According to sociologists, every modern industrial society has some form of social stratification(阶层). Class, power and status are important in deciding people’s rank in society.
Class means a person’s economic position in society. A commonly used classification is lower class, middle class and upper class. While sociologists disagree on how these terms should be exactly defined, they do describe societies like the United States quite well. One study shows that 53% of Americans belong to the lower class, 46% the middle class, and 1% the upper class. Interestingly, a surgeon earning $500,000 a year and a bus driver earning $50,000 a year both regard themselves as the middle class!
Power refers to the amount of control a person has over other people. Obviously, people in positions of great power (such as governors) exercise(行使)big power, but people who take orders from others have less power. Power and class do not always go hand in hand, however. For example, the governor of a state has great power, but he or she may not belong to a corresponding (相应的)economic class. Generally, however, there is a relationship between power and class.
To our knowledge, there aren’t too many people who aren’t millionaires in the U.S. Senate!
Status is the honor or respect attached to a person’s position in society. It can also be affected by power and class, but not necessarily so. For example, a university professor may have a high status but not belong to a high social class or have a lot of power over others.What can we learn about “the middle class” from Paragraph 2?
A.People earning $50,000 a year belong to the middle class. |
B.Nearly half Americans belong to the middle class. |
C.People generally consider bus drivers as the middle class. |
D.Sociologists have a clear definition of the middle class. |
According to the text, we know that _____.
A.power and class do not always correspond with each other |
B.status refers to a person’s economic position in society |
C.people with high status have a lot of control over others |
D.class is less important in deciding a person’s social rank |
Which of the following shows the structure of the whole text?
.
Valuing water
Human beings use a little less than half the water available worldwide. Yet shortages and droughts(干旱) are causing starvation and poverty in some areas, and industrial and agricultural by-products are polluting water supplies. Since the world’s population is expected to double in the next 51 years, many experts think we are on the edge of a widespread water crisis.
But that doesn’t have to be the result. Water shortages do not have to trouble the world—if we start valuing water more than we have in the past. Just as we began to value petrol more after the 1970s oil crisis, today we must start looking at water from a fresh economic view. We can no longer afford to consider water a nearly free resource of which we can use as much as we like in any way we want.
Instead, for all uses except the demand of the poor, governments should price water to reflect its real value. This means charging a fee for the water itself as well as for the supply costs.
Governments should also protect this source by providing water in more economically and environmentally sound ways. For example, often the cheapest way to provide irrigation(灌溉) water in the dry places is through small-scale projects, such as gathering rainfall in depressions(凹地) and pumping it to nearby cropland.
No matter what steps governments take to provide water more efficiently, they must change their ways to use water. Rather than control hundreds or even thousands of local, regional agencies that watch water use, countries should set up central authorities to manage water policy.
65. What is the real cause of the potential water crisis?
A. Only half of the world’s water can be used.
B. The world population is increasing faster and faster.
C. Half of the world’s resources have been seriously polluted.
D. Human beings have not placed sufficient value on water resources.
66.We can conclude from the passage that the water problem______.
A. is already serious in certain parts of the world
B. has been exaggerated by some experts in the field
C. poses a challenge to the technology of building reservoirs
D. is underestimated by government organizations at different levels
67.According to the author, the water price should______.
A. be reduced to the minimum
B. stimulate domestic demand
C. equal its real value
D. take into account the occurrences of droughts.
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第三部分、阅读理解(共15个小题;每小题2分,满分30分)
阅读下列短文,从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中,选出最佳选项。
The richest country
To reach the world’s richest country, you needn’t set out for the Middle East, but for the South Pacific, to a tiny dot just south of the equator, called Nauru. Only 8.2 square miles in size, the whole of this country can be seen from the air as the plane comes into land. The blue South Pacific reaches for thousands of miles in all directions, the nearest piece of land being Ocean Island 200 miles to the east.
Nauro is so small that the plane lands in what is best regarded as the capital’s main street. The seaward side of the runway has traffic lights at each end to stop cars when planes are landing. The tiny bus station outside the airport is crowded with well-fed and brightly clothed Naurans with their modern cars.
With Naurans now getting an average(平均) of $44,500 a year, the island’s 60,000 people seem to have little to worry about. A trip to the island’s central hump(隆峰) tells a slightly different story.
The hump with a great deal of phosphate(磷酸盐) round is Nauru’s wealth. When Nauru gained freedom from the British government in 1908, about 40 million tons of the earliest 100 million tons of phosphate were left. Since it has taken out another 10 million tons, which leaves enough only for another 20-25 years.
61.The best title of the text should be______.
A. Wealth and population of Nauru
B. The most beautiful country in the world
C. A small island surrounded by the Pacific
D. A small but rich island country
62.It can be inferred from the text that______.
A.Nauru has not built a runway in the airport yet
B.Nauru is not large enough to build the runway of the plane
C.the Naurans are not rich enough to build a runway of the plane
D.no cars run on the main street
63.From the last sentence of the text we can learn that the writer wants to tell us______.
A.why Naurans are so rich
B.something more about Nauru
C.something for Naurans to worry about
D.how the British robbed Nauru of their wealth
64.How many tons of phosphate will probably be taken out in Nauru a year?
A. 2,000,000 to 2,500,000 tons
B. 2,800,000 to 3,500,000 tons
C. 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 tons
D. 400,000 to 500,000 tons
.
The global financial crisis is likely to cause increased mental health problems and even suicides(自杀)as people struggle to deal with poverty and unemployment, the World Health Organization warned Thursday.
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are already affected by mental problems such as depression and bipolar disorders (带狂躁的抑郁症) and the current market meltdown (崩溃) could worsen feelings of despair among people who can't stand such illnesses.
The United Nations agency said the impact could be especially marked for those living in low and middle income countries where access to treatment is often limited.
“We should not be surprised at the turbulence (动荡) and likely consequences of the current financial crisis. Now we are seeing a huge gap in taking care of people in great need,” WHO director general Margaret Chan told at a meeting of mental health experts.
“It should not come as a surprise that we continue to see more stresses, suicides and mental disorders,” Chan warned.
Benedetto Saraceno, director of WHO's mental health, said mental health disorders affected one in four people at some point in their lives.
Mental and neurological disorders are often chronic (慢性的) and disabling, he said. Nearly 1 million people commit suicide worldwide every year, a large proportion (比例) of them are young adults.
Asked about the financial crisis, Saraceno said, “Poverty can be the consequence of such events, the debts, despair and sense of loss that may reach middle and lower classes. Even the poor can be affected by this crisis.”
“There is a clear evidence that suicide is linked to financial disasters. I am not talking about the millionaire's jumping out of the window but about poor people,” he said. The global crisis could be expected to affect the “stability(稳定)of communities and families”, according to Saraceno.
67.According to the passage, the chief result of the worldwide financial crisis is that ________ .
A.more people will be poorer
B.more people will be out of jobs
C.more people will suffer from mental problems
D.more people will commit suicide
68.The United Nations agency worried that________.
A.more rich people would commit suicide
B.the financial crisis might especially influence developing or underdeveloped countries
C.the current market meltdown could worsen feelings of despair
D.hundreds of millions of people in the world were already affected by mental problems
69.It is implied that ________.
A.far more work should be done to help those who are mentally ill
B.it will be surprising to see more people commit suicide
C.a mental disorder is a chronic disease
D.many more adults commit suicide worldwide than people of other ages
70.The best title for the passage is _________.
A.Consequences of Global Financial Crisis.
B.Mental Disorders Resulting From Global Financial Crisis.
C.Suicides as a Result of Market Meltdown.
D.Chronic Mental Disorders.
.
The days of the hunter are almost over in India. This is partly because there is practically nothing left to kill, and partly because some steps have been taken, mainly by banning tiger-shooting to protect those animals which still survive.
Some people say that Man is naturally a hunter. I disagree with this view. Surely our earliest forefathers, who at first possessed no weapons, spent their time digging for roots, and were no doubt themselves often hunted by meat-eating animals.
I believe the main reason why the modern hunter kills is that he thinks people will admire his courage in overpowering dangerous animals. Of course, there are some who truly believe that the killing is not really the important thing, and that the chief pleasure lies in the joy of the hunt and the beauties of the wild countryside. There are also those for whom hunting in fact offers a chance to prove themselves and risk death by design; these men go out after dangerous animals like tigers, even if they say they only do it to rid the countryside of a threat. I can respect reasons like these, but they are clearly different from the need to strengthen your high opinion of yourself.
The greatest big-game hunters expressed in their writings something of these finer motives. One of them wrote.
“You must properly respect what you are after and shoot it cleanly and on the animal’s own territory(领地)。You must fix forever in your mind all the wonders of that particular day.This is better than letting him grow a few years older to be attacked and wounded by his own son and eventually eaten, half alive, by other animals. Hunting is not a cruel and senseless killing – not if you respect the thing you kill, not if you kill to enrich your memories, not if you kill to feed your people.”
I can understand such beliefs, and can compare these hunters with those who hunted lions with spears and bravely caught them by the tail. But this is very different from many tiger—shoots I have seen, in which modern weapons were used. The so—called hunters fired from tall trees or from the backs of trained elephants. Such methods made tigers seem no more dangerous than rabbits.
63.Theere is no more hunting in India now partly because___.
A.it is dangerous to hunt there
B.hunting is already out of date
C.hunters want to protect animals
D.there are few animals left to hunt
64.The author thinks modern hunters kill mainly .
A.to make the countryside safe B.to earn people’s admiration
C.to gain power and influence D.to improve their thelth
65.What do we learn about the big-game hunters?
A.They hunt old animals B.They mistreat animals
C.They hunt for food D.They hunt for money
66.What is the author’s view on the tiger-shoots he has seen?
A.Modern hunters lack the courage to hunt face-to-face
B.Modern hunters should use more advanced weapons
C.Modern hunters like to hunt rabbits instead of tigers
D.Modern hunters should put their safety first
.
Warning: reading too much Cinderella to your daughter may damage her emotional health in later life. A paper to be developed at the international congress of cognitive psychotherapy in Gothenburg suggests a link between the attitudes of women abused by their parents and early exposure to the wrong sort of fairy tales. It says girls who identified with Cinderella, Rapunzel and Beauty in Beauty and the Beast were more likely to say in destructive relationships as adults.
The theory was developed by Susan Darker Smith, a psychotherapist at the University of Derby. She interviewed 67 female abuse survivors and found that 61 put up with serial abuse because they believed they could change their partners and with patience, composition and love. Hardly any of the women in a control group, who had not experienced abuse, thought they could change their partners in this way.
These women and men said they would leave a relationship rather than put up with abuse from a partner. Ms Darker Smith found the abused women were much more likely to identify with Cinderella and other submissive female characters in fairytales, who were later rescued by a stranger prince or hero.
Although most girls heard the stories, damage appeared to be done to those who adopted the submissive characters as role models. “They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their parents’ behaviors, she said.” Overexposure in children to stories that emphasize the transformational qualities of love may make women believe they can damage their partners.” For example, they might never have understood the obvious flaw(缺点) in the story of Rapunzel, who remained locked in a high tower until rescued by a knight on a white horse, who broke the door down. “The question,” said Ms Darker Smith, “is why she did not break the door down herself.”
59.The passage is especially intended for _________.
A.parents with young daughters
B.girls who like reading fairy stories
C.girls who think they can change their partners
D.parents with grown-up daughters
60.Cinderella, Rapunzel and Beauty in Beauty and the Beast are similar in that _________.
A.they all married some princes
B.they all changed their partners with love
C.they were all abused by their partners
D.they all put up with abuse
61.Which of the following statements is true of the women in a control group?
A.They don’t believe in fairy tales.
B.They don’t believe in the transformational qualities of love.
C.They have also experienced abuse.
D.They survived abuse.
62.What does the underlined word “submissive” in the 3rd paragraph probably mean?
A.kind-hearted B.obedient C.gentle D.easy-going