【2006】Text 1opposites
In spite of “endless talk of difference,” American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. There is “the democratizing uniformity of dress and discour, and the casualness and abnce of deference” characteristic of popular cul ture. People are absorbed into “a culture of consumption” launched by the
19th-century department stores that offered “vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere. Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite,” the were stores “anyone co uld enter, regardless of class or background. This turned shopping into a public and democratic act.” The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization.
Immigrants are quickly fitting into this common culture, which may not be altogether elevating but is hardly poisonous. Writing for the National Immigration Forum, Gregory Rodriguez reports that today’s immigration is neither at unprecedented levels nor resistant to assimilation. In 1998 immigrants were 9.8 percent of population; in 1900, 13.6 percent. In the 10 years prior to 1990, 3.1 immigrants arrived for every 1,000 residents; in the 10 years prior to 1890, 9.2 for every 1,000. Now, consider three indices of assimilation -- language, home ownership and intermarriage.
The 1990 Ce nsus revealed that “a majority of immigrants from each of the fifteen most common countries of origin spoke English ‘well’ or ‘very well’ after ten years of residence.” The children of immigrants tend to be bilingual and proficient in English. “By the thir d generation, the original language is lost in the majority of immigrant families.” Hence the description of America as a “graveyard” for languages. By 1996 foreign-born immigrants who had arrived before 1970 had a home ownership rate of 75.6 percent, higher than the 69.8 percent rate among native-born Americans.
Foreign-born Asians and Hispanics “have higher rates of intermarriage than do U.S.-born whites and blacks.” By the third generation, one third of Hispanic women are married to non-Hispanics, and 41 percent of
Asian-American women are married to non-Asians.
Rodriguez notes that children in remote villages around the world are fans of superstars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Garth Brooks, yet “some Americans fear that immigrants living within the Uni ted States remain somehow immune to the nation’s assimilative power.”
Are there divisive issues and pockets of ething anger in America? Indeed. It is big enough to have
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a bit of everything. But particularly when viewed against America’s turbulent past, today’s social indices hardly suggest a dark and deteriorating social environment.
21. The word “homogenizing” (Line 2, Paragraph 1) most probably means ________.
[A] identifying [B] associating [C] assimilating [D] monopolizing
22. According to the author, the department stores of the 19th century ________.
[A] played a role in the spread of popular culture [B] became intimate shops for common consumers
[C] satisfied the needs of a knowledgeable elite[D] owed its emergence to the culture of consumption
23. The text suggests that immigrants now in the U.S. ________.
[A] are resistant to homogenization [B] exert a great influence on American culture
miss[C] are hardly a threat to the common culture [D] constitute the majority of the population
24. Why are Arnold Schwarzenegger and Garth Brooks mentioned in Paragraph 5?
[A] To prove their popularity around the world.
[B] To reveal the public’s fear of immigrants.
pandareader[C] To give examples of successful immigrants.
[D] To show the powerful influence of American culture
25. In the author’s opinion, the absorption of immigrants into American society is ________.
[A] rewarding [B] successful [C] fruitless [D] harmful
Text 2
Stratford-on-Avon, as we all know, has only one industry -- William Shakespeare -- but there are two distinctly parate and increasingly hostile branches. There is the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), which prents superb productions of the plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on the Avon. And there are the townsfolk who largely live off the tourists who come, not to e the plays, but to look at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare’s birthplace and the other sights.
The worthy residents of Stratford doubt that the theatre adds a penny to their revenue. They frankly dislike the RSC’s actors, them with their long hair and beards and sandals and noisiness. It’s all delic
iously ironic when you consider that Shakespeare, who earns their living, was himlf an actor (with a beard) and did his share of noi-making.
The tourist streams are not entirely parate. The sighters who come by bus -- and often take in Warwick Castle and Blenheim Palace on the side -- don’t usually e the plays, and some of them are even surprid to find a theatre in Stratford. However, the playgoers do manage a little sight-eing along with their playgoing. It is the playgoers, the RSC contends, who bring in much of the town’s revenue becau they spend the night (some of them four or five nights) pouring cash into the hotels and restaurants. The sighters can take in everything and get out of town by nightfall.
The townsfolk don’t e it this way and local council does not contribute directly to the subsidy of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford cries poor traditionally. Nevertheless every hotel in town ems to be adding a new wing or cocktail lounge. Hilton is building its own hotel there, which you may be sure will be decorated with Hamlet Hamburger Bars, the Lear Lounge, the Banquo Banqueting Room, and so forth, and will be very expensive.
Anyway, the townsfolk can’t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. (The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1,431 ats were 94 percent occupied all
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year lon g and this year they’ll do better.) The reason, of cour, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low.2015考研大纲下载
It would be a shame to rai prices too much becau it would drive away the young people who are Stratford’s most attractive clientele. They come entirely for the plays, not the sights. They all em to look alike (though they come from all over) -- lean, pointed, dedicated faces, wearing jeans and sandals, eating their buns and bedding down for the night on the flagstones outside the theatre to buy the 20 ats and 80 standing-room tickets held for the sleepers and sold to them when the box office opens at 10:
26. From the first two paragraphs, we learn that ________.
profile什么意思[A] the townsfolk deny the RSC’s contribution to the town’s re venue
[B] the actors of the RSC imitate Shakespeare on and off stage
[C] the two branches of the RSC are not on good terms
[D] the townsfolk earn little from tourism
27. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that ________.
[A] the sighters cannot visit the Castle and the Palace parately
[B] the playgoers spend more money than the sighters
[C] the sighters do more shopping than the playgoers
[D] the playgoers go to no other places in town than the theater
28. By saying “Stratford cries poor traditionally” (Line 2-3, Paragraph 4), the author implies that ________.
[A] Stratford cannot afford the expansion projects
[B] Stratford has long been in financial difficulties
[C] the town is not really short of money
[D] the townsfolk ud to be poorly paid
29. According to the townsfolk, the RSC derves no subsidy becau ________.
[A] ticket prices can be raid to cover the spending
[B] the company is financially ill-managed
[C] the behavior of the actors is not socially acceptable
[D] the theatre attendance is on the ri
30. From the text we can conclude that the author ________.
[A] is supportive of both sides [B] favors the townsfolk’s view
[C] takes a detached attitude [D] is sympathetic to the RSC
Text 3
When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals. They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.
That the as are being overfished has been known for years. What rearchers such as Ransom M
yers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some
long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.
Dr. Worm acknowledges that the figures are conrvative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today’s vesls can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the a is being caught, so the real difference between prent and past is likely to be wor than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, becau there are fewer sharks around now.
Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that o f the “shifting baline.” The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean becau they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters becau theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.
31. The extinction of large prehistoric animals is noted to suggest that ________.
[A] large animal were vulnerable to the changing environment
[B] small species survived as large animals disappeared
[C] large a animals may face the same threat today
[D] slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones
32. We can infer from Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm’s paper that ________.
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[A] the stock of large predators in some old fisheries has reduced by 90%
[B] there are only half as many fisheries as there were 15 years ago
[C] the catch sizes in new fisheries are only 20% of the original amount
[D] the number of larger predators dropped faster in new fisheries than in the old
33. By saying "the figures are conrvative" (Line 1, paragraph 3), Dr. Worm means that ________.
[A] fishing technology has improved rapidly
[B] the catch-sizes are actually smaller than recorded
[C] the marine biomass has suffered a greater loss
[D] the data collected so far are out of date
34. Dr. Myers and other rearchers hold that ________.
[A] people should look for a baline that can work for a longer time
[B] fisheries should keep their yields below 50% of the biomass
[C] the ocean biomass should be restored to its original level
[D] people should adjust the fishing baline to the changing situation
35. The author ems to b e mainly concerned with most fisheries’ ________.
[A] management efficiency [B] biomass level
[C] catch-size limits[D] technological application
Text 4路程
vtion
Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: art ists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choo to focus on the ones that feel bad.
This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are tho best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began eing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil.
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness becau modern times have en so much miry. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.
After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The ri of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.
People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of miry. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.
Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text mesngers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since the m
essages have an agenda -- to lure us to open our wallets -- they make the very idea o f happiness em unreliable. “Celebrate!” commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increa the risk of heart attacks.
