1、专业英语八级-阅读理解(二)及答案解析 (总分：60.00，做题时间：90分钟)一、BExercise One/(总题数：6，分数：20.00)In this section there are several reading passages followed by a total of twenty multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your answer sheet. BText A/BPeople are moving to cities in droves. In 19
2、50, two-thirds of the worlds population lived in the countryside. New York was then the only settlement with more than 10 million people. Today there are 20 such megacities, and more are on the way. Most of these megacities are in developing countries that are struggling to cope with both the speed
3、and the scale of human migration. Estimates of the future spread of urbanization are based on the observation that in Europe, and in North and South America, the urban share of the total population has stabilized at 75%-85%. If the rest of the world follows this path it is expected that in the next
4、decade an extra 100 million people will join the cities of Africa, and 340 million the cities of Asia: the equivalent of a new Bangkok every two months. By 2030 nearly two-thirds of the worlds population will be urban. In the long run, that is good news. If countries now industrialising follow the p
5、attern of those that have already done so, their city-dwellers will be both more prosperous and healthier. Man is gregarious species, and the Words urbane and civilised both derive from the advantages of living in large settlements. History also shows, though, that the transition can be uncomfortabl
6、e. The slums of Manchester were, in their time, just as awful as those of Nairobi today. But people moved there for exactly the same reason: however nasty conditions seemed, the opportunities of urban life outstripped those of the countryside. The question is how best to handle the change. If there
7、is one thing that everybody agrees on, it is that urbanization is unstoppable. Migrants attempting to escape poverty, and refugees escaping conflict, are piling into cities in what the executive director of UN-HABITAT, Anna, Tibailjuka, describes as premature urbanization. Dr Tibaijuka believes it m
8、ight be possible to slow the pace of migration from the countryside with policies that enhance security and rural livelihoods. There is room for debate, though, over whether better rural development in any form can seriously slow the pace of urbanisation - or even whether such a slowdown would be a
9、good thing. Michael Mutter, an urban planning adviser at the British governments Department for International Development (DFID), says that the relevant indicators suggest that in many countries the effective carrying capacity of rural areas has been reached. As happened in Europe in the 18th centur
10、y, population growth and technological improvements to agriculture are creating a surplus population. That surplus has to go somewhere to earn its living. Indeed, some people go so far so to argue that governments, international donors and aid agencies spend too much on rural development and neglect
11、 the cities. Most countries have a rural development policy, but only a few have urban ones. DFID, for example, spends only 5% of its budget directly on urban development. Moreover, these critics point out that, although rural areas often have worse sanitation, illiteracy and homelessness than citie
12、s, such figures are deceptive. Being illiterate, homeless or without access to a flush toilet are far more serious problems in a crowded city than in the countryside. Of the many lessons being learnt from past urban-development failures, one of the most important is that improvements must involve lo
13、cal people in a meaningful way. Even when it comes to the poorest slumdwellers, some governments and city authorities are realizing that people are their own greatest assets. Slumdwellers International is a collection of grassroots federations of people living in slums. Its idea is simple. Slum-dwel
14、lers in a particular place get together and form a federation to strengthen local savings and credit schemes, and to lobby for greater co- operation with the authorities. Such federations are having a big impact on slum-upgrading schemes around the world. By surveying local needs and acting as voice
15、s for slum-dwellers, these federations have been able to show the authorities that slum-dwellers are not simply a homogenous and anonymous mass of urban poor, but are real people in need of real services. They have also been able to apply pressure for improvements in security of tenure- either throu
16、gh temporary guarantees of residency or, better still, formal ownership. Such secure tenure gives people an incentive to improve their dwellings and is thus the crucial first step to upgrading a slum into a suburb. Over the past six years, South Africas government has been pursuing an active program
17、me of housing improvement. The government quickly realized that, with the poor in the majority, providing social housing for all would be impossible. The minister for housing, Sakie Mthembi-Mahanyele, says the approach that has worked so far has been a combination of government, the private sector a
18、nd the poor themselves. The poor, says Mrs Mthembi-Mahanyele, have responsibilities, and the government meets them halfway. Those with an income are expected to contribute some of it to the building of their houses. Those without are asked to contribute sweat equity by helping to build with their ow
19、n hands. South Africa has also transferred ownership of more than 380,000 council houses, worth more than 28 billion rand ($2.7 billion) to private individuals. With these houses as collateral for loans, owners have already started to upgrade and improve their properties. There is still a long way t
20、o go. An estimated 2-3 million more houses are needed. She adds that the government is still wrestling with financial institutions to get a better deal for the poor. （分数：4.00）(1).The passage is mainly concerned with _.（分数：1.00）A.the side effects of urbanizationB.megacities in developing countriesC.t
21、he causes behind immigration to citiesD.ways to slow down the pace of immigration(2).It can be inferred from the passage that Nairobi is _.（分数：1.00）A.a megacity with slumsB.a palace of hunger and conflictC.an industrialized cityD.a rural area with a surplus population(3).Anna Tibaijuka (para. 5) and
22、 Michael Mutter (para.7) seem to differ over _.（分数：1.00）A.the benefits of urbanizationB.the process of urbanizationC.the causes of urbanizationD.the cost of urbanization(4).According to the passage, some slumdwellers are not interested in improving their environments because they _。（分数：1.00）A.are un
23、sure of their residencyB.dislike urbanizationC.are used to the president environmentD.are homogeneous and anonymousBText B/BFew material things in life are more exciting than the right kind of hotel room. The kind with a large television and a well-stocked video collection; with a minibar laden with
24、 jelly beans and paprika-flavoured crisps; with a bathroom decked with fluffy white towels, robes and a collection of miniature bottles of shampoo; with a thick room-service menu offering all-night dining. The chance to stay in a nice hotel can be capable of convincing even the inconsolable that lif
25、e is worth living. The best hotel rooms achieve their distinctive charm in part because they combine the advantages of a modern commercial environment, and all the newness and shininess we associate with them, with the advantages of home where we can wander around naked, pick our noses with impunity
26、 and feel private and unwatched. For a few nights, the place we call home resembles an idealised version of what our own homes might be like, if only we could afford to repair the cracks in the walls and change all the furniture. To stay in one of the Ian Shrager hotels - St. Martins Lane or Sanders
27、on in London, for example - feels like stepping into a shiny and perfect magazine world. With their brisk efficiency and soothing colour schemes, these hotels allow us to think of life as something that might for ever be beautiful, calm and comprehensible. Good hotels are also a profound source of a
28、 feeling of love. How might a word generally used only in relation to what we get from a parent or a romantic companion be applied to something we might be offered by a hotel? Perhaps we could define love as a kind of attentiveness; a sensitivity by one person to anothers existence. Advertisements f
29、or the Four Seasons hotel chain constantly emphasize the love that is showered on its guests; we see a maid hunting for just the right pillow, so that sleep of guests will be deep and soul- restoring-the kind of care we might last have experienced when we were ill as a child and pampered in bed by a
30、 devoted parent who brought toast soldiers and allowed us to watch television all day. Hotel rooms can be wonderful places in which to think. It is no coincidence that many of the 20th Centurys greatest novels were written in hotel rooms. An unfamiliar setting offers an opportunity to escape our hab
31、its of mind: lying in bed, the room quiet except for the occasional swooshing of an elevator in the innards of the building, we can draw a lien under what preceded our arrival, and we can overfly great and ignored stretches of our experience. All that said, there can be nothing worse than finding th
32、at one is not happy in a beautiful hotel, I recall going to stay at the Old Cataract in Aswan, Egypt, with a girlfriend a few years ago. The setting was idyllic, and yet one day at lunch, we managed to have an argument (about nothing) in the hotel dining room, which spoilt the entire experience. We
33、tell into a deep sulk and returned to our room. It had been cleaned in our absence. The bed had fresh linen. There were flowers on the chest of drawers and new towels in the bathroom. I tore one from the pile and went to sit on the veranda, closing the French windows violently. The trees were throwi
34、ng a gentle shade, the crisscross patterns of the palms occasionally rearranging themselves in the afternoon breeze. But there was no pleasure in such beauty. It had become irrelevant that there were soft towels, flowers and attractive views. My mood refused to be lifted by any external prop; it eve
35、n felt insulted by the perfection of the hotel. The misery of that afternoon was a reminder of the fickle nature of our spirits. When we encounter a picture of a beautiful hotel, and imagine that happiness must naturally accompany such magnificence, we should remember how quickly it can be made insi
36、gnificant by one sulk. And yet, of course, that should never be enough to stop us checking in. （分数：4.00）(1).In a nice hotel one can enjoy which of the following advantages of home?（分数：1.00）A.A sense of ownership.B.Closeness to family members.C.Privacy.D.A sense of belonging.(2).Love in a nice hotel
37、is closest to which of the following?（分数：1.00）A.Brotherly love.B.Romantic love.C.Sexual love.D.Parental love.(3).All of the following explains why one can think better in a nice hotel EXCEPT _.（分数：1.00）A.one is little distracted by the environmentB.one is in an better moodC.one need not be preoccupi
38、ed with what happened before he arrivedD.one is able to reflect on his entire life(4).The information contained in the last few paragraphs is most valuable to someone who _.（分数：1.00）A.believes that living in a nice hotel is always a happy experienceB.often stays at hotels with idyllic settingsC.want
39、s to enjoy the modem commercial environmentD.has often been disappointed by hotel lifeBText C/BOf all the dreary demystification of female experience advanced by feminists, surely one of the silliest is the claim that the heroines of girls classics helped turn generations of admiring readers into mi
40、lksops. Yet that is the thesis of Deborah OKeefes Good Girl Messages: How Young Women Were Misled by Their Favorite Books. A former professor of English at Vassar and Manhattanville, OKeefe would persuade us that many girls were damaged by characters, plots, and themes in the books they read and lov
41、ed, because in these books female virtue is invariably bound up with sit-still, look-good messages. Arguing from supposedly stereotypical literary scenes depictions of mothers making their daughters feel safe and loved, for example- along with ominous anecdotes attempting to show how the women of he
42、r own generation are passive and pliant, OKeefe insists that until about 1950, a vast literary conspiracy was trying to suck the brains and spirit out of little girls. What is impressive about this contention is the boldness of its inversion of reality. Indeed, OKeefe does her readers a favor by sen
43、ding us scurrying to our shelves to pore through half-forgotten, well-loved stories and confirm that, sure enough, the exact opposite is tree: The great girls books of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (many of them further popularized in film, television, and stage versions) are filled w
44、ith active, vibrant young women notable for their moral strength. These novels celebrate character in girls and women in a way that their contemporary counterparts, filled with characters brooding over nasty boys and weight problems, seldom do. To revisit the girls classics of the nineteenth and twe
45、ntieth centuries, actually, is to enter a heroines hall of fame. This doesnt stop OKeefe from disparaging characters like brave but passive Sara Crewe. The central figure in A Little Princes (1950) by the English-born American writer Frances Hodgson Burnett, best, known for The Secret Garden (1911),
46、 Sara endures hardship, including her beloved fathers death and her resulting poverty, in a way that ahs inspired girls for a century. You have to bear things, Sara explains to a friend early in the story, when her father has left her at boarding school. Think what soldiers bear! Papa is a soldier.
47、If there was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps, deep wounds. And he would never say a word - not one word. This kind of stoicism is bad, OKeefe explains, because eleven-year-old Sara doesnt escape her awful situation on her own, but merely suffers until a heroic male,
48、 her fathers old friend, rescues her. Besides, isnt there something sinister, OKeefe insinuates, about this father-worship ? Yet it would be hard for parents to provide their daughters a better model of generosity and resourcefulness than Sara Crewe. With the help of a few friends and a vivid imagin
49、ation, she creates an inner life as a princess that helps her endure the worst circumstances with dignity. In the books most moving scene, Sara uses a coin she has found to buy six buns, then gives five of them to a beggar girl who is even hungrier than she is. Sara was talking to herself, though sh
