大学英语（二）复习题
PartⅠ Reading Comprehension
Directions: In this part there are four passages followed by questions, each with four suggested answers. Choose the ONE you think is the best answer.
Passage1
It was a quarter past nine as Marie hurried into the office building where she was going to work. Her bus had inched along through heavy morning traffic, making her a few minutes late for her very first job. She decided to start out half an hour earlier the next day.Once inside the lobby, she had to stand at the elevators and wait several minutes before she could get on one going to the sixth floor. When she finally reached the office marked "King Enterprises," she knocked at the door nervously and waited. There was no answer. She tapped on the door again, but still there was no reply. From inside the next office, she could hear the sound of voices, so she opened the door and went in.Although she was sure it was the same office she had been in two weeks before when she had had the interview with Mr. King, it looked quite different now. In fact, it hardly looked like an office at all. The employees were just standing around chatting and smoking. At the far end of the room, somebody must have just told a good joke, she thought, because there was a loud burst of laughter as she came in. For a moment she had thought they were laughing at her.Then one of the men looked at his watch, clapped his hands and said something to the others. Quickly they all went to their desks and, in a matter of seconds, everyone was hard at work. No one paid any attention to Marie. Finally she went up to the man who was sitting at the desk nearest to the door and explained that this was her first day in the office. Hardly looking up from his work, he told her to have a seat and wait for Mr. King, who would arrive at any moment. Then Marie realized that the day's work in the office began just before Mr. King arrived. Later she found out that he lived in Connecticut and came into Manhattan on the same train every morning, arriving in the office at 9:35, so that his staff knew exactly when to start working.
1. Marie felt nervous when she knocked at the door because ______.
A it was her first day in a new job
B she was a little bit late for work
C she was afraid that she had gone to the wrong place
D there was no answer from inside the office
2. Marie could hardly recognize the office she went into as ______.
A she had been there only once
B Mr. King was not in the office
C nobody was doing any work
D the office had a new appearance
3. The people in the office suddenly started working because ______.
A they saw a stranger in the office
B they had finished their morning break
C no one wanted to talk to Marie
D the boss was about to arrive
4. We can infer from the text that the employees of the enterprise ______.
A would start their work by listening to a joke
B were cold to newcomers
C were always punctual for work
D lacked devotion to the company
5. The best title for this text would be ______.
A Punctual Like A Clock
B A Cold Welcome
C An Unpunctual Manager
D Better Late Than Never
Passage 2
The automobile has many advantages. Above all, it offerspeople freedom to go wherever and whenever they want to go.The basic purpose of a motor vehicle is to get from point A topoint B as cheaply, quickly, and safely as possible. However,to most people, cars are also personal fantasy machines thatserve as symbols of power, success, speed, excitement, andadventure.
In addition, much of the world ' s economy is built onproducing motor vehicles and supplying roads, services, andrepairs for those vehicles. Half of the world’s paychecks areauto related. In the United States, one of every six dollarsspent and one of every six non-farm jobs are connected to theautomobile or related industries, such as oil, steel, rubber,plastics, automobile services, and highway construction.
In spite of their advantages, motor vehicles have many harmfuleffects on human lives and on air, water, land, and wildliferesources.The automobile may be the most destructive machineever invented. Though we tend to deny it, riding in cars isone of the most dangerous things we do in our daily lives.
Since 1885, when Karl Benz built the first automobile, almost18 million people have been killed by motor vehicles. Everyyear, cars and trucks worldwide kill an average of 250,000people－as many as were killed in the atomic bomb attacks onHiroshimaand Nagasaki－and injure or permanently disable tenmillion more. Half of the world’s people will be involved inan auto accident at some time during their lives.
Since the automobile was introduced, almost three millionAmericans have been killed on the highways－about twice thenumber of Americans killed on the battlefield in all U.S.wars. In addition to the tragic loss of life, these accidentscost American society about $60 billion annually in lostincome and in insurance, administrative, and legal expenses.
Streets that used to be for people are now for cars.Pedestrians and people riding bicycles in the streets aresubjected to noise, pollution, stress, and danger.Motor vehicles are the largest source of air pollution,producing a haze of smog overthe world’s cities. In theUnited States, they produce at least 50% of the country's airpollution.
6. Cars represent people’s ______.
A occupation [ B]identity
C life style D fame
7. According to the passage, the average number ofpeople killed annually in traffic accidents around the worldis ______.
A 18 million B 250,000
C half of the world ' s population D 60million
8. A serious environmental problem resulting fromautomobiles is ______.
A tragic loss of life [ B]traffic jams
C air pollution D mental stress
9. It can be inferred from this passage thatautomobiles ______.
A are an important part of the world ' s economy
B are becoming less dangerous
C will produce less air pollution in the future
D are killing more people in recent years thanin the past
10. The title that suits the passage best is ______.
A Automobile and Economy
B Automobile and the Environment
C The Problems with the Automobile
D Advantages and Disadvantages of the Automobile
Passage 3
I don't know how I became a writer, but I think it wasbecause of a certain force in me that had to write and thatfinally burst through and found a channel. My peoplewere ofthe working class of people. My father, a stone-cutter, was aman with a greatrespect and veneration for literature. He hada tremendous memory, and he loved poetry, and the poetry thathe loved best was naturally of the rhetorical kind that such aman would like. Nevertheless it was good poetry, Hamlet'sSoliloquy, Macbeth, Mark Antony’s "Funeral Oration”, Grey's "Elegy”, and all the rest of it. I heard it all as a child;I memorized and learned it all.He sent me to college to the state university.
The desire to write, which had been strong during all mydays in high school, grew stronger still. I was editor of thecollege paper, the college magazine, etc., and in my lastyear or two I was a member of a course in playwriting whichhad just been established there. I wrote several littleone-act plays, still thinking I would become a lawyer or anewspaper man, never daring to believe I could seriouslybecome a writer. Then I went to Harvard, wrote some more playsthere, became obsessed with the idea that I had to be aplaywright, left Harvard, had my plays rejected, and finallyin the autumn of 1926, how, why, or in what manner I havenever exactly been able to determine. But probably because theforce in me that had to write at length sought out itschannel, I began to write my first book in London, I wasliving all alone at that time. I had two rooms－a bedroom and asitting room－in a littel square in Chelsea in which all thehouses had that familiar, smoked brick andcream-yellow-plaster look.
11. We may conclude, in regard to the author'sdevelopment as a writer, that his father ______.
A made an important contribution
B insisted that he choose writing as a career
C opposed his becoming a writer
D insisted that he read Hamlet in order to learnhow to be a writer
12. The author believes that he became a writer mostlybecause of ______.
A hisspecial talent B hisfather's teaching and encouragement
C his study at Harvard D a hiddenurge within him
13. The author ______,
A began to think of becoming a writer at Harvard
B had always been successful in his writingcareer
C went to Harvard to learn to write plays
D worked as a newspaper man before becoming awriter
14. The author really started on his way to become awriter ______.
A when he was in high school B when hewas studying at Harvard
C when he lived in London D afterhe entered college
15. A conclusion we cannot safely draw (based upon thispassage) about the author's life in1926 is that ______.
A he was unmarried
B he was miserable about having his plays rejected
C he lived in a house like all the other housesaround him
D he started his first novel
Passage 4
No one knows exactly how many disabled (残废的) people there arein the world, but estimates suggest the figure is over 450million. The number of disabled people in India alone isprobably more than double the total population of Canada.
In the United Kingdom, about one in ten people have somedisability. Disability is not just something that happens toother people. As we get older, many of us will become lessmobile ( 可动的) , hard of hearing or have failing eyesight.
Disablement can take many forms and occur at any time of life.Some people are born with disabilities. Many others becomedisabled as they get older. There are many progressivedisabling diseases. The longer time goes on, the worse theybecome. Some people are disabled in accidents. Many others mayhave a period of disability in the form of a mental illness.All are affected by people’s attitude towards them.
Disabled people face many physical barriers. Next time you goshopping or to work or visitfriends, imagine how you would manage if you could not get upsteps, or on to buses and trains. How would you cope if youcould not see where you were going or could not hear thetraffic? But there are other barriers: prejudice can be evenharder to break down and ignorance inevitably represents byfar the greatest barrier of all. It is almost impossible forthe able-bodied to fully appreciate what the severely disabledgo through, so it is important to draw attention to thesebarriers and show that it is the individual person and theirability, not their disability, which counts.
16. The first paragraph points out that ______.
A it is possible to get an exact figure of theworld’s disabled people
B there are many disabled people in the world
C the number of disabled people in India is thegreatest
D India has not much more disabled people thanCanada
17. The key word in Paragraph 4 is ______.
A barriers B ignorance
C disability D prejudice
18. The last word of the passage "counts" most probablymeans ______.
A "is most important" B "is included"
C "is considered" D "is numbered"
19. Which of the following statements is NOT trueaccording to the passage?
A There are about 10 percent disabled persons inthe UK.
B The whole society should pay due attention tothe barriers faced by the disabled people.
C Even the able-bodied may lose some of theirbody functions when they get older.
D There still exists prejudice against the disabledwhich results mainly from ignorance.
20. It can be concluded from the passage that ______.
A we should try our best to prevent disablement
B we must take a proper attitude towards thedisabled
C the able-bodied people will never fullyunderstand the disabled
D both physical and mental barriers are hard tobreak down --
Passage 5
A small piece of fish each day may keep the heart doctoraway. That’s the finding of an extensive study of Dutch menin which deaths from heart disease were more than 50 percentlower among those who consumed at least an ounce of salt waterfish per day than those who never ate fish.
The Dutch research is one of three human studies that givestrong scientific backing to the longheld belief that eatingfish can provide health benefits, particularly to the heart.
Heart disease is the number-one killer in the UnitedStates, with more than 550,000 deaths co-occurring from heartattacks each year. But researchers previously have noticedthat the incidence ( 发生率) of heart disease is lower incultures that consume more fish than Americans do. There arefewer heart disease deaths, for example, among the Eskimos ofGreenland, who consume about 14 ounces of fish a day, andamong the Japanese, whose daily fish consumption averages morethan 3 ounces.
For 20 years, the Dutch study followed 852 middle-agedmen, 20 percent of whom ate no fish.At the start of the study, the average fish consumption wasabout two-thirds of an ounce each day with more men eatinglean (瘦的) fish than fatty fish.
During the next two decades, 78 of the men died fromheart disease.The fewest deaths were among the group whoregularly ate fish, even at levels far lower than those of theJapanese or Eskimos. This relationship was true regardless ofother factors such as age, high blood pressure, or bloodcholesterol ( 胆固醇) levels.
21. Which of the following is NOT true according to thepassage?
A The Dutch research has proved that eating fish canhelp to prevent heart disease.
B Heart doctors won’t call your house so long as youkeep eating fish each day.
C Among all the diseases heart disease is the mostdangerous in America.
D There is a low incidence of heart disease in suchcountries as Japan and Greenland.
22. The phrase "this relationship" (in Line 3, Para. 5)refers to the connection between
______and the incidence of heart disease.
A the amount offish eaten B regularfish-eating
C the kind of fish eaten D people ofdifferent regions
23. The passage is mainly about ______.
A the high incidence of heart disease in somecountries
B the effect of fish eating on people’ s health
C the changes in people’ s diet
D the daily fish consumption of people in differentcultures
24. Why is heart disease the most dangerous killer in theUnited States?
A Because American people drink too much spirits.
B Because there are a great number of fat peoplethere.
C The author doesn’ t give a definite answer.
D Because American people eat too much fatty fish.
25. How many lives could probably be saved each year inthe United States by eating fishes according to the Dutchstudy?
A 550,000. B 275,000.
C 110,000. D 852.
Passage 6
In recent years, Israeli consumers have grown more demanding as they’ve become wealthier and more worldly-wise. Foreign travel is a national passion; this summer alone, one in 10 citizens will go abroad. Exposed to higher standards of service elsewhere, Israelis are returning home expecting the same. American firms have also begun arriving in large numbers. Chains such as KFC, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are setting a new standard of customer service, using strict employee training and constant monitoring to ensure the friendliness of frontline staff. Even the American habit of telling departing customers to “Have a nice day” has caught on all over Israel. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Let’s be nicer, ” says Itsik Cohen, director of a consulting firm. “Nothing happens without competition.”
Privatization, or the threat of it, is a motivation as well. Monopolies that until recently have been free to take their customers for granted now fear what Michael Perry, a marketing professor, calls “the revengeful consumer.” When the government opened up competition with Bezaq, the phone company, its international branch lost 40% of its market share, even while offering competitive rates. Says Perry, “People wanted revenge for all the years of bad service.” The electric company, whose monopoly may be short-lived, has suddenly stopped requiring users to wait half a day for a repairman. Now, appointments are scheduled to the half-hour. The graceless El Al Airlines, which is already at auction (拍卖)，has retrained its employees to emphasize service and is boasting about the results in an ad campaign with the slogan, “You can feel the change in the air.” For the first time, praise outnumbers complaints on customer survey sheets.
26 It may be inferred from the passage that .
Acustomer service in Israel is now improving
B wealthy Israeli customers are hard to please
C the tourist industry has brought chain stores to Israel
D Israeli customers prefer foreign products to domestic ones
27.In the author’s view, higher service standards are impossible in Israel .
A if customer complaints go unnoticed by the management
B unless foreign companies are introduced in greater numbers
C if there’s no competition among companies
D without strict routine training of employees
28. If someone in Israel today needs a repairman in case of a power failure, .
A they can have it fixed in no time
B it’s no longer necessary to make an appointment
C the appointment takes only half a day to make
D they only have to wait half an hour at most