Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
Bill Gates, the billionaire Microsoft chairman without a single earned university degree, is by his success raising new doubts about the worth of the business world’s favorite academic title: the MBA (Master of Business Administration).
The MBA, a 20th-century product, always has borne the mark of lowly commerce and greed (贪婪) on the tree-lined campuses ruled by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature.
But even with the recession apparently cutting into the hiring of business school graduates, about 79,000 people are expected to receive MBAs in 1993. This is nearly 16 times the number of business graduates in 1960, a testimony to the widespread assumption that the MBA is vital for young men and women who want to run companies some day.
“If you are going into the corporate world it is still a disadvantage not to have one,” said Donald Morrison, professor of marketing and management science. “But in the last five years or so, when someone says, ‘Should I attempt to get an MBA,’ the answer a lot more is: It depends.”
The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs, such as the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has helped inspire self-conscious debates on business school campuses over the worth of a business degree and whether management skills can be taught.
The Harvard Business Review printed a lively, fictional exchange of letters to dramatize complaints about business degree holders.
The article called MBA hires “extremely disappointing” and said “MBAs want to move up too fast, they don’t understand politics and people, and they aren’t able to function as part of a team until their third year. But by then, they’re out looking for other jobs.”
The problem, most participants in the debate acknowledge, is that the MBA has acquired an aura (光环) of future riches and power far beyond its actual importance and usefulness.
Enrollment in business schools exploded in the 1970s and 1980s and created the assumption that no one who pursued a business career could do without one. The growth was fueled by a backlash (反冲) against the anti-business values of the 1960s and by the women’s movement.
Business people who have hired or worked with MBAs say those with the degrees often know how to analyze systems but are not so skillful at motivating people. “They don’t get a lot of grounding in the people side of the business,” said James Shaffer, vice-president and principal of the Towers Perrin management consulting firm.
21. According to Paragraph 2, what is the general attitude towards business on campuses dominated by purer disciplines?
A) Scornful C) Envious.
B) Appreciative. D) Realistic.
22. It seems that the controversy over the value of MBA degrees has been fueled mainly by ______.
A) the complaints from various employers
B) the success of many non-MBAs
C) the criticism from the scientists of purer disciplines
D) the poor performance of MBAs at work
23. What is the major weakness of MBA holders according to The Harvard Business Review?
A) They are usually serf-centered.
B) They are aggressive and greedy.
C) They keep complaining about their jobs.
D) They are not good at dealing with people.
24. From the passage we know that most MBAs _______.
A) can climb the corporate ladder fairly quickly
B) quit their jobs once they are familiar with their workmates
C) receive salaries that do not match their professional training
D) cherish unrealistic expectations about their future
25. What is the passage mainly about?
A) Why there is an increased enrollment in MBA programs.
B) The necessity of reforming MBA programs in business schools.
C) Doubts about the worth of holding an MBA degree.
D) A debate held recently on university campuses.
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
When school officials in Kalkaska, Michigan, closed classes last week, the media flocked to the story, portraying the town’s 2,305 students as victims of stingy (吝啬的) taxpayers. There is some truth to that; the property-tax rate here is one-third lower than the state average. But shutting their schools also allowed Kalkaska’s educators and the state’s largest teachers’ union, the Michigan Education Association, to make a political point. Their aim was to spur passage of legislation Michigan lawmakers are debating to increase the state’s share of school funding.
It was no coincidence that Kalkaska shut its schools two weeks after residents rejected a 28 percent property-tax increase. The school board argued that without the increase it lacked the $1.5 million needed to keep schools open.
But the school system had not done all it could to keep the schools open. Officials declined to borrow against next year’s state aid, they refused to trim extracurricular activities and they did not consider seeking a smaller—perhaps more acceptable—tax increase. In fact, closing early is costing Kalkaska a significant amount, including $600,000 in unemployment payments to teachers and staff and $250,000 in lost state aid. In February, the school system promised teachers and staff two months of retirement payments in case schools closed early, a deal that will cost the district $275,000 more.
Other signs suggest school authorities were at least as eager to make a political statement as to keep schools open. The Michigan Education Association hired a public relations firm to stage a rally marking the school closings, which attracted 14 local and national television stations and networks. The president of the National Education Association, the MEA’s parent organization, flew from Washington, D. C., for the event. And the union tutored school officials in the art of television interviews. School supervisor Doyle Disbrow acknowledges the district could have kept schools open by cutting programs but denies the moves were politically motivated.
Michigan lawmakers have reacted angrily to the closings. The state Senate has already voted to put the system into receivership (破产管理) and reopen schools immediately; the Michigan House plans to consider the bill this week.
26. We learn from the passage that schools in Kalkaska, Michigan, are funded ______.
A) by both the local and state governments
B) exclusively by the local government
C) mainly by the state government
D) by the National Education Association
27. One of the purposes for which school officials closed classes was _______.
A) to avoid paying retirement benefits to teachers and staff
B) to draw the attention of local taxpayers to political issues
C) to make the financial difficulties of their teachers and staff known to the public
D) to pressure Michigan lawmakers into increasing state funds for local schools
28. The author seems to disapprove of _______.
A) the Michigan lawmakers’ endless debating
B) the shutting of schools in Kalkaska
C) the involvement of the mass media
D) delaying the passage of the school funding legislation
29. We learn from the passage that school authorities in Kalkaska are more concerned about _______.
A) a raise in the property-tax rate in Michigan
B) reopening the schools there immediately
C) the attitude of the MEA’s parent organization
D) making a political issue of the closing of the schools
30. According to the passage, the closing of the schools developed into a crisis because of ______.
A) the complexity of the problem
B) the political motives on the part of the educators
C) the weak response of the state officials
D) the strong protest on the part of the students’ parents
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
German Chancellor (首相) Otto Von Bismarck may be most famous for his military and diplomatic talent, but his legacy (遗产) includes many of today’s social insurance programs. During the middle of the 19th century, Germany, along with other European nations, experienced an unprecedented rash of workplace deaths and accidents as a result of growing industrialization. Motivated in part by Christian compassion (怜悯) for the helpless as well as a practical political impulse to undercut the support of the socialist labor movement, Chancellor Bismarck created the world’s first workers’ compensation law in 1884.
By 1908, the United States was the only industrial nation in the world that lacked workers’ compensation insurance. America’s injured workers could sue for damages in a court of law, but they still faced a number of tough legal barriers. For example, employees had to prove that their injuries directly resulted from employer negligence and that they themselves were ignorant about potential hazards in the workplace. The first state workers’ compensation law in this country passed in 1911, and the program soon spread throughout the nation.
After World War II, benefit payments to American workers did not keep up with the cost of living. In fact, real benefit levels were lower in the 1970s than they were in the 1940s, and in most states the maximum benefit was below the poverty level for a family of four. In 1970, President Richard Nixon set up a national commission to study the problems of workers’ compensation. Two years later, the commission issued 19 key recommendations, including one that called for increasing compensation benefit levels to 100 percent of the states’ average weekly wages.
In fact, the average compensation benefit in America has climbed from 55 percent of the states’ average weekly wages in 1972 to 97 percent today. But, as most studies show, every 10 percent increase in compensation benefits results in a 5 percent increase in the numbers of workers who file for claims. And with so much more money floating in the workers’ compensation system, it’s not surprising that doctors and lawyers have helped themselves to a large slice of the growing pie.
31. The world’s first workers’ compensation law was introduced by Bismarck _______.
A) to make industrial production safer
B) to speed up the pace of industrialization
C) out of religious and political considerations
D) for fear of losing the support of the socialist labor movement
32. We learn from the passage that the process of industrialization in Europe _______.
A) was accompanied by an increased number of workshop accidents
B) resulted in the development of popular social insurance programs
C) required workers to be aware of the potential dangers at the workplace
D) met growing resistance from laborers working at machines
33. One of the problems the American injured workers faced in getting compensation in the early 19th century was that ______.
A) they had to have the courage to sue for damages in a court of law
B) different sums in the U.S. had totally different compensation programs
C) America’s average compensation benefit was much lower than the cost of living
D) they had to produce evidence that their employers were responsible for the accident
34. After 1972 workers’ compensation insurance in the U.S. became more favorable to workers so that _______.
A) the poverty level for a family of four went up drastically
B) there were fewer legal barriers when they filed for claims
C) the number of workers suing for damages increased
D) more money was allocated to their compensation system
35. The author ends the passage with the implication that ______.
A) compensation benefits in America are soaring to new heights
B) the workers are not the only ones to benefit from the compensation system
C) people from all walks of life can benefit from the compensation system
D) money floating in the compensation system is a huge drain on the U.S. economy
Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
Early in the age of affluence (富裕) that followed World War II, an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, “Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. ... We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate.”
Americans have responded to Lebow’s call, and much of the world has followed.
Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world’s two largest economies—Japan and the United Sates—show consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent.
Overconsumption by the world’s fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate.
Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.
Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow—that, misled by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things.
Of course, the opposite of overconsumption—poverty—is no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too. Dispossessed (被剥夺得一无所有的) peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads (游牧民族) turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert.
If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction?
36. The emergence of the affluent society after World War II ________.
A) gave birth to a new generation of upper class consumers
B) gave rise to the dominance of the new egoism
C) led to the reform of the retailing system
D) resulted in the worship of consumerism
37. Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is _______.
A) the conversion of the sale of goods into rituals
B) the people’s desire for a rise in their living standards
C) the imbalance that has existed between production and consumption
D) the concept that one’s success is measured by how much they consume
38. Why does the author say high consumption is a mixed blessing?
A) Because poverty still exists in an affluent society.
B) Because moral values are sacrificed in pursuit of material satisfaction.
C) Because overconsumption won’t last long due to unrestricted population growth.
D) Because traditional rituals are often neglected in the process of modernization.
39. According to the passage, consumerist culture ________.
A) cannot thrive on a fragile economy
B) will not aggravate environmental problems
C) cannot satisfy human spiritual needs
D) will not alleviate poverty in wealthy countries
40. It can be inferred from the passage that _______.
A) human spiritual needs should match material affluence
B) there is never an end to satisfying people’s material needs
C) whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issue
D) how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem
21. A 22. B 23. D 24. D 25. C 26. A 27. D 28. B 29. D 30. B
31. C 32. A 33. D 34. C 35. B 36. D 37. D 38. B 39. C 40. D
Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage:
In the villages of the English countryside there are still people who remember the good old days when no one bothered to lock their doors. There simply wasn’t any crime to worry about.
Amazingly, these happy times appear still to be with us in the world’s biggest community. A new study by Dan Farmer, a gifted programmer, using an automated investigative program of his own called SATAN, shows that the owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors.
SATAN can try out a variety of well-known hacking (黑客的) tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in. Farmer has made the program publicly available, amid much criticism. A person with evil intent could use it to hunt down sites that are easy to burgle (闯入…行窃).
But Farmer is very concerned about the need to alert the public to poor security and, so far, events have proved him right. SATAN has done more to alert people to the risks than cause new disorder.
So is the Net becoming more secure? Far from it. In the early days, when you visited a Web site your browser simply looked at the content. Now the Web is full of tiny programs that automatically download when you look at a Web page, and run on your own machine. These programs could, if their authors wished, do all kinds of nasty things to your computer.
At the same time, the Net is increasingly populated with spiders, worms, agents and other types of automated beasts designed to penetrate the sites and seek out and classify information. All these make wonderful tools for antisocial people who want to invade weak sites and cause damage.
But let’s look on the bright side. Given the lack of locks, the Internet is surely the world’s biggest (almost) crime-free society. Maybe that is because hackers are fundamentally honest. Or that there currently isn’t much to steal. Or because vandalism (恶意破坏) isn’t much fun unless you have a peculiar dislike for someone.
Whatever the reason, let’s enjoy it while we can. But expect it all to change, and security to become the number one issue, when the most influential inhabitants of the Net are selling services they want to be paid for.
21. By saying “…owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors” (Line 3-4, Para.2), the author means that ______.
A) those happy times appear still to be with us
B) there simply wasn’t any crime to worry about
C) many sites are not well-protected
D) hackers try out tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in
22. SATAN, a program designed by Dan Farmer, can be used ______.
A) to investigate the security of Internet sites
B) to improve the security of the Internet system
C) to prevent hackers from breaking into websites
D) to download useful programs and information
23. Farmer’s program has been criticized by the public because ______.
A) it causes damage to Net browsers
B) it can break into Internet sites
C) it can be used to cause disorder on all sites
D) it can be used by people with evil intent
24. The author’s attitude toward SATAN is ______.
A) enthusiastic
B) critical
C) positive
D) indifferent
25. The author suggests in the last paragraph that ______.
A) we should make full use of the Internet before security measures are strengthened
B) we should alert the most influential businessmen to the importance of security
C) influential businessmen should give priority to the improvement of Net security
D) net inhabitants should not let security measures affect their joy of surfing the Internet
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:
I came away from my years of teaching on tile college and university level with a conviction that enactment (扮演角色), performance, dramatization are the most successful forms of teaching. Students must be incorporated, made, so far as possible, an integral part of the learning process. The notion that learning should have in it an element of inspired play would seem to the greater part of the academic establishment merely silly, but that is nonetheless the case. Of Ezekiel Cheever, the most famous schoolmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, his onetime student Cotton Mather wrote that he so planned his lessons that his pupils “came to work as though they came to play,” and Alfred North Whitehead, almost three hundred years later, noted that a teacher should make his/her students “glad they were there.”
Since, we are told, 80 to 90 percent of all instruction in the typical university is by the lecture method, we should give close attention to this form of education. There is, I think, much truth in Patricia Nelson Limerick’s observation that “lecturing is an unnatural act, an act for which God did not design humans. It is perfectly all right, now and then, for a human to be possessed by the urge to speak, and to speak while others remain silent. But to do this regularly, one hour and 15 minutes at a time… for one person to drag on while others sit in silence? ... I do not believe that this is what the Creator ... designed humans to do.”
The strange, almost incomprehensible fact is that many professors, just as they feel obliged to write dully, believe that they should lecture dully. To show enthusiasm is to risk appearing unscientific, unobjective; it is to appeal to the students’ emotions rather than their intellect. Thus the ideal lecture is one filled with facts and read in an unchanged monotone.
The cult (推崇) of lecturing dully, like the cult of writing dully, goes back, of course, some years. Edward Shils, professor of sociology, recalls the professors he encountered at the University of Pennsylvania in his youth. They seemed “a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing; they never referred to anything personal. Some read from old lecture notes and then haltingly explained the thumb-worn last lines. Others lectured from cards that had served for years, to judge by the worn edges ....The teachers began on time, ended on time, and left the room without saying a word more to their students, very seldom being detained by questioners .... The classes were not large, yet there was no discussion. No questions were raised in class, and there were no office hours.”
26. The author believes that a successful teacher should be able to ______.
A) make dramatization an important aspect of students’ learning
B) make inspired play an integral part of the learning process
C) improve students’ learning performance
D) make study just as easy as play
27. The majority of university professors prefer the traditional way of lecturing in the belief that ______.
A) it draws the close attention of the students
B) it conforms in a way to the design of the Creator
C) it presents course content in a scientific and objective manner
D) it helps students to comprehend abstract theories more easily
28. What the author recommends in this passage is that ______.
A) college education should be improved through radical measures
B) more freedom of choice should be given to students in their studies
C) traditional college lectures should be replaced by dramatized performances
D) interaction should be encouraged in the process of teaching
29. By saying “They seemed ‘a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing…’” (Lines 3-4, Para.4), the author means that ______.
A) professors are a group of professionals that differ in their academic ability but behave in the same way
B) professors are like priests wearing the same kind of black gown but having different roles to play
C) there is no fundamental difference between professors and priests though they differ in their merits
D) professors at the University of Pennsylvania used to wear black suits which made them look like priests
30. Whose teaching method is particularly commended by the author?
A) Ezekiel Cheever’s.
B) Alfred North Whitehead’s.
C) Cotton Mather’s.
D) Patricia Nelson Limerick’s.
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
Take the case of public education alone. The principal difficulty faced by the schools has been the tremendous increase in the number of pupils. This has been caused by the advance of the legal age for going into industry and the impossibility of finding a job even when the legal age has been reached. In view of the technological improvements in the last few years, business will require in the future proportionately fewer workers than ever before. The result will be still further raising of the legal age for going into employment, and still further difficulty in finding employment when that age has been attained. If we cannot put our children to work, we must put them in school.
We may also be quite confident that the present trend toward a shorter day and a shorter week will be maintained. We have developed and shall continue to have a new leisure class. Already the public agencies for adult education are swamped by the tide that has swept over them since the depression began. They will be little better off when it is over. Their support must come from the taxpayer.
It is surely too much to hope that these increases in the cost of public education can be borne by the local communities. They cannot care for the present restricted and inadequate system. The local communities have failed in their efforts to cope with unemployment. They cannot expect to cope with public education on the scale on which we must attempt it. The answer to the problem of unemployment has been Federal relief. The answer to the problem of public education may have to be much the same, and properly so. If there is one thing in which the citizens of all parts of the country have an interest, it is in the decent education of the citizens of all parts of the country. Our income tax now goes in part to keep our neighbors alive. It may have to go in part as well to make our neighbors intelligent. We are now attempting to preserve the present generation through Federal relief of the destitute (贫民). Only a people determined to ruin the next generation will refuse such Federal funds as public education may require.
31. What is the passage mainly about?
A) How to persuade local communities to provide more funds.
B) How to cope with the shortage of funds for public education.
C) How to improve the public education system.
D) How to solve the rising unemployment problem.
32. What is the reason for the increase in the number of students?
A) The requirement of educated workers by business.
B) Raising of the legal age forgoing to work.
C) The trend toward a shorter workday.
D) People’s concern for the future of the next generation.
33. The public agencies for adult education will be little better off because ______.
A) the unemployed are too poor to continue their education
B) a new leisure class has developed
C) they are still suffering from the depression
D) an increase in taxes could be a problem
34. According to the author, the answer to the problem of public education is that the Federal government _______.
A) should allocate Federal funds for public education
B) should demand that local communities provide support
C) should raise taxes to meet the needs of public education
D) should first of all solve the problem of unemployment
35. Why does the author say “Only a people determined to ruin the next generation will refuse such Federal funds as public education may require” (Lines 10-11, Para. 3)?
A) Only by appropriating adequate Federal funds for education can the next generation have a bright future.
B) Citizens of all parts of the country agree that the best way to support education is to use Federal funds.
C) People all over the country should make contributions to education in the interest of the next generation.
D) Educated people are determined to use part of the Federal funds to help the poor.
Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
A new high-performance contact lens under development at the department for applied physics at the University of Heidelberg will not only correct ordinary vision defects but will enhance normal night vision as much as five times, making people’s vision sharper than that of cats.
Bille and his team work with an optical instrument called an active mirror — a device used in astronomical telescopes to spot newly emerging stars and far distant galaxies. Connected to a wave-front sensor that tracks and measures the course of a laser beam into the eye and back, the aluminum mirror detects the deficiencies of the cornea, the transparent protective layer covering the lens of the human eye. They highly precise data from the two instruments — which, Bille hopes, will one day be found at the opticians (眼镜商) all over the world — serve as a basis for the production of completely individualized contact lenses that correct and enhance the wearer’s vision.
By day, Bille’s contact lenses will focus rays of light so accurately on the retina (视网膜) that the image of a small leaf or the outline of a far distant tree will be formed with a sharpness that surpasses that of conventional vision aids by almost half a diopter (屈光度). At night, the lenses have an even greater potential. “Because the new lens — in contrast to the already existing ones — also works when it’s dark and the pupil is wide open,” says Bille, “lens wearers will be able to identify a face at distance of 100 meters — 80 meters farther than they would normally be able to see. In his experiments night vision was enhanced by an even greater factor: in semi-darkness, test subjects could see up to 15 times better than without the lenses.
Bille’s lenses are expected to reach the market in the year 2000, and one tentative plan is to use the Internet to transmit information on patients’ visual defects from the optician to the manufacturer, who will then produce and mail the contact lenses within a couple of days. The physicist expects the lenses to cost about a dollar a pair, about the same as conventional one-day disposable lenses.
36. The new contact lens is meant for ______.
A) astronomical observations
B) the night blind
C) those with vision defects
D) optical experiments
37. What do the two instruments mentioned in the second paragraph (Line 5) refer to?
A) The astronomical telescope and the wave-front sensor.
B) The aluminum mirror and the laser beam.
C) The active mirror and the contact lens.
D) The aluminum mirror and the wave-front sensor.
38. Individualized contact lenses (Line 7, Para.2) are lenses designed ______.
A) to work like an astronomical telescope
B) to suit the wearer’s specific needs
C) to process extremely accurate data
D) to test the wearer’s eyesight
39. According to Bille, with the new lenses the wearer’s vision ______.
A) will be far better at night than in the daytime
B) may be broadened about 15 times than without them
C) can be better improved in the daytime than at night
D) will be sharper by a much greater degree at night than in the daytime
40. Which of the following is true about Bille’s lenses?
A) Their production process is complicated.
B) They will be sold at a very low price.
C) They have to be replaced every day.
D) Purchase orders can be made through the Internet.
21. C 22. A 23. D 24. C 25. C 26. B 27. C 28. D 29. A 30. A
31. B 32. B 33. B 34. A 35. C 36. C 37. D 38. B 39. D 40. B
