试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

江苏大学

Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War 2, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the Publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviews who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. “So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define ‘journalism’ as ‘a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are’.”Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England’s foremost classical-music critics, and a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.Is there any chance that Cardus’s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.1. It is indicated in Paragraphs 1 and 2 that ______.2. Newspaper reviews in England before WWII were characterized by ______.3. Which of the following would Shaw and Newman most probably agree on?4. What can be learned about Cardus according to the last two paragraphs?5. What would be the best title for the text?

Junk food is everywhere. We’re eating way too much of it. Most of us know what we’re doing and yet we do it anyway.So here’s a suggestion offered by two researchers at the Rand Corporation: Why not take a lesson from alcohol control policies and apply them to where food is sold and how it’s displayed?“Many policy measures to control obesity (肥胖症) assume that people consciously and rationally choose what and how much they eat and therefore focus on providing information and more access to healthier foods,” note the two researchers.“In contrast,” the researchers continue, “many regulations that don’t assume people make rational choices have been successfully applied to control alcohol, a substance—like food—of which immoderate consumption leads to serious health problems.”The research references studies of people’s behavior with food and alcohol and results of alcohol restrictions, and then lists five regulations that the researchers think might be promising if applied to junk foods. Among them:　Density restrictions: licenses to sell alcohol aren’t handed out unplanned to all comers but are allotted (分配) based on the number of places in an area that already sell alcohol. These make alcohol less easy to get and reduce the number of psychological cues to drink.Similarly, the researchers say, being presented with junk food stimulates our desire to eat it. So why not limit the density of food outlets, particularly ones that sell food rich in empty calories? And why not limit sale of food in places that aren’t primarily food stores?Display and sales restrictions: California has a rule prohibiting alcohol displays near the cash registers in gas stations, and in most places you can’t buy alcohol at drive-through facilities. At supermarkets, food companies pay to have their wares in places where they’re easily seen. One could remove junk food to the back of the store and ban them from the shelves at checkout lines. The other measures include restricting portion sizes, taxing and prohibiting special price deals for junk foods, and placing warning labels on the products.1. What does the author say about junk food?2. What do the Rand researchers think of many of the policy measures to control obesity?3. Why do policymakers of alcohol control place density restrictions?4. What is the purpose of California’s rule about alcohol display in gas stations?5. What is the general guideline the Rand researchers suggest about junk food control?

We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a person’s knowledge and ability remain as primitive as ever they were. It really is extraordinary that after all these years, educationists have still failed to device anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. For all the pious claim that examinations text what you know, it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the knack of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person’s true ability and aptitude.As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are the mark of success of failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t feeling very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that don’t count: the exam goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror, or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do. The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success and failure are clearly defined and measured. Can we wonder at the increasing number of "drop-outs": young people who are written off as utter failures before they have even embarked on a career? Can we be surprised at the suicide rate among students?A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorize. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge, but induce cramming. They lower the standards of teaching, for they deprive the teacher of all freedoms. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are reduced to training their students in exam techniques which they despise. The most successful candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They get tired and hungry; they make mistakes. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight. After a judge’s decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner’s. There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person’s true abilities. Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate message recently scrawled on a wall: "I were a teenage drop-out and now I are a teenage millionaire."1. The main idea of this passage is ______.2. The author’s attitude toward examinations is ______.3. The fate of students is decided by ______.4. According to the author, the most important of a good education is ______.5. Why does the author mention court?

The Gulf Stream, which runs like a friendly blue river across the cold green Atlantic Ocean, is one of the mightiest powers in the world. By comparison, the Mississippi and the mighty Amazon are but small rivers. Two million tons of coal burned every minute would not equal the heat that the Stream gives forth in its Atlantic crossing. Without the Stream’s warmth England’s pleasant green countryside would be as cold as Labrador, which is no farther north than England. If this “river of blue” were cooled as much as 15 degrees, England, Scandinavia, northern France and Germany would probably become a region for the Eskimos.The general course of the blue river has never been known to change. From Florida north the Stream follows the curve of the coast but stays well away from the shore. When the warm waters meet the icy Labrador currents, the Stream loses some speed and heat, but even with icebergs at its margin it stays warm enough for tropical sea life.As the Stream nears Europe it divides north and south. The northern drift mixed with the Arctic Ocean. The southern drift comes again into the path of Africa’s hot trade winds, and the waters hurry back to the Gulf of Mexico, gathering again their store of heat. The complete course of the Stream, therefore, is like a tremendous 12,000-mile whirlpool.Scientists think that it takes three years for the Stream to make a complete trip. Their belief is based on the courses of bottles that have been thrown into the Stream to drift. These bottles contain papers, printed in many languages, requesting the finders to note the places and dates of finding and mail them back. Government experts on ocean currents have records of thousands of there “bottle papers”.Other oceans have such currents. In the North Pacific, for example, the Japanese Current makes the climate of coastal Alaska and America’s west coast mild. Science is still not satisfied with what it knows about these currents. But for most of us it is enough to know that the Gulf Stream and similar currents give warmth to countries that would otherwise be very cold indeed.1. The phrase that best expresses the main idea of this selection is ______.2. The water in the Gulf Stream is ______.3. The effect of the Gulf Stream on England is to ______.4. Scientists have used papers in bottles to determine the number of ______.5. Many countries should be thankful to the Gulf Stream and similar currents for ______.

Flight simulator (飞行模拟器) refers to any electronic or mechanical system for training airplane and spacecraft pilots and crew member by simulating fight conditions. The purpose of simulation is not to completely substitute (1) actual fight training but to thoroughly familiarize students with the vehicle (2) before they (3) extensive and possibly dangerous actual flight training. Simulations also is useful for review and for familiarizing pilots with new (4) to existing craft.Two early flight simulators appeared in England within a decade after the first fight of Orville and Wilbur Wright. They were designed to enable pilots to stimulate simple aircraft (5) in three dimensions: nose up or down; left wing high and right low, or vice versa; and (6) to left or right. It took until 1929, however, for a truly effective simulator, the Link Trainer, to appear, devised by Edwin A. Link, a self-educated aviator and inventor from Binghamton, New York. (7), airplane instrumentation had been developed sufficiently to permit “blind” flying on instruments alone, but training pilots to do so involved (8) risk. Link built a model of an airplane cockpit equipped (9) instrument panel and controls that could realistically stimulate all the movements of an airplane. Pilots could use the device for instrument training, manipulating the controls (10) instrument readings so as to maintain straight and level flight or (11) climb or descent with no visual reference (12) any horizon except for the artificial one on the instrument panel. The trainer was modified (13) aircraft technology advanced. Commercial airlines began to use the Link Trainer for pilot training, and the US government began purchasing them in 1934, (14) thousands more as World War II (15).

2 / 21