to be nearer to users; all this increased speed.

Nowadays we can enjoy much faster Internet. Famous search engines such as Google and Microsoft’s Bing usually find search results in less than a second. However, in order to meet the requirement of Internet users, these tycoons should never stop their steps.

1.The report from The New York Times suggests that

A. A millisecond is one thousandth of a second.

B. 400 milliseconds is not so long for most Internet users.

C. A millisecond has nothing to do with the Internet speed.

D. A millisecond really makes a difference to the Internet users.

2.The engineers did something to improve the speed, including _____.

a. making software work more smoothly

b. laying a number of fiber optic cables inside

c. placing computer servers throughout the world

d. developing the quality of pictures on the Internet

A. a b c B. b c d C. a c d D. a b d

3.Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. The quality of pictures comes first for video websites.

B. Google is 250 milliseconds slower than other websites

C. Microsoft’s Bing is the fastest engine the world now

D. People are more likely to wait for loading films than maps

4.What does the underlined sentence mean?

A. Internet users are willing to see more search engines set up

B. Google and Microsoft’s Bing should help find the searching results

C. These companies should mind their steps, or they will break down soon.

D. These companies need to catch up with the developing needs of Internet users

5.What can be the best title of this passage?

A. Don’t make me “www.wait”.

B. Search engines work faster.

C. Traffic jams keep us waiting.

D. The WWW becomes popular.

Answer 1