Part II Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Directions: There are 4 passages in this part Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
Our culture has caused most Americans to assume not only that our language is universal but that the gestures we use are understood by everyone. We do not realize that waving good-bye is the way to summon a person from the Philippines to one's side, or that in Italy and some Latin-American countries, curling the finger to oneself is a sign of farewell.
Those private citizens who sent packages to our troops occupying Germany after World War II and marked them GIFT to escape duty payments did not bother to find out that "Gift" means poison in German. Moreover, we like to think of ourselves as friendly, yet we prefer to be at least 3 feet or an arm's length away from others. Latins and Middle Easterners like to come closer and touch, which makes Americans uncomfortable.
Our linguistic (语言上的) and cultural blindness and the casualness with which we take notice of the developed tastes, gestures, customs and languages of other countries, are losing us friends, business and respect in the world.
Even here in the United States, we make few concessions to the needs of foreign visitors. There are no information signs in four languages on our public buildings or monuments; we do not have multilingual (多语言的)guided tours. Very few restaurant menus have translations, and multilingual waiters, bank clerks and policemen are rare. Our transportation systems have maps in English only and often we ourselves have difficulty understanding them.
When we go abroad, we tend to cluster in hotels and restaurants where English is spoken. The attitudes and information we pick up are conditioned by those natives - usually the richer - who speak English. Our business dealings, as well as the nation's diplomacy, are conducted through interpreters.
For many years, America and Americans could get by with cultural blindness and linguistic ignorance.After all ,America was the most powerful country of the free world, the distributor of needed funds and goods.
But all that is past. American dollars no longer buy all good things, and we are slowly beginning to realize that our proper role in the world is changing. A 1979 Harris poll reported that 55 percent of Americans want this country to play a more significant role in world affairs; we want to have a hand in the important decisions of the next century, even though it may not always be the upper hand.
21.It can be inferred that Americans being approached too closely by Middle Easterners would most probably .
A) stand still C) step forward
B) jump aside D) draw back
22.The author gives many examples to criticize Americans for their .
A) cultural self-centeredness C) indifference towards foreign visitors
B) casual manners D) arrogance towards other cultures
23.In countries other than their own most Americans .
A) are isolated by the local people
B) are not well informed due to the language barrier
C) tend to get along well with the natives
D) need interpreters in hotels and restaurants
24.According to the author, Americans' cultural blindness and linguistic ignorance will .
A) affect their image in the new era
B) cut themselves off from the outside world
C) limit their role in world affairs
D) weaken the position of the US dollar
25.The author's intention in writing this article is to make Americans realize that .
A) it is dangerous to ignore their foreign friends
B) it is important to maintain their leading role in world affairs
C) it is necessary to use several languages in public places
D) it is time to get acquainted with other cultures
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
In department stores and closets all over the world, they are waiting. Their outward appearance seems rather appealing because they come in a variety of styles, textures, and colors. But they are ultimately the biggest deception that exists in the fashion industry today. what are they? They are high heels - a woman's worst enemy (whether she knows it or not). High heel shoes are the downfall of modern society. Fashion myths have led women to believe that they are more beautiful or sophisticated for wearing heels, but in reality, heels succeed in posing short as well as long term hardships. Women should fight the high heel industry by refusing to use or purchase them in order to save the world from unnecessary physical and psychological suffering.
For the sake of fairness, it must be noted that there is a positive side to high heels. First, heels are excellent for aerating (使通气)lawns. Anyone who has ever worn heels on grass knows what I am talking about. A simple trip around the yard in a pair of those babies eliminates all need to call for a lawn care specialist, and provides the perfect-sized holes to give any lawn oxygen without all those messy chunks of dirt lying around. Second, heels are quite functional for defense against oncoming enemies, who can easily be scared away by threatening them with a pair of these sharp, deadly fashion accessories.
Regardless of such practical uses for heels, the fact remains that wearing high heels is harmful to one's physical health. Talk to any podiatrist (足病医生)， and you will hear that the majority of their business comes from high-heel-wearing women. High heels are known to cause problems such as deformed feet and torn toenails. The risk of severe back problems and twisted or broken ankles is three times higher for a flat shoe wearer. Wearing heels also creates the threat of getting a heel caught in a sidewalk crack or a sewer-grate (阴沟栅) and being thrown to the ground-possibly breaking a nose, back, or neck. And of course, after wearing heels for a day, any woman knows she can look forward to a night of pain as she tries to comfort her swollen, aching feet.
26. What makes women blind to the deceptive nature of high heels?
A) The multi-functional use of high heels.
B) Their attempt to show off their status.
C) The rich variety of high heel styles.
D) Their wish to improve their appearance.
27.The author's presentation of the positive side of high heels is meant .
A) to be ironic C)to be fair to the fashion industry
B) to poke fun at women D) to make his point convincing
28.The author uses the expression "those babies" (Line 3, Para. 2) to refer to high heels .
A) to show their fragile characteristics C) to show women's affection for them
B) to indicate their feminine features D) to emphasize their small size
29.The author's chief argument against high heels is that .
A) they pose a threat to lawns
B) they are injurious to women's health
C) they don't necessarily make women beautiful
D) they are ineffective as a weapon of defense
30.It can be inferred from the passage that women should .
A) see through the very nature of fashion myths
B) boycott the products of the fashion industry
C) go to a podiatrist regularly for advice
D) avoid following fashion too closely
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy. These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient: 27 million Americans cannot read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our society.
But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading. It has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America's literate, educated teenagers can no longer read without an accompanying noise(music)in the background or a television screen flickering (闪烁) at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, solitude (独处的状态)goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic (心理的), and social transformations probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still being debated. The information revolution will touch every fact of composition, publication, distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will happen to the book as we've known it.
31.The picture of the reading ability of the American people, drawn by the author, is .
A) rather bleak C) very impressive
B) fairly bright D) quite encouraging
32.The author's biggest concern is .
A) elementary school children's disinterest in reading classics
B) the surprisingly low rate of literacy in the U.S.
C) the musical setting American readers require for reading
D) the reading ability and reading behavior of the middle class
33.A major problem with most adolescents who can read is .
A) their fondness of music and TV programs
B) their ignorance of various forms of art and literature
C) their lack of attentiveness and basic understanding
D) their inability to focus on conflicting input
34.The author claims that the best way a reader can show admiration for a piece of poetry or prose is .
A) to be able to appreciate it and memorize it
B) to analyze its essential features
C) to think it over conscientiously
D) to make a fair appraisal of its artistic value
35. About the future of the arts of reading the author feels .
A) upset C) alarmed
B) uncertain D) pessimistic
Passage Four
Questions 35 to 40 are based on the following passage.
For centuries, explorers have risked their lives venturing into the unknown for reasons that were to varying degrees economic and nationalistic. Columbus went west to look for better trade routes to the Orient and to promote the greater glory of Spain. Lewis and Clark journeyed into the American wilderness to find out what the U.S. had acquired when it purchased Louisiana, and the Appolo astronauts rocketed to the moon in a dramatic show of technological muscle during the cold war.
Although their missions blended commercial and political-military imperatives,the explorerss involved all accomplished some singificant science simply by going where no scientists had gone.
Today Mars looms(隐约出现)as humanity's next great terra incognita(未探明之地).And with doubtful prospects for a short-term financial return,with the cold war a rapidly fading memory and amid a growing emphasis on international cooperation in large space ventues,it is clear that imperatives other than profits or nationalism will have to compel human beings to leave their tracks on the planet's reddish surfface.Could it be that science,which has long played a minor role in exploration,is at last destined to take a leading role? The question naturally invites a couple of others:Are there experiments that only humans could do on Mars? Could those experiments provide insights profound enough to justify the expense of sending people across in terplanetary space?
With Mars the scientific stakes are arguably higher than they have ever been.The issue of whether life ever existed on the planet, and whether it persists to this day,has been highlighted by mounting evidence that the Red Planet had abundant stable,liquid water and by the continuing controversy over suggestions that bacterial fossils rode to Earth on a meteorite(陨石)from Mars .A more conclusive answer about life on Mars ,past or present ,would give researchers invaluable data about the range of conditions under which a planet can generate the complex chemistry that leads to life.If it could be established that life arose independently on Mars and Earth ,the finding would provide the first concrete clues in one deepest mysteries in all of science:the prevalence of life in the universe.
36.According to the passage,the chief purpose of explorers in going to unknown places in the past was _______.
A)to display their country's military might
B)to accomplish some significant science
C)to find new areas for colonization
D)to pursue commercial and state interests
37.At present ,a probable inducement for countries to initiate large-scale space ventures is _______.
A)International cooperation
B)scientific research
C)nationalistic reasons
D)long-term profits
38.What is the main goal of sending human missions to Mars?
A)To find out if life ever existed there.
B)To see if humans could survive there.
C)To prove the feasibiliy of large-scale space ventures.
D)To show the leading role of science in space exploration
39.By saying"With Mars the scientific stakes are arguably higher than they have ever been"(Line 1,Para .4),the author means that ______.
A)with Mars the risks involved are much greater than any previous space ventures
B)in the case of Mars ,the rewards of scientific exploration can be very high
C)in the case of Mars,much more research funds are needed than ever before
D)with Mars ,scientists argue ,the fundamental interests of science are at issue
40.The passage tells us that proof of life on Mars would _______.
A)make clear the complex chemistry in the development of life
B)confirm the suggestion that bacterial fossils travelled to Earth on a meteorite
C)reveal the kind of conditions under which life originates
D)provide an explanation why life is common in the universe
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