大学生英语竞赛A类阅读理解专项强化真题试卷11

For more than a mile, the desert in southern Peru has a curious ruler-straight and tack-sharp design made by rocks. The wandering mule paths that cross it only emphasize its precision. [*] Throughout hundreds of square miles of arid plateau, other such markings around, most of them concentrated between the towns of Naz-ca and Palpa. Known as the Nazca Lines, they form a geometric melange of quardrangles, triangles, and trapezoids. The markings also form spirals and flowers, narrow lines that extend more than five miles, and a desert zoo of giant creatures—birds, reptiles, whales, a monkey, and a spider—all made by stones whose patterns can only be seen from the air. Because some of the figures resemble the ones that decorate Nazca pottery, archaeologists attribute the lines to the Nazcas, a coastal people whose culture rose, flourished, and declined between 100 B. C. and A. D. 700. Making the patterns must have been extremely time-consuming. The Nazcas must have cleared millions of rocks to expose the lighter ground beneath them, piled the rocks in rows, and created designs that, in this nearly rainless region, can last thousands of years. But why did they construct them? Nobody really knows. There have been many guesses. Some say that they were prehistoric roads, or farms. Others say they were signals or offerings to celestial beings. It has also been suggested that they constitute a giant astronomical calendar, an almanac for farmers who wished to predict the return of water to valley streams. One study did ascertain that some of the lines point to solstice positions of the sun and moon in ancient times, as well as to the rising and setting points on the horizon of some of the bright stars. But none of the theories have proven to be correct. And so the mystery remains, including the most tantalizing question of all: why did the Nazcas create immense designs that they themselves could never see, designs that people nowadays can only see from the air? One person who worked to find out the answer was Maria Beiche. For over forty years she photographed and charted “las lineas“ , striving to complete a map of the hundreds of designs and figures of this area, which is some thirty miles long and threaded by the Pan American highway. This determined German-born mathematician slept on a camp cot behind her car on the rocky, grassless Peruvian “pampa“ , and even when she was elderly, got up before daylight to conduct her research. She scorned the suggestion that the markings may have been airfields for outer-space visitors to earth during prehistoric times. “Once you remove the stones, the ground is quite soft,“ she said. “I’m afraid the spacemen would have gotten stuck. “ Although Maria Reiche was not able to find the answer, she crusaded to preserve the patterns so that others following her might have a chance to do so.

[*] In the past, most cities usually were the natural outgrowth of villages and towns that happened to prosper. Rome started out as a small village, as did Athens, Paris, London and New York. Of course, there were exceptions to this general rule. In ancient times, Alexandria in E-gypt, and Saint Petersburg, were both planned cities. But for the most part, cities throughout history were not the products of deliberate thought. Today the reverse is true. Many nations, alarmed by the urban sprawl that has been gobbling up farmland and open countryside, and appalled by the staggering urban problems in the central cities, have begun building new cities that are specifically designed to meet modern needs. Britain has long been a pioneer in planning new cities. As the first nation to become industrialized and urbanized, it faced traffic, slums and pollution long before anyone else. In 1898 an Englishman , Sir Ebenezer Howard, published a book called To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform, in which he advocated a new form of urban growth and organization: the “garden city“. Such a city combined the beauty of nature—trees, grass, sunshine and fresh air—with all the advantages of city living, including an abundance of jobs, social and cultural centres and good shopping facilities. The garden city was to be fairly small in size and the inhabitants would have easy access to the countryside, while at the same time they would be close to their work. In 1899 Howard organized the Garden City Association and in 1903 and 1920 he built the first and the second garden city, Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. These projects encountered many difficulties and failed to arouse widespread enthusiasm. Nevertheless, both Welwyn and Letchworth survived and grew, and in later years—particularly after World War II—British planners looked at them with renewed interest. The war had given the British a painful lesson in the weakness of modern, heavily populated cities. Cities were not the places of refuge they had once been. On the contrary, the invention of the aeroplane had made them the most vulnerable targets for attack. Aerial warfare made it clear that people were far safer outside the great urban centres. It was better not to concentrate so much of the population and industrial resources in a few large cities, but to spread them out into many smaller towns and cities. Fast, modern transportation methods made such dispersal possible. Furthermore , these new towns—modeled on Howard’s garden cities—could also drain off the surplus population of the large cities, relieving the overcrowded conditions, housing shortages, slums and traffic jams that plagued them.

Sport is ubiquitous. Sky TV has at least thirteen sports channels. Throughout the world there is a proliferation of newspapers and magazines totally dedicated to sport. Sports personalities have become cultural icons, worshipped like movie-stars and sought after by sponsors and advertisers alike. Where sport was once for fun and amateurs, it is now the stuff of serious investment. [*] Of course, sport has always mattered. But the point is that in the past sport knew its place. Now it invades areas of life where previously it had no presence: fashion, showbiz, business. It is a worldwide obsession. What is it that makes sport so enjoyable for so many? First, we seriously believe that sport is something we can all do, however badly or however well. Tens of thousands set off on the London and New York Marathons. Amateur football matches take place all over the world every weekend. Sport is a democratic activity. Second, sports stars are self-made people. Sport is dominated by athletes from ordinary backgrounds. This is why it is a classic means by which those from the poorest backgrounds can seek fame and fortune. Third, we enjoy watching sport because we like to see the supreme skill of those who act like gladiators in the modern arena. There is the excitement of not knowing who is going to win. No rock concert, no movie, no play can offer that kind of spontaneous uncertainty. This gut-wrenching experience can be shared with a crowd of fifty round a widescreen TV in a pub, or a thronging mass of 100, 000 live in a stadium. The rise of sport has been accompanied by the growing prominence of sports stars. They have become public figures, hence in great demand for TV commercials. The rise of the sports star is mirrored by the rise of sports companies such as Nike and Adidas. “Sport probably does more to unify nations than any politician has ever been capable of“. So said Nelson Mandela. The only truly global occasions are the Olympics and World Cup, watched by thousands of millions across the world. These great sporting events bring together players and athletes from different races like no other. Not only that, but sport provides just about the only example of global democracy where the rich do not dominate on the contrary, Brazilians have long been supreme at football, the Kenyans at middle-distance running, and black Americans at boxing. However, there are signs of disquiet in this vast, global industry. The sheer volume of sport is reaching the bursting point for all but the most besotted fan. Overpaid tennis players and golfers fly endlessly in personal jets from one meaningless tournament to the next. Sport risks killing itself through greed and over-exposure. The danger is that we will all become satiated and ultimately disillusioned. Sport is now enjoying popularity all over the world. Besides the entertaining quality, it has turned into a kind of【R1】______. Furthermore, the worldwide obsession to it leads to its【R2】______in many fields. There are three points which can shed a light on its unique charm: it being a democratic activity, athletes from ordinary backgrounds, and audience enjoying【R3】______that they can’t get from other kinds of entertainments. More importantly, sport is playing a significant role in【R4】______ and offering global democracy. However, this global industry will probably be confronted with audiences’【R5】______due to its over-exposure.

[*] Chess has changed a lot over the past two decades. The rise of the professional chess circuit has seen the competitive aspect of the game overtake the scientific and artistic. The sole aim of the modem master is to win. In international chess, a player’s nerves and stamina are as crucial as his intellect and wisdom. The pressure of the game has always been intense: a chess clock is use to ensure that each player completes the stipulated number of moves in the allotted time—-failure to do so results in immediate loss of the game. But now the playing sessions themselves are becoming longer , and many games are played without a break. The increased pressure has swung the pendulum in youth’s favour. Over the past 30 years, each new world champion has been younger than his predecessor. It is significant that, of the world’s ten highest-ranked players, eight are under 30. Much of modern chess is played off the board. Every professional must now take seriously his pre-match preparation, not least because the age of computer databases has had a profound impact on chess. A small portable computer can hold one million chess games, and give instant access to hundreds of games of a prospective opponent. In one recent contest, each of the protagonists employed large teams of assistants to work round the clock searching for flaws in the other’s repertoire. The opening stages of a chess game are now analyzed to near exhaustion. Simply being better prepared in a chess opening can be the deciding factor in the game. The chess world today boasts more first-rate players than at any stages in its history. Hundreds of grandmasters chase modest prize money the world over. Success demands physical as well as mental exertion. A single game may last up to eight hours. A lapse in concentration can mean disaster. So the adversaries are always in a state of nervous tension. The presence of the chess clock adds to the tension. The climax of the game is often a furious “time scramble“. When this occurs, each player has only seconds to make several moves or face instant forfeiture. With minds racing and hands twitching, the masters blitz out their moves and press their clocks with a co-ordination that any athlete would admire. Such moments are not for reflective intellectuals. The game descends into a primeval struggle in which nerves, tenacity and an overwhelming will to win separate victor from vanquished. At the top level of chess, the pain of losing is unbearable. Winning brings a chance to recover from exhaustion. But one victory is not enough to win a tournament, the chess master must be ready for the struggle the next day. Most chess competitions last for 9-11 days, with play on every day, and there is an all-year-round tournament circuit. World championship matches are more exacting. Question 56 to 60 Complete the following sentences with information given in the passage, using a maximum of 3 words for each sentence.

Every summer, the peacocks that roam free within Whipsnade Wild Animal Park in Bedfordshire expose their magnificent trains to the critical and often disdainful gaze of the hens. [*] Darwin argues that living creatures came to be the way they are by e-volution: and that the principal mechanism of evolution was natural selection. This is, in a crowded and hence competitive world, the individuals best suited to the circumstances—the “fittest“—are the most likely to survive and have offspring. But the implication is that fittest would generally mean toughest, swiftest, cleverest, most alert. The peacock’s tail, by contrast, was at best a waste of space and in practice a severe encumbrance: and Darwin felt obliged to invoke what he felt was a separate mechanism of evolution, which he called “sexual selection“, the driving mechanism—in his words—“beauty for beauty’s sake“. But Darwin’s friend and collaborator, Alfred Russel Wallace, though in many ways more “romantic“ than Darwin, was in others even more Darwinian. According to Wallace, then, the train was not an end in itself, but an advertisement for some genuine contribution to survival. Now, 100 years later, the wrangle is still unresolved, for the natural behavior of peafowl is much harder to study than might be imagined. In practice, the mature cocks display in groups at a number of sites around Whipsnade, and the hens judge one against the other. Long observation from hides, backed up by photographs, suggests that the cocks with the most eyespots do indeed attract the most mates. But whether the males with the best trains are also “ better“ in other ways remains to be pinned down. Do the children of the attractive cocks grow faster? Are they more healthy? If so, then the females’ choice will be seen to be utilitarian after all, just as Wallace predicted. There is a final twist to this continuing story. The great mathematician and biologist R. A. Fisher in the thirties proposed what has become known as “Fisher’s Runaway“. Just suppose, for example, that for whatever reason—perhaps for a sound “Wallacian“ Reason—a female first picks a male with a slightly better tail than the rest. The sons of that mating will inherit their father’s tail, and the daughters will inherit their mother’s predilection for long tails. This is how the runaway begins. Within each generation, the males with the longest tails will get most mates and leave most offspring: and the females’ predilection for long tails will increase commensurately. Modern computer models show that such a feedback mechanism would alone be enough to produce a peacock’s tail. Oddly, too, this would vindicate Darwin’s apparently fanciful notion—once the process gets going, the females would indeed be selecting “beauty for beauty’s sake“. Question 61 to 65 Answer the following questions with the information given in the passage in a maximum of fifteen words for each question.