Part III Reading Comprehension (40% = 2 X20)
　　Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of the questions or unfinished statements there are 4 choices marked A), B), C) and D). Choose the one that best answer the questions and mark the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.
　　Passage 1
　　responsible way? On the other hand, America was always a country that offered financial opportunities for which education was not needed. On the road from rags to riches, schooling beyond the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic was an unnecessary detour(迂回路)。
　　Even today, it is still possible for people to achieve financial success without much education, but the number of situations in which this is possible is decreasing. In today’s more complex world, the opportunities for financial success is closely related to the need for education, especially higher education.
　　Our society is rapidly becoming one whose chief product is information, and dealing with this information requires more and more specialized education. In other words, we grow up, learning more and more about fewer and fewer subjects.
　　In the future, this trend is likely to continue. Tomorrow’s world will be even more complex than today’s world, and, to manage this complexity, even more specialized education will be needed.
　　1. The topic treated in this passage is _____.
　　(A) education in general (B) Americans’ attitudes
　　(C) higher education (D) American education
　　2. Americans’ attitudes toward education have always been ____.
　　(A) certain (B) contradictory
　　(C) ambitious (D) unclear
　　3. Today, financial success is closely related to the need for ______.
　　(A) higher education (B) reasonable contracts
　　(C) responsible citizens (D) learning the basics
　　4. It can be inferred from the third paragraph that _____.
　　(A) information is our only product
　　(B) education in the future will be for specialized managers
　　(C) we are living in an age of information
　　(D) we are living in an age of financial success
　　5. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
　　(A) The History of American Education.
　　(B) The Need for Specialized Education.
　　(C) The Future of the American Educational System.
　　(D) Attitudes toward American Education. Passage 2
　　Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage.
　　What do we think with? Only the brain? Hardly. The brain is like a telephone exchange. It is the switchboard, but not the whole system. Its function is to receive incoming signals, make proper connections, and send the messages through to their destination. For efficient service, the body must function as a whole.
　　But where is the “mind”? Is it in the brain? Or perhaps in the nervous system? After all, can we say that the mind is in any particular place? It is not a thing, like a leg, or even the brain. It is a function, an activity. Aristotle, twenty-three hundred years ago, observed that the mind was to the body what cutting was to the ax. When the ax is not in use, there is no cutting. So with the mind. “Mind,” said Charles H. Woolbert, “is what the body is doing.”
　　If this activity is necessary for thinking, it is also necessary for carrying thought from one person to another. Observe how people go about business of ordinary conversation. If you have never done this painstakingly, you have a surprise in store, for good conversationalists are almost constantly in motion. Their heads are continually nodding and shaking sometimes so vigorously that you wonder how their necks can stand the strain.
　　Even the legs and feet are active. As for the hands and arms , they are seldom still for more than a few seconds at a time.
　　These people, remember, are not making speeches. They are merely common folk trying to make others understand what they have in mind. They are not conscious of movement. Their speech is not studied. They are just human creatures in a human environment, trying to adapt themselves to a social situation. Yet they converse, not only with oral language, but with visible actions that involve practically every muscle in the body.
　　In short, because people really think all over, a speaker must talk all over if he succeeds in making people think.
　　6. Which of the following is the best title for this passage? A) Bodily Communication B) Bodily Actions
　　C) Spoken Language D) Conversations
　　7. Which of the following statements would the author agree with?
　　A) Thinking is a social phenomenon.
　　B) Thinking is solely a brain function.
　　C) Thinking is a function of the nervous system.
　　D) Thinking is the sum total of bodily activity.
　　8. In communication, it is essential not only to employ speech, but also __________.
　　A) to speak directly to the other person
　　B) to employ a variety of bodily movements
　　C) to be certain that the other person is listening
　　D) to pay great attention to the other person’s behavior
　　9. It can be inferred from the passage that the basic function of bodily activity in speech is to __________.
　　A) make the listener feel emotional
　　B) make the listener understand literally
　　C) strengthen the speaker’s oral words
　　D) convey the speaker’s implied meaning to the listener
　　10. Which of the following is TRUE?
　　A) The brain is compared to a telephone exchange.
　　B) The mind is an activity of the nervous system.
　　C) Some people remain still while talking to others.
　　D) Many people move their bodies on purpose while talking.
　　Passage 3
　　Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage.
　　Endangered whales, snail darters, rain forests — yes, we can all do our part to lessen their peril at the hands of humankind.
　　Can we also save the lives of a few imperiled, virtually defunct English words, of languished language?
　　This book aims to give some of the worthier moribund words of our considerable English language a little attention. You’ll find some improbable, neglected creatures from our word stock here. You’ll find potentially useful old words for whose meanings we have no single word equivalents in usage today. You’ll also find some surprising synonyms (can’t we always use an extra synonym or two?) that, over the years of centuries, just got left behind.
　　An exemplifying phrase or clause accompanies each term, to venture some notion of how such a word might be used in a snatch of contemporary conversation. Let me be the first to admit that dragging — encouraging?　— forgotten old words into otherwise idiomatic conversation of today is a curious thing to do, akin to wearing a cummerbund to a beach party. You are not forbidden to smile here. But I hope the conjured-up illustrative phrases at least give you, first, more of a feeling for the word and its meaning and, second, some idea of how or where the words they highlight might conceivably find a place in our chatter or writing today.
　　Words, when you think about it, are creatures of a sort. Words we now consider verbal fossils were once uttered, used in speech and writing, alive. Some (notably, so-called nonce words) may never have taken wing but nevertheless became part of our recorded language. After words fall out of usage, they become the lexical underclass, the silent minority, or, in truth — there are that many — the silent majority. They become endangered, penned in (pun intended) in a few dusty lexicons but never seen by the unsilent majority of us with our comparatively well-worn, pedestrian vocabularies.
　　11. This passage is most probably taken from _______.
　　A) preface to a dictionary　
　　B) an introduction of an encyclopedia　
　　C) a summary of a research on vocabulary　
　　D) a preface to a dictionary of ancient words　
　　12. The title of the book where this passage comes from is most probably _______.
　　A) A Dictionary of Defunct English Words　
　　B) A Glossary of Obsolete English Words　
　　C) A Dictionary of Special Words and their Pronunciations　
　　D) Dictionary of Contemporary English Words　
　　13. What does "some improbable, neglected creatures" in the third paragraph mean? _______
　　A) Some words which are neglected and almost forgotten by people.　
　　B) Some endangered animals mentioned in the dictionary.　
　　C) Some words concerning the dying animals.　
　　D) Some words concerning the dead animals in history.　
　　14. According to the passage, what contents can you read in this book? _______
　　A) Transcriptions of these words.　
　　B) Sentences made with these rare words.
　　C) Some rare English words.　
　　D) All of the above.　
　　15. According to the passage, what does the author think of using these words in daily conversation? _______
　　A) It may sound very funny and improper.　
　　B) It is a exhibition of one’s mastery of the language.　
　　C) It is a very perfect chance to know the development of the language.　
　　D) It is totally for fun and not recommendable.　
　　Passage 4
　　Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.
　　Thousands of years ago man used handy rocks for his surgical operations. Later he used sharp bone and horn, metal knives and more recently, rubber and plastic. And that was where we stuck, in surgical instrument terms, for many years. In the 1960’s a new tool was developed, one which was, first of all, to be of great practical use to the armed forces and industry, but which was also, in time, to revolutionize the art and science of surgery.
　　The tool is the laser and it is being used by more and more surgeons all over the world, for a large number of different complaints. The word laser means: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (激光). As we all know, light is hot, any source of light ---- from the sun itself down to a humble match burning will give warmth. But light is usually spread out over a wide area. The light in a laser beam, however, is concentrated. This means that a light with no more power than that produced by an ordinary electric light bulb becomes intensely strong as it is concentrated to a pinpoint-sized beam.
　　Experiments with these pinpoint beam shows researchers that different energy source produce beams that have a particular effect on certain living cells. It is now possible for eye surgeons to operate on the back of the human eye without harming the front of eye, simply by passing a laser team right through the eyeball. No knives, no stitches, no unwanted damage --- a true surgical wonder.
　　Operations which once left patients exhausted and in need of long periods of recovery time now leave them feeling relaxed and comfortable. So much more difficult operations can now be tried.
　　The rapid development of laser techniques in the past ten years has made it clear that the future is likely to be very exciting. Perhaps some cancers will be treated with laser in away that makes surgery not only safer but more effective. Altogether, tomorrow may see more and more information coming to light on the diseases which can be treated medically.
　　16. Up until the 1960’s the instruments used to perform surgical operation were __________.
　　A) fashionable B) extraordinary
　　C) special D) basic
　　17. After the development of the laser in the 1960s, we find that __________.
　　A) medical help became available for industrial workers
　　B) the study of art went through a complete revolution
　　C) more and more surgeons began using surgical instruments
　　D) man’s whole approach to surgery changed completely
　　18. Surgeons can now carry out operations which __________.
　　A) can be performed successfully only on the human eye
　　B) result in long periods of recovery time for patients
　　C) are made much more complicated by using the laser beam
　　D) result in very little damage to the patients themselves
　　19. The rapid development of laser techniques has meant that __________.
　　A) in another ten years we shall be able to cure cancer
　　B) surgery is likely to improve considerably
　　C) we shall be able to treat all the diseases we suffer from
　　D) we are now able to treat most forms of cancer
　　20. The laser beam is so strong because __________.
　　A) it is composed of a concentrated beam of light
　　B) its heat is increased by the heat of the sun
　　C) it can be plugged into an ordinary light firing
　　D) it sends out heat in many different directions