考研英语阅读unit-13.doc

1、Unit 13 Wisdom in the mind is better than money in the hand.脑中有知识，胜过手中有金钱。学习内容 题 材 词 数 建议时间 得分统计 做题备忘Text 1 文化教育 410 /10Text 2 商业经济 385 /10Text 3 科普知识 494 /10Part AText 4 社会生活 428 /10Part B 文化教育 519 /10Part C 科普知识 377 /10Part ADirections：Read the following texts. Answer the questions blow each text

2、by choosing A,B,C or D.Text 1What is sports violence? The distinction between unacceptable viciousness and a games normal rough-and-tumble is impossible to make, so the argument runs. This position may appeal to our inclination for legalism, but the truth is most of us know quite well when an act of

3、 needless savagery has been committed, and sports are little different from countless other activities of life. The distinction is as apparent as that between a deliberately aimed blow and the arm failing of the losing his balance. When a player balls his hand into a fist, when he drives his helmet

4、into an unsuspecting opponent in short, when he crosses the boundary between playing hard and playing to hurthe can only intend an act of violence.Admittedly, rough acts in sports are difficult to police. But here, too, we find reflected the conditions of everyday life. Ambiguities in the law, confu

5、sion at the scene, and the reluctance of witnesses cloud almost any routine assault case. Such uncertainties, however, have not prevented society from arresting people who strike their fellow citizens on the street. Perhaps our troubles stem not from the games we play but rather from how we play the

6、m. The 1979 meeting between hockey stars from the Soviet Union and the National Hockey League provided a direct test of two approaches to sportthe emphasis on skill, grace, and technique by the Russians and the stress on brutality and violence by the NHL. In a startling upset, the Russians embarrass

7、ed their rough-playing opponents and exploded a long-standing myth: that success in certain sports requires excessive violence.Violence apologists cite two additional arguments. First, they say, sports always have been rough; today things are no different. But arguments in Americans Old West were se

8、ttled on Main Street with six guns, and early cave dwellers chose their women with a club. Civilizing influences ended those practices; yet we are told sports violence should be tolerated. The second contention is that athletes accept risk as part of the game, and, in the case of professionals, are

9、paid handsomely to do so. But can anyone seriously argue that being an athlete should require the acceptance of unnecessary physical abuse? And, exaggerated as it may seem, the pay of professional athletes presumably reflects their abilities, not a payment againstcombat injuries.“Clearly we are in d

10、eep trouble,”says perplexed former football player AL DeRogatis. “But how and why has it gotten so bad?” 1. According to the author,deliberate violence in sports is A impossible to tell from paying hard.B ambiguous in any circumstances.C too apparent to escape observation.D evident if enough attenti

11、on is paid to.2. A violence apologist probably thinks thatA violence in sports is a rare occurrence.B violence in sports is not necessary.C athletes are paid enough for their injuries.D professional athletes enjoy violence.3. In the last paragraph the author indicates thatA nothing can be done about

12、 violence in sports.B football players are concerned about violence in sports.C violence in sports is worse now than it ever was. D athletes are confused about what should be allowed in sports.4. According to the author,which of the following is true？A athletes personalities have effects on the incl

13、ination for violent.B athletes who emphasis on skill,grace and technique will win.C athletes should not have to accept unnecessary physical abuseD athletes need higher salaries to compensate for their injuries.5. We can infer from the text thatA violence in sports is illegal.B skill is more importan

14、t than aggression.C athletes should not be injured in sports.D violence in sports is not necessary.Text 2Bruno Lundby, 39, was one of the ranks of typically low-paid, low-status workers who fill supermarket shelves, serve fast food, change hotel beds or empty office waste bins, often at unsocial hou

15、rs and with little expectation of anything better. Lacking formal qualifications, he drifted from the army into odd cleaning jobs. Then, unexpectedly, he found the opportunity for advancement in a management training program offered by ISS, the Danish support services group. Today he sits in a spotl

16、ess, air-conditioned office supervising all ISS damage control operations in the greater Copenhagen area.“I couldnt have imagined getting to where I am today when I started,”he says.“I was surprised to be offered a future at ISS in 1993 when I became a supervisor.” In the past three years, he has be

17、en promoted three times. ISS, which employs 272,000 people in 36 countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America in cleaning and other contract work, still appears to be an exception in the services sector in offering career progression to workers. The pursuit of customer satisfaction is a strong featur

18、e of companies that treat blue-collar staff as more than a commodity. Tesco, the supermarket group that is the UKs largest private sector employer with 210,000 employees, recently formalized a practice of nurturing management potential among shelf-stackers and check-out staff.“The ones who respect c

19、ustomers are the ones who get on,”says Clare Chapman, human resources director. In the past five months, 245 employees have been promoted from general store assistant to section manager, 149 from section manager to senior store team and 33 from senior team to store manager. These staff are coached,

20、assessed and then trained for their new responsibilities. The talent-spotting program applies to all staff, including 45,700 in Tescos overseas stores. ISS acknowledges that by offering career progression it has changed the nature of its contract with blue-collar employees, raising expectations on b

21、oth sides that may not always be met.For Mr. Lundby, career progress has induced loyalty to his employer and greater self-esteem.“Personal skills are often more important than high educational qualifications if you have to deal with people every day,” he says. “Im a practical, not an academic person

22、. I know the business from the bottom. I know the loopholes and the hardships.”6. It can be infered from paragraph 1 that Mr. LundbyA has anticipated his condition would be improved.B works hard but still has no chance to get improved.C has been promoted for he has formal qualifications.D had some o

23、f the toughest, dirtiest jobs before.7. Which of the following is true about the service sector?A Blue-collar workers in it have little chance to be promoted.B Companies in it always pursue customer satisfaction.C Companies in it always treat blue-collar staff as a commodity. D Workers in it have mo

24、re chance to be promoted than in others8. In Tesco, employees will have chance to be promoted ifA they are loyal to their employer.B they join management training program.C they make their customers satisfied.D they work as hard as theyre expected.9. By offering career progression to blue-collars, c

25、ompaniesA will have more managers.B will be more competitive.C will have high expectations.D will have less responsibility.10. Which of the following is the best title of this passage?A The Story of Bruno Lundby.B Management Training Program.C Career Progression Inducing Self-esteem.D From Dead-end

26、Job to Bright Career.Text 3The Internet, e-commerce and globalization are making a new economic era possible. By the middle of the 21st century, capitalist markets will largely be replaced by a new kind of economic system based on networked relationships, contractual arrangements and access rights.H

27、as the quality of our lives at work, at home and in our communities increased in direct proportion to all the new Internet and business-to-business Intranet services being introduced into our lives? I have asked this question of hundreds of CEOs and corporate executives in Europe and the United Stat

28、es. Surprisingly, virtually everyone has said, “No, quite the contrary.” The very people responsible for ushering in what some have called a “technological renaissance” say they are working longer hours, feel more stressed, are more impatient, and are even less civil in their dealings with colleague

29、s and friends not to mention strangers. And whats more revealing, they place much of the blame on the very same technologies they are so aggressively championing.The techno gurus promised us that access would make life more convenient and give us more time. Instead, the very technological wonders th

30、at were supposed to liberate us have begun to enslave us in a web of connections from which there seems to be no easy escape.If an earlier generation was preoccupied with the quest to enclose a vast geographic frontier, the dotcom generation, it seems, is more caught up in the colonization of time.

31、Every spare moment of our time is being filled with some form of commercial connection, making time itself the most scarce of all resources. Our e-mail, voice mail and cell phones, our 24-hour electronic trading markets, online banking services, all-night e-commerce, and 24-hour Internet news and en

32、tertainment all holler for our attention.And while we have created every kind of labor-and-time-saving device to service our needs, we are beginning to feel like we have less time available to us than any other humans in history. That is because the great proliferation of labor-and-time-saving servi

33、ces only increases the diversity, pace and flow of commodified activity around us. For example, e-mail is a great convenience. However, we now find ourselves spending much of our day frantically responding to each others electronic messages. The cell phone is a great time-saver. Except now we are al

34、ways potentially in reach of someone else who wants our attention.Social conservatives talk about the decline in civility and blame it on the loss of a moral compass and religious values. Has anyone bothered to ask whether the hyper-speed culture is making all of us less patient and less willing to

35、listen and defer, consider and reflect?Maybe we need to ask what kinds of connections really count and what types of access really matter in the e-economy era. If this new technology revolution is only about hyper efficiency, then we risk losing something even more precious than time our sense of wh

36、at it means to be a caring human being.11. The author suggests that the most valuable resource in todays society isA technology. B economic assets. C access to information. D time.12. According to the text, many corporate executives feel thatA technological advances are essential to todays economic

37、system.B technology has actually led to a decline in their quality of life.C longer hours are making their workers more impatient and uncivil.D technology can be blamed for many of todays social problems.13. The phrase “the colonization of time” (Line 2, Para.4) refers to A the filling of every mome

38、nt of our time.B the quest for efficiency in the workplace.C the growing use of time-saving services.D the impact of technology on our sense of time.14. In the sixth paragraph, the author suggests that A new technologies may make people more impatient.B social conservatives do not understand the imp

39、ortance of technology.C the speed of modern culture may impact our moral and religious values.D people in the technology sector are less civil than those in other fields.15. The best title for this text could beA The Failure of the Technological Renaissance.B Even Corporate Executives Get the Blues.

40、C The New Internet Economy.D The Disadvantages of Too Much Access.Text 4The Net success of “Lazy Sunday” represents a defining moment for the film and television business. Advances in digital video and broadband have vastly lowered the cost of production and distribution. Filmmakers are now followin

41、g the path blazed by bloggers and musicians, cheaply creating and uploading their work to the Web. If it appeals to any of the Nets niches, millions of users will pass along their films through e-mail, downloads or links. Its the dawn of the democratization of the TV and film businesseven unknown pe

42、rsonalities are being propelled by the enthusiasm of their fans into pop-culture prominence, sometimes without even traditional intermediaries like talent agents or film festivals.“This is like bypass surgery,” says Dan Harmon, a filmmaker whose monthly L.A.based film club and Web site, Channel 101,

43、 lets members submit short videos, such as the recent 70s music mockumentary “Yacht Rock,” and vote on which they like best. “Finally we have a new golden age where the artist has a direct connection to the audience.”The directors behind “Lazy Sunday” embody the phenomenon. When the shaggy-haired Sa

44、mberg, 27, graduated from NYU Film School in 2001, he faced the conventional challenge of crashing the gates of Hollywood. With his two childhood friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, he came up with an unconventional solution: they started recording music parodies and comic videos, and posting

45、them to their Web site, TheL. The material got the attention of producers at the old ABC sitcom “Spin City”, where Samberg and Taccone worked as low-level assistants; the producers sent a compilation to a talent agency. The friends got an agent, made a couple of pilot TV sketch shows for Comedy Cent

46、ral and Fox, featuring themselves hamming it up in nearly all the roles, and wrote jokes for the MTV Movie Awards. Even when the networks passed on their pilots, Samberg and his friends simply posted the episodes online and their fan baseat 40,000 unique visitors a month earlier this year grew large

47、r. Last August, Samberg joined the ”SNL” cast, and Schaffer and Taccone became writers. Now they share an office in Rockefeller Center and “are a little too cute for everyone,” Samberg says, “We are friends living our dream.”Short, funny videos like “Lazy Sunday” happen to translate online, but not

48、everything works as well. Bite-size films are more practical than longer ones; comedy plays better than drama. But almost everything is worth trying, since the tools to create and post video are now so cheap, and ad hoc audiences can form around any sensibility, however eccentric. 16. The sentence “

49、Its dawn of the democratization of”(Line 5-6, Para.1) shows that A film and television business is enjoying an unprecedented successB the general public are playing an active role in pop-cultureC filmmakers are showing great enthusiasm for success on the WebD e-mail, downloads or links are now the main means of film distribution17. Which of the following is true according to the text?A “Lazy Sunday”