1、笔译二级综合能力（阅读理解）模拟试卷 7及答案与解析 0 I figured that when 2010 finally arrived, Id be here in Los Angeles on my videophone looking at my new editor in her formfitting silver bodysuit as she yelled at me from New York for sexually harassing her in the first sentence of the first column we worked on together.
2、But even though we both have Skype, we havent used it once. In fact, even though Skype is the only one of all the cool gadgets that cartoons promised me would exist by 2010, people dont seem nearly as excited as they should be. Only 34% of Skype calls even use video. And when Skype announced on Jan.
3、 5 at the Consumer Electronics Show that well soon have videophones on our televisions, everyone went right back to talking about which booths gave out the best key-chain lights. Ive used Skype twice: to be a guest expert on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and to let my mother see her grandson. Both
4、involved a lot of help from tech people and drool. Yes, I find Meredith Vieira that attractive. But I havent used it since. Thats because Skype breaks the century-old social contract of the phone: we pay close attention while were talking and zone out while you are. As soon as you begin to talk, I f
5、eel trapped and desperately scan the room for tasks I can do to justify the enormous waste of time that is your talking. I wash dishes, I file receipts, I read news sites, I make little fake suicide faces to my wife Cassandra about how much I want to hang up that cause her to yell “Joel, I need you
6、now“ in a really unconvincing way that Ive asked her not to do, but I still cant stop making the suicide faces. In desperate times, when I am on my cell phone in the middle of nowhere, I will pace. The only other time I pace is when I stub a toe or burn myself. But when I start talking, I assume tha
7、t you are sitting perfectly still, rapt. And while that is actually true when Im talking, people arent listening to those of you who havent been on E! But Skype requires me to look at you while youre talking, which is totally ridiculous. The only sci-fi show that understood this was Star Trek. Bones
8、 and Jim would use their flip phones to talk quickly about beaming or health issues. The only time theyd fire up the videophone was when a Klingon was sitting in a spaceship 20 yards away with guns pointed at them. Even then I think Sulu was checking out Go Fug Yourself. Interested in talking more a
9、bout my theory, I used my landline to call Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor of the social studies of science and technology. She told me people are not only uninterested in Skype, were also not interested in talking on the regular phone. We want to TiVo our lives, avoiding real time by texting or e-m
10、ailing people when we feel like it. “Skype, which was the fantasy of our childhood, gets you back to sitting there and being available in that old-fashioned way. Our model of what it was to be present to each other, we thought we liked that,“ she said. “But it turns out that time shifting is our mos
11、t valued product. This new technology is about control. Emotional control and time control. “ Youd be shocked by how many times two people talking on the phone about people not wanting to talk on the phone have to tell each other theyre enjoying their conversation. Ive had phone sex where I expresse
12、d less appreciation of another person. If we miss anything about the regular phone, I think its the psychoanalysts trick it employed: youre lying on a couch facing the wall, imagining nonjudgmental empathy from someone you cant see. In her book Alone Together, which comes out next year, Turkle write
13、s about a study in which she found that people really like to talk to robots. As soon as you ask people to interact with a computer with artificial intelligence, they start unloading secrets. Robots, it seems, are less likely to take over the earth than they are daytime-television hosting jobs. As f
14、ar as the full-contact listening that Skype requires, 1 dont think we want that all that often from people who arent already in our house. The fact is, we dont really want to see other people that badly. Thats why its so difficult to make plans with them. That, plus texting times and places back and
15、 forth takes forever. Maybe all the stuff we thought we wanted in the future sucks. Flying cars would block our light, food pills would make Gordon Ramseys screaming even more preposterous, and those moving sidewalks just give me another reason to hate fat people at airports. Far better is to have c
16、ontrol over our most valuable commodity: time. Sure, we complain about being busy, but thats pretty great as long as we get to choose when we do things. The truth is, my editor will never even call me. Shell just e-mail. Which is actually fine with me. Theres plenty of video online of women in silve
17、r bodysuits.(from Time, Jan. 18, 2010. ) 1 According to the passage, which of the following statements is true? （ A） Though the author and his editor both have Skype, they have never talked through it. （ B） The editor yelled at the author because of his sexually harassing her in their joint column.
18、（ C） It is just an imagination in cartoons for people to have videophones on their televisions. （ D） People are not interested in using Skype video at all. 2 In the authors point of view, the traditional social contact of the phone has the following advantages EXCEPT that_. （ A） you can talk to peop
19、le over the phone and do housework at the same time （ B） you can make faces to those who are around you when you are answering phone. （ C） you can concentrate on your conversation rather than on the callers appearance （ D） people can not tell what you are actually doing or thinking over the phone 3
20、It can be safely inferred from the passage that TiVo has the function of_. （ A） controlling live TV with pause, fast-forward, instant replay and slow motion （ B） scheduling recordings from your computer or phone via the web （ C） taking all your favorite shows with you on your phone or portable devic
21、e （ D） letting you do what you want to do or be required to do at the right time for you 4 All of the following are Sherry Turkles ideas on Skype and phone EXCEPT_ （ A） Skype is not so popular because people dont like to be available at any time. （ B） texting or e-mailing is by no means better than
22、phone in communication. （ C） though they are daily happening, people are interested in neither Skype nor phone. （ D） it has been supposed that people like to be present to each other, but it is not the case. 5 What is the ROOT reason for the cold shoulder Skype has received? （ A） Skype can not reali
23、ze the function of time shifting up till now. （ B） Skype is only the product of our ancestors imagination and is old-fashioned. （ C） Skype involves emotion and time control, which people try to avoid. （ D） Skype is not as advanced as text and e-mail are. 6 From the passage, we can infer that_. （ A）
24、people like to talk to robots because they are not likely to judge you nor to leak your secrets to others （ B） as for those who are not physically with us, we dont need their full-contact listening because it is difficult to make plan with them （ C） flying cars, food pills and moving sidewalks will
25、lead us to nowhere but make our lives worse than ever （ D） time is the most desirable thing for people and they will try every effort to get rid of the control from others 7 The style of the passage can be best described as_. （ A） ironic （ B） humorous （ C） serious （ D） indifferent 8 Which of the fol
26、lowing titles suits the passage best? （ A） The Weakness of Videophone. （ B） The Importance of Time Control. （ C） Why I Like Texting and E-mailing Better. （ D） Call Me! But Not on Skype or Any Other Videophone. 8 Foul Shots Now and then I can still see their faces, nickering and laughing, their eyes
27、mocking me. And it bothers me that I should remember. Time and maturity should have diminished the pain, because the incident happened more than 20 years ago. Occasionally, however, a smug smile triggers the memory, and I think, “I should have done something.“ Some act of defiance could have killed
28、and buried the memory of the incident. Now its too late. In 1969, I was a senior on the Luther Burbank High School basketball team. The school is on the south side of San Antonio, in one of the citys many barrios. After practice one day our coach announced that we were going to spend the following S
29、aturday scrimmaging with the ball club from Winston Churchill High, located in the citys rich, white north side. After the basketball game, we were to select someone from the opposing team and “buddy up“ talk with him, have lunch with him and generally spend the day attempting friendship. By telling
30、 us that this experience would go both teams some good, I suspect our well-intentioned coach was thinking about the possible benefits of integration and of learning to appreciate the differences of other people. By integrating us with this more prosperous group, I think he was also trying to inspire
31、 us. But my teammates and I smiled sardonically at one another, and our sneakers squeaked as we nervously rubbed them against the waxed hardwood floor of our gym. The prospect of a full day of unfavorable comparisons drew from us a collective groan. As “barrio boys“ , we were already acutely aware o
32、f the differences between us and them. Churchill meant “white“ to us: It meant shiny new cars, two-story homes with fireplaces, pedigree dogs and manicured hedges. In other words, everything that we did not have. Worse, traveling north meant putting up a front, to ourselves as well as to the Churchi
33、ll team. We felt we had to pretend that we were cavalier about it all, tough guys who didnt care about “nothing“. Its clear now that we entered the contest with negative images of ourselves. From childhood, we must have suspected something was inherently wrong with us. The evidence wrapped itself ar
34、ound our collective psyche like a noose. In elementary school, we were not allowed to speak Spanish. The bladed edge of a wooden ruler once came crashing down on my knuckles for violating this dictum. By high school, however, policies had changed, and we could speak Spanish without fear of physical
35、reprisal. Still, speaking our language before whites brought on spasms of shame for the supposed inferiority of our language and culture and guilt at feeling shame. That mixture of emotions fueled our burning sense of inferiority. After all, our mothers in no way resembled the glamorized models of A
36、merican TV mothers Donna Reed baking cookies in high heels. My mothers hands were rough and chafed, her wardrobe drab and worn. And my father was preoccupied with making ends meet. His silence starkly contrasted with the glib counsel Jim Anderson offered in “Father Knows Best“. And where the Beaver
37、worried about trying to understand some difficult homework assignment, for me it was an altogether different horror, when I was told by my elementary school principal that I did not have the ability to learn. After 1 failed to pass the first grade, my report card read that I had a “ learning disabil
38、ity“. What shame and disillusion it brought my parents! To have carried their dream of a better life from Mexico to America, only to have their hopes quashed by having their only son branded inadequate. And so somewhere during my schooling I assumed that saying I had a “retarded“. School administrat
39、ors didnt care that I could not speak English. As teenagers, of course, my Mexican-American friends and I did not consciously understand why we felt inferior. But we might have understood if we had fathomed our desperate need to trounce Churchill. We viewed the prospect of beating a white, north-sid
40、e squad as a particularly fine coup. The match was clearly racial, our need to succeed born of a defiance against prejudice. I see now that we sued the basketball court to prove our “blood“. And who better to confirm us, if not those whom we considered better? In retrospect, I realize the only thing
41、 confirmed that day was that we saw ourselves as negatively as they did. After we won the morning scrimmage, both teams were led from the gym into an empty room where everyone sat on a shiny linoleum floor. We were supposed to mingle rub the colors together. But the teams sat separately, our backs a
42、gainst concrete walls. We faced one another like enemies, the empty floor between us a no mans land. As the coaches walked away, one reminded us to share lunch. God! The mere thought of offering them a taco from our brown bags when they had refrigerated deli lunches horrified us. Then one of their p
43、layers tossed a bag of Fritos at us. It slid across the slippery floor and stopped in the center of the room. With heart beating anxiously, we Chicanos stared at the bag as the boy said with a sneer, “Yall probably like em“ the “Frito Bandito“ commercial being popular then. And we could see them, sm
44、iling at each other, giggling, jabbing their elbows into one anothers ribs at the joke. The bag seemed to grow before our eyes like a monstrous symbol of inferiority. We won the afternoon basketball game as well. But winning had accomplished nothing. Though we had wanted to, we couldnt change their
45、perception of us. It seems, in fact, that defeating them made them meaner. Looking back, I feel these young men needed to put us “ in our place“ , to reaffirm the power they felt we had threatened. I think, moreover, that they felt justified, not only because of their inherent sense of superiority,
46、but because our failure to respond to their insult underscored our worthlessness in their eyes. Two decades later, the memory of their gloating lives on in me. When a white person is discourteous, I find myself wondering what I should do, and afterward, if Ive done the right thing. Sometimes I argue
47、 when a daft comment would suffice. Then I reprimand myself, for I am no longer a boy. But my impulse to argue bears witness to my ghosts. For, invariably, whenever I feel insulted Im reminded of that day at Churchill High. And whenever the past encroaches upon the present, I see myself rising boldl
48、y, stepping proudly across the years and crushing, underfoot, a silly bag of Fritos. 9 What is the main idea of this selection? （ A） The Luther Burbank High School basketball team won the scrimmage and game with Winston Churchill High. （ B） The failure to respond to an insult at a basketball game in
49、 his youth still haunts the writer. （ C） Race and class problems often emerge at basketball games. （ D） Dont try to mix with other racial or cultural groups. 10 Which of the following reasons does not explain the coachs motives in arranging the experience for the Burbank team? （ A） The coach wanted to inspire the boys. （ B） He wanted them to learn the benefits of integration. （ C） He wanted them to see how much better they were than the Churchill boys. （ D） He wanted them to appreciate th
