阅读理解 A

Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension (40 min)

SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 min)?
In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark answers on your Coloured Answer Sheet.?
TEXT A
“Twenty years ago, Blackpool turned its back on the sea and tried to make i tself into an entertainment centre. ” say Robin Wood, a local official. “Now t he thinking is that we should try, to refocus on the sea and make Blackpool a fami ly destination again.” To say that Blackpool neglected the sea is to put it mil d ly. In 1976 the European Community, as it then was called, instructed member nati ons to make their beaches conform to certain minimum standards of cleanliness wi thin ten years. Britain, rather than complying, took the novel strategy of conte nding that many of its most popular beaches were not swimming beaches at all. Be cause of Britain’s climate the sea-bathing season is short, and most people don ’ t go in above their knees anyway-and hence can’t really be said to be swimming. By averaging out the number of people actually swimming across 365 days of the y ear, the government was able to persuade itself, if no one else, that Britain ha d hardly any real swimming beaches. ?
As one environmentalist put it to me: “You had the ludicrous situation in w hich Luxembourg had mere listed public bathing beaches than the whole of the Uni ted Kingdom. It was preposterous.”?
Meanwhile, Blackpool continued to discharge raw sewage straight into the se a. Finally after much pressure from both environmental groups and the European U nion, the local water authority built a new waste-treatment facility for the who le of Blackpool and neighbouring communities. The facility came online in June 1 996. For the first time since the industrial revolution Blackpool’s waters are safe to swim in.?
That done, the town is now turning its attention to making the sea-front me re visually attractive. The promenade, once a rather elegant place to stroll, ha d become increasingly tatty and neglected. “It was built in Victorian times and needed a thorough overhaul anyway, ”says Wood, “so we decided to make aestheti c improvements at the same time, to try to draw people back to it.” Blackpool rec e ntly spent about .4 million building new kiosks for vendors and improving seat ing around the Central Pier and plans to spend a further $ 15 million on various amenity projects.?
The most striking thing about Blackpool these days compared with 20 years a go is how empty its beaches are. When the tide is out, Blackpool’s beaches are a vast plain of beckoning sand. They look spacious enough to accommodate comforta bly the entire populace of northern England. Ken Welsby remembers days when, as he puts it,“ you couldn’t lay down a handkerchief on this beach, it was that c rowded.”?
Welsby comes from Preston, 20 miles down the road, and has been visiting Bl ackpool all his life. Now retired, he had come for the day with his wife, Kitty, and their three young grandchildren who were gravely absorbed in building a san dcastle. “Two hundred thousand people they’d have on this beach sometimes.” W elsby said. “You can’t imagine it now, can you?”?
Indeed I could not. Though it was a bright sunny day in the middle of summe r. I counted just 13 people scattered along a half mile or so of open sand. Exce pt for those rare times when hot weather and a public holiday coincide, it is li ke this nearly always now.?
“You can’t imagine how exciting it was to come here for the day when we w er e young.” Kitty said. “Even from Preston, it was a big treat. Now children don ’t want the beach. They want arcade games and rides in helicopters and goodness kn ows what else.” She stared out over the glittery water. “We’ll never see thos e days again. It’s sad really.”?
“But your grandchildren seem to be enjoying it,” I pointed out.?
“For the moment, ”Ken said. “For the moment.”?
Afterward I went for a long walk along the empty beach, then went back to th e town centre and treated myself to a large portion of fish-and-chips wrapped in paper. The way they cook it in Blackpool, it isn’t so much a meal as an invita t ion to a heart attack, but it was delicious. Far out over the sea the sun was se tting with such splendor that I would almost have sworn I could hear the water h iss where it touched.?
Behind me the lights of Blackpool Tower were just twinkling on, and the str eets were beginning to fill with happy evening throngs. In the purply light of d usk the town looked peaceful and happy — enchanting even — and there was an engaging air of expectancy, of fun about to happen. Somewhat to my surprise, I r ealized that this place was beginning to grow on me.?
16. At the beginning, the passage seems to suggest that Blackpool ___.
A. will continue to remain as an entertainment centre?
B. complied with EC’s standards of clearliness?
C. had no swimming beaches all along?
D. is planning to revive its former attraction?
17. We can learn from the passage that Blackpool used to ___.?
A. have as many beaches as Luxumbourg?
B. have seriously polluted drinking water?
C. boast some imposing seafront sights?
D. attract few domestic holiday makers?
18. What Blackpool’s beaches strike visitors most is their ___.?
A. emptiness B. cleanliness C. modernity D. monotony

TEXT B
Pundits who want to sound judicious are fond of warning against generalizin g. Each country is different, they say, and no one story fits all of Asia. This is, of course, silly: all of these economies plunged into economic crisis within a few months of each other, so they must have had something in common.?
In fact, the logic of catastrophe was pretty much the same in Thailand, Mal aysia, Indonesia and South Korea. (Japan is a very different story. ) In each ca se investors——mainly, but not entirely, foreign banks who had made short-term loans——all tried to pull their money out at the same time. The result was a co mbined banking and currency crisis: a banking crisis because no bank can convert all its assets into cash on short notice; a currency crisis because panicked in vestors were trying not only to convert long-term assets into cash, but to conve rt baht or rupiah into dollars. In the face of the stampede, governments had no good options. If they let their currencies plunge inflation would soar and compa nies that had borrowed in dollars would go bankrupt; if they tried to support th eir currencies by pushing up interest rates, the same firms would probably go bu st from the combination of debt burden and recession. In practice, countries’ s plit the difference—— and paid a heavy price regardless.?

Was the crisis a punishment for bad economic management? Like most cliches, the catchphrase“ crony capitalism” has prospered because it gets at something r eal: excessively cozy relationships between government and business really did l ead to a lot of bad investments. The still primitive financial structure of Asia n business also made the economies peculiarly vulnerable to a loss of confidence . But the punishment was surely disproportionate to the crime, and many investme nts that look foolish in retrospect seemed sensible at the time.?
Given that there were no good policy options, was the policy response mainl y on the fight track? There was frantic blame-shifting when everything in Asia s eemed to be going wrong: now there is a race to claim credit when some things ha ve started to go right. The international Monetary Fund points to Korea’s recov e ry—— and more generally to the fact that the sky didn’t fall after all —— a s proof that its policy recommendations were right. Never mind that other IMF cli ents have done far worse, and that the economy of Malaysia —— which refused IM F help, and horrified respectable opinion by imposing capital controls ——also seems to be on the mend. Malaysia’s prime Minister, by contrast, claims full cr e dit for any good news——even though neighbouring economies also seem to have bo ttomed out.?
The truth is that an observer without any ax to grind would probably concl ude that none of the policies adopted either on or in defiance of the IMF’s adv i ce made much difference either way. Budget policies, interest rate policies, ban king reform —— whatever countries tried, just about all the capital that could flee, did. And when there was no mere money to run, the natural recuperative po wers of the economies finally began to prevail. At best, the money doctors who p urported to offer cures provided a helpful bedside manner; at worst, they were l ike medieval physicians who prescribed bleeding as a remedy for all ills.?
Will the patients stage a full recovery? It depends on exactly what you me an by “full”. South Korea’s industrial production is already above its pre-cr isi s level; but in the spring of 1997 anyone who had predicted zero growth in Korea n industry over the next two years would have been regarded as a reckless doomsa yer. So if by recovery you mean not just a return to growth, but one that brings the region’s performance back to something like what people used to regard as the Asian norm, they have a long way to go.?
19. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT the writer’s opinion??
A. Countries paid a heavy price for whichever measure taken.?
B. Countries all found themselves in an economic dilemma.?
C. Withdrawal of foreign capital resulted in the crisis.?
D. Most governments chose one of the two options.?
20. The writer thinks that those Asian countries ___.?
A. well deserved the punishment?
B. invested in a senseless way at the time?
C. were unduly punished in the crisis?
D. had bad relationships between government and business?
21. It can be inferred from the passage that IMF policy recommendations ___.?
A. were far from a panacea in all cases?
B. were feasible in their recipient countries?
C. failed to work in their recipient countries?
D. were rejected unanimously by Asian countries?
22. At the end of the passage, the writer seems to think that a full reco very of the Asian economy is ___.?
A. due B. remote C. imaginative D. unpredictable
TEXT C
Human migration: the term is vague. What people usually think of is the per manent movement of people from one home to another. More broadly, though, migrat ion means all the ways——from the seasonal drift of agricultural workers within a country to the relocation of refugees from one country to another.?
Migration is big, dangerous, compelling. It is 60 million Europeans leaving home from the 16th to the 20th centuries. It is some 15 million Hindus, Skihs, and Muslims swept up in a tumultuous shuffle of citizens between India and Pakis tan after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.?
Migration is the dynamic undertow of population change: everyone’s solutio n , everyone’s conflict. As the century turns, migration, with its inevitable eco n omic and political turmoil, has been called“ one of the greatest challenges of the coming century.” ?
But it is much more than that. It is, as has always been, the great adventu re of human life. Migration helped create humans, drove us to conquer the planet , shaped our societies, and promises to reshape them again.?
“You have a history book written in your genes, ”said Spencer Wells. The bo ok he’s trying to read goes back to long before even the first word was written , and it is a story of migration.?
Wells, a tall, blond geneticist at Stanford University, spent the summer of 1998 exploring remote parts of Transcaucasia and Central Asia with three collea gues in a Land Rover, looking for drops of blood. In the blood, donated by the p eople he met, he will search for the story that genetic markers can tell of the long paths human life has taken across the Earth.? Genetic studies are the latest technique in a long effort of modern humans t o find out where they have come from. But however the paths are traced, the basi c story is simple: people have been moving since they were people. If early huma ns hadn’t moved and intermingled as much as they did, they probably would have c ontinued to evolve into different species. From beginnings in Africa, most resea rchers agree, groups of hunter-gatherers spread out, driven to the ends of the E arth.?
To demographer Kingsley Davis, two things made migration happen. First, hum an beings, with their tools and language, could adapt to different conditions wi thout having to wait for evolution to make them suitable for a new niche. Second , as populations grew, cultures began to differ, and inequalities developed betw een groups. The first factor gave us the keys to the door of any room on the pla net; the other gave us reasons to use them.?
Over the centuries, as agriculture spread across the planet, people moved t oward places where metal was found and worked and to centres of commerce that th en became cities. Those places were, in turn, invaded and overrun by people later generations called barbarians.?
In between these storm surges were steadier but similarly profound fides in which people moved out to colonize or were captured and brought in as slaves. F or a while the population of Athens, that city of legendary enlightenment was as much as 35 percent slaves.?
“What strikes me is how important migration is as a cause and effect in th e great world events. ”Mark Miller, co-author of The Age of Migration and a prof essor of political science at the University of Delaware, told me recently.?
It is difficult to think of any great events that did not involve migration . Religions spawned pilgrims or settlers; wars drove refugees before them and ma de new land available for the conquerors; political upheavals displaced thousand s or millions; economic innovations drew workers and entrepreneurs like magnets; environmental disasters like famine or disease pushed their bedraggled survivor s anywhere they could replant hope. ? “It’s part of our nature, this movement,” Miller said, “It’s just a fact of the human condition.”?
23. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT??
A. Migration exerts a great impact on population change.?
B. Migration contributes to Mankind’s progress.?
C. Migration brings about desirable and undesirable effects.?
D. Migration may not be accompanied by human conflicts.?
24. According to Kingsley Davis, migration occurs as a result of the foll owing reasons EXCEPF ___.?
A. human adaptability B. human evolution? C. cultural differences D. inter-group inequalities
25. Which of the following groups is NOT mentioned as migrants in the pas sage??
A. Farmers. B. Workers. C. Settlers. D. Colon izers.?
26. There seems to be a(n) ___ relationship between great events an d migration.?
A. loose B. indefinite C. causal D. rem ote?
TEXT D
? How is communication actually achieved? It depends, of course, either on a common language or on known conventions, or at least on the beginnings of these. If the common language and the conventions exist, the contributor, for example, the creative artist, the performer, or the reporter, tries to use them as well as he can. But often, especially with original artists and thinkers, the problem is in one way that of creating a language, or creating a convention, or at leas t of developing the language and conventions to the point where they are capable of bearing his precise meaning. In literature, in music, in the visual arts, in the sciences, in social thinking, in philosophy, this kind of development has o ccurred again and again. It often takes a long time to get through, and for many people it will remain difficult. But we need never think that it is impossible; creative energy is much more powerful than we sometimes suppose. While a man is engaged in this struggle to say new things in new ways, he is usually more than ever concentrated on the actual work, and not on its possible audience. Many ar tists and scientists share this fundamental unconcern about the ways in which th eir work will be received. They may be glad if it is understood and appreciated, hurt if it is not, but while the work is being done there can be no argument. T he thing has to come out as the man himself sees it.?
In this sense it is true that it is the duty of society to create condition s in which such men can live. For whatever the value of any individual contribut ion, the general body of work is of immense value to everyone. But of course thi ngs are not so formal, in reality. There is not society on the one hand and thes e individuals on the other. In ordinary living, and in his work, the contributor shares in the life of his society, which often affects him both in minor ways a nd in ways sometimes so deep that he is not even aware of them. His ability to m ake his work public depends on the actual communication system: the language its elf, or certain visual or musical or scientific conventions, and the institution s through which the communication will be passed. The effect of these on his act ual work can be almost infinitely variable. For it is not only a communication s ystem outside him; it is also, however original he may be, a communication syste m which is in fact part of himself. Many contributors make active use of this ki nd of internal communication system. It is to themselves, in a way, that they fi rst show their conceptions, play their music, present their arguments. Not only as a way of getting these clear, in the process of almost endless testing that a ctive composition involves. But also, whether consciously or not, as a way of pu tting the experience into a communicable form. If one mind has grasped it, then it may be open to other minds.?
In this deep sense, the society is in some ways already present in the act of composition. This is always very difficult to understand, but often, when we have the advantage of looking back at a period, we can see, even if we cannot e xplain, how this was so. We can see how much even highly original individuals ha d in common, in their actual work, and in what is called their “structure of fe e ling”, with other individual workers of the time, and with the society of that t ime to which they belonged. The historian is also continually struck by the fact that men of this kind felt isolated at the very time when in reality they were beginning to get through. This can also be noticed in our own time, when some of the most deeply influential men feel isolated and even rejected. The society an d the communication are there, but it is difficult to recognize them, difficult to be sure.?
27. Creative artists and thinkers achieve communication by ___.?
A. depending on shared conventions?
B. fashioning their own conventions?
C. adjusting their personal feelings?
D. elaborating a common language?
28. A common characteristic of artists and scientists involved in creativ e work is that ___.
A. they cave about the possible reaction to their work?
B. public response is one of the primary conceits?
C. they are keenly aware of public interest in their work?
D. they are indifferent toward response to their work?
29. According to the passage, which of the following statements is INCORR ECT??
A. Individual contributions combined possess great significance to the publ ic.?
B. Good contributors don’t neglect the use of internal communication syste m.?
C. Everyone except those original people comes under the influence of socie ty.?
D. Knowing how to communicate is universal among human beings.?
30. It is implied at the end of the passage that highly original individu als feel isolated because they ___.?
A. fail to acknowledge and use an acceptable form of communication?
B. actually differ from other individuals in the same period?
C. have little in common with the society of the time?
D. refuse to admit parallels between themselves and the society

阅读理解 B

SECTION B ?

TEXT E
First read the question.?
31. The purpose of the passage is to ___.?
A. review some newly-published interior-design books?
B. explore the potential market for interior-design books?
C. persuade people to buy some good books?
D. stress the importance of reading good books?
Now go through TEXT E quickly to answer question 31.?
Do your relationships keep failing? When you leave your home in the morning are you already feeling stressed? Is there no time in your life for fun any mor e? Cancel your appointment with the doctor. What you need is a good interior-des ign book. Publishers have created a new genre of books for the home, titles that go beyond paint charts and superficial style and instead show you how your home can be transformed and even heal your life.?
Dawna Walter is one of the authors leading the way in Britain with her boo k Organized Living that attempts to show how even a tidy sock drawer can improve the quality of your life. Walter is the owner of the Holding Company, a shop on London’s Kings Road which sells hundreds of storage ideas for the home. It has been such a hit that Walter is planning to open four new outlets in the near fu ture. Born in America, Dawna Walter is a fast talker, a self-confessed perfectio nist, and a tidiness fundamentalist. “If it takes 10 minutes for you to find a matching pair of socks in the morning, then you are not in control and your outl ook just isn’t any good. Being organized saves you a couple of hours every week and gives you more time to do the things you enjoy, ”she explains.?
Her book contains dozens of ideas for streamlining your life. In the kitch en she recommends filing magazine recipes immediately, and organizing them by ty pes-of dishes or particular cooks, and using ice-cube trays to freeze sauces in individual portions. Her ideas seem common sense but nevertheless require you to be at least slightly obsessive. CDs are a case in point: “How often do you wan t to find one particular CD and can’t? Now, how much easier it would be if you p l aced them in alphabetical order? That will only take an hour. Then divide out th e ones you listen to regularly into a separate section. ”?
Another recent book in the British market was Sarah Shurety’s Chinese-ins p ired Feng Shui For Your Home. Within 14 days of publication every copy had been sold. Shurety’s room-by-room guide to creating a harmonious living space, based on the ancient Chinese tradition Feng Shui, contains rules for how to create the best atmosphere and promote health, wealth and happiness. Dinner party hosts ar e told to place quiet people at the head of the table and facing the door so tha t they will feel more garrulous; those looking for romance learn to place pink f lowers by their beds; and house-buyers are warned to beware of properties built on sloping foundations if they want stability in their lives.?
The book Creating Space , by Elizabeth Wilhide, claims that readers followin g its advice will not just improve their homes but transform their lives. Wilhid e believes that as we increasingly work from home, we need to reassess the way o ur houses work(especially when there are children in the household) if we want t o avoid being overran by junk and that feeling of “being mentally weighed down. ” Unfortunately, she admits, she finds it difficult to follow her own advice. She sheepishly confesses to having “dumping zones” in her house, a handbag “that do esn’t bear looking into”, and a car “that’s a no-go zone” But she is undau nted by these small failures. In the future, she says she is determined to tidy up he r own life and follow the path to stress-free health , wealth and happiness.

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