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同等学力申硕士英语阅读第五课

2021-12-25

第五课

 

Section A

 

Directions: In this section, there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet.

 

Passage One

 

Under the right circumstances, choosing to spend time alone can be a huge psychological blessing. In the 1980s, the Italian journalist and author Tiziano Terzani, after many years of reporting across Asia, holed himself up in a cabin in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. "For a month I had no one to talk to except my dog Baoli," he wrote in his book A Fortune Teller Told Me. Terzani passed the time with books, observing nature, "listening to the winds in the trees, watching butterflies, enjoying silence." For the first time in a long while he felt free from the unending anxieties of daily life:"At last I had time to have time."

Terzani's embrace of isolation was relatively unusual: Humans have long considered solitude an inconvenience, something to avoid, a punishment, a realm of loners. Science has often associated it with negative outcomes. Freud, who linked solitude with anxiety, noted that, "in children the first fears relating to situations are those of darkness and solitude." John Cacioppo, a modern social neuro-scientist who has extensively studied loneliness-what he calls "chronic perceived isolation"-contends that, beyond damaging our thinking powers, isolation can even harm our physical health. But increasingly scientists are approaching solitude as something that,when pursued by choice, can prove a therapy.

This is especially true in times of personal disorder, when the instinct is often for people to reach outside of themselves for support."When people are experiencing crisis it's not always just about you: It's about how you are in society," explains Jack Fong, a sociologist at California State Polytechnic University who has studied solitude.

In other words, when people remove themselves from the social context of their lives, they are better able to see how they' re shaped by that context. Thomas Merton, a monk and writer who spent years alone, held a similar notion. "We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our breast,"he writes in Thoughts in Solitude. "People can go for a walk or listen to music and feel that they are deeply in touch with themselves."

 

21. Tiziano Terzani spent a month alone to       .

B. study butterflies

A. embrace isolation

D. look after his dog

C. write a book

 

22. The word "solitude" (Para. 2) is closest in meaning to "________”.

A. growing anxious

B. feeling empty

C. being helpless

D.staying alone

 

23. The opinions of Freud and Cacioppo are cited to show that       .

A. children tend to fear darkness and solitude

B. solitude pursued by choice can be a therapy

C. chronic isolation can harm interpersonal relations

D. solitude has long been linked with negative outcomes

 

24. According to Jack Fong, the sense of personal crisis may be influenced by       .

A.an isolated lifestyle

B. mental disorder

C. low self-esteem

D. social context

 

25. The main idea of the passage is that      .

A. solitude should be avoided at all costs

B. anxieties of daily life may cause personal crisis

C. choosing to spend time alone can be a blessing

D. seeking support is useless for tackling personal crisis

 

Passage Two

 

Science is finally beginning to embrace animals who were, for a long time, considered second-class citizens.

As Annie Potts of Canterbury University has noted, chickens distinguish among one hundred chicken faces and recognize familiar individuals even after months of separation. When given problems to solve, they reason: hens trained to pick colored buttons sometimes choose to give up an immediate (lesser) food reward for a slightly later (and better) one. Healthy hens may aid friends, and mourn when those friends die.

Pigs respond meaningfully to human symbols. When a research team led by Candace Croney at Penn State University carried wooden blocks marked with X and O symbols around pigs, only the O carriers offered food to the animals. The pigs soon ignored the X carriers in favor of the O's. Then the team switched from real-life objects to T-shirts printed with X or O symbols. Still,the pigs ventured only toward the O-shirted people: they had transferred their knowledge to a two-dimensional format, a not-inconsiderable feat of reasoning.

Fairly soon, I came to see that along with our closest living relatives, cetaceans(鲸目动物)too are masters of cultural learning, and elephants express profound joy and mourning with their social companions. Long-term studies in the wild on these mammals helped to fuel a perspective shift in our society: the public no longer so easily accepts monkeys made to undergo painful procedures in laboratories, elephants forced to perform in circuses, and dolphins kept in small tanks at theme parks.

Over time, though, as I began to broaden out even further and explore the inner lives of fish,chicken, pigs, goats, and cows, I started to wonder: Will the new science of "food animals"bring an ethical revolution in terms of who we eat? In other words, will the breadth of our ethics start to catch up with the breadth of our science?

Animal activists are already there, of course, committed to not eating these animals. But what about the rest of us? Can paying attention to the thinking and feeling of these animals lead us to make changes in who we eat?

 

26. According to Annie Potts, hens' choice of a later and better reward indicates their ability of       .

A. social interaction

B. facial recognition

C. logical reasoning

D. mutual learning

 

27. The expression "not-inconsiderable feat" (Para. 3) shows what pigs can do is      

A. extraordinary  B. weird  C. unique  D. understandable

 

28. What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A. The similarities between mammals and humans.

B. The necessity of long-term studies on mammals.

C. A change of public attitude to the treatment of mammals.

D. A new discovery of how mammals think and feel.

 

29. What is the author's view on eating "food animals"?

A. He regrets eating them before.

B. He considers eating them justifiable.

C. He is not concerned about the issue.

D. He calls for a change in what we eat.

 

30.What is the best title for the passage?

A. In Praise of Food Animals

B. Food Animals in Science Reports

C. The Inner Lives of Food Animals

D. Food Animals: Past, Present and Future

 

Passage Three

 

Almost eight decades ago, the American educator Abraham Flexner published an article entitled The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. In it, he argued that the most powerful intellectual and technological breakthroughs usually emerged from research that initially appeared "useless",without much relevance to real life.

As a result, it was vital, Flexner said, that these "useless" efforts should be supported, even if they did not produce an immediate payback, because otherwise the next wave of innovation simply would not occur. "Curiosity, which may or may not produce something useful, is probably the outstanding characteristic of modern thinking," he declared.

In 1929, Flexner persuaded a wealthy American family, the Bambergers, to use some of their donations to fund the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton to support exactly this kind of "undirected" research.

And it paid off: brilliant Jewish scientists fleeing from Nazi Germany, such as Albert Einstein,gathered at the IAS to explore undirected ideas. And while some of these, such as Einstein's own work developing his earlier theory of relativity, did not initially seem valuable, many eventually produced powerful applications (though after many decades).

"Without Einstein's theory, our GPS tracking devices would be inaccurate by about seven miles," writes Robbert Dijkgraaf, the current director of the IAS, in the foreword to a newly released reprint of Flexner's article. Concepts such as quantum mechanics(量子力学)or superconductivity also seemed fairly useless at first-but yielded huge dividends at a later date.

The reason why the IAS is re-releasing Flexner's article now is that scientists such as Dijkgraaf fear this core principle is increasingly under threat. The Trump administration has released a projected budget that threatens to reduce funding for the arts, science and educational groups. Many Republicans believe that research is better financed by business or philanthropists(慈善家)than by government. But one striking fact about the past century is how much American innovation originated in federal projects; Silicon Valley would never have boomed were it not for the fact that state funding enabled the development of the World Wide Web, for example.

 

31. What may be the best title for the passage?

A. The Value of Creative Ideas

B. The Importance of Basic Research

C. Innovation in Silicon Valley

D. In Praise of "Useless" Endeavors

32. According to Abraham Flexner, what is an important feature of modern thinking?

A. Curiosity.  B.Application.  C. Devotion.  D. Passion.

 

33. The "undirected" research (Para. 3) refers to research     .

A. not funded by government agencies

B.without any practical purpose in mind

C. with indefinite experimental methods

D. supported by non-profit organizations

 

34. Examples of initially "useless" research include all of the following EXCEPT      .

A. quantum mechanics

B. theory of relativity

C. superconductivity

D.GPS tracking devices

 

35. Flexner's article was reprinted because       .

A. businesses in Silicon Valley wish to put pressure on the government

B. Democrats believe that government funding should go to small businesses

C. Republicans argue that scientific research should be financed by businesses

D. some scientists worry that government will cut its funding for basic research

 

Passage Four

 

In 1902, Georges Méliès made and released a movie called A Trip to the Moon. In this movie, the spaceship was a small capsule, shaped like a bullet, that was loaded into a giant cannon and aimed at the moon.

This movie was based on a book that came out many years earlier by an author named Jules Verne. One of the fans of the book was a Russian man, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The book made him think. Could one really shoot people out of a cannon and have them get safely to the moon?He decided one couldn't, but it got him thinking of other ways one could get people to the moon.He spent his life considering this problem and came up with many solutions.

Some of Tsiolkovsky's solutions gave scientists in America and Russia ideas when they began to think about space travel. They also thought about airplanes they and other people had made, and even big bombs that could fly themselves very long distances.

Many scientists spent years working together to solve the problem. They drew and discussed different designs until they agreed on the ones that were the best. Then, they built small models of those designs, and tested and tested them until they felt ready to build even bigger models. They made full-scale rockets, which they launched without any people inside, to test for safety. Often the rockets weren't safe, and they exploded right there on the launch pad, or shot off in crazy directions like a balloon that you blow up and release without tying it first. After many, many tests, they started, to send small animals into space. Only after a long time did they ever put a person inside a rocket and shoot him into space.

Even after they began sending people into space, scientists were still trying to improve the shape of the rockets. The design changed many times, and eventually ended up looking like a half-rocket and half-airplane. The machine called space shuttle was used for many years. Now, the government lets private companies try their own designs for spaceships, and they have come up with many different, crazy-looking machines.

 

36. In the movie A Trip to the Moon, the spaceship was sent to the moon      .

A. in a capsule  B. in a bullet  C.by a cannon  D.by a gun

 

37. The movie was based on a book written by      .

A. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

B. an unknown author

C. Georges Méliès

D. Jules Verne

 

38. Before the invention of a spaceship, possible solutions of space travel included all of the following EXCEPT      .

A.bombs  B. balloons  C. airplanes  D.rockets

 

39. What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A.It took a long time and hard work to send a person into space.

B. American scientists worked better than Russian scientists.

C. Scientists from Russia and America had close cooperation.

D. The design of the rocket was inspired by the movie A Trip to the Moon.

 

40. The word "shoot" (Para. 4) is closest in meaning to " _________”.

A.send with great force

B. break into many pieces

C.fix a problem

D. attack with a weapon

 

Section B

 

Directions : In this section, you are required to read one quoted blog and the comments on it. The blog and comments are followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet.

 

In 2003, I was told by a restaurant owner on a Thai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done. That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate them all. But in the past decade, he said, plastic wrap had rapidly replaced banana leaves, so the beach was edged with a crust of plastic.

This is a worldwide problem-we can't point the finger at Thai fishermen. The UK alone produces more than 170m tons of waste every year, much of it food packaging. Now we live in an absurd age where a packet of cookies can have seven layers of wrapping. While it has revolutionised the way we store and consume food, there is now so much of it that landfills(垃圾填埋场)can't cope. Some of it is poisonous, and some of it never degrades. It can take 450 years for some types of plastic bottle to break down. Indeed, as Rachelle Strauss of the UK's Zero Waste Week says, we never actually throw anything "away"-it's really just put somewhere else.

It's easy to despair at the scale of handling the plastic wrap, but it isn't beyond humanity to solve it-look at how the world took action on CFCs(含氯氣炫):there are signs that the hole in the ozone layer is now closing. Food packaging ought to be a doddle.

Comment 1:

While as an individual I can do my best to avoid excessive packaging, it is really only government regulation that can force corporations to change their practices.

Comment 2:

I never understand why supermarket chains insist on covering products such as bananas and cucumbers in plastic wrap. Why? They have their own packaging-the skin or peel!

Comment 3:

I love packaging-if it's well designed of course. It helps us be more hygienic and practical. The solution to these packaging necessities is clearly to encourage the use of bio-degradable packaging.

Comment 4:

Before, everything we threw out was bio-degradable and now it's not. Guess it's hard to change that behavior overnight.

 

41. What is the author's view on the plastic problem in Thailand?

A. The problem is not unique to Thailand.

B. There is no point overreacting to the problem.

C. It is important to raise people's awareness.

D. The govermment should be held responsible.

 

42."A packet of cookies" is mentioned in Paragraph 2 to       .

A. illustrate the problem of excessive packaging

B. introduce the revolutionary way of packaging

C. review the gradual development of packaging

D. emphasize the necessity of food packaging

 

43. The word "doddle" (Para. 3) probably means "something       .

A. no longer useful

B.extremely difficult

C. beyond imagination

D. easily accomplished

 

44. Which of the comments is positive about packaging?

A. Comment 1.

B. Comment 2.

C. Comment 3.

D. Comment 4.

 

45. Which of the following comments point out ways to solve over-packaging?

A. Comments 1 and 2.

B. Comments 1 and 3.

C. Comments 2 and 4.

D. Comments 3 and 4.

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