2017学位英语考试检测试题及答案（4）_第2页

　　15. Steven: Phil, you look tired. Did you have a busy day?

　　Phil: _______ I could go to sleep right here in the office.

　　A: Yes, it was.

　　B. No, I didn’t.

　　C. Surely I was.

　　D. I certainly did.

　　Part II Reading Comprehension (40 points)

　　Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each of the passages is followed by 5 questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.

　　Passage One

　　Why don’t birds get lost on their long migratory flights? Scientists have puzzled over this question for many years. Now they’re beginning to fill in the blanks.

　　Not long ago, experiments showed that birds rely on the sun to guide them during daylight hours. But what about birds that fly mainly by night? Tests with artificial stars have proved conclusively that certain night-flying birds are able to follow the stars in their long-distance flights.

　　One such bird—a warbler—had spent its lifetime in a cage and had never flown under a natural sky. Yet it showed an inborn ability to use the stars for guidance. The bird’s cage was placed under an artificial star-filled sky at migration time. The bird tried to fly in the same direction as that taken by his outdoor cousins. Any change in the position of the make-believe stars caused a change in the direction of his flight,

　　Scientists think that warblers, when flying in daylight, use the sun for guidance. But the stars are apparently their chief means of direction-finding. What do they do when the stars are hidden by clouds? Apparently they find their way by such landmarks as mountain ranges, coast line, and river courses. But when it’s too dark to see these, the warblers circle helplessly, unable to get their directions.

　　16. The reasons why birds don’t get lost on migratory flights _____.

　　A. are known to everyone

　　B. will probably remain unknown

　　C. have been discovered only recently

　　D. have been known to scientists for years

　　17. Birds that fly mainly at night follow _____.

　　A. the stars

　　B. the moon

　　C. artificial stars

　　D. the natural sky

　　18. The experiment with the warbler indicated that ______.

　　A. some birds cannot fly at night

　　B. birds have to be taught to find directions

　　C. a bird that has been caged will not migrate

　　D. some birds can follow the stars when flying at night

　　19. Warblers migrate ______.

　　A. only once during their lifetime

　　B. when they are freed from their cages

　　C. using what is apparently an inborn ability

　　D. only with the guidance of his outdoor cousins

　　20. When the stars are hidden by clouds, warblers ______.

　　A. circle helplessly

　　B. rely on landmarks

　　C. can’t see mountain ranges

　　D. are unable to get their directions

　　Passage Two

　　When Louis Braille was three years old, he became blind in both eyes as the result of an accident in his father’s shop. His father, determined that Louis should not suffer the usual fate of blind persons at that time and become a beggar, kept him in the village school until he was ten and then entered him in the Institution des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris. Louis learned to read from the three books engraved in large raised letters in the Institution library, did brilliantly well both in academic work and at the piano, and was soon helping to teach the younger children.

　　In 1819, the same year that Louis entered the Institution, Charles Barbier, an army captain, reported to the Academy of Sciences on a system of raised dots and dashes which enabled soldiers to read messages in the dark. Later, Barbier brought his invention to the Institution. After experimenting with it, young Braille produced a writing system using only dots, from which he gradually devised 63 separate combinations representing the letters in the French alphabet. (at the request of an Englishman, he later added “w”), accents, punctuation marks, and mathematical signs. Although government prevented immediate official adoption, his system was used at the Institution as long as the director, Dr. Pignier, was in office. The new director insisted on returning to the officially approved former system, but students continued to use Braille’s method secretly. Eventually, its superiority was established and it was adopted throughout France.

　　21. Louis Braille first learned to read with the aid of ______.

　　A. his father

　　B. the village schoolteacher

　　C. special books at the Institution

　　D. Captain Barbier’s system of dots and dashes

　　22. Louis Braille did all of the following EXCEPT ______.

　　A. teaching young children at the Institution

　　B. learning to play musical instruments well

　　C. developing a reading system for the blind

　　D. encouraging students to use his method secretly

　　23. Charles Barbier originally devised his writing system for ______.

　　A. blind children

　　B. military personnel

　　C. the French government

　　D. the Academy of Sciences

　　24. Louis Braille devised his writing system _______.

　　A. from combinations of dots

　　B. at an Englishman’s request

　　C. to help Charles Barbier in his work

　　D. to enable soldiers to read in the dark

　　25. The Institution was not able to adopt Braille’s method officially for some time because ________.

　　A. the students preferred the former method

　　B. the students used Braille’s method secretly

　　C. The new director insisted on the official method

　　D. the superiority of Braille’s method had not yet been established

　　Passage Three

　　Money spent on advertising is money spent as well as any I know of. It serves directly to assist distribution of goods at reasonable prices, thereby establishing a firm home market and so making it possible to provide for export at competitive prices. By drawing attention to new ideas, it helps enormously to raise standards of living. By helping to increase demand, it ensures an increased need for labor, and is therefore an effective way to fight unemployment. It lowers the cost of many services: without ads your daily newspaper would cost four times as much, the price of your TV license would need to be doubled, and travel by bus or tube would cost fifty percent more.

　　And perhaps most important of all, ads provides a guarantee of reasonable value in the products and services you buy. Apart from the fact that twenty-seven Acts of Parliament govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dare promote products that fail to live up to the promise of his ads. He might fool some people for a little while through misleading ads. He will not do so for long, for mercifully the public has the good sense not to buy the inferior article more than once. If you see an article consistently advertised, it is the surest proof I know that the article does what is claimed for it, and that it represents good value.

　　Advertising does more for the material benefit of the community than any other force I can think of.

　　There is one more point I feel I ought to touch upon. Recently I heard a well-known TV personality declare that he was against advertising because it persuades rather than informs. He was drawing excessively fine distinctions. Of course advertising seeks to persuade.

　　If its message were confined merely to information---and that in itself would be difficult if not impossible to achieve, for even a detail such as the choice of color of a shirt is subtly persuasive---advertising would be so boring that no one would pay any attention. But perhaps that is what the well-known TV personality wants.

　　26. By the first sentence of the passage, the author means that __________.

　　A. he is quite familiar with the cost of advertising

　　B. everyone knows advertising is costly

　　C. advertising costs money like everything else

　　D. it is worthwhile to spend money on advertising

　　27. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT mentioned as the advantage of advertising?

　　A. Securing greater fame

　　B. Providing more jobs

　　C. Enhancing living standards

　　D. Reducing media cost

　　28. The author thinks that the well-known TV personality is _________.

　　A. very precise in his comment on ads

　　B. reasonable in making the comment

　　C. partial in his view of advertising

　　D. funny in misleading the audience

　　29. In the author’s opinion, __________.

　　A. advertising benefits people by providing information

　　B. advertising seldom misleads people with information

　　C. there is nothing wrong with ads in persuading buyers

　　D. advertising with only information is a waste of money

　　30. The author’s attitude to advertising is _________.

　　A. negative B. positive

　　C. ridiculous D. not clear