考研英语阅读unit-2.doc

Unit 2Custom makes all things easy.有个好习惯，事事皆不难。学习内容题 材词 数建议时间得分统计做题备忘Part AText 1科普知识394/10Text 2商业经济396/10Text 3社会生活439/10Text 4科普知识401/10Part B生态环境612/10Part C文化教育473/10Part ADirections：Read the following texts. Answer the questions blow each text by choosing A,B,C or D.Text 1In 1967, in response to widespread public concern aroused by medical reports of asbestos-related deaths, the National Medical Research Council organized committee of inquiry to investigate the health threats associated with the use of asbestos in the building industry.After examining evidence provided by medical researchers and building workers and management, the Council published a report which included advice for dealing with asbestos. The report confirmed the findings of similar research in the United States and Canada. Exposure to relatively small quantities of asbestos fibers, they concluded, was directly responsible for the development of cancers, asbestosis and related diseases. Taking into account evidence provided by economists and building industry management, however, the report assumed that despite the availability of other materials, asbestos would continue to play a major role in the British building industry for many years to come because of its availability and low cost.As a result, the council gave a series of recommendations which were intended to reduce the risks to those who might be exposed to asbestos in working environments. They recommended that, where possible, asbestos free materials should be employed. In cases where asbestos was employed, it was recommended that it should be used in such a way that loose fibers were less likely to enter the air.The report recommended that special care should be taken during work in environments which contain asbestos. Workers should wear protective equipment and take special care to remove dust from the environment and clothing with the use of vacuum cleaner.The report identified five factors which determine the level of risk involved. The state and type of asbestos is critical to determining the risk factors. In addition, dust formation was found to be limited where asbestos was used when wet rather than dry.The choice of tools was also found to affect the quantities of asbestos particles that enter the air. Machine tools produce greater quantities of dust than hand tools and, where possible, the use of the latter was recommended.A critical factor takes place in risk reduction in the adequate ventilation of the working environment. When work takes place in an enclosed space, more asbestos particles circulate and it was therefore recommended that natural or machine ventilation should be used. By closely following these words of advice, it was claimed that exposure can be reduced to a reasonably practical minimum.1. Exposure to asbestos fibers can cause cancerA only when asbestos is used in building industry.B only when it is used in large quantities.C even if it is used in small quantities.D if it is used when wet rather than dry.2. Exposure to asbestos fibers is harmful to peoples healthA so the use of asbestos is limited.B but asbestos will continue to be used for a long time.C so other new kinds of materials are under development.D but they will not be so when ventilation devices are used.3. Evidence from the economists and the building industries shows thatA exposure to asbestos fibers is cancer-causing.B asbestos is in extensive use in building industry.C use of asbestos is being reduced gradually.D exposure to asbestos fibers can be reduced significantly.4. According to the text, which of the following is true?A Choice of tools can not affect the quantities of asbestos particles that enter the air.B State and type of asbestos is meaningless to determining the risk factors.C Quantity of asbestos has no relation to the risk factors.D Ventilation plays an important role in reducing the harm brought by asbestos.5. It can be inferred from the text that the real danger comes fromA the asbestos dust that people take in.B the contact of the workers skin with asbestos particles.C the inferior quality of the asbestos itself.D the excessive use of man-made asbestos material. Text 2Its a brand new world a world built around brands. Hard charging, noise making, culture shaping brands are everywhere. Theyre on supermarket shelves, of course, but also in business plans for dotcom startups and in the names of sports complexes. Brands are infiltrating（渗透）peoples everyday lives by sticking their logos on clothes, in concert programs, on subway station walls, even in elementary school classrooms.We live in an age in which CBS newscasters wear Nike jackets on the air, in which Burger King and McDonalds open kiosks in elementary-school lunchrooms, in which schools like Stanford University are endowed with a Yahoo! Founders Chair. But as brands reach (and then overreach) into every aspect of our lives, the companies behind them invite more questions, deeper scrutiny and an inevitable backlash by consumers.“Our intellectual lives and our public spaces are being taken over by marketing and that has real implications for citizenship,” says author and activist Naomi Klein. “Its important for any healthy culture to have public space a place where people are treated as citizens instead of as consumers. Weve completely lost that space.”Since the mid-1980s, as more and more companies have shifted from being about products to being about ideas Starbucks isnt selling coffee; its selling community! those companies have poured more and more resources into marketing campaigns.To pay for those campaigns, those same companies figured out ways to cut costs else where for example, by using contract labor at home and low-wage labor in developing countries. Contract laborers are hired on a temporary, per-assignment basis, and employers have no obligation to provide any benefits (such as health insurance) or long-term job security. This saves companies money but obviously puts workers in vulnerable situations. In the United States, contract labor has given rise to so-called McJobs, which employers and workers alike pretend are temporary even though these jobs are usually held by adults who are trying to support families.The massive expansion of marketing campaigns in the 1980s coincided with the reduction of government spending for schools and for museums. This made those institutions much too willing, even eager, to partner with private companies. But companies took advantage of the needs of those institutions, reaching too far, and overwhelming the civic space with their marketing agendas.6. The text intends to tell usA the problems with current corporate practices.B the nature of current marketing campaigns and strategies.C the importance of brands in American culture.D the excessive presence of brands and marketing in peoples lives.7. Which of the following does the author state as a factor in the increasing presence of brands in peoples lives?A The aggressive nature of corporate marketing.B The willingness of schools and museums to cooperate with private companies.C The lack of government regulations of marketing methods.D The marketing campaigns take up public spaces.8. Naomi Kleins attitude towards the infiltration of brands into public spaces is one of A concern.B ambivalence.C outrage.D acceptance.9. The text suggests that most contract laborers in the U.S.A pretend to be temporary workers.B may have trouble supporting their families financially.C have work conditions comparable to those of low-wage workers overseas.D are likely to receive health benefits from their employers.10. We may infer from the last paragraph that A inadequate federal funding facilitated the privatization of schools and museums.B government reduced spending for schools and museums for their cooperation with companies.C public institutions were too quick to accept corporate marketing as a source of funding. D by the 1980s, very few public institutions were not being funded by corporations.Text 3The Manchruian Candidate, Frank Sinatra, unable to fathom the depth and extent of the evil that had been done to the mind of a man programmed to become a killer cries, “Hell, hell!” People may say the same thing after last weeks school shooting of a six-year-old girl by a six-year-old boy. On Tuesday the boy brought a pistol to an elementary school in Mount Morris Township, near Flint, Mich., and shot a classmate, Kavla Rolland, to death. He is too young to be charged with anything, but the county prosecutor has charged the man who left the loaded gun lying around with involuntary manslaughter, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and gross neglect each of which has a wider application. The story may be too unusual for the drawing of larger lessons, but one reason it is so troubling is that it touches the worst of Americas social ills, including the shaping of a boy who became a loaded gun himself.Who killed Kayla Rolland? A six-year-old classmate did it. On Tuesday morning, he went to the Theo J. Buell Elementary School carrying both a concealed Davis 32 semiautomatic handgun, advertised as “the original pocket pistol”, and a knife. Another kid reported the knife to a teacher and it was taken away. The boy held on to the gun shortly before 10 a.m. Chris Boaz, a seven-year-old boy, witnessed the following scene. The children were changing classrooms, from a small reading group to a computer training class. This is contrary to the police report that the crime occurred inside a classroom. The kids were on the first level heading to the second when the boy pulled out his pistol. Kayla was walking ahead of him up the school stairs. He called out, “I dont like you.” She had her back to him, then turned and asked as a challenge, “So?” The boy, who had first pointed the gun at another classmate, swung around and fired a single bullet that entered Kaylas right arm and traveled through her vital organs. Boaz says he saw blood on both sides of Kavlas stomach. She grabbed her stomach then her neck, gasping for air.The shooter ran to the bathroom to hide and tossed the gun into the trash, Kayla was treated by paramedics at the school and was taken to Hurley Medical Center where she was pronounced dead at 10:29 a.m. Immediate after the shooting, the principal made all students stay in classrooms, and locked classroom doors in the school. The boy, who did not attempt to run away, was taken to the principals office where he was questioned.11. The shooting is disturbing in thatA it happens in an elementary school. B many people dont pay enough attention to it.C.it reveals one of Americas social problems. D it turns a little boy into a loaded gun.12. In the first paragraph, the author is mainly concerned withA showing that children are not free from crimes.B indicating that society should draw lessons from the case.C implying that handguns can be fatal.D informing us that better weapons will lead to more victims.13. According to the text, a “paramedic” (Line1, Para 3) is probably A a surgeon who has operations.B a physician who majored in stomach diseases.C a medical worker who treats minor illnesses.D a dentist who helps his patients with their teeth.14. According to the passage, we can learn thatA The boy shooter will be accused of his delinquency sooner or later.B The shooting disclosed one of the worst evils of the U.S. school.C The police reported immediately and exactly what had happened.D Had Kayla not challenged the boy, she might not have been shot.15. The best title for this text isA Child Killer. B A Catastrophe.C An Evil of the U.S. D Child Delinquency.Text 4The economic effects are easy to see. Since 1978, some 43 billion jobs have been lost, largely to forms of technology either to robotics directly or to computers that are doing what they are supposed to be doing, being labor-saving device. Today, there is no such thing as a lifetime job; there is no such thing as a career for most people anymore. The jobs that are not done away with are being deskilled, or they are disposable jobs. Even for those jobs that many of you may feel secure with, there are people who are working on what are called expert systems to be able to take jobs away from doctors and judges and lawyers. The machine is capable of shredding these jobs as well.But its not just the jobs. The economy of jobs and services is trivial compared to the “Nintendo capitalism” that now operates in the world. Four trillion dollars a day is shuffled around the earth as wealth created there. The inevitable result of a Nintendo economy pulling itself apart, losing jobs, insecure is the shriveling of the society in which it exists. What we have is an apartheid society, with growing gaps between the rich and poor, and the rich spending a lot of time cocooning themselves from the effects of the poor.A further result of information technology something that nobody seems to wish to pay much attention to is the shredding everywhere of the natural world. Forget about the amount of toxins that go into producing these computers, and the resources that go into producing them, such that 40,000 pounds of resources are necessary for a four-pound laptop. Thats trivial compared to the direct effect that computers and the industrial system as a result have on the atmosphere and climate, the pollution of air and water.The development in technology does not always bring human beings goods; there is bad news too. But most people are ignorant of the drawback of the new technology at first. In this century, however, the development in science and technology really aroused peoples attention of the weak points. But the technology has an even darker effect, because it is enabling us to conquer nature. Industrial society is waging a war of the techno-sphere against the biosphere. That is the Third World War. The bad news is that we are winning that war.16. According to the text, information technology affectsA human society and natural environment.B natural environment and economy.C domestic economy and human society.D society，economy and environment.17. What does “Nintendo capitalism” mean?A A capitalism that is prosperous. B A capitalism that is dooming.C A worship of capitalism. D A worship of technology.18. The term “the Third World War” refers toA Humans conquering of the bio-system.B Technologys destruction of nature.C Industrial societys control over man.D Technologys conquering of man.19. The authors attitude towards information technology is A fear.B criticism.C skepticism.D optimism.20. Which of the following is the best title of the text?A The Influence of Nintendo Capitalism.B The Cause of the “Third World War”.C The Drawbacks of Information Technology.D The War of Techno-sphere against the Biosphere.Part B Directions: You are going to read a list of headings and a text about Humankind and the Earth. Choose the most suitable heading from the list A-F for each numbered paragraph (21-25). The first and last paragraphs of the text are not numbered. There is one extra heading which you do not need to use.A The urgency to see the utterly change of human relationship to the earthB Startling change of population explosion in a historical contextC The ultimate resolution of human relation to the earthD The outrageous consequence of scientific and technological revolutionE The accelerating ongoing of scientific and technological revolutionF The cautious recognition and reconsideration of human relation to the earthThis century has witnessed dramatic changes in two key factors that define the physical reality of our relationship to the earth: a sudden and startling surge in human population, and a sudden acceleration of the scientific and technological revolution, which has allowed an almost unimaginable magnification of our power to affect the world around us by burning, cutting, digging, moving, and transforming the physical matter that makes up the earth.21. From the emergence of modern humans 200,000 years ago until Julius Caesars time, fewer than 250 million people walked on the face of the earth. When Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World 1,500 years later, there were approximately 500 million people on earth. By the time Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the number had doubled again, to 1 billion. By midway through this century, at the end of World War II, the number had risen to just above 2 billion people. 22. It is now an axiom in many fields of science that more new and important discoveries have taken place in the last ten years than in the entire previous history of science. While no single discovery has had the kind of effect on our relationship to the earth that nuclear weapons have had on our relationship to warfare, it is nevertheless true that taken together, they have completely transformed our cumulative ability to exploit the earth for sustenance making the result of unrestrained exploitation every bit as unthinkable as the result of unrestrained nuclear war.23. It is necessary for us to promptly recognize that the startling images of environmental destruction now occurring all over the world have much more, in common than their