Passage 5
     When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming "I wanted to spend more time with my family".
     Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all", preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the page of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything.
     I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life", and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12 hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "quality time".
     In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshifting-also known in America as "voluntary simplicity"-has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anti-consumerism. There are a number of best-selling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives; there are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their cling-film to making their own soap; there are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-'90s equivalent of dropping out.
     While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economy decline-after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late'80s-and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class down-shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives.
     For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the'80s,downshifting in the mid-'90s is not so much a search for the mythical good life-growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one-as a personal recognition of your limitations.
     67．Which of the following is true according to paragraph 1?
     [A] Full-time employment is a new international trend.
     [B] The writer was compelled by circumstances to leave her job.
     [C] "A lateral move" means stepping out of full-time employment.
     [D] The writer was only too eager to spend more time with her family.
     68．The writer's experiment shows that downshifting _________.
     [A] enables her to realize her dream
     [B] helps her mold a new philosophy of life
     [C] prompts her to abandon her high social status
     [D] leads her to accept the doctrine of [WTBX]she magazine
     69．"Juggling one's life" probably means living a life characterized by _________.
     [A] non-materialistic lifestyle
     [B] a bit of everything
     [C] extreme stress
     [D] anti-consumerism
     70．According to the passage, downshifting emerged in the U.S. as a result of _________.
     [A] the quick pace of modern life
     [B] man's adventurous spirit
     [C] man's search for mythical experiences
     [D] the economic situation
     [第67題答案] B
     [第68題答案] B
     [第69題答案] C
     [第70題答案] D 　 2002年研究生入學(xué)考試英語(yǔ)閱讀理解A
     Text 1
     If you intend using humor in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the audience and should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whom you are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to a group of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of their secretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want to comment on their disorganized bosses.
     Here is an example, which I heard at a nurses' convention, of a story which works well because the audience all shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around by St. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather, and so on. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in a line for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps over to a table by himself. "Who is that?" the new arrival asked St. Peter. "On, that's God," came the reply, "but sometimes he thinks he's a doctor."
     If you are part of the group which you are addressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problems which are common to all of you and it'll be appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the inedible canteen food or the chairman's notorious bad taste in ties. With other audiences you mustn't attempt to cut in with humor as they will resent an outsider making disparaging remarks about their canteen or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats like the Post Office or the telephone system.
     If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual and apparently off-the-cuff remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforced manner. Often it's the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speak slowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help to show that you are making a light-hearted remark.
     Look for the humor. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar quote "If at first you don't succeed, give up" or a play on words or on a situation. Search for exaggeration and understatements. Look at your talk and pickout a few words or sentences which you can turn about and inject with humor.
     41. To make your humor work, you should .
     [A] take advantage of different kinds of audience.
     [B] make fun of the disorganized people.
     [C] address different problems to different people.
     [D] show sympathy for your listeners.
     42. The joke about doctors implies that, in the eyes of nurses, they are .
     [A] impolite to new arrivals.
     [B] very conscious of their godlike role.
     [C] entitled to some privileges.
     [D] very busy even during lunch hours.
     43. It can be inferred from the text that public services.
     [A] have benefited many people.
     [B] are the focus of public attention.
     [C] are an inappropriate subject for humor.
     [D] have often been the laughing stock.
     44. To achieve the desired result, humorous stories should be delivered.
     [A] in well-worded language.
     [B] as awkwardly as possible.
     [C] in exaggerated statements.
     [D] as casually as possible.
     45. The best title for the text may be .
     [A] Use Humor Effectively.
     [B] Various Kinds of Humor.
     [C] Add Humor to Speech.
     [D] Different Humor Strategies.
     [第41題答案] C
     [第42題答案] B
     [第43題答案] D
     [第44題答案] D
     [第45題答案] A Text 2
     Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics-the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close.
     As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy-far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.
     But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves-goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can't yet give a robot enough ‘common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world."
     Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.
     What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented-and human perception far more complicated-than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.
     46. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in.
     [A] the use of machines to produce science fiction.
     [B] the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry.
     [C] the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work.
     [D] the elite's cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work.
     47. The word "gizmos" (line 1, paragraph 2) most probably means.
     [A] programs
     [B] experts
     [C] devices
     [D] creatures
     48. According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can .
     [A] fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery.
     [B] interact with human beings verbally.
     [C] have a little common sense.
     [D] respond independently to a changing world.
     49. Besides reducing human labor, robots can also.
     [A] make a few decisions for themselves.
     [B] deal with some errors with human intervention.
     [C] improve factory environments.
     [D] cultivate human creativity.
     50. The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are .
     [A] expected to copy human brain in internal structure.
     [B] able to perceive abnormalities immediately.
     [C] far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information.
     [D] best used in a controlled environment.
     [第46題答案] C
     [第47題答案] C
     [第48題答案] D
     [第49題答案] B
     [第50題答案] C Text 3
     Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time?
     The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term.
     Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past.
     Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, it oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25-0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies-to which heavy industry has shifted-have become more energy-intensive, and so could be more seriously squeezed.
     One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist's commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%.
     51. The main reason for the latest rise of oil price is
     [A] global inflation
     [B] reduction in supply
     [C] fast growth in economy
     [D] Iraq's suspension of exports
     52. It can be inferred from the text that the retail price of petrol will go up dramatically if
     [A] price of crude rises
     [B] commodity prices rise
     [C] consumption rises
     [D] oil taxes rise
     53. The estimates in Economic Outlook show that in rich countries
     [A] heavy industry becomes more energy-intensive.
     [B] income loss mainly results from fluctuating crude oil prices.
     [C] manufacturing industry has been seriously squeezed.
     [D] oil price changes have no significant iMPAct on GDP.
     54. We can draw a conclusion from the text that
     [A] oil-price shocks are less shocking now.
     [B] inflation seems irrelevant to oil-price shocks.
     [C] energy conservation can keep down the oil prices.
     [D] the price rise of crude leads to the shrinking of heavy industry.
     55. From the text we can see that the writer seems
     [A] optimistic
     [B] sensitive
     [C] gloomy
     [D] scared
     [第51題答案] B
     [第52題答案] D
     [第53題答案] D
     [第54題答案] A
     [第55題答案] A