2012年学位英语考试考题
Part I Reading Comprehension
Passage 1
For centuries Dutch engineers have been fighting a war against water. Their main enemy is the a. A large part of the country is below a level. In fact, Holland is also called the “Netherlands” which means “low land.” Very tall and strong walls, called dykes, have built to keep out the a. But in very rough weather the a may suddenly burst through a dyke. Great damage can be caud by floods when this happens.
Three large rivers are also part of the problem. The rivers are the Rhine, the Maas and the Scheldt. They flow through Holland into the North Sea. They have cut many passages across the country. At low tides, the rivers flow into the a as usual. But at high tide, the a can flow into the rivers! This is becau the land is so low.
The battles against the water never end, but they have made Holland a bigger and bigger
country. In order to prevent floods, the engineers take or reclaim land that was under water. The Dutch have been reclaiming land for ven hundred years.
Land is usually reclaimed from a passage between islands. Two dykes are built across the passage, so they block the water between them. Then the engineers dig long canals and pump the water into them. At low tide, the canals empty the water into the a.
Becau the land is so low, water from the a and rivers can ri up through the ground. For this reason, the pumps continue working even the land has been drained (that is, when the water has been pumped away). The dykes contain gates, and through the the water is pumped out. In many parts of Holland, pumps must be working all the time. If they stopped, there will be very bad floods.
1. Water is the main threat to Holland becau ____.
脸上长脓包型痘痘 A. the a is too rough B. the land is lower than the a
C. the high and strong dykes can not keep the floods out D. the weather is too roug
含有春字的古诗h
2. “Netherlands” means ____.
形容春节的成语
A. high land B. land of water C. low land D. land of dykes
怎么下载歌曲
3. Holland is threatened not only by the a, but also by ____.
A. the floods from broken dykes B. the three rivers
C. the a tides D. many passages the three rivers have cut across the country
4. The Holland claim land from the a in order to ____.
A. prevent floods B. make their country larger
C. make their country more beautiful D. have more farmland
5. If pumps stop working there will be very bad floods becau _____.
A. the water will run back at high tide
B. the a may break the dykes in rough weather
C. the battle against water will never end
手连心象棋的规则
D. the land is too low and water can ri up through the drained land
Passage 2
The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century cafes of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Picasso talked about modem art. Without the metropolis晒课网, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare.
And yet, city life isn’t easy. Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are depressing. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs (损害) our basic mental process. After spending a few minutes on a cro让世界充满爱教案
wded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced lf-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting, this new rearch suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.
One of the main forces at work is a complete lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can e trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartments overlook a lawn. Even the glimps of nature improve brain performance, it ems, becau they provide a mental break from the urban life.
This rearch arrives just as humans cross an important milestone (里程碑). For the first time in history, the majority of people live in cities. Instead of inhabiting wide-open spaces, we’re crowded into concrete jungles, surrounded by traffic and millions of strangers. In recent years, it’s become clear that such unnatural surroundings have important implications for our mental and physical health, and can powerfully alter how we think.
