英语六级
中国名校英语四级密卷（1）
Part Ⅱ
Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Directions:There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked
A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.?
Passage One?
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.?
Antarctica has actually become a kind of space station—a unique observation post for detecting important changes in the world’s environment.S1 Remote from major sources of pollution and the complex geological and ecological systems that prevail elsewhere, Antarctica makes possible scientific measurements that are often sharper and easier to interpret than those made in other parts of the world.?
Growing numbers of scientists therefore see Antarctica as a distant?early warning sensor, where potentially dangerous global trends may be spotted before they show up to the north. One promising field of investigation is glaciology. Scholars from the United States, Switzerland, and France are pursuing seven separate but related projects that reflect their concern for the health of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—a concern they believe the world at large should share.?
The Transantarctic Mountain, some of them more than 14,000 feet high, divide the continent into two very different regions. The part of the continent to the “east” of the mountains is a high plateau covered by an ice sheet nearly two miles thick. “West” of the mountain, the half of the continent south of the Americas is also covered by an ice sheet, but there the ice rests on rock that is mostly well below sea level. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet disappeared, the western part of the continent would be reduced to a sparse cluster of island.?
While ice and snow are obviously central to many environmental experiments, others focus on the mysterious“dry valley”of Antarctica, valleys that contain little ice or snow even in the depths of winter. Slashed through the mountains of southern Victoria land, these valleys once held enormous glaciers that descend 9,000 feet from the polar plateau to the Ross Sea.Now the glaciers are gone, perhaps a casualty of theThe Carnegie Foundation report says that many colleges have tried to be “all things to all people”. In doing so, they have increasingly catered to a narrow?minded careerism while failing to cultivate a global vision among their students. The current crisis, it contends, does not derive from a legitimate desire to put learning to productive ends. The problem is that in too many academic fields, the work has no context; skills, rather than being means, have become ends.Students are offered a variety of options and allowed to pick their way to a d
egree. In short, driven by careerism, “the nation’s colleges and universit
英语六级
ies are more successful in providing credentials(文凭)than in providing a quality education for their students.” The report concludes that the special challenge confronting the undergraduate college is one of shaping an “integrated core” of common learning. Such a core would introduce students “to essential knowledge, to connections across the disciplines, and in the end, to application of knowledge to life beyond the campus.”?
Although the key to a good college is a high?quality faculty, the Carnegie study found that most colleges do very little to encourage good teaching. In fact, they do much to undermine it. As one professor observed:“Teaching is important, we are told, and yet faculty know that research and publication matter most.” Not surprisingly?
30.It can be inferred from the passage that high?quality college education calls for ____.?
A) high?quality faculties?
B) a commitment to students and effective teaching?
C) the cultivation of students’ interest in learning?
D) dedication to research in frontier areas of knowledge?
Passage Three?
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.?
The U.S. birthrate began to decline in the middle 1950’s, resulting in a smaller college?age population starting in the middle 1970’s.S4 Something else happened in the 1970’s: the price of oil increased tremendously, driving up the price of almost everything and making Americans aware that their large automobiles used a lot of gasoline. At the same time, foreign car manufacturers had beg
un to produce small fuel?efficient cars in large quantities for the export market. Suddenly, the large, gas?guzzling American cars were no longer attractive to American buyers, who began buying foreign cars by the thousands. The American automobile industry went into a recession. Thousands of automotive workers were laid off, as were thousands of people in industries indirectly connected with the auto?industry. People who are laid off tend to keep what money they have for necessities, like food and housing. They do not have the extra money needed to send their children to college. Their children cannot pay their own college costs, because during a recession they cannot find jobs. High unemployment means that more state funds must be used for social service—unemployment benefits and to aid dependent children, for example—than during more prosperous times. It also means, that the states have fewer funds than usual, because people are paying fewer taxes. Institutions of higher education depend on two major sources of income to keep them functioning: tuition from students and funds from the states. At the present time, there are fewer students than in the past and fewer state funds available for higher education. The colleges and universities are in trouble.?