成人英语三级

Part II Reading Comprehension (40 points]

Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each of the passages is followed by 5 questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.

Passage One

Dorothea Dix left home at an early age of her own free will to live with her grandmother.

At fourteen, Dorothea was teaching school at Worcester, Massachusetts. A short time after she had begun teaching, she established a school for young girls in her grandparents’ home. Stress was placed on moral character at Dorothea’s school, which she conducted until she was thirty-three.

She was forced to give up teaching at her grandparents’ home, however, when she became ill. A few year of inactivity followed.

In 1841 Dorothea began to teach again, accepting a Sunday school class in the East Cambridge, in a Massachusetts’ jail. Here, she first came upon insane people locked up together with criminals.

In those days insane people were treated even worse than criminals. There were only a few asylums in the entire country. Therefore jails, poor houses, and houses of correction were used to confine the insane.

Dorothea Dix made a careful investigation of the inhuman treatment of the insane. It was considered unfit for a woman to devote herself to such work at this time. But this did not stop Dorothea Dix in her efforts to provide proper medical care for the insane.

Gradually, because of her investigations, conditions were improved. More than thirty mental institutions were founded or re-established in the United States because of her efforts. Dorothea also extended her investigations to England and to other parts of Europe.

During the Civil War, Dorothea served as superintendent of women hospital nurses in the Union army. When the war was over, she returned to her work of improving conditions for insane people.

16. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. The Treatment of Mental Illness.

B. The Life of a Young English Woman

C. An American Humanitarian

D. Social Problems of the Nineteenth Century

17. The word “stress” in Line 3 of Paragraph 2 could best be replaced by ________?

A. emphasis B. strain

C. relative loudness D. physical pressure

18. Dorothea Dix first become aware of the mistreatment of insane people when she __________.

A. taught Sunday school in a jail

B. worked in an insane asylum as a nurse.

C. had her grandmother treated mentally.

D. was asked to investigate the problem.

19. Which of the following statements about Dorothea Dix is true according to the passage?

A. She spent time studying criminal law.

B. People believed she shouldn’t help the insane.

C. She considered most criminals mentally unstable.

D. Her grandmother was a teacher.

20. The author implies that Dorothea Dix’s work with the insane was interrupted by _________.

A. an illness B. her trip to England

C. the Civil War D. her grandmother’s death

Passage Two

The faces of elderly, happily-married people sometimes resemble each other. Dr. Aiken studied a number of couples who had been married for at least twenty-five years. Each couple provided four photographs---one photo of each partner at the time of their marriage and another photo of each partner twenty-five or more years later. All background was cut from the photos to remove any clues. The photos were then displayed in groups: a random grouping of the persons at the time of their marriage and another random grouping of the same persons who took photographs later. Some testees were asked to pick out the partners. They failed totally with the first group. Their judgments were no better than chance. But with the photos taken twenty-five or more years after the marriage, the testees were quite successful in deciding who was married to whom. They were particularly successful with the most happily-married couples.

Dr. Aiken believes there are several reasons why couples grow alike. One reason has something to do with imitation. One person tends to copy or do the same as someone else without knowing it. He says human begins to imitate the expressions of the faces of their loved ones. Another possible reason, he says, is the common experience of the couples. There is a tendency for people who have the same life experience to change their faces in similar ways. For example, if a couple suffered from a lot of sad experiences, their faces are likely to change in a similar way.

21. The main purpose of the passage is to _____.

A. tell how couples like each other

B. show the life experience of husband and wife

C. explain why couples grow alike

D. describe the study on a number of married people

22. In the testing, Dr. Aiken cut the background from those photos for the purpose of _________.

A. grouping those couples again

B. leaving no trace for the testees

C. imitating those couples’ life

D. leaving the testees more chances

23. The testees failed to _____.

A. tell couples by looking at their photos taken when they got married

B. distinguish happily-married couples from sadly-married couples

C. discover the difference of each partner

D. understand Dr. Aiken's study thoroughly

24. It can be inferred from the study that ________.

A. life experiences tend to change one’s expression

B. shared experiences may leave good impressions

C. couples may learn from each other in sharing experiences

D. couples tend to love and hate the same thing in life

25. From the passage we can draw a conclusion that __________.

A. happily-married couples are often richer than other couples

B. couples who look alike can live longer

C. the influence between couples can be quite strong

D. all couples have been proved to grow alike

Passage Three

Public goods are those commodities whose enjoyment nobody can be effectively excluded. Everybody is free to enjoy the benefits of these commodities and one person’s use does not reduce the possibilities of anybody else’s enjoying the same good.

Examples of public goods are not as rare as one might expect. A flood control dam is a public good. Once the dam is built, all persons living in the area will benefit---regardless of their own contribution to the construction cost of the dam. The same holds true for highway signs or aids in navigation. Once a lighthouse is built, no ship of any nationality can be effectively excluded from use of the lighthouse for navigational purposes. National defence is another example. Even a person who voted against military costs or did not pay any taxes will benefit from the protection afforded.

It is no easy task to determine the social costs and social benefits associated with a public good. There is no practicable way of charging drivers for looking at highway signs, sailors for watching a lighthouse and citizens for the security provided to them through national defence. Because the market does not provide the necessary signals, economic study is to be replaced by the impersonal judgment of the marketplace.

26. What does the passage mainly discuss?

A. A specific group of commodities.

B. The economic structure of the marketplace.

C. Mechanism for safer navigation.

D. The advantage of lowering taxes.

27. Which of the following is NOT an example of a public good as described in the passage?

A. A stoplight. B. A bridge.

C. A fire truck. D. A taxicab.

28. The word “holds” in Line 4 of Paragraph 2 could best be replaced by __________.

A. has B. is

C. grasps D. carries

29. According to the passage, finding out the social costs of a public good is a _________.

A. matter of personal judgment

B. daily administrative duty

C. difficult procedure

D. citizen’s responsibility

30. Which of the following statements best describes the organization of the first two paragraphs?

A. A general concept is defined and then examples are given.

B. Generalizations are presented from which conclusions are drawn.

C. Persuasive language is used to argue against a popular idea.

D. Suggestions for the application of an economic concept are offered.

Passage Four

Money spent on advertising is money spent as well as any I know of. It serves directly to assist distribution of goods at reasonable prices, thereby establishing a firm home market and so making it possible to provide for export at competitive prices. By drawing attention to new ideas, it helps enormously to raise standards of living. By helping to increase demand, it ensures an increased need for labor, and is therefore an effective way to fight unemployment. It lowers the cost of many services: without ads your daily newspaper would cost four times as much, the price of your TV license would need to be doubled, and travel by bus or tube would cost fifty percent more.

And perhaps most important of all, ads provides a guarantee of reasonable value in the products and services you buy. Apart from the fact that twenty-seven Acts of Parliament govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dare promote products that fail to live up to the promise of his ads. He might fool some people for a little while through misleading ads. He will not do so for long, for mercifully the public has the good sense not to buy the inferior article more than once. If you see an article consistently advertised, it is the surest proof I know that the article does what is claimed for it, and that it represents good value.

Advertising does more for the material benefit of the community than any other force I can think of.

There is one more point I feel I ought to touch upon. Recently I heard a well-known TV personality declare that he was against advertising because it persuades rather than informs. He was drawing excessively fine distinctions. Of course advertising seeks to persuade.

If its message were confined merely to information---and that in itself would be difficult if not impossible to achieve, for even a detail such as the choice of color of a shirt is subtly persuasive---advertising would be so boring that no one would pay any attention. But perhaps that is what the well-known TV personality wants.

31. By the first sentence of the passage, the author means that __________.

A. he is quite familiar with the cost of advertising

B. everyone knows advertising is costly

C. advertising costs money like everything else

D. it is worthwhile to spend money on advertising

32. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT mentioned as the advantage of advertising?

A. Securing greater fame B. Providing more jobs

C. Enhancing living standards D. Reducing media cost

33. The author thinks that the well-known TV personality is _________.

A. very precise in his comment on ads

B. reasonable in making the comment

C. partial in his view of advertising

D. funny in misleading the audience

34. In the author’s opinion, __________.

A. advertising benefits people by providing information

B. advertising seldom misleads people with information

C. there is nothing wrong with ads in persuading buyers

D. advertising with only information is a waste of money

35. The author’s attitude to advertising is _________.

A. negative B. positive

C. ridiculous D. not clear

（责任编辑：lqh）

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