Part III                   Reading Comprehension              (40 minutes)

Section A

Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.

       El Nino is the name given to the mysterious and often unpredictable change in the climate of the world. This strange (36) ______ happens every five to eight years. It starts in the Pacific Ocean and is thought to be caused by a failure in the trade winds, which affects the ocean currents driven by these winds. As the trade winds lessen in (37) ______, the ocean temperatures rise, causing the Peru current flowing in from the east to warm up by as much as 5℃.

       The warming of the ocean has far-reaching effects. The hot, humid (潮湿的) air over the ocean causes severe (38) ______ thunderstorms. The rainfall is increased across South America, (39) ______ floods to Peru. In the West Pacific, there are droughts affecting Australia and Indonesia. So while some parts of the world prepare for heavy rains and floods, other parts face drought, poor crops and (40) ______.

       El Nino usually lasts for about 18 months. The 1982-83 El Nino brought the most (41) ______ weather in modern history. Its effect was worldwide and it left more than 2,000 people dead and caused over eight billion pounds (42) ______ of damage. The 1990 El Nino lasted until June 1995. Scientists (43) ______ this to be the longest El Nino for 2,000 years.

       Nowadays, weather experts are able to forecast when an El Nino will (44) ______, but they are still not (45) ______ sure what leads to it or what affects how strong it will be.

A) estimate                E) tropical             I) completely           M) exhaustion B) strength                   F) phenomenon       J) destructive           N) worth C) deliberately              G) stable               K) starvation           O) strike D) notify                  H) attraction           L) bringing

Section B

Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

Into the Unknown

The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope?

[A] Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a “world assembly on ageing” back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis”, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable.

[B] For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare.

[C] Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organizations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage.

[D] Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades.

[E] The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政的) meltdown, public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP’s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than their retired peers.

[F] Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labour force, increasing employers’ choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey.

[G] In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labour force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off). Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing Western Europe for about 90%.

[H] On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in need of jobs; many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labour forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe’s most youthful countries, and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible.

[I] To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old” countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They often compromise by having just one child.

[J] And if fertility in ageing countries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will slowly become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks than younger ones. By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America and most of those in western European countries will be over 50—and older people turn out to vote in much greater number than younger ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit them, though if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so.

[K] Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly have families. In a recent study of parents and grown-up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Hank of Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25km of each other and the majority of them were in touch at least once a week.

[L] Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of America’s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of serious security implications.

[M] For example, the shortage of young adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have to military service. In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed world’s defence effort. Because America’s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上).

Ask me in 2020

[N] There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now believe that given the right policies, the effects, though grave; need not be catastrophic. Most countries have recognised the need to do something and are beginning to act.

[O] But even then there is no guarantee that their efforts will work. What is happening now is historically unprecedented. Ronald Lee, director of the Centre on the Economics and Demography of Ageing at the University of California, Berkeley, puts it briefly and clearly: “We don’t really know what population ageing will be like; because nobody has done it yet.”

46. Employers should realise it is important to keep older workers in the workforce.

47. A recent study found that most old people in some European countries had regularly weekly contact with their adult children.

48. Few governments in rich countries have launched bold reforms to tackle the problems of population ageing.

49. In a report published some 20 years ago, the sustainability of old-age pension system in most countries was called doubt.

50. Countries that have a shortage of young adults will be less willing to send them to war.

51. One-child families are more common in ageing societies due to the stress of urban life and the difficulties of balancing family and career.

52. A series of books, mostly authored by Americans, warned of conflicts between the older and younger generations.

53. Compared with younger ones, older societies tend to be less innovative and take fewer risks.

54. The best solution to the pension crisis is to postpone the retirement age.

55. Immigration as a means to boost the shrinking labour force may meet with resistance in some rich countries.

Section C

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

No woman can be too rich or too thin. This saying often attributed to the late Duchess (公爵夫人) of Windsor embodies much of the odd spirit of our times. Being thin is deemed as such a virtue.

The problem with such a view is that some people actually attempt to live by it. I myself have fantasies of slipping into narrow designer clothes. Consequently, I have been on a diet for the better — or worse — part of my life. Being rich wouldn’t be bad either, but that won’t happen unless an unknown relative dies suddenly in some distant land, leaving me millions of dollars.

Where did we go off the track? When did eating butter become a sin, and a little bit of extra flesh unappealing, if not repellent? All religions have certain days when people refrain from eating, and excessive eating is one of Christianity’s seven deadly sins. However, until quite recently, most people had a problem getting enough to eat. In some religious groups, wealth was a symbol of probable salvation and high morals, and fatness a sign of wealth and well-being.

Today the opposite is true. We have shifted to thinness as our new mark of virtue. The result is that being fat — or even only somewhat overweight — is bad because it implies a lack of moral strength.

Our obsession (迷恋) with thinness is also fueled by health concerns. It is true that in this country we have more overweight people than ever before, and that, in many cases, being overweight correlates with an increased risk of heart and blood vessel disease. These diseases, however, may have as much to do with our way of life and our high-fat diets as with excess weight. And the associated risk of cancer in the digestive system may be more of a dietary problem — too much fat and a lack of fiber — than a weight problem.

The real concern, then, is not that we weigh too much, but that we neither exercise enough nor eat well. Exercise is necessary for strong bones and both heart and lung health. A balanced diet without a lot of fat can also help the body avoid many diseases. We should surely stop paying so much attention to weight. Simply being thin is not enough. It is actually hazardous if those who get (or already are) thin think they are automatically healthy and thus free from paying attention to their overall life-style. Thinness can be pure vainglory (虚荣).

56. In the eyes of the author, an odd phenomenon nowadays is that ______.

A) the Duchess of Windsor is regarded as a woman of virtue

B) looking slim is a symbol of having a large fortune

C) being thin is viewed as a much desired quality

D) religious people are not necessarily virtuous

57. Swept by the prevailing trend, the author ______.

A) had to go on a diet for the greater part of her life

B) could still prevent herself from going off the track

C) had to seek help from rich distant relatives

      D) had to wear highly fashionable clothes

58. In human history, people’s views on body weight ______.

A) were closely related to their religious beliefs B) changed from time to time

C) varied between the poor and the rich                  D) led to different moral standards

59. The author criticizes women’s obsession with thinness ______.

A) from an economic and educational perspective

B) from sociological and medical points of view

C) from a historical and religious standpoint

D) in the light of moral principles

60. What’s the author’s advice to women who are absorbed in the idea of thinness?

A) They should be more concerned with their overall lifestyle.

B) They should be more watchful for fatal diseases.

C) They should gain weight to look healthy.

D) They should rid themselves of fantasies about designer clothes.

Passage Two

Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage:

If you intend using humor in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the audience and should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whom you are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to a group of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of their secretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want to comment on their disorganized bosses.

Here is an example, which I heard at a nurses’ convention, of a story which works well because the audience all shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around by St. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather, and so on. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in a line for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps over to a table by himself. “Who is that?” the new arrival asked St. Peter, “Oh, that’s God,” came the reply, “but sometimes he thinks he’s a doctor.”

If you are part of the group which you are addressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problems which are common to all of you and it’ll be appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the inedible canteen food or the chairman’s notorious bad taste in ties. With other audiences you mustn’t attempt to cut in with humor as they will resent an outsider making disparaging remarks about their canteen or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats like the Post Office or the telephone system.

If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual and apparently off-the-cuff remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforced manner. Often it’s the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speak slowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help to show that you are making a light-hearted remark.

Look for the humor. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar quote “If at first you don’t succeed, give up” or a play on words or on a situation. Search for exaggeration and understatements. Look at your talk and pick out a few words or sentences which you can turn about and inject with humor.

61. To make your humor work, you should______.

A) take advantage of different kinds of audience

B) make fun of the disorganized people

C) address different problems to different people

D) show sympathy for your listeners

62. The joke about doctors implies that, in the eyes of nurses, they are ______.

A) impolite to new arrivals                                B) very conscious of their godlike role

C) entitled to some privileges                                   D) very busy even during lunch hours

63. It can be inferred from the text that public services ______.

A) have benefited many people                          B) are the focus of public attention

C) are an inappropriate subject for humor      D) have often been the laughing stock                                                                                                   

64. To achieve the desired result, humorous stories should be delivered ______.

A) in well-worded language                     C) in exaggerated statements

B) as awkwardly as possible                     D) as casually as possible

65. The best title for the text may be ______.

A) Use Humor Effectively                      C) Add Humor to Speech

B) Various Kinds of Humor                     D) Different Humor Strategies

 

注：周一（12月14日）上课试题已发到李彤的邮箱，让张纵硕同学统一打印了，其他各班同学都不用打印。