读趣百科

Passage 4

Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage:

The new global satellite communications systems will offer three kinds service, which may overlap in many different kinds of receivers.

VOICE. Satellite telephones will be able to make calls from anywhere on the Earth to anywhere else. That could make them especially useful to remote, third world villages (some of which already use stationary satellite telephones), explorers and disaster-relief teams. Today’s mobile telephones depend on earth-bound transmitters, where technical standards vary from country to country. So business travelers cannot use their mobile phones on international trips. Satellite telephones would make that possible.

MESSAGING. Satellite massagers have the same global coverage as satellite telephones, but carry text alone, which could be useful for those with laptop computers. Equipped with a small screen like today’s papers, satellite massagers will also receive short messages.

TRACKING. Voice and messaging systems will also tell their users where they are to within a few hundred meters. Combined with the messaging service, the location service could help rescue teams to find stranded adventurers, the police to find stolen cars, exporters to follow the progress of cargoes, and haulage companies to check that drivers are not detouring the pub. America’s military Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite will provide better positioning information to anyone who has a receiver for their signals, but GPS does not carry messages, so such a receiver cannot be used on its own for tracking or rescue. By the mid-1990s, GPS receivers will be able to tell people where they are to within 70 meters anywhere in the world, and to within a meter or so in areas where the service is supplemented by ground-based transmitter.

16. Global satellite communications systems will be useful to .

A. laptop computer users

B. remote villages

C. disaster-relief teams

D. all above

17. Satellite telephone will make .

A. business travelers use mobile phones on international trips

B. possible calls from anywhere on earth to anywhere else

C. explorers happy

D. all above

18. Which of the following is true?

A. The positioning precision of the voice system is better than that of GPS.

B. The positioning precision of GPS is Better than that of the voice system.

C. The positioning precision of the messaging system is better than of GPS.

D. The positioning precision of voice system is better than that of the messaging system.

19. What can we say about the new global satellite communications systems?

A. They are widely used.

B. They are very helpful.

C. They are costly.

D. Both A and B.

20. Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?

A. Global Satellite Communications

B. New Voice and Messaging System

C. New Generation Satellite

D. Always in Touch

Passage 3

Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:

Unlike their American or European counterparts, car salesmen in Japan work hard to get a buyer. Instead of lying lazily around showrooms waiting for customers to drop by, many Japanese car salesmen still go out to get them. They walk wearily along the streets cars door-to-door. New customers are hunted with fruit and cakes on their birthdays. But life is getting tough, and not just because new-car sales are falling.

With more Japanese women (who often control the household budget) going out to work, the salesmen increasingly find nobody at home when they call. That means another visit in the evening or the weekend. Then they face an extra problem: more people, especially the young, prefer to choose a new car from a showroom where they can compare different models.

Even as late as the mid-1980s some 90% of new cars were sold door-to-door. In some rural areas most new cars are still sold this way. But in the big cities more than half the new cars are now sold from showrooms.

Although investing in showrooms is expensive because of the high cost of Japanese land, dealers have little choice. A labor shortage and higher among Japan’s workforce are making it difficult to hire door-to-door salesmen. Most of a Japanese car salesman’s working day is spent doing favors for customers, like arranging insurance or picking up vehicles for servicing, rather than actually selling.

Japan’s doorstep car salesmen are not about to vanish. The personal service they provide is so deep-rooted in Japan that they are likely to operate alongside the glittering new showrooms. The two systems even complement each other. What increasingly happens is that the showroom attracts the interest of a potential buyer, giving the footsore salesmen a firm lead to follow up with a home visit.

11. Japanese car sales usually do not wait at showrooms for customers to drop by; instead, .

A. they sell cars door-to-door

B. they buy presents for their customers

C. they enjoy themselves in recreation centers

D. they go out to do market researches

12. Implied but stated: the competition in car market is .

A. light B. moderate C. fierce D. unfair

13. Young people like to buy a new car .

A. at home B. from a showroom

C. made in the U.S.A. D. made in Japan

14. The squadron of Japanese car salesmen is reducing because of .

A. a labor shortage

B. higher expectations among Japan’s workforce

C. high cost land

D. both A and B

15. Japanese car salesmen to their customers many favors such as .

A. showing them around in an exhibition

B. arranging insurance

C. paying them a visit on weekends

D. selling ole cars for them

Passage 2

Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage:

The food we eat seems to have profound effects on our health. Although science has made enormous steps in making food more fit to eat, it has, at the same time, made many foods unfit to eat. Some research has shown tat 40 percent of cancer is related to the diet as well, especially cancer of the colon. Different cultures ate more prone to get certain illnesses because of the food that is characteristic in these cultures. That food is related to illness is not a new discovery. In 1945, government researchers realized that nitrates and nitrites, commonly used to preserve color in meats, and other food additives, caused cancer. Yet these carcinogenic additives remain in our food, and it becomes more difficult all the time to know which things on the packaging labels of processed food are helpful or harmful. The additives that we eat are not all so direct. Farmers often give penicillin to beef and poultry, and because of this, penicillin has been found in the milk of treated cows. Sometimes similar drugs are administered to animals not for medicinal purposes, but for financial reasons. The farmers are simply trying to fatten the animals in order to obtain a higher price on the market. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has tried repeatedly to control these procedures, the practices continue.

6. How has science done a disservice to mankind?

A. Because of science, most of the foods we eat today are contaminated.

B. It has caused a lack of information concerning the value of food.

C. As a result of scientific intervention, some potentially harmful substances has been added to our food.

D. The scientists have preserved the color of meats, but not of vegetables.

7. What are nitrates used for?

A. They preserves flavor in packaged foods.

B. They preserve the color of meats.

C. They are the objects of research.

D. They cause the animals to become fatter.

8. The FDA has tried repeatedly to control .

A. the attempt to fatten the animals

B. the attempt to cure sick animals

C. the using of drugs to animals

D. the using of additives to preserve the dolor of food

9. The word “carcinogenic” means most nearly the same as .

A. trouble-making B. color-retaining

C. money-saving D. cancer-causing

10. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A. Drugs are always given to animals for medical reasons.

B. Some of the additives in our food are added to the food itself and some are given to the living animals.

C. Researchers have known about the potential hazards of the food additives for over thirty-five years.

D. Food may cause forty percent of cancer in the world.

Part I Reading Comprehension

Directions: In this part there are four passages. Each passage is followed by four comprehension questions. Read the passage and answer the questions. Then mark your answer on the Answer Sheet.

Passage 1

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage:

Ask three people to look the same window at a busy street corner and tell you what they see. Chances are you will receive three different answers. Each person sees the same scene, but each perceives something different about it.

Perceiving goes on in our minds. Of the three people who look out the window, one may say that he sees a policeman giving a motorist a ticket. Another may say that he sees a rush-hour traffic jam at the intersection. The third may tell you that he sees a woman trying to cross the street with four children in tow. For perception is the mind’s interpretation of what the senses—in this case our eyes—tell us.

Many psychologists today are working to try to determine just how a person experiences or perceives the world around him. Using a scientific approach, these psychologists set up experiments in which they can control all of the factors. By measuring and charting the results of many experiments, they are trying to find out what makes different people perceive totally different things about the same scene.

1. Seeing and perceiving are .

A. the same action

B. two separate actions

C. two actions carried on entirely by eyes

D. several actions that take place at different times

2. Perceiving is an action that takes place .

A. in our eyes

B. only when we think very hard about something

C. only under the direction of a psychologist

D. in every person’s mind

3. People perceive different things about the same scene because .

A. they see different things B. some have better eyesight

C. they cannot agree about things D. none of these

4. Which of the following is implied but not stated in the passage?

A. Psychologists do not yet know people see.

B. The experiments in which all factors are controlled are better.

C. The study of perception is going on now.

D. Perception does not involve psychological factors.

5. The best title for this selection is .

A. How We See

B. Learning about Our Minds through Science

C. What Psychologists Perceive

D. How to Because an Experimental Psychologist

What does the future hold for the problem of housing? A good deal depends, of course, on the meaning of “future”. If one is thinking in terms of science fiction and the space age, it is at least possible to assume that man will have solved such trivial and earthly problems as housing. Writers of science fiction, from H.G. Wells onwards, have had little to say on the subject. They have conveyed the suggestion that men will live in great comfort, with every conceivable apparatus to make life smooth, healthy and easy, if not happy. But they have not said what his house will be made of. Perhaps some new building material, as yet unimagined, will have been discovered or invented at least. One may be certain that bricks and mortar(泥灰，灰浆) will long have gone out of fashion.

But the problems of the next generation or two can more readily be imagined. Scientists have already pointed out that unless something is done either to restrict the world’s rapid growth in population or to discover and develop new sources of food (or both), millions of people will be dying of starvation or at the best suffering from underfeeding before this century is out. But nobody has yet worked out any plan for housing these growing populations. Admittedly the worst situations will occur in the hottest parts of the world, where housing can be light structure or in backward areas where standards are traditionally low. But even the minimum shelter requires materials of some kind and in the teeming, bulging towns the low-standard “housing” of flattened petrol cans and dirty canvas is far more wasteful of ground space than can be tolerated.

Since the war, Hong Kong has suffered the kind of crisis which is likely to arise in many other places during the next generation. Literally millions of refugees arrived to swell the already growing population and emergency steps had to be taken rapidly to prevent squalor(肮脏)and disease and the spread crime. The city is tackling the situation energetically and enormous blocks of tenements(贫民住宅)are rising at an astonishing aped. But Hong Kong is only one small part of what will certainly become a vast problem and not merely a housing problem, because when population grows at this rate there are accompanying problems of education, transport, hospital services, drainage, water supply and so on. Not every area may give the same resources as Hong Kong to draw upon and the search for quicker and cheaper methods of construction must never cease.

1.What is the author’s opinion of housing problems in the first paragraph?

A.They may be completely solved at sometime in the future.

B.They are unimportant and easily dealt with.

C.They will not be solved until a new building material has been discovered.

D.They have been dealt with in specific detail in books describing the future.

2.The writer is sure that in the distant future ___.

A.bricks and mortar will be replaced by some other building material.

B.a new building material will have been invented.

C.bricks and mortar will not be used by people who want their house to be fashionable.

D.a new way of using bricks and mortar will have been discovered.

3.The writer believes that the biggest problem likely to confront the world before the end of the century ___.

A.is difficult to foresee.

B.will be how to feed the ever growing population.

C.will be how to provide enough houses in the hottest parts of the world.

D.is the question of finding enough ground space.

4.When the writer says that the worst situations will occur in the hottest parts of the world or in backward areas, he is referring to the fact that in these parts ___.

A.standards of building are low.

B.only minimum shelter will be possible.

C.there is not enough ground space.

D.the population growth will be the greatest.

5.Which of the following sentences best summarizes Paragraph 3?

A.Hong Kong has faced a serious crisis caused by millions of refugees.

B.Hong Kong has successfully dealt with the emergency caused by millions of refugees.

C.Hong Kong’s crisis was not only a matter of housing but included a number of other problems of population growth.

D.Many parts of the world may have to face the kind of problems encountered by Hong Kong and may find it much harder to deal with them.