阅读理解Traditionally, the study of history has had fixed boundaries and focal points—periods, countries, dramatic events, and great leaders. It also has had clear and firm notions of scholar procedure: how one inquires into a historical problem, how one presents and documents one’ s findings, what constitutes admissible and adequate proofAnyone who has followed recent historical literature can testify to the revolution that is taking place in historical studies. The currently fashionable subjects come directly from the sociology catalog: childhood, work, leisure. The new subjects are accompanied by new methods. Where history once was primarily narrative, it is now entirely analytic. The old questions “What happened?” and “How did it happen?” have given way to the question “Why did it happen?” Prominent among the methods used to answer the question “Why” is psychoanalysis, and its use has given rise to psychohistory. Psychohistory does not merely use psychological explanations in historical contexts.Historians have always used such explanations when they were appropriate and when there was sufficient evidence for them. But this pragmatic use of psychology is not what psycho-historians intend. They are committed, not just to psychology in general, but to Freudian psychoanalysis. This commitment precludes a commitment to history as historians have always understood it. Psychohistory derives its “facts” not from history, the detailed records of events and their consequences, but from psychoanalysis of the individuals who made history, and deduces its theories not from this or that instance in their lives, but from a view of human nature that transcends history. It denies the basic criterion of historical evidence: that evidence be publicly accessible to, and therefore assessable by, all historians. And it violates the basic tenet of historical method: that historians be alert to the negative instances that would refute their theses. Psycho-historians, convinced of the absolute rightness of their own theories, are also convinced that theirs is the “deepest” explanation of any event that other explanations fall short of the truth.Psychohistory is not content to violate the discipline of history (in the sense of the proper mode of studying and writing about the past) ; it also violates the past itself. It denies to the past an integrity and will of its own, in which people acted out of a variety of motives and in which events had a multiplicity of causes and effects. It imposes upon the present, thus robbing people and events of their individuality and of their complexity. Instead of respecting the particularity of the past, it assimilates all events, past and present, into single deterministic schema that is presumed to be true at all times and in all circumstances.

阅读理解Read the following passages carefully and choose one best answer for each question in passage 1, 2 and 3, and answer the questions in passage 4 based on your understanding of the passage.(1) I have observed that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ideas than the French. This is especially true in politics. Although the Americans infuse into their legislation far more general ideas than the English, and although they strive more than the latter to adjust the practice of affairs to theory, no political bodies in the United States have ever shown so much love for general ideas as the constituent Assembly and the Convention in France. At no time has the American people laid hold on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind confidence in the value and absolute truth of any theory. This difference between the Americans and the French originates in several causes, but principally in the following one. The Americans are a democratic people who have always directed public affairs themselves. The French are a democratic people who for a long time could only speculate on the best manner of conducting them. The social condition of the Frenchled them to conceive very general ideas on the subject of government, while their political constitution prevented them from correcting those ideas by experiment and from gradually detecting their insufficiency; whereas in America the two things constantly balance and correct each other. It may seem at first sight that this is very much opposed to what I have said before, that democratic nations derive their love of theory from the very excitement of their active life. A more attentive examination will show that there is nothing contradictory in the proposition. Men living in democratic countries eagerly lay hold of general ideas because they have but little leisure and because these ideas spare them the redouble of studying particulars. This is true, but it is only be understood of those matters while are not the necessary and habitual subjects of their thoughts. Mercantile men will take up very eagerly, and without any close scrutiny, all the general ideas on philosophy, politics, science, or the arts which may be presented to them; but for such as relate to commerce, they will not receive them without inquiry or adopt them without reserve. The same thing applies to statesman with regard to general ideas in politics. If, then, there is a subject upon which a democratic people is peculiarly liable to abandon itself, blindly and extravagantly, to general ideas, the best corrective that can be used will be to make that subject a pan of their daily practical occupation. They will then be compelled to enter into details, and the details will teach them the weak points of the theory. This remedy may frequently be a painful one, but its effect is certain. Thus it happens that the democratic institutions which compel ever citizen to take a practical part in the government moderate that excessive taste for general theories in politics which the principle of equality suggests.

阅读理解Some futurologists have assumed that the vast upsurge of women in the workforce may portend a rejection of marriage. Many women, according to this hypothesis, would rather work than many. The converse of this concern is that the prospects of becoming a multi-paycheck household could encourage marriage. In the past, only the earnings and financial prospects of the man counted in the marriage derision. Now, however, the earning ability of a woman can make her more attractive as a marriage partner. Data show that economic downturns tend to postpone marriage because the parties cannot afford to establish a family or are concerned about rainy days ahead. As the economy rebounds, the number of marriage also rises.Coincident with the increase in women working outside the home is the increase in divorce rate. Yet, it may be wrong to jump to any simple cause-and-effect conclusions. The impact of a wife’ s work on divorce is no less cloudy than its impact on marriage derisions. The realization that she can be a good provider may increase the chances that a working wife will choose divorce over an unsatisfactory marriage. But the reverse is equally plausible. Tensions grounded in financial problems often play a key role in ending a marriage. Given high unemployment, inflationary problems, and slow growth in real earnings, a working wife can increase household income and relieve some of these pressing financial burdens. By raising a family’ s standard of living, a working wife may strengthen her family’ s financial and emotional stability.Psychological factors also should be considered. For example, a wife blocked from a career outside the home may feel caged in the house. She may view her only choice as seeking a divorce. On the other hand, if she can find fulfillment through work outside the home, work and marriage can go together to create a stronger and more stable union.Also, a major part of women’ s inequality in marriage has been due to the fact that, in most cases, men have remained the main breadwinners. With higher earning capacity and status occupations outside of the borne comes the capacity to exercise power within the family. A working wife may rob a husband of being the master of tire house. Depending upon how the couple reacts to these new conditions, it could create a stronger equal partnership or it could create new insecurities.

阅读理解Directions: In this section there are three passages followed by fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then choose the one answer that you think is the correct to each question.Text 1California is a land of variety and contrast. Almost every type of physical land feature, sort 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 distance.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If women are mercilessly exploited year after year, they have only themselves to blame. Because they tremble at the thought of being seen in public in clothes that are out of fashion, they are always taken advantage of by the designers and the big stores. Clothes which have been worn only a few times have to be put aside because of the change of fashion. When you come to think of it, only a woman is capable of standing in front of a wardrobe (衣柜) packed full of clothes and announcing sadly that she has nothing to wear.Changing fashions are nothing more than the intentional creation of waste. Many women spend vast sums of money each year to replace clothes that have hardly been worn. Women who cannot afford to throw away clothing in this way, waste hours of their time altering the dresses they have. Skirts are lengthened or shortened; neck-lines are lowered or raised, and so on.No one can claim that the fashion industry contributes anything really important to society. Fashion designers are rarely concerned with the most important things like warmth, comfort and durability. They are only interested in outward appearance and they take advantage of the fact that women will put up with any amount of discomfort, as long as they look right. There can hardly be a man who hasn’ t at some time in his life smiled at the sight of a woman shaking in a thin dress on a winter day, or delicately picking her way through deep snow in high- heeled shoes.When comparing men and women in the matter of fashion, the conclusions to be drawn are obvious. Do the constantly changing fashions of women’ s clothes, one wonders, reflect basic qualities of inconstancy and instability? Men are too clever to let themselves be cheated by fashion designer. Do their unchanging styles of dress show basic qualities of stability and reliability? That is for you to decide.

阅读理解Directions: There are 7 passages in this section. Eachpassage is followed by some questions or unfinishedstatements. For each of them there are four choices markedA, B, C, and D. You should decide on the best choice.Passage 2Birds that are literally half-asleep—with one brainhemisphere alert and the other sleeping—control whichside of the brain remains awake, according to a new studyof sleeping ducks.Earlier studies have documented half-brain sleep in a widerange of birds. The brain hemi- spheres take turns sinkinginto the sleep stage characterized by slow brain waves.The eye con- trolled by the sleeping hemisphere keepsshut, while the wakeful hemisphere’ s eye stays open andalert. Birds also can sleep with both hemispheres restingat once.Decades of studies of bird flocks led researchers topredict extra alertness in the more vulnerable, end-or-the-row sleepers. Sure enough, the end birds tended towatch carefully on the side away from their companions.Ducks in the inner spots showed no preference for gazedirection.Also, birds dozing at the end of the line resorted tosingle-hemisphere sleep, rather than total relaxation,more often than inner ducks did. Rotating 16 birds throughthe positions in a four-duck row, the researchers foundouter birds half-asleep during some 32 percent of dozingtime versus about 12 percent for birds in internal spots.We believe this is the first evidence for an animalbehaviorally controlling sleep and wakefulnesssimultaneously in different regions of the brain, theresearchers say.The results provide the best evidence for a long-standingsupposition that single-hemisphere sleep evolved ascreatures scanned for enemies. The preference for openingan eye on the lookout side could be widespread, hepredicts. He’ s seen it in a pair of birds dozing side-by-side in the zoo and in a single pet bird sleeping by amirror. The mirror-side eye closed as if the reflectionwere a companion and the other eye stayed open.Useful as half-sleeping might be, it’ s only been found inbirds and such water mammals as dolphins, whales, andseals. Perhaps keeping one side of the brain awake allowsa sleeping animal to surface occasionally to avoiddrowning.Studies of birds may offer unique insights into sleep.Jerome M. Siegel of the UCLA says he wonders if birds’half-brain sleep “is just the tip of the iceberg (冰山 ) ” . He speculates that more examples may turn up whenwe take a closer look at other species.

阅读理解Directions: This part consists of two sections. In Section A, there are three passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions. In Section B, there are two passages followed by a total of 10 short-answer questions. Read the passages and write your answers on the Answer Sheet.Passage 5All of the cells in a particular plant start out with the same complement of genes. How then can these cells differentiate and form structures as different as roots, stems, leaves, and fruits? The answer is that only a small subset of the genes in a particular kind of cell are expressed, or turned on, at a given time. This is accomplished by a complex system of chemical messengers that in plants include hormones and other regulatory molecules. Five major hormones have been identified: auxin, abscisic acid, cytokinin, ethylene, and gibberellin. Studies of plants have now identified a new class of regulatory molecules called oligosaccharins.Unlike the oligosaccharins, the five well-known plant hormones are pleiotropic rather than specific; that is, each has more than one effect on the growth and development of plants. The five has so many simultaneous effects that they are not very useful in artificially controlling the growth of crops. Auxin, for instance, stimulates the rate of cell elongation, causes shoots to grow up and roots to grow down, and inhibits the growth of lateral shoots. Auxin also causes the plant to develop a vascular system, to form lateral roots, and to produce ethylene.The pleiotropy of the five well-studied plant hormones is somewhat analogous to that of certain hormones in animal. For example, hormones from the hypothalamus in the brain stimulate the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland to synthesize and release many different hormones, one of which stimulates the release of hormones from the adrenal cortex. These hormones have specific effects on target organs all over the body. One hormone stimulates the thyroid gland, for example, another the ovarian follicle cells, and so forth. In other words, there is a hierarchy of hormones. Such a hierarchy may also exist in plants. Oligosaccharins are fragments of the cell wall released by enzymes: different enzymes release different oligosaccharins. There are indications that pleiotropic plant hormones may actually function by activating the enzymes that release these other, more specific chemical messengers from the cell wall.

阅读理解Directions: There are 7 passages in this section. Eachpassage is followed by some questions orunfinishedstatements. For each of them there are four choices markedA, B, C, and D. You should decideon the best choice.Passage 2Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devisedever more cunning tools to cope with work that isdangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. Thatcompulsion has resulted in robotics--the science ofconferring various human capabilities on machines. And ifscientists have yet to create the mechanical version ofscience fiction, they have begun to come close.As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated byintelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice butwhose universal existence has removed much human labor.Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms.Our banking is done at automated teller terminals thatthank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction.Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers.And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronicsand micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems thatcan perform. some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy--far greater precision than highlyskilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsavingutility, they will have to operate with less humansupervision and be able to make at least a few decisionsfor themselves—goals that pose a real challenge. Whilewe know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error, says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA,we can’ t yet give a robot enough ‘common sense’ toreliably interact with a dynamic world. Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence hasproduced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initialoptimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared thattransistor circuits and microprocessors might be able tocopy the action of the human brain by the year 2010,researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast bydecades if not centuries.What they found, in attempting to model thought, is thatthe human brain’ s roughly one hundred billion nerve cellsare much more talented-and human perception far morecomplicated--than previously imagined. They have builtrobots that can recognize the error of a machine panel bya fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factoryenvironment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidlychanging scene and immediately disregard the 98 percentthat is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkeyat the side of a winding forest road or the singlesuspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computersystems on Earth can’ t approach that kind of ability, andneuroscientists still don’ t know quite how we do it.

阅读理解You’ re busy filling out the application form for a position you really need; let’ s assume you once actually completed a couple of years of college work or even that you completed your degree. Isn’ t it tempting to lie just a little, to claim on the form that your diploma represents a Harvard degree? Or that you finished an extra couple of years back at State University?More and more people are turning to utter deception like this to land their job or to move ahead in their careers, for personnel officers, like most Americans, value degrees from famous schools. A job applicant may have a good education anyway, but he or she assumes that chances of being hired are better with a diploma from a well-known university. Registrars at most well-known colleges say they deal with deceitful claims like these at the rate of about one per week.Personnel officers do check up on degrees listed on application forms, then, If it turns out that an applicant is lying, most colleges are reluctant to accuse the applicant directly. One Ivy League school calls them “impostors” ; another refers to them as “special cases. ” One well-known West Coast school, in perhaps the most delicate phrase of all, says that these claims are made by “no such people. ”To avoid outright lies, some job-seekers claim that they “attended” or “were associated with” a college or university. After carefully checking, a personnel officer may discover that “attending” means being dismissed after one semester. It may be that “being associated with” a college means that the job-seeker visited his younger brother for a football weekend. One school that keeps records of false claims says that the practice dates back at least to the turn of the century-that’ s when they began keeping records, anyhow.If you don’ t want to lie or even stretch the truth, there are companies that will sell you a phony diploma. One company, with offices in New York and on the West Coast, will put your name on a diploma from any number of nonexistent colleges. The price begins at around twenty dollars for a diploma from “Smoot State University. ” The prices increase rapidly for a degree from the “University of Purdue. ” As there is no Smoot State and the real school in Indiana is properly called Purdue University, the prices seem rather high for one sheet of paper.

阅读理解Directions: In this section there are three passages followed by fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then choose the one answer that you think is the correct to each question.Text 3Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, as noted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universal sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues more recently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. In fact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles (“feedback” ) are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person’ s facial expression can influence that person’ s emotional state.Consider Darwin’ s words: “The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions. ” Can smiling give rise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial- feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report more positive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being more humorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles, such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses) . The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that the so-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by “crow’ s feet” wrinkles around the eyes and a subtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward the eyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.Ekman’ s observation may be relevant to the British expression “keep a stiff upper lip” as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a “stiff’ lip suppresses emotional response as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response.

阅读理解A.In a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes, how have Japan’ s tallest and seemingly flimsiest old buildings—500 or so wooden pagodas—remained standing for centuries? Records show that only two have collapsed during the past 1400 years. Those that have disappeared were destroyed by fire as a result of lightning or civil war. The disastrous Hanshin earthquake in 1995 killed 6, 400 people, toppled elevated highways, flattened office blocks and devastated the port area of Kobe. Yet it left the magnificent five-storey pagoda at the Toji temple in nearby Kyoto unscathed though it leveled a number of buildings in the neighborhood. B. Japanese scholars have been mystified for ages about why these tall, slender buildings are so stable. It was only thirty years ago that the building industry felt confident enough to erect office blocks of steel and reinforced concrete that had more than a dozen floors. With its special shock absorbers to dampen the effect of sudden sideways movements from an earthquake, the thirty- six-storey Kasumigaseki building in central Tokyo— Japan’ s first skyscraper—was considered a masterpiece of modem engineering when it was built in 1968. C. Yet in 826, with only pegs and wedges to keep his wooden structure upright, the master builder Kobodaishi had no hesitation in sending his majestic Toji pagoda soaring fifty-five metres into the sky—nearly half as high as the Kasumigaseki skyscraper built some eleven centuries later. Clearly, Japanese carpenters of the day knew a few tricks about allowing a building to sway and settle itself rather than fight nature’ s forces. But what sort of tricks? D. The multi-storey pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century. As in China, they were first introduced with Buddhism and were attached to important temples. The Chinese built their pagodas in brick or stone, with inner staircases, and used them in later centuries mainly as watchtowers. When the pagoda reached Japan, however, its architecture was freely adapted to local conditions—they were built less high, typically five rather than nine storeys, made mainly of wood and the staircase was dispensed with because the Japanese pagoda did not have any practical use but became more of an art object. Because of the typhoons that batter Japan in the summer, Japanese builders learned to extend the eaves of buildings further beyond the walls. This prevents rainwater gushing down the walls. Pagodas in China and Korea have nothing like the overhang that is found on pagodas in Japan. E. The roof of a Japanese temple building can be made to overhang the sides of the structure by fifty per cent or more of the building’ s overall width. For the same reason, the builders of Japanese pagodas seem to have further increased their weight by choosing to cover these extended eaves not with the porcelain tiles of many Chinese pagodas but with much heavier earthenware tiles. F. But this does not totally explain the great resilience of Japanese pagodas. Is the answer that. like a tall pine tree, the Japanese pagoda—with its massive trunk-like central pillar known as shinbashira—simply flexes and sways during a typhoon or earthquake? For centuries, many thought so. But the answer is not so simple because the startling thing is that the shinbashira actually carries no load at all. In fact, in some pagoda designs, it does not even rest on the ground, but is suspended from the top of the pagoda—hanging loosely down through the middle of the building. The weight of the building is supported entirely by twelve outer and four inner columns. G. And what is the role of the shinbashira, the central pillar? The best way to understand the shinbashira’ s role is to watch a video made by Shuzo Ishida, a structural engineer at Kyoto Institute of Technology. Mr. Ishida, known to his students as ‘ Professor Pagoda’ because of his passion to understand the pagoda, has built a series of models and tested them on a ‘ shake-table’ in his laboratory. In short, the shinbashira was acting like an enormous stationary pendulum. The ancient craftsmen, apparently without the assistance of very advanced mathematics, seemed to grasp the principles that were, more than a thousand years later, applied in the construction of Japan’ s first skyscraper. What those early craftsmen had found by trial and error was that under pressure a pagoda’ s loose stack of floors could be made to slither to and fro independent of one another. Viewed from the side, the pagoda seemed to be doing a snake dance—with each consecutive floor moving in the opposite direction to its neighbors above and below. The shinbashira, running up through a hole in the centre of the building, constrained individual storeys from moving too far because, after moving a certain distance, they banged into it, transmitting energy away along the column. H. Another strange feature of the Japanese pagoda is that, because the building tapers, with each successive floor plan being smaller than the one below, none of the vertical pillars that carry the weight of the building is connected to its corresponding pillar above. In other words, a five- storey pagoda contains not even one pillar that travels right up through the building to carry the structural loads from the top to the bottom. More surprising is the fact that the individual storeys of a Japanese pagoda, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, are not actually connected to each other. They are simply stacked one on top of another like a pile of hats. Interestingly, such a design would not be permitted under current Japanese building regulations. I. And the extra-wide eaves? Think of them as a tightrope walker’ s balancing pole. The bigger the mass at each end of the pole, the easier it is for the tightrope walker to maintain his or her balance. The same holds true for a pagoda. “With the eaves extending out on all sides like balancing poles, ” says Mr. Ishida, “the building responds to even the most powerful jolt of an earthquake with a graceful swaying, never an abrupt shaking. ” Here again, Japanese master builders of a thousand years ago anticipated concepts of modem structural engineering.Classify the following as typical ofA. both Chinese and Japanese pagodasB. only Chinese pagodasC. only Japanese pagodasWrite the correct letter, A, B or C on your answer sheet.

阅读理解Reading Passage 3Questions are based on the following reading Passage. A. After a long break, online bookseller Amazon is back trying to encourage us to read in a new way. Its Web site now features this description of its Kindle reading device: “Availability; In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon. com. Gift-wrap available. ” This good news for consumers comes after the first batch of the devices sold out in just six hours late last year. B. This seems like a fitting time to ask: If the Internet is the most powerful communications advance: ever—and it is—then how do this medium and its new devices affect how and what we read? C. Aristotle lived during the era when the written word displaced the oral tradition, becoming the first to explain that how we communicate alters what we communicate. That’ s for sure. It’ s still early in the process of a digital rhetoric replacing the more traditionally written word. It’ s already an open question whether constant email and multitasking leaves us overloaded humans with the capability to handle longer- form writing. D. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dedicated his most recent shareholder letter to explaining his cultural ambitions for the Kindle. Laptops, BlackBerrys and mobile phones have “shifted us more toward information snacking, and I would argue toward shorter attention spans. ” He hopes that “Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools. ” E. To an info-snacker of many years, the prospect of a gourmet meal sounds pretty good. Perhaps a new digital device like the Kindle can help us regain the attention spans earlier devices helped us lose. If so, this could become a great era for books, or more accurately for the future of words that for centuries could be delivered only in book form. F. Digitized words can be spread at low cost in newly interactive ways. As the marketing for the Kindle puts it, over 100, 000 books can be delivered wirelessly in less than a minute, “whether you’ re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed. ” G. In Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age—published in hardcover last November, and now available for the Kindle—author Jeff Gomez challenges authors and publishers to think creatively about the new medium: “It’ s not about the page versus the screen in a technological grudge match. It’ s about the screen doing a dozen things the page can’ t do. ” Digitized words should count for more. “What’ s going to be transformed isn’ t just the reading of one book, but the ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time that you want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, experience multimedia, and add notes and share passages with others. ” H. The book introduced a disciplined way of thinking about topics, organized around contents pages, indexing, citation and bibliography. These are at the root of Web structure as well. One theme for the next annual conference on the book is that the digital experience could simply be an evolution: “The information architecture of the book, embodying as it does thousands of years’ experience with recorded knowledge, provides a solid grounding for every adventure we might take in the new world of digital media. ” I. The not-so-positive case is that, at least so far, we’ re not giving up on books for the same words on screens—we’ re giving up on words. Pick your data point: A recent National Endowment for the Arts report, “To Read or Not to Read, ” found that 15-to-24-year-olds spend an average of seven minutes reading on weekdays; people between 35 and 44 spend 12 minutes; and people 65 and older spend close to an hour. J. Much is at stake, As Mr. Gomez concluded, “what’ s really important is the culture of ideas and innovation” books represent. But “to expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting the BlackBerry users of today to start communicating by writing letters, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps. ” K. Innovations to address our evolving expectations include combining traditional books with newer media. Scholastic plans a new series for kids called “39 Clues, ” which will feature books, online games and collecting cards; the aim is to get kids “excited about books in a whole new way. ” Leapfrog’ s Leapster device for toddlers looks like a junior videogame device, but actually teaches key skills through titles like “Letters on the Loose” and “Numbers on the Run. ”L. Marshal McLuhan more than 40 years ago warned, “The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deal blind and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology on and through which the American way of life was formed. ” Maybe McLuhan was too pessimistic. With innovations like the Kindle, digital media can help return to us our attention spans and extend what makes books great: words and their meaning.QuestionsDo the following statements agree with the claims of thewriter in reading passage 3?

阅读理解A Feminist theatre is a genre that came to be

阅读理解The term "Ice Age" may give a wrong

阅读理解Have you ever been afraid to talk back when you were treated unfairly? Have you ever bought something just because the salesman talked you into it? Are you afraid to ask someone for a date?Many people are afraid to assert themselves. Dr. Alberti, author of Stand Up, Speak Out, and Talk Back, thinks it’ s because their self-respect is low, “Our whole set up is designed to make people distrust themselves” , says Albert. “There’ s always ‘ superior’ around a parent, a teacher, a boss-who ‘ knows hotter’ . These superiors often gain when they chip away at your self-image. ”But Alberti and other scientists are doing something to help people assert themselves. They offer assertiveness training courses AT for short. In the AT courses people learn that they have a right to be themselves. They learn to speak out and feel good about doing so. They learn to be more active without hurting other people.In one way, learning to speak out is to overcome fear. A group taking an at course will help the timid person to lose his fear. But AT uses an even stronger motive the need to share. The timid person speaks out in the group because he wants to tell how he feels.Whether or not you speak up for yourself depends on your self-image. If someone you face is more important than you, you may feel less of a person. You start to doubt your own good sense.You go by the other person’ s demand. But, why should you? AT says you can get to feel good about yourself. And once you do, you can learn to speak out.

阅读理解Directions：Read the passage carefully and then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words.Hard work over a long period of time brings genuine tiredness, to which body and mind eventually make the natural response of sleep. But long before this point is reached we are often afflicted with lassitude. After a day s work, for instance, we settle down in an easy chair to watch television. Before long we feel drowsy and nod off to sleep perhaps, we stay in front of the screen all evening, intermittently dozing, until finally we decide that our day s work was exhausting and we retire to bed early. On another occasion, after a similar day s work, we may spend the evening playing tennis, or building a needed bookcase, or mapping out a planned addition to the house, or in delightful conversation with charming friends, without any feeling of exhaustion or weariness. Now, on the television evening were we genuinely tired or not? And is such an evening refreshing or exhausting?There is a need for much more careful study of the nature of play, rest, and fatigue, and the relationship between them. Cyril Burt carried out an experiment with two matched groups of children who were very backward in arithmetic. One group was given an extra arithmetic lesson every afternoon while the other group slept. At the end of the term the sleepers had improved in arithmetic more than those specially coached. Of course, there are many Variables that might be causally involved here, but the results should make US question the assumption that work is the productive sphere and play the unproductive sphere.We all need to rest. But in order to understand the kind of rest an organism needs, we must study the nature of the organism. After running to catch a train, our lungs are overworked and need to rest. The way in which they rest, however, is by gradually returning to the normal rhythm of breathing, not by stopping. This is because they are built for action. Similarly everything intended to act, from muscles to minds, can find rest in natural action as well as in inertia. To act in accordance with the hidden law of nature—that is rest, said Maria Montessori, and in this special case, since man is meant to be an intelligent creature, the more intelligent his acts are, the more he finds rest in them. Leisure should be regarded not as an opportunity to collapse, but as an opportunity to seek out ways of acting that are suitable to our nature but are not encouraged or permitted by our working conditions.Questions：

阅读理解An important point in the development of a

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there is a short passagefollowed by 5 questions. Read the passage carefully andthen give brief answers to the questions below in thefewest words possible.Passage 8The newborn can see the difference between various shapesand patterns from birth. He prefers patterns to dull orbright solid colors and looks longer at stripes and anglesthan at circular patterns. Within three weeks, however,his preference shifts dramatically to the human face.Why should a baby with so little visual experience attendmore to a human face than to any other kind of pattern?Some scientists think this preference represents a builtin advantage for the human species. The object of primeimportance to the physically helpless infant is a humanbeing. Babies seem to have a natural tendency to the humanface as potentially rewarding. Researchers also point outthat the newborn wisely relies more on pattern than onoutline, size, or color. Pattern remains stable, whileoutline changes with point of view; size, with distancefrom an object; and brightness and color, with lighting.Mothers have always claimed that they could see theirnewborns looking at them as they held them, despite whatthey have been told. The experts who thought thatperception (知觉) had to await physical development andthe consequence of action were wrong for several reasons.Earlier research techniques were less sophisticated thanthey are today. Physical skills were once used to indicateperception of objects-skills like visual tracking andreaching for an object, both of which the newborn doespoorly. Then, too, assumptions that the newborn’ s eye andbrain were too immature for anything as sophisticated aspattern recognition caused opposing data to be thrownaway. Since perception of form was widely believed tofollow perception of more “basic” qualities such ascolor and brightness, the possibility of its presence frombirth was rejected.

阅读理解Many of the most damaging and life threatening types of weather torrential rains, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes--begin quickly, strike suddenly, and disappear rapidly, destroying small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. Such event as a tornado struck the north eastern section of Edmonton, Alberta, in July 1987. Total damages from the tornado exceeded $ 250 million, the highest ever for any Canadian storm.Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value in predicting short lived local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to study carefully the subtle atmospheric changes that come before these storms. In most nations, for example, weather - balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions than they do forecasting specific local events.Until recently, the observation intensive approach needed for accurate, very short - range forecasts, or “Now casts”, was not feasible. The cost of e quipping and operating many thousands of conventional weather stations was extremely high, and the difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from such a network were hard to overcome. Fortunately, scientific and technological advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous observation over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modem computers can quickly compile and analyze this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, now casting is becoming a reality.

阅读理解Do the following statements agree with the