Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)

Section A

Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Complaints should be made to a responsible person. Go back to the shop where you bought the goods, taking with you any 26 you may have. Ask to see the buyer in a large store. In a small store the assistant may also be the owner so you can complain 27 . In a chain store ask to see the manager.

Even the bravest person finds it difficult to complain face to face, so if you do not want to do it in 28 , write a letter. Be sure to 29 to the facts and keep a copy of what you write. At this stage you should give any receipt numbers, but you should not need to give receipts or other papers to prove you bought the article. If you are not 30 with the answer you get, or if you do not get a reply, write to the managing director of the firm, shop, or organization. Be sure to keep copies of your own letters and any you receive.

If your complaint is a just one, the shopkeeper may offer to 31 or repair the faulty article. You may find this an 32 solution. In certain cases you may have the right to refuse the goods and ask for your money back, but this is only where you have hardly used the goods and have acted at once. Even when you cannot refuse the goods you may be able to get some money back as well. And if you have suffered some 33 loss, if for example a new washing machine tears your clothes, you might receive money to replace them. If the shopkeeper offers you a credit note to be used to buy goods in the same shops but you would rather have money, say so. If you accept a credit note remember that later you will not be able to ask for your money. If the shopkeeper refuses to give you money, ask for 34 from your Citizens' Advice Bureau before you accept a credit note. In some cases the shopkeeper does not have to give you your money back—if, for example, he changes an article simply because you don't like it or it does not fit. He does not have to take back the goods in these 35 .

A) intimate

B) attractive

C) person

D) attachment

E) satisfied

F) receipt

G) contaminate

H) replace

I) special

J) stick

K) vigorously

L) advice

M) circumstances

N) directly

O) petitions

Section B

Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

What Do the Humanities Teach Us?

A) Humanities professors have come up with a seemingly foolproof (无懈可击的) defense against those who trash degrees in, say, English literature or philosophy as wasted tuition dollars, one-way tickets to unemployment. Oh no, we say—the humanities prepare students to succeed in the working world just as well as all those alleged practical majors, maybe even better.

B) We offer tools of thought. We teach our students to understand and analyze complex ideas. We help them develop powers of expression, written and verbal. The lengthy essays we assign enhance their capacity to do independent work. At our best, we teach them how to reason—and reasoning undergirds (从底层加强，巩固) every successful professional project. In the short term, such a defense may seem effective. But it is dead wrong.

C) In the Chronicle of Higher Education, a distinguished humanities scholar recently wrote with pride about a student of his, a classics major, who wrote brilliantly on Spinoza yet plans to become a military surgeon. A recent article in Business Insider offered “11 Reasons to Ignore the Haters and Major in the Humanities.”For example: You'll be able to do things machines can't do in a service economy. You'll learn to explain and sell an idea. You'll stand out in the crowd in the coming STEM glut (供应过剩). In the same publication, Bracken Darrell, the chief executive of Logitech, talked about why he loves hiring English majors: “The best CEOs and leaders are extremely good writers and have this ability to articulate and verbalize what they're thinking.”

D) Some of my colleagues are getting quite aggressive about this line of reasoning. “I think we actually do a better job getting people ready for law school and business than the people in economics do,”a good friend who teaches humanities told me not long ago. It seems that there's no problem, then. Want success? Come on in, our tent flap is open.

E) But the humanities are not about success. They're about questioning success—and every important social value. Socrates taught us this, and we shouldn't forget it. Sure, someone who studies literature or philosophy is learning to think clearly and write well. But those skills are means to an end. That end, as Plato said, is learning how to live one's life. “This discussion is not about any chance question,”Plato's Socrates says in The Republic, “but about the way one should live.”

F) That's what's at the heart of the humanities—informed, thoughtful dialogue about the way we ought to conduct life. This dialogue honors no pieties: All positions are debatable; all values are up for discussion. Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks for the spirit of the humanities in Self-Reliance when he says that we “must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.”He will not accept what the world calls “good”without consideration. He'll look into it as Socrates did and see if it actually is good. When Montaigne doubts received opinions and asks himself what he really knows and what he does not, he is acting in the spirit of the humanities. “Que sais-Je?”or “What do I know?”was his motto.

G) Socrates, who probably concentrates the spirit of the humanities better than anyone, spent his time rambling around Athens asking people if they thought they were living virtuous lives. He believed that his city was getting proud and lazy, like an overfed thoroughbred horse, and that it needed him, the stinging gadfly (牛虻), to wake it up. The Athenians had to ask themselves if the lives they were leading really were good. Socrates didn't help them work their way to success; he helped them work their way to insight and virtue.

H) Now, Americans are in love with success—success for their children in particular. As a parent of sons in their 20s, I understand this and sympathize with it. But our job as humanists isn't to second whatever values happen to be in place in society. We're here to question those values and maybe—using the best that has been thought and said—offer alternatives.

I) We commonly think in binaries(对，双). Vanilla(香草) is the opposite of chocolate. The opposite of success—often defined today as high-status work and a big paycheck—is failure. But the great books tell us that this is not necessarily true. Think of Henry David Thoreau's life of voluntary poverty and his dedication to nature and writing. Some of my students have cultivated values similar to Thoreau's and have done so at least in Part through the study of the humanities. They've become environmental activists and park rangers. Or they have worked modestly paid jobs to spend all the time they can outdoors. They are not failures. Nor are those who work for the poor, or who explore their artistic talents, or who enlist in the military. These students are usually not in pursuit of traditional success. They have often been inspired by work they've encountered in humanities courses—and, for a time at least, they are choosing something other than middle-class corporate life.

J) The humanities are not against conventional success; far from it. Many of our students go on to distinguished careers in law and business. But I like to think they do so with a fuller social and self-awareness than most people. For they have approached success as a matter of debate, not as an idol of worship. They have considered the options. They have called “success”into question and, after due consideration, they have decided to pursue it. I have to imagine that such people are far better employees than those who have moved lockstep(因循守旧) into their occupations. I also believe that self-aware, questioning people tend to be far more successful in the long run.

K) What makes humanities students different isn't their power of expression, their capacity to frame an argument or their ability to do independent work. Yes, these are valuable qualities, and we humanities teachers try to cultivate them. But true humanities students are exceptional because they have been, and are, engaged in the activity that Plato commends—seeking to understand themselves and how they ought to lead their lives.

L) If some of our current defenders have their way, the humanities will survive, but in name only. The humanities will become synonymous(同义的) with unreflective training for corporate success. What would Socrates think?

36．According to Plato, the ultimate goal of studying the humanities is to learn how to live one's life.

37．The chief executive of Logitech loves hiring English majors because he thinks they excel in writing and expressing.

38．Humanities professors disagree with the opinion that students who major in the humanities will have trouble obtaining jobs.

39．Socrates might be the one who valued the spirit of the humanities most as he guided the Athenians to live virtuous lives.

40．What makes humanities students excellent is that they endeavor to be self-aware and figure out how they should live.

41．The author thinks that people who know themselves well and like to question are more inclined to be successful in the future.

42．Montaigne tries to act in the spirit of the humanities by doubting received opinions and questioning his own knowledge.

43．The author takes Thoreau as an example to illustrate that being rich does not necessarily mean success and being poor does not necessarily mean failure.

44．In Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson refuses to accept something “good”blindly and calls on people to first explore the goodness of things.

45．The author holds that their job as humanists is to question the popular values in society and provide people with various choices.

Section C

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C), and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.

Variety is the spice of language. The words listed in this book are not intended to replace those that most people use most of the time. Rather, they are variations on the theme. We tend to use the same old words over and over again, to limit our powers of expression by limiting our vocabulary. There is nothing wrong with the “old words”, but why not enhance your speech and writing by learning to use new ones from time to time as alternatives?

How often have you spoke of having an accident? Why not use the alternative mishap (小事故) once in a while? Everyone talks of the usual thing to do or expect. Might not one, to enrich his speech, speak of the customary thing? Or why not occasionally describe a situation as aggravated instead of worsened?

Don't throw away the “old words”. Vary them with the “new words”. English is an especially rich language, and often there are delicate shades of difference between two words that are generally regarded as equivalent or synonymous. Thus, a mishap is not merely an accident; it is an unfortunate accident. (There can be fortunate accidents, like bumping into an old friend you haven't seen for years and whose address you've lost.) So, in using mishap instead of accident, you must be sure of the distinction. Again, you'd never say “as customary”rather than “as usual”, because the latter phrase has become art of the language. But wouldn't it sometimes be pleasant and perhaps more interesting to describe a kind act by someone as having been done with his customary rather than his usual thoughtfulness? Other examples: fragrant, for smelling good, or having a nice smell; morsel, for bit; wayward, for disobedient; deft, for skillful or clever.

No doubt a good many words in the list will be familiar to you, but do you use them, or do they remain the “property”of others? They are included to introduce variety, and, more often than not, subtle shades of meaning into your speech and writing. Try to make these words your own, as companions or friendly rivals of the ones you have managed with in the past. Let them compete, and make your language all the richer.

Many words have more than one meaning. In such cases, I have given the meaning or meanings most likely to be used in everyday speech, omitting the rest. As an example, the word docile means not only “easily led”or “manageable”, but also “easily taught”or “teachable”. (Docile comes from the Latin docilis, whose first meaning is “teachable”, and is based on the Latin verb docere, meaning to teach, a form of which, doctus, meaning “taught”, gave us our word doctor.) In this book, only the meaning “easy to manage or lead”is given, because the other use “teachable”is very rare in everyday English usage. Or take ghastly, which means “ghostlike”as well as “horrible, dreadful”(as in a ghastly accident or a ghastly mistake). The first meaning is sufficiently rare, for the purposes of this book, to warrant omission.

46．What will happen if we confine ourselves to words we always use?

A) Our expression ability will be affected.

B) Our mind will be narrowed down.

C) Our interest in learning will be discouraged.

D) Our emotional world will be restricted.

47．According to the passage, English is a rich language in that______.

A) a lot of its words are from various languages

B) there are minor differences between even equivalents

C) its words are blended by the old and new words together

D) its words are grouped according to their differences in meanings

48．When we turn to some expressions which are less frequently used, we______.

A) may find them amusing and interesting

B) always feel unsure and worried

C) are not accustomed to the switch

D) probably feel strange and dismayed

49．According to the author, words______.

A) add shades of color to our social life

B) are also a kind of assets to people

C) cannot be owned by speakers if not used

D) also compete with each other for survival

50．From the word “docile”, we can see that______.

A) some words convey completely opposite meanings

B) Latin makes up the most important root for English words

C) its rare meaning is also given in the dictionary

D) some English words derive from Latin

Passage Two

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.

There can be few more depressing stories in the entire history of man's exploitation of nature than the destruction of the unfortunate great whales. The whales have not only suffered untold cruelty but now face total extermination (灭绝). Already entire populations have been wiped out, and the only reason why no species has yet been finished off is due to the vastness and inaccessibility (难到达) of the oceans; a pocket or two somewhere has always managed to escape. How ironic if biological extinction were to complete the job.

The basic rule of extinction is very simple: it occurs when a species mortality is continually greater than its recruitment. There are though, some very special additional factors in the case of whales.

Man does not actually have to kill the last whales of a species with his own hands, as it were, to cause its disappearance. Biological extinction will quickly follow the end of commercial whaling, should that end be due to a shortage of raw material, i.e. of whales. Whalers have long sought to defend their wretched trade by insisting that whales are automatically protected: as soon as they become rare, and therefore uneconomic to pursue, man will have no choice but to stop the hunting. That is a very nice theory, but it is the theory of an accountant and not of a biologist; only an accountant could apply commercial economics to complex biological systems. The reasons for its absurdity are many and varied. In the case of whaling it can be summed up in the following way.

When the stock has been reduced below a critical level, a natural, possibly unstoppable downward spiral begins because of three main factors. First, the animals lucky enough to survive the slaughter will be too scattered to locate one another owning to the vastness of the oceans. Secondly, whales being sociable animals probably need the stimulus of sizeable gatherings to induce reproductive behavior. It is quite likely that two individuals meeting through chance will not be compatible. (They can hardly be expected to be aware of their own rarity or to realize any need for adjusting their natural inclinations.) This is especially so with polygamous (一夫多妻的) species like the Sperm Whale. Thirdly, and perhaps most important in the long term, even allowing that the whales might still be able to band together in socially acceptable groups (thanks to their undeniably excellent communicative systems), there is a real danger, possibly even a probability, that the whales' gene pools would by then have sunk so low as to be biologically unviable. That is to say, the characteristics possessed by the original population would be whittled down to those characters possessed by only the few remaining individuals. The result of such a biological disaster is inbreeding(近亲繁殖), less ability to adapt to new conditions, and less individual variety. Three words can sum it up: permanent biological extinction. The future “hopes”of these animals are further discussed in the final chapter.

51．According to the passage, the extinction of whales is caused by______.

A) man's continuous evolution process

B) people's excessive hunting and killing

C) the changing living conditions in nature

D) the demand from a booming economy

52．What can we infer from the basic rule of extinction?

A) Whales die more than they are born each year.

B) Whales' reproductive ability remains a very low rate.

C) The species of whales is doomed to extinction.

D) Whales' death rate keeps an increasing trend.

53．In whale hunters' eyes, whales' numbers can be adjusted by______.

A) people's growing awareness of the balance between ecology and business

B) their theory which has been derived from life experiences

C) a flexible biological system in which all species survive

D) the change of balance between market need and the amount of whales

54．What will happen if whale numbers drop to a certain degree?

A) The number will bounce back at a certain point.

B) Whales begin to adapt to new living conditions.

C) The extinction of whales becomes unavoidable.

D) A biological disaster will come to the earth.

55．If whales scatter in the vast sea,______.

A) they will be destined to find the opposite sex

B) their gene pool will be on the edge of destruction

C) their chances of reproducing will be reduced

D) they cannot be the ideal ones to follow