黑魔方考研英语精读黄花宝典：黑魔方考研英语精读黄花宝典

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魔方考研英语精读
黄花宝典黑魔方系列策划：stove，沉郁林海，尘埃落定
前言要不要做阅读?
出现这个问题缘由以前新东方的真题至上的观点在新题型改革后出现了挑战,以至于有老朱的新名言"考研不是考古",其实个人认为,这个问题看你乍看,英语无非是熟巧,犹如卖油翁,即量变质变规律,真题94-05十二年阅读一共56篇,加上翻译13篇,一共70篇左右文章,量基本是够了的.这个问题XDF周雷同志对真题的词汇总结说明了这个问题.笔者目睹有熟仅读其<真题突破>而考50分以上的就有2人,这就很能说明问题了.现在的考研市场很浮躁,连胡敏也不大提读一本书的人是最可怕的了这句话了.其实万法归宗,考研真题(这里仅指英语)就像经书一样,看你如何练,练得好了,其他的各种解析都只会毁了元神.
当然,命题也在变,但大家可以想象一下语言的变化要在考试中出现是要如何的一个过程.所以,增加的只是分析问题的角度,比如新增的排序题,段落大意和论点论据题,都可以通过真题加以训练.这就是老朱更经典的一句:"分析过去,总结规律,面向未来,胸有成竹".
曹齐军说得好,模拟题就像假酒,你能说谁的更好?所以,其功能不是拿来衡量你的水平,而是让你用来避免范低级的错误,模拟时间分配的管理之类的.虽说开卷有益,但你为何不作事半功倍呢?
当然,通过各个单项的分析后,也还有一个整合的问题.这就是说要模拟一下了.
为什么要用此宝典？
本宝典是继黑魔方真题解析系列之后推出的又一精品图书。所选文章均来自高教版参考书，人大版最后五套题，以及Yacyin，vic提供的命题组成员手稿，精心编排而成。其权威性不言而喻。由于时间仓促，不足之处，希望大家谅解。
Unit 1
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
It was the biggest scientific grudge match since the space race,The Genome Wars had everything,two groups with appealing leaders ready to fight in a scientific dead heat,pushing
the limits of technology and rhetoric as they battled to become the first to read every last one of the 3 billion DNA "letters" in the human body,The scientific importance of the work is unquestionable,The completed DNA sequence is expected to give scientists unprecedented insights into the workings of the human body,revolutionizing medicine and biology,But the race itself,between the government's Human Genome Project and Rockville,Md.,biotechnology company Celera Genomics,was at least partly symbolic,the public/private conflict played out in a genetic lab.
Now the race is over,After years of public attacks and several failed attempts at reconciliation,the two sides are taking a step toward a period of calm,HGP head Francis Collins (and Ari Patrinos of the Department of Energy,an important ally on the government side) and Craig Venter,the founder of Celera,agreed to hold a joint press conference in Washington this Monday to declare that the race was over (sort of),that both sides had won (kind of) and that the hostilities were resolved ( for the time being ).
No one is exactly sure how things will be different now,Neither side will be turning off its sequencing machines any time soon--the "finish lines" each has crossed are largely arbitrary points,"first drafts" rather than the definitive version,And while the joint announcement brings the former Genome Warriors closer together than they've been in years,insiders say I that future agreements are more likely to take the form of coordination,rather than outright collaboration,
The conflict blew up this February when Britain's Wellcome Trust,an HGP participant,released a confidential letter to Celera outlining the HGP's complaints,Venter called the move "a lowlife thing to do," but by spring,there were the first signs of a thaw,"The attacks and nastiness are bad for science and our investors," Venter told Newsweek in March,"and fighting back is probably not helpful." At a cancer meeting earlier this month,Venter and Collins praised each other's approaches,and expressed hope that all of the scientists involved in sequencing the human genome would be able to share the credit,By late last week,that hope was becoming a reality as details for Monday's joint announcement were hammered out,Scientists in both camps welcomed an end to the hostilities,"If this ends the horse race,science wins." With their difference behind them,or at least set aside,the scientists should now be able to get down to the interesting stuff,figuring how to make use of all that data.
1,The recent Genome Wars were symbolic of
[A] the enthusiasm in scientific research.
[B] the significance of the space race.
[C] the public versus private conflict.
[D] the prospect of the completion of DNA sequence.
2,The tone of the author in reporting the joint press conference this Monday is
[A] astonished.
[B] enthusiastic.
[C] disappointed.
[D] objective.
3,It is implied in the third paragraph that
[Al the "finish lines" does mean what it reads.
[BI the sequencing machines have stopped at the "finish lines."
[C] the former warriors are now collaborators.
[DJ both sides will work on independently.
4,The word "thaw" (Paragraph 4) most probably means
[A] aggravation in tension.
[B] improvement in relation.
[C] intensification in attacks.
[D] stoppage of coordination.
5,The critical thing facing the scientists is to
[A] apply the newly-found knowledge to the benefit of mankind.
[B] end their horse race for the success of science.
[C] get down to their genome research.
[D] set their differences aside.
Text 2
At the start of the year,The Independent on Sunday argued that there were three over-whelming reasons why Iraq should not be invaded,there was no proof that Saddam posed an
imminent threat; Iraq would be even more unstable as a result of its liberation; and a conflict would increase the threat posed by terrorists,What we did not know was that Tony Blair had received intelligence and advice that raised the very same points.
Last week's report from the Intelligence and Security Committee included the revelation that some of the intelligence had warned that a war against Iraq risked an increased threat of
terrorism,Why did Mr,Blair not make this evidence available to the public in the way that so much of the alarmist intelligence on Saddam's weapons was published? Why did he choose to ignore the intelligence and argue instead that the war was necessary,precisely because of the threat posed by international terrorism?
There have been two parliamentary investigations into this war and the Hutton inquiry reopens tomorrow,In their different ways they have been illuminating,but none of them has addressed the main issues relating to the war,The Foreign Affairs Committee had the scope to range widely,but chose to become entangled in the dispute between the Government and the BBC,The Intelligence Committee reached the conclusion that the Government's file on Saddam's weapons was not mixed up,but failed to explain why the intelligence was so hopelessly wrong,The Hutton inquiry is investigating the death of Dr,David Kelly,a personal tragedy of marginal relevance to the war against Iraq.
Tony Blair has still to come under close examination about his conduct in the building-up to war,Instead,the Defence Secretary,Geoff Hoon,is being fingered as if he were master-minding the war behind everyone's backs from the Ministry of Defence,Mr,Hoon is not a minister who
dares to think without consulting Downing Street first,At all times he would have been dancing to Downing Street's tunes,Mr,Blair would be wrong to assume that he can draw a line under all
of this by making Mr,Hoon the fall-guy,It was Mr,Blair who decided to take Britain to war,and a Cabinet of largely skeptical ministers that backed him,It was Mr,Blair who told MPs that unless Saddam was removed,terrorists would pose a greater global threat---even though he had received intelligence that suggested a war would lead to an increase in terrorism.
Parliament should be the forum in which the Prime Minister is called more fully to account,but lain Duncan Smith's support for the war has neutered an already inept opposition,In the absence of proper parliamentary scrutiny,it is left to newspapers like this one to keep asking the most important questions until the Prime Minister answers them.
1,We learn from the first two paragraphs that
[A] the evidence should have been made available to the Parliament.
[B] the necessity of war has been exaggerated by the Committee.
[C] Blair had purposely ignored some of the intelligence he received.
[D] it was The Independent that first revealed the intelligence.
2,The author thinks that the Hutton enquiry is
[A] also beside the mark.
[B] hopelessly wrong.
[C] illuminating in its way.
[D] wide in scope.
3,By "chose to become entangled" (Paragraph 3),the author implies that
[A] the dispute between the Government and the BBC was unnecessary.
[B] the Foreign Affairs Committee had mixed up the argument.
[C] it was entirely wrong to carry out such investigations.
[D] the Intelligence Committee shouldn't mix up with the affair.
4,It can be learned from Paragraph 4 that
[A] most ministers were suspicious of Hoon's conduct.
[B] Hoon will not do anything without consulting Blain
[C] Blair should not divert his responsibility to his Cabinet.
[D] MPs think that it is Blair who drags the country into the war.
5,What is the author's attitude towards the Parliament?
[A] Indignant.
[B] Skeptical.
[C] Inquisitive.
[D] Critical.
Text 3
Scholastic thinkers held a wide variety of doctrines in both philosophy and theology,the study of religion,What gives unity to the whole Scholastic movement,the academic practice in Europe from the 9th to the 17th centuries,are the common aims,attitudes,and methods generally accepted by all its members,The chief concern of the Scholastics was not to discover new facts but to integrate the knowledge already acquired separately by Greek reasoning and Christian revelation,This concern is one of the most characteristic differences between Scholasticism and modem thought since the Renaissance.
The basic aim of the Scholastics determined certain common attitudes,the most important of which was their conviction of the fundamental harmony between reason and revelation,The Scholastics maintained that because the same God was the source of both types of knowledge and truth was one of his chief attributes,he could not contradict himself in these two ways of speaking,Any apparent opposition between revelation and reason could be traced either to an incorrect use of reason or to an inaccurate interpretation of the words of revelation,Because the Scholastics believed that revelation was the direct teaching of God,it possessed for them a higher degree of truth and certainty than did natural reason,In apparent conflicts between religious faith and philosophic reasoning,faith was thus always the supreme arbiter; the theologian's decision overruled that of the philosopher,After the early 13th century,Scholastic thought emphasized more the independence of philosophy within its own domain,Nonetheless,throughout the Scholastic period,philosophy was called the servant of theology,not only because the truth of philosophy was subordinated to that of theology,but also because the theologian used philosophy to understand and explain revelation.
This attitude of Scholasticism stands in sharp contrast to the so-called double-truth theory of the Spanish-Arab philosopher and physician Averro?s,His theory assumed that truth was accessible to both philosophy and Islamic theology but that only philosophy could attain it perfectly,The so-called truths of theology served,hence,as imperfect imaginative expressions for the common people of the authentic truth accessible only to philosophy,Averro?s maintained that philosophic truth could even contradict,at least verbally,the teachings of Islamic theology.
As a result of their belief in the harmony between faith and reason,the Scholastics attempted to determine the precise scope and competence of each of these faculties,Many early Scholastics,such as the Italian ecclesiastic and philosopher St,Anselm,did not clearly distinguish the two and were overconfident that reason could prove certain doctrines of revelation,Later,at the height of the mature period of Scholasticism,the Italian theologian and philosopher St,Thomas Aquinas worked out a balance between reason and revelation.
1,With the Scholastics,the search for new knowledge
[A] stopped completely.
[B]sped down.
[C] advanced rapidly.
[D] awaked gradually.
2,Which of the following best illustrate the relation between reason and revelation?
[A] They are simply identical.
[B] Revelation guides reason.
[C] They are occasionally contradictory.
[D] Reason is used to perfect revelation.
3,It can be inferred from Paragraph two of the text that
[A] the position of philosophy as a humble servant was accepted.
[B] religion had turn into a hamper to the functioning of philosophy.
[C] philosophers often quoted revelation to support themselves.
[D] philosophers were sometimes referred to in religious practice.
4,Averro?s held that
[A] Islamic theology was often subordinate to philosophy.
[B] religious truth was nothing but imaginative fantasy.
[C] real truth was inaccessible to many common people.
[D] imperfect expressions were result of flawed religion.
5,Which of the following is most likely to be discussed in the part succeeding this text?
[A] Relations of St,T,Aquinas' achievements to previous efforts.
[B] How St,T,Aquinas worked out the balance in discussion.
[C] Other endeavors on the relationship of reason and revelation.
[D] Outstanding features of the mature period of Scholasticism.
Text 4
Despite the general negative findings,it is important to remember that all children who live through a divorce do not behave in the same way,The specific behavior depends on the child's individual personality,characteristics,age at the time of divorce,and gender,In terms of personality,when compared to those rated as relaxed and easygoing,children described as temperamental and irritable have more difficulty coping with parental divorce,as indeed they have more difficulty adapting to life change in general,Stress,such as that found in disrupted families,seems to impair the ability of temperamental children to adapt to their surroundings,the greater the amount of stress,the less well they adapt,In contrast,a moderate amount of stress may actually help an easygoing,relaxed child learn to cope with adversity.
There is some relationship between age and children's characteristic reaction to divorce,As the child grows older,the greater is the likelihood of a free expression of a variety of complex feelings,an understanding of those feelings,and a realization that the decision to divorce cannot be attributed to any one simple cause,Self-blame virtually disappears after the age of 6,fear of abandonment diminishes after the age of 8,and the confusion and fear of the young child is replaced in the older child by shame,anger,and self-reflection,Gender of the child is also a factor that predicts the nature of reaction to divorce,The impact of divorce is initially greater on boys than on girls,They are more aggressive,less compliant,have greater difficulties in interpersonal relationships,and exhibit problem behaviors both at home and at school,Furthermore,the adjustment problems of boys are still noticeable even two years after the divorce.
Girls' adjustment problems are usually internalized rather than acted out,and are often resolved by the second year after the divorce,However,new problems may surface for girls as they enter adolescence and adulthood,How can the relatively greater impact of divorce on boys than on girls be explained? The greater male aggression and noncompliance may reflect the fact that such behaviors are tolerated and even encouraged in males in our culture more than they are in females,Furthermore,boys may have a particular need for a strong male model of self-control,as well as for a strong disciplinarian parent,Finally,boys are more likely to be exposed to their parents' fights than gifts are,- and after the breakup,boys are less likely than girls to receive sympathy and support from mothers,teachers,or peers.
1,Temperamental,irritable kids have difficulty adapting to parental divorce because
[A] they care too much about the life change.
[B] the great stress of their families diminishes their ability.
[C] they tend to lose temper easily and are sensitive to the life change.
[D]they are faced with more parents' fights than the relaxed,easygoing children.
2, The following statements are true EXCEPT
[A] divorce is usually caused by more than one reason.
[B] a six-year-old boy may fear being deserted by his parents.
[C] as the kids grow older,they have a better understanding of divorce.
[D] a young girl may feel more shameful on parental divorce than an older boy.
3,It can be inferred from the passage that the impact of divorce
[A] on kids of different sexes will probably change as they grow older.
[B] may cause most kids' difficulties in communicating with others.
[C] on an irritable girl is greater than a noncompliant boy.
[D] is always greater on boys than on girls.
4,According to the author,the reason why parental divorce has greater effect on boys than on girls is that
[A]all cultures encourage male aggression and noncompliance.
[B] boys are always involved in their parents' fights.
[C] males are usually viewed as the models in self-control and strong will.
[D] boys are basically more self-disciplined than girls.
5,What is the main idea of the passage?
[A] Parental divorce has a negative effect on children all through their life.
[B] The impact of parental divorce on children varies in personality,age and gender.
[C] Boys may become more aggressive than girls in disrupted families.
[D] Kids of different ages behave differently on parental divorce.
Unit 2
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
As a young bond trader,Buttonwood was given two pieces of advice,trading rules of thumb,if you will,that bad economic news is good news for bond markets and that every utterance dropping from the lips of Paul Volcker,the then chairman of the Federal Reserve,and the man who restored the central bank's credibility by stomping on runaway inflation,should be respected than Pope's orders,Today's traders are,of course,a more sophisticated bunch,But the advice still seems good,apart from two slight drawbacks,The first is that the well-chosen utterances from the present chairman of the Federal Reserve,Alan Greenspan,is of more than passing difficulty,The second is that,of late,good news for the economy has not seemed to upset bond investors all that much,For all the cheer that has crackled down the wires,the yield on ten-year bonds--which you would expect to rise on good economic news--is now,at 4.2%,only two-fifths of a percentage point higher than it was at the start of the year,Pretty much unmoved,in other words.
Yet the news from the economic front has been better by far than anyone could have expected,On Tuesday November 25th,revised numbers showed that America's economy grew
by an annual 8.2% in the third quarter,a full percentage point more than originally thought,driven by the ever-spendthrift American consumer and,for once,corporate investment,Just about every other piece of information coming out from special sources shows the same strength,New houses are still being built at a fair clip,Exports are rising,for all the protectionist crying,Even employment,in what had been mocked as a jobless recovery,increased by 125,000 or thereabouts in September and October,Rising corporate profits,Iow credit spreads and the biggest-ever rally in the junk-bond market do not,on the face of it,suggest anything other than a deep and 10ng-lasting recovery,Yet Treasury-bond yields have fallen.
If the rosy economic backdrop makes this odd,making it doubly odd is an apparent absence of foreign demand,Foreign buyers of Treasuries,especially Asian central banks,who had been swallowing American government debt like there was no tomorrow,seem to have had second thoughts lately,In September,according to the latest available figures,foreigners bought only $ 5.6 billion of Treasuries,compared with $ 25.1 billion the previous month and an average of $ 38.7 billion in the preceding four months,In an effort to keep a lid on the yen's rise,the Japanese central bank is still busy buying dollars and parking the money in government debt,Just about everybody else seems to have been selling.
1,The advice for Buttonwood suggests that
[A] Paul Volcker enjoyed making comments on controlling inflation.
[B] the Federal Reserve has an all-capable power over inflation control.
[C] economy has the greatest influence upon the daily life of ordinary people.
[D] the economic sphere and bond markets are indicative of each other.
2,The word "passing"(Paragraph 1) most probably means
[A] instant.
[B] trivial.
[C] simple.
[D] negligible.
3,Which of the following is responsible for the rapid economic growth in the US?
[A] Domestic consumers.
[B] Foreign investments.
[C] Real estate market.
[D] Recovering bond market.
4,According to the last paragraph,most Asian central banks are becoming
[A] rather regretful.
[B] less ambitious.
[C] more cautious.
[D] speculative.
5,The phrase "keep a lid on"( Paragraph 3) most probably means
[A] put an end to.
[B] set a limit on.
[C] tighten the control over.
[D] reduce the speed of.
Text 2
We're moving into another era,as the toxic effects of the bubble and its grave consequences spread through the financial system,Just a couple of years ago investors dreamed of 20 percent returns forever,Now surveys show that they're down to a "realistic" 8 percent to 10 percent range.
But what if the next few years turn out to be below normal expectations? Martin Barnes of the Bank Credit Analyst in Montreal expects future stock returns to average just 4 percent to 6 percent,Sound impossible? After d much smaller bubble that burst in the mid-1960s,Standard & Poor's 5000 stock average returned 6.9 percent a year (with dividends reinvested) for the following 17 years,Few investors are prepared for that.
Right now denial seems to be the attitude of choice,That's typical,says Loft Lucas of Hewitt,the consulting firm,You hate to look at your investments when they're going down,Hewitt tracks 500,000 401(k) accounts every day,and finds that savers are keeping their contributions up,But they're much less inclined to switch their money around,"It's the slot-machine effect," Lucas says,"People get more interested in playing when they think they've got a hot machine"-- and nothing's hot today,The average investor feels overwhelmed.
Against all common sense,many savers still shut their eyes to the dangers of owning too much company stock,In big companies last year,a surprising 29 percent of employees held at
least three quarters of their 402(k) in their own stock.
Younger employees may have no choice,You often have to wait until you're 50 or 55 before you can sell any company stock you get as a matching contribution.
But instead of getting out when they can,older participants have been holding,too,One third of the people 60 and up chose company stock for three quarters of their plan,Hewitt reports,Are they inattentive? Loyal to a fault? Sick? It's as if Lucent,Enron and Xerox never happened.
No investor should give his or her total trust to any particular company's stock,And while you're at it,think how you'd be if future stock returns--averaging good years and bad--are as poor as Barnes predicts.
If you ask me,diversified stocks remain good for the long run,with a backup in bonds,But I,too,am figuring on reduced returns,What a shame,Dear bubble,I'll never forget,It's the end
of a grand affair.
1,The investors' judgment of the present stock returns,in the author's opinion,seems to be
[A] sort of wishful thinking.
[B] just too pessimistic.
[C] totally groundless.
[D] quite realistic.
2,In face of the current stock market,most stock-holders just
[A] decline to inject more money into the stock market.
[B] voice their disgust with the devaluing stock.
[C] switch their money around in the market.
[D] mm a deaf ear to the warning.
3,The author recommends that employees
[A] hold at leastl/3 of their 401 (k) in their company.
[B] get out of their own company's stock.
[C] wait for some time before disposing of their stock.
[D] give trust to a particular company's stock.
4,Lucent,Enron and Xerox,it can be inferred from the text,are names of
[A] successful companies.
[B] bankrupted companies.
[C] company stocks.
[D] huge companies.
5,The author's attitude towards the long-term investors' decision is
[A] positive.
[B] suspicious
[C] negative.
[D] paradoxical.
Text 3
What accounts for the astounding popularity of Dr,Phil McGraw? Why have so many TV viewers and book buyers embraced this tough warrior of a psychologist who tells them to suck it up and deal with their own problems rather than complaining and blaming everyone else? Obviously,Oprah Winfrey has a lot to do with it,She made him famous with regular appearances on her show,and is co-producing the new "Dr,Phil" show that's likely to be the hottest new daytime offering this fall,But we decided to put Dr,Phil on the cover not just because he's a phenomenon,We think his success may reflect an interesting shift in the American spirit of time,Could it be that we're finally getting tired of the culture of victimology?
This is a tricky subject,because there are very sad real victims among us,Men still abuse women in alarming numbers,Racism and discrimination persist in subtle and not-so-subtle forms,But these days,almost anyone can find a therapist or lawyer to assure them that their professional,relationship or health problems aren't their fault,As Marc Peyser tells us in his
terrific profile of Dr,Phil,the TV suits were initially afraid audiences would be offended by his stem advice to "get real!" In fact,viewers thirsted for the tough talk,Privately,we all know we have to take responsibility for decisions we control,It may not be revolutionary advice (and may leave out important factors like unconscious impulses),But it's still an important message with clear echoing as,a year later,we contemplate the personal lessons of September 11.
Back at the ranch (livestock farm)--the one in Crawford,Texas--President Bush continued to issue mixed signals on Iraq,He finally promised to consult allies and Congress before going
to war,and signaled an attack isn't coming right now ("I'm a patient man").But so far there has been little consensus-building,even as the administration talks of "regime change" and positions troops in the gulf,Bush's team also ridiculed the press for giving so much coverage to the Iraq issue,Defense Secretary Rumsfeld called it a "frenzy," and Press Secretary Ari Fleischer
dismissed it as "self-inflicted silliness." But as Michael Hirsh notes in our lead story,much of the debate has been inside the Republican Party,where important voices of experience argue Bush needs to prepare domestic and world opinion and think through the global consequences before moving forward,With so much at stake,the media shouldn't pay attention? Now who's being silly?
1,Faced with diversified issues of injustice,Dr,Phil McGraw advised that people should
[A] strongly voice their condemnation of those responsible.
[B] directly probe the root of their victimization.
[C] carefully examine their own problems.
[D] sincerely express their sympathy for the victims.
2,One possible response,when the program "Dr,Phil" was first presented on TV,that people were afraid of was
[A] suspicion.
[B] satisfaction.
[C] indifference.
[D] indignation.
3,The word "tough" (Paragraph 2) most probably means
[A] piercing to the truth.
[B] using vulgar language.
[C] mean and hostile.
[D] difficult to understand.
4,The author advises the public to
[A] leave out factors such as unconscious impulses.
[B] draw lessons of their own from September 11.
[C] respond decisively to September 11 tragedy.
[D] accept decisions beyond our control.
5,With a series of questions at the end of the text,the author
[A] feels uncertain of what his own opinion is.
[B] differentiates two conflicting views.
[C] criticizes the Bush Administration.
[D] argues for the US policy on Iraq.
Text 4
Pressure is mounting on Ahold's embattled supervisory board following the Dutch grocery group's decision to pay its new chief executive more than C 10m to lead its recovery from a
ruining accounting scandal.
Anders Moberg's pay package--and the timing of its disclosure at a shareholder meeting last week--has confronted Ahold with a new credibility crisis as it struggles to restore confidence after the 6 970m ( $1 bn) scandal,The dispute- evident in a sea of critical media comment in the Netherlands at the weekend threatens to divert management from its recovery strategy,built on significant divestments and a likely rights issue to reduce fi? Il bn in net debt,Units deemed unable to attain first or second position in food retail within three to five years will immediately be put up for sale.
The board's position appears all the more delicate following comments made by Mr,Moberg to the Financial Times,in which he criticized non-executive directors for ignoring his advice to disclose his salary in May,when he agreed his contract.
Instead Ahold waited more than four months to make the announcement,on the day share-holders were asked to approve Mr,Moberg's appointment.
"I was the one who said I liked transparency,and I had hoped [the supervisory board] had shown [the salary package] in May to avoid a situation like this," Mr,Moberg told the FT.
As the row prompted the left-leaning Dutch Daily to call for a boycott of Ahold's Dutch Albert Heijn supermarket chain where only last week Ahold announced 440 redundancies--it
was clear the supervisory board had badly misjudged the reaction.
While Henny de Ruiter,supervisory board chairman,said the salary was a fair reflection of what a company in Ahold's unfavorable circumstances had to pay to attract a top manager,
furious investors accused it of pushing through the package regardless of investor opinion.
Furthermore,Dutch media commentators noted that the scandal at Ahold had been the trigger for the Dutch government to appoint a commission to strengthen corporate governance.
That commission has recommended a limit on executive bonuses,far below the potential two-and-a-half times annual salary that Mr,Moberg could earn.
Meanwhile,Mr,Moberg is trying to distance himself from the row and focus on strategy,He told the FT that measures had already been taken to raise its stake in the ICA-Ahold joint
venture in Scandinavia.
Ahold had included in its forecasts an amount necessary to buy the shares of either of its joint venture partners,should either exercise a "put option" and sell their stake from April 2004.
1,The decision on Anders Moberg's pay package has
[A] incurred much criticism from the shareholders.
[B] helped restored public confidence in Ahold.
[C] freed the supervisory board from another crisis,
[D] put pressure on the new chief executive.
2,The recovery strategy by Ahold's management includes
[A] avoiding further accounting scandal.
[B] diverting investment to other fields.
[C] issuing rights to more retailers.
[D] selling the retailers with poor performance.
3,Anders Moberg thought that ifhis salary had been announced earlier,
[A] the board's position would have become less difficult.
[B] he would have agreed to the contract with Ahold.
[C] more time could have been devoted to his recovery plan.
[D] the shareholders' reaction wouldn't have been misjudged.
4,Before the scandal at Ahold,the executive bonuses in Dutch companies
[A] were higher than what Moberg earned.
[B] were regulated by a commission.
[C] were not monitored by the government.
[D] were not set by corporate management.
5,According to Moberg's recovery strategy,Ahold will
[A] sell its stake to other joint venture companies.
[B] buy shares of its Scandinavian partners.
[C] choose to put money in its chain shops in Scandinavia.
[D] exercise its potential influence on partners.
Unit 3
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
U,S.-led occupation authorities have begun a secret campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings,according to U,S,and Iraqi officials.
The extraordinary move to recruit agents of former president's security services demonstrates a growing recognition among U,S,officials that American military forces--already stretched thin--cannot alone prevent attacks like the devastating truck bombing of the U,N,headquarters recently,the officials said.
Authorities have stepped up the recruitment over the past two weeks,one senior U,S,official said,despite sometimes firm objections by members of the U,S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council,who complain that they have too little control over the pool of recruits,While U.S,officials acknowledge the sensitivity of cooperating with a force that embodied the ruthlessness of the overthrown president's rule,they assert that an urgent need for better and more precise intelligence has forced unusual compromises.
"The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence," the senior official said,"It's the only way you're going to stop these people from doing what they're doing." He added,"Without Iraqi input,that's not going to work."
Officials are reluctant to disclose how many former agents have been recruited since the effort began,But Iraqi officials say they number anywhere from dozens to a few hundred,and U.S,officials acknowledge that the recruitment is extensive.
"We're reaching out very widely," said one official with the U.S.-led administration,who like most spoke on condition of anonymity because of sensitivity over questions of intelligence and sources.
Added a Western diplomat, "There is an obvious evolution in American thinking,First the police are reconstituted,then the army,It is logical that intelligence officials from the regime would also be recruited."
Officials say the first line of intelligence-gathering remains the Iraqi police,who number 6,500 in Baghdad and 33,000 nationwide,But that force is hampered in intelligence work by a
lack of credibility with a belief-broken public,and its numbers remain far below what U,S,officials say they need to bring order to an unruly capital,Across Iraq,walk-in informers have provided tips on weapons hidings and locations of suspected guerrillas,but many Iraqis dismiss those reports as occasional and sometimes motivated by a desire for personal gain.
The emphasis in recruitment appears to be on the intelligence service known as the Mukhabarat,one of four branches in the former security service,although it is not the only target for the U.S,effort,The Mukhabarat,whose name itself inspired fear in ordinary Iraqis,was the foreign intelligence service,the most sophisticated of the four.
1,America's attitude towards Iraqi intelligence was one of
[A] disgust.
[B] hatred.
[C] fear.
[D] resent.
2,The word "devastating" (Line 3,Paragraph 2) is closest in meaning to
[A] destructive.
[B] regretful.
[C] frustrating.
[D] terrible.
3,The U.S,officials consider the nature of the recruitments of former security services
[A] give-ins to the bombing.
[B] setbacks of US-led administration.
[C] examples of US-Iraqi cooperation.
[D] compromises of some kind.
4,Which of the following is true regarding the recruitment of the intelligence?
[A]The new-release people are unwilling to tell anything about themselves.
[B] It is just a preparatory step for the reconstruction of the Iraqi armed forces.
[C]The western world as a whole dislikes the idea of reconstruction in this way.
[D] An obvious connection exists in the reconstructions of the army and the police.
5,A large part of the Iraqi people hold information about weapon hidings as
[A] fear-inspired.
[B] money-driven.
[C] unreliable.
[D] sophisticated.
Text 2
The real heroine of the novel stands at one remove to the narrative,On the face of it,readers are more likely to empathize with,and be curious about,the mysterious and resourceful slave,Sarah,who forms one point of an emotional triangle,Sarah is the property of Manon,and came with her to a failing Louisiana sugar plantation on her marriage to the good-for-nothing,bullying owner,But Manon's husband is soon struck by Sarah,and the proof lies in their idiot small son,Walter.
However,the reader is forced to see things through Manon's eyes,not Sarah's,and her consciousness is not a comfortable place to be,Never a please or a thank you passes her lips when talking to slaves,though manners is the order of the day in white society,Manon is enormously attracted by inter-racial marriage (for the place and time -- the early 19th century--such a concern would not be unusual,but in her case it seems pathological),Walter,with "his father's curly red hair and green eyes,his mother's golden skin,her full,pushing-forward lips",is the object of her especial hatred,but she chatters on about all the "dreadful mixed-blooded",the objectionable "yellow" people.
Beyond Manon's polarized vision,we glimpse "free negros" and the emerging black middle-class,To Manon's disgust,such people actually have self-respect,In New Orleans buying shoes,Manon is taken aback by the shopkeeper's lack of desired respect,Mixed race prostitutes acquired the affections of male planters by giving them something mysterious their wives cannot
often What that might be,and why wives can't offer it too,are questions Manon can't even ask,let alone answer.
The first third of the book explores the uneasy and unsustainable peace between Manon,Sarah and the man always called just "my husband" or "he",Against the background of violent slave revolts and equally savage revenges,it's clear the peace cannot last,It's part of the subtlety of this book that as the story develops and the inevitable explosion occurs,our view of all the characters swiftly changes,Sarah turns out to deserve all the suspicion Manon directs at her; at the point of death Manon's husband displays an admirable toughness and courage; and Manon herself wins the reader's reluctant admiration for her bravery,her endurance,and her total lack of self-pity.
Perhaps the cruelest aspect of this society is the way it breaks down and distorts family affections,A slave's baby is usually sold soon after birth; Sarah's would-be husband,if he wants her,must buy her; and Manon herself,after all,is only the property of her husband.
1,Which of the following reflects Manon's attitude towards colored people?
[A] Sympathetic.
[B] Suspicious.
[C] Concerned.
[D] Disgusted.
2,It can be inferred from the text that the novel is written
[A] with a mobile point of view.
[B] with a limited third person singular.
[C] from Manon's perspective.
[D] from Sarah's eye as a slave.
3,According to Manon,black people should
[A] emerge as free middle class citizens.
[B] behave submissively towards the whites.
[C] have self-respect in the mixed race marriage.
[D] learn to offer more affection to their wives.
4,We learn that as the story develops
[A] readers will think differently of all the characters.
[B] Manon's husband will win back her admiration.
[C] the emotional crisis will be swiftly resolved.
[D] all the suspicion will be proved against Sarah.
5,From the text we learn that
[A] Manon's husband is a nameless but bullying person.
[B]Manon is the real heroine who deserves readers' sympathy.
[C] Sarah is in fact smarter than her master Manon.
[D] Walter is a proof of the mixed race prostitution.
Text 3
I am not one who golfs,The only time I tried it I was confident that a dozen balls would be an adequate supply,This is the sport of retired people,how hard could it be? The confidence was misplaced,also,one by one,the balls,and I had to quit somewhere around the seventh hole,On the sixth,actually,I hit a car--there was absolutely no reason for a highway to be that close to a golf course--but that's another story,The point is that the game did not yield up its mystery to me; I remain,in the golfing universe,a child of darkness,I do find that I am able to watch golf on television,however,where it is possible to experience a calmness that the game itself sadly lacks,Spread out on a couch and indifferent to the outcome (very important),you watch tiny white balls sail improbable distances over the biggest lawns in the world,interrupted occasionally by advertisements for expensive cars,One of the players is named Tiger,Another is named Love,If you have access to a bottle of Martinis (optional),the joy potential can be quite huge.
There is usually a price for pleasure so mindless,In the case of TV golf,it is listening to the commentators analyze the players' swings,What looks to you like a single,continuous,and not difficult act is revealed,via slow motion and a sort of virtual-chalkboard graphics,to be a sequence of intricately measured adjustments of shoulder to hip,head to arm,elbow to wrist,and so on,Where you see fluidity,the experts see geometry; what to you is nature is machinery to them--parallel lines,extended planes,points of impact,They murder to examine,Yet,apparently,these minute and individualized measurements make all the difference between being able reliably to land a golf ball in an area,three hundred yards away,the size of a bathmat and,say,randomly hitting a car,which,let's face it,only a fool would drive right next to a golf course,There is a major disproportion,in other words,between the straightforwardness of the game and the fantastic precision required to play it,a disproportion mastered by a difficult but,to the ordinary observer,almost invisible technique.
Short stories are the same,A short story is not as restrictive as a sonnet,but,of all the literary forms,it is possibly the most single-minded,Its aim,as it was identified by the modem genre's first theorist,Edgar Allan Poe,is to create "an effect"-- by which Poe meant something almost physical,like a sensation or an extreme excitement.
1,The author quotes his own experience with golfto show that
[A] things are often not so simple and easy as they seem.
[B] his experience with golf has been a frustrating failure.
[C] that experience of his offered much for his later life.
[D] apparent truths are more often than not unreliable.
2,The author enjoys watching golf games on TV because
[A] the access to drinks makes the game more joyful.
[B] a more enjoyable view of the game is provided,
[C] he is thus unaffected by the result of the game.
[D] that is more likely real appreciation of the game.
3,What does the author imply when he says "There is usually..,so mindless"(Paragraph 2)?
[A] Commentators often interrupt your attention.
[B] TV golf is frequently unaffordable for many.
[C] One needs to pay handsomely for the setting.
[D] Some essential parts of the game are missing.
4,In the part succeeding the third paragraph,the author will mostly probably
[A] draw an analogy between golf and short story.
[B] elaborate the "effect" of short story.
[C] show other examples similar to golf games.
[D] show impact of golf games on short story.
5,What is the relationship between Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2?
[A] Paragraph 1 is an introduction to Paragraph 2.
[B] Paragraph 2 provides an example for Paragraph 1.
[C] Paragraphs 1 and 2 are both supporting details.
[D] Paragraph 2 serves as an analogy to Paragraph 1.
Text 4
There have been rumors,There's been gossip,All Hollywood is shocked to learn that Calista Flockhart,star of Fox's hit TV show Ally McBeal,is so thin,And we in the media are
falling all over ourselves trying to figure out whether Flockhart has an eating disorder,especially now that she has denied it,Well,I'm not playing the game,If the entertainment industry really cared about sending the wrong message on body image,it wouldn't need so many slender celebrities in the first place.
But the fact remains that 2 million Americans--most of them women and girls--do suffer from eating disorders,In the most extreme cases they literally starve themselves to death,And those who survive are at greater risk of developing brittle bones,life-threatening infections,kidney damage and heart problems,Fortunately,doctors have learned a lot over the past decade about what causes eating disorders and how to treat them.
The numbers are shocking,Approximately 1 in 150 teenage girls in the U,S,falls victim to anorexia nervosa,broadly defined as the refusal to eat enough to maintain even a minimal body weight,Not so clear is how many more suffer from bulimia,in which they binge on food,eating perhaps two or three days' worth of meals in 30 minutes,then remove the excess by taking medicine to move the bowels or inducing vomiting,Nor does age necessarily protect you,Anorexia has been diagnosed in girls as young as eight,Most deaths from the condition occur in women over 45.
Doctors used to think eating disorders were purely psychological,Now they realize there's some problematic biology as well,In a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry recently,researchers found abnormal levels of serotonin,a neurotransmitter in the brain,in women who had been free of bulimia for at least a year,That may help explain why drugs have allowed a lot of people to stop swallowing in large doses of food,Unfortunately,the pills don't work as well for denial of food,Nor do they offer a simple one-stop cure,Health-care workers must re-educate their patients in how to eat and think about food.
How can you tell if someone you love has an eating disorder? "Bulimics will often leave evidence around as if they want to get caught." Says Tamara Pryor,director of an eating-disorders clinic at the University of Kansas in Wichita,Anorexics,by contrast,are more likely to go through long periods of denial.
1,We can infer from the first paragraph that one indication of the eating disorders is that
[A] the media are divided in opinions.
[B] there is much rumor about it.
[C] the victim repeatedly denies that.
[D] the body image sends the wrong message.
2,The victims of eating disorders,more often than not,will
[A] starve themselves to death.
[B] be cured with modem treatment.
[C] puzzle doctors in the years to come.
[D] suffer dearly from the complications.
3,The word "binge" (Paragraph 3) most probably means
[A] eat excessively.
[B] refuse to eat.
[C] fail to digest.
[D] enjoy a good appetite.
4,In a recent study,bulimia is found to be
[A] fit for a simple one-stop cure.
[B] related to the level of serotonin.
[C] psychological rather than biological.
[D] identical with anorexia nervosa in the cure.
5,The way to find a person with eating disorders
[A] focuses on apparent evidence.
[B] varies with type of the condition.
[C] is oriented at the victim's response.
[D] remains perplexing despite efforts made so far.
‘
Unit 4
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
Save the mighty elephant! Who could argue? Well,the hippopotamus might,In 1989,with the elephant facing the threat of extinction,the nations of the world agreed to ban trade in elephant ivory,Now,ivory hunters who once shot elephants for their tusks are shooting hippos for their teeth,If nothing is done,experts say,the hippo may be wiped out in some areas of Africa,The hippo,laments Dr,Simon Lyster of the World Wide Fund for Nature,"is the
forgotten beast."
Unfortunately for hippos,they're easy targets,They like to gather in herds at muddy pools and just sit there,virtually motionless,Hunters simply shoot the hippos in the water.
Not surprisingly,there's a new campaign to save the hippo,At the annual Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Florida this week,France,Belgium and Benin will
propose strict quotas and monitoring of the hunting and trade in hippos and hippo parts,The data so far are spotty--but generally gloomy for the hippo,From 1988 to 1992,the number of hippo teeth carved in Hong Kong and re-exported,rose from 224 to 3 868--with most of those shipments bound for the United States.
The trade in hippo ivory follows much the same route as the old trade in elephant tusks--from hunters in Africa through middlemen in Europe to carvers in Hong Kong and Japan.
Hippo ivory is a bit more brittle and less desirable than elephant ivory,so it sells for a good deal less--about $ 50 to $ 70 per kilo wholesale,compared with $ 400 to $ 500 for elephant ivory.Once it is fashioned into trinkets and jewelry,however,few consumers can tell the difference,The trade is booming,In a rare census of African hippos last year,conservationists were alarmed to find a population of only 160 000,or about a quarter the estimated number of elephants,Even in national parks where hippos live,protections are failing,in part because many nations had used proceeds from the sale of elephant tusks to pay park police,Now that income is gone,and some parks have become hunting grounds.
Malawi is among many African nations that support new hippo protections; some are even moving unilaterally to save the herds,Zambia restricts hippo hunting to tourist expeditions in national parks and gives local people 35 percent of the tourist revenues,That should encourage locals to help fend off poachers and to quit hunting hippos themselves,And if ivory hunters do leave the hippo alone? They'll probably move on to other animals with carvable teeth,like walruses or whales.
1,We may infer from the text that the hippo is
[A] an endangered animal species.
[B] a kind of tourist games.
[C] a special fish in rivers.
[D] an African elephant.
2,When Dr,Lyster said sadly that the hippo "is the forgotten beast," he meant that
[A] people had forgotten to make use of its teeth.
[B] the hippo was threatening the existence of elephants.
[C] there was an excessive number ofhippos in Africa.
[D] the world only remembered to save elephants.
3,We may infer that the hippo hunting and trading are thriving because
[A] there has been no strict rules to control these activities before this week.
[B] consumers like hippo teeth products better than those made of ivory.
[C] there are fewer elephants left in Africa than hippos.
[D] hunters find that hippos are easier to kill than elephants.
4,Some African countries tried to protect animals in national parks by
[A] getting the locals involved in the trade ofhippos.
[B] reinforcing park police force.
[C] sharing benefits from parks with the locals
[D] turning hunting grounds into national parks.
5,The last sentence implies that walruses or whales may
[A] move to other places where foods are available.
[B] become the next victim of hunters' targets.
[C] outnumber elephants and hippos in the future.
[D] become tourist attractions in African national parks.
Text 2
Eating right to prevent heart disease may seem complicated and confusing,but it's a breeze compared with trying to design an anticancer diet,Cardiovascular disease is relatively simple; it's the result of normal bodily processes taken to the extreme,Cancer,by contrast,involves changes in the programming of DNA within the nuclei of individual cells,Beyond that,heart disease is an illness that affects a single organ system,while cancer is dozens of different diseases that target body parts as radically different as the brain,breast and bone.
That being the case it's no surprise that the relationship between diet and cancer is still largely a matter of educated guesswork--and in many cases,the guesses have turned out to be
wrong,Take the much publicized link between high-fat diets and breast cancer,for example,Women who live in Western countries,where high-fat diets are the norm,tend to have high breast-cancer rates,Even more telling,women of Japanese ancestry who live in the U.S,get the disease six times more often than their grandmothers and great-grandmothers in Japan,Yet a huge recent study of 90 000 women has refuted the breast cancer-fat link.
A similar process of educated-guess-and-error led people to load up on the nutritional supplement beta carotene in the early 1990s,Scientists noted that those who eat lots of fruits and vegetables tend to get less cancer and speculated that carotenoids--the same antioxidant substances that seem to protect against heart disease--were responsible,In particular,they focused on beta carotene,the most abundant and common carotenoid,as the most likely to prevent cancer.
Yet a series of targeted studies in Finland and the U.S,showed that beta carotene supplements don't ward off cancer at all,"It looks like taking this substance in high doses is not the right thing to do," says a Harvard's researcher.
Health experts are not ready to list the foods that will keep cancer at bay,but some broad outlines of an anti-cancer diet are taking shape,Beta carotene might not be the key,But fruits and vegetables seem to help,So along with giving up tobacco and limiting alcohol consumption,the best way to prevent a broad range of cancers,given the current state of medical knowledge,is to eat more fruits and vegetables,That sort of diet will help you stay trim and prevent heart disease anyway--so if,against all odds,it turns out to have no effect on cancer,it certainly can't hurt.
26,We may conclude from the first paragraph that
[A] heart disease is mainly caused by abnormal eating habits.
[B] cancer is far more difficult to prevent than heart disease.
[C] changing the programming of DNA may help treat cancer.
[D] designing an anticancer diet is as easy as a breeze
27,Observations and studies of women living in the U.S,prove that
[A] American women are in better health than women of Japanese ancestry.
[B] there is a clear relationship between high-fat diets and breast cancer
[C] Japanese women have not yet fully adapted to Western eating norm.
[D] there is nothing conclusive in terms of the breast cancer-fat link.
28,We can learn from the selection that beta carotene supplements
[A] are ineffective in preventing heart disease.
[B] may not be effective in preventing cancer.
[C] are the most important nutrients we need
[D] should normally be taken in low doses.
29,According to health experts,eating more vegetables and
[A] will definitely do us no harm whatsoever.
[B] is the most effective anti-cancer diet.
[C] provides us with enough beta carotene
[D] can protect us against the harms caused by drinking
30,Which of the following questions does the selection best answer?
[A] Can food protect us against cancer?
[B] Should we believe in educated guesswork?
[C] Is beta carotene good for our health?
[D] Are Japanese women more likely to get breast cancer?
Text 3
Despite the modem desire to be easy and casual,Americans from time to time give thought to the language they use--to grammar,vocabulary,and gobbledygook,And as on other issues
they divide into two parties,The larger,which includes everybody from the so-called plain man to the professional writer,takes it for granted that there is a right way to use words and construct sentences,and there are many wrong ways,The right way is believed to be clearer,simpler,more logical,and hence more likely to prevent error and confusion,Good writing is easier to read; it offers a pleasant combination of sound and sense.
Against this majority view is the doctrine of an aggressive minority,who make up for their small number by their great learning and their place of authority in the world of scholarship,They are the professional linguists who deny that there is such a thing as correctness,The language,they say,is what anybody and everybody speaks,Hence there must be no interference with what they regard as a product of nature; they denounce all attempts at guiding choice; their governing principle is epitomized in the title of a speech by a distinguished member of the profession,"Can Native Speakers of a Language Make Mistakes?"
Within the profession of linguist there are of course warring factions,but on this conception of language as a natural growth with which it is wrong to tamper they are at one,In their arguments one finds appeals to democratic feelings of social equality (all words and forms are equally good) and individual freedom (anyone may do what he likes with his own speech),These assumptions further suggest that the desire for rightness,the very idea of better or worse in speech,is a hangover from aristocratic and oppressive times,To the linguists,change is the only ruler to be obeyed,They equate it with life and accuse their critics of being clock reversers,enemies of freedom,menaces to "life".
Somewhat inconsistently,the linguists produce dictionaries in which they tell us that a word or an expression is standard,substandard,colloquial,archaic,slang,or vulgar,How do they know? They know by listening to the words people use and by noticing--in conversations,newspaper,and books--how and by whom these words are used,Usage,then,is still real and various,even though the authorities refuse to point openly to a set of words and forms as being preferable to others,"Standard" gets around the difficulty of saying "best" or "right".
1,Most Americans believe that
[A] the language they use should be constantly improved.
[B] language rules do exist and hence should be obeyed.
[C] everyone has the right to use the language as he likes.
[D] grammar,vocabulary and old phrases must be made easier,
2,Which of the following is most likely the idea contained in the linguist's speech "Can Native Speakers of a Language Make Mistakes?"
[A] Native speakers think their mother tongue a natural product.
[B] Native speakers are the best observers of language rules.
[C] Mistakes in usage made by native speakers are often misleading.
[D] Whatever a native speaker says is correct usage of the language.
3,We can infer from the text that linguists hold that
[A] language knows no class distinction among different users.
[B] it is wrong to accuse each other over the use of a language.
[C] language is under the political influence of a society.
[D] it is natural for people to want to use correct language.
4,In the last sentence of paragraph 3,"clock reversers,..." refer to
[A] linguistic authorities.
[B] advocates of aristocratic system and oppression.
[C] those who desire for rightness of the language.
[D] warring factions in the field of linguistics.
5,The author points out that linguists produce dictionaries which
[A] prove that there are no roles guiding the use of a language.
[B] contradict their argument that languages are equally good.
[C] show that authorities do not pay enough attention to usage.
[D] convince the reader that the author is right.
Text 4
A university professor has built a "virtual laboratory" on the World Wide Web to give engineering students a taste of the challenge they may someday face on the job,With a few clicks of a mouse,students drill for a hidden supply of oil,program a robotic arm and design digital logic circuits.
Putting such experiments on the Internet introduces students to engineering without the high costs,time constraints and space limitations imposed by a real-world laboratory,says the inventor of the on-line tab who is a researcher professor in the Department,of Chemical Engineering
"You might argue that students are not going to get the full experience when they use virtual equipment,But suppose you get,80% of the effect,yet the cost is only 10~ compared to a real laboratory,It might be worth it,And any student with a computer and access to the Web would be able to use the virtual equipment," said the inventor.
The professor also sees the on-line lab experiments as a way to let freshmen sample the type of real-life puzzle that working engineers confront,This early exposure is important,he says,because most engineering students,spend their first two years at colleges mastering chemistry,physics and mathematics,By the time they take their first engineering courses,they are often in their junior year,or third year--rather late date to find out whether they indeed possess the interest and aptitude for this field.
To give freshmen a clear idea of what the profession involves,the,professor used the Java programming language to create interactive lab problems on a given web site,"I wanted these experiments to concentrate on real-life problems,as opposed to textbook problems where you can thumb through the chapter and find a formula to solve them," he explains,"I wanted to present problems that did not necessarily have a single solution,In some cases,you are forced to approximate a solution,That's what engineering is about finding a way to solve problems while working under many types of restrictions--political,financial and environmental ones,for instance."
Although on-line experiments can enhance an engineer's education,the professor cautions that they do not eliminate the need for lab time in the real world,"In spite of the fact that they can offer highly interactive experiments,virtual laboratories cannot duplicate the experiences obtained in handling real apparatus," he says,"But when laboratories focus on design or problem solving,and when lessons are not dependent on physical equipment,the
educational differences between real and simulated world narrow to the point where virtual experiments becomes very viable options."
1,Which of the following advantages is true about the virtual lab?
[A] It can free the students from textbooks.
[B] It is cost-efficient.
[C] It is better than the real ones.
[D] It can reduce the students stress in learning.
2,It can be inferred that engineering student incompetence may be caused by the fact that they
[A] do not see the complexity of their jobs until it is too late.
[B] have been concentrated on some other subjects.
[C] do not have the advantage of regular lab training.
[D] have not learned enough about engineering in the first two years.
3,The professor claims that the virtual lab can enhance students' ability to
[A] find a single solution from textbooks to problem she confronts,
[B] finish a regular engineer's training earlier than normally.
[C] deal with problems they may encounter in practical work.
[D] Use the computer programming language in designing.
4,Despite the merits of the on-line lab experiments,it
[A] still needs a mouse to work with.
[B] cannot replace lab experiments in the real world.
[C] must work under many types of restriction.
[D] accommodates the need of junior students only.
5,We may conclude that this lab on the Intemet is most likely to
[A] eliminate the use of physical equipment in engineering training.
[B] increase the learners' experience in handling real apparatus.
[C] confuse the difference between the real and simulated world.
[D] be used as a supplementary means in engineering training.
Unit 5
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
If information technology is lifting America's rate of growth,surely that justifies the current lofty heights of share prices? Sadly,no,Wall street still looks dangerously high relative to likely future profits,Every previous technological revolution has recreated a speculative bubble,and there is no reason why IT should be different.
New-economy fanatics argue that in this new world of rapid technological change,old methods of share valuation have become irrelevant,Profits are for wimps,But both economic theory and history suggest otherwise,In his book Irrational Exuberance,Robert Shiller,an economist at Yale University,tracks the p-e ratio of America's S&P 500 (share price index) over 120 years,a period that covers huge technological change,America's railway boom,electricity,telephones,radio and cars,With each wave of technology,share prices soared and later fell,Ominously,though,prices now are higher in relation to profits than they have ever been before.
The inventions of the late 19th century drove p-e ratios to a peak in 1901,the year of the first transatlantic radio transmission,By 1920,share prices had dropped by 70% in real terms,The roaring twenties were also seen as a "new era",share prices soared as electricity boosted efficiency and car ownership spread,After peaking in 1929,real share prices tumbled by 80% over the next three years.
There are many similarities between the Internet today and Britain's railway mania in the 1840s,Would-be rail millionaires raised vast sums of money on the stock market to finance proposed lines,Most railway companies never paid a penny to shareholders,and many went broke,Largely because over-investment created excess capacity,The Great Western Railway was for decades the most admired railway company in Britain,yet anyone who had bought shares at its launch in 1835 and held them until 1931 would have seen an annual return of only 5%,Even so the railways brought huge economic benefits to the economy long after share prices crashed,The lesson is that although IT may be causing a bubble,it may still produce long-term economic gains,But investors could lose their shirts.
Current valuations of dot,Com shares seem to assume that they are going to grab a huge chunk of market share from existing firms,Yet history suggests that the gains from technological revolutions often go to unexpected quarters,The biggest winners from American railway boom were small firms and farmers who benefited from the opening up of the continent,It is a sobering thought that 99% of the 5,000 railway companies that once existed in America are no longer around,The Same is true of 2,000 car firms,And according to a study by Goldman Sachs,profits and share prices of the early electricity firms were disappearing,despite the industry's profound effect on the economy.
1,In the first two paragraphs,the author seems to suggest that IT revolution
[A] has made old economic rules and laws irrelevant.
[B] is different from previous technological revolutions.
[C] created relatively high share prices in the stock market.
[D] represents the biggest technological change in history.
2,The new-economy fanatics challenged the criticism of "speculative bubble" (Line 4,Paragraph 1) by
[A] questioning the method of' share evaluation.
[B] affirming the high rate of growth.
[C] citing economic theory and history.
[D] referring to the eventual balance of share prices.
3,By "p-e ratio",the author probably means the relation between
[A] share price and eamings.
[B] share price and evaluation.
[C] share profits and the economic growth.
[D] share profits and its efficiency.
4,What does the example of Britain's railway mania in the 1840s illustrate?
[A] Railway companies over-invested in stock market.
[B] The investors were the ultimate losers.
[C] Long-term economic benefits were created.
[D] Excess capacity was the cause of its share crash.
5,The author seems to suggest that the biggest winners of the IT revolution will be
[A] IT companies.
[B] small firms and farmers.
[C] national economy.
[D] unexpected markets.
Text 2
That Oxford is losing its pre-eminence both among British universities and internationally is becoming a truism,The evidence for this decline is piecemeal,but cumulatively powerful,Oxford has slipped down the various league tables of British universities,falling behind not only Cambridge,but also the buoyant London colleges,Imperial and University,In the latest official assessment of universities,the History Department at Oxford Brookes University...,until recently a mere polytechnic ---- rated higher than that of its ancient neighbor,There is much anecdotal evidence of big brains being drained away to the money pots in American universities.
Money is certainly part of Oxford's problem,Pembroke College,according to Reverend Platt,former chaplain of the college,is "poor as shit'-although many other British universities would be more grateful for the income of ￡662,434 that it derived from its endowment last year,But the wealth of even the richer colleges is small compared with that of Harvard and the other
top American institutions with which Oxford now competes.
In part,this relative poverty is due to the historical stinginess of British students,who have tended to regard their education as a state-funded right,By contrast,even though Harvard students pay enormous fees ($34,269 this year including room and board,though 70% get some sort of financial aid),they continue to pay up afterwards,Those fees are the other part of the equation,like the other British universities,Oxford has felt squeezed in the last decade,as the amount of money spent by the government per student has gradually declined,The contribution made by students themselves stands at a maximum of ~1,075; many in Oxford and other top universities want to be able to charge more.
The other problem-cheaper,but given Oxford's inertia,not necessarily easier to solve---is the college system,Oxford is a federation of self-governing colleges,each run by a community of scholars,The greatest glory of the college system,say its advocates,are the individual tutorials in which students sit at the tutors' feet (whereas their American counterparts are,despites the fees,often fobbed off with graduate students),David Palfreyman,bursar of New College and co-author of a book on the collegiate system,argues that the devolved admissions system,in which the colleges pick their intake,creates a bond between teachers and pupils; and that the loyalty of alumni donors is overwhelmingly to their college rather than to the university.
But many students would trade their experiences of tutorials with bored veterans for the attention of an energetic novice,Likewise,the federal system has created multiple and competing bureaucracies,when the whole university should be co-operating on fundraising and other matters,Such as recruitment,new teachers currently have to be approved by two masters,the departments and their prospective college,Or admissions,a centralized system would make abuses like Reverend Platt's (He took a 300,000 donation from the father of a borderline applicant) much less likely,The college system is of course one of the things that makes Oxford,but if it is to compete with its trans-Atlantic rivals and avoid scandals over access,it needs to evolve.
1,What shows that Oxford is losing its pre-eminence?
[A] The league table no longer has Oxford among the top.
[B] Oxford sometimes has to compete with polytechnics like OBU.
[C] The number of famous scholars at Oxford is decreasing.
[D] American universities have surpassed Oxford in research.
2,Oxford's poverty is due to the fact that
[A] it receives less money per student than other British universities.
[B] its students only pay a tuition of ￡1,075 a year.
[C] it is grateful even for a small income of ￡662,434.
[D] it has to repeatedly urge the government to increase support.
3,Which of the following is true of Oxford?
[A] Oxford's colleges are separate institutions held together only by a name.
[B] Administrative system at Oxford is scholar-centred and characterized by overlapping.
[C] Individual tutorials are the most important part of the Oxford experience.
[D] The decision as to whether to accept a student lies with the University Admissions.
4,David Palfreymna in his book
[Al proclaims the strength of collegiate system.
[B] describes the administrative systems as flawed.
[C] intends to create a teacher-student bond.
[D] appeals to the loyalty of ex-graduates.
5,What is the author's view concerning Oxford's future?
[A] Create a federation.
[B] Maintain the college system.
[C] Centralize.
[D] Evolve.
Text 3
After Los Angeles,Atlanta may be America's most car-dependent city,Atlantans sentimentally give their cars names,compare speeding tickets and jealously guard any side-street where it is possible to park,The city's roads are so well worn that the first act of the new mayor,Shirley Franklin,was to start repairing potholes,In 1998,13 metro counties lost federal highway
funds because their air-pollution levels violated the Clean Air Act,The American Highway Users Alliance ranked three Atlanta interchanges among the 18 worst bottlenecks in the country.
Other cities in the same fix have expanded their public transport systems,imposed commuter and car taxes,or reorganized their highways,Atlanta does not like any of these things,A vast public-works project such as Boston's Big Dig would be rejected in a city that turned almost exclusively to private money for the 1996 Olympics,(Come to that,Bostonians,after years of Big-Dig-induced snarls,are not mad keen on it either.) in last year's mayoral election in Atlanta,only the least popular candidate dared mention a commuter tax,Ms,Franklin pooh-poohs the idea.
Public transport is a vexed subject,too,Atlanta's metropolitan region is divided into numerous county and smaller city governments,which find it hard to work together,When the Metropolitan Regional Transit Authority (MARTA),the local light-rail-and-bus system,was proposed in 1971,only two counties,Fulton and DeKalb,agreed to finance it,Clayton,Gwinnett and Cobb,moved by a mixture of racism and a wish for a quiet life,refused,and MARTA has been unable to expand.
Railways now serve the city center and the airport,but not much else; bus stops are often near-invisible poles,three feet high,offering no indication of which bus might stop there,or when,A one-way fare is $1.75,compared with $ 1,50 in New York,yet in 1999 MARTA collected only 26% of its revenue from fares,whereas New York collected 64%,Over loud protests,the system recently solved an $ 8m deficit by cutting bus routes and raising fares.
Georgia's Democratic governor,Roy Barnes,who hopes for re-election in November,has other plans,Towin back the federal highway money lost under the Clean Air Act,he created the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA),a 15-member board with the power to make the county governments,the city and the ten-county Atlanta Regional Commission co-operate on transport plans,whether they like it or not,Last year,when Mr,Barnes announced his $ 8.3 billion plan,he entrusted GRTA with the money.
Now GRTA has issued its own preliminary plan,allocating $ 4.5 billion over the next three years for a variety of schemes,The plan earmarks money to widen roads; to have an electric shuttle bus shuttle tourists among the elegant villas of Buckhead; and to create a commuter raillink between Atlanta and Macon,two hours to the south,Counties will be encouraged,with generous ten-to-one matching funds,to start express bus services.
1,Atlanta is called America's most car-dependent city probably because
[A] more speeding tickets were issued.
[B] the city's roads are most worn.
[C] emission level is higher than in other cities.
[D] its interchanges cause worst congestion.
2,What does the example of Boston's Big Dig illustrate?
[A] Transport systems improved in other places.
[B] Atlanta's lack of fund led to its transport problem.
[C] Big Dig was an astonishing success for Boston.
[D] Public money is the best means to solve the problem.
3,What is true according to the text?
[A] Georgia is a county in the metropolitan region of Atlanta.
[B] MARTA operates transport services throughout Atlanta.
[C] Atlanta's railways are better than its bus serves.
[D] MARTA prevented further loss of money by cutting services.
4,Roy Barnes's handling of the transport problem is,according to the text.
[A] heavy-handed,[B] arbitrary.
[C] aggressive,[D] reasonable.
5,GRTA's preliminary plan includes a variety of schemes,one of which is
[A] building a railway among the villas of Buckhead.
[B] starting express bus services by GRTA.
[C] operating a shuttle bus between Atlanta and Macon.
[D] broadening roads to carry more traffic.
Text 4
In the past 20 years,whenever redundancies have been necessary,older workers have been the most vulnerable group,There is a widespread suspicion that employers do discriminate against people by age,The National Adult Learning Survey found in 1997 that almost four-fifths of people in their 50s and 60s agreed that "even if an older person studies to get qualifications,employers will usually choose a younger person".
However,age discrimination is going to be banned from 2006 under an EU directive,Even before the necessary legislation takes effect in Britain,there are signs that employers' attitudes are changing,Several now recognize that they were too hasty in winnowing out the ranks of older workers who were the repository for much corporate memory and wisdom,Nationwide Building Society,which has been pursuing a strategy of age diversity,has found that this policy pays by reducing turnover rates of staff,The saving in lower recruitment and training costs is ￡7m ($10 m) a year,calculates Denise Walker,head of corporate personnel.
Quite apart from legislation,demographic pressures are forcing companies to appreciate the virtues of older workers,The labour force is ageing fast,as the postwar generation of baby-boomers matures,In the 1980s and early 1990s,employers held the~ upper hand,thanks to a surge of young workers into the labour market,But the number of people aged 25--34 is now falling sharply,In the past four years,the employment rate of older workers has risen faster than that for all workers.
One reason why older industrial workers were vulnerable to layoffs in the 1980s and 1990s is that the skills they had learnt for their trades lost value as the economy shifted away from industry to services,Because they had had less opportunity for formal education,many lacked the foundations in numeracy and literacy that would have allowed them to respond to the new requirements of the job market,By contrast,post-war generations which have benefited from more formal education should prove more adaptable.
But will older people want to carry on working even if employers now want them to? After all,it is quite rational for people to retire early,if they can afford to do so,High returns in the financial markets led to a rapid build-up in private pension wealth in the 1980s and 1990s,More and more people in their 50s found that it made sense to draw down this wealth earlier rather than later,argues Mr Blundell,Others were able to draw upon incapacity benefit if they found themselves unable to find jobs at acceptable wages.
However,these incentives now point to later rather than earlier retirement,The high returns
on equities in the past two decades were "exceptional and future returns are bound to be much lower," says Tim Bond of Barclays Capital,After two terrible years,the pension-fund surpluses that financed redundancies of older workers have been eroded,And the government has greatly tightened the rules allowing people to claim incapacity benefit.
1,Discrimination against people by age,according to the text,
[A] was discovered in a national survey in 1997.
[B] places older people at a disadvantage in workplace.
[C] makes it difficult for older people to obtain qualifications.
[D] was widely practiced in the past twenty years.
2,Employer's changing attitudes are shown in the fact that
[A] EU will ban age discrimination from 2006.
[B] companies are pursuing a strategy of age diversity.
[C] older workers are generally a greater asset.
[D] turnover rates among older workers are Iow.
3,Older workers have to be appreciated now because
[A] there is a shortage of young workers.
[B] the generation of baby boomers has reached middle age.
[C] a surge of young men has appeared in the labour market.
[D] the employment of older workers has become a trend.
4,What can we infer from the text?
[A] The structure of the economy has changed.
[B] The population growth rate is falling rapidly.
[C] Formal education started during the postwar era.
[D] Unemployment has deteriorated since the 1980s.
5,What is the author's view concerning old people's retirement?
[A] They are eager to retire because of high pension.
[B] They will compare salary and pension before they decide.
[C] They will stay in their job for as long as they can.
[D] They will retire only ifthey get incapacity benefit.
Unit 6
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
"I've never met a human worth cloning," says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from the cramped confines of his lab at Texas A&M University,"It's a stupid endeavor." That's an interesting choice of adjective,coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy,So far,he and his team have not succeeded,though they have cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon,They just might succeed in cloning Missy later this year---or perhaps not for another five years,It seems the reproductive system of man's best friend is one of the mysteries of modern science.
Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him vexed by all this talk of human cloning,In three years of work on the Missyplicity project,using hundreds upon hundreds of canine eggs,the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA,None have survived the transfer to a surrogate mother,The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls,he argues,but not with humans,"Cloning is incredibly inefficient,and also dangerous," he says.
Even so,dog cloning is a commercial opportunity,with a nice research payoff,Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in,1997,Westhusin's phone at A&M College of Veterinary Medicine
has been ringing busily,Cost is no obstacle for customers like Missy's mysterious owner,who wishes m remain unknown to protect his privacy,He's plopped down $3.7 million so far to fund
the research because he wants a twin to carry on Missy;s fine qualities after she dies,But he knows her clone may not have her temperament,In a statement of purpose,Missy's owners and the A&M team say they are "both looking forward to studying the ways that her clone differ from Missy."
The fate of the dog samples will depend on Westhusin's work,He knows that even if he gets a dog viably pregnant,the offspring,should they survive,will face the problems shown at
birth by other cloned animals,abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems,"Why would you ever want to clone humans," Westhusin asks,"when we're not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?"
1,Which of the following best represents Mr,Westhusin's attitude toward cloning?
[A] Animal Cloning is a stupid attempt.
[B] Human cloning is not yet close to getting it worked out.
[C] Cloning is too inefficient and should be stopped.
[D] Animals cloning yes,and human cloning at least not now.
2,The Missyplicity project does not seem very successful probably because
[A] there isn't enough fund to support the research.
[B] cloning dog's is more complicated than cloning cats and bulls.
[C] Mr,Westhusin is too busy taking care of the business.
[D] the owner is asking for an exact copy of his pet.
3,When Mr,Westhusin says "...cloning is dangerous," he implies that
[A] lab technicians may be affected by chemicals.
[B] cats and dogs in the lab may die of diseases.
[C] experiments may waste lots of lives
[D] cloned animals could outlive the natural ones,
4,We can infer from the third paragraph that
[A] rich people are more interested in cloning humans than animals.
[B] cloning of animal pets is becoming a prosperous industry.
[C] there is no distinction between a cloned anda natural dog.
[D] Missy's master pays a lot in a hope to revive' the dog,
5,We may conclude from the text that
[A] human cloning will not succeed unless the technique is more efficient,
[B] scientists are optimistic about cloning technique.
[C] many people are against the idea of human cloning.
[D] cloned animals are more favored by owners even ifthey are weaker.
Text 2
For more than two decades,U.S,courts have been limiting affirmative-action programs in universities and other areas,The legal rationale is that racial preferences are uriconstitutional,even those intended to compensate for racism or intolerance,For many colleges,this means students can be admitted only on merit,not on their race or ethnicity,It has been a divisive issue across the U,S.,as educators blame the prolonged reaction to affirmative-action for declines in minority admissions,Meanwhile,activists continue tobattle race preferences in courts from Michigan to North Carolina.
Now chief executives of about two dozen companies have decided to plunge headfirst into this politically unsettled debate,They,together with 36 universities and 7 non-profitable organizations,formed a forum that set forth an action plan essentially designed to help colleges circumvent court-imposed restrictions on affirmative action,The CEOs' motive,"Our audience is growing more diverse,so the communities we serve benefit if our employees are racially and ethnically diverse" as well,says one CEO of a company that owns nine television stations.
Among the steps the forum is pushing,finding creative yet legal ways to boost minority enrollment through new admissions policies; promoting admissions decisions that look at more than test scores; and encouraging universities to step up their minority outreach and financial aid,And to counter accusations by critics to challenge these tactics in court,the group says it will give legal assistance to colleges sued for trying them,"Diversity diminished by the court must be made up for in other legitimate,legal ways," says a forum member.
One of the more controversial methods advocated is the so-called 10% rule,The idea is for public universities which educate three-quarters of all U,S,undergraduates--to admit students who are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class,Doing so allows colleges to take minorities who excel in average urban schools,even if they wouldn't have made the cut under the current statewide ranking many universities use.
1,U.S,court restrictions on affirmative action signifies that
[A] minorities no longer hold the once favored status.
[B] the quality of American colleges has improved.
[C] racial preferences has replaced racial prejudice.
[D] the minority is on an equal footing with the majority.
2,What has been a divisive issue across the United States?
[A] Whether affirmative action should continue to exist,
[B] Whether this law is helping minorities or the white majority.
[C] Whether racism exists in American college admission.
[D] Whether racial intolerance should be punished.
3,CEOs of big companies decided to help colleges enroll more minority students because they
[A] think it wrong to deprive the minorities of their rights to receive education.
[B] want to conserve the fine characteristics of American nation.
[C] want a workforce that reflects the diversity of their customers.
[D] think it their duty to help develop education of the country.
4,The major tactic the forum uses is to
[A] battle the racial preferences in court.
[B] support colleges involved in lawsuits of racism.
[C] strive to settle this political debate nationwide.
[D] find legally viable ways to ensure minority admissions.
5,If the 10% rule is applied,
IAI the best white high school students can get into colleges.
[B] public universities can get excellent students.
[C] students from poor rural families can go to colleges.
[D] good minority students can get into public universities.
Text 3
Positive surprises from government reports on retail sales,industrial production,and housing in the past few months are leading economists to revise their real gross domestic product forecasts upward,supporting the notion that the recession ended in December or January.
Bear in mind,This recovery won't have the vitality normally associated with an upturn,Economists now expect real GDP growth of about 1.5% in the first quarter,That's better than the 0.4% the consensus projected in December,but much of the additional growth will come from a slower pace of inventory drawdowns,not from surging demand.
Moreover,the economy won't grow fast enough to help the labor markets much,The only good news there is that jobless claims have fallen back from their spike after September 11 and that their current level suggests the pace of layoffs is easing.
The recovery also does not mean the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates soon,The January price indexes show that inflation remains tame,Consequently,the Fed can take its time
shifting monetary policy from extreme accommodation to relative neutrality.
Perhaps the best news from the latest economic reports was the January data on industrial production,Total output fell only 0.1%,its best showing since July,Factory output was flat,also
the best performance in six months,Those numbers may not sound encouraging,but manufacturers have been in recession since late 2000,The data suggest that the factory sector is finding a bottom from which to start its recovery.
Production of consumer goods,for instance,is almost back up to where it was a year ago,That's because consumer demand for motor vehicles and other goods and the housing industry remained healthy during the recession,and they are still growing in early 2002.
Besides,both the monthly homebuilding starts number and the housing market index for the past two months are running above their averages for all of 2001,suggesting that home-building is off to a good start and probably won't be a big drag on GDP growth this year.
Equally important to the outlook is how the solid housing market will help demand for home-related goods and services,Traditionally,consumers buy the bulk of their furniture,electronics and textiles within a year of purchasing their homes,Thus,spending on such items will do well this year,even as car sales slip now that incen6ves are less attractive,Look for the output of consumer goods to top year-ago levels in coming months.
Even the business equipment sector seems to have bottomed out,Its output rose 0.4% in January,led by a 0.6% jump computer gear,A pickup in orders for capital goods in the fourth quarter suggests this production will increasing--although at a relaxed pace--in coming months.
31,American economists are surprised to see that
[A] their government is announcing the end of a recession.
[B] US economy is showing some signs of an upturn so soon.
[C] some economic sectors have become leading industries.
[D] they have to revise the product forecasts so often.
32,The most encouraging fact about the US economy is that
[A] employment rates have risen faster than expected.
[B] the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates soon.
[C] GDP is growing because of surging demand.
[D] Industrial production has reached its lowest point.
33,Which of the following best brightens the future of US economy?
[A] Business equipment.
[B] Computer gear.
[C] Housing market.
[D] Motor vehicles
34,In spite of the good news,the author sounds relatively more reserved about
[A] national GDP growth.
[B] price indexes.
[C] output of consumer goods.
[D] the number of layoffs.
35,Which of the following best summarizes the U.S,economic situation today?
[A] All the data still show a bleak year in 2002.
[B] It is slowly warming up with moderate growth.
[C] Recession may come back anytime in the coming months.
[D] Most sectors are picking up at a surprisingly fast pace
Text 3
Timothy Berners-Lee might be giving Bill Gates a run for the money,but he passed up his shot at fabulous wealth-intentionally-in 1990,That’s when he decided not to patent the technology used to create the most important software innovation in the final decade of the 20th century,the World Wide Web,Burners-Lee wanted to make the world a richer place,not a mass personal wealth,So he gave his brainchild to us all.
Burners-Lee regards today’s Web as a rebellious adolescent that can never fulfill his original expectations,By 2005,he hopes to begin replacing it with the Semantic Web-a smart network that will finally understand human languages and make computers virtually as easy to work with as other humans.
As envisioned by Berners-Lee,the new Web would understand not only the meaning of words and concepts but also the logical relationships among them,That has awesome potential,Most knowledge is built on two pillars,semantic and mathematics,In number-crunching,computers already outclass people,Machines that are equally adroit at dealing with language and reason won’t just help people uncover new insights; they could blaze new trails on their own.
Even with a fairly crude version of this future Web,mining online repositories for nuggets of knowledge would no longer force people to wade through screen after screen of extraneous data,Instead,computers would dispatch intelligent agents,or software messengers,to explore Web sites by the thousands and logically soft out just what’s relevant,That alone would provide a major boost in productivity at work and at home,But there’s far more.
Software agents could also take on many routine business chores,such as helping manufacturers find and negotiate with lowest-cost parts suppliers and handling help-desk questions,The semantic web would also be a bottomless trove of eureka insights,Most inventions and scientific breakthroughs,including today’s web,spring from novel combinations of existing knowledge,The semantic web would make it possible to evaluate more combinations overnight than a person could juggle in a lifetime,Sure scientists and other people can post ideas on the web today for others to read,But with machines doing the reading and translating technical terms,related ideas from millions of web pages could be distilled and summarized,That will lift the ability to assess and integrate information to new heights,The semantic web,burners-lee predicts,“will help more people become more intuitive as well as more analytical,It will foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives,so we have a better chance of finding the right solutions to the really big issues-like the environment and climate warming.”
1.had he liked,burners-lee could have,
A,created the most important innovation in the 1990s.
B,accumulated as much personal wealth as Bill Gates
C,patented the technology of Microsoft software
D,given his brainchild to us all
2.the semantic web will be superior to today’s web in that it
A surpasses people in processing numbers
B fulfills users’ original expectations
C deals with language and reason as well as number
D responses like a rebellious adult
3.to search for any information needed on tomorrow’s web,one only has to
A wade through screen after screen of extraneous data
B ask the web to dispatch some messenger to his door
C use smart software programs called,agents”
D explore websites by the thousands and pick out what’s relevant
4.thanks to the web of the future,.
A,millions of web pages can be translated overnight
B,one can find most inventions and breakthroughs online
C,software manufacturers can lower the cost of computer parts
D,scientists using different specialty terms can collaborate much better
5.the most appropriate title for this text is
A,Differences Between Two Webs
B,The Humanization of Computer Software
C,A New Solution to World Problems
D,The Creator and His Next Creation
Unit 7
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
Over the last decade,demand for the most common cosmetic surgery procedures,like breast enlargements and nose jobs,has increased by more than 400 percent,According to Dr,Dai Davies,of the Plastic Surgery Parmership in Hammersmith,the majority of cosmetic surgery patients are not chasing physical perfection,Rather,they are driven to fantastic lengths to improve their appearance by a desire to look normal,"What we all crave is to look normal,and normal is what is prescribed by the advertising media and other external pressures,They give uslook like that.
In America,the debate is no longer about whether surgery is normal; rather,it centers on what age people should be before going under the knife,New York surgeon Dr,Gerard Imber
recommends "maintenance" work for people in their thirties,"The idea of waiting until oneneeds a heroic transformation is silly," he says,"By then,you've wasted 20 great years of yourlife and allowed things to get out of hand." Dr,Imber draws the lino at operating on people who are under 18,however,"It seems that someone we don't consider old enough to order a drink shouldn't be considering plastic surgery."
In the UK cosmetic surgery has long been seen as the exclusive domain of the very rich and famous,But the proportionate cost of treatment has fallen substantially,bringing all but the most
advanced laser technology within the reach of most people,Dr,Davies,who claims to "cater for the average person",agrees,He says,"I treat a few of the rich and famous and an awful lot of
secretaries,Of course,￡3,000 for an operation is a lot of money,But it is also an investment for life which costs about halfthe price of a good family holiday."
Dr,Davies suspects that the increasing sophistication of the fat injecting and removal techniques that allow patients to be treated with a local anaesthetic in an afternoon has also helped promote the popularity of cosmetic surgery,Yet,as one women who recently paid ￡2,500for liposuction to remove fat from her thighs admitted,the slope to becoming a cosmetic surgery Veteran is a deceptively gentle one,"I had my legs done because they'd been bugging me for years,But going into the clinic was so low key and effective it whetted my appetite,Now I don't think there's any operation that I would rule out having if I could afford it."
1,According to the text,the reason for cosmetic surgery is to
[A] be physically healthy.
[B] look more normal.
[C] satisfy appetite.
[D] be accepted by media.
2,According to the third paragraph,Dr,Davies implies that
[A] cosmetic surgery,though costly,is worth having.
[B] cosmetic surgery is too expensive.
[C] cosmetic surgery is necessary even for the average person.
[D] cosmetic surgery is mainly for the rich and famous.
3,The statement "draws the line at operating on people" (para,2) is closest in meaning to
[A] removing wrinkles from the face.
[B] helping people make up.
[C] enjoying operating.
[D] refusing to operate.
4,It can be inferred from the text that
[A] it is wise to have cosmetic surgery under 18.
[B] cosmetic surgery is now much easier.
[C] people tend to abuse cosmetic surgery.
[D] the earlier people have cosmetic surgery,the better they will be.
5,The text is mainly about
[A] the advantage of having cosmetic surgery.
[B] what kind of people should have cosmetic surgery.
[C] the reason why cosmetic surgery is so popular.
[D] the disadvantage of having cosmetic surgery.
Text 2
In nature as in culture,diversity can be a difficult concept,Understanding it is one thing,accepting it another,especially when diversity means not only acknowledging a pre-existing
mixture of difference--the very ampleness of the world--but also accommodating an adjustment to the existing state of things,A case in point is the reintroduction of gray wolves in
Yellowstone national Park,Thirty-three wolves were released in 1995,and their number has now reached 97,Population expansion is one measure of the wolf program's success,but a better one is the wolves' impact on the natural diversity of the park.
Typically,a pack of the Yellowstone wolves kills a big deer very few days,But over the remains the wolves abandon,a wonderful new diversity has emerged,Since their arrival,wolves have killed many of the park's coyotes,a smaller kind of wolf,The reduction in coyotes has caused an increase in rodents such as mice,rabbits and squirrels,which also benefits a wide range of predators,Even the coyotes that live at the margins of wolf country have prospered,
thanks to the leftovers the wolves leave behind,So do grizzly bears,which feed on wolf-kilted deer before beginning hibernation or winter sleep.
What has interested scientists is the swiftness,the dynamism,of this shift in diversity,There has been,however,no matching dynamism in the opinion of humans who oppose the wolf reintroduction,That was made plain by a Federal district judge's recent order to "remove" the wolves,the result ora legal process that is the offspring of inflexibility,Several livestock groups,including the Wyoming Farm Bureau,had filed a suit that urged,in slightly cleverer terms,the old proposition,no wolves,no problems,Several environmental groups had flied a separate lawsuit--unconnected to the Yellowstone wolves--protesting the dropping of legal protection for wolves that were recolonizing Idaho,The two suits were unfortunately merged.
Though Judge William Downes stayed his own decision,pending appeal,his judgment is a sad encouragement to the mistaken defensiveness of most ranchers or cattle farmers,It is also a misunderstanding of the purpose of the environmentalists' suit,His decision needs to be swiftly
and decisively overturned on appeal,It is no exaggeration to say that since the return of the wolves,Yellowstone has witnessed an economy of diversity from which human culture--including the culture of ranching---can directly profit,if only it chooses to do so.
1,Since the arrival of 33 wolves in the Yellowstone National Park,
[A],a dynamic biological chain has started to function
[B],animals kept in the park have had enough food
[C],some animals that are not wanted have been vanishing
[D],the attraction of the park is greatly increased
2,The author thinks it unfortunate that the judge should
[A],make efforts to accept suits with regard to old issues.
[B],make use of legal means to protect his own interests.
[C],mix up two irrelevant suits and make wolves the victims.
[D],support the protest against canceling legal protections for wolves.
3,The author believes that Judge William Downes was obviously on the side of
[A],the Yellowstone Park
[B],livestock groups
[C],environmental groups
[D],federal laws
4,Commenting on the Yellowstone Park wolf program,the author
[A],urges the district judge to reverse his recent order.
[B],criticizes the attitude of environmental groups.
[C],calls on the people to protect wolves everywhere
[D],speaks for the interests of most cattle farmers.
5,According to the author,the protection of wolves will
[A],bring about an economic boom to the surrounding farms and ranches
[B],cause bigger losses of livestock to the Park's neighboring farms
[C],lead to a number of controversies in the society
[D],prove to be beneficial to all parties concerned
Text 3
Vinton Cerf,known as the father of the Intemet,said on Wednesday that the Web was outgrowing the planet Earth and the time had come to take the information superhighway to outer space.
"The Intemet is growing quickly,and we still have a lot of work to do to cover the planet," Cerf told the first day of the annual conference of the Intemet Society in Geneva where more
than 1,500 cyberspace fans have gathered to seek answers to questions about the tangled web of the Intemet.
Cerf believed that it would soon be possible to send real-time science data on the Intemet from a space mission orbiting another planet such as Mars,"There is now an effort under way to
design and build an interplanetary Intemet,The space research community is coming closer and closer and merging,We think that we will see interplanetary Intemet networks that look very much like the ones we use today,We will need interplanetary gateways and there will be protocols to transmit data between these gateways," Cerf said.
Francois Fluckiger,a scientist attending the conference from the European Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva,was not entirely convinced,saying,"We need dreams like this,But I don't know any Martian whom I'd like to communicate with through the Intemet."
Cerf has been working with NASA's Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory--the people behind the recent Mars expedition--to design what he calls an "interplanetary Intemet protocol." He believes that astronauts will want to use the Intemet,although special problems remain with interference and delay.
"This is quite real,The effort is becoming extraordinarily concrete over the next few months because the next Mars mission is in planning stages now," Cerf told the conference.
"If we use domain names like Earth or Mars...jet propulsion laboratory people would be coming together with people from the Intemet community." He added.
"The idea is to take the interplanetary Intemet design and make it a part of the infrastructure of the Mars mission."
He later told anews conference that designing this system now would prepare mankind for future technological advances.
"The whole idea is to create an architecture so the design woks anywhere,I don't know where we're going to have to put it but my guess is that we'll be going out there some time," Cerf said.
"If you think 100 years from now,it is entirely possible that what will be purely research 50 years from now will become commercial 100 years from now,The Internet was the same-----it started as pure research but now it is commercialized."
1,Which of the following is the main point of the text?
[A] The development of the intemet.
[B] The possibility of space research.
[C] Universal information superhighway.
[D] The technological advances of Mars mission.
2,From the text,we learn that Vinton Cerfis
[A] seeking answers to questions about the intemet web.
[B] working on interplanetary intemet with collaborations of NASA.
[C] trying to commercialize the interplanetary intemet.
[D] exploring the possibility of establishing intemet network on Mars.
3,We know from the text that Mars mission is
[A] one of NASA's intemet projects:
[B] an expedition to Mars.
[C] the infrastructure of the interplanetary intemet.
[D] to create an architecture on Mars..
4,According to Cerf,the purpose to design interplanetary intemet is to
[A] send real-time science data.
[B] communicate with astronauts.
[C] lay foundation for future technological advances.
[D] commercialize it.
5,It can be inferred from the last paragraph that
[A] the dream to build interplanetary intemet can be fulfilled in the future.
[B] interplanetary intemet will commercialized in 100 years.
[C] the research of intemet took 50 years.
[D] it will take a long time to build interplanetary intemet,
Text 4
Material culture refers to the touchable,material "things"--Physical objects that can be seen,held,felt,used--that a culture produces,Examining a culture's tools and technology can tell us about the group's history and way of life,Similarly,research into the material culture of music can help us to understand the music-culture,The most vivid body of "thing" in it,of course,are musical instruments,We cannot hear for ourselves the actual sound of any musical performance before the 1870s when the phonograph was invented,so we rely on instruments for important information about music-cultures in the remote past and their development,Here we have two kinds of evidence,instruments well preserved and instruments pictured in art,Through the study of instruments,as well as paintings,written documents,and so on,we can explore the movement of music from the Near East to China over a thousand years ago,or we can outline the spread of Near Eastern influence to Europe that resulted in the development of most of the instruments on the symphony orchestra.
Sheet music or printed music,too,is material culture,Scholars once defined folk music-cultures as those in which people learn and sing music by ear rather than from print,but research shows mutual influence among oral and written sources during the past few centuries in Europe,Britain and America,Printed versions limit variety because they tend to standardize any
song,yet they stimulate people to create new and different songs,Besides,the ability to read music notation has a far-reaching effect on musicians and,when it becomes widespread,on the music-culture as a whole.
Music is deep-rooted in the cultural background that fosters it,We now pay more and more attention to traditional or ethnic features in folk music and are willing to preserve the fold music as we do with many traditional cultural heritage,Musicians all over the world are busy with recording classic music in their country for the sake of their unique culture,As always,people's
aspiration will always focus on their individuality rather than universal features that are shared by all cultures alike.
One more important part of music's material culture should be singled out,the influence of the electronic media--radio,record player,tape recorder,and television,with the future promising talking and singing computers and other developments,This is all part of the "information-revolution",a twentieth-centm'y phenomenon as important as the industrial revolution in the nineteenth,These electronic media are not just limited to modem nations; they have affected music cultures all over the globe.
1,Which of the following does not belong to material culture?
[A] Instruments.
[B] Music.
[C] Paintings.
[D] Sheet music.
2,The word "phonograph" (line 7,Paragraph 1) most probably means
[A] record player.
[BI radio.
[C] musical technique.
[D] music culture.
3,The main idea of the first paragraph is
[A] the importance of cultural tools and technology.
[B] the cultural influence of the development of civilization.
[C] the focus of the study of the material culture of music.
[D] the significance of the research into the musical instruments.
4,Which of the following is not an advantage of printed music?
[A] Reading of music notation has a great impact on musicians.
[B] People may draw inspiration from it.
[C] the music culture will be influenced by it in the end.
[D] Songs tend to be standardized by it.
5,From the third paragraph,we may infer that
[A] traditional cultural heritage is worthy of preservation.
[B] the universal features shared by all cultures aren't worthy of notice.
[C] musicians pay more attention to the preservation of traditional music
[D] the more developed a culture,the more valuable the music it has fostered.
Unit 8
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
When Patricia Weathers's son Michael had problems in his first-grade class,a school psychologist told the mother he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,or ADH]),and needed to be medicated with stimulants,If not,he would be sent to a special education facility near his school.
Confused and frightened,Weathers says she consented to put Michael on Ritalin,a commonly used stimulant that doctors prescribe to decrease the symptoms of ADHD--restlessness,disorganization,hyperactivity.
But Michael exhibited negative effects from the drug,such as social withdrawal,Instead of spotting the side effects,Weathers says,school officials again pressured her back to the psychiatrist's office,where Michael's diagnosis was changed to social anxiety disorder and an antidepressant prescribed.
Finally,says Weathers,"I saw that the medicines were making Michael psychotic,so I stopped giving them to him." When she stopped the medicine,the school reported her to state
child protective services for child abuse.
Though charges were dropped,the Weathers case has become a symbol of the boiling controversy surrounding ADHD,treatment for it,and the subjective diagnostic tests that some critics say have led to an overuse of stimulants in schools.
According to testimony given before Congress in 2000,ADHD diagnosis in children grew from 150,000 in 1970 to 6 million in 2000,representing 12 to 13 percent of US schoolchildren.
On the one hand,a recent study by National Institute of Mental Health,published in April,confirmed long-held assumptions that consistent use of stimulants mildly suppresses children's growth--at an average rate of about an inch over the course of two years,in addition to weight loss in some children.
At the same time,another part of the same study gave the use of medication a boost when it comes to the treatment of ADHD,The study showed that strict behavioral rules,used without drugs,were not as successful as treatments involving stimulants,They suppressed ADHD symptoms in 34 percent of the children tracked over a two-year period,while medication worked in 56 percent of cases.
Yet ifthe study was reassuring to some who work with children,it was alarming to others.
"The study helps prove that the country is only hearing half the story about ADHD," says William Frankenberger,a professor at the University of Wisconsin,who has been studying ADHD for almost two decades,"If these medicines suppress growth,you have to ask what else they are doing that we can't measure."
1,It can be inferred from the text that kids with ADHD are often
[A] allergic to medicines.
[B] absent-minded in class.
[C] afraid of meeting strangers.
[D] anxious about seeing the doctor.
2,Weathers stopped giving the medicine to her son because
[A] she sensed the side effects of the medicine.
[B] the doctor prescribed another new treatment.
[C] the school psychologist advised against using it.
[D] she was charged with abusing her son physically.
3,The figures in Paragraph 6 indicate
[A] the overuse of anti-ADHD medicines on schoolchildren.
[B] the sharp drop of child-abuse cases in schools and families.
[C] the total loss of confidence in school doctors among parents.
[D] the drastic growth of ADHD symptoms observed among children.
4,The study by National Institute of Mental Health suggested that
[A] the use of medicine was effective in treating ADHD.
[B] kids on medication of stimulants tended to grow a lot.
[C] it was more successful to discipline children with ADHD.
[D] kids would put on weight quickly after receiving medication.
5,The Wisconsin professor's concern was that
[A] the government would not take actions to suppress ADHD.
[B] the anti-ADHD medicines might have more serious side effects.
[C] teachers and doctors at school might neglect the kids with ADHD.
[D] parents with ADHD kids could be discouraged by the study results.
Text 2
Still facing the prospect of double bias in the workplace--because of race and gender--women of color working full time often struggle to advance,They usually make less than their white counterparts,For them,the "glass ceiling" sometimes looks more like steel,Simply avoiding being stereotyped,even by other women,can be hard.
That is why Working Mother Media organized last month's forum at Simmons College in Boston,which brought a mix of women together to talk across racial lines.
"The purpose is to have one place where gender and race meet,.,because women's issues,while very important to diversity initiatives,can get left out unless you really focus on them," says Carol Evans,founder of Working Mother Media,which publishes Working Mother Magazine,The group is hosting a series of regional forums to enhance the magazine's initiative to highlight the best companies for women of color and to urge more employers to look specifically at their experiences.
The numbers show a mixed picture.
Clearly,minority women have not progressed up the corporate ladder the way white women have,They made up just 1.3 percent of corporate officers in Fortune 500 firms in the year 2000,compared with 12.5 percent for women as a whole,according to Catalyst,a nonprofit research organization in New York.
And generally,they earn less,For example,on average,African-American women earned $27,600 and Hispanic women made $23,200 in 1999--11 and 25 percent less,respectively,than
what white women made,according to a recent analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington,D.C,Asian-Americans were the only ones who did better,$ 33,100,or 7 percent better than whites,And even these figures can hide variations among people with ndifferent national origins or immigration histories.
And some companies are making progress in addressing the challenges faced by minority women,This spring,Working Mother Magazine recognized six firms--Allstate,American Express,Fannie Mae,General Mills,IBM,and JPMorgan Chase--as the "Best Companies for Women of Color." The six were commended for having formal policies and practices designed to help women of color advance,Nearly 70 percent of the women polled inside those companies said they were satisfied with their advancement in the company and close to 90 percent planned to be with their companies for the next year.
1,The sentence "Simply avoiding being stereotyped,even by other women,can be hard"(Paragraph 1) implies the fact that
[A] there are too many groups of women of color in the workplace.
[B] it is hard for women of color to be stereotyped by other women.
[C] colored working women are more stereotyped by other women than men.
[DJ colored working women are still inferior even compared with other women.
2,The purpose of the forum at Simmons College in Boston is to
[A] find a place where people of different colors can meet and talk,[B] help publish the works of colored women in the Working Mother Magazine.
[C] focus on women's political rights in the women's movement.
[D] encourage employers to judge colored women by their working experiences.
3,Which of the following statements is Not true?
[A] Colored women made up just 1.3 percent of corporate officers in Fortune 500 firms in the year 2000.
[B] African-American women earned $27,600 in 1999,I1 percent less than what white women made.
[C] Hispanic women made $ 23,200 in 1999,25 percent less than what white women made.
[D] Asian-Americans made $ 33,100,or 7 percent better than white men.
4,What does the word "addressing"(Line 1,Last paragraph) mean?
[A] Talking to.
[B] Negotiating with.
[C] Coming to terms with.
[D] Leaving out.
5,According to the text,what is the situation of colored women in the workplace?
[A] They are still faced with the double bias o~race and gender.
[B] The forum has helped them get equally treated by companies.
[C] They are able to avoid being stereotyped by the world of men.
[D] The six best companies only help women of color advance.
Text 3
Sometimes Sadler breaks into small giggles and sometimes she roars with laughter,And sometimes a dozen or so people do the same along with her,But there is nothing funny,Ms,Sadler is a certified laughter leader whose job is to help people laugh,Literally.
Sadler is one of about 1,000 adults in the United States,Canada,and Mexico who have become certified laughter leaders since July 2000 through the World Laughter Tour Inc,The group was formed in 1998 by former psychologist and psychotherapist Steve Wilson and nurse Karyn Buxman,Their intention,then and now,is "global influence in the practical applications of laughter and humor for health and world peace."
"If everyone would/go back to being a child again by spending 30 minutes laughing,thewhole world would be a better place," she adds.
In fact,there is a kind of shared universal language that goes something like this,Hee hee ha ha ho ho,..,That's just one of the phrases Sadler uses in her workshop.
Those who attend one of her classes might find themselves sitting with their mouths open wide,lightly slapping their chests and then their knees with one hand while pointing at people with the other hand and laughing without making noise.
"It's sort of as if you were in church and you couldn't laugh and had to suppress it a little bit," says Sadler about the "silent laugh," one of the interactive laughter exercises she uses.
A louder laughter exercise is the "cellphone laugh." Sadler asks participants to walk round the room,holding imaginary cellphone against their ear,pretending to call a friend to perhaps tell them about this crazy laughter club workshop they attended,But instead of talking on their phones,participants laugh into it,And they're encouraged to make eye contact with one another.
The favorite class exercise is often the "argumentative laughter",Class participants walk around and point and wiggle their fingers as though in preparation to scold one another,but instead,they laugh,Hee,hee,hee,
Barbara Hee (yes,that's her real name),founder of the Philly Phun Laughter Club in Philadelphia,recently aimed to get the whole city laughing.
Ms,Hee and four other certified laughter leaders offered free laughter sessions throughout the city during the week of April 25,Even the mayor joined in by officially proclaiming the week Laughter Week.
Hee knows the value of a good laugh,In her previous job in cemetery-plot sales,she faced tough sales goals and many unhappy people,"This laughter training has been really good for me," she says,"lt gave me direction,It got me out of a meaningless period of my life and helped me to move on."
1,Ms,Sadler's job is "to help people laugh,Literally,"(Paragraph 1).This implies that
[A] she helps understand the verbal meaning of"laugh".
[B] there is nothing funny about laughing,
[C] she just teaches participants how to make laughter.
[D] she quotes literary texts to help people laugh.
2,When one is doing "ceRphone laugh" training,he is supposed to
[A] hold a phone against his ear and pretend to call a friend.
[B] tell a friend about the crazy laughter club work,shop he attended.
[C] laugh at his friend on the phone for not attending the course.
[D] be encouraged to look at other participants when he is laughing.
3,Which of the following is NOT one of the "interactive laughter exercise"?
[A] laughing as if you were in ch,,m:h and had to suppress it a little bit.
[B] pointing at one another and laughing without any noise.
[C] pointing fingers as if in preparation to scold one another but laughing instead.
[D] laughing into imaginary phones and meanwhile looking at one another.
4,For Ms,Hee,the value of a good laugh is that
[A] it gives her meaning of life.
[B] it helps sell more cemetery plots.
[C] it cheers unhappy people.
[D] it helps her to move from place to place.
5,What is supposed to be the title of the text?
[A] Laughter and Humor
[B] Sadler,the Laughter Leader
[C] Laughter Training Workshop
[D] Hee's New Life
Text 4
Where do you go when you want to know the latest business news,follow commodity prices,keep up with political gossip,find out what others think of a new book,or stay abreast of the latest scientific and technological developments? Today,the answer is obvious,you log on to the Intemet,Three centuries ago,the answer was just as easy,you went to a coffee-house,There,for the price of a cup of coffee,you could read the latest pamphlets,catch up on news and gossip,attend scientific lectures,strike business deals,or chat with like-minded people about literature or politics.
The coffee-houses that sprang up across Europe,starting around 1650,functioned as information exchanges for writers,politicians,businessmen and scientists,Like today's websites,weblogs and discussion boards,coffee-houses were lively and Often unreliable sources of information that typically specialized in a particular topic or political viewpoint,They were out-lets for a stream of newsletters,pamphlets,and advertising free-sheets,Depending on the interests of their customers,some coffee-houses displayed commodity prices,share prices and shipping lists,whereas others provided foreign newsletters filled with coffee-house gossip from abroad.
Rumours,news and gossip were also carded between coffee-houses by their patrons,and sometimes runners would run from one coffee-house to another within a particular city to report major events such as the outbreak of a war or the death of a head of state,Coffee-houses were centers of scientific education,literary and philosophical speculation,commercial innovation and,sometimes,political reformation,Collectively,Europe's interconnected web of coffee-houses formed the Intemet of the Enlightenment era.
The kinship between coffee-houses and the intemet has recently been underlined by the establishment of wireless "hotspots" which provide Intemet access,using a technology called WiFi,in modem-day coffee-shops,T-Mobile,a wireless network operator,has installed hotspots in thousands of Starbucks coffee-shops across America and Europe,Coffee-shop WiFi is particularly popular in Seattle--home to both Starbucks and such leading Intemet firms as Amazon and Microsoft.
Such hotspots allow laptop-using customers to check their e-mail and read the news as they sip their coffees,But history provides a cautionary tale for those hotspot operators that charge for access,Coffee-houses used to charge for coffee,but gave away access to reading materials,Many coffee-shops are now following the same model,which could undermine the plan for fee-based hotspots,Information,both in the 17th century and today,wants to be free—and coffee-drinking customers,it seems,expect it to be.
1,From the text,we learn that old-time coffee-houses functioned as
[A] places for scientific and technological lectures and discussions.
[B] lively and reliable sources of information on a particular topic.
[C] information exchanges in science,literature,business and politics.
[D] outlets for political viewpoints that were different from the
mainstream's.
2,By "the intemet of the Enlightenment era" (Paragraph 3),the author refers to
[A] the network of coffee-houses in the old-time Europe.
[B] the inspirations that one customer drew from another.
[C] the similarities between one coffee house and another.
[D] the rumors spread by customers between coffee-houses.
3,According to the text,the wireless "hotspots"
[A] made use of the similarities between the intemet and coffee-houses.
[B] made it possible for people to log on to the intemet in coffee shops.
[C] were aimed at promoting laptop sales among coffee shop customers.
[D] were installed in thousands of coffee shops by Amazon and Microsoft.
4,What can be inferred from Paragraph 5?
[A] Coffee houses used to charge for reading materials.
[B] Hotspot operators are cautious in charging their users.
[C] Customers complain about having to pay for using hotspots.
[D] Coffee houses are reluctant to charge customers for hotspots.
5,What is the text mainly about 9
[A] The web of coffeehouses in America.
[B] Centers of information in today's world.
[C] Information exchanges in the 17th century.
[D] The intemet access in modem coffee shops.
Unit 9
Directions:
Read the following four texts,Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(40 points)
Text 1
One great benefit of the Web is that it allows us to move information online that now resides ion paper form,Several states in America are using the Web in a profound way,You can apply for various permits or submit applications for business licenses,Some states are putting up listings of jobs---not just state government jobs,but all the jobs available in the state,Believe,over time,that all the information that governments print,and all those paper forms they now have,will be moved on to the Internet,Electronic commerce notches up month-by-month too,It is difficult to measure,because a lot of electronic commerce involves existing buyers and sellers who are simply moving paper based transactions to the Web,That is not new business,Microsoft,for example,purchases millions of dollars of PCs online instead of by taper,However,that is not a fundamental change; it has just improved the efficiency of an existing process,The biggest impact has occurred where electronic commerce matches buyers and sellers who would not previously have found each other,When you go to a book site and find an obscure book that you never would have found in a physical bookstore,that is a new type of commerce.
Today,about half of all PCs are still not connected to the Web,Getting communications costs down and making all the software simple will bring in those people,And that,in turn,will move us closer to the critical mass that will make the Web lifestyle everyone’s lifestyle,One clement that people interest-mate is the degree to which the hardware and software will improve,Just take one aspect,screen technology,Idol my e-mail on a 20-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor,It is not available at a reasonable price yet,but in two years it will be,In ten years,a40-inch LCD with much higher resolution will be commonplace.
The boundary between a television set and a PC will be blurred because even the set-top box that you connect up to your cable or satellite will have a processor more powerful than what we have today in the most expensive PC,This wall,in effect,makes your television a computer.
In traction with the Web also will improve,machine it much easier for people to be involved,Toby the keywords we use to we arch the Web often return to too many articles to sort through,many of them out of context,If you want to learn about the fastest computer chip available,you might ebb up getting responses instead about potato chips being delivered in fast trucks,In the future,we shall be eater speaking or typing sentences into the computer,If you ask about the speed of chips,the result will be about computers,not potatoes,Speech recognition also means that you will be able to call in on a phone and ask if you have any new messages,or check on a flight,or check on the weather.
To predict that it will take over ten years for these changes to happen is probably pessimistic,We usually overestimate what we can do in two years and underestimate what we can do in ten,The Web will be as much a way of life as the car by 2008.Probably before,549
1,Electronic commerce becomes a new type of commerce when___.
[A] Paper based transactions are moved on to the Web
[B] The efficiency of the existing process is improved by Internet
[C] A Web site offers more obscure goods than a physical store
[D] New buy errs and sellers find each other on the Internet
2,The use of computer will be as common as the use of cars when ___,
[A] Computer and communication become simpler and cheaper
[B] Electronic commerce causes a fundamental change
[C] The boundary between the computer and the TV disappears
[D] Governments began to move administration on-line
3,What currently is the problem with the Web according the passage?
[A] Ineffective interaction.
[B] Too much information
[C] Inaccurate response
[D] Severe lack of speed
4,The example of potato chips is cued to illustrate ____,
[A] The defect of computers at the present stage of development
[B] The similarity between a computer chip and a potato chip
[C] The speed of computer chips as compared to potato chips
[D] The irrelevant responses the computer sometimes offers
5,In this passage the author is trying to show that ___.
[A] Everyone will be using computer and the Web by 2008
[B] Computers will be able to recognize speech in 10 years’ him
[C] Changes caused by the Web will arrive sooner than we think
[D] Interaction with the Web will become easier to manage
Text 2
The big Auk grocery retailer TESCO is testing a database,which knows when you like to shop,what’s on the list and how much you are likely to spend,It also knows that three-quarters of a store’s total profits comes from its top 10 percent of customers.
Data mining---the intensive analysis of statistic---is being combined with micro marketing—the targeting of small groups of consumers---to cause big changes in the way we spend,The U,S,retailer Wal-Mart now mails out to customers personalized weekly shopping lists with prices,together with a list of little temptations for their taste,budget and stage in life.
These developments may have profound effects on the way we bank as well on the way we shop,In perhaps six months a customer will be able to arrive at a supermarket,pick up a bar code reader and wander about the shop,Clicking on to whatever he or she wants to buy that week,A member of staff will take the bar code reader,Use it to deliver the goods from the warehouse,while the customer goes off for a coffee or to have their hair done.A 3D body scanner will come into use within a few years,A customer who stands partially clothed in a small room for about 10 seconds,can have haw physical stature mapped to an accuracy of 1 millimeter,Then he or she can shop from home,with a television remote control device,flicking through the latest catalogue of offerings from a retailer.
Fancy that outfit for yourself? A click of the button,and there you are,on the television screen,wearing it,Like to see it in another color? Click,Just got to have it? Another click to call up the Internet banking connection,and you have bought and paid for it,and a courier will deliver tomorrow.
The revolution does not stop there,Mr,Tealeaves,an expert in artificial intelligence and so-called neural networks,can tie together your current preferences,Sprinkle with a little knowledge of how you are likely to age and predict your spending patterns for the rest of your life.
Is it too intrusive---an invasion of privacy?,In fact just the opposite,” says Mr,Tealeaves.,People welcome the chance to be given valuable assistance in some of the humdrum chores of our time,and avoid being targeted by the irritations of intrusive advertising,The storeowner will become the friend who gives valuable information to you., 416
1,The new method of marketing adopted by TESCO and Wal-Mart concentrates mainly on ____,
[A] The top ten percent of their customers
[B] Banking connections and payments
[C] Lists of personalized shopping advice
[D] Collection and use of customer information
2.,Little temptations for their taste,budget and stage in life” probably means ____,
[A] Gifts [B] discounts [C] suitable goods [D] bargains
3,The future customer will perhaps be able to .
[A] Select goods electronically and have them delivered
[B] Click on what he wants and take it home right away
[C] Wander in the market and read the bar code
[D] Do shopping and have coffee at the same time
4,The significance of the 3Dbody scanner is that it cans .
[A] Accurately map out your physical stature
[B] Help you try on clothes on your home TV
[C] Design an outfit by the click of a button
[D] Help you flick through the retailer’s catalogue
5,The revolutionary marketing,according to Mr.,Relevant,is .
[A] An act of valuable assistance
[B] A triumph of artificial intelligence
[C] An example of intrusive advertising
[D] An invasion of privacy
Text 3
In its most ambitious project to date,Edison,the nation’s largest private operator of public schools,is scheduled to take over Gillespie and 19 other schools in Philadelphia this fall,But just as the company's initial meetings with teachers began there last week,Edison was absorbing blows from a defection by a pillar client in Boston,a scolding by the Securities and Exchange Commission,lawsuits from angry investors and persistent doubts from teachers,parents and students in Philadelphia.
The Boston Renaissance Charter School became one of Edison's first clients when the school was founded in 1995,But a desire to move in a different curricular direction and disappointment with scores on Massachusetts state exams are prompting school officials to vacate their five-year contract with Edison this summer,three years before it was set to expire in 2005,Eighth-graders at Renaissance perform below state and district averages- 69% failed the statewide math test,compared with 54% in the Boston school district and 31% in the state; in English,22% of Renaissance eighth-graders failed,compared with 20% citywide and 8% statewide,Edison spokesman Adam Tucker concedes that "none of us felt test scores were improving as quickly as they should" at Renaissance,but he says that a dual management structure in which the school principal reported to both Edison and a local charter-school board was restricting.
But the dissolution of the high-profile Boston contract was just one factor contributing to Edison's bad week,In an informal inquiry concluded last Tuesday,the SEC said that Edison had omitted crucial information from its filings,allowing it to report revenues from 1999 to 2002 that were 41% to 48% higher than it actually generated,The company had been counting teachers' salaries and other expenses paid by its client school districts and charter school boards as revenue,even though none of the cash entered Edison's coffers,Because Edison also reported the funds as expenses,its bottom line was accurate,the SEC said,and the reporting procedure did not violate generally accepted accounting rules,Still,the SEC said,Edison should have told investors how it was tabulating its impressive revenue growth.
Edison investors gave the company an F for not making that effort,trading Edison stock to less than $2 a share,far from its high of $35 in January 2001,They also filed three class actions charging the company with misleading them,Stockholders were equally under whelmed by the Philadelphia contract,which at one point was expected to include as many as 45 schools,Edison's CEO Chris Whittle says the company plans to complete a deal with an unnamed investor in the next few weeks for $30 million to $50 million in new capital,much of it needed to open the 20 Philadelphia schools in September.
For parents and teachers in the city's beleaguered school system,the steady stream of bad news about Edison is perplexing,"I thought they were coming to help us," says Tina Rivera,who has a daughter and a grandson in the Philadelphia schools and works as a teacher's aide,"It seems they are in dire need of some help themselves." Which of the following is NOT true about Edison’s action in Philadelphia?
1,Which of the following is NOT true about Edison’s action in Philadelphia?
[A] It includes 20 schools in all,one of which is Gillespie.
[B] It is going to open 20 schools in September.
[C] It is Edison’s most ambitious project.
[D] Both parents and teachers in Philadelphia doubt about this action.
2,The phrase,a pillar client” in the first paragraph refers to
[A]The Securities and Exchange Commission
[B]Edison Investors in Boston
[C]The Boston Renaissance Charter School
[D]Teachers,parents and students in Boston
3,The Renaissance Charter School wanted to quit its contact with Edison NOT because
[A]It is disappointed with the student score.
[B]It is disappointed with Edison’s school management.
[C]The school principal has to report to Edison about management.
[D]The school wanted to make a change in its curricular design.
4,Which of the following is TRUE about Edison’s financial filings?
[A]The revenue reported was 52% to 59% lower than the actual figure.
[B]The expense reported was higher than the actual figure.
[C]The report violated accepted accounting rules.
[D]The failure in revenue led to the decline of Edison stock.
5,It can not be inferred from the passage about stockholders that
[A]They are suspicious about the success of Edison’s Philadelphia Contract,
[B]They punished Edison for its dishonesty
[C]They are unsatisfied with Edison’s performance in financial report.
[D]They refused to invest in Edison’s projects any more
Text 4
Sandor,60,the CEO and founder of Environmental Financial Products,based in Chicago,is one of several innovators who think the key to stopping global warming is to encourage companies to cut greenhouse-gas pollution by making it profitable for them to do so,The trick,contends the economist,who was a pioneer in the development of financial futures contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade,is to create a market in permits to emit greenhouse gases,"The power of the free market is that it can restore nature's wealth as it increases financial wealth," Sandor says,Just how much wealth? He estimates that a global market in greenhouse gases-released with the burning of oil,coal and other fossil fuels-could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars a year,To begin harnessing those billions in the service of a cleaner planet,Sandor plans by early next year to launch a trading forum called the Chicago Climate Exchange,in what would be the first U.S,marketplace for greenhouse gas emissions,More than two dozen major U.S,companies,including Ford,DuPont and American Electric Power,plus five Mexican and Canadian firms,along with Chicago and Mexico City,have been involved in setting up the exchange and have expressed interest in participating,pending further negotiations,As a group,Sandor says,they represent emissions nearly equal to those of Germany.
The exchange is modeled after the largest and most successful experiment to date involving pollution permits,Under the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act,the U.S,government set a cap,or limit,on sulfur dioxide emissions,a contributor to acid rain,and distributed tradable emissions permits,Companies able to reduce their emissions below the cap could sell their unused permits to others,The Environmental Protection Agency says the program has reduced S02 emissions more than 30% from 1990 levels and cost industry a mere 20% of what the government originally estimated.
The buying and selling of permits for greenhouse gases is permitted under the Kyoto treaty to combat climate change,Despite the rejection of the pact by the U.S.,other major governments,including Japan,have ratified it,and trading in permits for carbon dioxide,a leading greenhouse gas,is increasing in Europe,In the U.S.,many executives who expect eventually to face more rigorous laws are eager to get experience coping with caps,"We really have endeavored to construct a program that will be highly credible and successful-and by success we mean it will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions," says Dale Heydlauff,senior vice president for environmental affairs for American Electric Power and one of Sandor's collaborators,Participation will be voluntary,but firms will be monitored for compliance.
The initial targets for greenhouse-gas reductions seem modest,The project's website proposes reductions of just 2% below 1999 levels,plus an additional 11% cut with each passing year,In contrast,scientists warn we must cut our fossil-fuel addiction by as much as 70% to confront global warming effectively,Even so,the Chicago Climate Exchange will be ahead of U.S,law,and will be a test of corporations' readiness to act on their own,"This is the Wright brothers' version of an aircraft," Sandor says,"It's not the 747 that exists after 50 years,but it's a start,And that's going to be important to your children and my grandchildren." 552
1,According to the text,what can be inferred about Sandor?
[A]He is the founder of Chicago Climate Exchange.
[B]He believes that people can also make money in the protection of environment,
[C]He is against the trade in permits for carbon dioxide.
[D]He believes there isn’t a marketplace for greenhouse gas emissions in U.S at present.
2,Who does,the economist” refer to?
[A]The financial innovator
[B]The free-market advocator
[C]The U.S economist
[D]The CEO of Environmental Financial Products
3,Which of the following is NOT true according to the text?
[A]The burning of oil,coal and other fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases,
[B]Sulfur dioxide emissions is one factor that causes acid rain.
[C]Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas.
[D]The trade in permits of carbon dioxide is now allowed in Europe,Japan and U.S,
4,What does,the program” refers to?
[A]The Kyoto treaty to combat climate change
[B]The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act
[C]Chicago Board of Trade
[D]Chicago Climate Exchange
5,The clause,It's not the 747 that exists after 50 years” means
[A]It is not 50 years old.
[B]It is not the creation of the 747 plane,
[C]It is an important initial action.
[D]It is Wright brother’s plane.
Unit 10
Directions
Read the following text Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET 1 (40 points)
Text 1
Among Bloomberg's web pages on April 7th appeared a story that looked ordinary enough,Pair Gain,an American telecom equipment manufacturer,was to be taught by an Israeli company for about twice its market value,The company's stock price,predictably,rocketed from $8.50 to $11.13,All fine and normal-except that the story wasn't true,Somebody had copied Bloomberg's logo and layout and posted a bogus report on the Bloomberg site,When Pair Gain queried the report,it was taken off,and the share price crashed again,Bloomberg is now suing,unnamed parties who posted the page.
As more and more of life moves on to the Internet,so the difficulty of distinguishing fact from fiction on it becomes more and more of a worry,This problem springs from the Internet's central virtue,low barriers to entry,In the real world,being a publisher costs a great deal of money,You have to have manufacturing facilities and distribution networks,So real world publishers have a great deal invested in their reputations and consequently need to be careful about what they print.
On the Internet,being a publisher costs next to nothing,Many Internet publishers,therefore,have little to lose from printing untruths and plenty to gain in notoriety if the story they put out is sensational enough,What's more,faking the real world newspaper,which has to be both manufactured and distributed,would be next to impossible; faking an Internet page is deadly easy.
Not all the efforts of the lowering of the barriers to entry are bad,Traditional news organizations can be too cautious and too protective of their more powerful sources,Many scandals have been unearthed first by outsiders with scrappy news sheets and a little to lose by way of influential contacts,The Internet is a golden age for what used to be the newsletter,The downside is the ease with which error spreads.
Rarely,though,falsehood takes the form of international fraud,more often it appears as malicious gossip,slovenly reporting and Chinese whispers,Last year everybody on the Internet knew that Tommy Hillier,a fashion designer,had made racist comments on the Opera Winfrey Show,Except that he didn't,Pierre Salinger,former television newsman,claimed at a news conference that TWA 800,a passenger plane that crashed into the Atlantic killing all aboard in 1996,had been downed by a missile-all on the basis of a web page of dubious origin,Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune wrote her column one week as a spoof graduation speech,Somehow this column became tagged on the web,as Kurt Vonnegut′s commencement speech at MIT.
Cyberspace can also be risky,for now,because even sophisticated people can be gullible about what they read there,This may be because of a lag between technology and perception,Smartly produced pages,and things on screens,impress us with an authority that springs from the resources needed to produce them in the old paper medium,Perhaps everyone should be more worldly wise about what can turn up on the web.
1,The Bloomberg incident in the first paragraph is a case of
A,malicious gossip.
B,slovenly report.
C,Chinese whisper.
D,international fraud.
2,The difference between a real world publisher and an Internet publisher is that
A,the real world publisher enjoys low barrier entry.
B,the Internet publisher is notorious for being untruthful.
C,the real world publisher is too cautious about their investment.
D,the Internet publisher enjoys easy access and low costs.
3,The falsehood that we often find on the Internet proves that
A,the Internet has nothing to lose if error occurs.
B,the Internet publisher is only a newsletter publisher.
C,the Internet news report has no powerful sources.
D,the Internet is a totally unreliable news media.
4,The lag between technology and perception in the last paragraph probably means that
A,paper medium publication is far behind Internet publication.
B,smartly produced pages appeal to people's perception.
C,the Internet page sometimes has a deceptive appearance.
D,printing techniques acquire authority from necessary sources.
5,The author seems to believe that one should what one reads in Internet news.
A,Reject B,watch C,accept D,appreciate
Text 2
The modern cult of beauty is a success in so far as more women retain their youthful appearance to a greater age than in the past,"Old ladies" are already becoming rare,In a few years,we may well believe that they will be extinct,White hair and wrinkles,a bent back and hollow cheeks will come to be regarded as medieval old fashioned,The crone of the future will be golden,curly and cherry lipped,and slender,This desirable consummation will be due in part to skin foods and injections of paraffin wax,facial surgery,mud baths,and paint,in part to improved health,due in its turn to a more rational mode of life,Ugliness is one of the symptoms of disease,beauty of health,In so far as the campaign for beauty is also a campaign for more health,it is admirable and,up to a point,genuinely successful,
Beauty that is merely the artificial shadow of these symptoms of health is intrinsically of poorer quality than the genuine article,Still,it is a sufficiently good imitation to be sometimes mistakable for the real thing,The apparatus for mimicking the symptoms of health is now within the reach of every moderately prosperous person; the knowledge of the way in which real health can be achieved is growing,and will in time,no doubt,be universally acted upon,When that happy moment comes,will every woman be beautiful-as beautiful,at any rate,as the natural shape of her features,with or without surgical and chemical aid,permits? The answer is emphatically,No,For real beauty is as much an affair of the inner as of the outer self,The beauty of a porcelain jar is a matter of shape,of color,of surface texture,The jar may be empty or tenanted by spiders,full of honey or stinking slime-it makes no difference to its beauty or ugliness,But a woman is alive,and her beauty is therefore not skin deep,The surface of the human vessel is affected by the nature of its spiritual contents,I have seen women who,by the standards of a connoisseur of porcelain,were ravishingly lovely.
Their shape,their color,their surface texture were perfect,And yet they were not beautiful,For the lovely vase was either empty or filled with some corruption,Spiritual emptiness or ugliness shows through,And conversely,there is an interior light that can transfigure forms that the pure aesthetician would regard as imperfect or downright ugly.
There are numerous forms of psychological ugliness,There is an ugliness of stupidity,for example,of unawareness (distressingly common among pretty women),An ugliness also of greed,of lasciviousness,of avarice,All the deadly sins,indeed,have their own peculiar negation of beauty,On the pretty faces of those especially who are trying to have a continuous "good time",one sees very often a kind of bored sullenness that ruin all their charm,I remember in particular two young American girls I once met in North Africa,From the porcelain specialist's point of view,they were
extremely beautiful,But a sullen boredom was so deeply stamped into their fresh faces,their gait and gestures expressed so weary a listlessness,that it was unbearable to look at them,These exquisite creatures were positively repulsive.
1,Because of skin foods,paraffin wax,facial surgery,mud baths and paint,
A wrinkles and hollow cheeks will not be found.
B the desirable consummation will be achieved.
C curly hair will look medieval old fashioned.
D the elderly women will no longer be able to exist.
2,In the second paragraph,beauty is talked about as
A an artificial shadow of a genuine article.
B an apparatus for achieving good health.
C the poor imitation of true inner health.
D the good knowledge of health and disease.
3.The example of the porcelain jar illustrate the
A importance of shape,color and texture.
B ugliness of spiders and stinking slime.
C connection between inner and outer self.
D gap between appearance and contents.
4,The two American girls offer an example of what the author calls
A unawareness,B greed,C deadly sins,D stupidity.
5,The author probably writes this article to
A praise beauty campaign's success.
B demonstrate the improved living standards.
C suggest the importance of inner qualities.
D predict the future of beauty industry.
Text 3
The marvelous telephone and television network that has now enmeshed the whole world,making all men neighbours,cannot be extended into space,It will never be possible to converse with anyone on another planet,Even with today’s radio equipment,the messages will take minutes-sometimes hours-on their journey,because radio and light waves travel at the same limited speed of 186000 miles a second,
Twenty years from now you will be able to listen to a friend on mars,but the words you hear will have left his mouth at least three minutes earlier,and your reply will take a corresponding time to reach him,In such circumstances,an exchange of verbal messages is possible-but no a conversation.
To a culture which has come to take instantaneous communication for granted,as part of the very structure of civilized life,this,time barrier” may have a profound psychological impact,It will be a perpetual reminder of universal laws and limitations against which not all our technology can ever prevail,For it seems as certain as anything can be that no signal-still less any material object-can ever travel faster than light.
The velocity of light is the ultimate speed limit,being part of the very structure of space and time,Within the narrow confines of the solar system,it will not handicap us too severely,At the worst,these will amount to twenty hours-the time it takes a radio signal to span the orbit of Pluto,the outer-most planet.
It is when we move out beyond the confines of the solar system that we come face to face with an altogether new order of cosmic reality,Even today,many otherwise educated men-like those savages who can count to three but lump together all numbers beyond four-cannot grasp the profound distinction between solar and stellar space,The first is the space enclosing our neighbouring worlds,the planets; the second is that which embraces those distant suns,the stars,and it is literally millions of times greater,There is no such abrupt change of scale in the terrestrial affairs.
Many conservative scientists,appalled by there cosmic gulfs,have denied that they can ever be crossed,Some people never learn; those who sixty years ago scoffed at the possibility of flight,and ten years ago laughed at the idea of travel to the planets,are now quite sure that the stars will always be beyond our reach,And again they are wrong,for they have failed to grasp the great lesson of our age-that if something is possible in theory,and no fundamental scientific laws oppose its realization,then sooner or later it will be achieved.
On day we shall discover a really efficient means of propelling our space vehicles,Every technical device is always developed to its limit and the ultimate speed for spaceships is the velocity of light,They will never reach that goal,but they will get very near it,And then the nearest star will be less than five years’ voyaging from the earth,
1,For light to travel across the solar system,it will take
A,a year
B,nearly a day
C,two months
D,thirty minutes
2,The fact that it will never to be possible to converse with someone on another planet shows that
A,radio messages do not travel fast enough
B,no object can ever travel faster than light
C,western culture has a special idea of communication
D,certain universal laws cannot be prevailed against
3,Confronted with the new order of cosmic reality,many educated men
A,become ignorant savages again
B,find the,time barrier” unbearable
C,will not combine solar and stellar space
D,cannot adapt to the abrupt change of scale
4,Conservative scientists who deny that cosmic gulfs can ever be crossed will
A,laugh at the very idea of flight
B,learn a lesson as they did ten years ago
C,find space travel beyond their reach
D,oppose the fundamental scientific laws
5,The author of the passage,readers an infer,intends to show the
A,limitations of our technology
B,vastness of the cosmic reality
C,prospect of planetary travel
D,psychological impact of time and space
Text 4
Pursuing free trade through WTO has many attractions,Countries bind themselves and their trading partners to transparent and non-discriminatory trade rules,which the WTO then enforces evenhandedly,Since most governments operate on the premise that opening domestic markets is a concession to be traded for access to foreign markets,multilateral liberalization is often the most effective route to free trade.
A successful WTO round requires two big bargains to be struck,a transatlantic deal between America and the EU and a north south deal between the rich and the poor,Yet at Seattle this year there is a long way to go before such broad bargains can be considered,let alone struck,America wants a few priority issues to be settled,Its list includes an extension of the duty-free status of e-commerce,a broader IT pact,reform of the WTO dispute settlement system,increased WTO transparency and the phase out of tariffs in eight sectors including chemicals,energy products and environmental products,The EU on the other hand professes to want a more comprehensive approach that focuses on removing tariff peaks for such imports as textiles,glass and footwear,but would preserve tariff preferences for developing countries.
The biggest obstacle may be the insistence of many developing countries that they will block further liberalization until their gripes over the Uruguay round are addressed,They want their obligations in areas such as intellectual property,investor protection,subsidies and antidumping to be eased,They argue that the Uruguay round has failed to deliver expected benefits in such areas as agriculture and textiles.
Though by no means a monolithic block,the developing countries share a feeling that whatever the promise of liberalization at the WTO,rich countries will conspire to keep their markets closed,Indeed,the EU insists that freeing trade should be "controlled,steered and managed according to the concerns of EU citizens",That is in keeping with a view,widespread on the continent,that "a protectionist trade policy is a price readily paid for political objectives".
However great these obstacles are,they could be overcome if America were still leading the drive for freer world trade,With its economy doing well,greater access to foreign markets seems a less pressing priority,The Clinton administration is unwilling to make politically painful concessions required to achieve that aim,So there is a possibility that the Seattle round will turn out to be a fiasco,If that happens,it will encourage the anti-WTO groups to go on the offensive,America,the EU and Japan would increasingly be tempted by managed trade.
1,The WTO's transparent and non-discriminatory rules require all member countries to
A exchange domestic markets for foreign markets.
B make concessions in foreign trade.
C adopt the most effective route to free trade.
D enforce trade policies evenhandedly.
2,The difference between America and the EU is over
A e-commerce,B WTO transparency,C agenda,[D]tariffs.
3,The developing countries threaten to block further liberalization because they
A are now conspiring to keep their markets closed.
B want their problems and complaints to be dealt with first.
C cannot afford to deliver benefits in agriculture and textile.
D want no obligations in intellectual property and antidumping.
4,"Managed trade" in the last sentence probably means
A market management.
B trade protectionism.
C trade concession.
D market priority.
5,The author of the passage seems to be about the prospect of globalization and free trade,
A optimistic B doubtful C impartial [D],vague
Unit 11
Directions
Read the following text Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET 1 (40 points)
Text 1
When the American economy was running full-tile two years ago,few places were as breathlessly delighted as Seattle,Its port was thronged with ships bringing goods from Asia,The Boeing company could barely keep up with demand for its airlines,Microsoft was hiring hordes of software engineers,After each rain shower,another internet millionaire sprang up,Here was a city that had it all-Old Economy,New Economy,Not-Yet-Invented-Economy.
Now it has all gone sour,The past 12 months have been a non-stop succession o disappointments,Boeing’s headquarters decamped to Chicago,The internet economy popped alike a balloon in a nail factory,taking with it once-companies such as drugstore.com barely hanging on,And an already troubled Boeing was hit even harder after September 11th both by a steep drop in airliner orders and by losing a $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract to Lockheed Martin,
Washington State,battered by what is happening in Seattle,now has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S,---6.6% compared with 5.4% in the country as a whole,Right behind it is next-door Oregon,another former boom state,with 6.5% of its workforce out of a job,the country’s second-worst figure,In Oregon,manufacturing’s collapse has caused the loss of nearly 30000 jobs in a year,those hit range from freightliner,a maker of heavy lorries,to high-tech companies such as Intel and Fujitsu.
What makes the current plunge so painful is that every part of the economy seems to have stepped into an open manhole at the same time,Three years ago,when Boeing began to remove more than 2000 people that Boeing expects to lay off by the middle of 2002 have to compete with unemployed workers not just from the high-tech industry but from construction work and even the retail sector,Portland now has more jobless than the other parts of Oregon,the opposite of how things were years ago.
Even worse,the pacific north-west’s downturn,as well as being deeper than the rest of the country,may also last longer,One reason for fearing this is Boeing’s continuing woes,Nowadays Boeing accounts for less than 5% of employment in the Seattle are,down from 9% two decades ago,But it remains the foundation on which the rest is built,Its network of suppliers and subcontractors gives it a far stronger multiplier effect than,say,Microsoft,which is more an island of prosperity than a center of a web,The chances are that Boeing will not really bounce back until the assumed revival in air travel persuades airline companies to start buying plenty of aircraft again,And that may not be until 2003.
1,by,After each rain shower,another internet millionaire sprang up”(paragraph 1),the text probably means,
A,many people get rich quickly and easily with the new economy.
B,it takes only the time between showers for someone to become boss
C,Seattle’s development is sudden like rain showers
D Seattle has as many business millionaires as its rain showers
2,what can be inferred in the passage concerning Boeing?
A its headquarter has been moved from Chicago to Seattle.
B it’s to be blamed for the economic depression in Washington.
C Boeing itself is having a hard time,
D It’s expected to have a revival in the year 2003.
3 what does the text imply about,homegrocer.com” and,drugstore.com”?
A they are neither promising companies.
B they are affiliated to large companies.
C they are dealing in medical products.
D they are also affected by the economic crisis.
4,what is special about this economic downturn in Seattle?
A all sectors have entered recession at the same time.
B the lay-off workers have found jobs elsewhere.
C the old economy is hit harder than other economies.
D the low employment rate will last longer than in Oregon.
5,we can infer from the last paragraph that,
A Microsoft has a strong multiplier effect on the economy.
B Boeing is crucial for the survival of other companies
C Seattle area’s employment rate has fallen considerably/
D the economic foundation of Seattle is Boeing’s continuing prosperity.
Text 2
There is no question that some,greenwashing” is going on in the corporate world,Bayernwerk,a Bavarian utility,began selling,Aqua power” last year when Germany began to let customers choose their electricity supplier,Bayernwerk markets Aqua power as 100 percent green,renewable hydroelectric energy,But any customer who signs up gets power from the same mix of sources as before,hydro,gas coal and nuclear,Nothing changes except some accounting,and there is no net benefit to the environment,There is a benefit thought,to Bayernwerk,which charges more for Aqua Power and has been swamped with orders for it,
Greenwashing takes many forms.,Companies often advertise themselves as environmentally friendly even though they might have some pretty hideous environmental records,” says Jill Johnson of the group Earth Day2000,California’s PG&E,the utility that settled out of court after the real Erie accused it of polluting groundwater,runs pro-environmental ads,But PG&E is due in court in November on changes of polluting wells in a second California town.,PG&E has a very good environmental track record,” says spokesman Grey Pruett,citing recycling and waste reduction,Weyerhaeuser,the timber company,cuts old-growth trees in Canada but trumpets the 100 million tree seedlings it will plant this year.
Overall,the greening of corporate America is real and has not been as hard to achieve as some environmental activists imagined,That is especially true for greenhouse gases and climate change,the focus of Earth Day2000.,Now there is more recognition by company that there may be an economic advantage to reduce emission of greenhouse gases.” says Paul Portney,president of the Think Tank Resource for the Fortune,More and more companies are changing the way they heat and light their buildings and design their factories to reduce greenhouse gas emission as well as their energy bills,(Energy-efficiency upgrades can save a company roughly $1 per square foot of office or factory space every year.) The reductions often exceed those called for in the 1997 international agreement on greenhouse warming called Kyoto Treaty,whose goal of reducing greenhouse emission 7 percent from their 2000 levels is deemed so threatening to the economy by many oil,coal and chemicals companies that the White House does not dare to submit it to the Senate for ratification,
1 The,Aqua Power”,sold by the German utility Bayernwerk,is
[A] green energy [B] less expensive
[C] ordinary electricity [D] not popular
2 By,greenwashing,,the author of the passage probably means
[A] reducing and recycling waste
[B] advertising green product
[C] planting tree seedlings
[D] appearing pro-environmental
3 The reduction on greenhouse gas emissions,called for in the Kyoto Treaty,turned out to be
[A] too dangerous for the US economy
[B] unrealistic for the year 2000
[C] good for oil,coal and chemical company
[D] not too difficult to achieve in US
4 Companies like PG&E and Weyerhaeuser tried to promote their environment image because they
[A] realize its economic advantage
[B] would like to be environmentally friendly
[C] would defend themselves against charges
[D] know the importance of sustainable growth
5 The author wrote this passage probably to show that
[A] most companies have a good environmental track record
[B] actions are truly taken by companies to protect the environment
[C] the real motive of companies’ actions is self-centered
[D] serious damages usually occur beneath the surface
Text 3
Islamic terrorism may be a distant threat for Shearer Lumber Products,a timber company based in Idaho,But eco-terrorism is a very real one,In November,the earth liberation front(ELF),and underground organization,gave warning that it had,spiked” trees in the Nez Perce national forest to protest against logging,(Spiking involves hiding metal bars in tree trunks,thereby crippling chain saws and,potentially,hurting people) More such attacks are expected,How do they fit into America’s war on terrorism?
The nation’s forests have seen a sharp increase in violent incidents-equipment vandalized,people intimidated-over the past ten years,Shearer now carefully inspects every tree before cutting and has been using metal detectors to check every trunk being processed,Yet Ihor Mereszczak,of the Nez Perce Forest Service,says it has been hard to get the FBI’s attention,and investigations have got nowhere.
The ELF is only one thread in a web of underground radical environmentalists,Its aim is inflicts as much financial pain as possible on organizations or people who,by its lights,are exploiting the environment,The ELF,though made up of anonymous cells,nonetheless operates a website offering tips on how to cause fires with electric timers,Until recently,it also had a public spokesman.
Together with the animal liberation front(ALF),which operates along the same lines,the ELF is estimated to be responsible for over $45m-worth of damage in North America over the past few years,In 1998,it caused fires that did $12m-worth of damage in Vail,Colorado,to made the point that the ski resort’s expansion was threatening places where lynxes live,Earlier this year,the ELF burned down the offices of a lumber company in Oregon,Since September 11th,the ALF and ELF have claimed responsibility for starting a fire at a primate research center in New Mexico,releasing mink from an Iowa fur farm,and firebombing a federal corral for wild horses in California.
Are they terrorists? The two groups reject the label,claiming to take all precautions against harming,animals,whether humans or not”,But earlier this year Louis Freeh,the FBI’s boss,listed both organizations among the most active domestic terrorist groups,Scott McInnis,the Republican congressman whose district includes Vail,argues it is only a matter of time before somebody gets hurt,he now expects the FBI to put in more resources.
The House subcommittee on forests,which Mr,McInnis heads,will hold a hearing on eco-terrorism in February,But he has annoyed some mainstream green groups by asking them to denounce the ELF’s and ALF’s methods,Greenpeace,for instance,says that its disapproval is self-evident,and resents being asked to express it,Mr,McInnis still wants their answer by December 1st,but the war on eco-terrorism is off to a rocky start,
1,What did the Earth Liberation Front do to Shearer Lumber Products?
A hurt its employees.
B crippled its equipments.
C hid metals in its trees.
D protested against its spiking.
2,We can infer from paragraph 3&4 that
A Shearer has cut too many trees
B metal detectors were used to find terrorists
C ELF recently has appointed a spokesman
D environmental standards of ELF are strict
3 An objective of ELF is to
A inflict financial pains on companies
B stop expansion of ski resort
C protect animal habitats
D burn animal research centers
4 both ELF and ALF rejected being labeled,terrorists” because
A they have no intention to hurt people
B FBI’s officials are difficult to convince
C a hearing is not held on their self-defence
D other green groups refused to condemn them
5 which of the following is the best title for the text?
A The Green Threat?
B Protecting Forests?
C Earth’s Liberation?
D Terrorism Defeated?
Text 4
The marvelous telephone and television network that has now enmeshed the whole world,making all men neighbours,cannot be extended into space,It will never be possible to converse with anyone on another planet,Even with today’s radio equipment,the messages will take minutes-sometimes hours-on their journey,because radio and light waves travel at the same limited speed of 186000 miles a second.
Twenty years from now you will be able to listen to a friend on mars,but the words you hear will have left his mouth at least three minutes earlier,and your reply will take a corresponding time to reach him,In such circumstances,an exchange of verbal messages is possible-but no a conversation.
To a culture which has come to take instantaneous communication for granted,as part of the very structure of civilized life,this,time barrier” may have a profound psychological impact,It will be a perpetual reminder of universal laws and limitations against which not all our technology can ever prevail,For it seems as certain as anything can be that no signal-still less any material object-can ever travel faster than light.
The velocity of light is the ultimate speed limit,being part of the very structure of space and time,Within the narrow confines of the solar system,it will not handicap us too severely,At the worst,these will amount to twenty hours-the time it takes a radio signal to span the orbit of Pluto,the outer-most planet.
It is when we move out beyond the confines of the solar system that we come face to face with an altogether new order of cosmic reality,Even today,many otherwise educated men-like those savages who can count to three but lump together all numbers beyond four-cannot grasp the profound distinction between solar and stellar space,The first is the space enclosing our neighbouring worlds,the planets; the second is that which embraces those distant suns,the stars,and it is literally millions of times greater,There is no such abrupt change of scale in the terrestrial affairs.
Many conservative scientists,appalled by there cosmic gulfs,have denied that they can ever be crossed,Some people never learn; those who sixty years ago scoffed at the possibility of flight,and ten years ago laughed at the idea of travel to the planets,are now quite sure that the stars will always be beyond our reach,And again they are wrong,for they have failed to grasp the great lesson of our age-that if something is possible in theory,and no fundamental scientific laws oppose its realization,then sooner or later it will be achieved.
On day we shall discover a really efficient means of propelling our space vehicles,Every technical device is always developed to its limit and the ultimate speed for spaceships is the velocity of light,They will never reach that goal,but they will get very near it,And then the nearest star will be less than five years’ voyaging from the earth.
1,For light to travel across the solar system,it will take
A a year
B nearly a day
C two months
D thirty minutes
2,The fact that it will never to be possible to converse with someone on another planet shows that
A radio messages do not travel fast enough
B no object can ever travel faster than light
C western culture has a special idea of communication
D certain universal laws cannot be prevailed against
3,Confronted with the new order of cosmic reality,many educated men
A become ignorant savages again
B find the,time barrier” unbearable
C will not combine solar and stellar space
D cannot adapt to the abrupt change of scale
4,Conservative scientists who deny that cosmic gulfs can ever be crossed will
A laugh at the very idea of flight
B learn a lesson as they did ten years ago
C find space travel beyond their reach
D oppose the fundamental scientific laws
5,The author of the passage,readers an infer,intends to show the
A limitations of our technology
B vastness of the cosmic reality
C prospect of planetary travel
D psychological impact of time and space
Unit 12
Directions
Read the following text Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET 1 (40 points)
Text 1
Many of world’s big lakes are threatened by pollution or huge drainage schemes,But there is at least one fairly bright spot,The Great Lake and St,Lawrence river system between Canada and the united states,which together account for a fifth of the world’s non-polar fresh water,are much healthier than they were,Can they stay that way?
Though Lake Michigan is wholly the United States,all five lakes are governed by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909,implemented by an independent bi-national joint commission,In 1978,both countries agreed to try to clean up the water in the lakes,several of which were heavily polluted,They have done so-though in fact the improvement owes as much to economic change as to government action,Steel and other heavy industry have given way to cleaner industries and services,both in Ontario and in American lakeside states,The result,tests on fish and birds show residues of heavy metals have declined (though dangerous levels of mercury are still found),while in the past ten years the rivers near Toronto have been successfully stocked with salmon.
There are still worries,One problem is farming,This uses much lake water(29% of the total that is withdrawn) fro irrigation,while also polluting the lakes and river system,The huge quantities of manure spread on farms in Ontario and Quebec also causes pollution,by running off the land into streams,rivers and then lakes.
Some scientists also worry that water levels will fall permanently,Climate change is likely to cut rainfall in the Great Lakes basin,while ever more water will be drawn from the lakes by a rising urban population,General consumption in the basin will increase by 25% in the next 25 years,according to a forecast by a consultant to the commission.
Other threats include some 140 exotic species of flora,fish and shellfish that have found their way in to the lakes,some via ships’ ballast,the zebra mussel from Eastern Europe is the most notorious and probably most damaging to the environment,It consumes a lot of oxygen (though is also helps to clean the water),Lastly,there is the hazardous prospect of decommissioning Ontario’s two dozen ageing nuclear reactors,which line the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Huron.
Fortunately,the lone history of successful co-operation between the two countries and among the local governments suggests these threats can be managed,Both governments have approved the commission’s plan to set up international watershed boards across the continent,These are to take a,holistic” approach to ecosystems,Maybe the Zebra mussel and the farm run-offs have met their match.
1.from the text,we know that the Great Lakes
A are equally located between Canada and the US
B contain a small part of the world’s fresh water.
C are governed neither by Canada nor by the US
D enjoy fresher water now than 25 years ago
2,in the first two paragraphs,the author suggests
A the bi-national joint commission has done its routine job
B the Boundary Water Treaty of 1909 has become out-of-date
C the huge drainage schemes are to blame for land run-offs
D the economic change has contributed to environmental improvement
3,which of the following shows that water quality has improved?
A fish and birds show residues of heavy metal.
B Toronto has grown salmon successful in its waters.
C farming has prospered in the lakeside areas.
D lake water has been drawn for use by the population.
4,which of the following causes concerns of the public and the scientists?
A fish farming,
B urban population.
C Decreased rainfall.
D more landslide.
5,what is the author’s attitude to the prospect of the lakes’ environment?
A optimistic.
B worried.
C indifferent
D unclear
Text 2
It is called softwood,but these days it’s producing nothing but hard feelings,Softwood is used to build houses,stuff that in skilled hands changes from a pile of wood in to a recognizable home in mere days,In the US,about 30% of such softwood comes from Canada,But on March 22nd the Department of Commerce announced that it would slap a tariff of around 29% on Canadian softwood,The Americans contend that Canada is subsidizing its timber industry,and dumping wood on to its neighbour for sale at prices that do not cover its production cost.
The Canadian hotly deny this,and the two sides are volleying expertise at each other.,They’ve hired their experts,and we’ve hired ours,” says John Allan,president of the British Columbia Lumber Trade Council.
In Canada the provincial governments own forests,and each province is given considerable freedom in pricing its,stumpage”,as standing trees are oddly called,American critics say the Canadians all but give away those uncut trees,John Perez-Garcia,a professor of forestry at the University of Washington in Seattle,estimates that Canadian logging companies pay as much as 60% less for standing trees than they would if the market set the prices.
Not so,retort the Canadians,Dan Evans,managers of log exports for British Columbia’s government,points out that stumpage fees cover only a small portion of what it cost a Canadian company to send lumber across the border,These companies,he says,have to build their own roads,re-forest logged land,and pay the cost of planning their sales.,We feel we price our timber competitively.” It is worth noting that for years American companies were themselves accused of receiving subsidies; stumpage prices for trees cut down on federal land were long criticized as too low,Then they were quiet on the subject,But now that most American-produced lumber comes from private forests,government subsidies are anathema.
In Seattle,Robb Dunn,president of a chain of ten lumber stores,says his customers will just have to put up with higher prices,Some reckon the tariff will increase new-home prices by as much as $1500,That may be a bit high; although lumber prices have gone up lately,they are still below the peak reached last summer,And rising interest rates may slow the American housing market,cutting demand.
The two sides hope to continue talks,One way out might be an agreement under which Canada taxes its lumber companies until it reforms its pricing policies to America’s satisfaction,But Mr,Allan,for one,is not optimistic,The US,he says,has not negotiated in good faith:,Its government just can’t get a grip in its timber industry,which is too powerful.”
1,why do Americans not feel happy about Canadian softwood?
A 30% of Canadian softwood came into America.
B it produces hard feelings between the two countries.
C Canada is dumping it into America.
D it is sold at a subsidized price.
2,we can infer from the text that
A Canadian central government sets the price for its forest
B the uncut trees were giver to companies for tree
C Canadian companies pay 60% less for softwood export
D the experts were hired to evaluate the behavior of lumber industry
3,what is Canadians’ answer to Americans’ accusation?
A stumpage fees at present are high rather than low.
B no protection is received from Canadian government.
C raising stumpage fees will not solve the problem.
D lumber price includes many expensive components.
4,why are the Americans silent on their own lumber subsidy?
A they no longer exist
B Americans apply a double standard.
C little lumber comes from federal land.
D private forests monopolise the market.
5,what will probably happen because of this trade war?
A demand for wooden house will fall.
B customers will have to pay high prices.
C Canada will place higher tax on lumber industry.
D the US will negotiate the matter with good faith.
Text 3
Violent criminals with something to hide have more reason than ever to be paranoid about a tap on the shoulder which could send them to jail,Queensland police are working through a backlog of unsolved murders with some dramatic success,Greater cooperation between the public and various law enforcement agencies is playing a role,but new genetic-testing techniques are the real key to providing the vital evidence to mount a prosecution.
Evidence left behind at the scene of any murder is guaranteed to outlive the person who left is,A blood,saliva or tissue sample the size of a pin,kept dry and out of sunlight,will last several thousand years,From it,scientific analysis now can tell accurately the sex of the person who left it.
When matched against a sample from a crime suspect,it can indicate with million-to-one certainty whether the samples come from the same source,Only twins share identical DNA,So precise is the technology if the biological parents of a suspect agree to provide a sample,forensic scientists can work out the rest for themselves without cooperation from the suspect.
Queensland forensic scientists have been using the DNA testing technology since 1992,and last year they were recognized internationally for their competence in positive individual identification,That is part of the reason 20 of Queensland’s most puzzling unsolved murders dating to 1952 are being actively investigated,There also have been several recent arrests for unsolved murders.
Forensic evidence was instrumental in chares being laid over the bashing death of waitress Tasha Douty on Bromptong Island in 1983,Douty’s blood-splattered,naked body was found on a nude sunbathing beach at Dinghy Bay on the island,Footprints in the sand indicated that the killer had grappled with the 41-year-old mother who had fled up the beach before being caught and beaten to death.
According to Leo Freney,the supervising forensic scientist at the John Centre at Brisbane’s Griffith University,DNA testing has become an invaluable tool for police,Its use is in identifying and rejecting suspects,In fact,he says,it eliminates more people than it convicts.
,It is easily as good as fingerprints for the purpose of identification,” he says.,In the case of violent crime it is better than fingerprints,You can’t innocently explain things like blood and semen at a crime scene where you may be able to innocently explain fingerprints.” In Queensland,a person who has been arrested on suspicion of an offence can be taken before a magistrate and ordered to provide a sample of body fluid by force if necessary.
1,Evidence left behind at the scene of a crime is all of the following EXCEPT
A blood
B tissue
C fingerprint
D pin
2,the Queensland police has made dramatic progress in investigating unresolved murders because of,
A greater cooperation between suspects and the police
B possibilities offered by the DNA testing technology
C police competence in positive individual identification
D new evidence left at the scene of these murders
3,before her murder,Tasha Douty was on Brompton Island probably
A working as a waitress
B spending her holiday
C having a bath in the sun
D swimming on the beach
4,according to Leo Freney,DNA testing is a valuable tool because it
A uses fingerprints
B is the real key
C provides sample fluid
D is very accurate
5,the power of the new forensic technology is shown in the fact that it can
A work out a result even without the suspect’s cooperation
B eliminate more suspects than identify them
C make use of evidence several thousand years later
D take s sample of the suspect’s body fluid by force
Text 4
Rebel uprising kills seventy! Plane crash leaves no survivors! Rock star dies of overdose!
Evening newscasts and metropolitan newspapers scream the bad news,the sensational,and the action.
Audiences of today focus upon the sensational action,the violence,the loss,the terror,individually,our lives are redirected,our worlds reshaped,and our images changed,While wary of danger of change,we human beings surrender daily to exploitation oh values,opportunities,and sensitivity,The evolution has brought us to the point that we believe little of what is presented to us as good and valuable; instead,we opt for suspicion and disbelief,demanding proof and something for nothing.
There in lies the danger for the writer seeking to break into the market of today,Journalists sell sensationalism—information as action,The journalist who loses sight of the simple truth and opts only for the sensation loses the audience over the long run,Only those seeking a short-term thrill are in following the journalistic thinking.
How,then do we capture the audience of today and hold it,when the competition for attention is so fierce? The answer is writing to convey action,and the way to accomplish this is a simple one—action verbs.
The writer whose product suspends time for the reader or viewer is the successful writer whose work is sought and reread,Why?
Time often will melt away in the face of the reality of life’s little responsibilities for the reader,Instead of puzzling over a more active,and accurate verb,some journalists often limp though passive voice and useless tense to squeeze the life out of an action-filled world and fill their writing with missed opportunities to appeal to the reader who seeks that moment of suspended time.
Recently,a reporter wrote about observing the buildings in a community robbed by rebel uprising as,thousands of bullet holes were in the hotel”,A very general observation,Suppose he had written,“The hotel was pocked with bullet holes.” The visual image conjured up by the latter is far superior to the former,Here is the reader…comfortable in the easy chair before the fire with the dog at his feet,The verb,pocked” speaks to him,
The journalist missed the opportunity to the reality.
1,This passage provides information to support which of the following?
A Journalists of today find excitement that they convey to their readers.
B The need for accurate reporting is obvious in the lack of human-interest stories.
C In order to appeal to the public,one must write only about sensational topics.
D Writing that is not lively escapes the reader’s imagination.
2,The journalist eager to succeed and capture the reader’s attention will _______,
A exploit the short attention span and sensationalize
B report only the familiar incidents in order to achieve the transfer of understanding
C attempt to spice to writing with contrived incidents that will fit the current situation
D utilize events and actions ti transport the reader to the incident at hand
3,The passage suggests that readers are affected by which one of the following?
A Dull writing.
B International incidents.
C Active writing.
D Local current event.
4,According to the author,which of the following might be true of journalists?
A Most journalists are eager to report the truth.
B Journalists only want to exploit the readers.
C Language is the tool of journalists.
D Language seek the easy way out.
5,The title of the article might be ______,
A Audience Distracted by Journalists
B Journalists,Sensationalism Sellers
C Return to Vivid Description
D How to Become a Competent Reporter
Unit 13
Directions
Read the following text Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D,Mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET 1 (40 points)
Text 1
When Rupert Murdoch sees beams of light in the American advertising market,it is not necessarily time to reach for the sunglasses,Last October,when the impact of September 11th was only beginning to tell,the boss of NewsCorp,a media group,had already identified,strong rays of sunshine”,With ad sales still languishing,Mr,Murdoch declared last month that,there are some hints of a modest upswing in the U.S,advertising markets’,His early optimism turned out to be misplaced,Now,however,other industry observers are beginning to agree with him.
Advertising usually exaggerates the economic cycle,falling sharply and early in a downturn,and rebounding strongly once the economy has begun to recover,This is because most managers prefer to trim their ad budgets rather than their payrolls,and restore such spending only once they feel sure that things are looking up,Last year,America’s ad market shrank by 9.8%,according to CMR,a research firm,Although ad spending has not yet recovered across all media,some analysts now expect overall ad spending to start to grow in the third quarter.
The signs of improvement are patchy,however,Ad spending on radio and television seems to be inching up—advertising on American national radio was up 2% in January on the same period last year,according to Aegis—while spending on magazines and newspapers is still weak,Even within any one market,there are huge differences; just pick up a copy of one of the now-slim line high-tech magazines that once bulged with ads,and compare it with the hefty celebrity or women’s titles,Advertisers in some categories,such as the travel industry,are still reluctant to buy space or airtime,while others,such as the car and movie businesses,have been bolder,The winter Olympics,held last month in Salt Lake City,has also distorted the spending on broadcast advertising in the first quarter.
Nonetheless,there is an underlying pattern,One measure is the booking of ad spots for national brands on local television,By early March,according to Mr,Westerfield’s analysis,such bookings were growing fast across eight out of the top ten adverting sectors,led by the financial and motor industries,UBS Warburg now expects the,upfront” market,which starts in May when advertisers book advance ad spots on the TV networks for the season in September,to be up 4% on last year,On some estimates,even online advertising could pick up by the end of the year.
1,What dose the author mean by,it is not necessarily time to reach for the sun glasses” (paragraph 1)?
A The sunshine is not terribly strong.
B The season is not summer,but autumn.
C The economy needs a little protection.
D The real recovery has yet to take place.
2,When Mr,Murdoch speaks of,some hints of a upswing”,he is ______,
A exaggerating the situation
B being too cautious
C underestimating the development
D probably describing the reality
3,Which of following is true according to the text?
A Advertising follows the movement of economic cycle.
B Company managers will cut salary during economic downturn.
C CMR was wrong about last year’s U.S,ad market.
D Advertising spending will start growing before the economy.
3,Strong signs of improvement are visible in the advertising of _____,
A high-tech magazines and sports industry
B celebrity magazines and travel industry
C women’s magazines and car industry
D movie industry and high-tech magazines
4,What is the author’s view of the prospect of U.S,advertising market?
A Recovery will be slow.
B There will be a big jump.
C Patchy improvement will occur.
D The situation will remain pessimistic
Text 2
The Web,as invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1992,introduced browsing to the world－certainly a big step up from the obscure,text-based procedures used to navigate the Internet back then,But the Web presents a major drawback,to see when new content has been added to a Web page,you must surf the site.
What if the site surfed for you instead? That’s the thinking behind,push” technology,The word,push” is a bit misleading,since what is actually happening is,timed pull.”
Push is a system by which information automatically flows to your machine,removing the inconvenience of clicking on a hyperlink,With push,you subscribe to,channels” that provide such content as regular stock information,news headlines and software updates,while you sit back and watch the content come to you,Push removes the requirement for user interaction,completely,making information appear on the screen as if it were being broadcast like a TV show.
All of this is great,except for one thing,Push isn’t any safer than pull.
In the beginning,everyone agreed that material downloaded from the Net may conceal a virus or be a Trojan Horse that appears to be doing something useful while it is actually doing something evil,Automating things,as in the case of push,doesn’t make it less dangerous,Push offers interesting functionality,but security issues have yet to be properly addressed,How do you know that the information a push server is sending you is safe? How do you know that the update that was just pushed onto your PC was really from the company that developed the software?
One danger comes from spoofing,The idea of spoofing is pretty simple,Someone feeds you false information masquerading as the truth,Spoofing with push can be particularly dangerous,For example,many people rely on PointCast by PointCast,Inc,to get news headlines and stock quotes,In fact,on its Web site,PointCast says:,News from trusted sources,PointCast broadcasts national and international news,stock information,industry updates,whether from around the globe,sports scores,and more,from sources like CNN,CNNfn,Time,People,and Money magazines,Business Wire,PR Newswire,Reuters,Sportsticker,and Accu－Weather!”
Let’s say an attacker wants to buy some stock cheaply,He picks a target to whom he feeds incorrect PointCast data about the stock he wants to buy,If the attacker makes the stock price appear high enough,eventually everyone will want to sell,But why stop at one stock? Why not make the whole market bubble then burst? Cheap stock galore,Many variations on this theme are possible,Any time large numbers of people trust a news source,and that source can be invisibly hijacked,the potential for trouble exists,This risk can be mitigated by strong authentication and data integrity mechanisms.
The attack situation sketched above can be addressed with proper authentication and data integrity mechanisms,You have to know for sure where important data come from,and that these have not been tampered en route,As a user of push,there is not much you can do to improve your own security besides educating yourself about these risks and which vendors have the best approaches,so you can make an informed decision about the use of new technologies.
1,According to the author,the invention of the Web
[A] is certainly an important although it presents a difficulty.
[B] is causing a great many problems despite its usefulness.
[C] is a bit misleading especially in the case of push.
[D] is something one must avoid when one deals with stock.
2,The idea of push technology is to
[A] pull information form the Internet for hours.
[B] surf the site to see what content has been added.
[C] push back the documents to the computer.
[D] let information appear on the screen automatically.
3,From this article we can infer that push technology is
[A] convenient and reliable, [B] ideal but not feasible.
[C] great but dangerous, [D] treacherous and misleading.
4,The phrase,Trojan Horse” (Para,5) most probably refers to
[A] a disguised blessing, [B] a concealed peril.
[C] a cornered beast, [D] a winged horse game.
5,The author mentions,PointCast” as an instance to show that
[A] PointCast,Inc,has recently become a bubble company.
[B] PointCast has forfeited its time-honored reputation.
[C] one must find a news source which he can rely upon.
[D] a reliable news source may be made to commit a fraud.
Text 3
Those who aim high may fail,but it is a failure more honorable than the success of those who aim low,And it may achieve far more,To fail is to achieve the unexpected,But it is still an achievement,however unintentional,There is no way of failing utterly.
Perhaps there is no way of failing at all,Perhaps there are only ways of changing one’s destination,or of misreading a traffic sign that stands before a new major road in our careers,(Even the stop signs do not mean,Abandon the journey”; they mean,Wait before proceeding.” They may mean care; they never mean cowardice,They often require a new direction.)
What of dead ends? It is impossible to arrive at one without having traveled－and travel is an achievement,Furthermore,every dead-end street has one end open; the way in is also a way out,It may not be the only way out,some creatures burrow out of dead ends; some climb the walls; some fly,So a check is not a failure.
He who will not surrender cannot be defeated,no matter what the odds against him,no matter how untenable his position appears,Sometimes what we learn from,failure” is that we have been fighting the wrong battle,or traveling in the wrong direction,To discover this is a major victory,Viewed long afterward,when we have traveled so far beyond an apparent failure that we can look back on it and see it in the context of its future,a defeat may be revealed as a victory,when we come to understand.
He who attempts and fails has nevertheless achieved something,an attempt－a venture－an endeavor,And this is real,a venture is a whole thing,Success and failure are separate things,which neither qualify nor disqualify the venture,Because every endeavor is a complete event,independent of its outcome,there is more honor in venturing gloriously than in venturing ingloriously,The outcome merely ends the chapter; but the way we live our life-story is what matters,not the way each chapter ends,A new chapter begins at once.
Who knows what failure is,or success? Can any human being understand so subtle and mysterious a thing? To evaluate a singe step in any human life,we need to understand where that life is going－and we don’t,Yet we confidently glorify what we call victory but not what we call defeat.
History blazes with the names of people who failed often before they reached their victories; their failures actually powered their success,Defeat neither finished nor diminished them; it armed and armored them,Van Gogh had failed in several careers before he began to paint－and even after he had succeeded magnificently,he thought he had failed,So we need to recognize our own successes,and to do so when we see them,not when other people say they see them,What do other people know about the deep things that move us? Rembrandt was painting masterpieces when the world thought he was a failure,He knew better.
I think the fear of failure is really something else－fear of disappointment,fear of wasting time or toil or money,fear of ridicule,These anxieties are invented enemies,and they can’t defeat us unless we use them as weapons against ourselves,We don’t have to do that.
Defiance of failure is a victory already.
1,In the passage the author argues that
[A] to fail is to succeed in getting an unintentional achievement.
[B] an unexpected achievement often invites an utter failure.
[C] one’s success is always an honorable achievement.
[D] failures are something for those who aim low.
2,Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the author?
[A] Traveling to a dead end is an intentional achievement in life.
[B] Seeing a stop sign in his life journey is meeting with an utter failure.
[C] Finding oneself fighting against heavy odds is to be called a failure.
[D] Changing one’s original intention when he finds himself wrong is a victory.
3,Why does the author say that even apparent failure may be a victory when viewed long afterward?
[A] Because one may forget what happened in the past.
[B] Because one finds it easy to adopt an indifferent attitude.
[C] Because it helps the person to turn over a new leaf.
[D] Because it neither qualifies nor disqualifies one’s behavior.
4,Why does the author say he doubts whether any human being can understand what failure or success is?
[A] Because Rembrandt was painting masterpieces when he was thought to be a failure.
[B] Because Van Gogh thought he had failed even after he had succeeded magnificently.
[C] Because human beings honor success and despise failure.
[D] Because human beings do not understand where their life is going.
5,Which of the following is NOT true?
[A] Defiance of failure is certainly a victory,
[B] The fear of failure can never defeat people.
[C] An insight into failure is a victory already.
[D] Great personages use failures to power success.
Text 4
Directions:
Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese,Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2,(10 points)
The study of law has been recognized for centuries as a basic intellectual discipline in European universities,However,only in recent years has it become a feature of undergraduate programs in Canadian universities,(1) Traditionally,legal learning has been viewed in such institutions as the special preserve of lawyers,rather than a necessary part of the intellectual equipment of an educated person,Happily,the older and more continental view of legal education is establishing itself in a number of Canadian universities and some have even begun to offer undergraduate degrees in law.
If the study of law is beginning to establish itself as part and parcel of a general education,its aims and methods should appeal directly to journalism educators,Law is a discipline which encourages responsible judgment,On the one hand,it provides opportunities to analyze such ideas as justice,democracy and freedom,(2) On the other,it links these concepts to everyday realities in a manner which is parallel to the links journalists forge on a daily basis as they cover and comment on the news,For example,notions of evidence and fact,of basic rights and public interest are at work in the process of journalistic judgment and production just as in courts of law,Sharpening judgment by absorbing and reflecting on law is a desirable component of a journalist’s intellectual preparation for his or her career.
(3) But the idea that the journalist must understand the law more profoundly than an ordinary citizen rests on an understanding of the established conventions and special responsibilities of the news media,Politics or,more broadly,the functioning of the state,is a major subject for journalists,The better informed they are about the way the state works,the better their reporting will be,(4) In fact,it is difficult to see how journalists who do not have a clear grasp of the basic features of the Canadian Constitution can do a competent job on political stories.
Furthermore,the legal system and the events which occur within it are primary subjects for journalists,While the quality of legal journalism varies greatly,there is an undue reliance amongst many journalists on interpretations supplied to them by lawyers,(5) While comment and reaction from lawyers may enhance stories,it is preferable for journalists to rely on their own notions of significance and make their own judgments,These can only come from a well-grounded understanding of the legal system.
Unit 14
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
The making of weathervanes (devices fixed on the top of buildings to show directions of the wind) is an ancient skill,going back to early Egyptian times,Today the craft is still very much alive in the workshop that Graham Smith has set up,He is one of the few people in the country who make hand-cut weathervanes,Graham's designs are individually created and tailored to the specific requirements of his customers,"That way I can produce a unique
personalized item," he explains,"A lot of my customers are women buying presents for their husbands,They want a distinctive gift that represents the man's business or leisure interests."
It's all a far cry from the traditional cock,the most common design for weathervanes.
It was not a cock but a witch on a broomstick that featured on the first weathervane Graham ever made,Friends admired his surprise present for his wife and began asking him to make vanes for them,"I realized that when it came to subjects that could be made into them,the possibilities were limitless," he says.
(41),
That was five years ago and he has no regrets about his new direction,"My previous work didn't have an artistic element to it,whereas this is exciting and creative," he says,"I really enjoy the design side."
(42),
Graham also keeps plenty of traditional designs in stock,since they prove as popular as the one-offs,"It seems that people are attracted to handcrafting," Graham says,"They welcome the opportunity to acquire something a little bit different."
(43),
"I have found my place in the market,People love the individuality and I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing a nondescript shape turn into something almost lifelike," he says.
(44),
"And nowadays,with more and more people moving to the country,individuals want to put an exclusive finishing touch to their properties,It has been a boost to crafts like mines,"
(45),
American and Danish buyers in particular are showing interest,"Pricing," he explains,"depends on the intricacy of the design.”His most recent request was for a curly-coaled dog,Whatever the occasion,Graham can create a gift with a difference.
[A] Graham has become increasingly busy,supplying flat-packed weathervanes to clients worldwide.
[B] Graham decided to concentrate his efforts on a weathervane business,He,had served an apprenticeship as a precision engineer and had worked in,that trade for 15 years when he and his wife,Liz,agreed to swap roles-she went out to work as an architectural assistant and he stayed at home to look after the children and build up the business.
[C] Last month,a local school was opened with his galleon ship weathervane hoisted above it.
[D] "For centuries,weathervanes have kept communities in touch with the elements,signaling those shifts in wind direction that bring about changes in the weather," he explains.
[E] Graham has no plans for expansion,as he wants to keep the business as a rural craft.
[F] Graham has now perfected over 100 original designs,He works to very fine detail,always seeking approval for the design of the silhouette from,the customer before proceeding with the hand-cutting.
Unit 15
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
Theories of the value of art are of two kinds,which we may call extrinsic and intrinsic,The first regards art and the appreciation of art as means to some recognized moral good,while the second regards them as valuable not instrumentally but as objects unto themselves,It is characteristic of extrinsic theories to locate the value of art in its effects on the person who appreciates it,(41),
The extrinsic approach,adopted in modem times by Leo Tolstoy in What Is Art in 1896,has seldom seemed wholly satisfactory,Philosophers have constantly sought for a value in aesthetic experience that is unique to it and that,therefore,could not be obtained from any other source,The extreme version of this intrinsic approach is that associated with Walter Pater,Oscar Wilde,and the French Symbolists,and summarized in the slogan 'tart for art's sake." (42),
Between those two extreme views there lies,once again,a host of intermediate positions,We believe,for example,that works of art must be appreciated for their own sake,but that,in the
act of appreciation,we gain from them something that is of independent value,(43)
The analogy with laughter--which,in some views,is itself a species of aesthetic interest--introduces a concept without which there can be no serious discussion of the value of art,the concept of taste,(44)
Similarly,we regard some works of art as worthy of our attention and others as not,In articulating this judgment,we use all of the diverse and confusing vocabulary of moral appraisal; works of art,like people,are condemned for their sentimentality,coarseness,vulgarity,cruelty,or self-indulgence,and equally praised for their warmth,compassion,nobility,sensitivity,and truthfulness,Clearly,if aesthetic interest has a positive value,its only when motivated by good taste; it is only interest in appropriate objects that can be said to be good for us,(45),
[A] Thus a joke is laughed at for its own sake,even though there is an independent value in laughter,which lightens our lives by taking us momentarily outside ourselves,Why should not something similar be said of works of art,many of which aspire to be amusing in just the way that good jokes are?
[B] All discussion of the value of art tends,therefore,to turn from the outset in the direction of criticism,Can there be genuine critical evaluation of art,a genuine distinction between that which deserves our attention and that which does not?
[C] Art is held to be a form of education,perhaps an education of the emotions,In this case,it becomes an open question whether there might not be some more effective means of the same result,Alternatively,one may attribute a negative value to art,as Plato did in his Republic,arguing that art has a corrupting or diseducative effect on those exposed to it.
[D]Artistic appreciation,a purely personal matter,calls for appropriate means of expression,Yet,it is before anything a process of "cultivation",during which a certain part of one's "inner self" is "dug out" and some knowledge of the outside world becomes its match.
[E] If l am amused it is for a reason,and this reason lies in the object of my amusement,We thus begin to think in terms of a distinction between good and bad reasons for laughter,Amusement at the wrong things may seem to us to show corruption of mind,cruelty,or had taste; and when it does so,we speak of the object as not truly amusing,and feel that we have reason on our side.
[F] Such thinkers and writers believe that art is not only an end in itself but also a sufficient justification of itself,They also hold that in order to understand art as it should be understood,it is necessary to put aside all interests other than an interest in the work itself.
Unit 16
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
As more and more material from other cultures became available,European scholars came to recognize even greater complexity in mythological traditions- Especially valuable was the
evidence provided by ancient Indian and Iranian texts such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Zend-A-vesta,From these sources it became apparent that the character of myths varied widely,not only by geographical region but also by historical period,(41)
He argued that the relatively simple Greek myth of Persephone reflects the concerns of a basic agricultural community,whereas the more involved and complex myths found later in Homer are
the product of a more developed society.
Scholars also attempted to tie various myths of the world together in some way,From the late 18th century through the early 19th century,the comparative study of languages had led to the reconstruction of a hypothetical parent language to account for striking similarities among the various languages of Europe and the Near East,These languages,scholars concluded,belonged to an Indo-European language family,Experts on mythology likewise searched for a parent mythology that presumably stood behind the mythologies of all the European peoples,(42), For example,an expression like "maiden dawn" for "sunrise" resulted first in personification of the dawn,and then in myths about her.
Later in the 19th century the theory of evolution put forward by English naturalist Charles Darwin heavily influenced the study of mythology,Scholars researched on the history of mythology,much as they would dig fossil-bearing geological formations,for remains from the distant past,(43),
Similarly,British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer proposed a three-stage evolutionary scheme in The Golden Bough,According to Frazer's scheme,human beings first attributed natural phenomena to arbitrary supernatural forces (magic),later explaining them as the will of the gods (religion),and finally subjecting them to rational investigation (science).
The research of British scholar William Robertson Smith,published in Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889),also influenced Frazer,Through Smith's work,Frazer came to believe that many myths had their origin in the ritual practices of ancient agricultural peoples,for whom the annual cycles of vegetation were of central importance,(44),
This approach reached its most extreme form in the so-called functionalism of British anthropologist A,R,Radcliffe-Brown,who heldthat every myth implies a ritual,and every ritual implies a myth.
Most analyses of myths in the 18th and 19th centuries showed a tendency to reduce myths to some essential core--whether the seasonal cycles of nature,historical circumstances,or ritual,That core supposedly remained once the fanciful elements of the narratives had been stripped away,In the 20th century,investigators began to pay closer attention to the content of the narratives themselves,(45)
[A] German-born British scholar Max Mtiller concluded that the Rig-Veda of ancient India--the oldest preserved body of literature written in an Indo-European language—reflected the earliest stages of an Indo-European mythology,Mtiller attributed all later myths to misunderstandings that arose from the picturesque terms in which early peoples described natural phenomena.
[B] The myth and ritual theory,as this approach came to be called,was,developed most fully by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison,Using insight gained from the work of French sociologist Emile Durkheim,Harrison argued that all myths have their origin in collective rituals of a society.
[C] Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud held that myths--like dreams--condense the material of experience and represent it in symbols.
[D] This approach can be seen in the work of British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor,In Primitive Culture (1871),Tylor organized the religious and philosophical development of humanity into separate and distinct evolutionary stages.
[E] The studies made in this period were consolidated in the work of German scholar Christian Gottlob Heyne,who was the first scholar to use the Latin term myths (instead of fabula,meaning "fable") to refer to the tales of heroes and gods.
[F] German scholar Karl Otfried Muiller followed this line of inquiry in his Prolegomena toa Scientific Mythology,1825.
Unit 17
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
Inca society was strictly organized,from the emperor and royal family down to the peasants,The emperor was thought to be descended from the sun god,Inti,and he therefore ruled with divine authority,All power rested in his hands,Only the influence of custom and the fear of revolt checked the emperor's power,(41), The emperor chose his most important administrators from among his sons,
Just below the emperor came the aristocracy,which included descendants and relations of all the emperors.
(42) The nobles of conquered peoples also became part of the governing aristocracy and were considered inca by adoption.
For administrative purposes the empire was divided into regions known as the "four suyus (quarters) of the world," with Cuzco at its center,The Incas called their empire "Land of the Four
Quarters." One suyu,the Antisuyu,stretched to the east of Cuzco and contained deep,forest-covered valleys that gradually descended into the jungles of the Amazon basin,Indian groups in this region,many of whom were only partially pacified,continued to launch attacks against the Incas,Cuntisuyu included all the land west of Cuzco,including the coastal regions of Peru from Chan Chan to Arequipa,Collasuyu was the largest of the quarters,Located south of Cuzco,it took in Lake Titicaca and regions of Bolivia,Chile,and Argentina,Chincasuyu contained the remaining land to the north of Cuzco.
A blood relative of the emperor served as governor of each quarter,The Incas further divided each quarter into progressively smaller units,with officials of descending rank overseeing the activities of these units,(43) Another official,ideally a leader of a large village,ruled over a smaller area containing about 1,000 peasants,At the level below,ten foremen each supervised a total of 100 peasants,At the lowest organizational level,an official oversaw a group of ten peasants,For every 10,000 people,there were 1,331 officials.
Inca state affairs were complex and tightly controlled,Whole native populations were at times uprooted and resettled in other communities,Often groups were relocated to areas where they were needed for agricultural or mining activities,Sometimes relocations were politically motivated (44)
Furthermore,these relocations facilitated the spread of Inca ideas and culture and promoted unity in the empire.
In order to deal efficiently with such matters,government officers kept strict accounts of all the people,gold,land,crops,and projects of the empire,Since the Incas had no system of writing,they kept records by means of a quipu--a series of short,knotted strings hung at intervals from a long top string,By varying the colors and kinds of string used and the spacing of the strings and knots,the Incas could record populations,troops,and tribute,as well as information about their legends and achievements,The quipu was a complex memory aid rather than a literal record,and only a trained quipucamayo,or memory expert,could create or interpret it,An oral comment accompanied each quipu and allowed the quipucamayo to make sense of its meaning,(45), Modem scholars still have not deciphered the codes used in the creation of quipus.
[A] Serving under each governor were ten district govem0rs,each of whom ruled over a district containing about 10,000 peasants.
[B] Following the Spanish conquest and the introduction of records written in Spanish,the Incas lost the ability to read quipus.
[C] Noticeable economic thriving was frequently found,in the records of the local governments,after relocations.
[D] The emperor had one official wife,but he had many royal concubines and his children by these wives often numbered in the hundreds.
[E] Placing Quechua-speaking populations in newly conquered areas impaired the ability of local groups to unite against the Incas.
[F] Relations between relatives of the emperor,governors and officials often posed headaches for the supreme ruler himself,who was interwoven tightly and deeply among them.
[G] These pure-blooded Incas held the most important government,religious,and military posts.
Unit 18
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
Until about two million years ago Africa's vegetation had always been controlled by the interactions of climate; geology,soil,and groundwater conditions; and the activities of animals,The addition of humans to the latter group,however,has increasingly rendered unreal the concept of a fully developed "natural" vegetation--i.e.,one approximating the ideal of a vegetational climax,(41), Early attempts at mapping and classifying Africa's vegetation stressed this relationship,sometimes the names of plant zones were derived directly from climates,In this discussion the idea of zones is retained only in a broad descriptive sense.
(42), In addition,over time more floral regions of varying shape and size have been recognized,Many schemes have arisen successively,all of which have had to take views on two important aspects,the general scale of treatment to be adopted,and the degree to which human modification is to be comprehended or discounted.
(43) Quite the opposite assumption is now frequently advanced,An intimate combination of many species--in complex associations and related to localized soils,slopes,and drainage--has been detailed in many studies of the African tropics,In a few square miles there may be a visible succession from swamp with papyrus,the grass of which the ancient Egyptians made paper and from which the word "paper" originated,through swampy grassland and broad-leaved woodland and grass to a patch of forest on richer hillside soil,and finally to juicy fleshy plants on a nearly naked rock summit.
(44), Correspondingly,classifications have differed greatly in their principles for naming,grouping,and describing formations,some have chosen terms such as forest,woodland,thorn-bush,thicket,and shrub for much of the same broad tracts that others have grouped as wooded savanna (treeless grassy plain) and steppe (grassy plain with few trees),This is best seen in the nomenclature,naming of plants,adopted by two of the most comprehensive and authoritative maps of Africa's vegetation that have been published,R,W,J,Keay's Vegetation Map of Africa South of the Tropic of Cancer and its more widely based successor,The Vegetation Map of Africa,compiled by Frank White,In the Keay map the terms "savanna" and "steppe" were adopted as precise definition of formations,based on the herb layer and the coverage of woody vegetation; the White map,however,discarded these two categories as specific classifications,Yet any rapid absence of savanna as in its popular and more general sense is doubtful.
(45), However,some 100 specific types of vegetation identified on the source map have been compressed into 14 broader classifications.
[A] As more has become known of the many thousands of African plant species and their complex ecology,naming,classification,and mapping have also become more particular,stressing what was actually present rather than postulating about climatic potential.
[B] In regions of higher rainfall,such as eastern Africa,savanna vegetation is maintained by periodic fires,Consuming dry grass at the end of the rainy season,the fires bum back the forest vegetation,check the invasion of trees and shrubs,and stimulate new grass growth.
[C] Once,as with the scientific treatment of African soils,a much greater uniformity was attributed to the vegetation than would have been generally accepted in the same period for treatments of the lands of western Europe or the United States.
[D] The vegetational map of Africa and general vegetation groupings used here follow the White map and its extensive annotations.
[E] African vegetation zones are closely linked to climatic zones,with the same zones occurring both north and south of the equator in broadly similar patterns,As with climatic zones,differences in the amount and seasonal distribution of precipitation constitute the most important influence on the development of vegetation,
[F] Nevertheless,in broad terms,climate remains the dominant control over vegetation,Zonal belts of precipitation,reflection latitude and contrasting exposure to the Atlantic and Indian oceans and their currents,give some reality to related belts of vegetation.
[G]The span of human occupation in Africa is believed to exceed that of any other continent,All the resultant activities have tended,on balance,to reduce tree cover and increase grassland; but there has been considerable dispute among scholars concerning the natural versus human-caused development of most African grasslands at the regional level.
Unit 19
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
Archaeological study covers an extremely long span of time and a great variety of subjects,The earliest subjects of archaeological study date from the origins of humanity,These include fossil remains believed to be of human ancestors who lived 3.5 million to 4.5 million years ago,The earliest archaeological sites include those in Ethiopia,Tanzania,Kenya; and elsewhere in
East Africa,These sites contain evidence of the first appearance of bipedal (upright-walking),apelike early humans,(41),
The first physically modem humans,Homo sapiens,appeared in tropical Africa between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago--dates determined by molecular biologists and archaeologists working together,Dozens of archaeological sites throughout Asia and Europe show how people migrated from Africa and settled these two continents during the last Ice Age (100,000 to 15,000 years ago),(42),
Archaeologists have documented that the development of agriculture took place about 10,000 years ago,Early domestication--the planting and harvesting of plants and t-he breeding and herding of animals--is evident in such places as the ancient settlement in Jordan and in Mexico,Archaeology plays a major role in the study of early civilizations,such as those of the
Sumerians of Mesopotamia,who built the city of Ur,and the ancient Egyptians,who are famous for the pyramids near the city of Giza and the royal sepulchres (tombs) of the Valley of the Kings at Thebes,(43),
Archaeological research spans the entire development of phenomena that are unique to humans.For instance,archaeology tells the story of when people learned to bury their dead and developed beliefs in an afterlife,Sites containing signs of the first simple but purposeful burials in graves date to as early as 40,000 years ago in Europe and Southwest Asia,By the time people lived in civilizations,burials and funeral ceremonies had become extremely important and elaborate rituals,(44),
Archaeology also examines more recent historical periods,Some archaeologists work with historians to study American colonial life,for example,They have learned such diverse information as how the earliest colonial settlers in Jamestown,Virginia,traded glass beads for food with native Algonquian peoples- how the lives of slaves on plantations reflected their roots in Africa; and how the first major cities in the United States developed,(45),
[A] For example,the Moche lords of Sipdn in coastal Peru were buried in about ad 400 in fine cotton dress and with exquisite ornaments of bead,gold,and silver,Few burials rival their lavish sepulchres,Being able to trace the development of such rituals over thousands of years has added to our understanding of the development of human intellect and spirit.
[B] By 40,000 years ago people could be found hunting and gathering food across most of the regions of Africa,Populations in different regions employed various technological developments in adapting to their different environments and climates.
[C] Archaeological studies have also provided much information about the people who first arrived in the Americas over 12,000 years ago.
[D] The first fossil records of vascular plants--that is,land plants with tissue that carries food--appeared in the Silurian period,They were simple plants that had not developed separate stems and leaves.
[E] One site in Tanzania even reveals footprints of humans from 3.6 million years ago,Some sites also contain evidence of the earliest use of simple tools,Archaeologists have also recorded how primitive forms of humans spread out of Africa into Asia about 1.8 million years ago,then into Europe about 900,000 years ago.
[F] One research project involves the study of garbage in present-day cities across the United States,This garbage is the modem equivalent of the remains found in the archaeological record,In the future,archaeologists will continue to move into new realms of study.
[G] Other sites that represent great human achievement are as varied as the cliff dwellings of the ancient Anasazi (a group of early Native Americans of North America) at Mesa Verde,Colorado; the Inca city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes Mountains of Peru; and the mysterious,massive stone portrait heads of remote Easter Island in the Pacific.
Unit 20
Directions
In the following article,some sentences have been removed,For Questions 41--45,choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank,There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps,Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1,(10 points)
Rain forest structure is distinct from most other forest types because of its many layers of vegetation,referred to as strata,The lowest stratum is the understory,composed of palms,herbaceous plants (such as wild ginger),and tree seedlings and saplings,(41), Many have deep red coloring on the underside of their leaves to capture some of the scarce light that does manage to reach the forest understory,This red coloring enables understory plants to absorb light of different wavelengths than do the plants with rich,green-foliaged canopy,the umbrella-shaped upper structure of trees,Above the forest floor but below the canopy are one or more midstory strata,made up of woody plants,such as large shrubs and midsized trees.
The overstory is the canopy,in which the tree crowns form a continuous layer that captures the major part of the rainwater and sunlight hitting the forest,The height of the canopy varies from region to region and forest to forest,ranging from 20 to 50 m (65 to 165 ft),(42), Researchers use hot air balloons,cables,catwalks,towers,sophisticated tree-climbing gear,and even robots to study the millions of plants and animals that make their home high up in the forest canopy,Canopy researchers also use huge cranes that are dropped into the heart of the forest by helicopters,Suspended from the crane's long,movable arm is a large cabin that functions as a mobile treetop laboratory,Moving from tree to tree,forest researchers collect specimens,conduct experiments,and observe life in the canopy frontier.
The highest stratum of the rain forest is made up of the emergent trees,those individuals that stick up above the forest canopy,Emergents,which do not form a continuous layer,are
usually the giants of the forest,reaching heights of 35 to 70 m (115 to 230 ft) or more,and trunk sizes of over 2 m (6,6 ft) in diameter,(43), However,these trees tend to be so large that they collectively account for the vast majority of the woody mass,or biomass,of the forest.
The nicely ordered strata of the rain forest,including the continuous layer of the canopy,are regularly disturbed by naturally occurring events,such as failing trees,Trees in a rain forest canopy are often interconnected by vines,and a falling tree may pull as well as push other trees down with it,producing a domino effect of falling trees,The resulting opening in the forest canopy enables light to pour onto the forest floor,(44)
,
Other natural disturbances create even larger openings in the forest canopies,For example,along the hurricane belt in the Caribbean and the typhoon belt along the western Pacific,some forests are substantially altered when high winds and storms blow down hundreds of trees every few decades,(45), Scientists have found that these natural disturbances and the subsequent forest regeneration are a vital process that leads to healthy and diverse forests.
[A] New plants and animals then move into the area and begin to grow.
[B] Just 2 percent of the sunlight goes through the many layers of leaves and branches above,so understory plant species have developed special traits to cope with low light levels.
[C] On a smaller scale,large mammals,such as elephants,regularly destroy rain forest vegetation in the Congo River Basin in Africa.
[D] An understory of shorter trees and a lacework of woody vines,or lianas,produce a forest of such complex internal architecture that many animals,including some sizable ones,rarely or never descend to the ground.
[E] Less than one percent of the trees in the forest reside in the canopy and emergent layers.
[F] Because more light penetrates the canopy,however,the vegetation of the understory and forest floor is better developed than in the tropics.
[G] The rich,green canopy is teeming with life,and forest researchers have developed ingenious methods for accessing this mysterious ecosystem.
Key to paper
Unit 1
CCDBA; CACBD,ABDCC,BDACB
Unit 2
DDACB,ADBBA; CDABC; ADACB
Unit 3
CADAB; DCBAB; ACDBA; CDABB
Unit 4
ADACB,BDBAA,BDACB,BACBD
Unit 5
CAADC,CBCAC,DADBD,BBAAB
Unit 6
DBCBA,AACDD,BDCAB,BCC(B/A?)D
Unit 7
BADBC; ACBAD;CBBCA; BADDA
Unit 8
BAD(A/D both right?)B; DDD(C no answer?)A; CDAAC; CABDD
Unit 9
DAADC,DCABA,ACCBA,DDDBC
Unit 10
DDACB,ACDAC,BDDBC,ACBBB
Unit 11
ACDAB,CDDAB,CDAAA,BADCC
Unit 12
DDBCA,DDDCB,DBDDA,DACCC
Unit 13
DDDCA,A DCBD,ADCDB Text 4(omit)
Unit 14
B，F，E，D，A
Unit 15
C，F，A，E，B
Unit 16
F，A，D，B，C
Unit 17
D，G，A，E，B
Unit 18
F，A，C，G，D
Unit 19
E，C，G，A，F
Unit 20
B,G,E,A,C