模拟题精练.doc

文都教育辅导班资料2006年春季东刚四级级三选一模拟题精练Passage 1 The fridge is considered a necessity, it has been so since the 1960s when packaged food first appeared with the label: “Store in the refrigerator.” In my fridgeless Fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthy. The milkman came daily, the grocer, the butcher (肉商), the baker, and the ice-cream man delivered two or three times a week. The Sunday meat would last until Wednesday and surplus (剩余的) bread and milk became all kinds of cakes. Nothing was wasted, and we were never troubled by rotten food. Thirty years on, food deliveries have ceased, fresh vegetables are almost unobtainable in the country. The invention of the fridge contributed comparatively little to the art of food preservation. A vast way of well-tried techniques already existednatural cooling, drying, smoking, salting, sugaring, bottling. What refrigeration did promote was marketingmarketing hardware and electricity, marketing soft drinks, marketing dead bodies of animals around the globe in search of a good price. Consequently, most of the worlds fridges are to be found, not in the tropics where they might prove useful, but in the wealthy countries with mild temperatures where they are climatically almost unnecessary. Every winter, millions of fridges hum away continuously, and at vast expenses, busily maintaining an artificially-cooled space inside an artificially-heated housewhile outside, nature provides the desired temperature free of charge. The fridges effect upon the environment has been evident, while its contribution to human happiness has been insignificant. If you don t believe me, try it yourself. Invest in a food cabinet and turn off your fridge next winter. You may miss the hamburgers (汉堡包), but at least youll get rid of that terrible hum.Questions:1. The statement “In my fridgeless Fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthy.” suggests that _. 2. Why does the author say that nothing was wasted before the invention of fridegs? 3. Who benefited the least from fridges according to the author? 4. Which phrase in the fifth paragraph indicated the fridges negative effect on the environment? 5. What is the authors overall attitude toward fridges? Passage 2 Before a new airliner goes into service, every part of it is tested again and again. But there are two tests that are more important than all the others. One of them is very strange and the other is very dangerous. The first of these is called the “tank test”. A modern airliner must fly at very high altitudes. Air must be pumped into the plane so that the passengers can breathe. The metal structure of the plane has to be very strong for this reason. When the plane is filled with air, the air presses against the skin of the plane inside. The pressure on a small window, for example, is like a huge, giant foot that is trying to get out. If a small part of the plane were to crack, the plane would explode in the sky. In order to test the structure of the plane, it is lowered into a huge tank of water. Then it is filled with air. The pressure inside the plane is greater than it ever will be when it is in the air. Finally, there is an explosion. This does not cause so much damage inside the water tank as it would anywhere else. Engineers can discover which part of the plane has cracked. This part is made stronger. The most dangerous test happens when the new plane is going through test flights in the air. The test pilot must find out exactly what happens when all the engines are shut off at once. He takes the plane up very high. Then he shuts the engine off. The plane begins to fall like a stone. It is the pilots job to find out how he can get control of the plane again.Questions:1. Before a new airliner goes into service, there are two important tests which can be described as _ and _ respectively.2. The purpose of the tank test is to find out if there are any weak parts that _.3. The plane lowered into a huge tank of water for the first important test because there would be less damage when _.4. When is the second important test made?5. In what sense is the second test most dangerous?Passage 3 A growing worlds population and the discoveries of science may alter this pattern of distribution in the future. As men slowly learn to master disease, control floods, prevent famines, and stop wars, fewer people die every year; and in consequence the population of the world is steadily increasing. When numbers rise, the extra mouths must be fed. New lands must be brought under cultivation, or land already farmed made to yield larger crops. In some areas the accessible land is largely so intensively cultivated that it will be difficult to make it provide more food. In some areas the population is so dense that the land is parceled out in units too tiny to allow for much improvement in farming methods. Were a large part of this farming population drawn off into industrial occupations, the land might be farmed much more productively by modern methods. There is now a race for science, technology, and industry to keep the output of food rising faster than the number of people to be fed. New strains of crops are being developed which will thrive in unfavorable climates: there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle in Siberia and North America; irrigation and dry-farming methods bring arid lands under the plough, dams hold back the waters of great rivers to ensure water for the fields in all seasons and to provide electric power for new industries; industrial chemicals to destroy locusts and many plant diseases. Every year some new means are devised to increase or to protect the food of the world.Questions:1. Why is the worlds population growing?2. On what condition might the land be more productively farmed?3. How has it been made possible that there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle?4. What does the word “strains” (Line 3, Para. 3) mean?5. What does the passage focus on?Answer Key to ExercisesPassage 11. There was no fridge in the authors home in 1950s.1. Because people had effective ways to preserve their food.2. Co