2013年新托業(yè)閱讀練習題

1. 句子簡化題

The Great Red Spot

One distinctive feature of the planet Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, a massive oval of swirling reddish-brown clouds. Were Earth to be juxtaposed with the Great Red Spot, our planet would be dwarfed in comparison, with a diameter less than half that of the Great Red Spot. The Spot’s clouds, most likely tinted red as a result of the phosphorus that they contain, circulate in a counterclockwise direction. The outer winds require six Earth days to complete the circumference of the Great Red Spot, a length of time indicative of vastness of the Great Red Spot.

1. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. The density of the Great Red spot is much higher than that the Earth.

B. If the diameter of the Great Red Spot were doubled, it would equal that of the Earth.

C. By placing the Earth next to the Great Red Spot, one could see the Earth has a much smaller diameter.

D. Because the Earth is close to the Great Red Spot, Earth is influenced by its huge size

2.Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. The Earth’s outer winds move a distance equal to the circumference of the Great Red Spot.

B. The outer winds of the Great Red Spot move more quickly than do those on Earth.

C. The Winds moving across the Great Red Spot finally change direction every six Earth days.

D. The fact that the winds take so long to move around the Great Red Spot proves how big it is.

答案：D

Passage One （Question 1-2）

Camouflage

Camouflage is one of the most effective ways for animals to avoid attack in the treeless Arctic. However, the summer and winter landscapes there are so diverse that a single protective coloring scheme would, of course, prove ineffective in one season or the other. Thus, many of the inhabitants of the Arctic tundra change their camouflage twice a year. The arctic fox is a clear-cut example of this phenomenon; it sports a brownish-gray coat in the summer which then turns white as cold weather sets in, and the process reverses itself in the springtime. Its brownish-gray coat blends in with the barren tundra landscape in the months without snow, and the white coat naturally blends in with the landscape of the frozen wintertime tundra.

1. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the first highlighted sentence in the passage?

Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. Opposite conditions in summer and in winter necessitate different protective coloration for Arctic animals.

B. The coloration of the summer and winter landscapes in the Arctic fails to protect the Arctic tundra.

C. In a single season, protective coloring scheme are ineffective in the treeless Arctic.

D. For many animals, a single protective coloring scheme effectively protects them during summer and winter months.

答案：A

2. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the second highlighted sentence in the passage?

Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. The arctic fox is unusual in that he color of its coat changes for no reason.

B. The arctic fox lives in an environment that is brownish gray in the summer and white in the winter.

C. It is a phenomenon that the coat of the arctic fox turns white I the springtime and gray in the fall.

D. The arctic fox demonstrates that protective coloration can change during different seasons.

答案：D

Passage Two （Question 3-6）

Post-it Notes

Post-it Notes were invented in the 1970s at the 3M company in Minnesota quite by accident, Researchers at 3M were working on developing different types of adhesives, and one particularly weak adhesive, a compound of acrylate copolymer microspheres, was developed. Employees at 3M were asked if they could think of a use for a weak adhesive which, provided it did not get dirty, could be reused. One suggestion was that it could be applied to a piece of paper to use as a bookmark that would stay in place in a book. Another use was found when the product was attached to a report that was to be sent to a colleague with a request for comments on the report; the colleague made his comments on the paper attached to the report and returned the report. The idea for Post-it Notes was born.

It was decided within the company that there would be a test launch of product in 1977 in four American cities. Sales of this innovative product in test cities were less than stellar, most likely because the product, while innovative, was also quite unfamiliar. A final attempt was then made in the city of Boise to introduce the product. In that attempt, 3M salesmen gave demonstrations of the product in offices throughout Boise and gave away free samples of the produce. When the salesmen returned a week later to the office workers, having noted how useful the simple little product could be, were interested in purchasing it. Over time, 3M came to understand the huge potential of this new product, and over the next few decades more than 400 varieties of Post-it products - in different colors, shapes, and sizes – have been developed

3. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the first highlighted sentence in the passage 1?

Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. Of the many adhesives that were being developed at 3M, one was not a particularly strong adhesive.

B. Researchers at 3M spent many years trying to develop a really weak adhesive.

C. Numerous weak adhesives resulted from a program to develop the strongest adhesive of all.

D. Researchers were assigned to develop different types of uses for acrylate copolymer microspheres.

答案：A

4. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the second highlighted sentence in the passage 1?

Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. The 3M company suggested applying for a patent on the product in a report prepared by a colleague.

B. One unexpectedly-discovered use for the adhesive was in sending and receiving notes attached to documents.

C. A note was attached to a report asking for suggestion for uses of one of 3M’s products.

D. A colleague who developed the new product kept notes with suggestions by other workers.

答案：B

5. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the first highlighted sentence in the passage 2?

Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. The 3M company was unfamiliar with the process of using test cities to introduce innovative products.

B. Sales of the product soared even though the product was quite unfamiliar to most customers.

C. The new product did not sell well because potential customers did not understand it.

D. After selling the product for a while, the company understood that the product was not innovative enough.

答案：C

6. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the second highlighted sentence in the passage 2?

Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. The company immediately understood the potential of the product and began to develop it further.

B. The company worked overtime to develop its new product, initially creating numerous varieties to make it successful.

C. The company initially introduced 400 varieties of the product and then watched for decades as sales improved.

D. It took some time for the company to understand how important its new product was and how many variation were possible.

答案：D

排除列舉題

The geology of the Earth's surface is dominated by the particular properties of water.Present on Earth in solid, liquid, and gaseous states, water is exceptionally reactive. It dissolves, transports, and precipitates many chemical compounds and is constantly Line modifying the face of the Earth.（5） Evaporated from the oceans, water vapor forms clouds, some of which are transported by wind over the continents. Condensation from the clouds provides the essential agent of continental erosion: rain. Precipitated onto the ground, the water trickles down to form brooks, streams, and rivers, constituting what are called the hydrographic network. This immense polarized network channels the water toward a single recepatcle: an ocean.（10） Gravity dominates this entire step in the cycle because water tends to minimize its potential energy by running from high altitudes toward the reference point, that is, sea level.

The rate at which a molecule of water passes through the cycle is not random but is a measure of the relative size of the various reservoirs. If we define residence time as the（15） average time for a water molecule to pass throught one of the three reservoirs—atmosphere, continent, and ocean—we see that the times are very different. A water molecule stays, on average, eleven days in the atmosphere, one hundred years on a continent and forty thousand years in the ocean. This last figure shows the importance of the ocean as the principal reservoir of the hydrosphere but also the rapidity of water（20） transport on the continents. A vast chemical separation process takes places during the flow of water over the continents. Soluble ions such as calcium, sodium, potassium, and some magnesium are dissolved and transported. Insoluble ions such as aluminum, iron, and silicon stay where they are and form the thin, fertile skin of soil on which vegetation can grow. Sometimes（25） soils are destroyed and transported mechanically during flooding. The erosion of the continents thus results from two closely linked and interdependent processes, chemical erosion and mechanical erosion. Their respective interactions and efficiency depend on different factors.

8. All of the following are example of soluble ions EXCEPT

（A） magnesium

（B） iron

（C） potassium

（D） calcium

答案：B

The canopy, the upper level of the trees in the rain forest, holds a plethora of climbing mammals of moderately large size, which may include monkeys, cats, civets, and porcupines. Smaller species, including such rodents as mice and small squirrels, are not Line as prevalent overall in high tropical canopies as they are in most habitats globally.（5）Small mammals, being warm blooded, suffer hardship in the exposed and turbulent environment of the uppermost trees. Because a small body has more surface area per unit of weight than a large one of similar shape, it gains or loses heat more swiftly.

Thus, in the trees, where shelter from heat and cold may be scarce and conditions may fluctuate, a small mammal may have trouble maintaining its body temperature.（10）Small size makes it easy to scramble among twigs and branches in the canopy for insects, flowers, or fruit, but small mammals are surpassed, in the competition for food, by large ones that have their own tactics for browsing among food-rich twigs.The weight of a gibbon （a small ape） hanging below a branch arches the terminal leaves down so that fruit-bearing foliage drops toward the gibbon's face. Walking or

（15） leaping species of a similar or even larger size access the outer twigs either by snapping off and retrieving the whole branch or by clutching stiff branches with the feet or tail and plucking food with their hands.

Small climbing animals may reach twigs readily, but it is harder for them than for large climbing animals to cross the wide gaps from on tree crown to the next that（20） typify the high canopy. A macaque or gibbon can hurl itself farther than a mouse can: it can achieve a running start, and it can more effectively use a branch as a springboard, even bouncing on a limb several times before jumping. The forward movement of a small animal is seriously reduced by the air friction against the relatively large surface area of its body. Finally, for the many small mammals that supplement their insect（25） diet with fruits or seeds, an inability to span open gaps between tree crowns may be problematic, since trees that yield these foods can be sparse.

2. Which of the following animals is less common in the upper canopy than in other environments?

（A） Monkeys

（B） Cats

（C） Porcupines

（D） Mice

答案：D

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the

contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly

formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power,

Line women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some

（5） significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the best

contemporary history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned important

letters showing she exercised great political influence over her husband, John, the second

President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions.

During these centuries, women remained invisible in history books.

（10） Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the efforts

of female authors writing about women. These writers, like most of their male

counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in nature, and

they were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.

During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of

（15） history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National,

regional, and local women's organizations compiled accounts of their doings. Personal

correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources

form the core of the two greatest collections of women's history in the United States; one

at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the

（20） Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable

materials for later generations of historians.

Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during the

nineteenth century, most of the writing about women conformed to the "great women"

theory of history, just as much of mainstream American history concentrated on "great

（25） men." To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American

life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies. or else important

women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were involved in public

life as reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors, and were not

representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people

（30） continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.

9. In the last paragraph, the author mentions all of the following as possible roles of nineteenth-century "great women" EXCEPT

（A） authors

（B） reformers

（C） activists for women's rights

（D） politicians

答案：D

Potash （the old name for potassium carbonate） is one of the two alkalis （the other

being soda, sodium carbonate） that were used from remote antiquity in the making of

glass, and from the early Middle Ages in the making of soap: the former being the

Line product of heating a mixture of alkali and sand, the latter a product of alkali and

（5） vegetable oil. Their importance in the communities of colonial North America need

hardly be stressed.

Potash and soda are not interchangeable for all purposes, but for glass-or soap-

making either would do. Soda was obtained largely from the ashes of certain

Mediterranean sea plants, potash from those of inland vegetation. Hence potash was

（10） more familiar to the early European settlers of the North American continent.

The settlement at Jamestown in Virginia was in many ways a microcosm of the

economy of colonial North America, and potash was one of its first concerns. It was

required for the glassworks, the first factory in the British colonies, and was produced in

sufficient quantity to permit the inclusion of potash in the first cargo shipped out of

（15） Jamestown. The second ship to arrive in the settlement from England included among its

passengers experts in potash making.

The method of making potash was simple enough. Logs were piled up and burned in

the open, and the ashes collected. The ashes were placed in a barrel with holes in the

bottom, and water was poured over them. The solution draining from the barrel was

（20） boiled down in iron kettles. The resulting mass was further heated to fuse the mass into

what was called potash.

In North America, potash making quickly became an adjunct to the clearing of

land for agriculture, for it was estimated that as much as half the cost of clearing land

could be recovered by the sale of potash. Some potash was exported from Maine and New

（25） Hampshire in the seventeenth century, but the market turned out to be mainly domestic,

consisting mostly of shipments from the northern to the southern colonies. For despite

the beginning of the trade at Jamestown and such encouragements as a series of acts "to

encourage the making of potash," beginning in 1707 in South Carolina, the softwoods

in the South proved to be poor sources of the substance.

1. What aspect of potash does the passage mainly discuss?

（A） How it was made

（B） Its value as a product for export

（C） How it differs from other alkalis

（D） Its importance in colonial North America

答案：C

2. All of the following statements are true of both potash and soda EXPECT:

（A） They are alkalis.

（B） They are made from sea plants.

（C） They are used in making soap.

（D） They are used in making glass.

答案：B

3. According to paragraph 4, all of following were needed for making potash EXCEPT

（A） wood

（B） fire

（C） sand

（D） water

答案：C