考研英语阅读理解标准90篇+提高30篇Unit-6 - 图文

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[C] a majority of the unemployed are not really harmed by unemployment. [D] the employed are reluctant to help those jobless people.

13. The expression “income transfers” (Line 6, Para.4) most probably means [A] the getting of money from the rich to help those in difficulty. [B] the evasion of taxes by those who need help for others. [C] the exemption of taxes for people who are poor. [D] the collecting of charity money for the poor. 14. According to the text, which of the following is true?

[A] The unemployment situation of today is as serious as that of the 1930s. [B] The low-income workers benefit much from income transfers. [C] People disagree on the consequences of high unemployment. [D] The earnings statistics is of no use.

15. The text intends to tell us

[A] the causes of unemployment and statistical instruments used for estimating such problems. [B] joblessness and creation of jobs to stimulate the economy and solve unemployment problems. [C] the best tool for measuring the labor-market hardship and its application in the labor-market. [D] Social statistics’ failure in giving a neat picture of hardship caused by unemployment.

Text 4

“History is written by the victors.” This famous phrase reverberates throughout the halls of history, constantly reminding us to take all that we learn with a grain of salt, knowing that the information provided for our dissemination was provided, shaped and influenced by those left to hold the pen that recorded it. In that respect, one of the worst crimes against history is the revision of it, the altering of the record of the past so as to reflect the viewpoint of a biased group who stand to benefit from the altered version.

By revising the lens by which history is judged, valuable information is lost, to the detriment of both students of the field as well as the awareness that comes from experience. Without an accurately recorded account to serve as a guiding light, nations and societies are left to stumble their way about their affairs, ignorant of what has and hasn’t worked before, and unaware of what past events shaped and determined their present situation. Such dismal situations emerge from simple pride, as well as the desire of the revisionists to depict themselves in a better light to posterity or to cover up an embarrassing legacy, no matter the cost to the future.

Recent attempts by nations involved in the second World War to minimize or erase altogether certain shameful incidents from their history textbooks has been met with international outrage and protest, and rightly so. By allowing future generations to forget or never even learn about how their ancestors stumbled on the path to progress, the experiences of those who suffered as a result of those mistakes are trivialized and made to be in vain. Also, a false sense of national identity emerges, inconsistent and inaccurate in its formation. Both are heinous results for both nationals of that particular nation as well as those of the international community, whose stories intertwined to form the larger picture.

When a single string in the tapestry of world history is unraveled by revision, the entire piece becomes a weaker one, subject to additional modification at the whim of those who would like to use history as a tool for their own purposes, even if it means fundamentally changing it. This outcome must be avoided at all costs, firstly by not allowing a precedent to be established that

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makes it acceptable, even in a single case, to commit the revision. Otherwise, humans as a race will fall prey to yet another oft-quoted phrase: “History, if forgotten, is doomed to be repeated.” 16. What does the first sentence of the text imply?

[A] All historical accounts are invariably written by the winners.

[B] Powerful people will often record their experience by themselves. [C] Losers have little or no say in the documentation of their struggle. [D] Winners have the moral obligation to accurately record events. 17. The author views the revision of history as [A] a good thing in some exceptional situations.

[B] generally harmful when done so to favor one side.

[C] always motivated by the desire to portray the reviser in a better light. [D] rendering the revised history useless for the purpose of analysis. 18. Which of the following is true of historical revision?

[A] Revision of World War II events has proven that such actions are right [B] Such revision results in an undeserved sense of national pride.

[C] Revising history has little effects beyond the borders of any one country. [D] Historical revision has great impact on future generations.

19. By “When…, …a weaker one”(Line 1-2, Para. 4), the author means that

[A] history is an intertwined series of events coming together to form a larger picture.

[B] a loss of reliability in any single segment of history makes the entire historical record suspect. [C] once one piece of history is revised, the whole world will become weak.

[D] if the integrity of the historical record is breached, it can soon be fully recovered. 20. The text intends to tell us that

[A] revising history must be avoided in all situations at all costs. [B] the revision of history leads to vital lessons.

[C] if revision of history goes on, the meaning behind the revised events will lose. [D] historical revision is an international problem.

Part B

Directions: The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 21-25,you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list [A]—[G] to fill in each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in boxes.

[A] In science, Charles Darwin was a radical, a thinker who forced sudden change in the way that people viewed the world. But Social Darwinism was a theory for people who were “conservative”, who want as little change as possible in the established order. In America the defenders of American private enterprise used Social Darwinism to give their system the respectability of a system supposedly based on scientific truth.

[B] The doctrine of Social Darwinism also justified the existence of poverty and slums. According to the doctrine, slum conditions were natural for the “unfit”, who, by lack of thrifty and industrious habits, had not survived the economic struggle. Any attempt by government to relieve poverty meant an attempt to defy natural law. The doctrine was also used to justify “big” business. As John D. Rockefeller once told his Sunday school class: “The growth of a

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large business is merely survival of the fittest. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.”

[C] As great wealth and power were acquired by American business leaders, these ruthless businessmen and responsible men alike felt the need to defend their methods and justify the continued expansion of business. Two social theories provided a philosophy that allowed business leaders to justify their practices. These theories were laissez-faire economics and Social Darwinism.

[D] Social Darwinists applied Darwin’s thoughts to modern life. If the “survival of the fittest” was the rule of nature, it must be the rule of economic life as well, they argued. Men and women must be allowed to compete in the marketplace so that the strong would survive and the weak would die out. Government should not interfere with this “healthy” and “natural” struggle.

[E] The economic philosophy of laissez-faire economics (from the French words meaning “allow to do”) had been developed first by Adam Smith in 1776 as an attack upon the restrictions of the old mercantilist empires of Europe. According to laissez-faire economic philosophy, however, the government should not meddle in business or personal matters beyond what was necessary to maintain law and order and to protect life and property. It was believed that a laissez-faire government would benefit a nation by providing steady economic growth and the best possible use of resources. The hard-working citizen would also benefit. Since people believed that poverty was caused by idleness and wastefulness, the industrious and thrifty person would accumulate wealth. Thus, under a laissez-faire economy, industrial leaders could do as they pleased—the government would not set any restrictions on their behavior. Laissez-faire was a policy of noninterference by the government.

[F] American Social Darwinists declared that the American economy, as it existed, was governed by a natural aristocracy, based on wealth. The wealthy were those who had risen to the top in a struggle for profits that rewarded the strong and eliminated the weak. The country, therefore, could best be served by the economic independence of this natural aristocracy. Any governmental attempt to interfere with the situation could only slow down economic progress. [G] American businessmen found an additional theory to defend their system after the Civil War. At that time, theories of the great English biologist Charles Darwin became popular in America. Darwin’s study of the evolution, or development, of modern forms of animal and plant life was adapted to social and economic life by Herbert Spencer, another Englishman. Spencer’s theory of Social Darwinism gave American industrialists an important new defense. Order

C → 21. → 22. → 23. → 24. → 25. → B

Part C

Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese.

The crisis of youth that has swept the world has affected countries with different political systems, the highly industrialized countries as well as the developing nations of the so-called Third World. 26)Depending on the ideologies and conceptions of their leaders, this problem is

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approached differently and given more or less importance.

In certain countries, youth’s unrest is a passing phenomenon that threatens neither the structure of society nor its basic institutions. 27)In others, it is expressed through violence, challenges the whole Establishment and its institutions or at least certain practices and fundamental principles that govern the bring up and education of the young. 28)Youth’s radical demands, their anxiety about the future and the fact that they are not yet integrated into the social pattern have focused attention, consciously or unconsciously, on the social and cultural problems and contradictions of our time. Youth’s critical attitude may appear abstract, violent, irrational, immature, or even negative and lacking in perspective, but it forces adults to revise their habits and ways which they would otherwise not have questioned.

For years, the industrially advanced countries have talked of the adaptation of youth to society. Sociologists and psychologists have dealt with the problem of “juvenile delinquency”. 29)We appear to be witnessing today a revolt of young people who refuse to adapt to our society, who call their parents’ attitude “senile delinquency”, who condemn adult society and believe that they possess new values. I recall the violent though somewhat localized reactions of youth during the 1950s in the USA and Europe, particularly in Sweden. This violence, portrayed in the James Dean Film, “Rebel Without a Cause”, reflected the attitude of many young people at the time. It showed teenagers of a technological society where boredom, monotony and indifference engendered aggressiveness expressed through physical violence.

Since then, there has been an important change. Violence is no longer just physical. It also derives from other factors: wars, social injustices, racial discrimination, old institutions. In fact, youth’s horror of any kind of armed conflict or war is now a fairly general phenomenon. The world’s youth find it difficult to accept that after World War II and after the nations set up a world organization to keep peace, wars and killing should still be possible. Do not all countries constantly proclaim their desire for peace?

30)For though it is true that the United Nations has rendered invaluable service to the cause of peace and international understanding, the uncompromising attitude of youth cannot forgive the use of force by any nation. That is why youth feels a certain skepticism about the pacifist declarations of international organizations and States; the skepticism can even go so far as the use of the word hypocrisy.

做题点拨与全文翻译

Part A

Text 1 语境词汇

1.undue a.过度的；过分的 2.cling to 依附；依靠 3.vitality n.活力

4.callous a.麻木不仁的

5.contemplative a.沉思的，深思熟虑的

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