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Part II Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
I had an experience some years ago which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to officiate at two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died "full of years," as the Bible would say; both yielded to the normal wearing out of the body after a long and full life. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence (吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.
At the first home, the son of the deceased (已故的) woman said to me, "If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It's my fault that she died." At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, "If only I hadn't insisted on my mother's going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the abrupt change of climate, was more than she could take. It's my fault that she's dead."
When things don't turn out as we would like them to, it is very tempting to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Priests know that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite course - keeping Mother at home, postponing the operation – would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?
There seem to be two elements involved in our readiness to feel guilt. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.
The second element is the notion that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. Psychologists speak of the infantile myth of omnipotence (萬能). A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that infantile notion that our wishes cause things to happen.
21. What is said about the two deceased elderly women?
A) They lived out a natural life.
B) They died of exhaustion after the long plane ride.
C) They weren't accustomed to the change in weather.
D) They died due to lack of care by family members.
22. The author had to conduct the two women's funerals probably because ________.
A) he wanted to console the two families
B) he was an official from the community
C) he had great sympathy for the deceased
D) he was priest of the local church
23. People feel guilty for the deaths of their loved ones because ________
A) they couldn't find a better way to express their grief
B) they believe that they were responsible
C) they had neglected the natural course of events
D) they didn't know things often turn out in the opposite direction
24. In the context of the passage, "... the world makes sense" (Line 2, Para, 4) probably means that ________.
A) everything in the world is predetermined
B) the world can be interpreted in different ways
C) there's an explanation for everything in the world
D) we have to be sensible in order to understand the world
25. People have been made to believe since infancy that ________.
A) everybody is at their command
B) life and death is an unsolved mystery
C) every story should have a happy ending
D) their wishes are the cause of everything that happens
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
Frustrated with delays in Sacramento, Bay Area officials said Thursday they planned to take matters into their own hands to regulate the region's growing pile of electronic trash.
A San Jose councilwoman and a San Francisco supervisor said they would propose local initiatives aimed at controlling electronic waste if the California law-making body fails to act on two bills stalled in the Assembly~ They are among a growing number of California cities and counties that have expressed the same intention.
Environmentalists and local governments are increasingly concerned about the toxic hazard posed by old electronic devices and the cost of safely recycling those products. An estimated 6 million televisions and computers are stocked in California homes, and an additional 6,000 to 7,000 computers become outdated every day. The machines contain high levels of lead and other hazardous substances, and are already banned from California landfills ( 垃圾填埋場 ).
Legislation by Senator Byron Sher would require consumers to pay a recycling fee of up to $30 on every new machine containing a cathode ( 陰極 ) ray tube. Used in almost all video monitors and televisions, those devices contain four to eight pounds of lead each. The fees would go toward setting up recycling programs, providing grants to non-profit agencies that reuse the tubes and rewarding manufacturers that encourage recycling.
A separate bill by Los Angeles-area Senator Gloria Romero would require high-tech manufacturers to develop programs to recycle so-called e-waste.
If passed, the measures would put California at the forefront of national efforts to manage the refuse of the electronic age.
But high-tech groups, including the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and the American Electronics Association, oppose the measures, arguing that fees of up to $30 will drive consumers to online, out-of-state retailers.
"What really needs to occur is consumer education. Most consumers are unaware they're not supposed to throw computers in the trash," said Roxanne Gould, vice president of government relations for the electronics association.
Computer recycling should be a local effort and part of residential waste collection programs, she added.
Recycling electronic waste is a dangerous and specialized matter, and environmentalists maintain the state must support recycling efforts and ensure that the job isn't contracted to unscrupulous ( 毫無顧忌的 ) junk dealers who send the toxic parts overseas.
"The graveyard of the high-tech revolution is ending up in rural China," said Ted Smith, director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. His group is pushing for an amendment to Sher's bill that would prevent the export of e-waste.
26. What step were Bay Area officials going to take regarding e-waste disposal.'?
A) Exert pressure on manufacturers of electronic devices.
B) Lay down relevant local regulations themselves.
C) Lobby the lawmakers of the California Assembly.
D) Rally support to pass the stalled bills.
27. The two bills stalled in the California Assembly both concern ________.
A) regulations on dumping hazardous substances into landfills
B) the sale of used electronic devices to foreign countries
C) the funding of local initiatives to reuse electronic trash
D) the reprocessing of the huge amounts of electronic waste in the state
28. Consumers are not supposed to throw used computers in the trash because __.
A) they contain large amounts of harmful substances
B) this is banned by the California government
C) some parts may be recycled for use elsewhere
D) unscrupulous dealers will retrieve them for profit
29. High-tech groups believe that if an extra $30 is charged on every TV or computer purchased in California, consumers will _______.
A) abandon online shopping
B) buy them from other states
C) strongly protest against such a charge
D) hesitate to upgrade their computers
30. We learn from the passage that much of California's electronic waste has been _
A) collected by non-profit agencies
B) dumped into local landfills
C) exported to foreign countries
D) recycled by computer manufacturers
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Throughout the nation's more than 15,000 school districts, widely differing approaches to teaching science and math have emerged. Though there can be strength in diversity, a new international analysis suggests that this variability has instead contributed to lackluster (平淡的) achievement scores by U.S. children relative to their peers in other developed countries.
Indeed, concludes William H. Schmidt of Michigan State University, who led the new analysis, "no single intellectually coherent vision dominates U.S. educational practice in math or science.'' The reason, he said, "is because the system is deeply and fundamentally flawed."
The new analysis, released this week by the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va., is based on data collected from about 50 nations as part of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.
Not only do approaches to teaching science and math vary among individual U.S. communities, the report finds, but there appears to be little strategic focus within a school district’s curricula, its textbooks, or its teachers' activities. This contrasts sharply with the coordinated national programs of most other countries.
On average, U.S. students study more topics within science and math than their international counterparts do. This creates an educational environment that "is a mile wide and an inch deep," Schmidt notes.
For instance, eighth graders in the United States cover about 33 topics in math versus just 19 in Japan. Among science courses, the international gap is even wider. U.S. curricula for this age level resemble those of a small group of countries including Australia, Thailand, Iceland, and Bulgaria. Schmidt asks whether the United States wants to be classed with these nations, whose educational systems "share our pattern of splintered (支離破碎的) visions" but which are not economic leaders.
The new report "couldn't come at a better time," says Gerald Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association in Arlington. "The new National Science Education Standards provide that focused vision," including the call "to do less, but in greater depth."
Implementing the new science standards and their math counterparts will be the challenge, he and Schmidt agree, because the decentralized responsibility for education in the United States requires that any reforms be tailored and instituted one community at a time.
In fact, Schmidt argues, reforms such as these proposed national standards "face an almost impossible task, because even though they are intellectually coherent, each becomes only one more voice in the babble ( 嘈雜聲)."
