Science and literature have traditionally been hostile to each other． Writers have regarded scientists as dull creatures who take pleasure from destroying GREat works of the imagination with boring facts．Scientists have thought of writers as frivolous people with no respect for the rules of evidence．
Science fiction is the one area where these two opposing groups have met and exchanged ideas．As its name suggests，science fiction is a literature that predicts the technology of the future and the effect this will have on human society．Over the years，many of their speculations have been remarkably accurate．Space travel，communications satellites，nuclear power，robotics，cloning and mobile telephones all appeared in books before they appeared in reality．
Yet sometimes the writers have got it wrong．Nobody predicted the emergence of personal computers，for instance．And contact with alien beings from other planets still seems a long way off，despite being a common subject of science fiction．
Over the years，the time between the prediction of new technology in science fiction and its actual discovery has become shorter．It took 100 years before the moon landings predicted by the French writer Jules Verne actually took place．The idea of robots first emerged in the 1920s． The first was built in the 1970s．And in the 1940s，Arthur C．Clarke predicted that communications satellites would circle the globe by the year 2000．They arrived 30years before they were due．
Richard Dawkins，a British scientist，recently stated that scientific discovery revealed the beauty and complexity of nature in a way that the human imagination could never do．Yet this is not the end of the road for science fiction．Many of the developments it has predicted have been in communications and we are now in what is called the“information age”．Over one-third of the people in the Western world are employed in the information industry．World leaders call for the establishment of“knowledge-based societies”．
1．The main idea of this passage is that ．
A）science fiction can predict the future
B）science fiction is the combination of science and literature
C）science fiction has something to do with the scientific discovery
D）literature and science fiction are quite different
2．The word“frivolous”in Paragraph 1probably means ．
A）well-known or important B）not serious or sensible
C）emergent and clever D）artificial or actual
3）The time between the prediction of new technology in science fiction and its actual discovery ．
A）is a long way off
B）has become a common subject of science fiction
C）has become shorter
D）has been the information age
4．Which technology appeared in science fiction before they appeared in reality？
A）Telephone，nuclear power，robots and cloning．
B）Travelling to Mars，computers，alien beings and satellites．
C）Arthur C．Clarke，Western World and knowledge-based society．
D）Verne，moon landings and many of the speculations．
5．Which prediction in science fiction has not yet been realized？
A）Space travel and cloning．
B）Robots and telecommunication．
C）Calling for the personal computer．
D）Contact with alien beings from other planets．
