阅读理解Passage 2 The island of Great Britain being small (compare the size of Australia), the natural place for holiday relaxation and enjoyment is its extensive coastline, above all its southern and eastern coasts, though Blackpool, which is probably the best known and more crowded seaside town, and the favourite resort of the mass-population of industrial Lancashire, is on the north-west coast

阅读理解Passage 1 If you, like me, distrust school cafeterias, you pack homemade lunches for your children, as I did until my sons finished high school

阅读理解Is a car that does not have to be refueled every few hundred miles, with the atom exploding peacefully beneath the bonnet, possible in the future? In theory it is, since already the atom has been harnessed to drive submarines, and an atomic engine is already in existence

阅读理解Passage 3 If you are a male and you are reading this, congratulations: you are a survivor

阅读理解Passage 4 One minute into annual inspection and things are already going wrong for the Globe Hotel

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D. You should decide on the best choice.Passage 3The danger of misinterpretation is greatest, of course, among speakers who actually speak different native tongues, or come from different cultural backgrounds, because cultural difference necessarily implies different assumptions about natural and obvious ways to be polite. Anthropologist Thomas Kochman gives the example of a white office worker who appeared with a bandaged arm and felt rejected because her black fellow worker didn’t mention it. The doubly wounded worker assumed that her silent colleague didn’t notice or didn’t care. But the co-worker was purposely not calling attention to something her colleague might not want to talk about. She let her decide whether or not to mention it, being considerate by not imposing. Kochman says, based on his research, that these differences reflect recognizable black and white styles. An American woman visiting England was repeatedly offended—even, on bad days, enraged—when the British ignored her in setting in which she thought they should pay attention. For example, she was sitting at a booth in a railway-station cafeteria. A couple began to settle into the opposite seat in the same booth. They unloaded their luggage; they laid their coats on the seat; he asked what she would like to eat and went off to get it; she slid into the booth facing the American. And throughout all this, they showed no sign of having noticed that someone was already sitting in the booth. When the British woman lit up a cigarette, the American had a concrete object for her anger. She began ostentatiously looking around for another table to move to. Of course there was none; that’s why the British couple had sat in her booth in the first place. The smoker immediately crushed out her cigarette and apologized. This showed that she had noticed that someone else was sitting in the booth, and that she was not inclined to disturb her. But then she went back to pretending the American wasn’t there, a ruse in which her husband collaborated when he returned with their food and they ate it. To the American, politeness requires talk between strangers forced to share a booth in a cafeteria, if only a fleeting “Do you mind if I sit down?” or a conventional, “Is anyone sitting here?” even if it’s obvious no one is. The omission of such talk seemed to her like dreadful rudeness. The American couldn’t see that another system of politeness was at work. By not acknowledging her presence, the British couple freed her from the obligation to acknowledge theirs. The American expected a show of involvement; they were being polite by not imposing. An American man who had lived for years in Japan explained a similar politeness ethic. He lived, as many Japanese do, in extremely close quarters—a tiny room separated from neighboring rooms by paper-thin walls. In this case the walls were literally made of paper. In order to preserve privacy in this most un-private situation, his Japanese neighbor with the door open, they steadfastly glued their gaze ahead as if they were alone in a desert. The American confessed to feeling what I believe most American would feel if a next-door neighbor passed within a few feet without acknowledging their presence—snubbed. But he realized that the intention was not rudeness by omitting to show involvement, but politeness by not imposing. The fate of the earth depends on cross-cultural communication. Nations must reach agreements, and agreements are made by individual representatives of nations sitting down and talking to each other—public analogues of private conversation. The processes are the same, and so are the pitfalls. Only the possible consequences are more extreme.

阅读理解They may be one of Britains most successful exports and among the worlds most popular TV shows， ranking alongside the World Cup Final and the Olympic Games opening ceremony in terms of audience

阅读理解Text A Whether the eyes are the windows of the soul is debatable; that they are intensely important in interpersonal communication is a fact

阅读理解It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy

阅读理解Passage Three For anyone who doubts that the texting revolution is upon us， consider this: The average 13-to 17-year-old sends and receives 3,339 texts a month一more than 100 per day, according to the Nielsen Co

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D. You should decide on the best choice.Passage 1Testing has replaced teaching in most public schools. My own children’s school week is framed by pretests, drills, tests, and retests. They know that the best way to read a textbook is to look at the questions at the end of the chapter and then skim the text for the answers. I believe that my daughter Erica, who gets excellent marks, has never read a chapter of any of her school textbooks all the way through. And teachers are often heard to state proudly and openly that they teach to the mandated state test.Teaching to the test is a curious phenomenon. Instead of deciding what skills students ought to learn, helping students learn them, and then using some sensible methods of assessment to discover whether students have mastered the skills, teachers are encouraged to reverse the process. First one looks at a commercially available test. Then one distills the skills needed not to master reading, say, or math, but to do well on the test. Finally, the test skills are taught.The ability to read or write or calculate might imply the ability to do reasonably well on standardized tests. However, neither reading nor writing develops simply through being taught to take tests. We must be careful to avoid mistaking preparation for a test of a skill with the acquisition of that skill. Too many discussions of basic skills make this fundamental confusion because people are test obsessed rather than concerned with the nature and quality of what is taught.Recently many schools have faced what could be called the crisis of comprehension or, in simple terms, the phenomenon of students with phonic and grammar skills still being unable to understand what they read. These students are competent at test taking and filling in workbooks and ditto masters. However they have little or no experience reading or thinking, and talking about what they read. They know the details but can’t see or understand the whole. They are taught to be so concerned with grade that they have no time or ease of mind to think about meaning, and reread things if necessary.

阅读理解Passage Four Roger Rosenblatts book Black Fiction, in attempting to apply literary rather than sociopolitical criteria to its subject, successfully alters the approach taken by most previous studies

阅读理解Text Three Concern with money, and then more money, in order to buy the conveniences and luxuries of modern life, has brought great changes to the lives of most Frenchmen

阅读理解Passage G In some ways the employment interview is like a persuasive speech because the applicant (interviewee) seeks to persuade the employer (interviewer) to employ him or her

阅读理解(2) Im a 21-year-old black born to a family that would probably be considered lower-middle classwhich in my mind is a polite way of describing a condition only slightly better than poverty

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions orunfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You shoulddeicide the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single linethrough the center.Passage Two“Opinion” is a word that is used carelessly today. It is used to refer to matters of taste, belief, andjudgment. This casual use would probably cause little confusion if people didn’t attach too muchimportance to opinion. Unfortunately, most to attach great importance to it. “I have as much right to myopinion as you to yours,” and “‘Everyone’s entitled to his opinion,” are common expressions. In fact,anyone who would challenge another’s opinion is likely to be branded intolerant.Is that label accurate? Is it intolerant to challenge another’s opinion? It depends on what definition ofopinion you have in mind. For example, you may ask a friend ‘‘What do you think of the new Fordcars?” And he may reply, “In my opinion, they’re ugly.” In this case, it would not only be intolerant tochallenge his statement, but foolish. For it’s obvious that by opinion he means his personalpreference, a matter of taste. And as the old saying goes, ‘‘It’s pointless to argue about matters oftaste.”But consider this very different use of the term. A newspaper reports that the Supreme Court hasdelivered its opinion in a controversial case. Obviously the justices did not shale their personalpreferences, their mere likes and dislikes. They stated their considered judgment, painstakinglyarrived at after thorough inquiry and deliberation.Most of what is referred to as opinion falls somewhere between these two extremes. It is not anexpression of taste. Nor is it careful judgment. Yet it may contain elements of both. It is a view orbelief more or less casually arrived at, with or without examining the evidence.Is everyone entitled to his opinion? Of course, this is not only permitted, but guaranteed. We are freeto act on our opinions only so long as, in doing so, we do not harm others.

阅读理解For many of us, asking for help is a difficult concept

阅读理解Yet the difference in tome and language must strike us, so soon as it is philosophy that speaks: that change should remind us that even if the function of religion and that of reason coincide, this function is performed in the two cases by very different organs

阅读理解Passage Two Biologically, there is only one quality which distinguishes us from animals: the ability to laugh

阅读理解As the horizons of science have expanded, two main groups of scientists have emerged