1、在职艺术硕士（MFA）全国联考英文阅读理解-试卷 10及答案解析(总分：40.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、英文阅读理解题(总题数：4，分数：40.00)Like many of my generation, I have a weakness for hero worship. At some point, however, we all begin to question our heroes and our need for them. This leads us to ask: What is a hero? Despite immense differences in cultur
2、es, heroes around the world generally share a number of characteristics that instruct and inspire people. A hero does something worth talking about. A hero has a story of adventure to tell and a community who will listen. But a hero goes beyond mere fame. Heroes serve powers or principles larger tha
3、n themselves. Like high-voltage transformers, heroes take the energy of higher powers and step it down so that it can be used by ordinary people. The hero lives a life worthy of imitation. Those who imitate a genuine hero experience life with new depth, enthusiasm, and meaning. A sure test for would
4、-be heroes is what or whom do they serve? What are they willing to live and die for? If the answer or evidence suggests they serve only their own fame, they may be famous persons but not heroes. Madonna and Michael Jackson are famous, but who would claim that their fans find life more abundant? Hero
5、es are catalysts (催化剂) for change. They have a vision from the mountaintop. They have the skill and the charm to move the masses. They create new possibilities. Without Gandhi, India might still be part of the British Empire. Without Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. , we might still have segre
6、gated (隔离的) buses, restaurants, and parks. It may be possible for large-scale change to occur without leaders with magnetic personalities, but the pace of change would be slow, the vision uncertain, and the committee meetings endless. (293 words)（分数：10.00）(1).Although heroes may come from different
7、cultures, they_.（分数：2.00）A.generally possess certain inspiring characteristicsB.probably share some weaknesses of ordinary peopleC.are often influenced by previous generationsD.all unknowingly attract a large number of fans(2).According to the passage, heroes are compared to high-voltage transformer
8、s in that_.（分数：2.00）A.they have a vision from the mountaintopB.they have warm feelings and emotionsC.they can serve as concrete examples of noble principlesD.they can make people feel stronger and more confident(3).Madonna and Michael Jackson are not considered heroes because_.（分数：2.00）A.they are po
9、pular only among certain groups of peopleB.their performances do not improve their fans morallyC.their primary concern is their own financial interestsD.they are not clear about the principles they should follow(4).Gandhi and Martin Luther King are typical examples of outstanding leaders who_.（分数：2.
10、00）A.are good at demonstrating their charming charactersB.can provide an answer to the problems of their peopleC.are capable of meeting all challenges and hardshipsD.can move the masses with their forceful speeches(5).The author concludes that historical changes would_.（分数：2.00）A.be delayed without
11、leaders with inspiring personal qualitiesB.not happen without heroes making the necessary sacrificesC.take place if there were heroes to lead the peopleD.produce leaders with attractive personalitiesIn recent years, Israeli consumers have grown more demanding as they“ve become wealthier and more wor
12、ldly-wise. Foreign travel is a national passion; this summer alone, one in 10 citizens will go abroad. Exposed to higher standards of service elsewhere, Israelis are returning home expecting the same. American firms have also begun arriving in large numbers. Chains such as KFC, McDonald“s and Pizza
13、Hut are setting a new standard of customer service, using strict employee training and constant monitoring to ensure the friendliness of frontline staff. Even the American habit of telling departing customers to “Have a nice day“ has caught on all over Israel. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and say
14、s, “Let“s be nicer,“ says Itsik Cohen, director of a consulting firm. “Nothing happens without competition. “ Privatization, or the threat of it, is a motivation as well. Monopolies (垄断者) that until recently have been free to take their customers for granted now fear what Michael Perry, a marketing
15、professor, calls “the revengeful (报复的) consumer“. When the government opened up competition with Bezaq, the phone company, its international branch lost 40% of its market share, even while offering competitive rates. Says Perry, “People wanted revenge for all the years of bad service. “ The electric
16、 company, whose monopoly may be short-lived, has suddenly stopped requiring users to wait half a day for a repairman. Now, appointments are scheduled to the half-hour. The graceless El Al Airlines, which is already at auction (拍卖), has retrained its employees to emphasize service and is boasting abo
17、ut the results in an ad campaign with the slogan, “You can feel the change in the air. “ For the first time, praise outnumbers complaints on customer survey sheets. (291 words)（分数：10.00）(1).It may be inferred from the passage that_.（分数：2.00）A.customer service in Israel is now improvingB.wealthy Isra
18、eli customers are hard to pleaseC.the tourist industry has brought chain stores to IsraelD.Israeli customers prefer foreign products to domestic ones(2).In the author“s view, higher service standards are impossible in Israel_.（分数：2.00）A.if customer complaints go unnoticed by the managementB.unless f
19、oreign companies are introduced in greater numbersC.if there“s no competition among companiesD.without strict routine training of employees(3).If someone in Israel today needs a repairman in case of a power failure, _.（分数：2.00）A.they can have it fixed in no timeB.it“s no longer necessary to make an
20、appointmentC.the appointment takes only half a day to makeD.they only have to wait half an hour at most(4).The example of El Al Airlines shows that_.（分数：2.00）A.revengeful customers are a threat to the monopoly of enterprisesB.an ad campaign is a way out for enterprises in financial difficultyC.a goo
21、d slogan has great potential for improving serviceD.staff retraining is essential for better service(5).Why did Bezaq“s international branch lose 40% of its market share?（分数：2.00）A.Because the rates it offered were not competitive enough.B.Because customers were dissatisfied with its past service.C.
22、Because the service offered by its competitors was far better.D.Because it no longer received any support from the government.Professor Smith recently persuaded 35 people, 23 of them women, to keep a diary of all their absent-minded actions for a fortnight. When he came to analyse their embarrassing
23、 lapses (差错) in a scientific report, he was surprised to find that nearly all of them fell into a few groupings. Nor did the lapses appear to be entirely random (随机的). One of the women, for instance, on leaving her house for work one morning threw her dog her earrings and tried to fix a dog biscuit
24、on her ear. “The explanation for this is that the brain is like a computer,“ explains the professor. “People programme themselves to do certain activities regularly. It was the woman“s custom every morning to throw her dog two biscuits and then put on her earrings. But somehow the action got reverse
25、d in the programme. “ About one in 20 of the incidents the volunteers reported were these “programmed assembly failures“. Altogether the volunteers logged 433 unintentional actions that they found themselves doingan average of 12 each. There appear to be peak periods in the day when we are at our za
26、niest (荒谬可笑的). These are two hours some time between eight a.m. and noon, between four and six p.m. with a smaller peak between eight and ten p.m. “Among men the peak seems to be when a changeover in brain “ programmes“ occurs, as for instance between going to and from work. “ Women on average repor
27、ted slightly more lapses12. 5 compared with 10. 9 for menprobably because they were more reliable reporters. A startling finding of the research is that the absent-minded activity is a hazard of doing things in which we are skilled. Normally, you would expect that skill reduces the number of errors
28、we make. But trying to avoid silly slips by concentrating more could make things a lot worseeven dangerous. (321 words)（分数：10.00）(1).In his study Professor Smith asked the subjects_.（分数：2.00）A.to keep track of people who tend to forget thingsB.to report their embarrassing lapses at randomC.to analyz
29、e their awkward experiences scientificallyD.to keep a record of what they did unintentionally(2).Professor Smith discovered that_.（分数：2.00）A.certain patterns can be identified in the recorded incidentsB.many people were too embarrassed to admit their absent-mindednessC.men tend to be more absent-min
30、ded than womenD.absent-mindedness is an excusable human weakness(3).“Programmed assembly failures“ (Lines 67， Para. 2) refers to the phenomenon that people_.（分数：2.00）A.often fail to programme their routines beforehandB.tend to make mistakes when they are in a hurryC.unconsciously change the sequence
31、 of doing thingsD.are likely to mess things up if they are too tired(4).We learn from the third paragraph that_.（分数：2.00）A.absent-mindedness tends to occur during certain hours of the dayB.women are very careful to perform actions during peak periodsC.women experience more peak periods of absent-min
32、dednessD.men“s absent-mindedness often results in funny situations(5).It can be concluded from the passage that_.（分数：2.00）A.people should avoid doing important things during peak periods of lapsesB.hazards can be avoided when people do things they are good atC.people should be careful when programmi
33、ng their actionsD.lapses cannot always be attributed to lack of concentrationOn average, American kids aged 3 to 12 spent 29 hours a week in school, eight hours more than they did in 1981. They also did more household work and participated in more of such organized activities as soccer and ballet (芭
34、蕾舞). Involvement in sports, in particular, rose almost 50% from 1981 to 1997: boys now spend an average of four hours a week playing sports; girls log half that time. All in all, however, children“s leisure time dropped from 40% of the day in 1981 to 25 %. “Children are affected by the same time cru
35、nch (危机) that affects their parents,“ says Sandra Hofferth, who headed the recent study of children“s timetable. A chief reason, she says, is that more mothers are working outside the home. (Nevertheless, children in both double-income and “male breadwinner“ households spent comparable amounts of ti
36、me interacting with their parents, 19 hours and 22 hours respectively. In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mothers. ) All work and no play could make for some very messed-up kids. “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about himself,“ says T. Berr
37、y Brazel-ton, professor at Harvard Medical School. Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, but kids aged 3 to 12 spent only 12 hours a week engaged in it. The children sampled spent a quarter of their rapidly decreasin
38、g “free time“ watching television. But that, believe it or not, was one of the findings parents might regard as good news. If they“re spending less time in front of the TV set, however, kids aren“t replacing it with reading. Despite efforts to get kids more interested in books, the children spent ju
39、st over an hour a week reading. Let“s face it, who“s got the time? (310 words)（分数：10.00）(1).By mentioning “the same time crunch“ (Line 1, Para. 2) Sandra Hofferth means（分数：2.00）A.children have little time to play with thei * parentsB.children are not taken good care of by their working parentsC.both
40、 parents and children suffer from lack of leisure timeD.both parents and children have trouble managing their time(2).According to the author, the reason given by Sandra Hofferth for the time crunch is_.（分数：2.00）A.quite convincingB.partially trueC.totally groundlessD.rather confusing(3).According to
41、 the author a child develops better if_.（分数：2.00）A.he has plenty of time reading and studyingB.he is left to play with his peers in his own wayC.he has more time participating in school activitiesD.he is free to interact with his working parents(4).The author is concerned about the fact that America
42、n kids_.（分数：2.00）A.are engaged in more and more structured activitiesB.are increasingly neglected by their working mothersC.are spending more and more time watching TVD.are involved less and less in household work(5).We can infer from the passage that_.（分数：2.00）A.extracurricular activities promote c
43、hildren“s intelligenceB.most children will turn to reading with TV sets switched offC.efforts to get kids interested in reading have been fruitfulD.most parents believe reading to be beneficial to children在职艺术硕士（MFA）全国联考英文阅读理解-试卷 10答案解析(总分：40.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、英文阅读理解题(总题数：4，分数：40.00)Like many of my ge
44、neration, I have a weakness for hero worship. At some point, however, we all begin to question our heroes and our need for them. This leads us to ask: What is a hero? Despite immense differences in cultures, heroes around the world generally share a number of characteristics that instruct and inspir
45、e people. A hero does something worth talking about. A hero has a story of adventure to tell and a community who will listen. But a hero goes beyond mere fame. Heroes serve powers or principles larger than themselves. Like high-voltage transformers, heroes take the energy of higher powers and step i
46、t down so that it can be used by ordinary people. The hero lives a life worthy of imitation. Those who imitate a genuine hero experience life with new depth, enthusiasm, and meaning. A sure test for would-be heroes is what or whom do they serve? What are they willing to live and die for? If the answ
47、er or evidence suggests they serve only their own fame, they may be famous persons but not heroes. Madonna and Michael Jackson are famous, but who would claim that their fans find life more abundant? Heroes are catalysts (催化剂) for change. They have a vision from the mountaintop. They have the skill
48、and the charm to move the masses. They create new possibilities. Without Gandhi, India might still be part of the British Empire. Without Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. , we might still have segregated (隔离的) buses, restaurants, and parks. It may be possible for large-scale change to occur wi
49、thout leaders with magnetic personalities, but the pace of change would be slow, the vision uncertain, and the committee meetings endless. (293 words)（分数：10.00）(1).Although heroes may come from different cultures, they_.（分数：2.00）A.generally possess certain inspiring characteristics B.probably share some weaknesses of ordinary peopleC.are often influenced by previous generationsD.all unknowingly attract a large number of fans解析：解析：本题属于主旨概括题。文章第二段就是全文的主旨句：“Despite immense differences in cultures
