) are isolated by the local people
B) are not well informed due to the language barrier
C) tend to get along well with the natives
D)need interpreters in hotels and restaurants
24. According to the author, Americans ' cultural blindness and linguistic ignorance will ____.
A) affect their image in the new era
B) cut themselves off from the outside world
C) limit their role in world affairs
D) weaken the position of the US dollar
25. The author ' s intention in writing this article is to make Americans realize that ____.
A) it is dangerous to ignore their foreign friends
B) it is important to maintain their leading role in world affairs
C) it is necessary to use several languages in public places
D) it is time to get acquainted with other cultures
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
In department stores and closets all over the world, they are waiting. Their outward appearance seems rather appealing because they come in a variety of styles, textures, and colors. But they are ultimately the biggest deception that exists in the fashion industry today. What are they? They are high heels — a woman ' s worst enemy (whether she knows it or not). High heel shoes are the downfall of modern society. Fashion myths have led women society. Fashion myths have led women to believe that they are more beautiful or sophisticated for wearing heels, but in reality, heels succeed in posing short as well as long term hardships. Women should fight the high heel industry by refusing to use or purchase them in order to save the world from unnecessary physical and psychological suffering.
For the sake of fairness, It must be noted that there is a positive side to high heels. First, heels are excellent for aerating( 使通气 )lawns. Anyone who has ever worn heels on grass knows what I am talking about. A simple trip around the yard in a pair of those babies eliminates all need to call for a lawn care specialist, and provides the perfect-sized holes to give any lawn oxygen without all those messy chunks of dirt lying around. Second, heels are quite functional for defense sharp, deadly fashion accessories.
Regardless of such practical uses for heels, the fact remains that wearing high heels is harmful to one ' s physical health. Talk to any podiatrist ( 足病医生 ), and you will hear that the majority of their business comes from high-heel-wearing women. High heels are known to cause problems such as deformed feet and torn toenails. The risk of severe back problems and twisted or broken ankles is three times higher for a flat shoe wearer. Wearing heels also creates the threat of getting a heel caught in a sidewalk crack or a sewer-grate ( 阴沟栅 )and being thrown to the ground-possibly breaking a nose, back, or neck. And of course, after wearing heels for a day, any woman knows she can look forward to a night of pain as she tries to comfort her swollen, aching feet.
26. What makes women blind to the deceptive nature of high heels?
A) The multi-functional use of high heels.
B) Their attempt to show off their status.
C) The rich variety of high heel styles.
D) Their wish to improve their appearance.
27. The author ' s presentation of the positive side of high heels is meant ____.
A) to be ironic
B) to poke fun at women
C) to be fair to the fashion industry
D) to make his point convincing
28. The author uses the expression “ those babies ” (Line 3, Para. 2) to refer to high heels ____.
A) to show their fragile characteristics
B) to indicate their feminine features
C) to show women ' s affection for them
D) to emphasize their small size
29. The author ' s chief argument against high heels is that ____.
A) they pose a threat to lawns
B) they are injurious to women ' s health
C) they don ' t necessarily make women beautiful
D) they are ineffective as a weapon of defense
30. It can be inferred from the passage that women should ____.
A) see through the very nature of fashion myths
B) boycott the products of the fashion industry
C) go to a podiatrist regularly for advice
D) avoid following fashion too closely
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy. These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient 27 million Americans cannot read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our society.
But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the middle - class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading. It has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America ' s literate, educated teenagers can no longer read without an accompanying noise(music)in the background or a television screen flickering ( 闪烁 ) at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, solitude ( 独处的状态 )goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic ( 心理的 ), and social transformations probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still being debated. The information revolution will touch every fact of composition, publication distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will happen to the book as we ' ve known it.
31. The picture of the reading ability of the American people, drawn by the author, is ____.
A) rather bleakB) fairly bright
C) very impressiveD) quite encouraging
32. The author ' s biggest concern is ____.
A) elementary school children ' s disinterest in reading classics
B) the surprisingly low rate of literacy in the U.S.
C) the musical setting American readers require for reading
D) the reading ability and reading behavior of the middle class
33. A major problem with most adolescents who can read is ____.
A) their fondness of music and TV programs
B) their ignorance of various forms of art and literature
C) their lack of attentiveness and basic understanding
D) their inability focus on conflicting input
34. The author claims that the best way a reader can show admiration for a piece of poetry or prose is ____.
A) to be able to appreciate it and memorize it
B) to analyze its essential feature
C) to think it over conscientiously
D) to make a fair appraisal of its artistic value
35. About the future of the arts of reading the author feels ____.
A) upsetB) uncertain
C) alarmedD) pessimistic
Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
For centuries, explorers have risked their lives venturing into the unknown for reasons that were to varying degrees economic and nationalistic. Columbus went west to look for better trade routes to the Orient and to promote the greater glory of Spain , Lewis and Clark journeyed into the Amierican wilderness to find out what the U.S had acquired when it purchased Louisianan, and the Appolo astronauts rocketed to the moon in a dramatic show of technological muscle during the cold war.
Although their missions blended commercial and political -military imperatives, the explorers involved all accomplished some significant science simply by going where no scientists had gone before. Today Mars looms( 隐约出现 )as humanity ' s next great terra incognita( 未探明之地 ). And with doubtful prospects for a short-term financial return, with the cold War a rapidly fading memory and amid a growing emphasis on international cooperation in large space ventures, it is clear that imperatives other than profits or Nationalism will have to compel human beings to leave their tracks on the planet ' s reddish surface. Could it be that science, which has long played a minor tole in exploration, is at last destined to take a leading role? The question naturally invites a couple of others: Are there experiments that only human could do on Mars? Could those experiments provide insights profound enough to justify the expense of sending people across interplanetary space?
With Mars the scientific stakes are arguably higher than they have ever been. The issue of whether life ever existed on the planet, and whether it persists to this day, has heen highlighted by mounting evidence that the Red Planet once had ahundant stable, liquid water and by the continuing controversy over suggestions that bacterial fossil
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