2006考研英语命题预测题一

Section Ⅰ Use of English

Directions:

    Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A,B,C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1(10 points)

    The current French bestseller lists are wonderfully eclectique. In  1  , there is everything      2  blockbuster thrillers to Catherine Millet's "La vie sexuelle de Catherine M.", a novel which has been   3  praised as high art and   4    as upmarket porn. Then there are novels   5   the sticky questions of good and   6  ("Le demon et mademoiselle Prym") and faith versus science in the modern world ("L'apparition"). Philosophical   7  continue in the non-fiction list,  8  this week by Michel Onfray's "Antimanuel de philosophie", a witty take  9  some of philosophy's perennial debates. Those who like their big issues in small chunks are also enjoying Frederic Beigbeder's "Dernier inventaire avant liquidation", a survey of France's  10   20th-century books,  11  with Mr Beigbeder's 12   humour from the title on ("The 50 books of the century chosen by you and critiqued by me").

    In Britain, meanwhile, there is olive oil all over  the non- fiction list. It's a staple 13   for Nigella Lawson, a domestic divinity and celebrity  14 , whose latest  15  of recipes tops the list. Annie Hawes, in second  16  , took herself  17  to the sun- drenched hills of Italy to grow her own olives and write a book about them-as did Carol Drinkwater, just  18  the border in France. Fiction-wise, it's business as  19  , with the requisite holiday mix of thrillers, romance, fantasy-and Harry Potter, with "The Goblet of Fire" still burning  20  at  number three.

1. A. literature  B. narrative C. story D. fiction
2. A. on  B. from C. about  D. of 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
3. A. both  B. equally C. rather D. together
4. A. approved  B. admired C. derided D. scolded
5. A .attempting B, dealing C. tackling D. talking
6. A. .evil     B. sin    C. wickedness   D. bad
7. A. topics  B. ideas C. arguments  D. themes　
8.A. topped  B. covered  C. overdone  D. surpassed
9. A. of  B. by  C. at D. on
10. A good B. favourite  C. favorable  D. satisfying
11. A. dealt  B. handled C. touched D. managed
12.A. brand B. trademark  C. marked  D. obvious
13. A. ingredient  B. constitution  C. part D. factor
14.A. writer  B. novelist C. chef D. journalist
15.A. set  B. anthology  C. collection 　 D. album
16. A. rank B. place  C. point  D. status
17.A. up  B. on  C. off  D. in
18. A. above  B. around  C. about  D. across
19. A. usual B. usually  C. common  D. commonly
20. A. bright B. intense C. dazzling D. brilliant

Section Ⅱ Reading Comprehension

Part A
Directions:
    Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)

Text 1

    "MAKING money is a dirty game," says the Institute of Economic Affairs, summing up the attitude of British novelists towards business. The IEA, a free market think-tank, has just published a collection of essays ("The Representation of Business in English Literature") by five academics chronicling the hostility of the country's men and women of letters to the sordid business of making money. The implication is that Britain's economic performance is retarded by an anti-industrial culture.

    Rather than blaming recalcitrant workers and incompetent managers for Britain's economic worries, then, we can put George Orwell and Martin Amis in the dock instead. From Dickens's Scrooge to Amis’s John Self in his 1980s novel "Money", novelists have conjured up a rogue's gallery of mean, greedy, amoral money-men that has alienated their impressionable readers from the noble pursuit of capitalism.

    The argument has been well made before, most famously in 1981 by Martin Wiener, an American academic, in his "English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit". Lady Thatcher was a devotee of Mr. Wiener's, and she led a crusade to revive the "entrepreneurial culture" which the liberal elite had allegedly trampled underfoot. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, sounds as though he agrees with her. At a recent speech to the Confederation of British Industry, he declared that it should be the duty of every teacher in the country to "communicate the virtues of business and enterprise".

    Certainly, most novelists are hostile to capitalism, but this refrain risks scapegoating writers for failings for which they are not to blame. Britain's culture is no more anti-business than that of other countries. The Romantic Movement, which started as a reaction against the industrial revolution of the century, was born and flourished in Germany, but has not stopped the Germans from being Europe's most successful entrepreneurs and industrialists.

    Even the Americans are guilty of blackening business's name. SMERSH and SPECTRE went out with the cold war. James Bond now takes on international media magnates rather than Rosa Kleb. His films such as "Erin Brockovich" have pitched downtrodden, moral heroes against the evil of faceless corporatism. Yet none of this seems to have dented America's lust for free enterprise.

    The irony is that the novel flourished as an art form only after, and as a result of, the creation of the new commercial classes of Victorian England, just as the modern Hollywood film can exist only in an era of mass consumerism. Perhaps the moral is that capitalist societies consume literature and film to let off steam rather than to change the world.

21. In the first paragraph, the author introduces his topic by

A. posing a contract
B. justifying an assumption
C. making a comparison
D. explaining a phenomenon

22. The word “sordid”(line 6, para 1)implies

A. holy
B. dirty
C. sainty
D. pure

23. George Orwell and Martin Amis are defendants because

A. no accusation of the inefficient management
B. the decline of the country’s economy
C. the novelists are in favor of them
D. novelists depict them as merciful people

24. American academic Martin Wiener’s argument

A. sides with the liberal elite
B. is neutral about the virtue of business and enterprise
C. inclines towards the revival of the entrepreneurial culture
D. is hostile to the industrial spirit

25. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A. the novel existed after the creation of the new commercial classes
B. capital doesn’t pollute  social morality
C. capitalist societies change the world
D. the modern holy world has nothing to do with consumers

Text 2

    JOSEPH RYKWERT entered his field when post-war modernist architecture was coming under fire for its alienating embodiment of outmoded social ideals. Think of the UN building in New York, the city of Brasilia, the UNESCO building in Paris, the blocks of housing "projects" throughout the world. These tall, uniform boxes are set back from the street, isolated by windswept plazas. They look inward to their own functions, presenting no "face" to the inhabitants of the city, no "place" for social interaction. For Mr. Rykwert, who rejects the functionalist spirit of the Athens Charter of 1933, a manifesto for much post-war building, such facelessness destroys the human meaning of the city. Architectural form should not rigidly follow function, but ought to reflect the needs of the social body it represents.

    Like other forms of representation, architecture is the embodiment of the decisions that go into its making, not the result of impersonal forces, market or historical. Therefore, says Mr. Rykwert, adapting Joseph de Maistre's dictum that a nation has the government it deserves, our cities have the faces they deserve,

    In this book, Mr. Rykwert, a noted urban historian of anthropological bent, offers a flaneur's approach to the city's exterior surface rather than an urban history from the conceptual inside out. He does not drive, so his interaction with the city affords him a warts-and-all view with a sensual grasp of what it is to be a "place".

    His story of urbanization begins, not surprisingly, with the industrial revolution when populations shifted and increased, exacerbating problems of housing and crime. In the 19th century many planning programs and utopias (Ebenezer Howard's garden city and Charles Fourier's “phalansteries" among them) were proposed as remedies. These have left their mark on 20th-century cities, as did Baron Hausmann's boulevards in Paris, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc's and Owen Jones's arguments for historical style, and Adolf Loos's fateful turn-of-the-century call to abolish ornament which, in turn, inspired Le Corbusier's austere modem functionalism. The reader will recognize all these ideas in the surfaces of the cities that hosted them: New York, Paris, London, and Vienna.

    Cities changed again after the Second World War as populations grew, technology raced and prosperity spread. Like it or not, today's cities are the muddled product, among other things, of speed, greed, outmoded social agendas and ill-suited postmodern aesthetics. Some bemoan the old city's death; others welcome its replacement by the electronically driven "global village". Mr. Rykwert has his worries, to be sure, but he does not see ruin or anomie everywhere. He defends the city as a human and social necessity. In Chandigarh, Canberra and New York he sees overall success; in New Delhi, Paris and Shanghai, large areas of failing. For Mr. Rykwert, a man on foot in the age of speeding virtual, good architecture may still show us a face where flaneurs can read the story of their urban setting in familiar metaphors.

26. An argument made by supporters of functionism is that

A. post-war modernist architecture was coming under fire
B. UN building in New York blocks the housing projects
C. windswept plazas present “face” to the inhabitants of the city
D. functionism reflects the needs of the social body

27. According to Mr Rykwert, “dictum” can serve as

A. book
B. market
C. form
D. words

28.The word “exacerbating”(line 3, para 4) means

A.deteriorating
B.inspiring
C. encouraging
D. surprising

29.According to Mr Rykwert, he

A. sees damage here and there
B. is absolutely a functionist
C. is completely disappointed with the city’s death
D. is objectively commenting the city ?

30. The author associates the issue of functionism with post-war modernist architecture because

A. they are both Mr Rykwert’s arguments
B. it is a comparison to show the importance of post-war modernist architecture
C. functionism and post-war modernism architecture are totally contradictory
D. Mr Rykwert supports functionism

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