阅读理解A few common misconceptions. Beauty is only skin-deep. One''s physical assets and liabilities don''t count all that much in a managerial career. A woman should always try to look her best. Over the last 30 years, social scientists have conducted more than 1,000 studies of how we react to beautiful and not- so-beautiful people. The virtually unanimous conclusion: Looks do matter, more than most of us realize. The data suggest, for example, the physically attractive individuals are more likely to be treated well by their parents, sought out as friends, and pursued romantically. With the possible exception of women seeking managerial jobs they are also more likely to be hired, paid well, and promoted. Un-American, you say, unfair and extremely unbelievable? Once again, the scientists have caught us mouthing pieties (虔诚) while acting just the contrary. Their typical experiment works something like this. They give each member of a group--college students, perhaps, or teachers or corporate personnel managers a piece of paper relating an individual''s accomplishments. Attached to the paper is a photograph. While the papers all say exactly the same thing the pictures are different. Some show a strikingly attractive person, some an average-looking character, and some an unusually unattractive human being. Group members are asked to rate the individual on certain attributes, anything from personal warmth to the likelihood that he or she will be promoted. Almost invariably, the better looking the person in the picture, the higher the person is rated. In the phrase, borrowed from Sappho, that the social scientists use to sum up the common perception, what is beautiful is good. In business, however, good looks cut both ways for women, and deeper than for men. A Utah State University professor, who is an authority on the subject, explains: In terms of their careers, the impact of physical attractiveness on males is only modest. But its potential impact on females can be tremendous, making it easier, for example, for the more attractive to get jobs where they are in the public eye. on another note, though, there is enough literature now for us to conclude that attractive women who aspire (追求) to managerial positions do not get on as well as who may be less attractive.

阅读理解Which of the following is the best as the title of the passage?

阅读理解The word "ritualistically" in the last paragraph equals something done___.

阅读理解Please Recycle That Bobsled Run(大学橇滑道) 1 For the 1992 Winter Games, French organizers constructed a new motorway, parking lots and runs for skiing in the Alps. Environmentalists screamed "Disaster!''. Thus warned, the Norwegians have adopted "green" advice and avoided great blots on the landscape. The speed-skating rink was built to look like an overturned ship, and placed so as not to disturb a bird sanctuary. Dug into a mountainside, the hockey arena is well concealed and energy efficient. The bobsled run is built out of wood not metal and hidden among trees. No wonder the president of the International Olympic Committee has called these the first "Green Games". 2 Lillehammer''s opening ceremonies featured a giant Olympic Torch burning biogas produced by rotting vegetation. During construction, builders were threatened with ＄7,500 fines for felling trees unnecessarily. Rare trees were carefully transplanted from hillsides. Food is being served on potato-based plates that will be fed, in turn, to pigs. Smoking has been banned outdoors as well as in, with enforcement by polite requests. 3 Environmentalists have declared partial victory, though Coca-Cola''s plan to decorate the town with banners has been scaled back, there are still too many billboards for strict green tastes. Perhaps, but after the Games, athlete housing will be converted into vacation homes or shipped to the northlands for student dormitories. Bullets will be plucked from biathlon targets and recycled to keep the lead from poisoning ground water. And these tricks won''t be forgotten. Embarrassed by environmental protests, the I. O. C. claims that green awareness is now entrenched — along with sport and culture — as a permanent dimension of the Olympic Charter. 4 Indeed, Sydney was successful in becoming host for the 2000 Summer Games in part on the strength of its endorsement from Greenpeace. Aspiring host cities are picking up the code. Salt Lake City, bidding for the 2002 Games, may opt to use the bobsled run that Calgary built for the 88 Games. after that, who could deny that recycling is an Olympic movement?

阅读理解The train clattered over points and passed through a station. Then it began suddenly to slow down, presumably in obedience to a signal. For some minutes it crawled along, then stopped, presently it began to move forward again. At that moment another train, also on a down line, swerved inwards towards them, for a moment with almost alarming effect. For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, now the other. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not very full and there were many empty carriages. At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being stationary, a blind in one of the carriages flew up with a snap. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked into the lighted first-class carriage that was only a few feet away. Then she drew her breath in with a gasp and half-rose to her feet. Standing with his back to the window and to her was a man. His hands were round the throat of a woman who faced him, and he was slowly, remorselessly, strangling her. Her eyes were staring from their sockets, her face was purple. As Mrs. McGillicuddy watched, fascinated, the end came; the body went limp and crumpled in the man''s hands. At the same moment, Mrs. McGillicuddy''s train slowed down again and the other began to gain speed. It passed forward and a moment or two later it had vanished from sight. Almost automatically Mrs. McGillicuddy''s hand went up to the communication cord then paused, irresolute. After all, what use would it be ringing the cord of the train in which she was traveling? The horror of what she had seen at such close quarters, and the unusual circumstances, made her feel paralyzed. Some immediate action was necessary--but what? The door of her compartment was drawn back and a ticket collector said, "Ticket, please."

阅读理解Efforts to educate people about the risks of substance abuse seem to deter some people from using dangerous substances, if such efforts are realistic about what is genuinely dangerous and what is not. Observed declines in the use of such drugs as LSD, PCP, and Quaaludes since the early 1970s are probably related to increased awareness of the risks of their use, and some of this awareness was file result of warnings about these drugs in "underground" papers read by drug users. Such sources are influential, because they do not give a simple "all drugs are terrible for you" message. Drug users know there are big variations in danger among drugs and anti-drag education that ignores or denies this is likely to be ridiculed. This is illustrated by the popularity among young marijuana users of Reefer Madness, a widely unrealistic propaganda film against marijuana made in the 1930s. This film made the rounds of college campuses in the 1970s and joined rock-music videos oncabletdevision''sMTVinthel980s. Instead of deterring marijuana, it became a cult film among users , many of whom got high to watch it. Although persuasion can work for some people if it is balanced and reasonable, other people seem immune to the most reasoned educational efforts. Millions have started smoking even though the considerable health risks of smoking have been well known and publicized for years. Moreover, the usefulness of education lies in primary prevention: prevention of abuse among those who presently have no problem. Hence, Bomier''s (1978) contention that "if the Pepsi generation can be persuaded to drink pop wine, they can be persuaded not to drink it while driving" is probably not correct, since most drunken driving is done by people who already have significant drinking problems, and hence seem not to be dissuaded even by much stronger measures such as loss of a driver''s license.

阅读理解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 tuneful- ness," "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 a 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 for movement.

阅读理解Concern with money, and then more money, in order to buy the conveniences and luxuries of modem life, has brought great changes to the lives of most Frenchmen. More people are working than ever before in France. In the cities the traditional leisurely midday meal is disappearing. Offices, shops and factories are discovering the greater efficiency of a short lunch hour in company lunchrooms. In almost all lines of work emphasis now falls on ever-increasing output. Thus the" typical" Frenchman produces more, earns more, and buys more consumer goods than his counterpart of only a generation ago. He gains in creature'' comforts and ease of life. What he loses to some extent is his sense of personal uniqueness, or individuality. Some say that France has been Americanized. This is because the United States is a world symbol of the technological society and its consumer products. The so-called Americanization of France has its critics. They fear that" assembly line life" will lead to the disappearance of the pleasures of the more graceful and leisurely (but less productive) old French style. What will happen, they ask, to taste, elegance, and the cultivation of the good things in life -- to joy in the smell of a freshly picked apple, a stroll by the river, or just happy hours of conversation in a local cafe? Since the late 1950'' s life in France has indeed taken on qualities of rush, tension, and the pursuit of material gain. Some of the strongest critics of the strongest critics of the new way of life are the young, especially university students. They are concerned with the future, and they fear that France is threatened by the triumph of this competitive, goods-oriented culture. Occasionally, they have reacted against the trend with considerable violence. In spite of the critics, however, countless Frenchmen are committed to keeping France in the forefront of the modem economic world. They find that the present life brings more rewards, conveniences, and pleasures than that of the past. They believe that a modem, industrial France is preferable to the old.

阅读理解Since the early 1930s, Swiss banks had prided themselves on their system of banking secrecy and numbered accounts. Over the years, they had successfully withstood every challenge to this system by their own government who, in turn, had been frequently urged by foreign governments to reveal information about the financial affairs of certain account holders. The result of this policy of secrecy was that a kind of mystique had grown up around Swiss banking. There was a widely-held belief that Switzerland was irresistible to wealthy foreigners, mainly because of its numbered accounts and bankers'' reluctance to ask awkward questions of depositors. Contributing to the mystique was the view, carefully propagated by the banks themselves, that if this secrecy was ever given up, foreigners would fall over themselves in the rush to withdraw money, and the Swiss banking system would virtually collapse overnight. To many, therefore, it came like a bolt out of the blue, when, in 1977, the Swiss banks announced they had signed a pact with the Swiss National Bank (the Central Bank). The aim of the agreement was to prevent the improper use of the country''s bank secrecy laws, and its effect was to curb severely the system of secrecy. The rules which the banks had agreed to observe made the opening of numbered accounts subject to much closer scrutiny than before. The banks would be required, if necessary, to identify the origin of foreign funds going into numbered and other accounts. The idea was to stop such accounts being used for dubious purposes. Also, they agreed not to accept funds resulting from tax evasion or from crime. The pact represented essentially a tightening up of banking rules. Although the banks agreed to end relations with clients whose identities were unclear or who were performing improper acts, they were still not obliged to inform on a client to anyone, including the Swiss government. To some extent, therefore, the principle of secrecy had been maintained.

阅读理解California is a land of variety and contrast. Almost every type of physical land feature, short of arctic ice fields and tropical jungles can be found within its borders. Sharply contrasting types of land often lie very close to one another. People living in Bakersfield, for instance, can visit the Pacific Ocean and the coastal plain, the fertile San Joaquin Valley, the arid Mojave Desert, and the high Sierra Nevada, all within a radius of about 100 miles. In other areas it is possible to go snow skiing in the morning and surfing in the evening of the same day, without having to travel long distances. Contrast abounds in California. The highest point in the United States (outside Alaska) is in California, and so is the lowest point (including Alaska). Mount Whitney, 14,494 feet above sea level, is separated from Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level, by a distance of only 100 miles. The two areas have a difference in altitude of almost three miles. California has deep, clear mountain lakes like Lake Tahoe, the deepest in the country, but it also has shallow, salty desert lakes. It has Lake Tulainyo, 12,020 feet above sea level, and the lowest lake in the country, the Salton Sea, 236 feet below sea level. Some of its lakes, like Owens Lake in Death Valley, are not lakes at all; they are dried-up lake beds. In addition to mountains, lakes, valleys, deserts, and plateaus, California has its Pacific coastline, stretching longer than the coastlines of Oregon and Washington combined.

阅读理解There must be few questions on which responsible opinion is so utterly divided as on that of how much sleep we ought to have. There are some who think we can leave the body to regulate these matters for itself. "The answer is easy," says Dr. A. Burton. "With the right amount of sleep you should wake up fresh and alert five minutes before the alarm rings." If he is right many people must be undersleeping, including myself. But we must remember that some people have a greater inertia than others. This is not meant rudely. They switch on slowly, and they are reluctant to switch off. They are alert at bedtime and sleepy when it is time to get up, and this may have nothing to do with how fatigued their bodies are, or how much sleep they must take to lose their fatigue. Other people feel sure that the present trend is towards too little sleep. To quote one medical opinion, "Thousands of people drift through life suffering from the effects of too little sleep"; the reason is not that they can''t sleep. Like advancing colonists, we do seem to be grasping ever more of the land of sleep for our waking needs, pushing the boundary back and reaching, apparently, for a point in our evolution where we will sleep no more. This in itself, of course, need not be a bad thing. What could be disastrous, however, is that we should press too quickly towards this goal, sacrificing sleep only to gain more time in which to jeopardize our civilization by actions and decisions made weak by fatigue. Then, to complete the picture, there are those who believe that most people are persuaded to sleep too much. Dr. H. Roberts, writing in Every man in Health, asserts: "It may safely be stated that, just as the majority eat too much, so the majority sleep too much." One can see the point of this also. It would be a pity to retard our development by holding back those people who are gifted enough to work and play well with less than the average amount of sleep, if indeed it does them no harm. If one of the trends of evolution is that more of the life span is to be spent in gainful waking activity, then surely these people are in the van of this advance.

阅读理解Lead deposits, which accumulated in soil and snow during the 1960''s mid 7O''s, were primarily the result of leaded gasoline emissions originating in the United States. In the twenty years that the Clean Air Act has mandated unleaded gas use in the United States, the lead accumulation worldwide has decreased significantly. A study published recently in the journal Nature shows that airborne leaded gas emissions from the United States were the leading contributor to the high concentration of lead in the snow in Greenland. The new study is a result of the continued research led by Dr. Charles Boutron, an expert on the impact of heavy metals on the environment at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. A study by Dr. Boutron published in 1991 showed that lead levels in arctic snow were declining. In his new study, Dr. Boutron found the ratios of the different forms of lead in the leaded gasoline used in the United States were different from the ratios of European, Asian and Canadian gasolines and thus enabled scientists to differentiate the lead sources. The dominant lead ratio found in Greenland snow matched that found in gasoline from the United States. In a study published in the journal Ambio, scientists found that lead levels in soil in the North-United States had decreased markedly since the introduction of unleaded gasoline. Many scientists had believed that the lead would stay in soil and snow for a longer period. The authors of the Am/do study examined samples of the upper layers of soft taken from the same sites of 30 forest floors in New England, New York and Pennsylvania in 1980 and in 1990. The forest environment processed and redistributed the lead faster than the scientists had expected. Scientists say both studies demonstrate that certain parts of the ecosystem respond rapidly to reductions in atmospheric pollution, but that these findings should not be used as a license to pollute.

阅读理解The natural environment has, of course, always conditioned technology. For example, the nature of an environment (polar, desert, jungle) engenders the development of technologies appropriate to that environment to enable man to adapt successfully to it. Farther, emerging scarcity of some technological resource may ignite a research for, and gradual transition to, a new technology using resources present in the environment in greater abundance, as, for example, in the case of the gradual change from wood-based to coal-based technology in England that began in Elizabeth times and stretched until the end of the eighteenth century. In modem Western society, environment has begun to condition technology in new ways, although admittedly more indirectly, The safety and quality of the environment and public perceptions of it have begun to translate into presidential politics and congressional mandates to regulatory agencies to protect or enhance environmental quality or safety, occasionally even at the cost of some perturbation of the tech-economic status-quo. In France, Italy, and recently the United States, political parties have been formed, organized around a complex of technology / environment issues. In general, in the last fifteen years, the gradual development of broad-based environmental awareness, the lobbying and litigious activities of environmental interest groups, and guidelines issued and reinforced by the EPA ( Environmental Protection Agency) in response to congressional mandates have markedly increased the heed paid to the environment by many corporations in going about their technological activities. Both research and development priorities and capital investment programs of the corporations have been affected by this.

阅读理解It was 1961 and I was in the fifth grade. My marks in school were miserable and, the thing was, I didn''t know enough to really care. My older brother and I lived with Mom in a dingy multi-family house in Detroit. We watched TV every night. The background noise of our lives was gunfire and horses'' hoofs from "Wagon Train" or "Cheyenne", and laughter from "I Love Lucy" or "Mister Ed". After supper, we''d sprawl on Mom''s bed and stare for hours at the tube. 　　But one day Mom changed our world forever. She turned off the TV. Our mother had only been able to get through third grade. But she was much brighter and smarter than we boys knew at the time. She had noticed something in the suburban houses she cleaned -- books. So she came home one day, snapped off the TV, sat us down and explained that her sons were going to make something of themselves. "You boys are going to read two books every week," she said. "And you''re going to write me a report on what you read." 　　We moaned and complained about how unfair it was. Besides, we didn''t have any books in the house other than Mom''s Bible. But she explained that we would go where the books were: "I''ll drive you to the library." 　　So pretty soon there were these two peevish boys sitting in her white 1959 Oldsmobile on their way to Detroit Public Library. I wandered reluctantly among the children''s books. I loved animals, so when I saw some books that seemed to be about animals, I started leafing through them. 　　The first book I read clear through was Chip the Dam Builder. It was about beavers. For the first time in my life I was lost in another world. No television program had ever taken me so far away from my surroundings as did this verbal visit to a cold stream in a forest and these animals building a home. 　　It didn''t dawn on me at the time, but the experience was quite different from watching TV. There were images forming in my mind instead of before my eyes. And I could return to them again and again with the flip of a page. 　　Soon I began to look forward to visiting this hushed sanctuary from my other world. I moved from animals to plants, and then to rocks. Between the covers of all those books were whole worlds, and I was free to go anywhere in them. Along the way a funny thing happened: I started to know things. Teachers started to notice it too. I got to the point where I couldn''t wait to get home to my books. 　　Now my older brother is an engineer and I am chief of pediatric neurosurgery at John Hopkins Children''s Center in Baltimore. Sometimes I still can''t believe my life''s journey, froma failing and indifferent student in a Detroit public school to this position, which takes me all over the world to teach and perform critical surgery. 　　But I know when the journey began - the day Mom snapped off the TV set and put us in her Oldsmobile for that drive to the library.

阅读理解The three biggest lies in American are: (1) "The check is in the mail." (2) "Of course I''11 respect you in the morning." (3) "It was a computer error." Of these three little white lies, the worst of the lot by far is the third. It''s the only one that can never be true. Today, if a bank statement cheats you out of $900 that way, you know what the clerk is sure to say:" It was a computer error." Nonsense. The computer is reporting nothing more than what the clerk typed into it. The most irritating case of all is when the computerized cash register in the grocery store shows that an item costs more than it actually does. If the innocent buyer points out the mistake, the checker, bagger, and manger all come together and offer the familiar explanation: " It was a computer error." It wasn''t, of course. That high-tech cash register is really nothing more than an electric eye. The eye reads the Universal Product Code--that ribbon of black and white lines in a comer of the package-and then checks the code against a price list stored in memory. If the price list is right, you''l1 be charged accurately. Grocery stores update the price list each day--that is, somebody sits at a keyboard and types in the prices. If the price typed in is too high, there are only two explanations: carelessness or dishonesty. But somehow "a computer error" is supposed to excuse everything. One reason we let people hide behind a computer is the common misperception that huge, modem computers are" electric brains" with" artificial intelligence. "At some point there might be a machine with intelligence, but none exists today. The smartest computer on Earth right now is no more "intelligent" than your average screwdriver. At this point in the development of computers, the only thing any machine can do is what a human has instructed it to do.

阅读理解1 I was born in Tuckahoe, Talbot Country, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their age as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember having ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvesting, springtime, or falltime. A lack of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages, I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He considered all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty- seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old. 2 My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Issac and Betsey Bailey, both coloured, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. 3 My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant — before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an older woman, too old for field labour. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child''s affection towards its mother.

阅读理解How did the author feel about the treasure from the Atocha(Para. 7)?

阅读理解The Carnegie Foundation report says that many colleges have tried to be "all things to all people". In doing so, they have increasingly catered to a narrow-minded careerism while failing to cultivate a global vision among their students. The current crisis, it contends, does not derive from a legitimate desire to put learning to productive ends. The problem is that in too many academic fields, the work has no context; skills, rather than being means, have become ends. Students are offered a variety of options and allowed to pick their way to a degree. In short, driven by careerism, "the national colleges and universities are more successful in providing credentials than in providing a quality education for their students." The report concludes that the special challenge confronting the undergraduate college is one of shaping an "integrated core" of common learning. Such a core would introduce students "to essential knowledge, to connections across the disciplines, and in the end, to application of knowledge to life beyond the campus". Although the key to a good college is a high-quality faculty, the Carnegie study found that most colleges do very little to encourage good teaching. In fact, they do much to undermine it. As one professor observed: "Teaching is important, we are told, and yet faculty know that research and publication matter most." Not surprisingly, over the last twenty years colleges and universities have failed to graduate half of their four-year degree candidates. Faculty members who dedicate themselves to teaching soon discover that they will not be granted tenure, promotion, or substantial salary increases. Yet 70 percent of all faculty say their interests lie among more in teaching than in research. Additionally, a frequent complaint among young scholars is that "There is pressure to publish, although there is virtually no interest among administrators or colleagues in the content of the publications."

阅读理解Which of the following best fits the style of this passage?

阅读理解Which of the following statements is CORRECT about the family's response to Paul's mockery?