【2010考研英语命题组回应】2006年考研英语命题预测模拟试题(一)1

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北京新航道学校考研阅读主讲 印建坤

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

Text 3
JOY WILLIAMS\"S quirky fourth novel "The Quick and the Dead" follows a trio of 16-yearold misfits in a warped "Charlie\"s Angels" set in the American south-west. Driven hazily to defend animal rights, the girls accomplish little beyond diatribe: they rescue a putrefied ram and hurl stones at stuffed elephants. In what is structurally a road novel that ends up where it began, the desultory threesome stumbles upon both cruelty to animals and unlikely romance. A mournful dog is strangled by an irate neighbor, a taxidermist falls in love with an 8-year-old direct-action firebrand determined that he atone for his sins. A careen across the barely tamed Arizona prairie, this peculiar book aims less for a traditional storyline than a sequence of jangled (often hilarious) conversations, ludicrous circumstances, and absurdist tableaux. The consequent long-walk-to-nowhere is both the book\"s limitation and its charm.
All three girls are motherless. Fiercely political Alice discovers that her erstwhile parents are her grandparents, who thereupon shrivel: "Deceit had kept them young whereas the truth had accelerated them practically into decrepitude." Both parents of the doleful Corvus drowned while driving on a flooded interstate off-ramp. The mother of the more conventional Annabel ("one of those people who would say, `We\"ll get in touch soonest\" when they never wanted to see you again") slammed her car drunkenly into a fish restaurant. Later, Annabel\"s father observes to his wife\"s ghost, "You didn\"t want to order what I ordered, darling." The sharp-tongued wraith snaps back: "That\"s because you always ordered badly and wanted me to experience your miserable mistake."
Against a roundly apocalyptic world view, the great pleasures of this book are line-by-line. Ms Williams can lacerate setting and character alike in a few slashes: "It was one of those rugged American places, a remote, sad-ass, but plucky downwind town whose citizens were flawed and brave." Alice\"s acerbity spits little wisdoms: putting lost teeth under a pillow for money is "a classic capitalistic consumer ploy, designed to wean you away at an early age from healthy horror and sensible dismay to greedy, deluded, sunny expectancy."
Whether or not the novel, like Alice, expressly advocates animal rights, an animal motif crops up in every scene, as flesh-and blood "critters" (usually dead) or insipid decoration on crockery. If Ms Williams does not intend to induce human horror at a pending bestial Armageddon, she at least invokes a future of earthly loneliness, where animals appear only as ceramic-hen butter dishes and endangered-species Elastoplasts. One caution: when flimsy narrative superstructure begins to sag, anarchic wackiness can grow wearing. While "The Quick and the Dead" is edgy from its first page, the trouble with starting at the edge is there is nowhere to go. Nevertheless, Ms Williams is original, energetic and viscously funny: Carl Hiaasen with a conscience.

31. The girls in the novel
A did nothing about reflecting the society facts.?
B protected animals successfully.
C were cruel to the animals.
D murdered their neighbor’s dog.

32. This novel is attentive to each of the following except
A backgrounds
B conversations
C traditional storyline
D  scenes

33. The main idea of the novel is
A care about the children
B how to make crockery
C fight with the animal-killers
D animal protection

34. The second paragraph tells us
A. the miserable life of the girls.
B. the girls’ parents are growing old.
C. society contradiction and circumstances the girls live in.
D. the backgrounds of the story and the heroines.

35. For Alice, putting lost teeth under a pillow for money is not
A just a beautiful dream.
B a way to be away the cheating.?
C a way to be away the lust .?
D a way to prevent one from illness.
 

Text 4
FEW people, except conspiracy theorists, would have expected so public a spat as the one this week between the two ringmasters of Formula One (F1) motor racing. Bernie Ecclestone, a fabulously wealthy British motor sport entrepreneur, is at odds, it would seem, with his longstanding associate, Max Mosley, president of F1\"s governing body, the Federation International de l\"Automobile (FIA).
Ostensibly, the dispute has broken out over what looked like a done deal. Last June, the FIA voted unanimously to extend Mr. Ecclestone\"s exclusive rights to stage and broadcast F1 racing, which expire in 2010, by 100 years. For these lucrative rights, Mr. Ecclestone was to pay the FIA a mere $360m in total, and only $60m immediately. The FIA claims that Mr. Ecclestone has not made the payment of $60m, a claim denied by Mr. Ecclestone, who insists the money has been placed in an escrow account. Mr. Mosley has asked Mr. Ecclestone to pay up or risk losing the deal for the F1 rights after 2010, perhaps to a consortium of car makers that own F1 teams. For his part, Mr. Ecclestone has, rather theatrically, accused Mr. Mosley of "trying to do some extortion".
What is going on? Only three things can be stated with confidence. First, the idea that Mr. Ecclestone cannot find the $60m is ludicrous: his family trust is not exactly short of cash, having raised around $2 billion in the past two years. Second, it would not be in Mr. Ecclestone\"s long-term financial interest to forgo a deal which could only enhance the value of his family\"s remaining 50% stake in SLEC, the holding company for the group of companies that runs the commercial side of F1. Third, the timing of the dispute is very interesting.
Why? Because the other 50% stake in SLEC, owned by EM. TV, a debt- ridden German media company, is up for sale. EM. TV badly needs to sell this stake in the near future to keep its bankers at bay. The uncertainty created by the dispute between Mr. Ecclestone and Mr. Mosley might depress the value of EM. TV\"s holding. Could that work to Mr. Ecclestone\"s advantage? Quite possibly. The lower the value of EM. TV\"s stake, the higher the relative value of an option Mr. Ecclestone holds to sell a further 25% of SLEC to EM. TV for around $1 billion--and the better the deal Mr. Ecclestone might be able to extract for surrendering the option. Whoever buys EM. TV\"s stake in SLEC will have to negotiate with Mr. Ecclestone over this instrument. The Economist understands that Mr. Ecclestone has the right to veto a plan proposed last December by Kirch, a privately owned German media group, to buy half of EM. TV\"s holding for $550m.
In the coming weeks, Mr. Ecclestone will doubtless be deploying his formidable negotiating skills to best advantage. It would be rash to bet against his securing a good deal out of EM. TV\"s difficulties. His dispute with the FIA may then be easily resolved. As usual, he holds all the cards.
36. FIA would give its partner the right to stage the racing till
A Mr. Ecclestone gave all the money.
B The contract time is reached.
C The 100th year after 2010.
D Mr. Ecclestone gave it 60m$.

37. The word “extortion”(last line, para 2 ) means
A abjection
B negotiation
C cheating
D racketeering

38. Which statement is probably true?
A Mr. Ecclestone just wanted to get more benefits through the EM.TV sale.
B Mr. Ecclestone wanted to give up the benefits from the contract.
C The timing of the dispute is very improper.
D Mr. Ecclestone cannot afford the money.

39. The last sentence of the passage implies
A Mr. Ecclestone can win at cards.
B Mr. Ecclestone will achieve great success in the negotiation.
C Mr. Ecclestone cheated all his partners.
D Mr. Eccestone will  lose the whole contract with FIA.

40. According to the last paragraph, “he holds all the cards” as
A. he deploys to best advantage
B. he wins all the cards
C. he never fails himself
D. he takes the cards in hand

Part B
Directions:
In the following text, some sentences have removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into of the numbered blank there are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1. (10 points)

AFTER its misadventures in 1993, when American marines were driven out of Somalia by skinny gunmen, America has used a long spoon in supping with Somalia\"s warlords. This, like so much else, changed on September 11th.(41)                                     .
Clandestine, up to a point: within hours of the arrival in Baidoa of nine closely cropped Americans sporting matching satellite phones and shades, their activities were broadcast. After meeting various warlords, the group inspected a compound that had apparently been offered to them as their future base. They also saw an old military depot. Neither can have been encouraging: the compound has been taken over by war-displaced families, and the depot by thorn-scrub.
America was already convinced of al-Qaeda\"s presence in Somalia. It had listed a Somali Islamic group, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Islamic Unity), as a terrorist organisation. (42)                     .                                It fears that lawless Somalia could become a haven for escapes from Afghanistan. The American navy is currently patrolling the country\"s long coastline, while spy planes are said to be criss-crossing the heavens.
(43)                                                . With a little bit of help, he told his American visitors, he would be ready "to liberate the country from these evil forces". America had already heard as much through its embassies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, which maintain contact with the warlords, and from Ethiopia.
The warlords are supported by Ethiopia, which has a historical fear of a strong Somalia, in a bid to oppose the government. But their differing views on where to strike at the "terrorists" reveal that their individual ambitions are even sharper than their dislike of the government.
Mr Ismail says that Merca, which is claimed by his Rahanwein clan, is the capital of terror. (44)                                               . The UN says there is only an orphanage there now. But the island is close to Mr Morgan\"s home town of Kismaayo, which he failed to capture from a pro-government militia in July, and he is determined not to fail again.
None of this looks good for Somalia\"s official president, Abdiquassim Salad Hassan, whose government is in control of about half the capital, Mogadishu. He has formed his own anti-terrorism unit, and invited America to send investigators, or even troops. America, armed with stories about the presence of al-Itihaad members held back, but on December 18th sent an envoy to Mogadishu.
Both Mr Hassan and the UN say that al-Itihaad is not a terrorist organisation. It emerged as an armed force in 1991, battling for power in the aftermath of Siad Barre\"s fall. It had some early successes, briefly taking Kismaayo. But it was always dependent on the blessing of its members\" clan elders. When the elders eventually called their fighters back, a hard core of Islamists fled to the Gedo border region where, in 1997, they were crushed by Ethiopian troops(45)                 .
The Baidoa alliance plainly hopes to be supported as proxies in a fight against "terrorism" and the Mogadishu regime. But the latest intelligence leaks suggest that the first reports may have overestimated al-Qaeda\"s presence in Somalia. Nor would Mr bin Laden and his henchmen find it easy to lie low in an oral culture that considers rumour-mongering to be a form of manners. Even so, the warlords seem to believe that they have won some promise of help. Soon after the arrival of the American group, they pulled out of the peace talks they had been holding with their government in Nairobi.
[A] Al-Itihaad subsequently infiltrated Somalia\"s business class, and now runs Islamic schools, courts and clinics with the money it has accumulated.                                    

[B] According to Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail, the acting chairman of the loose alliance of warlords who control most of Somalia and are based in Baidoa, there are "approximately 20,480 armed extremists" in Somalia and "85% of the government is al-Itihaad".                           

[C]  Muhammad Hersi Morgan, known as the "butcher of Hargeisa" because he once razed that town to the ground, says an al-Itihaad camp on Ras Kamboni island is still active.              

[D]  But since September 11th 2001, western governments, anxious to prevent al-Qaeda from using Somalia as a base, have pressed the warlords to make peace.     

[E]  American intelligence officers are working with two warlords to gather information about suspected al-Qaeda people in Somalia.                                              

[F] On December 9th America sent a clandestine mission to talk to a collection of Somali warlords, who like to claim that their country, in particular their UN-sponsored government, is overrun with terrorists.                                                                            

[G] It had also forced the closure of Barakaat, Somalia\"s biggest banking and telecoms company, which handles most of the remittances that Somalis working abroad send back to their families.

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