2012普研班期末试卷

12. According to the passage, the smart highway technology is aimed to __________. A) deploy sophisticated facilities on the interstate highways B) provide passenger vehicles with a variety of services C) optimize the highway capabilities

D)improve communication between driver and the traffic monitors

13.According to this passage the method of Highways Get Smart is __________. A) the ultimate solution to traffic congestion B) a wrong solution for the traffic problems C) a venture to remedy traffic woes

D) part of the package to relieve traffic gridlock

14. According to Larson, to redress the traffic problem, __________. A) car pooling must be studied

B) rapid mass-transit systems must be introduced C) flexible work hours must be experimented D) overall strategies must be coordinated

15. Which of the following is true according to the whole passage? A) Two contrasting views of a problem are presented.

B) Traffic problem is examined and complementary solutions are proposed or offered. C) Latest developments are outlined in order of importance. D) An innovation is explained with its importance emphasized

Reading Passage 4

How much higher? How much faster?

---limits to human sporting performance are not yet in sight ---

Since the early years of the twentieth century, when the International Athletic Federation began keeping records, there has been a steady improvement in how fast athletes run, how high they jump and how far they are able to hurl massive objects, themselves included, through space. For the so-called power events – that require a relatively brief, explosive release of energy, like the 100-metre sprint and the long jump – times and distances have improved ten to twenty per cent. In the endurance events the results have been more dramatic. At the 1908 Olympics, John Hayes of the U.S.team ran a marathon in a time of 2:55:18. In 1999, Morocco?s Khalid Khannouchi set a new world record of 2:05:42, almost thirty per cent faster.

No one theory can explain improvements in performance, but the most important factor has been genetics. “The athlete must choose his parents carefully, ” says Jesus Dapena, a sports scientist at Indiana University, invoking an oft-cited adage. Over the past century, the composition of the human gene pool has not changed appreciably, but with increasing global participation in athletics – and greater rewards to tempt athletes – it is more likely that individuals possessing the unique complement of genes for athletic performance can be identified early. “Was there someone like [sprinter] Michael Johnson in the 1920s?” Dapena asks. “I?m sure there was, but his talent was probably never realized.”

Identify genetically talented individuals is only the first step. Michael Yessis, an emeritus professor of Sports Science at California State University at Fullerton, maintains that “genetics

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only determines about one third of what an athlete can do. But with the right training we can go much further with that one third of what an athlete can do. But with the right training we can go much further with that one third than we?ve been going.” Yessis believes that U.S.runners, despite their impressive achievements, are “running on their genetics”. By applying more scientific methods, “they?re going to go much faster”. These methods include strength training that duplicates what they are doing in their running events as well as plyometrics, a technique pioneered in the former Soviet Union.

Whereas most exercises are designed to build up strength or endurance, plyometrics focuses on increasing power – the rate at which an athlete can expend energy. When a sprinter runs, Yessis explains, her foot stays in contact with the ground for just under a tenth of a second, half of which is devoted to landing and the other half to pushing off. Plyometric exercises help athletes make the best use of this brief interval.

Nutrition is another area that sports trainers have failed to address adequately. “Many athletes are not getting the best nutrition, even through supplements, ” Yessis insists. Each activity has its own nutritional needs. Few coaches, for instance, understand how deficiencies in trace minerals can lead to injuries.

Focused training will also play a role in enabling records to be broken. “If we applied the Russian training model to some of the outstanding runners we have in this country, ” Yessis asserts, “they would be breaking records left and right.” He will not predict by how much, however: “Exactly what the limits are it?s hard to say, but there will be increases even if only by hundredths of a second, as long as our training continues to improve.”

One of the most important new methodologies is biomechanics, the study of the body in motion. A biomechanic films an athlete in action and then digitizes her performance, recording the motion of every joint and limb in three dimensions. By applying Newton?s laws to these motions, “we can say that this athlete?s run is not fast enough; that this one is not using his arms strongly enough during take-off,” says Dapena, who uses these methods to help high jumpers. To date, however, biomechanics has made only a small difference to athletic performance.

Revolutionary ideas still come from the athletes themselves. For example, during the 1968 Olymics in Mexico City, a relatively unknown high jumper named Dick Fosbury won the gold by going over the bar backwards, in complete contradiction of all the received high-jumping wisdom, a move instantly dubbed the Fosbury flop. Fosbury himself did not know what he was doing. That understanding took the later analysis of biomechanics specialists, who put their minds to comprehending something that was too complex and unorthodox ever to have been invented through their own mathematical simulations. Fosbury also required another element that lies behind many improvements in athletic performance: an innovation in athletic equipment. In Fosbury?s case, it was the cushions that jumpers land on. Traditionally, high jumpers would land in pits filled with sawdust. But by Fosbury?s time, sawdust pits had been replaced by soft foam cushions, ideal for flopping.

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In the end, most people who examine human performance are humbled by the resourcefulness of athletes and the powers of the human body. “Once you study athletics, you learn that it?s a vexingly complex issue,” says John S.Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University. “Core performance is not a simple or mundane thing of higher, faster, longer. So many variables enter into the equation, and our understanding in many cases is fundamental. We?ve got along way to go.” For the foreseeable future, records will be made to be broken.

Questions 16-19

Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 4. Use ONE WORD for each answer.

Write your answers in boxers 16-19 on your answer sheet.

16 According to professor Yessis, American runners are relying for their current success

on ……(1 point)

17 Yessis describes a training approach from the former Soviet Union that aims to develop an

athlete?s……(1 point)

18 Yessis links an inadequate diet to ……(1 point)

19 Yessis claims that the key to setting new records it better…… (2 points)

Part III. Translation (20 points)

Paragraph One

P.L.Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, put it best when she wrote, “You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for- if you are honest – you have, in fact, no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one.” There is plenty for children and adults to enjoy in Rowling?s books, starting with their language. Her prose may be unadorned, but her way with naming people and things reveals a quirky and original talent. Paragraph Two

What attracts individuals to each other in the first place? Many people believe that “there?s one person out there that one is meant for” and that destiny will bring them together. Such beliefs are romantic but unrealistic. Empirical studies show that cultural norms and values, not fate, bring people together. We will never meet millions of potential lovers because they are “filtered out” by formal or informal rules on partner eligibility due to factors such as age, race, distance, social class, religion, sexual orientation, health, or physical appearance. Paragraph Three

迷人的西湖，位于市区的西面，总面积5.6平方公里。总管南北的苏堤和横贯东西的白堤，把全湖分成外湖、里湖、岳湖、西里湖和小南湖五个部分。湖面波光闪闪，湖边茂林修竹，景色四季宜人。西湖又名“西子湖”。北宋苏东坡在咏潮的诗篇中，把西湖比作古代美女西施， 西湖就更加名扬四海了。 Paragraph Four

人类正在步入信息时代，媒介文化正在成为人类当代日常生活的仪式和景观。信息技术的发展和传播的革命正在对教育产生重大影响，给现代教育带来前所未有的挑战和机遇。这主要表现为网络教育对“国家教育”的挑战、对学校教育的挑战、对教师权威和法定课程的挑战、对传统教育思想与教育理论的挑战，是制度化教育向非制度化教育转变，向学习会社

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会转变。同时，信息技术的飞速发展以及在教育领域的广泛运用，开辟了素质教育的可能空间。

Part IV. Writing(20 points)

In this part, you are going to write a descriptive composition of not less than 200 words.

Our Campus in Early Autumn

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