14. Everyone does their own thing, to the point where a fifth-grade teacher can’t __________ on a fourth-grade
teacher having taught certain things. A. count B. insist C. fall D. dwell
15. When the fire broke out in the building, the people lost their __________ and ran into the
elevator. A. hearts B. tempers C. heads D. senses
16. Consumers deprived of the information and advice they needed were quite simply ___________ every
cheat in the marketplace.
A. at the mercy of C. by courtesy of
B. in lieu of
D. for the price of
17. In fact the purchasing power of a single person’s pension in Hong Kong was only 70 per cent of
the value of the _________ Singapore pension. A. equivalent B. similar C. consistent D. identical
18. He became aware that he had lost his audience since he had not been able to talk
____________. A. honestly B. graciously C. coherently D. flexibly
19. The novel, which is a work of art, exists not by its _____________ life, but by its immeasurable
difference from life. A. significance in B. imagination at C. resemblance to D. predominance over
20. She was artful and could always ____________ her parents in the end.
A. shout down B. get round C. comply with D. pass over
PART II CLOZE TEST (15 minutes, 15 points)
Directions: For each blank in the following passage, choose the best answer from the four choices
given in the opposite column. Mark the corresponding letter of your choice with a single bar across the square brackets on your Machine-scoring Answer Sheet.
We are entering a period in which rapid population growth, the presence of deadly weapons, and dwindling resources will bring international tensions to dangerous levels for an extended period. Indeed, 21 seems no reason for these levels of danger to subside unless population equilibrium is 22 and some rough measure of fairness reached in the distribution of wealth among nations. 23 of adequate magnitude imply a willingness to redistribute income internationally on a more generous 24 than the advanced nations have evidenced within their own domains. The required increases in 25 in the backward regions would necessitate gigantic applications of energy merely to extract the 26 resources.
It is uncertain whether the requisite energy-producing technology exists, and more serious, 27 that its application would bring us to the threshold of an irreversible change in climate 28 a
consequence of the enormous addition of manmade heat to the atmosphere. It is this 29 problem that poses the most demanding and difficult of the challenges. The existing 30 of industrial growth, with no allowance for increased industrialization to repair global poverty, hold 31 the risk of entering the danger zone of climatic change in as 32 as three or four generations. If the trajectory is in fact pursued, industrial growth will 33 have to come to an immediate halt, for another generation or two along that 34 would literally consume human, perhaps all life. The terrifying outcome can be postponed only to the extent that the wastage of heat can be reduced, 35 that technologies that do not add to the atmospheric heat burden—for example, the use of solar energy—can be utilized. (1996)
21. A. one B. it C. this D. there 22. A. achieved B. succeeded C. produced D. executed 23. A. Transfers B. Transactions C. Transports D. Transcripts 24. A. extent B. scale C. measure D. range 25. A. outgrowth B. outcrop C. output D. outcome 26. A. needed B. needy C. needless D. needing 27. A. possible B. possibly C. probable D. probably 28. A. in B. with C. as D. to 29. A. least B. late C. latest D. last 30. A. race B. pace C. face D. lace 31. A. on B. up C. down D. out 32. A. less B. fewer C. many D. little 33. A. rather B. hardly C. then D. yet 34. A. line B. move C. drive D. track 35. A. if B. or C. while D. as
PART III READING COMPREHENSION Section A (60 minutes, 30 points)
Directions: Below each of the following passages you will find some questions or incomplete
statements. Each question or statement is followed by four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Read each passage carefully, and then select the choice that best answers the question or completes the statement. Mark the letter of your choice with a single bar across the square brackets on your Machine-scoring Answer Sheet.
Passage 1
The writing of a historical synthesis involves integrating the materials available to the historian into a comprehensible whole. The problem in writing a historical synthesis is how to find a pattern in, or impose a pattern upon, the detailed information that has already been used to explain the causes for a historical event.
A synthesis seeks common elements in which to interpret the contingent parts of a historical event. The initial step, therefore, in writing a historical synthesis, is to put the event to be synthesized in a proper historical perspective, so that the common elements or strands making up the event can be determined. This can be accomplished by analyzing the historical event as part of a general trend or continuum in history. The common elements that are familiar to the event will become the ideological framework in which the historian seeks to synthesize. This is not to say that any factor will not have a greater relative value in the historian’s handling of the interrelated when viewed in a broad historical perspective.
The historian, in synthesizing, must determine the extent to which the existing hypotheses have similar trends. A general trend line, once established, will enable these similar trends to be correlated and paralleled within the conceptual framework of a common base. A synthesis further seeks to determine, from existing hypotheses, why an outcome took the direction it did; thus, it necessitates
reconstructing the spirit of the times in order to assimilate the political, social, psychological, etc., factors within a common base.
As such, the synthesis becomes the logical construct in interpreting the common ground between an original explanation of an outcome (thesis) and the reinterpretation of the outcome along different lines (antithesis). Therefore, the synthesis necessitates the integration of the materials available into a comprehensible whole which will in turn provide a new historical perspective for the event being synthesized.
36. The author would mostly be concerned with _____________.
A. finding the most important cause for a particular historical event B. determining when hypotheses need to be reinterpreted
C. imposing a pattern upon varying interpretations for the causes of a particular historical event D. attributing many conditions that together lead to a particular historical event or to single motive
37. The most important preliminary step in writing a historical synthesis would be ____________.
A. to accumulate sufficient reference material to explain an event
B. analyzing the historical event to determine if a “single theme theory” apples to the event C. determining the common strands that make up a historical event
D. interpreting historical factors to determine if one factor will have relatively greater value
38. The best definition for the term “historical synthesis” would be ______________.
A. combining elements of different material into a unified whole B. a tentative theory set forth as an explanation for an event C. the direct opposite of the original interpretation of an event
D. interpreting historical material to prove that history repeats itself
39. A historian seeks to reconstruct the “spirit” of a time period because ____________.
A. the events in history are more important than the people who make history B. existing hypotheses are adequate in explaining historical events
C. this is the best method to determine the single most important cause for a particular action D. varying factors can be assimilated within a common base
40. Which of the following statements would the author consider false?
A. One factor in a historical synthesis will not have a greater value than other factors. B. It is possible to analyze common unifying points in hypotheses.
C. Historical events should be studied as part of a continuum in history. D. A synthesis seeks to determine why an outcome took the direction it did.
Passage 2
When you call the police, the police dispatcher has to locate the car nearest you that is free to respond. This means the dispatcher has to keep track of the status and location of every police car—not an easy task for a large department.
Another problem, which arises when cars are assigned to regular patrols, is that the patrols may be too regular. If criminals find out that police cars will pass a particular location at regular intervals, they simply plan their crimes for times when no patrol is expected. Therefore, patrol cars should pass by any particular location at random times; the fact that a car just passed should be no guarantee that another one is not just around the corner. Yet simply ordering the officers to patrol at random would lead to chaos.
A computer dispatching system can solve both these problems. The computer has no trouble keeping track of the status and location of each car. With this information, it can determine instantly
which car should respond to an incoming call. And with the aid of a pseudorandom number generator, the computer can assign routine patrols so that criminals can’t predict just when a police car will pass through a particular area.
(Before computers, police sometimes used roulette wheels and similar devices to make random assignments.)
Computers also can relieve police officers from constantly having to report their status. The police car would contain a special automatic radio transmitter and receiver. The officer would set a dial on this unit indicating the current status of the car—patrolling, directing traffic, chasing a speeder, answering a call, out to lunch, and so on. When necessary, the computer at headquarters could poll the car for its status. The voice radio channels would not be clogged with cars constantly reporting what they were doing. A computer in the car automatically could determine the location of the car, perhaps using the LORAN method. The location of the car also would be sent automatically to the headquarters computer.
41. The best title for this passage should be ___________.
A. Computers and Crimes B. Patrol Car Dispatching C. The Powerful Computers
D. The Police with Modern Equipment
42. A police dispatcher is NOT supposed to _____________.
A. locate every patrol car
B. guarantee cars on regular patrols C. keep in touch with each police car
D. find out which car should respond to the incoming call
43. If the patrols are too regular, _____________.
A. the dispatchers will be bored with it B. the officers may become careless C. the criminals may take advantage of it D. the streets will be in a state of chaos
44. The computer dispatching system is particularly good at ______________.
A. assigning cars to regular patrols
B. responding to the incoming calls C. ordering officers to report their location D. making routine patrols unpredictable
45. According to the account in the last paragraph, how can a patrol car be located without
computers?
A. Police officers report their status constantly. B. The headquarters poll the car for its status.
C. A radio transmitter and receiver is installed in a car. D. A dial in the car indicates its current status.
Passage 3
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in identically the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as sacred texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual circumstances of the time and the individual child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or arousing his sadistic
impulse. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often guilty of cruelty than those who had not. Aggressive, destructive, sadistic impulses every child has and, on the whole, their symbolic verbal discharge seem to be rather a safety valve than an incitement to overt action. As to fears, there are, I think, well-authenticated cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc., do not exist; and that, instead of indulging his fantasies in fairy tales, the child should be taught how to adapt to reality by studying history and mechanics. I find such people, I must confess, so unsympathetic and peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of madmen attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a broomstick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their enchanted girl-friend.
No fairy story ever claimed to be a description of the external world and no sane child has ever believed that it was.
46. According to the author, the best way to retell a story to a child is to ______________.
A. tell it in a creative way B. take from it what the child likes C. add to it whatever at hand D. read it out of the story book.
47. In the second paragraph, which statement best expresses the author’s attitude towards fairy stories?
A. He sees in them the worst of human nature. B. He dislikes everything about them.
C. He regards them as more of a benefit than harms. D. He is expectant of the experimental results.
48. According to the author, fairy stories are most likely to ____________.
A. make children aggressive the whole life B. incite destructiveness in children C. function as a safety valve for children
D. add children’s enjoyment of cruelty to others
49. If the child has heard some horror story for more than once, according to the author, he would probably be
______________. A. scared to death
B. taking it and even enjoying it C. suffering more the pain of fear D. dangerously terrified
50. The author’s mention of broomsticks and telephones is meant to emphasize that ___________.
A. old fairy stories keep updating themselves to cater for modern needs B. fairy stories have claimed many lives of victims C. fairy stories have thrown our world into chaos D. fairy stories are after all fairy stories
Passage 4
There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the death of Elizabeth Steinberg. Without blaming anyone in particular, neighbors, friends, social workers, the police and newspaper editors have struggled to define the community’s responsibility to Elizabeth and to other battered children. As the collective soul-searching continues, there is a pervading sense that the system failed her.