PARTⅥ
READING COMPREHENSION[WT5] ［30 MIN.］
SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION［25 MIN.］
In this section there are five passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the correct answer. Mark your choices on your ANSWER SHEET.
TEXT A
Avalanche
Death comes quickly in the mountains. Each winter holidaymakers are caught unawares as they happily ski away from the fixed runs, little realizing that a small avalanche (雪崩) can send them crashing in a bone-breaking fall down the slope and leave them buried under tons of crisp white snow. There are lots of theories about how to avoid disaster when hit by an avalanche. Practice is normally less cheerful.
The snow in the Salzburg of Austria where a recent disaster took place was typical avalanche material. For several days before the incident I had skied locally. Early winter snow was wearing thin and covered with ice. On top of that new, warmer flakes were gently falling to produce a dangerous carpet. To the skier who enjoys unmarked slopes it is tempting stuff, deep new powder snow on a hard basethe skiing that dreams are made of. And sometimes nightmares.
Snow falls in sections like a cake. Different sections have different densities because of the temperatures at the time of the fall and in the weeks afterwards.
Problems come when any particular section is too thick and not sticking to the section beneath. The snow of the past few weeks had been falling in rather higher temperatures than those of December and early January. The result of these conditions is that even a slight increase in the temperatures sends a thin stream of water between the snow new and the old. Then the new snow simply slides off the mountain.
Such slides are not unexpected. Local citizens know the slopes when tend to avalanche and the weather in which such slides are likely. Traps are set to catch the snow or prevent it slipping; bombs are placed and exploded from time to time to set off small avalanches before a big one has time to build up; and above all,skiers are warned not to ski in danger areas.
In spite of this, avalanches happen in unexpected areas and, of course, skiers ignore the warnings. The one comfort to recreational skiers, however, is that avalanche incidents on the marked ski slopes are quite rare. No ski resort wants the image of being a death trap.
66. Each winter holidaymakers in the mountains come face to face with death because____.
A. they fail to realize how dangerous avalanches can be.
B. they are not expert enough at skiing on the fixed runs.
C. they are trying to avoid where avalanches happen.
D. they ski great distances down the mountainsides.
67. It would appear from the text that avalanches are brought about because____.
A. a particular section of snow is not thick enough.
B. there is a slight fall in the temperature.
C. heavy snowfalls turn into rain.
D. the ice between different sections of snow melts.
68. In areas where avalanches are known to happen____.
A. local residents stay indoors when the weather is bad.
B. measures are taken to prevent serious avalanches.
C. small avalanches can easily be prevented.
D. skiers form themselves into a wall to keep the snow in position.
TEXT B
At cape Churchill in northeastern Manitoba, where the shore of Hudson Bay makes an abrupt 90-degree turn the west, polar bears congregate(集合)in the autumn,waiting for the ice that is their home. By November, pack ice has formed beyond the fast ice, and the bears are moving. To be at the very tip of the Cape in November or to be in the middle of a slow but steadily flowing river of bears, methodically picking their way across the jumbled (搞乱了的)ice in a straight-push for their hunting grounds.
The polar bears of Hudson Bay are a distinct population thriving at the southern end of their range. Polar bears live on seals, and to hunt them the bears must have ice to get to where the seals are. Yet in Hudson Bay the ice melts by July and the bears have to come ashore, there to spend four months eating very little, digging into sand dunes(沙丘) and dirt so they can stay cool in the summer heat’, relaxing into a physiological state like that of black bears in winter dens. They are the polar bear population most accessible to humans, and they are not only the best studied but the most easily experienced by amateur naturalists, photographers, and just plain tourists.
69. With what aspect of bears’ lives is the passage mainly concerned?
A. Their evolution.
B. Their hunting skills.
C. Their temperament.
D. Their seasonal movements.
70. According to the passage, during which period of time do the polar bears come ashore?
A. January through March.
B. July through October.
C. September through December.
D. November through July.
71. It can be inferred from the passage that the polar bear population of Hudson Bay____.
A. is one of several polar bear populations
B. is unfriendly toward humans
C. consumes food voraciously (贪婪地) during the whole year
D. is an endangered species
www.59wj.comTEXT C
Although we Americans in recent decades have grown richer, our children have grown poorer. Many families no longer adequately perform the nurturing and supporting function that children need, emotionally and intellectually.
The evil consequences for children are not in dispute. The fate of suicide among children aged ten to fourteen is twice as high as it was twenty years ago.
For children aged fifteen to nineteen, the rate has tripled.
Since 1983, crimes by children have been rising at a faster rate than the juvenile population. About half of such crimes involve the traditional youthful offenses of theft, breaking and entering, and vandalism, but serious, violent crimes, though still involving a relatively small proportion of children, are going up at a startling rate. The rate of armed robbery, rape, and murder by juveniles has doubled in a decade.
The Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee surveyed 750 school districts and reported the following changes between 1990 and 1993. Dropouts increased by 11 percent. Drug and alcohol offenses on school property were up 37 percent. Burglaries of school buildings were up 11 percent and assaults on teachers up 77 percent.
Among those who are thought of as “normal” children, lower reading scores and scholastic aptitude scores reveal intellectual impoverishment. Beyond all this loom the apathy and waste of the counterculture. Its existence is no longer news, but its ranks are still swelled each year by thousands of pathetic runaways and dropouts.
What forces are producing the increasingly severe stresses on today’s children?
The phenomenon is complex and baffling, but several developments seem to be interacting. Urbanization is a factor. Children who might have made it on a farm or in a village, despite adverse family circumstances such as extreme poverty or a father’s desertion, encounter disaster in a big city with its anonymity and diverse temptations.
Births by unwed mothers and divorce, two trends that are both rising steadily, result in depriving children of the stable, two-parent support that they need in their growing years. One out of every six children under eighteen today is living in a single-parent family. This is almost double the proportion in 1950.
Many divorced or widowed parents obviously succeed with their children, but ideally, rearing a child is a two-person job. When one parent is missing, the risk of failure increases. Indeed, it is best if a child has grandparents or other supportive relatives on the scene as well.
Instead, what has happened is the near disappearance of the extended family and the substitution of television, the hopelessly inadequate electronic baby-sitter. One study, for example, revealed that fifty years ago half of the households in Massachusetts included at least one adult besides the parents. Today the figure is only 4 percent. In a. small child’s life, “ Captain Kangaroo” is no substitute for a devoted grandmother.
72. The damaging effect of the treatment many American children receive today____
A. has not been taken seriously
B. has aroused hot debates
C. is beginning to be recognized
D. is unquestionable
73. Which of the following is NOT implied in the article?
A. Divorced parents can never rear good children.
B. One sixth of the American children live in one-parent families.
C. Two-parent families have better chances of raising their children successfully.
D. Nowadays there are nearly twice as many single-parent families as there used to be in 1950.
74. “ Captain Kangaroo” can’t offer ____ to a child.
A. entertainment
B. companionship
C. love and care
D. education
TEXT D
The accuracy of scientific observations and calculations is always at the mercy of the scientist’s time keeping methods. For this reason, scientists are interested in devices that give promise of more precise timekeeping.
In their search for precision, scientist have turned to atomic clocks that depend on various vibrating atoms or molecules to supply their “ticking”. This is possible because each kind of atom or molecule has its own characteristic rate of vibration. The nitrogen atom in ammonia, for example, vibrates or “ticks” 24 billion times a second.
One such atomic clock is so accurate that it will probably lose no more than a second in 3000 years. It will be of great importance that in fields such as astronomical observation and long-range navigation. The heart of this Atomichron is a cesium atom that vibrates 9.2 billion times a second when heated to the temperature of boiling water.
An atomic clock that operates with an ammonia molecule may be used to check the accuracy of predictions based on Einstein’s relativity theories, according to which a clock in motion and a clock at rest should keep time differently. Placed in an orbiting satellite moving at a speed of 18,000 miles an hour, the clock could broadcast its time readings to a ground station, where they would be compared with the readings on a similar model. Whatever differences develop would be checked against the differences predicted.
75. From the selection, we may assume that temperature changes____.
A. affect only ammonia molecules.
B. may affect the vibration rate of atoms.
C. affect the speed at which the atoms travel.
D. do not affect atoms in any way.
76. Implied but not stated:____.
A. precise timekeeping is essential in science
B. scientists expect to disprove Einstein’s relativity theories
C. atomic clocks will be important in space flight
D. the rate of vibration of an atom never varies
77. An appropriate title for this selection would be ____.
A. A Peacetime Use of the Atom
B. Atoms and Molecules
C. The Satellite Timekeepers
D. The Role of the Clock
www.59wj.comTEXT E
The Crime of the Month Crime has its own cycles, a magazine reported some years ago. Police records that were studied for five years from over 2,400 cities and towns show a surprising link between changes in the season and crime patterns.
The pattern of crime has varied very little over a long period of years. Murderreaches its high during July and August, as do rape and other violent attacks. Murder, moreover, is more than seasonal: it is a weekend crime. It is also a nighttime crime: 62 percent of murders are committed between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.Unlike the summer high in crimes of bodily harm, burglary has a different cycle. You are most likely to be robbed between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. on a Saturday night in December, January, or February. The most uncriminal month of all? Mayexcept for one strange statistic. More dog bites are reported in this month than in any other month of the year.
Apparently our intellectual seasonal cycles are completely different from our criminal tendencies. Professor Huntington, of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, made extensive studies to discover the seasons when people read serious books, attend scientific meetings, make the highest scores on examinations, and propose the most changes to patents. In all instances, he found a spring peak and an autumn peak separated by a summer low. On the other hand, Professor Huntington’s studies indicated that June is the peak month for suicides and admissions to mental hospitals. June is also a peak month for marriages!
Possibly soaring thermometers and high humidity bring on our strange and terrifying summer actions, but police officials are not sure. “There is, of course, no proof of a connection between humidity and murder,” they say. “Why murder’s high time should come in the summertime we really don’t know.”
78. According to the passage, a murder would most likely occur____.
A. on a weekend night in winter
B. on a weekday afternoon in summer
C. on a weekend night in summer
D. on a weekday night in winter
79. What is the one strange statistic for May?
A. There are more robberies in May.
B. There are more dog bites in May.
C. There is the most crime in May.
D. There are more suicides in May.
80. In paragraph 4, why is there an exclamation point (!) after the last sentence?
A. Because the author is surprised that so many people marry in June.
B. Because the author is surprised that the marriage peak occurs in the same month as the suicides and mental hospital peak.
C. Because the author doesn’t understand why the peak for suicides and marriage is the same month.
D. Because the author is excited that so many people marry in June.
SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING［5 MIN.］
In this section there are five passages with a total of ten multiple-choice questions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on your Answer Sheet.
TEXT F
First read the following questions.
81. Which one of the following can serve as the title of this passage?
A. Nervous Aspects Connected with Handwriting.
B. A Special Problem in Teaching Handwriting.
C. The Problems of the Left-Handed Child.
D. Stammering, Mirror Wring and Reversals.
82. The traditional policy in teaching handwriting has____.
A. dismayed the experts
B. resulted in failure to learn to write
C. made many children skillful with both hands
D. resulted in unsolved problems
Now skim the passage below and mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.
One of the most urgent problems in teaching handwriting is presented by the left-handed child. The traditional policy has been to attempt to induce all children to write with their right hands. Parents and teachers alike have an antipathy to the child’s using his left hand. On the other hand, psychologists have shown beyond a doubt that some persons are naturally left-handed and that it is much more difficult for them to do any skillful act with their right hand than with their left hand. Some believe, furthermore, that to compel a left-handed child to write with his right hand may make him nervous and may cause stammering. There seems to be some cases in which this is true, although in the vast majority of children who change over, no ill effects are noticed. In addition to these difficulties, left-handedness sometimes seems to cause mirror writingwriting from right to leftand reversals in reading, as reading “was”for“saw”.
www.59wj.comTEXT G
First read the following questions.
83. What is the main idea of this passage?
A. These computers contain all the addresses in the city.
B. Computers are very fast.
C. Computers can be used by doctors.
D. Computers help firemen in many ways.
84. Where is this computer containing medical records of each fireman?
A. Kentucky.B. Kansas City.C. Missouri.D. Los Angles.
Now skim the passage below and mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.
In Kansas City, Missouri, a computer helps fire men. The computer contains information about every one of the 350,000 street addresses in the city. When firemen answer a call, the computer gives them important information about the burning building. The computer can give the location of the building and its size, type, and contents. In fact, the computer system has many different ways of helping fire fighters with their problems. For example, it can give medical information about sick people living in a burning building. With this information, the firemen can take special care to find these sick persons and remove them quickly and safely from the burning building.
The speed of the computer is amazing. Within two or three seconds after a call is received, the computer provides necessary information for the firemen. The information is then sent to them by radio from the computer center in City Hall.
The Kansas City computer system also contains a medical record of each of the city’s 900 firemen. This kind of information is especially useful when a fire fighter is injured. With this medical information, doctors at the hospital can treat the injured firemen more quickly and easily.
Kansas City firemen themselves are thankful for the computer’s help. The computer tells them about possible dangers ahead of them and helps them prepare for them. Many times the computer information helps to save lives and property. Sometimes the lives are those of firemen themselves!
TEXT H
First read the following questions.
85. What is the main topic of the passage?
A. Nervous disorders in moths.
B. The effect of light on moths.
C. Moths’ ability to find light.
D. Moths continually turn near the light.
86. What does intense, even light cause moths to do?
A. Close their eyes.B. Hide in dark places.
C. Cease moving.D. Fly towards the light.
Now skim the passage below and mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.
Have you ever wondered why you see moths flying mostly at night? And then only around lights? It’s evident that moths are attracted to light. But what do you suppose the light does to them? Here’s my theory. A moth’s nervous system is extremely sensitive to light. I think that light causes a moth to reduce its movements. At night, light hitting one side of the moth is perceived by the moth’s eye, stimulating the nervous system. This produces a reflex action that reduces wing movements on the side facing the light. When the wings on that side slow down,the uneven wing beat turns the other side of the moth to the light. In this way the moth is continually turning near a light. During daylight hours, light is much more intense and evenly distributed, causing the moth to remain motionless.
TEXT I
First read the following questions.
87. How many religions are there in Singapore?
A. 6.B. 7.C. 8.D. 9.
88. How much is the net income of Singapore in 1997?
A. $5 billion.B. $18.5 billion.C. $0.6 billion.D. $4.4 billion.
89. Which country is NOT mentioned as the export or import partner of Singapore?
A. Japan.B. Thailand.C. North Korea.D. Malaysia.
Now skim the table below and mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.
[BG(SDFXDF][BHDFG1*2,FKF]People
[BHDG3,FK18ZQ,KZQF]Languages:
Chinese (official), Malay (official and national), Tamil (official), English (official)
[BHDG1*2]Population:
3,440,693 (July 1997 est.)
[BHDG3]Ethnic groups:
Chinese 76.4%, Malay 14.9%, Indian 6.4%, other 2.3%
[BHDG1*2]Population growth rate:〖〗1.67% (1997 est.)
[BH]Birth rate:
14.13 births/1,000 population (1997 est.)
[BH]Death rate:
4.68 deaths/1,000 population (1997 est.)
[BH]Sex ratio:
total population : 1 male(s)/female (1997 est.)
[BH]Infant mortality rate:
3.9 deaths/1,000 live births (1997 est.)
[BH]Total fertility rate:
1.46 children born/woman (1997 est.)
[BH]Life expectancy at birth:
total population : 78.15 years
[BH]Birth:male: 75.14 years
[BH]Female: 81.4 years (1997 est.)
[BH]Literacy:definition: age 15 and over can read and write
[BH]Total population : 91.1%
[BH]Male: 95.9%
[BH]Female: 86.3% (1995 est.)
[BHDG3]Religions:Buddhist (Chinese), Muslim (Malays), Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, Confucianist
[BHDG3]Nationality:noun: Singaporean(s)
adjective: Singapore
[BHDG1*2,FKF]Economy
[BHDG1*2,FK18ZQ,KZQF]GDP:
purchasing power parity - $72.2 billion (1996 est.)
[BH]GDP - real growth rate:6.5% (1996)
[BH]GDP - per capital:
purchasing power parity - $21,200 (1996 est.)
[BHDG4*2]GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: NEGL%
industry: 28%
services : 72%
[BHDG1*2]Inflation rateconsumer price index:-1.3% (1996)
[BHDG6]Labor force:
total: 1.801 million (1996 est.)
by occupation: financial, business, and other servic
es 33.5%, manufacturing 25.6%, commerce 22.9%, construction 6.6%, other 11.4% (19
94)
[BHDG1*2]Unemployment rate:2.7% (1996 est.)
[BH]Budget:revenues: $18.5 billion
[BHDG3]expenditures:$13.5 billion, including capital expen
ditures of $4.4 billion (FY96/97est.)
[BHDG4*2]Industries:
petroleum refining, electronics, oil drilling equipment, rubber processing
and rubber products, processed food and beverages, ship repair, financial servic
es, biotechnology
[BHDG1*2]Industrial production growth rate:〖〗7% (1996 est.)
[BH]Agriculture - products:rubber, copra, fruit, vegetables; poultry
[BH]Exports:
[BH]total value:$144.8 billion (1996 est.)
[BHDG3]commodities: computer equipment, rubber and rubber products, petroleum products, telecommunications equipment
[BH]partners: Malaysia 19%, US 18%, Hong Kong 9%, Japan 8%, Thailand 6% (1995)
[BHDG1*2]Imports:
[BHDG1*2,FK18ZQ,KZQF]total value: $151.1 billion (1996 est., including goods for re-export)
[BH]commodities: aircraft, petroleum, chemicals, foodstuffs
[BHDG3,FK18ZQ,KZQF]partners: Japan 21%, Malaysia 15%, US 15%, Thailand 5%, Taiwan 4%, South Korea 4% (1995)
[BHDG1*2]Debt - external:$NA
[BH]Economic aid:$NA[BG)F]
www.59wj.comTEXT J
First read the following question.
90. Which item is NOT included in the list?
A. Accounting.B. New York City day trip.
C. Telephone skills.D. Contract Writing.
Now skim the passage below and mark your answer on your ANSWER SHEET.
The Intensive Business English and Office Assistant Program meets six days a week, offering 830 program hours of inclass instruction. The program is divided in to four major components:
* BSML Intensive business English program
* Business computer classes
· Microsoft Office(r) 2000 classes
· Accounting with Quicken(r)
· Internet & World Wide Web
* Project workshops
· Bookkeeping & records
· Office management skills
· Communication skills
· Interviewing & resume skills
· Office etiquette & psychology
· Telephone skills
· Typing skills
* Business & cultural skills
· Business on-site visits
· New York City day trip
· Boston museums
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