1、专业英语八级（阅读）练习试卷 24及答案与解析 0 Make That a Double A few years ago, it dawned on Zach Thomas that coffee didnt have enough caffeine. At the time, he was pulling all-nighters as a student at the United States Military Academy at West Point. By the time he became an instructor at the U.S. Army Ranger School
2、 in Fort Benning, Ga., he lived by a common saying at his school: “Sleep is a crutch.“ “I used to just drink a pot of coffee, but then you have to go to the bathroom 100 times during the day. If you could just get more caffeine in one cup, then that would be the best of both worlds,“ he says. In 200
3、5 Thomas, now 30, founded Ranger Coffee, with a “hypercaffeinated“ blend that contains double the caffeine of regular coffee, or about 300 milligrams per 12-ounce serving the equivalent of six Diet Cokes. The small, Rockmart, Ga.-based company sells 1,700 bags of coffee a year, nearly half of them t
4、o troops stationed in Iraq. These days you dont have to be a war hero to be a caffeine addict. Everywhere you look, people are wired on caffeine or touting its benefits or both. Tabloids run images of celebrities sipping Red Bull or toting Starbucks venti lattes; Dunkin Donuts ads feature a coffee-s
5、willing Rachael Ray, who moves so fast that she leaves tread marks on the floor. Theres no shortage of ways to get your caffeine fix. Sales of energy drinks like Red Bull and Full Throttle have grown tenfold since 2001, and new ones enter the market weekly. Products that already have caffeine are ad
6、ding more in the past few months Diet Pepsi, Jolt and Mountain Dew have all rolled out extra-caffeinated versions. Novelty items, like caffeinated lip balm, caffeinated sunflower seeds, caffeinated beer and even caffeinated soap (“Tired of waking up and having to wait for your morning java to brew?“
7、) are also popping up in retail stores and nightclubs. In a spoof on this caffeine arms race, the site E launched a “death by caffeine calculator“ that shows a 180-pound adult would have to down 44 tall cups of Starbucks coffee before checking in to the big java house in the sky. Why do we need or w
8、ant so much energy? Conventional wisdom says its because were sleeping less and working more. But government figures show that adults have averaged eight hours of sleep per night since the 1960s. Working hours, at least for men, have also remained constant: men with children have averaged about 43 h
9、ours of paid work per week for the past half century. Of course, that doesnt mean we dont feel more stressed. University of Maryland sociologist Suzanne Bianchi says working mothers entry into the labor force means theres less downtime for families as a whole, with errands, housework and outings pac
10、ked into a tight two-day weekend. As for the young and unattached, they may be getting plenty of sleep, but at irregular hours. They have more options than ever for 24/7 entertainment, from TV to the Internet to video-games. In fact, many of the novelty caffeine products are aimed at computer games
11、who stage weekend-long “LAN parties“ where no one sleeps. But for the general public, the trend is more about getting a legal high. “Caffeine is the worlds most popular mood-altering drug,“ says David Schardt, senior nutritionist at the Center for science in the Public Interest. And companies have b
12、een banking on its addictive properties to bring repeat business. Caffeine can lift your mood, improve concentration, boost physical stamina and, as an active ingredient in Excedrin, help cure headaches. More than 50 percent of caffeine drinkers experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop. By most
13、 accounts, though, the stimulant is fairly safe. “Theres nothing inherently wrong with being dependent on caffeine,“ says Roland Griffiths, a neuroscientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as long as you dont overdose. For those accustomed to caffeine, a moderate intake is 200 to
14、 300 milligrams per day the equivalent of two to three cups of brewed coffee, one Starbucks tall coffee or 3.5 Red Bulls. Exceed 500 to 600 milligrams, and anxiety, nausea and heart palpitations can set in. Griffiths does worry about teenagers, who are drinking more caffeinated beverages: “Im concer
15、ned that impressionable adolescents are exposed to marketing messages that promote caffeine as a performance enhancer will later turn to stronger drugs, like steroids or Ritalin or cocaine.“ More worrisome still is the glamorization of the 24/7 caffeine high. Even Rachael Ray occasionally needs her
16、rest. 1 According to the passage, the following are the effects of caffeine with the EXCEPTION of _. （ A） It can cure diseases. （ B） It can change peoples mood. （ C） It can increase physical strength. （ D） It can make people more concentrate 2 According to the passage, the following are the adverse
17、effects of overdose of caffeine with the EXCEPTION of _. （ A） anxiety （ B） sickness （ C） heart beating （ D） obesity 3 According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true about caffeine? （ A） It makes people awake. （ B） It helps alter peoples mood. （ C） Drinking drinks with caffei
18、ne is legal. （ D） Drinks with caffeine are dangerous to peoples healt 4 According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true? （ A） People are not supposed to be dependent on caffeine. （ B） People need more energy because they feel more stressed. （ C） Peoples desire for caffeinated
19、 energy products is soaring. （ D） People tend to drink the highest amount of caffeine that is legal. 5 Which of the following suggests the real cause for the high need of caffeine? （ A） It is harmless. （ B） It can enhance performance. （ C） It helps with peoples way of feeling. （ D） People are sleepi
20、ng less and working mor 5 The World Banks Real Problem The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got his girlfriend a raise. It is the Wolfowitz saga that has been grabbing all the headlines, of course. The Iraq- war architect was plucked from the Defense
21、 Department and deposited by President George W. Bush at the World Bank in 2005 (by tradition, the U.S. President picks the banks chief). At the time, Wolfowitz informed the banks ethics committee that he was seeing Shaha Riza, a communication adviser at the bank, and the in-house ethicists told him
22、 she should be moved to another agency and given a raise for her troubles. But the size of the pay hike (from $133,000 to $180,000, tax free) and other details about Rizas transfer raised hackles among bank staff and sparked an investigation. The banks board will decide any day now whether Wolfowitz
23、 stays or goes. This dragged-out mess, though, is a distraction. The bigger issue is that the Washington-based bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are struggling to justify their continued existence. The situation is most pressing for the smaller IMF, which pays
24、its bills with the profits it makes by lending money to middle-income countries in financial trouble. With hardly any such countries in trouble these days, the organization is projecting a $224 million deficit for this fiscal year and asking its member nations if they can start selling off some of t
25、he gold they deposited with it after World War II (the answer so far: no). The World Bank isnt that desperate, but it faces similar pressure. Both organizations were created in 1944 by the soon-to-be-victorious Allied powers. At the time, says Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist Kenneth
26、 Rogoff, “global financial markets barely existed, and domestic financial markets barely existed in Europe.“ The World Banks initial job was to finance reconstruction in Europe. The Marshall Plan rendered that task superfluous, so the bank in the first of several reinventions moved on to bankroll de
27、velopment in other countries. The idea was to lend to governments that were creditworthy but had no access to rich-country capital markets. “Now we live in a world where there are huge global capital markets, where, if anything, investors are too willing to invest in developing countries,“ says Adam
28、 Lerrick, a former investment banker who teaches economics at Carnegie Mellon University. The World Banks net lending has plummeted over the past few years, even as it keeps shopping loans to the likes of Brazil, Turkey, Russia and China, sometimes on hugely generous terms. This is the work of the b
29、iggest part of the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Member countries make deposits (the U.S. share is $2 billion down and $30 billion pledged); the bank sells bonds backed by those deposits and pledges, then lends the money out at a small profit. The other main
30、arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association, gets regular infusions of cash from rich countries and lends funds on near giveaway terms to truly poor countries, mostly in Africa (the U.S. contribution is just under $1 billion a year, or 0.04% of federal spending). Lerrick wants t
31、he World Bank to stop lending to middle-income countries and restructure its loans to the poorest nations as outright grants. Nancy Birdsall, a former World Banker who run a Washington think tank called the Center for Global Development, argues that the bank could have more impact on poverty by maki
32、ng better use of its best assets: the expertise of its staff and its ability to coordinate global action. “Lending and grant making at the country level should not be the end-all and be- all,“ she says. “It should be the vehicle for advice and constant rebuilding of the banks knowledge.“ Birdsall is
33、 a World Bank fan but agrees with critics like Lerrick that it must become smaller (it has a staff of 10,000) and less banklike to remain relevant. Wolfowitzs allies say he is the victim of backlash from entrenched bank staff upset that he is turning up the heat on an anticorruption campaign begun b
34、y his predecessor, James Wolfensohn. Thats probably overstating things. But the potential backlash against slashing the banks staff and getting it out of lending would surely be epic. Which may explain why no World Bank president, Wolfowitz included, has attempted it. 6 According to the author, the
35、World Banks real problem is _. （ A） its corruption （ B） its policy on lending （ C） its continued existence （ D） Wolfowitzs romantic relationship 7 Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the World Bank? （ A） Its anticorruption campaign is still going on. （ B） It should readjust
36、 its role in combating poverty. （ C） It has satisfied its initial job to finance reconstruction in Europe. （ D） It is playing a more and more important role in lending to developing countries. 8 According to the passage, the World Bank should do the following EXCEPT _. （ A） reducing staff （ B） coord
37、inating global action （ C） increasing the profit it makes （ D） offering advice to poor countries 9 Which of the following is NOT true according to Nancy Birdsall? （ A） The World Bank should reduce its staff. （ B） The World Bank should coordinate global action. （ C） The World Bank should offer advice
38、 to poor countries. （ D） The World Bank should limit its work to lending and grant makin 10 We can infer from the last paragraph that the author was _ the capability of the World Bank to solve its problems. （ A） confident in （ B） indifferent to （ C） optimistic about （ D） pessimistic about 专业英语八级（阅读）
39、练习试卷 24答案与解析 【知识模块】 阅读 1 【正确答案】 A 【试题解析】 由第四段可知，咖啡因具有改变情绪 (B)，使注意力集中 (D)和增强体力 (C)等作用。文中只是说咖啡因可放于治疗头痛的药物中，帮助治 疗头痛，但并没有说能治愈疾病。故 A为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 2 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 最后说明了过量饮用咖啡因可能带来的不良后果，如焦虑 (A)、恶心 (B)、心悸 (C)等。故 D为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 3 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 综观全文可知，咖啡因可以使人保持头脑清醒 (A)，改善情绪 (B)。同时，饮用含有咖啡因的饮料是合法的 (C)
40、，也是安全的。故 D为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 4 【正确答案】 A 【试题解析】 由第二段可知，人们对含有咖啡因的能量型饮料的需求在增长(C)。最后一段中，一位神经科学家认为依赖咖啡因本身并没有错误，故 A是错误的。第三段显示，人们的压力增加，因此需要更多的能量 (B)。第四段表明，普通大众希望能够饮用在法律所允许范围内尽可能多的咖啡因 (D)。故 A为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 5 【正确答案】 C 【试题解析】 由第四段可知，对咖啡因的需求原因是咖啡因能够改善人的情绪(C)。选项 B为推销产品的广告语言，并没有经过证实。 D说明了人们的传统看法，事实表明，人 们的睡眠时间并没有
41、减少。故 C为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 【知识模块】 阅读 6 【正确答案】 C 【试题解析】 由第三段可知，关于沃尔福威茨的绯闻只是暂时分散了人们的注意力，而世行所面临的真正问题是该组织是否还有存在的必要性。故 C为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 7 【正确答案】 B 【试题解析】 本文的主题是世行是否有必要继续存在下去。第六、第七和第八段说明了世行的历史、现状，以及今后的方向。由于马歇尔计划，世行成立之初的目的已成为多余。而近年来，给发展中国家贷 款的净额大幅下跌，说明其贷款这一职能越来越不重要。第八段里，专家建议世行应在帮助贫穷国家摆脱贫困方面产生更大的影响。故 B为正确答案。 【
42、知识模块】 阅读 8 【正确答案】 C 【试题解析】 由第八段可知，世行应给贫穷国家提供专业知识 (D)，协调全球的经济运作 (B)，以及缩减工作人员 (A)。故 C为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 9 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 由第八段可知，伯兹奥尔希望世行能够给贫穷的国家提供专业建议(C)，协调全球经济运作 (B)，以及减员 (A)，而不是仅仅 从事贷款业务。故 D为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 10 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 由最后一段可知，如果世行裁员并取消贷款，将会引来银行员工的强烈不满，因此，包括沃尔福威茨在内没有一位世行总裁敢于尝试这样的做法。由此判断，作者对世行能否解决其当前所面临的问题表现出悲观的态度。故 D为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读
