大学英语六级阅读理解40篇

35Computers have been taught to play not only checkers, but also championship chess, which is a fairly accurate yardstick for measuring the computers progress in the ability to learn from experience. Because the game requires logical reasoning, chess would seem to be perfectly suited to the computer .all a programmer has to do is give the computer a program evaluating the consequences of every possible response to every possible move, and the computer will win every time. In theory this is a sensible approach; in practice it is impossible. Today, a powerful computer can analyze 40 000 moves a second. That is an impressive speed. But there are an astronomical number of possible moves in chessliterally trillions. Even if such a program were written (and in theory it could be ,given enough people and enough time), there is no computer capable of holding that much data. Therefore, if the computer is to compete at championship levels, it must be programmed to function with less than complete data. It must be able to learn from experience, to modify its own programm, to deal with a relatively unstructured situationin a word, to “think” for itself . In fact, this can be done. Chess-playing computers have yet to defeat world champion chess players, but several have beaten human players of only slightly lower ranks. The computers have had programs to carry them through the early, mechanical stages of their chess games. But they have gone on from there to reason and learn, and sometimes to win the game. There are other proofs that computers can be programmed to learn, but this example is sufficient to demonstrate the point. Granted , winning a game of chess is not an earthshaking event even when a computer does it . But there are many serious human problems which ban be fruitfully approached as games. The Defense Department uses computers to play war games and work out strategies for dealing with international tensions. Other problemsinternational and interpersonal relations , ecology and economics , and the ever-increasing threat of world faminecan perhaps be solved by the joint efforts of human beings and truly intelligent computers .1 The purpose of creating chess-playing computers is _A to win the world chess champion B to pave the way for further intelligent computersC to work out strategies for international wars D to find an accurate yardstick for measuring computer progress2 Today , a chess-playing computer can be programmed to _A give trillions of reponses in a second to each possible move and win the gameB function with complete data and beat the best playersC learn from chess-playing in the early stage and go on to win the gameD evaluate every possible move but may fail to give the right response each time3 For a computer to “think” , it is necessary to _A mange to process as much data as possible in a second B program it so that it can learn from its experiencesC prepare it for chess-playing first D enable it to deal with unstructured situations4 The authors attitude towards the Defense Department is_A critical B unconcerned C positive D negative 5 In the authors opinion,_A winning a chess game is an unimportant event B serious human problems shouldnt be regarded as playing a gameC ecological problems are more urgent to be solved D there is hope for more intelligent computers答案B C B C D36Womens Positions in the 17th CenturySocial circumstances in Early Modern England mostly served to repress womens voices. Patriarchal culture and institutions constructed them as chaste, silent, obedient, and subordinate. At the beginning of the 17th century, the ideology of patriarchy, political absolutism, and gender hierarchy were reaffirmed powerfully by King James in The Trew Law of Free Monarchie and the Basilikon Doron; by that ideology the absolute power of God the supreme patriarch was seen to be imaged in the absolute monarch of the state and in the husband and father of a family. Accordingly, a womans subjection, first to her father and then to her husband, imaged the subjection of English people to their monarch, and of all Christians to God. Also, the period saw an outpouring of repressive or overtly misogynist sermons, tracts, and plays, detailing womens physical and mental defects, spiritual evils, rebelliousness, shrewish ness, and natural inferiority to men.Yet some social and cultural conditions served to empower women. During the Elizabethan era (15581603) the culture was dominated by a powerful Queen, who provided an impressive female example though she left scant cultural space for other women. Elizabethan women writers began to produce original texts but were occupied chiefly with translation. In the 17th century, however, various circumstances enabled women to write original texts in some numbers. For one thing, some counterweight to patriarchy was provided by female communitiesmothers and daughters, extended kinship networks, close female friends, the separate court of Queen Anne (King James consort) and her often oppositional masques and political activities. For another, most of these women had a reasonably good education (modern languages, history, literature, religion, music, occasionally Latin) and some apparently found in romances and histories more expansive terms for imagining womens lives. Also, representation of vigorous and rebellious female characters in literature and especially on the stage no doubt helped to undermine any monolithic social construct of womens mature and role.Most important, perhaps, was the radical potential inherent in the Protestant insistence on every Christians immediate relationship with God and primary responsibility to follow his or her individual conscience. There is plenty of support in St Pauls epistles and elsewhere in the Bible for patriarchy and a wifes subjection to her husband, but some texts (notably Galatians 3:28) inscribe a very different politics, promoting womens spiritual equality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Jesus Christ.” Such texts encouraged some women to claim the support of God the supreme patriarch against the various earthly patriarchs who claimed to stand toward them in his stead.There is also the gap or slippage between ideology and common experience. English women throughout the 17th century exercised a good deal of accrual power: as managers of estates in their husbands absences at court or on military and diplomatic missions; as members of guilds; as wives and mothers who apex during the English Civil War and Interregnum (1640-60) as the execution of the King and the attendant disruption of social hierarchies led many women to seize new rolesas preachers, as prophetesses, as deputies for exiled royalist husbands, as writers of religious and political tracts.1. What is the best title for this passage?A. Womens Position in the 17th Century.B. Womens Subjection to Patriarchy.C. Social Circumstances in the 17th Century.D. Womens objection in the 17th Century.2. What did the Queen Elizabeth do for the women in culture?A. She set an impressive female example to follow.B. She dominated the culture.C. She did little.D. She allowed women to translate something.3. Which of the following is Not mention as a reason to enable women to original texts?A.Female communities provided some counterweight to patriarchy.B. Queen Annes political activities.C. Most women had a good education.D. Queen Elizabeths political activities.4. What did the religion so for the women?A. It did nothing.B. It too asked women to be obedient except some texts.C. It supported women.D. It appealed to the God.答案ACDB37The only way to travel is on footThe past ages of man have all been carefully labeled by anthropologists. Descriptions like Palaeolithic Man, Neolithic Man, etc., neatly sum up whole periods. When the time comes for anthropologists to turn their attention to the twentieth century, they will surely choose the label Legless Man. Histories of the time will go something like this: in the twentieth century, people forgot how to use their legs. Men and women moved about in cars, buses and trains from a very early age. There were lifts and escalators in all large buildings to prevent people from walking. This situation was forced upon earth dwellers of that time because of miles each day. But the surprising thing is that they didnt use their legs even when they went on holiday. They built cable railways, ski-lifts and roads to the top of every huge mountain. All the beauty spots on earth were marred by the presence of large car parks. The future history books might also record that we were deprived of the use of our eyes. In our hurry to get from one place to another, we failed to see anything on the way. Air travel gives you a birds-eye view of the world or even less if the wing of the aircraft happens to get in your way. When you travel by car or train a blurred image of the countryside constantly smears the windows. Car drivers, in particular, are forever obsessed with the urge to go on and on: they never want to stop. Is it the lure of the great motorways, or what? And as for sea travel, it hardly deserves mention. It is perfectly summed up in the words of the old song: I joined the navy to see the world, and what did I see? I saw the sea. The typical twentieth-century traveler is the man who always says Ive been there. You mention the remotest, most evocative place-names in the world like El Dorado, Kabul, Irkutsk and someone is bound to say Ive been there meaning, I drove through it at 100 miles an hour on the way to somewhere else. When you travel at high speeds, the present means nothing: you live mainly in the future because you spend most of your time looking forward to arriving at some other place. But actual arrival, when it is achieved, is meaningless. You want to move on again. By traveling like this, you suspend all experience; the present ceases to be a reality: you might just as well be dead. The traveler on foot, on the other hand, lives constantly in the present. For him traveling and arriving are one and the same thing: he arrives somewhere with every step he makes. He experiences the present moment with his eyes, his ears and the whole of his body. At the end of his journey he feels a delicious physical weariness. He knows that sound. Satisfying sleep will be his: the just reward of all true travellers.1、Anthorpologists label nowadays men Legless becauseA people forget how to use his legs.B people prefer cars, buses and trains.C lifts and escalators prevent people from walking.D there are a lot of transportation devices.2、Travelling at high speed meansA peoples focus on the future.B a pleasure.C satisfying drivers great thrill.D a necessity of life.3、Why does the author say we are deprived of the use of our eyes ?A People wont use their eyes.B In traveling at high speed, eyes become useless.C People cant see anything on his way of travel.D People want to sleep during travelling.4、What is the purpose of the author in writing this passage?A Legs become weaker.B Modern means of transportation make the world a small place.C There is no need to use eyes.D The best way to travel is on foot.5. What does a birds-eye view mean?A See view with birds eyes.B A bird looks at a beautiful view.C It is a general view from a high position looking down.D A scenic place.答案AACDC38Photography and ArtThe earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photographs fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defence of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselvesanything but making works of art. They are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.Photographers disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art. For example, those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting. Much of photographys prestige today derives from the convergence of its aims with those of recent art, particularly with the dismissal of abstract art implicit in the phenomenon of Pop painting during the 1960s. Appreciating photographs is a relief to sensibilities tired of the mental exertions demanded by abstract art. Classical Modernist paintingthat is, abstract art as developed in different ways by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matissepresupposes highly developed skills of looking and a familiarity with other paintings and the history of art. Photography, like Pop painting, reassures viewers that art is not hard; photography seems to be more about its subjects than about art.Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activityin short, an art.1. What is the author mainly concerned with? The author is concerned withA. defining the Modernist attitude toward art.B. explaining how photography emerged as a fine art.C. explaining the attitude of serious contemporary photographers toward photography as art and placing those attitudes in their historical context.D. defining the various approaches that serious contemporary photographers take toward their art and assessing the value of each of those approaches.2. Which of the following adjectives best describes “the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism” as the author represents it in lines 1213?A. Objective B. Mechanical. C. Superficial. D. Paradoxical.3. Why does the author introduce Abstract Expressionist painter?A. He wants to provide an example of artists who, like serious contemporary photographers, disavowed traditionally accepted aims of modern art.B. He wants to set forth an analogy between the Abstract Expressionist painters and classical Modernist painters.C. He wants to provide a contrast to Pop artist and others.D. He wants to provide an explanation of why serious photography, like other contemporary visual forms, is not and should not pretend to be an art.4. How did the nineteenth-century defenders of photography stress the photography?A. They stressed photography was a means of making people happy. B. It was art for recording the world.C. It was a device for observing the world impartially.D. It was an art comparable to painting.答案CDAD39The Continuity of the Religious Struggle in BritainThough England was on the whole prosperous and hopeful, though by comparison with her neighbors she enjoyed internal peace, she could not evade the fact that the world of which she formed a part was torn by hatred and strife as fierce as any in human history. Men were still for from recognizing that two religions could exist side by side in the same society; they believed that the toleration of another religion different from their own. And hence necessarily false, must inevitably destroy such a society and bring the souls of all its members into danger of hell. So the struggle went on with increasing fury within each nation to impose a single creed upon every subject, and within the general society of Christendom to impose it upon every nation. In England the Reformers, or Protestants, aided by the power of the Crown, had at this stage triumphed, but over Europe as a whole Rome was beginning to recover some of the ground it had lost after Martin Luthers revolt in the earlier part of the century. It did this in two ways, by the activities of its missionaries, as in parts of Germany, or by the military might of the Catholic Powers, as in the Low Countries, where the Dutch provinces were sometimes near their last extremity under the pressure of Spanish arms. Against England, the most important of all the Protestant nations to reconquer, military might was not yet possible because the Catholic Powers were too occupied and divided: and so, in the 1570s Rome bent her efforts, as she had done a thousand years before in the days of Saint Augustine, to win England back by means of her missionaries.These were young Englishmen who had either never given up the old faith, or having done so, had returned to it and felt called to become priests. There being