全国2005年4月高等教育自学考试

                          英语阅读(一)试题

课程代码：00595

PART ONE  (70 POINTS)

Ⅰ.TEXT COMPREHENSION

   The following comprehension questions are based on the texts you have learned, and each of them is provided with 4 choices marked A,B,C and D. Choose the best answer to each question and write the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

(20 points ,1 point each)

1.“With that chain on his watch ,Jim might loot at the time in any company.”The underlined part in this sentence from Gifts of the Magi means ____.

A. in the presence of any person

B. while working in a firm

C. when interviewed by a corporation

D. doing any business

2.According to The Wife of Bath's Tale, what women want most is ____.

A. jewels and money                      B. happiness

C. fine clothes                           D. leadership in the family

3.In The Fisherman and His Wife, the Fisherman was ____ when his wife wished for one thing after another.

A. tolerant but not pleased              B. bewildered but not mad

C. anguished but not rebellious          D. furious but not daring

4.In Little Match Girl, when her little hands were almost benumbed with cold, the little match girl ____.

A. thought of the kindness of her grandmother

B. thought of the pleasant smell of the roast goose

C. went home but received a beating from her father

D. rubbed the match against the wall and warmed her hands

5.The title of the story A Day's Wait most probably means that the boy ____.

A. had been waiting all day to die

B. had waited a whole  day for his father to come back

C. had been waiting all day to recover from his illness

D. had waited a whole day before the drugs took effect

6.According to Bringing up Children,“upbringing” and “education” are ____.

A. merely two different terms for the same process

B. the same term for the different processes

C. two utterly different but closely related processes because children are involved in different environments

D. interdependent because both parents and teachers are responsible for the opportunities provided for children's development

7.The National Gallery in London overlooks ____.

A. Parliament                         

B. Trafalgar Square

C. the National Gallery of British Art

D. the National Portrait Gallery

8.According to How to Live like a Millionaire, most millionaires measure success by ____.

A. income                                B. consumption

C. investment                             D.net worth

9.Based on the passage United Nations, which of the following statements is NOT true?____.

A. The U.N. has the right to intervene in the member states' internal affairs.

B. All the member states, big or small, have the same rights and obligations.

C. The day that United Nations came into existence is United Nations Day.

D. Armed forces should not be used except in protecting the common interest.

10.According to Universities and Polytechnics, London University is similar to Oxford and Cambridge in that ____.

A. they all consist of many constituent colleges

B. they were all founded in the 13th century

C. students all live outside the campus

D. they set up a different pattern of university life

11.“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, will sink into a Dark Age.”This quotation comes from the famous speech of ____ during the Second World War.

A. Queen Victoria                        B. George V.

C. Lloyd George                         D. Winston Churchill

12.The information from What Body Language Can Tell You That Words Cannot best supports which of the following statements?

A. It is never too late to learn something new.

B. Action speaks louder than words.

C. Wisdom is born of experience.

D. It is easier to preach than to practice.

13.Through the examples given in Nonverbal Communication, the writer tries to tell us that ____.

A. the nonverbal behavior of animals is instinctive, but it is not the case with humans

B. animals have more elaborate nonverbal behavior than humans

C. nonverbal communication exists in both humans and animals naturally

D. humans might imitate each other's nonverbal behavior whereas animals' are entirely inborn

14.The story The Girls in Their Summer Dresses deals with the subject of ____.

A. the individual's lifestyle and outlook

B. a person's imagination

C. the fashion of a certain period

D. the tradition of a society

15.In The Constitution of the United States, ____is considered a great turning point in American history.

A. the revolt against British rule

B. the Constitutional Convention

C. the establishment of legislature in each colony

D. the aid of France through independence

16.In Lady in the Dark, which of the following words best describes Mrs. Courtenay's behavior in the face of danger?

A. Irritable.                            B. Scared.

C. Calm.                              D. Watchful.

17.According to Helen Keller in Three Days to See, which of the following statements is NOT true?

A. Darkness would make people more appreciative of sight.

B. Silence would teach people the joys of sound.

C. It would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow.

D. Court records reveal every day how accurately “eyewitnesses”see.

18.At the end of the story by Jerome K. Jerome, getting up too early had been a ____to George.

A. routine                               B. necessity

C. warning                              D. pleasure

19.According to some official records, the earliest Olympic Games took place ____.

A. in the seventh century A.D.           B. before 700 B.C.

C. over three thousand years ago         D. a thousand years ago

20.Which of the following novels is NOT written by Charlotte Bront? ?

A. Pride and Prejudice                   B. The Professor

C. Jane Eyre                            D. Shirley

Ⅱ.READING COMPREHENSION

   In this part there are 4 reading passages followed by 20 questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A,B,C and D. You should decide on the best answer or the best choice to complete the statement and write the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.(40 points, 2 points each)

Passage 1
There are two basic differences between the large and the small enterprises. In the small enterprise you operate primarily through personal contacts. In the large enterprise you have established “policies,”“channels” of organization, and fairly rigid procedures. In the small enterprise you have, moreover, immediate effectiveness in a very small area. You can see the effect of your work and of your decisions right away, once you are a little above the ground floor. In the large enterprise even the man at the top is only part of a big machine. To be sure, his actions affect a   much greater area than the actions and decisions of the man in the small organization, but his effectiveness is remote, indirect, and difficult to  see at first sight. In a small and even in a middle-sized business you are normally exposed to all kinds of experiences, and expected to do a great many things without too much help or guidance. In the large organization you are normally taught one thing thoroughly. In the small one the danger is of becoming a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. In the large one it is of becoming the man who knows more and more about less and less.

There is one other important thing to consider: do you get a deep sense of satisfaction from being a member of a well-known organization--General Motors, the Bell Telephone System, the government? Or is it more important to you to be a well-known and important figure within your own small pond? There is a basic difference between the satisfaction that comes from being a member of a large, powerful, and generally known organization, and the one that comes from being a member of a family; between impersonal grandeur and personal — often much too personal — intimacy; between life in a small office on the top floor of a skyscraper and life in a crossroads gas station.

21.It can be inferred from the first paragraph that in a large enterprise ____.

A. new technology is employed quickly

B. all people work efficiently

C. one's effectiveness is felt very slowly

D. one can get promotion easily

22.Generally speaking, the person working in a large enterprise ____.

A. has to deal with a great many things

B. knows how everything is going on around him

C. acquires increasingly thorough knowledge within a limited field

D. feels more secure than the one employed by a small enterprise

23.In the second paragraph, the writer mentions “your own small pond” to refer to ____.

A. a top leader in a larger enterprise

B. a manager of a small enterprise

C. a large enterprise

D. a small enterprise

24.According to the information provided in the passage, if you are interested in personal intimacy, you should work ____.

A. for General Motors    

B. for the Bell Telephone System

C. in a department in the government

D. in a crossroads gas station

25.The writer of this passage ____.

A. compares the large and the small enterprises objectively

B. obviously prefers to work for a large enterprise

C. intends to show the advantages of working in a small business

D. explains the disadvantages of being a top leader in a large business

Passage 2
In the old days, when a glimpse of stockings was looked upon as something far too shocking to distract the serious work of an office, secretaries were men.

Then came the First World War and the male secretaries were replaced by women. A man's secretary became his personal servant ,charged with remembering his wife's birthday and buying her presents; taking his suits to dry-cleaners; telling lies on the telephone to keep people he did not wish to speak to at bay; and of course, typing and filing and taking shorthand.

Now all this may be changing again .The microchip (集成块) and high technology is sweeping the British office, taking with it much better of the routine clerical work that secretaries did.

“Once office technology takes over generally, the status of the job will rise again because it will involve only the high-powered work—and then men will want to do it again.”

That was said by one of the executives(male) of one of the biggest secretarial agencies in this country.What he has predicted is already under way in the U.S.

Once high technology has made the job of secretary less routine, will there be a male takeover? Men should beware of thinking that they can walk right into better jobs. There are a lot of women
secretaries who will do the job as well as they—not just because they can buy negligees(妇女长睡衣) for the boss's wife, but because they are as efficient and well-trained to cope with word processors and computers as men.

26.Before 1914 female secretaries were rare because they ______.

A. were less efficient than men

B. were not as serious as men

C. liked stockings

D. would have disturbed other office workers

27.Besides fulfilling other duties, a female secretary was expected to _____.

A. be her boss's memory

B. clean her boss's clothes

C. do what her boss asked her to

D. telephone her boss's wife

28.Secrtaries,until recently, had to do a lot of work now done by _____.

A. machines                      B. other staff

C. servants                D. wives

29.A secretary in the future will ______.

A. be better paid            B. have higher status

C. have less work to do             D. have more work to do

30.The writer believes that before long _____.

A. both men and women will be qualified secretaries

B. men will be better than machines

C. men will take over women's jobs as secretaries

D. women will operate most office machines

Passage 3
More and more residences, businesses, and even government agencies are using telephone answering machines to take messages or give information or instructions. Sometimes these machines give confusing instructions, or play messages that are difficult to understand. If you make telephone calls, you need to be ready to respond if you get a recording.

The most common machine is the type used in residences. If you call a home where there is a telephone answering machine in operation you will hear several rings and then a recorded message that usually says something like this:“Hello. We can't come to the phone right now. If you want us to call you back, please leave your name and number after the beep.” Then you will hear a “beep,” which is a brief, high-pitched tone. After the beep, you can say who you are, whom you want to speak to, and what number the person should call to reach you, or you can leave a message. Some telephone answering machines record for only 20 or 30 seconds after the beep, so you must respond quickly.

Some large businesses and government agencies are using telephone answering machines to provide information on topics about which they receive a large volume of inquires. Using these systems requires you to have a touch-tone phone(a phone with buttons rather than a rotary dial). The voice on the machine will tell you to push a certain button on your telephone if you want information on Topic A, another button for Topic B, and so on. You listen until you hear the topic you want to learn about, and then you push the appropriate button. After making your selection, you will hear a recorded message on the topic.

48.In the passage, the writer elaborates on ______.

A. the problems of telephone answering machines

B. the beep of the telephone answering machines

C. touch-tone phones

D. how to use telephone answering machines

49.“Beep” is a brief, high-pitched tone used ______.

A. to urge the caller to speak more quickly

B. to urge the caller to respond quickly

C. as a signal to remind the caller of the time left

D. as a signal to remind the caller that he may leave a message

50.Which of the following would be the best title of this passage?

A. Directions of Telephone Answering Machines

B. Advantages of Telephone Answering Machines

C. Know-how of Telephone Answering Machines

D. Problems of Telephone Answering Machines

PART TWO  (30 POINTS)

Ⅳ.WORD FORMATIONS

Complete each of the following sentences with the proper form of the word in the brackets. Write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.(10 points, 1 point each)

51.(short)     The drop in the birth rate 20 years ago has created a severe ______ of workers.

52.(strong)    Fresh evidence has greatly ______ the case against him.

53.(grow)     The US portion of the Internet is experiencing rapid ______ in the number of networks connected to it.

54.(courage)   I want to thank everyone who has ______ and supported me.

55.(increase)  As resources become______ scarce, choices have to be made and priorities set.

56.(memory)  They listen to stories, ______ nursery rhymes, read picture books and gain other experiences that prepare them to read.

57.(fortunate) I would have been here an hour ago. but ______ I missed the train.

58.(accept)    Smoking is no longer considered socially ______ by many people.

59.(addition)  They appeared to be checking only if  there were any ______ persons in it.

60.(approve)   We need parental ______ before allowing students to go on field trips.

Ⅴ.ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

There are 4 groups of simple questions in this part, which are based on the texts you have learned. Give a brief answer to each of the questions. Your answers must be to the point and grammatically correct. Write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.(20 points, 5 points each)

61.Who are the lovers in the selection from The Decameron? What are they like? What happens to them?

(from The Decameron)

62.What is the king's semibarbaric method of administering justice in The Lady or the Tiger? What difficulty does the princess face in the case of her lover?

                                   (from The Lady or the Tiger) 

63.What animals are mentioned in The Animals of Aesop? What is the moral of each of the fables?

                                               (from The Animals of Aesop)

64.According to The Story of the Bible, how were Adam and Eve created? Why were they driven out of Paradise?

                                             (from The Story of the Bible)