第四部分：閱讀理解(第31~45題，每題3分，共45分)
下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道題，每題后面有4個選項。請仔細(xì)閱讀短文并根據(jù)短文回答其后面的問題，從4個選項中選擇1個最佳答案涂在答題卡相應(yīng)的位置上。
第一篇 The Family
The structure of a family takes different forms around the word and even in the same society. The family's form changes as it adapts to changing social and economic influences. Until recently, the most common form in North America was the nuclear family, consisting of a married couple with their minor children. The nuclear family is an independent unit. It must be prepared to fend for itself. Individual family members strongly depend on one another. There is little help from outside the family in emergencies. Elderly relatives of a nuclear family are cared for only if it is possible for the family to do so. In North America, the elderly often do not live with the family; they live in retirement communities and nursing homes.
There are many parallels between the nuclear family in industrial societies, such as North America, and of families in societies such as that of the Inuits, who live in harsh environments. The nuclear family structure is well adapted to a life of mobility. In harsh conditions, mobility allows the family to hunt for food. For North Americans, the hunt for jobs and improved social status also requires mobility.
The nuclear family was not always the North American standard. In a more agrarian time, the small nuclear family was usually part of a larger extended family. This might have included grandparents, mother and father, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins. In North America today, there is a dramatic rise in the number of single-parent households. Twice as many households in the United States are headed by divorced, separated, or never-married individuals as are comprised of nuclear families. The structure of the family, not just in North America, but throughout the world, continues to change as it adapts to changing conditions.
31. Another good title for this passage would be________
A) What Makes a Family?
B) The Life of the Inuits.
C) Living with Hardship.
D) The Failure of the Nuclear Family.
32. A nuclear family is defined as________.
A) a married couple with their minor children
B) a single father with minor children
C) parents, grandparents, and children
D) parents, children, and aunts and uncles
33. The information in this passage would most likely be found in________.
A) an anthropology textbook
B) a biology textbook
C) a mathematics textbook
D) a geography textbook
34. The information in the first paragraph is presented mainly through________.
A) listing statistics
B) telling a story
C) pointing out similarities
D) pointing out differences
35. The word mobility means________.
A) money
B) readiness to move
C) organization
D) skill
第二篇 Tales of the Terrible Past
It is not the job of fiction writers to analyze and interpret history. Yet by writing about the past in a vivid and compelling manner, storytellers can bring earlier eras to life and force readers to consider them seriously. Among those taking on the task of recounting history are some black writers who attempt to examine slavery from different points of view.
Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison deals specifically with the legacy of slavery in her book Beloved. The main character in this novel, a former slave called Sethe, lives in Ohio in the years following the Civil War, but she cannot free herself from her horrific memories. Through a series of flashbacks and bitter reminiscences, the reader learns how and why Sethe escaped from the plantation she had lived on; the fate of her husband, who also tried to escape; and finally, what happened to the child called Beloved. Morrison's scenes of torture and murder are vivid and strongly convey the desperation of the slaves and the cruelty of their owners.
Charles Johnson's Middle Passage approaches slavery from a different, yet no less violent, vantage point. His main character, Rutherford Calhoun, is a ne'er-do-well free black American who stows away on a slave ship bound for Africa to collect its “cargo”. Put to work after he is discovered, Calhoun witnesses firsthand the appalling conditions in which the captured Africans are transported. When they finally rebel and take over the ship, he finds himself in the middle — and is forced to come to terms with who he is and what his values are.
Neither Beloved nor Middle Passage is an easy read, but both exemplify African American writers' attempts to bring significant historical situations alive for a modem audience.
練習(xí)：
36. This passage is mostly about________.
A) the causes of slavery in America
B) black writers in the late 20th century
C) why Morrison and Johnson wrote the books they did
D) two novels that deal with slavery
37. Beloved is set________.
A) on a slave ship
B) on a plantation before the Civil War
C) in Ohio after the Civil War
D) in an African town
38. The writer seems to feel that________.
A) everyone should read Morrison's and Johnson's novels
B) the books are worthwhile but challenging
C) black writers should ignore racial issues
D) we will repeat the past if we don't learn about it
39. The writer emphasizes that the two books are similar in their________.
A) use of flashbacks
B) treatment of women
C) criticism of whites
D) portrayal of violence
40. The word appalling means________.
A) terrible
B ) surprising
C) guilty
D) unrealistic
第三篇 Seeing the World Centuries Ago
If you enjoy looking through travel books by such familiar authors as Arthur Frommer or Eugene Fodor, it will not surprise you to learn that travel writing has a long and venerable history. Almost from the earliest annals of recorded time individuals have found ready audiences for their accounts of journeys to strange and exotic locales.
One of the earliest travel writers, a Greek geographer and historian named Strabo, lived around the time of Christ. Though Strabo is known to have traveled from east of the Black Sea west to Italy and as far south as Ethiopia, he also used details gleaned from other writers to extend and enliven his accounts. His multivolumed work Geography provides the only surviving account of the cities, peoples, customs, and geographical peculiarities of the whole known world of his time.
Two other classic travel writers, the Italian Marco Polo and the Moroccan Ibn Battutah, lived in roughly the same time period. Marco Polo traveled to China with his father and uncle in about A. D. 1275 and remained there 16 or 17 years, visiting several other countries during his travels. When Marco returned to Italy he dictated his memoirs, including stories he had heard from others, to a scribe, with the resulting book Il milione being an instant success. Though difficult to attest to the accuracy of all he says, Marco's book impelled Europeans to begin their great voyages of exploration.
Ibn Battutah's interest in travel began on his required Muslim journey to Mecca in 1325, and during his lifetime he journeyed through all the countries where Islam held sway. 3 His travel book the Rihlah is a personalized account of desert journeys, court intrigues, and even the effect of the Black Death in the various lands he visited. In almost 30 years of traveling it is estimated that Ibn Battutah covered more than 75, 000 miles.
41. This passage is mostly about________.
A) why people find travel writing exciting
B) the literary style of three early travel writers
C) where three early travel writers went and wrote about
D) how to write a travel book
42. Ibn Battutah traveled________.
A) to China
B) to Ethiopia
C) throughout the Muslim world
D) for 16 or 17 years
43. The books of the three writers were popular because________.
A) they listed good places to stay
B) they told of strange and exotic locales
C) they explained the best routes to get to places
D) all of their stories were firsthand accounts
44. The overall organization of this passage is through________.
A) chronological order
B) spatial description
C) travel writers' personal narratives
D) persuasive details
45. In this passage attest means to________.
A) give an examination to
B) draw a map of
C) tell lies to
D) give proof of
