单选题   SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
    In this section there are several passages followed by ten multiple-choice questions. For each question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
    PASSAGE ONE
    'Why are working mothers so furious all the time?' I was asked recently. An answer, not entirely rational, springs to mind: 'Personally, I could use a travel agent.' It's a joke, sort of. School vacation is coming up. I'm busy at work, and trip planning has become a time-consuming hell. A simple family vacation requires innumerable visits to destination websites; a suspicious searching of rankings and reviews; and, at the heart-stopping final moment, a purchase on a site where prices and availability seem to change by the second. In the old days a woman would call a travel agent and the trip would be booked. Now agents charge $35 a ticket. Don't get me started on fees.
    The yearning for an old-school travel agent is a metaphor for deeper and probably insoluble problems of domestic life around 2011. First, any illusion that mothers might have had about full-time employment as a 'lifestyle choice' has, in this economy, been stripped away. Second, the 'service economy' of the boom years has, thanks to the technology revolution and corporate cost-cutting, become a nightmare of self-service. Individuals, under increasing pressure to perform at work, have to do for themselves all kinds of things that other people—middlemen, customer-service agents—used to do. This has given rise to the most tedious household chore of all: domestic administration.
    'You're focused on making the reservation, and the email, and the deadline at work tomorrow,' says Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute. 'We're supposed to be paying attention to all of it, all the time.' Beneath these newer realities of modem life lies an indisputable truth: American corporate structures and marriages still do not fully accommodate the working morn, which means, for better and worse, that women are still in charge of haircuts, doctors' appointments, and birthday parties. That's why vacation planning on the Internet feels like the very last straw.
    Some companies are endeavoring to make life's chores not completely soul-sapping (心力交瘁的). LifeCare Inc., offers doorman services as part of corporate benefits packages: 'If someone calls in and says, 'I'm having a birthday party for my daughter, and I need a life-size cutout of Lady Gaga,' we help with that,' says CEO Peter Burki. Zappos hires only upbeat salespeople, hoping to make the inanity (无趣) of buying shoes online resemble something fun. 'It's not about the schedule,' insists Jenn Lim, a consultant to Zappos on happiness and productivity. 'It's not about the details. It's about your experience in the world.'
    PASSAGE TWO
    Today, of course, supposed expert advice is fairly sprayed at all of us from every TV, newspaper, and Web page. Consider one frustrating example: after hearing for years that sunscreen is critical to lowering our cancer risk, we've more recently heard not only that studies have concluded that high-SPF sunscreens end up providing insufficient protection for most people, but also that many popular brands of sunscreen can even promote skin cancer.
    In fact, medical, economic, and business-management researchers themselves have studied the reliability of published research and concluded that most of it is flawed, exaggerated, or just plain wrong. Medical researchers, for example, have noted that about two thirds of the findings published in top medical journals end up being contradicted. Leading researchers such as John Ioannidis, a researcher at Harvard, Tufts, and the University of Ioannina in Greece, suspect that most of what doctors are taught is actually off base.
    The heart of the problem is that published studies from scientists, economists, and other experts tend to falsely show that their theories are right. Surveys of these fields reveal that fraud, careerism, mismeasurement, suppression of data, worthless analysis, and many other serious shortcomings are fairly widespread even among the most respected researchers and institutions.
    Despite these problems, there's some minority of advice that's good, and even critically important—we don't want to start thinking that experts don't know what they're talking about when they tell us to get our children vaccinated or not to smoke. But we don't know how to pick the less obviously good stuff out from the constant stream of flawed and conflicting findings: fat is bad for you, fat is good for you, the economy is recovering, the economy faces a double-dip recession.
    Part of the problem is that experts don't have much incentive to get things right. We reward them for coming up with pronouncements that are appealing and seem trustworthy and that are dressed up with solid-sounding numbers, especially if the resulting advice hands us a simple, unqualified, universal solution to our problem. Cut out carbs (碳水化合物) and you'll lose weight. Take a baby aspirin daily and you'll lower your heart-attack risk. Unfortunately, we live in a complex world in which most advice will have only some chance of being partly helpful some of the time for some of us. But who wants to listen to that sort of dull and dreary advice?
    We can do better in filtering expert advice. First of all, we should be highly cautious of the latest breakthrough findings—that stuff almost always turns out to be wrong. Instead, look for a consensus of study data that has been building for years, even if—especially if—the conclusions aren't very exciting or are brought forward in qualifications.
    PASSAGE THREE
    Over the last 25 years, British society has changed a great deal—or at least many parts of it have. In some ways, however, very little has changed, particularly where attitudes are concerned. Ideas about social class—whether a person is 'working-class' or 'middle-class'—are one area in which changes have been extremely slow.
    In the past, the working-class tended to be paid less than middle-class people, such as teachers and doctors. As a result of this and also of the fact that workers' jobs were generally much less secure, distinct differences in lifestyles and attitudes came into existence. The typical working man would collect his wages on Friday evening and then, it was widely believed, having given his wife her 'housekeeping', would go out and squander the rest on beer and betting.
    The stereotype of what a middle-class man did with his money was perhaps nearer the truth. He was—and still is—inclined to take a longer-term view. Not only did he regard buying a house of these as a top priority, but he also considered the education of his children as extremely important and both of these provided him and his family with security. Only in very few cases did workers have the opportunity (or the education and training) to make such long-term plans.
    Nowadays, a great deal has changed. In a large number of cases factory workers earn as much, if not more, than their middle-class supervisors. Social security and laws to improve job-security, combined with a general rise in the standard of living since the mid-fifties of the 20th century, have made it less necessary than before to worry about 'tomorrow'. Working-class people seem slowly to be losing the feeling of inferiority they had in the past. In fact there has been a growing tendency in the past few years for the middle-classes to feel slightly ashamed of their position.
    The changes in both life-styles and attitudes are probably most easily seen amongst younger people. They generally tend to share very similar tastes in music and clothes, they spend their money in having a good time, and save for holidays or longer-term plans when necessary. There seems to be much less difference than in previous generations. Nevertheless, we still have a wide gap between the well-paid (whatever the type of job they may have) and the low-paid. As long as this gap exists, there will always be a possibility that new conflicts and jealousies will emerge, or rather that the old conflicts will re-appear, but between different groups.
    PASSAGE FOUR
    Why do you listen to music? If you should put this question to a number of people, you might receive answers like these; 'I like the beat of music', 'I look for attractive tunefulness', 'I am moved by the sound of choral singing', 'I listen to music for many reasons but I could not begin to describe them to you clearly'. Answers to this question would be many and diverse, yet almost no one would reply, 'Music means nothing to me.' To most of us, music means something; it evokes some response. We obtain some satisfaction in listening to music.
    For many, the enjoyment of music does not remain at a standstill. We feel that we can get more satisfaction from the musical experience. We want to make closer contact with music in order to learn more of its nature; thus we can range more broadly and freely in the areas of musical style, form, and expression. This book explores ways of achieving these objectives. It deals, of course, with the techniques of music, but only in order to show how technique is directed toward expressive aims in music and toward the listener's musical experience. In this way, we may get an idea of the composer's intentions, for indeed, the composer uses every musical device for its power to communicate and for its contribution to the musical experience.
    Although everyone hears music differently, there is a common ground from which all musical experiences grow. That source is sound itself. Sound is the raw material of music. It makes up the body and substance of all musical activity. It is the point of departure in the musical experience.
    The kinds of sound that can be used for musical purposes are amazingly varied. Throughout the cultures of the world, East and West, a virtually limitless array of sounds has been employed in the service of musical expression. Listen to Oriental theatre music, then to an excerpt from a Wagner work; these two are worlds apart in their qualities of sound as well as in almost every other feature, yet each says something of importance to some listeners. Each can stir a listener and evoke a response in him. All music, whether it is the pulsation of primitive tribal drums or the complex coordination of voices and instruments in an opera, has this feature; it is based upon the power of sound to stir our senses and feelings.
    Yet sound alone is not music. Something has to happen to the sound. It must move forward in time. Everything that takes place musically involves the movement of sound. If we hear a series of drumbeats, we receive an impression of movement from one stroke to the next. When sounds follow each other in a pattern of melody, we receive an impression of movement from one tone to the next. All music moves; and because it moves, it is associated with as fundamental truth of existence and experience. We are stirred by impressions of movement because our very lives are constantly in movement. Breathing, the action of the pulse, growth, decay, the change of day and night, as well as the constant flow of physical action—these all testify to the fundamental role that movement plays in our lives. Music appeals to our desire and our need form movement.

单选题     The need for old-school travel agents results from ______.(PASSAGE ONE)

单选题     What the LifeCare Inc. and Zappos are trying to do is to ______.(PASSAGE ONE)

单选题     What does the author tell us about the minority of good advice?PASSAGE TWO()

单选题     When do we usually reward the experts according to the passage?(PASSAGE TWO)

单选题     How should we adopt expert advice according to the author?(PASSAGE TWO)

单选题     Which of the following is seen as the cause of class differences in the past?(PASSAGE THREE)

单选题     According to the passage, which of the following is NOT a typical feature of the middle-class?(PASSAGE THREE)

单选题     Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?(PASSAGE THREE)

单选题     According to the passage, enjoying music is not an end in itself because people hope to ______ through listening.(PASSAGE FOUR)

单选题     The importance of movement in music is explained by comparing it to ______.(PASSAGE FOUR)

单选题     SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
    In this section there are five short answer questions based on the passages in Section A. Answer the questions with NO more than TEN words in the space provided on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
    What's the real condition of American corporate structures and marriages?(PASSAGE ONE)

单选题         Why do experts get the published research wrong?(PASSAGE TWO)

单选题         What did the middle-class people tend to feel in the past few years?(PASSAGE THREE)

单选题     What changes can be mostly seen among younger people?(PASSAGE FOUR)

单选题         What feature does all music have based on the power of sound?(PASSAGE FOUR)