水木艾迪：閱讀理解沖刺之新題型四
模擬題
text 1 選句填空
Most students are usually introduced to the study of history by way of a fat textbook and become quickly immersed in a vast sea of names, dates, events and statistics. The students skills are then tested by examinations that require them to show how much of the data they remember; the more they remember, the higher their grades. 41)_____________.The professional historian is simply one who brings together a very large number of facts. Therefore, students often become confused upon discovering that historians often disagree sharply even when they are dealing with the same event.
Their common-sense reaction to this state of affairs is to conclude that one historian is right while the other is wrong. And presumably, historians who are wrong will have their facts wrong. This is seldom the case, however. Historians usually all argue reasonably and persuasively. And, the facts---the names, dates, events, statistics---usually turn out to be correct. Moreover, they often find that contending historians more or less agree on the facts: that is, they use much the same data. They come to different conclusions because they view the past from a different perspective. 42)__________________.
This position is hardly satisfying. They cannot help but feel that two diametrically opposed points of view about an event cannot both be right; yet they lack the ability to decide between them.
43)_______________.
In its broadest sense, history denotes the whole of the human past. More restricted is the notion that history is the recorded past, that is, that part of human life which has left some sort of record such as folk tales, artifacts, or written documents. Finally, history may be defined as that which historians write about the past. Of course the three meanings are related. Historians must base their accounts on the remains of the past, left by people. Obviously they cannot know everything for the simple reason that not every event, every happening, was fully and completely recorded. 44)____________.
But this does not say enough. If historians cannot know everything because not everything was recorded, neither do they use all the records that are available to them. Rather, they select only those records they deem most significant. 45_________.
Historians are able to select and create evidence by using some theory of human motivations and behavior.
From this experience a number of conclusions seem obvious: the study of history is the study of facts about the past; the more facts you know, the better you are as a student of history.
Similarly a third group of historians might maintain that the various items on the list should not be given equal weight, that one of the reasons listed, say, bankers loans, was most important.
Therefore the historian can only approximate history at best. No one can ever claim to have concluded the quest.
Moreover, they also re-create parts of the past. Like detectives, they piece together evidence to fill in the gaps in the available records.
History, which seemed to be a cut-and-dried matter of memorizing facts, now becomes a matter of choosing one good interpretation from among many. Historical truth becomes a matter of personal preference.
To understand why historians disagree, students must consider a problem they have more or less taken for granted. They must ask themselves what history really is.
答案：BFGDE
Text 2 選句填空
Could anything be more majestic, serene or threatening than the largest bird of prey in the world, the harpy eagle, soaring above its domain? Weighing nine kilograms and with a 2.2 meter wingspan, this giant of the sky glides at 65 kilometers per hour over dense Brazilian rainforest. Its cruel head with flaring colored crest and huge hooked beak twists constantly from side to side.
It spots a monkey in treetop 2.5 kilometres away and closes in on its prey. The monkey munches on, oblivious to the threat. Then the eagle strikes, plucking its prey from its perch with talons borne on legs the thickness of your wrists. 41___________. The eagle caries the body back to its treetop lair. The famed and feared harpy eagle has killed again.
Whether this frightening creature does indeed soar like other eagles in search of prey is open to conjecture. For less in know about the harpy than any other eaglethe remoteness of its habitat sees to that. 42)_______________.
This eagle s extraordinary eyesight is one of its greatest assets. Like many other eagles, it can see between four and eight times as much detail as can humans. 43)___________. The latter is an obvious requirement if prey is to be snatched at speed.
Its hard to believe that a creature so well equipped to survive could ever find itself under threat. But with huge tracts of rainforest being felled in Central and South Amirica, the harpys food sources are harder to find.
The threat posed could soon be similar to that facing the harpys near relative, the Philippines monkey-eating eagle. 44)_________.
Like this Filipino cousin, the harpy eagle nests in the tops of the largest forest trees. It therefore needs an intact forest to breed. The seemingly invincible harpy is vulnerable for another reason. A mating pair is thought to produce only one eagle every two years. Harpy eggs take up to 60 days to hatch and chicks take a further 60days before they learn to fly. What is more, the youngster is fed by the parents for many moths after it has learned to fly. Annual breeding then is impossible.
The harpy eagle does not face the same immediate threat as its Filipino cousin. But if the destruction of its forest habitat continues at its present rate, the largest of avian predators, too, could join those birds already on the endangered species list. The British naturalist Leslie Brown wrote in 1976 that nearly half of the 59 species of eagle were under threat. 45)_________.
This acutely threatened bird was reduced in numbers to fewer than 100 in the wild by the loss of its forest habitat and by the heavy demands of trophy hunters in the Philippines.
But it has been seen carrying monkeys, sloth and even small deer back to its nest.
The monkey dies instantly, pierced by the talons.
Folklore has long held that the harpy eagle preys on human babies as well as forest animals.
The result is an ability to see clearly a small monkey at a distance of up to 2.5 kilometres and to judge distances with pinpoint accuracy.
The harpy is very ferocious when its nest is threatened.
Those who appreciate nature will be hopping that the harpy can surmount this threat, to soar on over the forests of South America.
答案：CBEAG
Text 3 段落排序
On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors who have been chosen in November assemble in their respective state capitals to signal their preference. The future president and vice-president must receive at least 270 electoral votes, a majority of the total of 538, to win. Members of the electoral college have the moral, but not the legal, obligation to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in their state. This moral imperative, plus the fact that electors are members of the same political party as the presidential candidate winning the popular vote, ensures that the outcome in the electoral college is a valid reflection of the popular vote in November.
It is even possible for someone to win the popular vote, yet lost the presidency to another candidate. How? It has to do with the electoral college.
The electoral college was created in response to a problem encountered during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where delegates were trying to determine the best way to choose the president. The framers of the Constitution intended that the electors, a body of men chosen for their wisdom, should come together and choose on behalf of the people. In fact, the swift rise of political parties guaranteed that the electoral of the people. In fact, the swift rise of political guaranteed that the electoral system never worked as the framers had intended; instead, national parties, i. e. nationwide alliances of local interests, quickly came to dominate the election campaigns. The electors became mere figureheads representing the state branches of the parties who got them chosen, and their votes were predetermined and predictable.
How are the electors chosen? Although there is some variation among states in how electors are appointed, generally they are chosen by the popular vote, always on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Each political party in a state chooses a state of local worthies to be members of the electoral college if the partys presidential candidate wins at least a plurality of the popular vote in the state.
How is the number of electors decided? Every state has one elector for each senator and representative it sends to Congress. States with greater populations therefore have more electors in the electoral college. All states have at least 3 electors, but California, the most populous state, has 54. The District of Columbia, though not a state, is also allowed to send three electors.
How can one win the popular vote yet lose the presidency? Lets simplify for the sake of argument: imagine that instead of 50 states America had only two. California and Montana. Now suppose that candidate A wins in California by 9,000,500 votes to 9,000,400; the 100-vote margin still gives him 54 electors. But then candidate A loses in Montana by 201,000 to 205,000, candidate B gets Montanas electoral votes. The total number of votes for A is 9,210,500 and for B, 9,205,400; yet A, with 54 electoral votes out of 57, wins the election!
Americas election day is 7 November. On the day citizens who wish to will cast their ballots for the presidential candidate they prefer. The result of this process is called the popular vote, and these days the winner of the popular vote is usually known shortly after the polls close. However, not one of the votes cast on Election Day actually goes directly to a particular candidate.
Order:
G
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42.
43.
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45.
答案：BCEDA
Text 4 段落排序
As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are the mark of success or failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesnt matter that you werent feeling very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that dont count; the exam goes on. No one can give off 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 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 judges decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiners.
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 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.
There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a persons 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 am a teenage millionaire.
We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a persons 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 test 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 persons true ability and aptitude.
Order:
G
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42.
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45.
F
答案：ADECB
Text 5 信息匹配
Informative speaking is all around us. Any speech is an informative speech if it presents information to an audience. A report, a teachers explanation, and a talk at a group meeting are all examples of informative speeches. The goal in giving an informative speech is to state ideas simply, clearly, and interestingly. If you achieve this goal, the audience will understand and remember your speech. In this article, you will learn how to build an informative speech.
41. Prepare an attention-getting opener at the beginning of your speech:
It is very important to grab your audiences attention and make them interested in what you have to say.
People love to listen to a story. They want to find out what it is about.
42. Prepare the body. Arrange the points of your speech in a clear, logical manner:
That way, your audience can follow you, understand your information, and remember what you have said. In order to do this, it is important to choose an organizational pattern that fits your topic. Such as, Problem-Solution. Use this pattern to speak about a specific problem and ways to solve it.
43. Past-present-future:
Use this pattern to discuss how something once was, how it has changed, and how it will be in the future.
44. Prepare a summary:
Every speech needs a summary of the information presented. The best way to summarize your information is to remind your audience of what you said by repeating the main points covered in the body of your speech.
45. Prepare memorable concluding remarks:
Every speech needs an ending that leaves the audience thinking about and remembering what was said. Like attention-getting openers, memorable concluding remarks can take the form of rhetorical questions, stories, surprising facts, or quotations. Of these suggestions, quotations are popular among may famous public speakers.
For example, in discussing the Olympics, you might organize your information under the following three headings: The history of the OlympicsThe Olympics todayThe future of the Olympics.
This story was used to open a speech about the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia: A guard took me into a square room with no lights. The room was so black I couldnt even see my own feet. All of a sudden a hidden electric wall closed behind me. There was no way out. I thought I was in a tomb. All at once bright lights came on, I was surrounded by gold on all four sides!
Example: As you can see, the Olympic Games are very important to people all over the world. I hope you learned some interesting information about the history of the Olympics, the Olympics today and the future of the Olympic Games.
For example, in speaking about the problem of choosing the college thats right for you, you might present the following solutions: Read the different college catalogsVisit campuses of different collegesTalk to people who attend various collegesTalk to teachers at the colleges you are considering.
