READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
A New Menace in the Air
The death of Emma Christofferson, 28, just after flying from Australia to England set alarm bells ringing among frequent airplane passengers, and triggered an avalanche of lawsuits. Christofferson died of a condition known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and of all the health fears associated with the skies, it is DVT that has captured most public attention. Erroneously referred to as “economy class syndrome," DVT can strike cramped passengers in any section of an aircraft. In some victims, the effect of the blood clots might be a sharp stabbing pain and swelling in the lower leg. In others, it might be much more serious: Part of the clot may detach itself and travel through the bloodstream to the lungs, where it can cause a pulmonary embolism, an obstruction that can prove fatal. Part of the clot can also lodge in other organs, including the brain, where it can't rigger a stroke.
Those at greatest risk of developing DVT while travelling, according to experts, are people with an inherited predisposition to blood clots—people who have suffered previous incidents of thrombosis or who have close family members with a history of the disease. But other factors can also increase the likelihood of DVT. Age is important, said Patrick Kesteven, a consultant hematologist at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital. A person in his or her mid-20s has a less than one-in- 10,000 chance of developing DVT; by the age of 75, the risk is closer to one in 1,000. Also at higher risk are people who have suffered or are suffering from cancer, women taking contraceptive pills and women who are pregnant or have recently given birth. And even generally healthy passengers are at some risk if they stay immobile during a long flight. “There's no doubt that sitting still can be a factor," said Kesteven.
The airline companies are being blamed. “We are talking about a real risk, with real and appreciable harm," said Paul Henderson, of the Melbourne law firm of Slater and Gordon. “It's a small risk, and easy to reduce by taking some fairly simple steps, which are not very expensive for airlines to do. And yet, if they do not take them, you might die." Slater and Gordon has collected 2,300 cases of DVT, of which 120 involved deaths. “The cases involve just about every airline flying to and from Australia," said Henderson, “and we're the top of theiceberg."
The airlines' defense rests on lack of conclusive evidence linking flying to dying, or even to getting sick. “There is no scientifically valid evidence that the cabin environment in commercial aircraft is unhealthy," declared Dr. Russell Rayman, executive director of the Aerospace Medical Association. As for risk, the airlines maintain that so far there is no evidence that suggests that sitting in an aircraft cabin might be more dangerous than sitting still anywhere, whet her on a crowded train or bus, or in a car, or even at home. The airlines insist that the passengers are primarily responsible for their own health. After all, cramped conditions can lead to stress, and even disruptive and unruly behavior, but no one blames the airlines for air rage. “DVT has been around for a long time. It's linked to immobility, not flying," said Patrick Garrett of Cathay Pacific. According to Yoshie Otaka of Japan Airlines, “Basically, it's a matter of primary self-care."
But in Asia, risk awareness is thin, and no pan—Asian transport body exists to c all upon the air carriers to take precautionary measures, as the European Commission has done. During the Moslem pilgrimage season, when tens of thousands of the faithful go to Mecca, Pakistan International Airways routinely refits aircraft in order to cram as many passengers in as possible. Li Ru, spokeswoman for Air China, dismissed the danger of DVT on her company's carrier, saying, “We are s h orter and smaller than Westerners, so we are less uncomfortable in airplane seat s."
Doctors suggest that if you have a proven predisposition to thrombosis, you should consider an injection of anti-coagulant within 24 hours prior to flying. Though taking aspirin may ward off clots for some people, pregnant women (among others) should not take aspirin. Once inside the plane, make sure you have enough room to move your legs as possible, and even consider wearing support stocking s, which can improve the blood flow in the veins of the legs. While some doctors recommend moving around the cabin every half hour or so, the airline companies prefer passengers to do gentle exercises in their seats—both for safety reasons and to avoid getting in the way of the cabin crew.
Questions 1-6
Match the following statements or points of view 1-6 with the names A-F below. W rite the appropriate letters A-F in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1. Immobility is the cause of DVT.
2. Chinese passengers run less risk of DVT.
3. It is up to the passenger to look after his or her own health.
4. The risk of DVT increases with age.
5. There is no proof that airplane cabins are any more unhealthy than other enclosed environments.
6. Airline companies should take steps to reduce the risk of DVT.
A. Li Ru
B. Patrick Kesteven
C. Paul Henderson
D. Russell Rayman
E. Patrick Garrett
F. Yoshie Otaka
Questions 7-13
Complete the notes below. Choose ONE OR TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
Following the death of Emma Christofferson, airline companies faced a sudden onslaught cusing them of endangering passengers' health and lives.
Blood clots can form in the leg of a long-distance airplane passenger. Part of aclot may become detached and cause the lungs.
There is a risk of DVT to all airline passengers if they ring a long flight.
The number of cases of DVT involving Australian airlines is described metaphorically in the passage as the top part of an...10...
Stress and other health risks often result from...11... Asia lacks an organization which could urge airlines to take...12... against DVT.
...13...can assist the blood to flow in the lower limbs.
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Calm in the Midst of Bustle
A Finding it difficult to cope with the ever-accelerating treadmill of m odern life? Perhaps the Zen Buddhist monks had the answer in sixth-century China . Zen psychotherapy is even more relevant today than it ever was, according to D avid Brazier, a British psychotherapist with a doctorate in Buddhist psychology.
B According to Brazier, the sense of community decays in the frenetic pace of modern life, and individuals become helpless in their self-seeking quest. We ca n, he says, return to the beauty of simplicity even in the middle of a city street. He points out that even in the midst of a tornado there is a point of stillness: Zen helps us find that point in any situation, no matter how stressful. It allows us to ask, “What are we running from? What are we running to? "
C Brazier, a Buddhist for 35 years, became concerned with the problem of “rig ht livelihood ", which led him to adopt psychotherapy as a career. He was intrigued by the prospect of combining what he learned from psychotherapy with what he gleaned from his Zen studies and practice. However, he was troubled by the contradiction that whereas Buddhism rejects the self, Western psychotherapy confirms it. Brazier finally realized that a complete integration was impossible; as a result, the approach to healing the mind that he advocates is based purely on Buddhist psychology.
D He defines Zen therapy as being about accepting our inability to control the future, while recognizing that we can influence it by how we act now. Rather than striving to excel and find pleasure, we must learn to let go of ambition and desire through the cleansing process of meditation. He cites the specific benefits as a much fresher, more direct “encounter "with existence, coupled with a deeperinner tranquillity. “That means that one can handle more without losing one's cool," he says. “It keeps you young. It keeps you sharp." He adds that it helps you to appreciate little things and leave behind the life—long resentments that block many from ever making anything of their lives. Zen therapy turns you r attention “away from self-obsession towards engagement with what needs to be done and with the sheer beauty of being alive in this world."
E However, Brazier eschews presenting Zen within a traditional religious framework, because it can then veer towards dogmatism, supernaturalism and the occult. Likewise, he is against presenting Zen as a philosophy, because in his view this tends to separate it from our lives. Indeed, in the past Zen has not been untouched by charlatanism. Take Zen Master Rama—alias Frederick Lenz—for example. This American businessman charged as much as US$5,000 per seminar for the privilege of enlightenment. He branded thinking “a very inefficient method of processing data." He drowned himself while on the run from the tax authorities.
F Of course, any unusual method of healing which offers hope to the distressed is open to abuse because of the potential for making money while offering little concrete evidence that the method works. The founding editor of The Skeptic magazine, Wendy Grossman, says that Zen therapy “sounds like the usual sort of mishmash of Eastern philosophies.” She adds caustically that for some its appeal may lie merely in its exoticism.
G But Dr George Boeree, an expert in Buddhist psychology at Pennsylvania's Shippensburg University, agrees with Brazier. He says Zen therapy, or therapy base d on Buddhist principles, has a great deal of potential. He says, “Because Buddhism has focused as much on the psychology of the individual as it has on anything else, it has behind it some 2,500 years of insight that, while not always in tune with modern science, can nevertheless add a lot to our understanding. Boeree perceives few dangers in relation to Zen therapy, except that participants ma y “forget that we are not all monks" and be unable to cope with the discipline required.
H Although Brazier looks the epitome of the smiling New Age guru, he does not claim to have all the answers. Zen therapy is not a miracle cure, he emphasizes , adding that cost of the courses he runs is “quite modest”. His Amida Trust, which runs the courses, is not a profit-making organization. “Whatever funds we receive go into the various projects we are developing," he says. “We are not salaried professionals. We live Dharma livings the Buddha expounded. Moreover, its influence looks to be spreading, as there has been a whole rash of recent boo ksby shrinks with a Dharma dimension.
Questions 14-19
Reading passage 2 has eight paragraphs A-H. Which paragraphs concentrate on the following information? Write the appropriate letters A-H in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
NB You need write only one letter for each answer.
14. Brazier's approach to Zen
15. the benefits of Zen therapy
16. the financial details of Brazier's organization
17. doubt cast on the efficacy of Zen therapy
18. how Brazier came to develop his therapy
19. academic support for Buddhist-based therapy
Questions 20-22
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
20. The Buddhist and Western approaches to psychotherapy are incompatible.
21.Only monks are capable of undergoing Zen therapy.
22. zen therapy was more suited to 6th century China than to modern times.
Questions 23-26
Match the following statements or points of view 23-26 with the names in the list below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 23-26 on y our answer sheet.
NB There are more names than statements, so you will not use al l of them.
List of Names
A. Frederic Lenz
B. Wendy Grossman
C. David Brazier
D. Doctor George Boeree
23. The brain is not an efficient data processor.
24. We can influence our own future lives.
25. Zen therapy is not a new development.
26. Buddhism has a valuable psychological tradition.
READING PASSAGE 3
Boom in Highrise Living in Central Tokyo
A Nine straight years of falling land prices have brought the cost of residential land in Tokyo to about half its 1991 peak. Doctors , lawyers and entrepreneurs are delighted to find that they can afford to live in one of a rash of luxury apartment towers being built across the city center. A total of 34 towers are scheduled to be completed by 2003.
B Perhaps the most opulent on the market is the 34-story Aoyama Park Tower, built by the Mitsui Fodosan company in Shibuya, a class y residential area. Most of the apartments in the block are 100 sq m or more, compared with the central Tokyo average of about 7 sq m. All offer luxury European fittings. When the first apartments in the building went on sale, they were 10 times over-subscribed, despite average prices of 90 million yen per unit, and a t op price tag of 710 million yen for the penthouse.
C A Mitsui Fudosan official said, “Ordinary salaried workers like me couldn't even think of buying a place like this." He attributed the success of the new! highrises to their prime location and the chance for the buyer to choose the apartment layout rather than being forced to accept the developer's plan. “In the past," he explained, “most Japanese aimed to swap their apartments for houses standing on their own eventually. But here they can simply change the layout and stay for good."
D There are other factors behind the highrise boom besides falling land prices. An easing of regulations on building height is changing the face of the city. I n addition, restructuring is forcing business companies to sell land that is not being profitably used. Aoyama Park Tower, for instance, was built on the site o f a company dormitory belonging to Asahi Glass. Though Tokyo is often portrayed as a cluster of high-technology skyscrapers, highrise building has been confined to limited areas, and was mostly for commercial use.
E ING Barings analyst Mark Brown said falling property prices have changed people's thinking. “Why buy a small house that is an hour and a half away from the center when you can buy a condominium which may be larger in terms of floor space, and is much nearer?" he said. This change in thinking effects Tokyo's local government, too. Officials are happy to encourage the wealthy to move to the city center by requiring commercial developers to add a residential element to offices and shopping centers. According to Brown, “The central wards of Tokyo want t o get people to come back to beef up the night-time populations and the weekend populations to increase the local tax revenue."
F But in one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, people are nervous about moving into highrise buildings. Developers say that tall buildings are n o more prone to collapse than short ones. “In fact, because the Aoyama Park Tower is built to sway very slowly, I think it is virtually impossible for it to collapse," said the Mitsui Fudosan official. “ The only problem would be if a quake results in a loss of electrical power. The n the elevators would stop working, and it's pretty tough to climb 30 flights of stairs." Mindful of buyer concerns, the Tokyo government has enacted laws to make sure that buildings will be able to withstand medium-sized earthquakes. “And even in the case of a big quake like the one in Kobe in 1995, which killed more than 5,000 people, there should be no injuries even if the buildings are damaged," said a municipal official.
G The reason for so much property destruction due to earthquakes in the past w as that houses were put up in a hurry, according to Prof. Haruo Shimada of Keio University. “Houses were thrown up in the fashion of army barracks after the war," he said, “because all the existing housing had been burnt down." But construction of houses in later years was little better. Construction companies found it cheap and convenient to use gravel and sand from the seabed to make concrete. These materials contained salt, which erodes steel girders and can cause collapse.
H Developers are not worried. The tallest building in Tokyo is the metropolitan government headquarters, at 240 m, but new engineering techniques are encouraging builders to look higher still. Mitsui Construction has said that it has developed the technology to build condominium towers up to 254 m tall.
Questions 27-33
Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs A-H. Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-H from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers i-x on boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.
List of Headings
i Ever upward
ii Pinnacle of luxury
iii European fittings
iv Attractions of the central area
v Collapsing dangers
vi Tradition of shoddy housing
vii Reasons for highrise popularity
viii Changes in the Tokyo landscape
ix The role of Asahi Glass
x Earthquake dangers
27. Paragraph B
28. Paragraph C
29. Paragraph D
30. Paragraph E
31. Paragraph F
32. Paragraph G
33. Paragraph H
Questions 34-37
Match the following statements or opinions 34-37 with the people in the box below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 34-37 on your an swersheet.
NB You may use any name more than once.
34. There has been a change in Tokyo residents' attitude toward city dwelling.
35. At one time it was the ambition of apartment dwellers to move into detached houses. 36. It is unlikely that people in Tokyo highrises would be injured in an earthquake. 37. It is unlikely that the Aoyama Park Tower would collapse in an earthquake.
List of Names
A. Official of Mitsui Fodosan B. Prof. Haruo Shimada
C. Mark Brown D. Official of Tokyo Municipality
Questions 38-40
Complete the following sentences with an appropriate word from the passage.
A...38...of luxury apartment buildings is spreading across central Tokyo. It is more convenient to live in a...39... in the center of Tokyo than in a small house in the suburbs. Post-war houses were erected quickly, just like military ...40...
第二部分 阅读理解专项练习
专项练习一 LIST OF HEADINGS
练习一
Myths about Public Speaking
Our fears of public speaking result not only from what we do not know or understand about public communication also from misconceptions and myths about public encounters. These misconceptions and myths persist among professional people as well as the general public. Let us examine these persistent myths about public communication, which, like our ignorance and misunderstandings of the fundamental assumptions and requirements of public speaking, exacerbate our fears and preven our development as competent public persons.
A Perhaps the most dogged and persistent myth about public communication is that it is a “special” activity reserved for unusual occasions. After all, how often do you make a public speech? There are only a few special occasions during the year when even an outgoing professional person will step behind a podium to give a public speech, and many professional people can count on one hand the number of public speeches given in a career. Surely, then, public communication is a rare activity reserved for especially important occasions.
This argument, of course, ignores the true nature of public communication and the nature of the occasions in which it occurs. When we engage with people we do not know well to solve problems, share understanding and perspectives, advocate points of view, or seek stimulation, we are engaged in public speaking. Public communication is a familiar, daily activity that occurs in the streets, in restaurants, in board rooms, courtrooms, parks, offices, factories and meetings.
Is public speaking an unusual activity reserved for special occasions and restricted to the lectern or the platform? Hardly. Rather it is, and should be developed as, an everyday activity occurring in any location where people come together.
B A related misconception about public communication is t he belief that the public speaker is a specially gifted individual with innate a bilities and God-given propensities. While most professional people would reject the idea that public speakers are born, not made, they nevertheless often feel that the effective public communicator has developed unusual personal talents to a remarkable degree. At the heart of this misconception—like the myth of public speaking as a “special”activity—is an overly narrow view of what a public person is and does.
Development as an effective public communicator begins with the understanding that you need not be a nationally-known, speak-for-pay, professional platform speaker to be a competent public person. The public speaker is an ordinary person who confronts the necessity of being a public person and uses common abilities to meet the fundamental assumptions and requirements of daily public encounters.
C A less widespread but serious misconception of public s peaking is reflected in the belief that public speeches are “made for the ages ”. A public speech is something viewed as an historical event which will be part of a continuing and generally available public record. Some public speeches are faithfully recorded, transcribed, reproduced, and made part of broadly available historical records. Those instances are rare compared to the thousands of unrecorded public speeches made every day.
Public communication is usually situation-specific and ephemeral. Most audiences do well if they remember as much as 40 per cent of what a speaker says immediately after the speaker concludes; even less is retained as time goes by. This fact is both reassuring and challenging to the public communicator. On the one hand, it suggests that there is room for human error in making public pronouncements; on the other hand, it challenges the public speaker to be as informed as possible and to strive to defeat the poor listening habits of most public audiences.

D Finally, professional people perhaps more than other groups often subscribe t o the misconception that public communication must be an exact science, that if it is done properly it will succeed. The troublesome corollary to this reasoning is that if public communication fails, it is because it was improperly prepared or executed. This argument blithely ignores the vagaries of human interaction. Public speakers achieve their goals through their listeners, and the only truly predictable aspect of human listeners is their unpredictability. Further, public messages may succeed despite inadequate preparation and dreadful delivery.
Professional people often mismanage their fears of public communication. Once we understand what public encounters assume and demand, once we unburden ourselves of the myths that handicap our growth as public persons, we can properly begin to develop as competent public communicators.
Questions 1-5
The reading Passage “Myths about Public Speaking” has four sections A-D. In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet write the appopriate letter A, B,C, or D to show in which section you can find a discussion of the following points. You may use any letter more than once.
1. A person's ability to be a public speaker.
2. Whether public speeches are remembered for a long time.
3. A definition of public speaking.
4. The relationship of preparation to success in public speaking.
5. Retention rates as a challenge to public speakers.
练习二
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2.
Money as the Unit of Account
Section Ⅰ
The most difficult aspect of money to understand is its function as a u nit of account. In linear measurement we find the definition of a yard, or a met re, easy to accept. In former times these lengths were defined in terms of fine lines etched onto brass rods maintained in standards laboratories at constant temperatures. Money is much more difficult to define, however, because the value o f anything is ultimately in the mind of the observer, and such values will change with time and circumstance.
Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Royal Mint, defined the pound sterling in 1717 as 113 grains of pure gold. This took Britain off silver and onto gold as defining the unit of account. The pound was 113 grains of pure gold, the shilling was 1/20 of that, and the penny 1/240 of it.
By the end of the nineteenth century the gold standard had spread around most of the trading world, with the result that there was a single world money. It was called by different names in different countries, but all these supposedly different currencies were rigidly interconnected through their particular definition in terms of a quantity of gold.
Section Ⅱ
In economic life the prices of different commodities and services are always changing with respect to each other. If the potato crop, for example, is ruined by frost or flood, then the price of potatoes will go up. The consequences of that particular price increase will be complex and unpredictable. Be cause of the high price of potatoes, prices of other things will decline, as demand for them declines. Similarly, the argument that the Middle East crisis following the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait would, because of increased oil prices, haveled to sustained general inflation is, although widely accepted, entirely without foundation. With sound money (money whose purchasing power does not decline over time) a sudden price shock in any one commodity will not lead to a general price increase, but to changes in relative prices throughout the economy. As oil in creases, other goods and services will drop in price, and oil substitutes will rise in price, as the consequences of the oil price increase work their unpredictable and complex way through the economy.
The use of gold as the unit of account during the days of the gold standard meant that the price of all other commodities and services would swing up and down with reference to the price of gold, which was fixed. If gold supplies diminished, as they did when the 1850s gold rushes in California and Australia petered out, then deflation (a general price level decrease) would set in. When new gold rushes followed in South Africa and again in Australia, in the 1880s and 1890s, the general price level increased, gently, around the world.
Section Ⅲ
The end of the gold standard began with the introduction of the Bretton-Woods Agreement in 1946. This fixed the value of all world currencies relative to the US dollar, which in turn was fixed to a specific value of gold (US$0.35/oz).However, in 1971 the US government finally refused to exchange US dollars for gold, and other countries soon followed. Governments printed as much paper money or coinage as they wanted, and the more that was printed, the less each unit of currency was worth.
The key problem with these government “fiat” currencies is that their value is not defined: such value is subject to how much money a government cares to print . Their future value is unpredictable, depending as it does on political chance. In our economic calculations concerning the past we automatically convertincomes and expenditures to dollars of a particular year, using CPI deflators which a re stored in our computers. When we perform economic calculations into the future we guess at inflation rates and include these guesses in our figures. Our guesses are entirely based on past experience. In Australia most current calculation s assume a 3 to 4 per cent inflation rate.
Section Ⅳ
The great advantage of the nineteenth-century gold standard was not just that it defined the unit of account, but that it operated throughout almost the entire world. A price in England was the same as a price in Australia and in North America. Anthony Trollope tells us in his diaries about his Australian travels in 1872 that a pound of meat, selling in Australia for two pence, would have costten pence or even a shilling in the UK. It was this price difference which drove in vestment and effort into the development of shipboard refrigeration, and opening up of major new markets for Australian meat, at great benefit to British public.
Today we can determine price differences between countries by considering the exchange rate of the day. In twelve months' time, even a month's time, however, a totally different situation may prevail, and investments of time and money made on the basis of an opportunity at an exchange rate of the day, become completely wasted because of subsequent exchange rate movements.
The great advantage of having a single stable world money is that such money has very high information content. It tells people where to invest their time, energy and capital, all around the world, with much greater accuracy and predictability than would otherwise be possible.
Questions 1-4
The reading passage has four sections.
Choose the most suitable heading for each section from the list of headings in the box below. Write the appropriate numbers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.Note: There are more headings than sections so you will not use all of them.
i. the price of gold
ii. the notion of money and its expression
iii. the rise of problematic modern currencies
iv. stable money compared to modern “fiat” currencies
V. the effects of inflation
vi. the interrelationship of prices
1. SECTION Ⅰ:
2. SECTION Ⅱ:
3. SECTION Ⅲ:
4. SECTION Ⅳ:
练习三
THE VALUE OF DRIVER TRAINING
1. Most fatal accidents involve a disproportionately high number of men under the age of 25. A report on young driver research prepared last year by Monash University's accident research centre found that in 1990 and 1991, almost a third of the people killed in road crashes were drivers under 25. Yet this age group rep resents only 14 per cent of the population. The report, which also updated a review of international literature about, among other things, driver training, also reached what many would consider a startling conclusion: training and education where they occur—principally in the US—do not appear to reduce younger drivers' risk of crashing.
2. The Monash University researchers looked at crash information from New South Wales for 1986 to 1990, from Victoria for 1984 to 1990 and from South Australia for 1986 to 1990. The only Australian evidence which possibly indicates that counter-measures targeted specifically at young/novice drivers have been effective comes from evaluations of zero blood alcohol concentration legislation. (In 1989, all Australian governments agreed from 1991 on, to ban provisional drivers from drink-driving at any level, and to extend the provisional licence to three years).
3. The Monash researchers also looked at United States road-crash information for 1989 on 6.6 million police-reported crashes involving fatalities, injuries and motor vehicle damage. The researchers looked at a sample of 44,000 crashes. The conclusion was that the available literature gives a pessimistic view of the efficacy of driver training and education, reflected in the inability to produce drivers safer than those who have not been trained. One study on driver training in the US was conducted in De Kalb county, Georgia between 1977 and 1981. 16,000 school students were split into three groups: one group received 70 hours practical driver education training, another a brief, school based course and the third no school-based driver education. Those comprehensively trained were 16 per cent more likely to get their licences, but 11 per cent more likely to crash and eight per cent more likely to get traffic fines.
4. In 1985, the researchers who conducted that study then reviewed 14 studies of defensive driver training courses and concluded that though people who attended such courses received fewer traffic fines, they did not have fewer crashes. Despite the intuitive conclusion that safe driving should be teachable(like many practical skills), there is insufficient evidence about the ability of practical d river training to reduce crashes for the general driving population.
5. The Monash University report into young drivers concluded that younger drivers were more likely to take risks at night, younger men were more likely to take risks than younger women, but younger women appeared to have “greater skills deficiency”. Overall, the researchers concluded that it appears that vehicle-control skills improve rapidly with increasing experience but that their development is still incomplete after one or two years and possibly after considerably longer periods.
Questions 1-4
The paragraphs in the reading passage are numbered 1-5. Below is a list of paragraph headings labelled A-I. For each questions 1-4, select the most suitable paragraph heading from the list and write your answers A-I, in the spaces numbered 1-4 on the answer sheet. The first one has been done for you as an example.
There are more headings than you will need, so you won't use them all.
Example:Paragraph 1
Answer:G
1. Paragraph 2
2. Paragraph 3
3. Paragraph 4
4. Paragraph 5
List of Headings
A Looking at young drivers
B Do driving courses prevent accidents?
C Results of safety campaigns
D A United States study
E Defensive driving—fewer traffic fines
F Male and female drivers
G The Monash University report
H An international review
I The situation in the United States
练习四
The Revolutionary Bridges of Robert Maillart
Swiss engineer Robert Maillart built some of the greatest bridges of the 20th century. His designs elegantly solved a basic engineering problem: how to support enormous weights using a slender arch
A Just as railway bridges were the great structural symbols of the 19th century, highway bridges became the engineering emblems of the 20th century. T he invention of the automobile created an irresistible demand for paved roads and vehicular bridges throughout the developed world. The type of bridge needed for cars and trucks, however, is fundamentally different from that needed for locomotives. Most highway bridges carry lighter loads than railway bridges do, and their roadways can be sharply curved or steeply sloping. To meet these needs, many turn-of-the-century bridge designers began working with a new building material: reinforced concrete, which has steel bars embedded in it. And the master of this new material was Swiss structural engineer, Robert Maillart.
B Early in his career, Maillart developed a unique method for designing bridges, buildings and other concrete structures. He rejected the complex mathematical analysis of loads and stresses that was being enthusiastically adopted by most of his contemporaries. At the same time, he also eschewed the decorative approach taken by many bridge builders of his time. He resisted imitating architectural styles and adding design elements solely for ornamentation. Maillart's method was a form of creative intuition. He had a knack for conceiving new shapes to solve classic engineering problems. And because he worked in a highly competitive field, one of his goals was economy—he won design and construction contracts because his structures were reasonably priced, often less costly than all his rivals' proposals.
C Maillart's first important bridge was built in the small Swiss town of Zuoz. The local officials had initially wanted a steel bridge to span the 30-metre wide Inn River, but Maillart argued that he could build a more elegant bridge made of reinforced concrete for about the same cost. His crucial innovation was incorporating the bridge's arch and roadway into a form called the hollow-box arch, which would substantially reduce the bridge's expense by minimising the amount of concrete needed. In a conventional arch bridge the weight of the roadway is transferred by columns to the arch, which must be relatively thick. In Maillart's design, though, the roadway and arch were connected by three vertical wall s, forming two hollow boxes running under the roadway. The big advantage of this design was that because the arch would not have to bear the load alone, it could be much thinner—as little as one-third as thick as the arch in the conventional bridge.
D His first masterpiece, however, was the 1905 Tavanasa Bridge over the Rhine river in the Swiss Alps. In this design, Maillart removed the parts of the vertical walls which were not essential because they carried no load. This produced a slender, lighter-looking form, which perfectly met the bridge's structural requirements. But the Tavanasa Bridge gained little favorable publicity in Switzerland; on the contrary, it aroused strong aesthetic objections from public officials who were more comfortable with old-fashioned stone-faced bridges. Maillart, who had founded his own construction firm in 1902, was unable to win any more bridge projects, so he shifted his focus to designing buildings, water tanks and other structures made of reinforced concrete and did not resume his work on concrete bridges until the early 1920s.
E His most important breakthrough during this period was the development of the deck-stiffened arch, the first example of which was the flienglibach Bridge, built in 1923. An arch bridge is somewhat like an inverted cable. A cable curves downward when a weight is hung from it, an arch bridge curves upward to support the roadway and the compression in the arch balances the dead load of the traffic. For aesthetic reasons, Maillart wanted a thinner arch and his solution w as to connect the arch to the roadway with transverse walls. In this way, Maillart justified making the arch as thin as he could reasonably build it. His analys is accurately predicted the behaviour of the bridge but the leading authorities of Swiss engineering would argue against his methods for the next quarter of a century.
F Over the next 10 years, Maillart concentrated on refining the visual appearance of the deck-stiffened arch. His best-known structure is the Salginatobel Bridge, completed in 1930. He won the competition for the contract because hi s design was the least expensive of the 19 submitted—the bridge and road were built for only 700,000 Swiss francs, equivalent to some $3.5 million today. Salginatobel was also Maillart's longest span, at 90 metres and it had the most drama tic setting of all his structures, vaulting 80 metres above the ravine of the Salgina brook. In 1991 it became the first concrete bridge to be designated an international historic landmark.
G Before his death in 1940, Maillart completed other remarkable bridges and continued to refine his designs. However, architects often recognised the high quality of Maillart's structures before his fellow engineers did and in 1947 the architectural section of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City devoted a major exhibition entirely to his works. In contrast, very few American structural engineers at that time had even heard of Maillart. In the following years, however, engineers realised that Maillart's bridges were more than just aesthetically pleasing—they were technically unsurpassed. Maillart's hollow-box arch became the dominant design form for medium and longspan concrete bridges in the US. In Switzerland, professors finally began to teach Maillart's ideas, which then influenced a new generation of designers.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs A-G.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers i-x in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
ⅰ The long-term impact
ⅱ A celebrated achievement
ⅲ Early brilliance passes unrecognised
ⅳ Outdated methods retain popularity
ⅴ The basis of a new design is born
ⅵ Frustration at never getting the design right
ⅶ Further refinements meet persistent objections
ⅷ Different in all respects
ⅸ Bridge-makers look elsewhere
ⅹ Transport developments spark a major change
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
专项练习二MATCHING
练习一
Putrescible sanitary and kitchen wastes are discharged into the ocean but must be processed in accordance with regulations set by the Federal government. This material is diluted rapidly and contributes to the local food chain, without any risk of nutrient oversupply. All solid waste material must be brought ashore.

The cuttings are sieved out of the drilling fluid and usually discharged into the ocean. In shallower waters they form a low mound near the rig; in deeper water a wider-spread layer forms, generally within one kilometre of the drillsite, although this depends on a number of factors. Some benthic (bottom-dwelling) organisms may be smothered, but this effect is local and variable, generally limited to within about 100 metres of the discharge point. Better-adapted organisms soon replace them and storm-driven wave activity frequently sweeps away the material.
Drilling fluid is also discharged directly into the ocean. Most of the common constituents of water-based fluids used in Australia have low-to-nil toxicity to marine organisms. Some additives are toxic but are used in small concentrations and infrequently. The small amounts of heavy metals present are not absorbed into the bodies of marine organisms, and therefore it is unlikely that they would pose a problem for animals higher up the food chain. Field studies have shown that dilution is normally very rapid, ranging to 1,000-fold within 3 metres of the discharge point. At Rivoli-1 well in Exmouth Gulf, the input was chemically undetectable 560 metres away.
Oil-based drilling fluids have a more toxic component, and discharge to the marine environment is more significant. However, they are used only rarely in Australia, and the impact remains relatively local. At Woodside's North Rankin A Platform offshore Western Australia, the only facility currently using oil-based fluids, the discharge is diluted 2,000-fold within 1 kilometre downcurrent, and undetectable beyond 200 metres either side.
In the event of a discovery, the presence of a permanent production facility and the discharge of “produced water”are additional concerns. Produced water is t he water associated with the oil or gas deposit, and typically contains some petroleum, dissolved organic matter and trace elements. Most produced water is effectively nontoxic but, even when relatively toxic, is quickly diluted to background levels. The impact occurs mainly within about 20 metres of the discharge point, but is observable in some instances for about 1 kilometre downcurrent. Government regulations limit the oil content allowed to be discharged, and the produce d water is treated on the platforms to meet those specifications. The discharge points are carefully selected to maximise dispersion and dilution, and avoid any particularly sensitive local environments.
Ultimately the best test of the real environmental effect of drilling and producing operations may be the response of the environment to the fixed production platforms. In many areas the platforms quickly become artificial reefs, with theun derwater supports of the platforms providing a range of habitats, from sea-bottom to surface, and quickly colonised by a wide range of marine plants and animals .
Questions 1-8
Using the information in the passage, identify each type of waste described below. In boxes 1 to 8 on your answer sheet, write
SK-1 if the statement refers tosanitary and kitchen wastes which decay
SK-2 if the statement refers to solid sanitary and kitchen wastes
C if the statement refers to cuttings
DW if the statement refers todrilling fluid-water-based
DO if the statement refers todrilling fluid-oil-based
PW if the statement refers toproduced water
Note: each indicator may be used more than once. An example has been done for you.
ExampleThis waste is one thousand times weaker at a pointthree metres from where it enters the ocean.
AnswerDW
1. This waste must not be discharged into the ocean.
2. This waste may contain heavy metals and toxic additives.
3. This waste can be used as a food source by marine organisms.
4. This waste is produced at only one location in Australian waters.
5. This waste consists of solids which are usually deposited on the ocean floor near the drilling rig.
6. This waste may sometimes cause problems due to its petroleum content.
7. This waste consists of substances very slightly poisonous or not poisonous at all to sea life, although substances added to it may be more harmful.
8. Because this waste contains oil, its discharge is carefully controlled to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems.
练习二
The composition of landfills is also strikingly different from what is commonly believed. In 1990 US survey people were asked whether particular items were a major cause of garbage problems. Disposable nappies (baby diapers) were identified as a major cause by 41 per cent of the survey respondents, plastic bottles by 29 per cent, all forms of paper by six per cent, and construction debris by zero per cent. Yet Garbage Project data shows that two per cent of the volume of landfills and plastic bottles less than one percent. On the other hand, over 40 percent of the volume of landfills is composed of paper and around 12 per cent is construction debris.
Packaging—the paper and plastic wrapping around goods bought—has also been seen as a serious cause of pollution, but while some packaging is excessive, the Garb age Project researchers note that most manufacturers use as little as possible, because less is cheaper. They also point out that modern product packaging frequently functions to reduce the overall size of the solid-waste stream.
This apparent paradox is illustrated by the results of a comparison of garbage from a large and socially diverse sample of households in Mexico City with a similarly large and diverse sample in three United States cities. Even after correcting for differences in family size, US households generated far less garbage than the Mexican ones. Because they are much more dependent on processed and packaged foods than Mexican households, US households produce much less food debris. (An d most of the leaves, husks, etc. that the US processor has removed from the food can be used in the manufacture of other products, rather than entering the was testream as is the likely fate with fresh produce purchased by households.)
One criticism made of Western societies is that the people are wasteful, and throw things away while they are still useable. This, however, does not seem to be true. Garbage Project data showed that furniture and consumer appliances were entering the solid waste stream at a rate very much less than would be expected from production and service-life figures. So the researchers set up a study to track the fate of such items and thus gained an insight into the huge informal and commercial trade in used goods that rarely turns up in official calculations and statistics.
The Garbage Project's work shows how many misconceptions exist about garbage. The researchers are therefore critical of attempts to promote one type of waste management, such as source reduction or recycling, over others, such as incineration or landfilling. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and what may be appropriate for one locality may not be appropriate for another.
Questions 1-3
Below are some of the wrong ideas that the passage states people have about garbage. Match each misconception I-IV with TWO counterarguments A-M used in the passage to argue against them. Write the appropriate letters A-M in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
MISCONCEPTIONSExample
Ⅰ.Landfills are dangerous because they are full of germs and chemicals.Ⅱ.Household items, like disposable nappies, are a major cause of garbage problems.
Ⅲ.Packaging is wasteful, and causes excess garbage.
Ⅳ. Western societies waste many useable items.
COUNTERARGUMENTS
A 40% of landfills is paper
B perishable items are often almost unchanged, even after long periods of time
C People throw away furniture and consumer appliances

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