Passage 1
The slightest whiff of baking bread starts taste buds blossoming. Its siren scent has even driven men to acts of madness. Like a country's flag, bread signals nationality at the world's tables. America's corn bread; Ireland's soda bread; England's traditional cottage loaf and bread appears in as many shapes and sizes as there are nationalities. The French have created long, thin loaves with special flavour-lightly salted, slightly sour, finely textured. In all its marvellous variety, bread is such an essential part of life that it has also entered the language"bread winner", "break bread","bread(for money)", "know which side his bread is buttered","take the bread out of his mouth"are but a few examples.
Bread had its origins in a coarse, flat cake that may have been first baked by Swiss lake dwellers of the Stone Age, who more than 8,000 years ago discovered how to pound grain, mix it with water and bake it on heated stones. Historians trace leavened bread to between 2000 and 3000 BC in Egypt, where wild yeast probably invaded a baker's dough, producing the world's first light bread. The Egyptians subsequently invented the oven and turned breadmaking into an art, creating more than 50 varieties. The Romans further refined bread-making, inventing the domed and thick-walled peel oven. They also developed water-driven mills and the first mechanical dough-mixer, powered by horses and donkeys. Perhaps the most inspired innovation involving bread occurred in London in the eighteenth century, when a dissolute nobleman, John Montagu, asked that meat be served between sheets of bread so that he could eat while remaining at the gaming tables. That crude sandwich changed the eating habits of the world.
Whatever its shape or texture, a golden-crust loaf coming from the oven breathing and swelling goodness stirs perhaps the most ancient of all hungers. Bread has become the very symbol of sustenance, arousing reverence, nostalgia, even passion, like no other food.
1. We can infer from the sentence"bread signals nationality at the world's table" that .
A. bread can be used as a country's flag
B. bread are made differently
C. there are many ways to make bread
D. people like to eat very much
2. Which of the following can be explained as "know where one may have advantages"?
A. Breadwinner.
B. Take the bread out of his mouth.
C. Bread for money
D. Know which side one's bread is buttered.
3. The original form of bread was .
A. a long and thin loaf
B. an animal-shaped cake
C. a common flat cake
D. a twist dough
4. The most inspired innovation concerning bread in the 18th century was .
A. a heated stove
B. the crude sandwich
C. the domed and thick-walled peel oven
D. 50 varieties of bread
5. Which is NOT true according to the passage?
A. Bread is so important in our life that it enters into the language.
B. There are varieties of bread in the world.
C. The sandwich changed the eating habit of the world.
D. Bread was the only food eaten by ancient people.
Passage 2
No one should be forced to wear a uniform under any circumstance. Uniforms are demanding to the human spirit and totally unnecessary in a democratic society. Uniforms tell the world that the person who wears one has no value as an individual but only lives to function as a part of a whole. The individual in a uniform loses all self-worth.
There are those who say that wearing a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger, more important concept. What could be more important than the individual himself? If an organization is so weak that it must rely on cloth and buttons to inspire it's members, that organization has no right to continue its existence. Others say that the practice of making persons wear uniforms, say in a school, eliminates all envy and competition in the matter of dress, such that a poor person who cannot afford good - quality clothing is not to be belittled by a wealthy person who wears expensive quality clothing. Those persons conveniently ignore such critical concepts as freedom of choice, motivation, and individuality. If all persons were to wear the same clothing, why would anyone strive to be better? It is only a short step from forcing everyone to drive the same car, have the same type of foods. When this happens, all incentive to improve one's life is removed. Why would parents bother to work hard so that their children could have a better life than they had when they know that their children are going to be forced to have exactly the same life that they had?
Uniforms also hurt the economy. Right now, billions of dollars are spent on the fashion industry yearly. Thousands of persons are employed in designing, creating and marketing different types of clothing. If everyone were forced to wear uniforms, artistic personnel would be unnecessary. Sales persons would be superfluous as well; why bother to sell the only items that are available? The wearing of uniforms would destroy the fashion industry, which in turn would have a ripple effect on such industries as advertising and promotion. Without advertising, newspapers, magazines, and television would not be able to remain in business. One entire information and entertainment industry would collapse.
6. The author's primary purpose in writing this passage was to .
A. plead for the abolishment of uniforms
B. show that uniforms are not possible in a democratic society
C. advocate stronger governmental controls on the wearing of uniforms
D. convince the reader that uniforms have more disadvantages than advantages
7. Why does the author discuss forcing everyone to buy the same car or eat the same food?
A. To show that freedom of choice is absolute.
B. To show that the government has interfered too much in the lives of individual.
C. To suggest what would happen if uniforms became compulsory.
D. To predict the way the society will be in the next few generations.
8. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the author?
A. The person who wears a uniform has no self-worth.
B. Wearing a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger concept.
C. Uniforms will hurt one entire information and entertainment industry.
D. Envy and competition are incentive to improve one's life.
9. The word "superfluous" (Para. 3) most probably means "".
A. indispensable
B. available
C. surplus
D. supplementary
10. The next paragraph in this passage might discuss .
A. the positive effects of wearing uniforms
B. more negative effects of wearing uniforms
C. an alternative to wearing uniforms
D. the legal rights of those not wishing to wear uniforms
Passage 3
Icebergs are among nature's most spectacular creations, and yet most people have never seen one. A vague air of mystery envelops them. They come into being-somewhere-in faraway, frigid waters, amid thunderous noise and splashing turbulence, which in most cases no one hears or sees. They exist only a short time and then slowly waste away just as unnoticed.
Objects of sheerest beauty, they have been called. Appearing in an endless variety of shapes, they may be dazzlingly white, or they may be glassy blue, green or purple, tinted faintly or in darker hues. They are graceful, stately, inspiring in calm, sunlit seas.
But they are also called frightening and dangerous, and that they are—in the night, in the fog, and in storms. Even in clear weather one is wise to stay a safe distance away from them. Most of their bulk is hidden below the water, so their underwater parts may extend out far beyond the visible top. Also, they may roll over unexpectedly, churning the waters around them.
Icebergs are parts of glaciers that break off, drift into the water, float about awhile, and finally melt. Icebergs afloat today are made of snowflakes that have fallen over long ages of time. They embody snows that drifted down hundreds, or many thousands, or in some cases maybe a million years ago. The snows fell in polar regions and on cold mountains, where they melted only a little or not at all, and so collected to great depths over the years and centuries.
As each year's snow accumulation lay on the surface, evaporation and melting caused the snowflakes slowly to lose their feathery points and become tiny grains of ice. When new snow fell on top of the old, it too turned to icy grains. So blankets of snow and ice grains mounted layer upon layer and were of such great thickness that the weight of the upper layers compressed the lower ones. With time and pressure from above, the many small ice grains joined and changed to larger crystals, and eventually the deeper crystals merged into a solid mass of ice.
11. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
A. The Melting of Icebergs
B. The Nature and Origin of Icebergs
C. The Size and Shape of Icebergs
D. The Dangers of Icebergs
12. The author states that icebergs are rarely seen because they are .
A. surrounded by fog
B. hidden beneath the mountains
C. located in remote regions of the world
D. broken by waves soon after they are formed
13. According to the passage, icebergs are dangerous because they .
A. usually melt quickly
B. can turn over very suddely
C. may create immense snowdrifts
D. can cause unexpected avalanches
14. The formation of an iceberg is most clearly analogous to which of the following activities?
A. Walking on fluffy new snow, causing it to become more compact and icy.
B. Plowing large areas of earth, leaving the land flat and barren.
C. Skating across a frozen lake and leaving a trail behind.
D. Blowing snow into one large pile to clear an area.
15. The attitude of the author toward icebergs is one of .
A. disappointment
B. humor
C. disinterest
D. wonder
Passage 4
One fact that clearly demonstrated by the early sleep researchers: one part of the night is not just like another. As scientists began to compare the records of volunteers during the 1950's, they observed that human sleep follows a rhythmic schedule. They noted that not only was this schedule much the same in healthy persons of the same age with similar habits but, from night to night, each individual had an EEG record almost as consistent as a signature.
Sleep and wakefulness, once considered to be the light and dark of consciousness, no longer seem to differ so sharply. Actually, sleep is not a unitary state, it involves many shades or degrees of detachment from the surrounding world. While sleep may feel like a blanket of darkness punctuated by dreams-a time when the mind is asleep-nothing could be less true. All night long a person drifts down and up through different levels of consciousness, as if on waves. With laboratory methods, researchers have been able to chart the typical stages of the journey into sleep.
The journey starts while the subject is still awake but beginning to relax. His brain waves, which have been low, rapid, and irregular, begin to show a new pattern, the alpha rhythm.
When their EEG shows an alpha rhythm, the subjects are notified, either by a sound or by the appearance of a color on a screen. Because the alpha state tends to be pleasant and relaxed, the ability to sustain it can help tense people ease their passage into sleep. A moment of tension, a loud noise, an attempt to solve a problem, however, and the alpha rhythm may vanish.
As the subject passes through the gates of the unconscious, his alpha waves grow smaller, and his eyes roll very slowly. For a moment, he may wake up during this early part of the descent, alerted by a sudden spasm that causes his body to jerk. It is cauesd by a brief burst of activity in the brain, and is normal in all human sleep. It is gone in a fraction of a second, after which descent continues. The subject has not felt the peculiar transformation, but now he is said to be truly asleep.
16. This passage states that a person is really asleep only .
A. when his EEG begins to show an alpha rhythm
B. after the completion of his alpha rhythm
C. when his EEG reveals no alpha rhythm
D. after experiencing a jerk
17. According to the author, the alpha state has been shown to be .
A. a brief burst of activity in the brain
B. controllable
C. unpleasant for some people
D. unmeasurable
18. According to the passage, was used by sleep researchers.
A. music
B. ladder
C. charts
D. signature
19. According to this passage, sleep is described as .
A. a gradual parting from the real world
B. drowning in an ocean of darkness
C. undisturbed by tension or problems
D. dependent only upon individual age and health
20. The word"subjects"(para.3,line 1)refers to .
A. measurements
B. instruments
C. dreams
D. volunteers
1.分析与解答：答案为B。参看第一段第三、的四句。
2.分析与解答：答案为D。“know which side one's bread is buttered”意为“知道自己的利处在哪儿。”故选D。
3.分析与解答：答案为C。参看第二段第一句。
4.分析与解答：答案为B。参看第二段最后一句。
5.分析与解答：答案为D。A，B，C三项都是事实，在文章中都提到过。文章并未讲“面包是古人唯的食品。”故D不对。
6.分析与解答：这是一道主旨题，作者反对人们都穿制服目的是要提倡人们不要穿制服，故选D。
7.分析与解答：“same food”和“same car”只不过是作者为论证自己的观点所做的比较,故应选C。
8.分析与解答：见第二段第句，答案为B。
9.分析与解答：根据第三段第五句话，人们不买有个性的东西了，营业员自然就过剩了，故应选C。
10.分析与解答：文章从始至终都在说穿制服的缺点，可推断答案应选B。
11.分析与解答：在把握全篇的基础上，答案为B。
12.分析与解答：根据第一段第二句，应选C。
13.分析与解答：根据第三段第三、的四句话，选B。
14.分析与解答：参见第五段，选A。
15.分析与解答：根据文章第一句话便可推断出作者的语气态度，应选D。
16.分析与解答：答案为D。根据第五段最后一句可得知答案。其它选项与原文不符。
17.分析与解答：答案为B。根据第四段的描写可得知答案。其它选项与原文不符。
18.分析与解答：答案为B。根据第二段最后一句的描写可得知答案。其它选项与原文不符。
19.分析与解答：答案为A。根据第二段第二句可得知答案。其它选项与原文不符。...detachment
from the real world=parting from
20.分析与解答：答案为D。subjects 在此文中意为volunteers受测者。其它选项与原文不符。