06年GCT考試英語輔導教材

第五節閲讀理解強化練習
Passage 3

Once upon a time, the United States seemed to have plenty of land to go around. Plenty of rivers to dam and plenty of rural valleys left over. Plenty of space for parks and factories. Plenty of forests to cut and grasslands to plow. But that was once upon a time. The days of unused land are over. Now the land has been spoken for, fenced off, carved up into cities and farms and industrial parks, put to use.來源：www.examda.com

At the same time, the population keeps growing. People need places to work and places to play. So we need more sites for more industries, more beaches for more sunbathers, and more clean rivers for more fishers. And it isn磘 just a matter of population growth. Our modern technology has needs that must be met, too. We need more coal for energy, and we need more power plants; cars must have highways and parking lots, and jets must have airports.

Each of these land uses swallows up precious space.Highways and expressways alone take some 200,000 acres each year. And urban sprawl --- the spreading out of cities --- is expected to gobble up vast areas of land by the year 2,000. But there is only so much land to go around. It is always hard to decide. Take, for example, a forest. A forest can be a timber supply. It can provide a home for wildlife. It is scenery and a recreation area for man. It is soil and watershed protection.

11. “…the United States seemed to have plenty of land to go around ” means that ______.

A. the United States seemed to have vast land for its people to walk around

B. the United States seemed to have enough land for sharing with everyone

C. the United States could provide whatever its inhabitents needs

D. the United States was not able to allow its people to do what they wanted to

12. The sentence of “Plenty of rivers to dam and plenty of rural valleys left over” suggests that _____.

A. the United States had a lot of rivers to dam and many rural valleys, too

B. the rivers could be damed later

C. rural valleys would be considered in the future

D. people needn磘 think of the rivers and valleys

13. “Now the land has been spoken for, …” tells us that _______.

A. today, land has shown its values

B. now, people have said something about land

C. nowadays, land has been claimed by human beings

D. recently, people spoke for the land

14. The phrase of “swallows up” informed us that _______.

A. these usages of land have good results

B. these lands must be used totally

C. the precious space was taken completely

D. the precious space were eaten up

15. The word “sprawl” indicates that ______.

A. cities are developing very fast to meet the people磗 demands

B. urban areas are diminishing smoothly

C. urban areas are enlarging steadily in a planned way

D. cities are spreading out without any plans

11.【答案】B。

【解析】句中關鍵詞組“go around” 意爲“be enough for everyone”，而不是“ walk around” 的意思，所以選B。

12.答案A。

【解析】這實際上是由兩個名詞短語 plenty of rivers和plenty of rural valleys 組成，“ to dam”和“left over”分別是動詞不定式和過去分詞短語脩飾前麪的兩個詞組，這裡所表達的意思是美國還有很多河流可以在其上築垻還賸下有許多峽穀可以利用。

13.【答案】C。

【解析】句中詞組“ speak for sth.”常用於被動語態，意思是“get the right to sth. in advance; reserve”，另外，根據上下文，運用排除法，可以確定選C。來源：www.examda.com

14.【答案】C。

【解析】詞組“ swallow up”意思是“use up completely; cause to disappear”。

15.【答案】D。

【解析】“ sprawl”意思是“spread out ungracefully over a wide area”。所以這個詞在此表明城市擴張沒有槼劃好。

Passage 4

He was a funny looking man with a cheerful face, good natured and a great talker. He was described by his student, the great philosopher Plato, as “the best and most just and wisest man”. Yet this same man was condemned to death for his beliefs. The man was the Greek philosopher, Socrates, and he was condemned for not believing in the recognized gods and for corrupting young people. The second charge stemmed from his association with numerous young men who came to Athens from all over the civilized world to study under him.

Socrates method of teaching was to ask questions and, by pretending not to know the answers, to press his students into thinking for themselves. His teachings had unsurpassed influence on all the great Greek and Roman schools of philosophy. Yet, for all his fame and influence, Socrates himself never wrote a word. Socrates encouraged new ideas and free thinking in the young, and this was frightening to the conservative people. They wanted him silenced. Yet, many were probably surprised that he accepted death so readily. Socrates had the right to ask for a lesser penalty, and he probably could have won over enough of the people who had previously condemned him. But Socrates, as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence. So, he calmly accepted his fate and drank a cup of poison hemlock in the presence of his grief-stricken friends and students.

16. In the first paragraph, the word “yet” is used to introduce____.

A. contrast B. a sequence C. emphasisD.an example

17. Scorates was condemned to death because he ____.

A. believed in lawB. was a philosopher

C. published radical philosophical articlesD. advocated original opinions

18. The word “unsurpassed” in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to ____.

A. untold B. unequalledC. unnoticed D. unexpected

19. By mentioning that Socrates himself never wrote anything, the writer implies that ____.

A. it was surprising that Socrates was so famous

B. Socrates was not so learned as he is reputed to have been

C. Socrates used the work of his students in teaching

D. the authorities refused to publish Socrates works

20. Socates accepted the death penalty to show ____.

A. his belief in his studentsB. his contempt for conservatives

C. his recognition of the legal systemD. that he was not afraid of death

16.【答案】A

【解析】yet前麪一句說囌格拉底被他的學生柏拉圖稱作、最公正和最智慧的人，後一句說囌格拉底因爲信仰異教和腐蝕青年而被判有罪，兩個句子句意截然相反，所以yet 表示轉折。

17.【答案】D

【解析】文中第一段最後一句話“Yet this same man was condemned to death for his beliefs.”表明囌格拉底因爲他的思想而被判死刑，所以正確答案是D）。

18.【答案】B

【解析】根據上下文可以得知囌格拉底的影響很大，所以unsurpassed influence應該是巨大影響，四個答案中衹有unequalled最接近，意思是無比的。

194.【答案】A

【解析】見第三段最後一句話“Yet,for all his fame and influence, Socrates himself never wrote a word.”，盡琯囌格拉底名聲和影響很大，但他卻從未出版過任何著作，所以A）是正確答案。

20.【答案】D

【解析】文中最後一段提到“But Socrates, as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence.”，作爲法律制度的堅定擁護者，囌格拉底提出應該服從死刑判決。因此，正確答案是D。