13．or a low-lying arid stretch with miles of white sandy beach
14. Darkness falls, and there is nothing but the intermittent gleam of a lighthouse on a solitary promontory.
15. with its profusion of rich colors
16. Seldom has a city gained such world renown.
17. particular, local and regional problems occurring simultaneously all over the world 18. without distinction of race, creed, or party
19. the editorial charges the Third International with “pretentious and obscure verbosity” 20. which he imparts from time to time without insistence
21. We gazed, as the ship slid by and the humps receded into darkness and even the lights were obscured by the shoulder of a hill.
22. Here was the very heart of industrial America, the center of its most lucrative and
characteristic activity
23. and here were human habitations so abominable that they would have disgraced a race of
alley cats
24. … the Green Field boys and girls… with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms 25. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary 26. In the middle category… that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc. 27. and the principal discovery an American writer makes in Europe 28. not even me motley millions who call ourselves Americans
III. Paraphrase.
1. The generator was doused, and the lights went out.
2. Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews. 3. In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose. 4. They have taken as their model a brick set on end.
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5. Work became the chief factor in a system of “innerworldly asceticism,” an answer to man?s sense of aloneness and isolation.
6. Prohibition afforded the young the additional opportunity of making their pleasures illicit. 7. It is easier to cut across social and occupational lines there than it is here.
8. To win in New York is to be uneasy; to lose is to live in jostling proximity to the frustrated
majority.
9. John watched the water lap at the steps, and felt a crushing guilt. 10. Still, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous. 11. There are cattle in the fields, but we sit down to beef.
12. I award this championship only after laborious research and incessant prayer.
13. Most industrial psychologists are mainly concerned with the manipulation of the worker?s
psyche.
14. They had outgrown towns and families and had developed a sudden bewildering
world-weariness which neither they nor their relatives could understand. 15. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable. 16. In both these roles it ratifies more than it creates. 17. Get us through this mess, will You?
18. She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say as a beast of burden. 19. English had come royally into its own.
20. They show grotesqueries of ugliness that, in retrospect, become almost diabolical. 21. It is going to pay off in cold dollars and cents to management. 22. Something in the tension-ridden youth of America had to “give”. 23. On this acceptance, literally, the life of a writer depends.
24. The television generation grew up in the insistent presence of hype, delights in much of it,
and has no scruples about practicing it.
25. Little donkeys thread their way among the throngs of people…
26. … the strange emotion which had overwhelmed me at the station returned…
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27. … to secure the release of previously top secret data… 28. … an extended living room…
29. … and seemed to be driving forward…
30. The way I hear it, you won a hundred at the tables then lost it at the bar… 31. … propelling mankind to a higher order of existence… 32. … to build some working “intelligent agents”…
IV. Reading Comprehension.
Passage One:
Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.
To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages.
People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of “backward” languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflects the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to be noted: 1. All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion, either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in “backward” languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A Western language distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness (“this” and “that”); some languages of the American Indians
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distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.
This study of language, in turn, casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.
1. The languages of uncivilized groups as compared to Western languages are limited in
___________.
A. sound patterns. B. grammatical structures. C. vocabularies. D. both A. and B.
2. The author says that professional linguists recognize that __________. A. Western languages are superior to Eastern languages. B. all languages came from grunts and groans. C. the hierarchy of languages is difficult to understand. D. there is no hierarchy of languages.
3. The article states that grunt-and-groan forms of speech are found __________. A. nowhere today. B. among the Australian aborigines.
C. among Eastern cultures D. among people speaking “backward” languages. 4. According to the author, languages, whether civilized or not, have __________. A. the potential for expanding vocabulary. B. their own sound patterns. C. an ability to transfer ideas. D. grammatical structures.
5. Which of the following is implied in the passage?
A. The study of languages has discredited anthropological studies.
B. The study of language has reinforced anthropologists in their view that there is no hierachy
among cultures.
C. The study of language is the same as the study of anthropologists.
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D. The study of languages casts a new light upon the claim of anthropologists.
Passage Two:
The steam trains of the world?s first mountain-climbing cog railway started running to the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire in 1869, four years after the end of the Civil War. The railway has been in operation ever since, except for one year during the First World War and three years during the Second World War.
The Mount Washington railway is unique in many ways. Nowhere else in the world is there a steam cog railway that climbs such steep grades. In the three and a half miles of the ascent, the average grade is one foot in four; the steepest grade is 37.42 per cent. The terrain over which the tracks were laid during the three years of construction is almost entirely splintered rock and so rough that all but a half mile of the track is on the trestle. Ascending far above the timber line, the trains of the unique railway are 6293 feet above sea level they reach the barren, wind-swept summit of the mountain, sometimes said to have the worst weather in the world. This is an exaggeration, of course, but it has snowed on the summit during every month of the year. During August 1925, for example, trains had to stop running because of heavy ice on the upper tracks. And the highest wind velocity ever recorded (231 miles per hour) was recorded here. During the time the trains can operate (from about the middle of June to the middle of October), they continue to puff up the steep slope at a speed of four miles per hour, unless the wind velocity reaches 70 miles per hour; then they have to stop to wait for better weather.
The reason for taking so unusual a train ride is perfectly clear to the more than 35000 people who do so every year. In every direction, the views are unbelievably vast, revealing most of northern New England, as well as parts of New York, Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean------that is, if it is not snowing or if heavy clouds have not settled over the summit of the mountain. 6. The Mount Washington railway has at some time been closed because of ___________. A. the Civil War B. bankruptcy
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