模拟题
text 1 选句填空
Most students are usually introduced to the study of history by way of a fat textbook and become quickly immersed in a vast sea of names, dates, events and statistics. The students’ skills are then tested by examinations that require them to show how much of the data they remember; the more they remember, the higher their grades. 41)_____________.The professional historian is simply one who brings together a very large number of “facts”. Therefore, students often become confused upon discovering that historians often disagree sharply even when they are dealing with the same event.
Their common-sense reaction to this state of affairs is to conclude that one historian is right while the other is wrong. And presumably, historians who are wrong will have their “facts” wrong. This is seldom the case, however. Historians usually all argue reasonably and persuasively. And, the “facts”---the names, dates, events, statistics---usually turn out to be correct. Moreover, they often find that contending historians more or less agree on the facts: that is, they use much the same data. They come to different conclusions because they view the past from a different perspective. 42)__________________.
This position is hardly satisfying. They cannot help but feel that two diametrically opposed points of view about an event cannot both be right; yet they lack the ability to decide between them.
43)_______________.
In its broadest sense, history denotes the whole of the human past. More restricted is the notion that history is the recorded past, that is, that part of human life which has left some sort of record such as folk tales, artifacts, or written documents. Finally, history may be defined as that which historians write about the past. Of course the three meanings are related. Historians must base their accounts on the remains of the past, left by people. Obviously they cannot know everything for the simple reason that not every event, every happening, was fully and completely recorded. 44)____________.
But this does not say enough. If historians cannot know everything because not everything was recorded, neither do they use all the records that are available to them. Rather, they select only those records they deem most significant. 45_________.
[A] Historians are able to select and create evidence by using some theory of human motivations and behavior.
[B] From this experience a number of conclusions seem obvious: the study of history is the study of “facts” about the past; the more “facts” you know, the better you are as a student of history.
[C] Similarly a third group of historians might maintain that the various items on the list should not be given equal weight, that one of the reasons listed, say, bankers’ loans, was most important.
[D] Therefore the historian can only approximate history at best. No one can ever claim to have concluded the quest.
[E] Moreover, they also re-create parts of the past. Like detectives, they piece together evidence to fill in the gaps in the available records.
[F] History, which seemed to be a cut-and-dried matter of memorizing “facts,” now becomes a matter of choosing one good interpretation from among many. Historical truth becomes a matter of personal preference.
[G] To understand why historians disagree, students must consider a problem they have more or less taken for granted. They must ask themselves what history really is.
答案：BFGDE
Text 2 选句填空
Could anything be more majestic, serene or threatening than the largest bird of prey in the world, the harpy eagle, soaring above its domain? Weighing nine kilograms and with a 2.2 meter wingspan, this giant of the sky glides at 65 kilometers per hour over dense Brazilian rainforest. Its cruel head with flaring colored crest and huge hooked beak twists constantly from side to side.
It spots a monkey in treetop 2.5 kilometres away and closes in on its prey. The monkey munches on, oblivious to the threat. Then the eagle strikes, plucking its prey from its perch with talons borne on legs the thickness of your wrists. 41___________. The eagle caries the body back to its treetop lair. The famed and feared harpy eagle has killed again.
Whether this frightening creature does indeed soar like other eagles in search of prey is open to conjecture. For less in know about the harpy than any other eagle—the remoteness of its habitat sees to that. 42）_______________.
This eagle’ s extraordinary eyesight is one of its greatest assets. Like many other eagles, it can see between four and eight times as much detail as can humans. 43）___________. The latter is an obvious requirement if prey is to be snatched at speed.
It’s hard to believe that a creature so well equipped to survive could ever find itself under threat. But with huge tracts of rainforest being felled in Central and South Amirica, the harpy’s food sources are harder to find.
The threat posed could soon be similar to that facing the harpy’s near relative, the Philippines monkey-eating eagle. 44）_________.
Like this Filipino cousin, the harpy eagle nests in the tops of the largest forest trees. It therefore needs an intact forest to breed. The seemingly invincible harpy is vulnerable for another reason. A mating pair is thought to produce only one eagle every two years. Harpy eggs take up to 60 days to hatch and chicks take a further 60days before they learn to fly. What is more, the youngster is fed by the parents for many moths after it has learned to fly. Annual breeding then is impossible.
The harpy eagle does not face the same immediate threat as its Filipino cousin. But if the destruction of its forest habitat continues at its present rate, the largest of avian predators, too, could join those birds already on the endangered species list. The British naturalist Leslie Brown wrote in 1976 that nearly half of the 59 species of eagle were under threat. 45）_________.
[A] This acutely threatened bird was reduced in numbers to fewer than 100 in the wild by the loss of its forest habitat and by the heavy demands of trophy hunters in the Philippines.
[B] But it has been seen carrying monkeys, sloth and even small deer back to its nest.
[C] The monkey dies instantly, pierced by the talons.
[D] Folklore has long held that the harpy eagle preys on human babies as well as forest animals.
[E] The result is an ability to see clearly a small monkey at a distance of up to 2.5 kilometres and to judge distances with pinpoint accuracy.
[F] The harpy is very ferocious when its nest is threatened.
[G] Those who appreciate nature will be hopping that the harpy can surmount this threat, to soar on over the forests of South America.
答案：CBEAG
Text 3 段落排序
[A] On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors who have been chosen in November assemble in their respective state capitals to signal their preference. The future president and vice-president must receive at least 270 electoral votes, a majority of the total of 538, to win. Members of the electoral college have the moral, but not the legal, obligation to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in their state. This moral imperative, plus the fact that electors are members of the same political party as the presidential candidate winning the popular vote, ensures that the outcome in the electoral college is a valid reflection of the popular vote in November.
[B] It is even possible for someone to win the popular vote, yet lost the presidency to another candidate. How? It has to do with the electoral college.
[C] The electoral college was created in response to a problem encountered during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where delegates were trying to determine the best way to choose the president. The framers of the Constitution intended that the electors, a body of men chosen for their wisdom, should come together and choose on behalf of the people. In fact, the swift rise of political parties guaranteed that the electoral of the people. In fact, the swift rise of political guaranteed that the electoral system never worked as the framers had intended; instead, national parties, i. e. nationwide alliances of local interests, quickly came to dominate the election campaigns. The electors became mere figureheads representing the state branches of the parties who got them chosen, and their votes were predetermined and predictable.
[D] How are the electors chosen? Although there is some variation among states in how electors are appointed, generally they are chosen by the popular vote, always on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Each political party in a state chooses a state of local worthies to be members of the electoral college if the party’s presidential candidate wins at least a plurality of the popular vote in the state.
[E] How is the number of electors decided? Every state has one elector for each senator and representative it sends to Congress. States with greater populations therefore have more electors in the electoral college. All states have at least 3 electors, but California, the most populous state, has 54. The District of Columbia, though not a state, is also allowed to send three electors.
[F] How can one win the popular vote yet lose the presidency? Let’s simplify for the sake of argument: imagine that instead of 50 states America had only two. California and Montana. Now suppose that candidate A wins in California by 9,000,500 votes to 9,000,400; the 100-vote margin still gives him 54 electors. But then candidate A loses in Montana by 201,000 to 205,000, candidate B gets Montana’s electoral votes. The total number of votes for A is 9,210,500 and for B, 9,205,400; yet A, with 54 electoral votes out of 57, wins the election!
[G] America’s election day is 7 November. On the day citizens who wish to will cast their ballots for the presidential candidate they prefer. The result of this process is called the popular vote, and these days the winner of the popular vote is usually known shortly after the polls close. However, not one of the votes cast on Election Day actually goes directly to a particular candidate.
Order:
|
G |
→ |
41. |
|
→ |
42. |
|
→ |
43. |
|
→ |
44. |
|
→ |
45. |
|
答案：BCEDA
Text 4 段落排序
[A] As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are the mark of success or failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t feeling very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that don’t count; the exam goes on. No one can give off his best when he is in mortal terror, or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do.
[B] The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They get tired and hungry; they make mistakes. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight. After a judge’s decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner’s.
[C] They lower the standards of teaching, for they deprive the teacher of all freedoms. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are reduced to training their students in exam techniques which they despise. The most successful candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.
[D] The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success and failure are clearly defined and measured. Can we wonder at the increasing number of ‘drop-outs’; young people who are written off as utter failures before they have even embarked on a career? Can we be surprised at the suicide rate among students?
[E] A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorize. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge, but induce cramming.
[F] There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person’s true abilities. Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate message recently scrawled on a wall: “I were a teenage drop-out and now I am a teenage millionaire.”
[G] We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a person’s knowledge and ability remain as primitive as ever they were. It really is extraordinary that after all these years educationists have still failed to device anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the knack of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person’s true ability and aptitude.
Order:
|
G |
→ |
41. |
|
→ |
42. |
|
→ |
43. |
|
→ |
44. |
|
→ |
45. |
|
→ |
F |
答案：ADECB
Text 5 信息匹配
Informative speaking is all around us. Any speech is an informative speech if it presents information to an audience. A report, a teacher’s explanation, and a talk at a group meeting are all examples of informative speeches. The goal in giving an informative speech is to state ideas simply, clearly, and interestingly. If you achieve this goal, the audience will understand and remember your speech. In this article, you will learn how to build an informative speech.
41. Prepare an attention-getting opener at the beginning of your speech:
It is very important to grab your audience’s attention and make them interested in what you have to say.
People love to listen to a story. They want to find out what it is about.
42. Prepare the body. Arrange the points of your speech in a clear, logical manner:
That way, your audience can follow you, understand your information, and remember what you have said. In order to do this, it is important to choose an organizational pattern that fits your topic. Such as, Problem-Solution. Use this pattern to speak about a specific problem and ways to solve it.
43. Past-present-future:
Use this pattern to discuss how something once was, how it has changed, and how it will be in the future.
44. Prepare a summary:
Every speech needs a summary of the information presented. The best way to summarize your information is to remind your audience of what you said by repeating the main points covered in the body of your speech.
45. Prepare memorable concluding remarks:
Every speech needs an ending that leaves the audience thinking about and remembering what was said. Like attention-getting openers, memorable concluding remarks can take the form of rhetorical questions, stories, surprising facts, or quotations. Of these suggestions, quotations are popular among may famous public speakers.
[A] For example, in discussing the Olympics, you might organize your information under the following three headings: The history of the Olympics→The Olympics today→The future of the Olympics.
[B] This story was used to open a speech about the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia: A guard took me into a square room with no lights. The room was so black I couldn’t even see my own feet. All of a sudden a hidden electric wall closed behind me. There was no way out. I thought I was in a tomb. All at once bright lights came on, I was surrounded by gold on all four sides!
[C] Example: As you can see, the Olympic Games are very important to people all over the world. I hope you learned some interesting information about the history of the Olympics, the Olympics today and the future of the Olympic Games.
[D] For example, in speaking about the problem of choosing the college that’s right for you, you might present the following solutions: Read the different college catalogs→Visit campuses of different colleges→Talk to people who attend various colleges→Talk to teachers at the colleges you are considering.
[E] President John F. Kennedy ended many of his speeches with this quotation from the poet Robert Browning: “Some men see things as they are and ask, ‘Why’? I dare to dream of things that never were; and ask, ‘Why’ not?” Say your memorable concluding remarks slowly and clearly, maintaining eye contact with your audience. Be as dramatic and confident as possible!
[F] For example, in speaking about the death penalty, you might discuss: Advantages of capital punishment→Disadvantages of capital punishment.
答案：BDACE
Text 6 信息匹配
Science had its beginning when man started asking questions about his environment. He wondered where the sun went at night and why the sky was blue. He questioned why the wind blew and the leaves fell. He sought answers to these and other questions. Not all his answers were correct, but at least he did want to know.
41. Curiosity and imagination:
Science began to develop rapidly when man laid aside his wrong beliefs and began to seek true explanations. Young children are curious about how things work. The child wants to take apart a watch to see what makes it work..
42.Being in cause and effect:
Scientifically minded people believe in a “cause-and-effect” relationship.
43.Being open-minded:
Open-mindedness is also extremely important to a scientific attitude. This means the ability to face the facts as they are regardless of what one has previously thought. It includes an ability to accept new and sometimes even disagreeable ideas.
The solutions to real problems cannot be seen in advance. Scientists must be able to change their thinking and to adapt their theories to new facts as they are discovered. The mind, cannot be made up once and for all. New knowledge may make a change in thinking necessary. This is another way of saying that man’s understanding is always less than perfect. What is accepted as true often is relatively, and not absolutely, true. A scientific truth offers an explanation that is acceptable only in the light of what is known at a particular time.
44.Respect for the views of others:
Another part of a scientific attitude is respect for the views of others. This is easy when these views are like one’s own.. The difficulty comes up when their ideas are different. Views which are entirely new or foreign may also be hard to accept. New ideas are frequently very slow to be accepted.
45.Opinions based on evidence:
Sometimes evidence is not complete. It may take time for new facts to become available. When they are available, a person may have to change his mind. New findings may also require a “wait-and-see” attitude.
[A] They feel there is a perfectly natural explanation for everything. For example, there is a good reason why some leaves turn red and others yellow in the fall. Changes such as these which are easily observed. Are called phenomena.
[B] The worker in science must face whether ther are pleasant or unpleasant. He must expect many failures and be willing to try again. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before he succeeded in producing the first electric lamp.
[C] Benjamin Franklin wondered about lightning. He combined his curiosity with imagination and carried out his well-known experiment to show that lightning and an electric spark are the same thing. Curiosity and imagination are important qualities which help stimulate the discovery of new facts and advance science.
[D] For example, there is an experiment on the sprouting of seeds which has been running for more than 50 years. The purpose is to determine how long a time seeds can be buried in the ground and still grow when proper conditions for growth exist.
[E] Scientists such as Galileo, Louis Pasteur , and Edward Jenner were laughed at because they held theories that were not accepted. Respect for new ideas is important for continued progress in all fields of knowledge.
[F] In making certain kinds of experiments in science variables are used. A variable is something which has different values under different conditions. In one type of laboratory test all the variables but the variables but one are controlled. This method of testing is called controlled experimentation.
答案：CABED
Text 7 概括大意
[A] My grandfather was a teacher
[B] I walked on air
[C] I did it for money’s sake
[D] I believed I have got it.
[E] Parental disapproval of my study of music
[F] Yielding to life
The turning point of my life was my decision to give up a promising business career and study music.
|
41. |
|
My parents, although sympathetic, and sharing my love of music, disapproved of it as a profession, This was understandable in view of the family background. My grandfather had taught music for nearly forty years at Springhill College in Mobile and, though much beloved and respected in the community, earned barely enough to provide for his large family. My father often said it was only the hardheaded thriftiness of my grandmother that kept the wolf at bay. As a consequence of this example in the family, the very mention of music as a profession carried with it a picture of a precarious existence with uncertain financial rewards.
|
42. |
|
My parents insisted upon college instead of a conservatory of music, and to college I went-quite happily, as I remember, for although I loved my violin and spent most of my spare time practicing, I had many other interests. Before my graduation from Columbia, the family met with severe financial problems and I felt it my duty to leave college and take a job. Thus was I launched upon a business career—which I always think of as the wasted years.
|
43. |
|
My whole point is that it was not for me. I went into for money, and aside from the satisfaction of being able to help the family, money is all I got out of it. It was not enough. I felt that life was passing me by. From being merely discontented I became acutely miserable. My one ambition was to save enough to quit and go to Europe to study music.
|
44. |
|
I used to get up at dawn to practice before I left for “downtown,” distracting my poor mother by bolting a hasty breakfast at the last minute. Instead of lunching with my business associates, I would seek out some cheap café, order a meager meal and scribble my harmony exercises. I continued to make money, and finally, bit by bit, accumulated enough to enable me to go abroad. The family being once more solvent, and my help no longer necessary, I resigned from my position and, feeling like a man released from jail, sailed for Europe. I stayed four years, worked harder than I had ever dreamed of working before and enjoyed every minute of it. “Enjoyed” is too mild a word. I walked on air. I really lived. I was a free man and I was doing what I loved to do what I meant to do.
|
45. |
|
If I had stayed in business I might be a comparatively wealthy man today, but I do not believe I would have made a success of living. I would have given up all those inner satisfactions that money can never buy, and that are too often sacrificed when a man’s primary goal is financial success.
When I broke away from business it was against the advice of practically all my friends and family. So conditioned are most of us to association of success with money that the thought of giving up a good salary for an idea seemed little short of insane. If so, all I can thought of giving up a good salary for an idea seemed little short of insane. If so, all I can say is “Gee, it’s great to be crazy.” Money is a wonderful thing, but it is possible to pay too high a price for it.
答案：EFCBD
Text 8 概括大意
[A] Work comprises pleasure
[B] The growth of interested is a long process
[C] A happy man ought to have some real hobbies
[D] Every hobby does not suit you
[E] What the commanding people can do?
[F] Industrious men are divided into two classes
A gifted American psychologist has said, “Worry is a spasm of emotion; the mind catches hold of something and will not let it go.” It is useless to argue with the mind in this condition. The stronger the will, the more futile the task. One can only gently insinuate something else into its convulsive grasp. And if this something else is rightly chosen, if it is really attended by the illumination of another field of interest, gradually, and often quite swiftly, the old undue grip relaxes and the process of recuperation and repair begins.
|
41. |
|
The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of the first importance to a public man. But this is not a business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improvised by a mere command of the will. The growth of alternative mental interests spend some time. The seeds must be carefully chosen; they must fall on good ground; they must be sedulously tended, it the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.
|
42. |
|
To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet get hardly any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death.
|
43. |
|
It is no use offering the manual laborer, tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.
|
44. |
|
As for the people who can command everything they want, who can gratify every caprice and lay their hands on almost every object of desire — for them a new pleasure, a new excitement is only an additional satiation. In vain they rush frantically round from place to place, trying to escape from avenging boredom by mere clatter and motion. For them discipline in one form or another is the most hopeful path.
|
45. |
|
First, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays, when they come, are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes, the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential.
Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.
答案：BCDEF