六级快速阅读模拟.doc

Part Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes) Entertainment in LondonBuying Books Londoners are great readers. They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and even of books especially paperbacks, which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever-increasing rises in the costs of printing. They still continue to buy proper books, too, printed on good paper and bound between hard covers. There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book-selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charing Cross Road in the very heart of London. Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found, from the celebrated one which boasts of being the biggest bookshop in the world to the tiny, dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens time. Many of them specialize in second-hand books, in art books, in foreign books, in books of philosophy, politics or any other of the various subjects about which books may be written. One shop in this area specializes solely in books about ballet! Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books, Charing Cross Road is not the cheapest. For the really cheap second-hand volumes, the collector must venture off the busy and crowded roads, to Farringdon Road in the East Central district of London. Here there is nothing so grand as bookshops. Instead, the booksellers come along each morning and tip out their sacks of books on to barrows(推车) which line the gutters(贫民区). And the collectors, some professional and some amateur, who have been waiting for them, pounce towards the sellers. In places like this one can still, occasionally, pick up for a few pence an old volume that may be worth many pounds. Both Charing Cross Road and Farringdon Road are well-known places of the book buyer. Yet all over London there are bookshops, in places not so well known, where the books are equally varied and exciting. It is in the sympathetic atmosphere of such shops that the loyal book buyer feels most at home. In these shops, even the life-long book-browser is frequently rewarded by the accidental discovery of previously unknown delights. One could, in fact, easily spend a lifetime exploring Londons bookshops. There are many less pleasant ways of spending time!Going to the Theatre London is very rich in theatres: there are over forty in the West End alone-more than enough to ensure that there will always be at least two or three shows running to suit every kind taste, whether serious or lighthearted. Some of them are specialist theatres. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where the great opera singers of the world can be heard, is the home of opera and the Royal Ballet. The London Coliseum now houses the English National Opera Company, which encourages English singers in particular and performs most operas in English at popular prices. Some theatres concentrate on the classics and serious drama, some on light comedy, some on musicals. Most theatres have a personality of their own, from the old, such as the Theatre Royal (also called the Haymarket) in the Haymarket, to the more modern such as the recently opened Baibican centre in the city. The National Theatre has three separate theatres in its new building by Waterloo Bridge. At the new Barbican centre the Royal Shakespeare Company has their London hometheir other centre is at Stratford-on-Avon. Most of the old London theatres are concentrated in a very small area, within a stones throw of the Piccadilly and Leicester Square tube stations. As the evening performances normally begin either at seven-thirty or eight p. m., there is a kind of minor rush-hour between seven-fifteen and eight oclock in this district. People stream out of the nearby tube stations, the pavements are crowded, and taxis and private cars maneuver into position as they drop theatre-goers outside the entrance to each theatre. There is another minor rush-hour when the performance finishes. The theatre in London is very popular and it is not always easy to get in to see a successful play. Before World War , theatre performances began later and a visit to the theatre was a more formal occasion. Nowadays very few people dress for the theatre (that is, wear formal evening dress) except for first nights or an important performance. The times of performance were put forward during the war and have not been put back. The existing times make the question of eating a rather tricky problem: one has to have either early dinner or late supper. Many restaurants in theatreland ease the situation by catering specially for early or late dinners. Television and the difficulty of financing plays have helped to close many theatres. But it seems that the worst of the situation is now over and that the theatre, after a period of decline, is about to pick up again. Although some quite large provincial towns do not have a professional theatre, there are others, such as Nottingham, Hull, Coventry or Newcastle, which have excellent companies and where a series of plays are performed during one season by a resident group of actors. Some towns such as Chichester or Edinburgh have theatres which give summer seasons. Even in small towns a number of theatres have been built in the last few years to cater for the local population.Music in Britain It is debatable whether the tastes of kings reflect those of their subjects. However, three English monarchs certainly shared their peoples linking for music. Richard (1157-1199), the Lionheart, composed songs that he sang with his musician, Blondel. It is said that when the king was a prisoner in Austria, Blondel found him by singing a song known only to him and the king, who took up the tune in the tower of the castle in which he was secretly imprisoned. Henry V (1491-1547), notorious for his six wives, was a skilled musician and some of his songs are still known and sung. Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and her husband, Prince Albert, delighted in singing ballads. The great composer and pianist Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a welcome guest at their court, where he would accompany the Queen and the Prince when they sang. The British love of music is often unfamiliar to foreigners, probably because there are few renowned British composers. The most famous is Henry Purcell (1658-1695), whose opera Dido and Aeneas is a classic. The rousing marching song Lillibulero attributed to Purcell, now used by BBC as an identification signal preceding Overseas Service news bulletins, was said to have sung James out of three kingdoms when he fled from Britain in 1688. Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is known for his choral and orchestral works, some of which have been made more widely known by the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), a composer with a very personal style, has become world-famous for such operatic works as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was deeply influenced by English folk music, as is shown by his variations on the old tune Green-sleeves (which most people consider a folk song). In recent years there has been a great revival of folk music, and groups specializing in its performance have sprung up all over Britain. This phenomenon has its roots in the work of Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), who collected folk songs and dances. Present-day concern with music is shown by the existence of something like a hundred summer schools in music, which cater for all grades of musicians, from the mere beginner to the skilled performer. These schools, where a friendly atmosphere reigns, provide courses lasting from a weekend to three or four weeks, and cover a wide range, from medieval and classical music to rock-and-roll and pop. There are also important musical festivals in towns such as Aldeburgh, Bath, and Cheltenham. Pop-music festivals draw thousands of people, especially young people. In the great cities there are resident world-famous orchestras and from all over the world great performers come to play or sing in Britain. In many towns there are brass bands, and the players are often such people as miners or members of the local fire brigade, for music in Britain is not just an elegant interest, it is above all democratic. 1. Which of the following do the great readers in London probably buy the least?A) NewspaperB) MagazineC) PaperbackD) Hardback2. Chafing Cross Road is very famous because_.A) all kinds of bookstores are along the streetsB) it lies right in the center of LondonC) they have the cheapest books in LondonD) the biggest bookstore in the world is there3. What can you learn about Farringdon Road?A) Its to the east of London.B) Its a street of bookstores.C) Its a center for second-hand books.D) Its where worthless books are sold.4. What does the author mean by saying some of them are specialist theatres?A) Those theatres only have operas showB) The theatres are especially good for their ballet showC) These theatres offer really affordable ticketD) They each hold a special type of play or show5. Because of the theatre performances, the area around Piccadilly and Leicester Square tube stations gets crowded_.A) before seven-thirtyB) between seven and eightC) at about eight oclockD) from seven-fifteen to eight6. What kind of change did World War I1 bring to the theatres?A) The putting forward of dinnerB) The costume of the performanceC) The time of the performanceD) The restaurants nearly offer different food7. What, according to the author, caused the decline of theatre business?A) There are not professional theatres in large provincial towns.B) During World War , a lot of theatres were destroyed.C) Some people begin to choose stay at home and watch TV.D) The performance of the plays is becoming worse and worse.8. According to the author, three music lovers of the royal family members are _9. The British love of music is not known to foreigners for_. 10. The courses offered by summer school in music where a friendly atmosphere reigns last _2Part Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)Freuds Study on “Human Mind”Most people often dream at night. When they wake in the morning they say to themselves, “What a strange dream I had! I wonder what made me dream that.”Sometimes dreams are frightening. Sometimes, in dreams, wishes come true. At other times we are troubled by strange dreams in which the world seems to have been turned upside-down and nothing makes sense.In dreams we do things which we would never do when were awake. We think and say things we would never think and say. Why are dreams so strange and unfamiliar? Where do dreams come from?No one has produced a more satisfying answer than a man called Sigmund Freud. He said that dreams come from a part of ones mind which one can neither recognize nor control. He named this the “unconscious mind” .Sigmund Freud was born about a hundred years ago. He lived most of his life in Vienna, Austria, but ended his days in London, soon after the beginning of the Second World War.The new worlds Freud explored were inside man himself. For the unconscious mind is like a deep well, full of memories and feelings. These memories and feelings have been stored there from the moment of our birth. Our conscious mind has forgotten them. We do not suspect that they are there until some unhappy or unusual experience causes us to remember, or to dream dreams. Then suddenly we see the same thing and feel the same way we felt when we were little children.This discovery of Freuds is very important if we wish to understand why people act as they do. For the unconscious forces inside us are at least as powerful as the conscious forces we know about. Sometimes we do things without knowing why. If we dont, the reasons may lie deep in our unconscious minds.When Freud was a child he cared about the sufferings of others, so it isnt surprising that he became a doctor when he grew up. He learned all about the way in which the human body works. But he became more and more curious about the human mind. He went to Paris to study with a famous French doctor, Charcot. At that time it seemed that no one knew very much about the mind. If a person went mad, or “out of his mind”, there was not much that could be done about it. People didnt understand at all what was happening to the madman. Had he been possessed by a devil or evil spirit? Was God punishing him for wrong-doing? Often such people were shut away from the ordinary people as if they had done some terrible crime.This is still true today in many places. Doctors prefer to experiment on those parts of a man which they can see and examine. If you cut a mans head open you can see his brain. But you cant see his thoughts or ideas or dreams.In Freuds day few doctors were interested in these subjects. Freud wanted to know how our minds work. He learned a lot from Charcot. He returned to Vienna in 1886 and began work as a doctor in nerve diseases. He got married and began to receive more and more patients at home. Most of the patients who came to see him were women. They were over-excited and anxious, sick in mind rather than in body. Medicine did not help them. Freud was full of sympathy but he could do little to make them better.Then one day a friend, Dr Josef Breuer, came to see him. He told Freud about a girl he was looking after. The girl seemed to get better when she was allowed to talk about herself. She told Dr Breuer everything that came into her mind. And each time she talked to him she remembered more about her life as a little child. Freud was excited when he heard this. He began to try to cure his patients in the same way. He asked about the events of their early childhood. He urged them to talk about their own experiences and relationships. He himself said very little. Often, as he listened, his patients relived moments from their past life. They trembled with anger and fear, hate and love. They acted as though Freud was their father or mother or lover.The doctor did not make any attempt to stop them. He quietly accepted whatever they told him, the good things and the bad. Also one young woman who came to him couldnt drink anything, although she was very thirsty. Something prevented her from drinking.Freud discovered the reason for this. One day, as they were talking, the girl remembered having seen a dog drink from her nurses glass. She hadnt told the nurse, whom she disliked. She had forgotten the whole experience. But suddenly this childhood memory returned to mind. When she had told it all to Dr Freudthe nurse, the dog, the glass of water the girl was able to drink again.Freud called this treatment the talking cure. Later it was called psychoanalysis. When patients talked freely about the things that were troubling them they often felt better.The things that patients told him sometimes gave Freud a shock. He discovered that the feelings of very young children are not so different from those of their parents. A small boy may love his mother so much that he wants to kill his father. At the same time he loves his father and is deeply ashamed of this wish. It is difficult to live with such mixed feelings, so they fade away into the unconscious mind and only return in troubled dreams.It was hard to believe that people could become blind, or lose the power of speech, because of what had happened to them when they were children.Freud was attacked from all sides for what he discovered. But he also found firm friends. Many people believed that he had at last found a way to unlock the secrets of the human mind, and to help people who were very miserable. He had found the answer to many of lifes great questions.He became famous all over the world and taught others to use the talking cure. His influence on modern art, literature and science cannot be measured. People who wrote books and plays, people who painted pictures and people who worked in schools, hospitals and prisons all learned something from the great man who discovered a way into the unconscious mind.Not all of Freuds ideas are accepted today. But others have followed where he led and have helped us to understand ourselves better. Because of him, and them, there is more hope today than there has ever been before for people who were once just called “crazy”.1. So far, Freud is the only one who can _.A) study humans thoughts, ideas and dreamsB) provide us the most satisfying reply to where dreams come fromC) tell us the reason why we will dream at nightD) offer us some help in mental problems2. Freud _.A) spent most of his life in Vienna as well as LondonB) ended his life after World War IIC) spend most of his life in Vienna, AustriaD) passed away in Austria before the World War 3. When Freud was a grown-up, _.A) he was more interested in human mind than the way the human body worksB) he focused his study on the human mind instead of human bodyC) he shifted his attention to the study of psychologyD) he was most interested in the study of how human body works4. In Freuds day, _.A) a number of doctors concentrated on the humans dreamsB) a lot of students admired Freuds study very muchC) no doctor would like to work with Freud togetherD) no doctors were interested in humans ideas, thoughts or dreams5. According to the passage, Dr Josef Breuer _.A) gave Freud some help in Freuds studyB) was one of the workmates of FreudC) was a doctor who