1、专业英语八级（阅读）练习试卷 38及答案与解析 0 Every political period has its characteristic form of scandal. During the Reagan defense buildup of the mid-1980s, the scandal of the day was “waste, fraud and mismanagement“ at the Pentagon, symbolized by the infamous $640 toilet seat. Amid the general embarrassment and ex
2、cuse-making, only one defense hawk was bold enough to declare that waste and fraud were actually good things. “We need more“ of them, wrote Edward Luttwak in Commentary. If youre going to build a stronger defense and build it fast, a bit of corruption is a necessary by-product. Todays characteristic
3、 form of scandal is financial abuse and excess. So where is the Luttwak of today who will cut through all the demagoguery and the whining, the outraged criticism and the mealymouthed apologies, and say, “Look, you want a vigorous entrepreneurial economy?“ A bit of excess is a necessary by-product. W
4、e need more“ financial abuse it is a sign that capitalism is working. Who has the courage to make this argument? I am not that man. But if 1 were that man, the case would run something like this: the magic of capitalism, as explained by Adam Smith and his followers, is that it channels individual gr
5、eed into activities that benefit all of us. “Greed is good,“ declared Michael Douglas, playing a corrupt financier in the movie Wall Street. More accurately, greed is inevitable. It is part of the human condition. And in moderation, economists argue and history demonstrates, greed is no bad thing. F
6、ree-market economies could not function if we were all Mother Teresa. But there is nothing inherent in the human condition that keeps greed in moderation. So there are laws, and there are appearances. Both these forces draw a rough line and attempt to place it between greed that helps other people a
7、nd greed that hurts other people. Inevitably, though, some will take greed too far. And thats a good thing (goes the argument I lack the courage to make). Why? Because you cant regulate greed with precision. Keynes used the term “animal spirits“ to describe the motivation of business people. A succe
8、ssful economy needs a culture that encourages them, up to a point. Its a Goldilocks-type situation. You dont want too much greed, and you dont want too little you want an amount thats just right. But the dials are not all that sensitive. A culture that encourages enough greed in enough people will e
9、ncourage too much in a few. If nobody is taking greed too far, you can be certain that too few people are taking it far enough. For some reason, none of the lawyers who are defending the big greedheads have chosen to make this argument. Instead, they offer inconsistent theories to explain the obviou
10、s. Lawyers for the Rigas family, which performed the remarkable feat of bankrupting a cable company, say their clients cant be guilty of a conspiracy to loot the company because they are too dimwitted: one is “not the savviest guy,“ another is “clueless.“ Martha Stewarts defense, by contrast, was in
11、 part that she is too clever to have done anything as dumb as conspiring to break the securities laws. Lawyers for Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco, take this line of reasoning further. The Wall Street Journal called theirs the “brazenness defense.“ Kozlowski made no secret of the fact that he u
12、sed Tyco money for a yacht, kept his mistresses on the payroll and (possibly therefore) also let Tyco finance a $5 million diamond ring for his wife. How could he have criminal intent if it was all out in the open? By contrast, Scott Sullivan, former CFO of WorldCom, engaged in a more traditional fo
13、rm of gall in pleading guilty to $11 billion worth of accounting fraud. It was a “misguided effort to save the company,“ he said. Call this the Vietnam defense: it was necessary to destroy the company in order to save it. Will no one step forward to say clearly that these seeming malefactors are act
14、ually heroes? That we need more of them, not fewer? True, Martha has been found guilty (though she is appealing), and others may lose in court as well. True, these people may have personally harmed the economy and ripped off many individual investors. Nevertheless, taken together, they are a sign of
15、 the economys robust health. Far better that a few greedheads get carried away than that we are worried that we are not getting the benefit of all the good, healthy, productive sort of greed that this county is capable of producing. In fact, think of these unpopular figures as the canaries of capita
16、lism. They precede us into the coal mine of greed, going farther than the rest of us dare, showing us where far enough becomes too far and perishing in the effort. They are martyrs of capitalism, dying financially so that others may prosper. Does no one have the simple guts to tell this truth? Well,
17、 I certainly dont. 1 According to the passage, which of the following is NOT the defense made by the lawyers? （ A） The Rigas family are not so clever as to bankrupt the company. （ B） Martha Stewart is so clever as not to break the securities law. （ C） Kozlowski does not intend to commit a crime sinc
18、e everything is in the open. （ D） Greed is good for the economy to develop. 2 “Malefactors“ in the eighth paragraph is closest in meaning to _. （ A） entrepreneurs （ B） male presidents （ C） criminals （ D） heroes 3 What is the authors attitude toward those malefactors? （ A） appreciative （ B） angry （ C
19、） contemptuous （ D） negative 4 According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true? （ A） The economy will not develop if too few people are taking greed too far. （ B） Greed can stimulate economy. （ C） People like Mother Teresa help enhance the economy. （ D） The cases of those malefactors sh
20、ow the businessmen the farthest place they can go. 5 The main purpose of the passage is to _. （ A） show that financial abuse is a bad thing. （ B） defend excess. （ C） criticize a few peoples financial abuse. （ D） look for the cause of financial excess. 5 At a chess tournament in Tunisia in 1967, Bobb
21、y Fischer, then 24, was pitted against another American grand master, Samuel Reshevsky. At game time, Fischer was nowhere to be found, so Reshevsky sat down opposite Fischers empty chair, made his first move, punched the game clock and waited. And waited. With five minutes left, Fischer suddenly str
22、ode onstage and, with a series of blindingly quick moves, hammered Reshevsky into defeat. Two days later, Fischer quit the tournament and abandoned competitive chess for two years. Which raises the question, Why is the gift of genius so often given to people too stupid to know what to do with it? In
23、 “Bobby Fischer Goes to War“ (Ecco; 342 pages),David Edmonds and John Eidinow tell the story of Fischers most famous match, the 1972 world championship in Reykjavik. Fischer faced Soviet grand master Boris Spassky in a chess game that was not only an epic staring match between two intellectual gladi
24、ators but also the focus of all kinds of weird, free-floating cold war cultural-political energy. It was the Rumble in the Jungle and the Cuban missile crisis all rolled into one. The drama was hopelessly miscast. Fischer, the champion of the American way, was an antisocial, anti-Semitic ego-maniac
25、who complained about the lighting, the auditorium, the prize money, even the marble the chessboard was made of. Spassky, the cog in the Soviet machine, was a genial, sensitive fellow who liked a drink once in a while. He was Ali to Fischers Foreman. Of course, Fischer ate him alive. “Bobby Fischer G
26、oes to War“ tells the story in fine, brisk style, interpreting the red-hot chess-fu action the Ruy Lopez opening! The Nimzo-Indian defense! for us nongeniuses and conveying the richness of the world beyond the chessboard through details plucked from FBI and KGB records. We see, for example, Soviet e
27、xperts whisking Spasskys orange juice back to Moscow to test for suspicious capitalist contaminants. It seems to be in the nature of genius to zero in on its purpose. In the 1790s a young French boy named Jean-Francois Champollion, the son of a bookseller, became obsessed with ancient languages not
28、only Latin and Greek hut also Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Chaldean. According to “The Linguist and the Emperor“ (Ballantine; 271 pages), by Daniel Meyerson, Champollion was a dreamy, solitary kid who mouthed oft in class, but as a schoolboy, he assembled a 2,000-page dictionary of Coptic, an ancient
29、 Egyptian language. Luckily for him, French soldiers in Egypt soon discovered the Rosetta stone, a chunk of gray and pink rock with the same text written on it in both Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics, which no one had yet deciphered. Unlocking hieroglyphics was Champollions great work, and Meyerson
30、 tells the story as a passionate linguistic love affair. After finally solving the mystery, Champollion collapsed in a coma for eight days. Champollion and Fischer were lucky: they were heroes in their time. Deprived of the spotlight, genius can grow up twisted and strange. David Hahn was the child
31、of divorced, clueless parents living in a David Lynch perfect Michigan suburb in the mid-1990s. A loner and a compulsive tinkerer, Hahn somehow got it into his head in high school to build a nuclear reactor in his moms potting shed, and damn if he didnt come close. In “The Radioactive Boy Scout“ (Ra
32、ndom House; 209 pages), Ken Silverstein describes how Hahn extracted radioactive elements from household objects americium from smoke detectors, thorium from Coleman lanterns, deadly radium from the glow-in-the-dark paint used on the hands of vintage clocks. For sheer improvisational ingenuity, Hahn
33、 makes MacGyver look like Jessica Simpson. When public-health officials finally caught on to what Hahn was up to, the potting shed was so hot that it had to be classified as a Superfund site. Stories about geniuses rarely end well. Hahn wound up in the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft
34、carrier the U.S. Enterprise, but his officers wouldnt even let him tour the engine room. Champollion died at 40. Fischer never defended his world title. He declined into irascibility and then obscurity. What happened to him? A chess master once said, “Chess is not something that drives people mad. C
35、hess is something that keeps mad people sane.“ Which is to say that genius may lie not only in having a gift but in lacking something crucial as well. Reading these books, one feels grateful for being just a little stupid. 6 According to the passage, which of the following about the 1972 match is NO
36、T true? （ A） Fischer defeated Spassky. （ B） It was a match between two cleverest men. （ C） It was an embodiment of strength of the two coutries. （ D） Fischer lost the match hopelessly. 7 Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage? （ A） Champollion was linguistically gifted. （ B） Cha
37、mpollion became great for what he did. （ C） Champollion made great efforts to decipher the dead language. （ D） Champollion died of hard working at 40. 8 What is the main idea of the passage? （ A） Geniuses are great people. （ B） Geniuses are strange people. （ C） Geniuses always lead a sad life. （ D）
38、To be too gifted is not good for peopl 9 What is the authors attitude toward the geniuses? （ A） appreciative （ B） sympathetic （ C） indifferent （ D） admiring 10 The book “Bobby Fischer Goes to War“ describes the following except _. （ A） The Vietnam War Fischer went to （ B） Fischers most famous match
39、（ C） Stories beyond the match （ D） Fischers character 专业英语八级（阅读）练习试卷 38答案与解析 【知识模块】 阅读 1 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 由第六段和第七段可知，选项 A、 B和 C都是律师 为他们的当事人做的辩护，但是没有人做出 D这样的辩护来，因此， D为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 2 【正确答案】 C 【试题解析】 结合上下文可知这些巨贪可能都会受到法律的制裁，因此，作者用了 seeming一词，所以选项 C更符合题意，为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 3 【正确答案】 A 【试题解析】 作者认为，那些巨贪以身试法
40、，告诫人们犯罪的界限，从而使其他人能够保持适度的欲望，以促进经济的发展。故选项 A符合题意，为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 4 【正确答案 】 C 【试题解析】 作者在第三段中指出，适度的欲望能够刺激经济的发展，但如果我们都是 Mother Teresa，自由市场经济是不可能健康发展的，由此判断，选项 C与原文不符，故为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 5 【正确答案】 B 【试题解析】 本文作者提出的观点与众不同，认为适度的欲望有助于经济的发展，而少数人的过度贪婪则为其他人指出了贪欲的界限。因此，作者的目的是为贪欲而辩护。故选项 B为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 【知识模块】 阅读 6 【
41、正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 由第二段和第三段可知， 1972年那场比赛是在两个 “intellectual gladiators”之间进行的，是美国和前苏联力量的较量，最后，当然是 Fischer赢得了那场比赛。因此，选项 D与原文不符，为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 7 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 由第四段可知， Champollion有语言上的天赋 (选项 A)，在成功地破解了 Coptic这一古埃及文字之后，陷入昏迷达八天之久，可见其对工作的专心和投入 (选项 C)，作者在第五段中说， Champollion是幸运 的，因为他成为了那个时代的英雄 (选项 B)，最后一段只是说 C
42、hampollion英年早逝，但未提及死亡原因，故选项 D与原文不符，应为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 8 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 选项 A、 B和 C在文章中都被提及，但不是全文的主旨，作者在最后点明主题，我们应该为有点愚蠢而心生感激，过于聪明反而不是好事。故选项D为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 9 【正确答案】 B 【试题解析】 通读全文可知，作者对书中的天才既有赞赏又有同情，而文章最后一段表明作者的同情之心更 大一些，故选项 B为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 10 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 由二、三段不难看出， Bobby Fischer Goes to War一书讲述了Fischer最有名的那场比赛 (B)，讲述了赛场外的故事 (C)，也描述了 Fischer的性格(D)，虽然提到了越战 (the Rumble in the Jungle)，但 Fischer并没有参加，故选项A与原文不符，应为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读
