Section II Reading Comprehension

Part A

Directions:

Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)

Text 1

①In spite of“endless talk of difference,”American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. ②There is“the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference”characteristic of popular culture. ③People are absorbed into“a culture of consumption”launched by the 19th century department stores that offered“vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere. ④Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite”these were stores“anyone could enter, regardless of class or background. ⑤This turned shopping into a public and democratic act.”⑥The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization.

①Immigrants are quickly fitting into this common culture, which may not be altogether elevating but is hardly poisonous. ②Writing for the National Immigration Forum, Gregory Rodriguez reports that today’s immigration is neither at unprecedented levels nor resistant to assimilation. ③In 1998 immigrants were 9.8 percent of the population; in 1900, 13.6 percent. ④In 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. ⑤Now, consider three indices of assimilation—language, home ownership and intermarriage.

①The 1990 Census 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.”②The children of immigrants tend to be bilingual and proficient in English. ③“By the third generation, the original language is lost in the majority of immigrant families.”④Hence the description of America as a“graveyard”for languages. ⑤By 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.

①Foreign-born Asians and Hispanics“have higher rates of intermarriage than do U.S.-born whites and blacks.”②By 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.

①Rodriguez 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 United States remain somehow immune to the nation’s assimilative power.”

①Are there divisive issues and pockets of seething anger in America? ②Indeed. ③It is big enough to have a bit of everything. ④But 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 1, 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

[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.

[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

①Stratford-on-Avon, as we all know, has only one industry—William Shakespeare—but there are two distinctly separate and increasingly hostile branches. ②There is the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), which presents superb productions of the plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on the Avon. ③And there are the townsfolk who largely live off the tourists who come, not to see the plays, but to look at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare’s birthplace and the other sights.

①The worthy residents of Stratford doubt that the theatre adds a penny to their revenue. ②They frankly dislike the RSC’s actors, them with their long hair and beards and sandals and noisiness. ③It’s all deliciously ironic when you consider that Shakespeare, who earns their living, was himself an actor (with a beard) and did his share of noise-making.

①The tourist streams are not entirely separate. ②The sightseers who come by bus—and often take in Warwick Castle and Blenheim Palace on the side—don’t usually see the plays, and some of them are even surprised to find a theatre in Stratford. ③However, the playgoers do manage a little sight-seeing along with their playgoing. ④It is the playgoers, the RSC contends, who bring in much of the town’s revenue because they spend the night (some of them four or five nights) pouring cash into the hotels and restaurants. ⑤The sightseers can take in everything and get out of town by nightfall.

①The townsfolk don’t see it this way and the local council does not contribute directly to the subsidy of the Royal Shakespeare Company. ②Stratford cries poor traditionally. ③Nevertheless every hotel in town seems to be adding a new wing or cocktail lounge. ④Hilton 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.

①Anyway, the townsfolk can’t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. ②(The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1,431 seats were 94 percent occupied all year long and this year they’ll do better.) ③The reason, of course, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low.

①It would be a shame to raise prices too much because it would drive away the young people who are Stratford’s most attractive clientele. ②They come entirely for the plays, not the sights. ③They all seem 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 seats and 80 standing-room tickets held for the sleepers and sold to them when the box office opens at 10:30 a.m.

26. From the first two paragraphs, we learn that__________.

[A] the townsfolk deny the RSC’s contribution to the town’s revenue

[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 sightseers cannot visit the Castle and the Palace separately

[B] the playgoers spend more money than the sightseers

[C] the sightseers do more shopping than the playgoers

[D] the playgoers go to no other places in town than the theatre

28. By saying“Stratford cries poor traditionally”(Line 2, 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 used to be poorly paid

29. According to the townsfolk, the RSC deserves no subsidy because__________.

[A] ticket prices can be raised 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 rise

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

①When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals: they suddenly became extinct. ②Smaller species survived. ③The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. ④Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.

①That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. ②What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. ③They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. ④Their 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. ⑤According 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. ⑥In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.

①Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative. ②One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. ③Today’s vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. ④That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. ⑤In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. ⑥Some 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. ⑦Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. ⑧That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now.

①Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. ②They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the“shifting baseline”. ③The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. ④That matters because 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. ⑤Most 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 animals were vulnerable to the changing environment

[B] small species survived as large animals disappeared

[C] large sea 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__________.

[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 large predators dropped faster in new fisheries than in the old

33. By saying“these figures are conservative”(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 researchers hold that__________.

[A] people should look for a baseline that can work for a longer time

[B] fisheries should keep their yield below 50% of the biomass

[C] the ocean biomass should be restored to its original level

[D] people should adjust the fishing baseline to the changing situation

35. The author seems to be mainly concerned with most fisheries’__________.

[A] management efficiency

[B] biomass level

[C] catch-size limits

[D] technological application

Text 4

①Many things make people think artists are weird. ②But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.

①This wasn’t always so. ②The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. ③But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil.

①You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen so much misery. ②But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. ③The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.

①After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? ②Advertising. ③The rise 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.

①People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. ②They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. ③In 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. ④Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.

①Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. ②Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. ③Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. ④And since these messages have an agenda—to lure us to open our wallets—they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. ⑤“Celebrate!”commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.

①But what we forget—what our economy depends on us forgetting—is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. ②The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. ③Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. ④It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.

36. By citing the examples of poets Wordsworth and Baudelaire, the author intends to show that__________.

[A] poetry is not as expressive of joy as painting or music

[B] art grows out of both positive and negative feelings

[C] poets today are less skeptical of happiness

[D] artists have changed their focus of interest

37. The word“bummer”(Line 5, Paragraph 5) most probably means something__________.

[A] religious

[B] unpleasant

[C] entertaining

[D] commercial

38. In the author’s opinion, advertising__________.

[A] emerges in the wake of the anti-happy art

[B] is a cause of disappointment for the general public

[C] replaces the church as a major source of information

[D] creates an illusion of happiness rather than happiness itself

39. We can learn from the last paragraph that the author believes__________.

[A] happiness more often than not ends in sadness

[B] the anti-happy art is distasteful but refreshing

[C] misery should be enjoyed rather than denied

[D] the anti-happy art flourishes when economy booms

40. Which of the following is true of the text?

[A] Religion once functioned as a reminder of misery.

[B] Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.

[C] People feel disappointed at the realities of modern society.

[D] Mass media are inclined to cover disasters and deaths.

Part B

Directions:

In the following article, some segments have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There are two extra choices, which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)

On the north bank of the Ohio River sits Evansville, Ind., home of David Williams, 52, and of a riverboat casino (a place where gambling games are played). During several years of gambling in that casino, Williams, a state auditor earning $35,000 a year, lost approximately $175,000. He had never gambled before the casino sent him a coupon for $20 worth of gambling.

He visited the casino, lost the $20 and left. On his second visit he lost $800. The casino issued to him, as a good customer, a“Fun Card,”which when used in the casino earns points for meals and drinks, and enables the casino to track the user’s gambling activities. For Williams, those activities became what he calls“electronic heroin.”

(41)____________________In 1997 he lost $21,000 to one slot machine in two days. In March 1997 he lost $72,186. He sometimes played two slot machines at a time, all night, until the boat docked at 5 a.m., then went back aboard when the casino opened at 9 a.m. Now he is suing the casino, charging that it should have refused his patronage because it knew he was addicted. It did know he had a problem.

In March 1998 a friend of Williams’s got him involuntarily confined to a treatment center for addictions, and wrote to inform the casino of Williams’s gambling problem. The casino included a photo of Williams among those of banned gamblers, and wrote to him a“cease admissions”letter. Noting the“medical/psychological”nature of problem gambling behaviors, the letter said that before being readmitted to the casino he would have to present medical/psychological information demonstrating that patronizing the casino would pose no threat to his safety or well-being.

(42)____________________

The Wall Street Journal reports that the casino has 24 signs warning:“Enjoy the fun...and always bet with your head, not over it.”Every entrance ticket lists a toll-free number for counseling from the Indiana Department of Mental Health. Nevertheless, Williams’s suit charges that the casino, knowing he was“helplessly addicted to gambling,”intentionally worked to“lure”him to“engage in conduct against his will.”Well.

(43)____________________

The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says“pathological gambling”involves persistent, recurring and uncontrollable pursuit less of money than of the thrill of taking risks in quest of a windfall.

(44)____________________Pushed by science, or what claims to be science, society is reclassifying what once were considered character flaws or moral failings as personality disorders akin to physical disabilities.

(45)____________________

Forty-four states have lotteries, 29 have casinos, and most of these states are to varying degrees dependent on—you might say addicted to—revenues from wagering. And since the first Internet gambling site was created in 1995, competition for gamblers’ dollars has become intense. The Oct. 28 issue of Newsweek reported that 2 million gamblers patronize 1,800 virtual casinos every week. With $3.5 billion being lost on Internet wagers this year, gambling has passed pornography as the Web’s most profitable business.

[A] Although no such evidence was presented, the casino’s marketing department continued to pepper him with mailings. And he entered the casino and used his Fun Card without being detected.

[B] It is unclear what luring was required, given his compulsive behavior. And in what sense was his will operative?

[C] By the time he had lost $5,000 he said to himself that if he could get back to even, he would quit. One night he won $5,500, but he did not quit.

[D] Gambling has been a common feature of American life forever, but for a long time it was broadly considered a sin, or a social disease. Now it is a social policy: the most important and aggressive promoter of gambling in America is the government.

[E] David Williams’s suit should trouble this gambling nation. But don’t bet on it.

[F] It is worrisome that society is medicalizing more and more behavioral problems, often defining as addictions what earlier, sterner generations explained as weakness of will.

[G] The anonymous, lonely, undistracted nature of online gambling is especially conducive to compulsive behavior. But even if the government knew how to move against Internet gambling, what would be its grounds for doing so?

Part C

Directions:

Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)

Is it true that the American intellectual is rejected and considered of no account in his society? I am going to suggest that it is not true. Father Bruckberger told part of the story when he observed that it is the intellectuals who have rejected America. But they have done more than that. They have grown dissatisfied with the role of intellectual. It is they, not America, who have become anti-intellectual.

First, the object of our study pleads for definition. What is an intellectual? (46) I shall define him as an individual who has elected as his primary duty and pleasure in life the activity of thinking in Socratic (苏格拉底的) way about moral problems . He explores such problems consciously, articulately, and frankly, first by asking factual questions, then by asking moral questions, finally by suggesting action which seems appropriate in the light of the factual and moral information which he has obtained. (47) His function is analogous to that of a judge, who must accept the obligation of revealing in as obvious a manner as possible the course of reasoning which led him to his decision .

This definition excludes many individuals usually referred to as intellectuals—the average scientist, for one. (48) I have excluded him because, while his accomplishments may contribute to the solution of moral problems, he has not been charged with the task of approaching any but the factual aspects of those problems . Like other human beings, he encounters moral issues even in the everyday performance of his routine duties—he is not supposed to cook his experiments, manufacture evidence, or doctor his reports. (49) But his primary task is not to think about the moral code,which governs his activity, any more than a businessman is expected to dedicate his energies to an exploration of rules of conduct in business . During most of his waking life he will take his code for granted, as the businessman takes his ethics.

The definition also excludes the majority of teachers, despite the fact that teaching has traditionally been the method whereby many intellectuals earn their living. (50) They may teach very well and more than earn their salaries, but most of them make little or no independent reflections on human problems which involve moral judgment . This description even fits the majority of eminent scholars. Being learned in some branch of human knowledge is one thing; living in“public and illustrious thoughts,”as Emersion would say, is something else.