Unit 9

　　Part II Reading Comprehension

　　Direction: 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 center.

　　Passage One

　　Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage:

　　In the villages of the English countryside there are still people who remember the good old days when no one bothered to lock their doors. There simply wasnt any crime to worry about.

　　Amazingly, these happy times appear still to be with us in the worlds biggest community. A new study by Dan Farmer, a gifted programmer, using an automated investigative program of his own called SATAN, shows that the owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors.

　　SATAN can try out a variety of well-known hacking tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in. Farmer has made the program publicly available, amid much criticism. A person with evil intent could use it to hunt down sites that are easy to burgle .

　　But Farmer is very concerned about the need to alert the public to poor security and, so far, events have proved him right. SATAN has done more to alert people to the risks than cause new disorder.

　　So is the Net becoming more secure? Far from it. In the early days, when you visited a Web site your browser simply looked at the content. Now the Web is full of tiny programs that automatically download when you look at a Web page, and run on your own machine. These programs could, if their authors wished, do all kinds of nasty things to your computer.

　　現在很多考生的問題是復習方法本末倒置，花了大量的時間學習和研究考試形式，卻忽視了提高閱讀能力。

　　At the same time, the Net is increasingly populated with spiders, worms, agents and other types of automated beasts designed to penetrate the sites and seek out and classify information. All these make wonderful tools for antisocial people who want to invade weak sites and cause damage.

　　But lets look on the bright side. Given the lack of locks, the Internet is surely the worlds biggest crime-free society. Maybe that is because hackers are fundamentally honest. Or that there currently isnt much to steal. Or because vandalism isnt much fun unless you have a peculiar dislike for someone.

　　Whatever the reason, lets enjoy it while we can. But expect it all to change, and security to become the number one issue, when the most influential inhabitants of the Net are selling services they want to be paid for.

　　21. By saying owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors , the author means that ______.

　　A) those happy times appear still to be with us

　　B) there simply wasnt any crime to worry about

　　C) many sites are not well-protected

　　D) hackers try out tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in

　　22. SATAN, a program designed by Dan Farmer, can be used ______.

　　A) to investigate the security of Internet sites

　　B) to improve the security of the Internet system

　　C) to prevent hackers from breaking into websites

　　D) to download useful programs and information

　　23. Farmers program has been criticized by the public because ______.

　　A) it causes damage to Net browsers

　　B) it can break into Internet sites

　　C) it can be used to cause disorder on all sites

　　D) it can be used by people with evil intent

　　24. The authors attitude toward SATAN is ______.

　　A) enthusiastic

　　B) critical

　　C) positive

　　D) indifferent

　　25. The author suggests in the last paragraph that ______.

　　A) we should make full use of the Internet before security measures are strengthened

　　B) we should alert the most influential businessmen to the importance of security

　　C) influential businessmen should give priority to the improvement of Net security

　　D) net inhabitants should not let security measures affect their joy of surfing the Internet

　　現在很多考生的問題是復習方法本末倒置，花了大量的時間學習和研究考試形式，卻忽視了提高閱讀能力。

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:

　　I came away from my years of teaching on tile college and university level with a conviction that enactment , performance, dramatization are the most successful forms of teaching. Students must be incorporated, made, so far as possible, an integral part of the learning process. The notion that learning should have in it an element of inspired play would seem to the greater part of the academic establishment merely silly, but that is nonetheless the case. Of Ezekiel Cheever, the most famous schoolmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, his onetime student Cotton Mather wrote that he so planned his lessons that his pupils came to work as though they came to play, and Alfred North Whitehead, almost three hundred years later, noted that a teacher should make his/her students glad they were there.

　　Since, we are told, 80 to 90 percent of all instruction in the typical university is by the lecture method, we should give close attention to this form of education. There is, I think, much truth in Patricia Nelson Limericks observation that lecturing is an unnatural act, an act for which God did not design humans. It is perfectly all right, now and then, for a human to be possessed by the urge to speak, and to speak while others remain silent. But to do this regularly, one hour and 15 minutes at a time for one person to drag on while others sit in silence? ... I do not believe that this is what the Creator ... designed humans to do.

　　The strange, almost incomprehensible fact is that many professors, just as they feel obliged to write dully, believe that they should lecture dully. To show enthusiasm is to risk appearing unscientific, unobjective; it is to appeal to the students emotions rather than their intellect. Thus the ideal lecture is one filled with facts and read in an unchanged monotone.

　　The cult of lecturing dully, like the cult of writing dully, goes back, of course, some years. Edward Shils, professor of sociology, recalls the professors he encountered at the University of Pennsylvania in his youth. They seemed a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing; they never referred to anything personal. Some read from old lecture notes and then haltingly explained the thumb-worn last lines. Others lectured from cards that had served for years, to judge by the worn edges ....The teachers began on time, ended on time, and left the room without saying a word more to their students, very seldom being detained by questioners .... The classes were not large, yet there was no discussion. No questions were raised in class, and there were no office hours.

　　26. The author believes that a successful teacher should be able to ______.

　　A) make dramatization an important aspect of students learning

　　B) make inspired play an integral part of the learning process

　　C) improve students learning performance

　　D) make study just as easy as play

　　現在很多考生的問題是復習方法本末倒置，花了大量的時間學習和研究考試形式，卻忽視了提高閱讀能力。

　　27. The majority of university professors prefer the traditional way of lecturing in the belief that ______.

　　A) it draws the close attention of the students

　　B) it conforms in a way to the design of the Creator

　　C) it presents course content in a scientific and objective manner

　　D) it helps students to comprehend abstract theories more easily

　　28. What the author recommends in this passage is that ______.

　　A) college education should be improved through radical measures

　　B) more freedom of choice should be given to students in their studies

　　C) traditional college lectures should be replaced by dramatized performances

　　D) interaction should be encouraged in the process of teaching

　　29. By saying They seemed a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing , the author means that ______.

　　A) professors are a group of professionals that differ in their academic ability but behave in the same way

　　B) professors are like priests wearing the same kind of black gown but having different roles to play

　　C) there is no fundamental difference between professors and priests though they differ in their merits

　　D) professors at the University of Pennsylvania used to wear black suits which made them look like priests

　　30. Whose teaching method is particularly commended by the author?

　　A) Ezekiel Cheevers.

　　B) Alfred North Whiteheads.

　　C) Cotton Mathers.

　　D) Patricia Nelson Limericks.

　　Passage Three

　　Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:

　　Take the case of public education alone. The principal difficulty faced by the schools has been the tremendous increase in the number of pupils. This has been caused by the advance of the legal age for going into industry and the impossibility of finding a job even when the legal age has been reached. In view of the technological improvements in the last few years, business will require in the future proportionately fewer workers than ever before. The result will be still further raising of the legal age for going into employment, and still further difficulty in finding employment when that age has been attained. If we cannot put our children to work, we must put them in school.

　　We may also be quite confident that the present trend toward a shorter day and a shorter week will be maintained. We have developed and shall continue to have a new leisure class. Already the public agencies for adult education are swamped by the tide that has swept over them since the depression began. They will be little better off when it is over. Their support must come from the taxpayer.

　　現在很多考生的問題是復習方法本末倒置，花了大量的時間學習和研究考試形式，卻忽視了提高閱讀能力。

　　It is surely too much to hope that these increases in the cost of public education can be borne by the local communities. They cannot care for the present restricted and inadequate system. The local communities have failed in their efforts to cope with unemployment. They cannot expect to cope with public education on the scale on which we must attempt it. The answer to the problem of unemployment has been Federal relief. The answer to the problem of public education may have to be much the same, and properly so. If there is one thing in which the citizens of all parts of the country have an interest, it is in the decent education of the citizens of all parts of the country. Our income tax now goes in part to keep our neighbors alive. It may have to go in part as well to make our neighbors intelligent. We are now attempting to preserve the present generation through Federal relief of the destitute . Only a people determined to ruin the next generation will refuse such Federal funds as public education may require.

　　31. What is the passage mainly about?

　　A) How to persuade local communities to provide more funds.

　　B) How to cope with the shortage of funds for public education.

　　C) How to improve the public education system.

　　D) How to solve the rising unemployment problem.

　　32. What is the reason for the increase in the number of students?

　　A) The requirement of educated workers by business.

　　B) Raising of the legal age forgoing to work.

　　C) The trend toward a shorter workday.

　　D) Peoples concern for the future of the next generation.

　　33. The public agencies for adult education will be little better off because ______.

　　A) the unemployed are too poor to continue their education

　　B) a new leisure class has developed

　　C) they are still suffering from the depression

　　D) an increase in taxes could be a problem

　　34. According to the author, the answer to the problem of public education is that the Federal government _______.

　　A) should allocate Federal funds for public education

　　B) should demand that local communities provide support

　　C) should raise taxes to meet the needs of public education

　　D) should first of all solve the problem of unemployment

　　現在很多考生的問題是復習方法本末倒置，花了大量的時間學習和研究考試形式，卻忽視了提高閱讀能力。

　　35. Why does the author say Only a people determined to ruin the next generation will refuse such Federal funds as public education may require ?

　　A) Only by appropriating adequate Federal funds for education can the next generation have a bright future.

　　B) Citizens of all parts of the country agree that the best way to support education is to use Federal funds.

　　C) People all over the country should make contributions to education in the interest of the next generation.

　　D) Educated people are determined to use part of the Federal funds to help the poor.

　　Passage Four

　　Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:

　　A new high-performance contact lens under development at the department for applied physics at the University of Heidelberg will not only correct ordinary vision defects but will enhance normal night vision as much as five times, making peoples vision sharper than that of cats.

　　Bille and his team work with an optical instrument called an active mirror a device used in astronomical telescopes to spot newly emerging stars and far distant galaxies. Connected to a wave-front sensor that tracks and measures the course of a laser beam into the eye and back, the aluminum mirror detects the deficiencies of the cornea, the transparent protective layer covering the lens of the human eye. They highly precise data from the two instruments which, Bille hopes, will one day be found at the opticians all over the world serve as a basis for the production of completely individualized contact lenses that correct and enhance the wearers vision.

　　By day, Billes contact lenses will focus rays of light so accurately on the retina that the image of a small leaf or the outline of a far distant tree will be formed with a sharpness that surpasses that of conventional vision aids by almost half a diopter . At night, the lenses have an even greater potential. Because the new lens in contrast to the already existing ones also works when its dark and the pupil is wide open, says Bille, lens wearers will be able to identify a face at distance of 100 meters 80 meters farther than they would normally be able to see. In his experiments night vision was enhanced by an even greater factor: in semi-darkness, test subjects could see up to 15 times better than without the lenses.

　　Billes lenses are expected to reach the market in the year 2000, and one tentative plan is to use the Internet to transmit information on patients visual defects from the optician to the manufacturer, who will then produce and mail the contact lenses within a couple of days. The physicist expects the lenses to cost about a dollar a pair, about the same as conventional one-day disposable lenses.

　　36. The new contact lens is meant for ______.

　　A) astronomical observations

　　B) the night blind

　　C) those with vision defects

　　D) optical experiments

　　現在很多考生的問題是復習方法本末倒置，花了大量的時間學習和研究考試形式，卻忽視了提高閱讀能力。