Part III 阅读理解

Passage One

Under the right circumstances, choosing to spend time alone can beahuge psychological blessing. In the 1980s, the Italian journalist and author Tiziano Terzani, after many years of reporting across Asia, holed himself up inacabin in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. "Foramonth I had no one to talk to except my dog Baoli," he wrote in his bookAFortune Teller Told Me.

Terzani passed the time with books, observing nature, "listening to the winds in the trees, watching butterflies, enjoying silence." For the first time inalong while he felt free from the unending anxieties of daily life: "At last Ihad time to have time." Terzani's embrace of isolation was relatively unusual: Humans have long considered solitude an inconvenience, something to avoid, a punishment, a realm of loners.

Science has often associated it with negative outcomes. Freud, who linked solitude with anxiety, noted that, "in children the first fears relating to situations are those of darkness and solitude." John Cacioppo, a modern social neuro-scientist who has extensively studied loneliness—what he calls "chronic perceived isolation"—contends that, beyond damaging our thinking powers, isolation can even harm our physical health.

But increasingly scientists are approaching solitude as something that, when pursued by choice, can proveatherapy. This is especially true in times of personal disorder, when the instinct is often for people to reach outside of themselves for support. "When people are experiencing crisis it's not always just about you: It's about how you are in society," explains Jack Fong, a sociologist at California State Polytechnic University who has studied solitude.

In other words, when people remove themselves from the social context of their lives, they are better able to see how they're shaped by that context. Thomas Merton, a monk and writer who spent years alone, heldasimilar notion. "We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our breast," he writes in Thoughts in Solitude.

"People can go for a walk or listen to music and feel that they are deeply in touch with themselves."

21. Tiziano Terzani spentamonth alone to .

    A embrace isolationB study butterfliesC writeabookD look after his dog

22. The word "solitude" (Para.2) is closest in meaning to " ".

    A growing anxiousB feeling emptyC being helplessD staying alone

23. The opinions of Freud and Cacioppo are cited to show that .

    A children tend to fear darkness and solitudeB solitude pursued by choice can beatherapyC chronic isolation can harm interpersonal relationsD solitude has long been linked with negative outcomes

24. According to Jack Fong, the sense of personal crisis may be influenced by .

    A an isolated lifestyleB mental disorderC low self-esteemD social context

25. The main idea of the passage is that .

    A solitude should be avoided at all costsB anxieties of daily life may cause personal crisisC choosing to spend time alone can beablessingD seeking support is useless for tackling personal crisis

Passage Two

Science is finally beginning to embrace animals who were, foralong time, considered second-class citizens. As Annie Potts of Canterbury University has noted, chickens distinguish among one hundred chicken faces and recognize familiar individuals even after months of separation. When given problems to solve, they reason: hens trained to pick colored buttons sometimes choose to give up an immediate (lesser) food reward foraslightly later (and better) one.

Healthy hens may aid friends, and mourn when those friends die. Pigs respond meaningfully to human symbols. Whenaresearch team led by Candace Croney at Penn State University carried wooden blocks marked withXandOsymbols around pigs, only theOcarriers offered food to the animals. The pigs soon ignored theXcarriers in favor of the O's.

Then the team switched from real-life objects to aT-shirts printed withXor O symbols. Still, the pigs ventured only toward the O-shirted people: they had transferred their knowledge toatwo-dimensional format, a not-inconsiderable feat of reasoning. Fairly soon, I came to see that along with our closest living relatives, cetaceans (鲸目动物) too are masters of cultural learning, and elephants express profound joy and mourning with their social companions.

Long-term studies in the wild on these mammals helped to fuel a perspective shift in our society: the public no longer so easily accepts monkeys made to undergo painful procedures in laboratories, elephants forced to perform in circuses, and dolphins kept in small tanks at theme parks.

Over time, though, as Ibegan to broaden out even further and explore the inner lives of fish, chicken, pigs, goats, and cows, I started to wonder: Will the new science of "food animals" bring an ethical revolution in terms of who we eat? In other words, will the breadth of our ethic start to catch up with the breadth of our science?

Animal activists are already there, of course, committed to not eating these animals. But what about the rest of us? Can paying attention to the thinking and feeling of these animals lead us to make change in who we eat?

26. According to Annie Potts, hens' choice ofalater and better reward indicates their ability of .

    A social interactionB facial recognitionC logical reasoningD mutual learning

27. The expression "not-inconsiderable feat" (Para.3) shows what pigs can do is .

    A extraordinaryB weirdC uniqueD understandable

28. What is Paragraph4 mainly about?

    A The similarities between mammals and humans.B The necessity of long-term studies on mammals.C A change of public attitude to the treatment of mammals.D A new discovery of how mammals think and feel.

29. What is the author's view on eating "food animals"?

    A He regrets eating them before.B He considers eating them justifiable.C He is not concerned about the issue.D He calls forachange in what we eat.

30. What is the best title for the passage?

    A In Praise of Food AnimalsB Food Animals in Science ReportsC The Inner Lives of Food AnimalsD Food Animals: Past, Present and Future

Passage Three

Almost eight decades years ago, the American educator Abraham Flexner published an article entitled The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. In it, he argued that the most powerful intellectual and technological breakthroughs usually emerged from research that initially appeared "useless", without much relevance to real life.

Asaresult, it was vital, Flexner said, that these "useless" efforts should be supported, even if they did not produce an immediate payback, because otherwise the next wave of innovation simply would not occur. "Curiosity, which may or may not produce something useful, is probably the outstanding characteristic of modern thinking," he declared.

In 1929, Flexner persuadedawealthy American family, the Bambergers, to use some of their donations to fund the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton to support exactly this kind of "undirected" research. And it paid off: brilliant Jewish scientists fleeing from Nazi Germany, such as Albert Einstein, gathered at the IAS to explore undirected ideas.

And while some of these, such as Einstein's own work developing his earlier theory of relativity, did not initially seem valuable, many eventually produced powerful applications (though after many decades). "Without Einstein's theory, our GPS tracking devices would be inaccurate by about seven miles," writes Robbert Dijkgraaf , the current director of the IAS, in the foreword toanewly released reprint of Flexner's article.

Concepts such as quantum mechanics (量子力学) or superconductivity also seemed fairly useless at first—but yielded huge dividends atalater date. The reason why the IAS is re-releasing Flexner's article now is that scientists such as Dijkgraaf fear this core principle is increasing under threat.

The Trump administration has releasedaprojected budget that threatens to reduce funding for the arts, science and educational groups. Many Republicans believe that research is better financed by business or philanthropists (慈善家) than by government. But one striking fact about the past century is how much American innovation originated in federal projects; Silicon Valley would never have boomed were it not for the fact that state funding enabled the development of the World Wide Web, for example.

31. What may be the best title for the passage?

    A The Value of Creative IdeasB The Importance of Basic ResearchC Innovation in Silicon ValleyD In Praise of "Useless" Endeavors

32. According to Abraham Flexner, what is an important feature of modern thinking?

    A CuriosityB ApplicationC DevotionD Passion

33. The "undirected" research (Para.3) refers to research _________.

    A not funded by government agenciesB without any practical purpose in mindC with indefinite experimental methodsD supported by non-profit organizations

34. Examples of initially "useless" research include all of the following EXPECT .

    A quantum mechanicsB theory of relativityC superconductivityD GPS tracking devices

35. Flexner's article was reprinted because .

    A businesses in Silicon Valley wish to put pressure on the governmentB Democrats believe that government funding should go to small businessC Republicans argue that scientific research should be financed by businessD some scientists worry that government will cut its funding for basic research

Passage Four

In 1902, Georges Méliès made and releasedamovie calledATrip to the Moon. In this movie, the spaceship wasasmall capsule, shaped likeabullet, that was loaded intoagiant cannon and aimed at the moon. This movie was based onabook that came out many years earlier by an author named Jules Verne.

One of the fans of the book was aRussian man, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The book made him think. Could one really shoot people out ofacannon and have them get safely to the moon? He decided one couldn't, but it got him thinking of other ways one could get people to the moon. He spent his life considering this problem and came up with many solutions.

Some of Tsiolkovsky's solutions gave scientists in America and Russia ideas when they began to think about space travel. They also thought about airplanes they and other people had made, and even big bombs that could fly themselves very long distances. Many scientists spent years working together to solve the problem.

They drew and discussed different designs until they agreed on the ones that were the best. Then, they built small models of those designs, and tested them until they felt ready to build even bigger models. They made full-scale rockets, which they launched without any people inside, to test for safety.

Often the rockets weren't safe, and they exploded right there on the launch pad, or shot off in crazy directions likeaballoon that you blow up and release without tying it first. After many, many tests, they started to send small animals into space. Only afteralong time did they ever putaperson insidearocket and shoot him into space.

Even after they began sending people into space, scientists were still trying to improve the shape of the rockets. The design changed many times, and eventually ended up looking like a half-rocket and half-airplane. The machine called space shuttle was used for many years. Now, the government lets private companies try their own designs for spaceships, and they have come up with many different, crazy-looking machines.

36. In the movieATrip to the Moon, the spaceship was sent to the moon .

    A inacapsuleB inabulletC byacannonD byagun

37. The movie was based onabook written by .

    A Konstantin TsiolkovskyB an unknown authorC Georges MélièsD Jules Verne

38. Before the invention ofaspaceship, possible solutions of space travel included all of the following EXCEPT .

    A bombsB balloonsC airplanesD rockets

39. What is Paragraph4mainly about?

    A It tookalong time and hard work to sendaperson into space.B American scientists worked better than Russian scientists.C Scientists from Russia and America had close cooperation.D The design of the rocket was inspired by the movieAtrip to the moon.

40. The word "shoot" (Para.4) is closest in meaning to " ".

    A send with great forceB break into many piecesC fixaproblemD attack withaweapon

Blog and Comments

The blog and the comments are followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet. In 2003, I was told byarestaurant owner on aThai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done.

That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate them all. But in the past decade, he said, plastic wrap had rapidly replaced banana leaves, so the beach was edged withacrust of plastic. This isaworldwide problem—we can't point the finger at Thai fishermen. The UK alone produces more than 170m tons of waste every year, much of it food packaging.

Now we live in an absurd age whereapacket of cookies can have seven layers of wrapping. While it has revolutionized the way we store and consume food, there is now so much of it that landfills ( 垃圾填埋场) can't cope. Some of it is poisonous, and some of it never degrades. It can take 450 years for some types of plastic bottle to break down.

Indeed, as Rachelle Strauss of the UK's Zero Waste Week says, we never actually throw anything "away"—it's really just put somewhere else. It's easy to say despair at the scale of handing the plastic wrap, but it isn't beyond humanity to solve it—look at how the world took action on CFCs (含氯氟烃): there are signs that the hole in the ozone layer is now closing.

Food packaging ought to beadoddle.

41. What is the author's view on the plastic problem in Thailand?

    A The problem is not unique to Thailand.B There is no point overreacting to the problem.C It is important to raise people's awareness.D The government should be held responsible.

42. A package of cookies" is mentioned in Paragraph2to .

    A illustrate the problem of excessive packagingB introduce the revolutionary way of packagingC review the gradual development of packagingD emphasize the necessity of food packaging

43. The word "doddle" (Para.3) probably means "something ".

    A no longer usefulB extremely difficultC beyond imaginationD easily accomplished

44. Which of the comments is positive about packaging?

    A Comment 1.B Comment 2.C Comment 3.D Comment 4.

45. Which of the following comments point out ways to solve over-packaging?

    A Comment1and 2.B Comment1and 3.C Comment2and 4.D Comment3and 4.