英语阅读(二)2016年10月真题试题（00596）

英语阅读(二)2016年10月真题试题及答案解析（00596）

英语阅读(二)2016年10月真题试题及答案解析（00596），本试卷为英语自考专业，共100分。

一、单项选择题

Reading Comprehension.(50 points, 2 points for each)Directions: In this part of the test, there are five passages. Following each passage, there are five questions with four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and then write the corresponding letter on your Answer Sheet.

1.Passage One I'm the Customer. I have lots of money and I'm going to spend it. Take car of me and I'll take care of you. I'll encourage my friends to come to see you. Ill come back when I need more of what you sell. All you' ve got to do is to satisfy me. Not long ago, I needed new business telephone lines and numbers. I called and was greeted by one of the friendliest voices I'd ever heard. Immediately, I felt comfortable. The person thanked me and put me completely at ease. Her greeting. was most effective. Yours can be, too. All you have to do is to be aware of the importance of greeting people and then learn some simple techniques:Thank customers tor coming in, contacting you, or seeing you. This is not what a new receptionist did the last time I went into the dental office. I walked in. and stood at the counter for at least a minute. She knew I was there, but she didn't. acknowledge me. Finally she looked up, showed no reaction—no smile, no warmth — and said. "Sign in!" Her inattentiveness left me feeling less than thrilled about being there.Tune the world out then in. Another technique is to tune the world out and customers in. How often do you talk to yourself when you should be focusing on your customers? It's easy to do this and it can be damaging to customer relations.Good customer service isn't just painting a smile on your face and performing certain actions. People quickly see through thinly veiled attempts at niceness.Most people who work with people don't really know what business they're in. Most think they're in business to deliver products or services. They don't know they're in business to give benefits to people. Many in retailing, telemarketing, medical offices, or other places where people spend money, don't know how to identify the real needs customers have low do you go about identifying people's needs? First, understand people's needs aren't for the product or service, but for what that will do for them. Customers don't buy cars to have a vehicle to drive. They do it so they can keep up with the Joneses, get good gas mileage, or save money. A most important part of your contact with customers will be to find out what their needs are—the [payoff] they want from what you sell. Ask open-ended questions. These call explanations because they contain the words who, whal, where, why, when and how. Not only will these questions help you understand a person’s needs, you will also strengthen rapport by showing concern and listening.Question 1-5 are based on passage one.The first thing a man in customer service should do is to___.

A.greet the customer
B.paint a smile on his face
C.ask the customer to sign his name
D.understand the customer as an individual

2.In paragraph 3, the author gave the dental office example to show that ______.

A.eye contact is essential in communication
B.acknowledging the customer is very important
C.good first impression helps a lot in doing business
D.smiling at the customer helps form a good relationship

3.What can be damaging to customer relations?

A.Listening to your customer attentively.
B.Tuning the world out and the customer in.
C.Welcoming your customer in a friendly manner.
D.Talking to yourself when you should focus on your customer.

4.According to the author, many people don"t know _____.

A.they are in business to give benefits to their customers
B.they are in business to offer services to their customers
C.where and how to identify their customers" needs
D.when and why their customers spend their money

5.The word“payoff“ in paragraph 8 is closest in meaning to ______.

A.payment you made
B.return on investment
C.wages you received
D.money from an insurance claim

6.Passage TwoPeople have all kinds of obsessions 一silly, serious, and everything in between. The sheer diversity of these fascinations, from playing bridge (my personal obsession) to scanning the skies for new planets, is one of the most beautiful things about humanity. And yet one person's obsession doesn't necessarily make for interesting reading for those of us who have never been bitten by that same bug. Mark Miodownik's personal and professional obsession, as he explains in his book Stuff Matters, is basic materials we often take for granted such as paper, glass, concrete, and steel — as well as new super materials that will change our world in : the decades ahead. I'm pleased to report that he is a witty, smart writer who has a great talent for imparting his love of this subject. As a result. Stuff Matters is a fun, accessible read.My favorite writer, the historian Vaclav Smil, also wrote a wonderful book on materials, but it's completely different from Miodownik's. Smil is a facts-and- numbers guy; he doesn't bring any romance to his topic. Miodownik is the polar opposite. He's heavy on romance and very light on numbers. Miodownik, an Oxford-trained materials scientist who has worked in some of the most advanced labs in the world, discovered his obsession with materials in a bizarre way. When he was in high school in the 1980s. he was the victim of a random attack on a London Tube train. In his telling, instead of freaking out about the five-inch slash wound in his back, he fixated on the elegance of the attacker's steel razor blade. "This tiny piece of steel, not much bigger than a postage stamp, had cul through five layers of my clothes, and then through the epidermis and dermis of my skin in one slash without any problem at all," he writes.“It was the birth of my obsession with materials." Most of us have the luxury of not thinking much about steel - and not being attacked with a razor. But as Miodownik makes clear, steel is pretty magical. Its greatest virtue is that it doesn't crack or break under tension, unlike iron, from which it is forged. Steel has been made by skilled blacksmiths dating back to ancient Roman times, but once inventors created a process for producing steel cheaply at industrial scale in the mid-19" century, it became central to our lives — from our utensils to our transport to our built environment. Our next century is likely to produce even bigger material innovations. I live close to the longest floating bridge in the world, which, like so many big modern structures, is made from steel-reinforced concrete. That bridge has served Seattle well for more than a half century, but now is near the end of its lifespan. (From my yard I can see the construction crews working on the bridge that will replace it.) According to Miodownik. future bridges may be built with a "self-healing concrete" that could save billions of dollars in repair and replacement costs. Self-healing concrete is a great study in material innovation. In highly sulfurous volcanic lakes that would bum human skin, scientists found incredibly resilient bacteria that can stay dormant in rock for decades. You embed these bacteria in concrete with starch for them to consume; when the concrete cracks and water starts seeping in, the bacteria revive, find the starch, begin to replicate, and excrete minerals that seal up the crack. Questions 6-10 are based on Passage Two.What does the writer say about obsessions?

A.They are varied and fascinating.
B.They are stupid but look beautiful.
C.They have something in common.
D.They help people to get away from being bitten by a bug.

7.What can we know about Mark Miodownik?

A.He is a friend of Vaclav Smil.
B.He is crazy about facts and numbers.
C.He takes an interest in basic materials.
D.He values romance and numbers equally .

8.The story in paragraph 4 tells us that ____.

A.the steel razor blade must be very blunt
B.Miodownik was inspired by the attacker"s steel razor blade
C.the steel razor blade had only cut through five layers of clothes
D.Miodownik fought with the attacker and got his steel razor blade

9.Steel is widely used in our daily life because _____.

A.it doesn"t bend and rust, like iron
B.it has the magic power to break things
C.in the mid-19h century, it became central to our lives
D.technology has made it possible to produce it cheaply

10.We can learn from this passage that self-healing concrete _____.

A.Is a kind of bacteria that can seal up the cracks of a bridge
B.is used in building the longest floating bridge in the world
C.will bring about a breakthrough in the construction field
D.will be used in the treatment of seriously burned skin

11.Passage ThreeA new study released just days after the U.S. House passed a bill that would prevent states from requiring labels on genetically modified foods reveals that GMO (genetically modified organism) labeling would not act as warning labels and scare consumers away from buying products with GM ingredients. The study, presented at the annual conference of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, held in San Francisco on July 27, relies on five years of data (2003. 2004, 2008, 2014 and 2015) and includes 2,012 responses to a representative, statewide survey of Vermont residents. It focuses on the relationship between two primary questions: whether Vermonters are opposed to GMO's in commercially available food products; and whether respondents thought products containing GMO's should be labeled.Results showed no evidence that attitudes toward GMO's are strengthened in either a positive or negative way due to a desire for labels that indicate the product contains GM ingredients. On average across all five years of the study, 60 percent of Vermonters reported being opposed to the use of GM technology in food production and 89 percent desired labeling of food products containing GM ingredients. These numbers have been increasing slightly since 2003. In 2015, the percentages were 63 and 92 percent, respectively. Responses varied slightly by demographic groups. For example, given a desire for positive GMO labels, opposition to GMO decreased in people with lower levels of education, in single parent households, and those earning the highest incomes.Opposition to GMO increases in men and people in the middle-income category No changes were larger than three percentage points. “When you look at consumer opposition to the use of GM technologies in food and account for the label, we found that overall the label has no direct impact on opposition. And it increased support for GM in some demographic groups,” said Jane Kolodinsky, author of the study and professor and chair of the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics at the University of Vermont.“This was not what I [hypothesized] based on the reasoning behind the introduction of The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Bill. We didn't find evidence that the labels will work as a warning." Questions 11-15 are based on Passage Three.We can know from paragraph 1 that _____.

A.the study recently released relied on five successive years of data
B.the states would have the right to decide on labeling the GM foods
C.a survey was made among the residents in Vermont and San Francisco
D.GMO labeling would no longer be required on genetically modified foods

12.Results showed that _____.

A.attitudes toward GMO’s have changed slightly
B.less than half of Vermonters opposed the GM technology
C.in 2015, 89% of Vermonters desired labeling of the GM foods
D.the desire for GMO labels greatly influences people"s attitudes

13.Given a desire for positive GMO labels, more people oppose GMO

A.on high income
B.in their middle age
C.on middle income
D.with high levels of education

14.The word “hypothesized” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to ____.

A.asserted
B.assumed
C.perceived
D.Concluded

15.We can infer from this passage that GM foods ______.

A.are banned by the American government
B.have scared away most American consumers
C.have already arrived on American dinner tables
D.are welcomed by more and more American people

16.Passage FourWhen one looks back upon the fifteen hundred years that are the life span of the English language. he should be able to notice a number of significant truths The history of our language has always been a history of constant change -at times a slow, almost imperceptible change, at other times a violent collision between two languages. Our language has always been a living growing organism, it has never been static. Another significant truth that emerges from such a study is that language at all times has been the possession not of one class or group but of many. At one extreme it has been the property of the common, ignorant folk, who have used it in the daily business of their living, much as they have used their animals or the kitchen pots and pans. At the other extreme it has been the treasure of those who have respected it as an instrument and a sign of civilization, and who have struggled by writing it down to give it some permanence, order, dignity, and if possible, a little beauty. As we consider our changing language, we should note here two developments that are of special and immediate importance to us. One is that since the time of the Anglo-Saxons there has been an almost complete reversal of the different devices for showing the relationship of words in a sentence. Anglo-Saxon (old English) was a language of many inflections. Modern English has few inflections. We must now depend largely on word order and function words to convey the meanings that the older language did by means of changes in the forms of words. Function words, you should understand, are words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and a few others that are used primarily to show relationships among other words. A few inflections, however, have survived. And when some word infections come into conflict with word order, there may be trouble for the users of the language. as we shall see later when we tum our attention to such matters as WHO or WHOM and ME or I. The second fact we must consider is that as language itself changes. our attitudes toward language forms change also. The eighteenth century, for example, produced from various sources a [tendency] to fix the language into patterns not always set in and grew, until at the present time there is a strong tendency to restudy and re-evaluate language practices in terms of the ways in which people speak and write. Questions 16- 20 are based on Passage Four.The truth about the English language is that_____.

A.it has usually undergone imperceptible changes
B.it has existed for fifty hundred years
C.it has been changing all the time
D.it has never changed

17.The English language has been_____.

A.greatly influenced by some other languages in its development
B.claimed to be a sign of civilization to the common folk
C.regarded as the possession of the working class
D.treasured only by ordinary working people

18.The developments of the English language can be sen in the changes in______.

A.spelling rules
B.sentence order
C.word meaning
D.word forms

19.The word “tendency” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to______.

A.desire
B.attempt
C.Inclination
D.requirement

20.The best title for the passage could be______.

A.Our Changing Language
B.Some Features of Modern English
C.The History of the English Language
D.Our Attitudes towards the English Language

21.Passage FivePlastered on the wall of San Francisco's main public library are 50.000 index. cards, formerly entries in the library's catalogue. The tomes they refer to may be. becoming decorative, too. Not only can library patrons now search the collection online, they may also check out electronic books without visiting the library. For librarians. "e-lending" is a natural offer in the digital age. Publishers and booksellers fear it could unbind their business. Worries about the effect of libraries on the book trade are not new. But digital devices, which allow books to reach readers with ease and speed, intensify them. As Brian Napack, president of Macmillan, a big publisher. put it in 2011, the fear is hat someone who gets a library card will "never have to buy a book again" A printed book can be borrowed only during opening hours and at the library. so many readers save themselves the [hassle] and buy their own copy. But e-lending. is frictionless: any user with the right privileges can download a digital file instantly (at the end of the borrowing period it self-destructs). This raises big issues:must libraries buy many copies of an e-book, or just one? And what about security?A hacker who cracks the library's system could pirate everything it holds.        In publishers eyes librarians are ["sitting close to Satan"], declared Phil Bradley, president of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. He was addressing indignant librarians who recently gathered in London to swap tales of e-lending woe. Some publishers have refused to sell their e-books to public libraries, made them prohibitively costly or put severe restrictions on their use. Under copyright law, anyone who buys a printed book can lend or rent it, but the same does not apply to digital works. Libraries do not own these outright.Instead they must negotiate licensing deals for each book they want to lend. They put the e-collections on servers run by computer firms such as OverDrive an? 3M,which typically charge around $20,000 annually, plus a fee for each book.  No country has a settled policy on e-lending. Britain has ordered a review;the results are expected soon. Other governments are waiting for publishers to set their terms. In America, where around three -quarters of public libraries lend e-books, each of the big six" publishers has a different policy. Simon & Schuster refuses to make e-books available to public libraries at all. HarperCollins’s e-books expire after they have been lent 26 times. At the 80 libraries where Penguin is offering a pilot e-lending program, licenses for its e-books expire after a year.Other publishers want to apply the limitations of printed books to digital ones. For example, some want public libraries to replace e-books periodically, just as they have to do with real books that get dirty and torn.Questions 21-25 are based on Passage Five.21.According to paragraph 1, publishers are afraid that_____.

A.E-lending will cut off their business
B.E-lending will facilitate their business
C.Libraries will not buy scholarly books any longer
D.Libraries will buy those heavy scholarly books for decoration

22.The word “hassle” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to_____.

A.harassment
B.quarrel
C.inconvenience
D.disagreement

23.By saying "librarians are sitting close to Satan, publishers mean that_____.

A.when librarians offer e-books they violate the rules in the publishing industry
B.what librarians have done has an adverse effect on the publishing industry
C.librarians are devils like Satan
D.librarians are befriending Satan

24.From paragraph 6 we can learn that_____.

A.big publishers in America adopted different policies towards e-lending
B.many publishers would like to provide e-books to libraries freely
C.public libraries will have to pay more to buy e-books
D.public libraries will replace e-books periodically

25.The best title for this passage could be_____.

A.E-books to replace P-books
B.E-lending, an Essential Service
C.E-lending, a Natural Offer in the Modern Age
D.public libraries will replace e-books periodically

Vocabulary.

(10 points, 1 point for each)Directions: Scan the following passage and find the words which have roughly the same meanings as those given below. The number in the brackets after each word definition refers to the number of paragraph in which the target word is. Write the word you choose on the Answer Sheet.

11.Do pigeons use their biological clocks to help them find directions from the sun? We can keep pigeons in a room lit only by lamps. And we can program the lighting to produce artificial "days", different from the day outside. After a while we have shifted their clocks. Now we take them far away from home and let them. go on a sunny day. Most of then stat out as if they know just which way to go, but choose a wrong direction. They have picked a direction that would be correct for the position of the sun and the time of day according to their shifted clocks.We have talked about one of the more complex experiments that lead to the belief that homing pigeons can tell directions by the sun. But what happens when the sky is darkly overcast by clouds and no one can see where the sun is? Then the pigeons still find their way home. The same experiment has been repeated many times on sunny days and the result was always the same. But on very overcast days. clock-shifted pigeons are just as good as normal pigeons in starting out in the right directions. So it seems that pigeons also have some extra sense of direction to use when they cannot see the sun.Naturally, people have wondered whether pigeons might have a build—in compass- something that would tell them about the directions of the earth's magnetic field. One way to test that idea would be to see if a pigeon's sense of direction can be fooled by a magnet attached to its back. With a strong magnet close by. a compass can no longer tell direction.26. relating to the natural processes of living things (Para.1)27. give a set of instructions for performing an operation (Para. 1)28. changed slightly (Para.1)29. difficult to understand because of having many different part(Para. 1)30. the feeling of certainty that something is true (Para.2)31. dark with clouds (Para.2)32. done more than once (Para.2)33. usual and typical (Para.2)34. an instrument that shows directions (Para.3)35. tricked into believing (Para.3)

三、Summarization.

(20 points, 2 points for each)Directions: In this section of the test, there are ten paragraphs. Each of the paragraphs is followed by an incomplete phrase or sentence which summarizes the main idea of the paragraph. Spell out the missing letters of the word on your Answer Sheet.

21.Paragraph OneThe U.S. government has published sweeping new rules requiring chain restaurants and large vending machine operators to disclose calorie counts on menus to make people more aware of the risks of obesity posed by fatty sugary foods. Under the rules, calories must be displayed on all menus and menu boards.Calorie counts to be i_____.

22.Paragraph TwoDoctors should refrain from adding patients as friends on Facebook, they should not hug or allow patients to call them by their first names, regulators have warned. Blurring the lines between social and professional relationships can impact on the level of care offered and prevent patients from being honest about important side effects.C_____ relationships may hinder objective care.

23.Paragraph ThreeResearches suggest that for healthy older adults. even though their memory might not be as good, they can naturally recruit other brain regions that are not typically involved in shopping. Scientists discovered older shoppers use an additional brain area to remember competing consumer products and choose the better one — meaning they don't miss a bargain.Shopping is b____ to one’s brainpower.

24.Paragraph FourMr Devlin, 46, from Nunhead, London, is living with a bizarre condition called prosopagnosia, meaning he struggles to recognize faces 一even those of his own family. Mr Devlin is a painter. He has to memorise his family's voices and body language in order to know who they are, but reading voices and body language doesn't always work. Mr.Devlin is s____ from face blindness.

25.Paragraph FiveHow dogs react to TV一whether it's running around, barking excitedly, or just ignoring it — may come down to personality or breed. Hunting dogs. which are driven by smell, aren't as interested in visuals, but herding breeds, such as terriers, may be more stimulated by moving objects they see on the small screen.Breed a _____ dogs' reactions to TV.

26.Paragraph SixA recent study has found that people who use an iPhone are cleverer than those who prefer Android devices. This is based on research that found states with more college graduates also tend to have higher iPhone sales. The study discovered that Alaska, Montana and Vermont have the largest number of iPhone users in the US. These states also have the highest percentage of college graduates.iPhone users are s______.

27.Paragraph SevenAn analysis across the EU showed that nearly 1/5 British families are headed by a single adult. And while 18.4% of families in this country have a solo parent, numbers come to just 12.7% in Germany. 14.4% in France and 10.6% in the Netherlands. In Belgium the share is 16.1%. In Ireland, it is 18.1%.The p____ of single-parent families in European countries.

28.Paragraph EightThe eating habits of American children appear to be shifting. The news is good. Burgers. fries and colas remain popular with the under-13 set, of course, But new market research shows that consumption of these foods at restaurants is declining, while soup, yogurt, fruit, grilled chicken and chocolate milk are on the rise.A c______ for the better in the eating habits of American children.

29.Paragraph NineA survey of more than 285.000 US high school students carried out between 1991 and 2012 found young people had fewer friends with whom to interact, but less desire for more friends. The research has also shown that teenagers have fewer friends than 20 years ago, despite the increasing popularity of social media.U____ to make more friends.

210.Paragraph TenIf you sit at a desk all day, get up frequently and walk around. If you carry a heavy shoulder bag. make sure to carry it on both your right and left shoulder, switching off as each gets tired. Even better: wear a cross-body bag. These and other tips will help you avoid bad posture.Tips for m_____ good posture.

四、Translation.

(20 points, 4 points for each)Directions: In the following passage, there are five groups of underlined sentences. Read the passage carefully and translate these sentences into Chinese. Write the Chinese version on your Answer Sheet.

31.(46.When smoking amongst women was not as widespread as it is now, women were considered to be almost free from cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer. Unhappily, the situation has changed, and smoking kills over half a million women each year in the industrialized world.) But it is also an increasingly important cause of ill health amongst women in developing countries  (47.A recent World Health Organization (WHO) consultation on the statistical aspects of tobacco-related mortality concluded that the toll that can be attributed to smoking throughout the world is 2.7 million deaths per year.) It also predicted that if current patterns of cigarette smoking continue unchanged the global death toll from tobacco by the year 2025 may increase to eight million deaths per year. A large proportion of these will be amongst women.  (48. Despite these alarming statistics the scale of the threat that smoking poses to women's health has received surprisingly little attention. Smoking is still seen by many as a mainly male problem, perhaps because men were the first to take up the habit and therefore the first to suffer the ill effects. ) This is no longer the case. Women who smoke like men will die like men. WHO estimates that in industrialized countries, smoking rates amongst men and women are very similar,  a around 30 per cent; in a large number of developed countries. smoking is now more common among teenage girls than boys.  As women took up smoking later than men, the full impact of smoking on their health has yet to be seen. But it is clear from countries where women smoked  longest, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. that smoking causes  the same diseases in women as in men and the gap between their death rates is  narrowing. (49. On current trends. some 20 to 25 per cent of women who smoke will die from their habit. One in three of these deaths will be among women under 65 years of age.) The US Surgeon General has estimated that, amongst these women,  smoking is responsible for around 40 per cent heart disease deaths, 55 per cent of  lethal strokes and, among women of all ages, 80 per cent of lung cancer deaths and 30 per cent of all cancer deaths. Over the last 20 years, death rates in women from lung cancer have more than doubled in Japan, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom: have increased by more than 200 per cent in Australia, Demark and New Zealand; and have increased by more than 300 per cent in Canada and the United States.  There are dramatically increasing trends in respiratory cancer among women in developed countries, and the casual relationship of smoking, rather than air pollution and other factors, to lung cancer is very clear. (50. In the United States. for instance, the mortality rate for lung cancer among female non-smokers has not changed during the past 20 years. During the same period, the rate among female smokers has increased by a factor of half. ) In South East Asia, more than 85 per cent of oral cancer cases in women are caused by tobacco habits.