大学生英语竞赛A类阅读理解专项强化真题试卷5

[*] Where do tigers live? North-eastern China, the Indian subcontinent , and the Russian Far East are all home to different species of this beautiful big cat, but maybe not for much longer. According to a recent study by leading conservationists, the wild tiger is now closer to extinction than previously realized. In fact, it is thought that there are fewer than 5000 tigers existing in the wild around the world. Illegal hunting is a huge factor. Most countries have laws that prohibit the hunting and trade of these animals , but the temptation for local poachers is great. A poor villager can earn up to 60 times his daily earnings by trapping and killing one tiger. This money may guarantee the survival of his family. The dead tiger is handed over to a middle man, who then often smuggles it abroad. Its fur may end up hanging on a wall and its bones may be used for medicinal purposes. The other factor affecting the survival of the wild tiger is the reduction of their natural habitat. When man moves into an area that was previously tiger territory, the tiger loses its natural prey since the villagers often hunt such animals for their own food. Then the tiger goes after the villagers’ cows and goats, and so it becomes the hunted. Another problem with reduced habitat is that the tigers will not cross open land, so they cannot get to isolated areas of forest to breed with other tigers. One country that has taken action over the competition for habitat is Russia. The ancient forests of Southern Siberia are being logged for their increasingly expensive timber. These loggers, a-long with the poaching of tigers and their prey, have posed a serious threat to the survival of the tiger population. However, since 1992 the Wildlife Conservation Society(WCS)has been carrying out The Siberian Tiger Project. By attaching radio collars to the tigers they can trace their movements and gather a wealth of information about their habits. In this way, the Russian government has been provided with invaluable support and advice. The ’ Tiger Response Team’, a special unit of the Russian government, takes active steps towards resolving the problems between tigers and humans. One aim is to keep tigers away from human settlements. The team uses fireworks or even electrified dead animals to deter the tigers from approaching villages. Sometimes the tigers are captured and simply moved to other areas. If the animal is considered too dangerous, it may be taken to a zoo on the other side of the world. At least in a protected environment like this, scientists are able to study wild tigers in a way that they could not in their natural habitat. Also, captive breeding programmes are a way to increase tiger numbers: they can be used to introduce genetic variability into the wild tiger population. The WCS also considers the management of the tigers’ prey essential to the programme. This requires the establishment of large areas of habitat for both the tigers and their prey to coexist. This can be achieved through properly managed wildlife tourism. Tourism can generate money and jobs for local people, as well as creating opportunities to conserve suitable land for tigers to live on. It is also an excellent way to educate the locals and tourists in conservation issues. There is no clear solution to saving the tiger, but there is still great pressure from conservation societies and environmental groups to ensure its survival. We will only be able to do this if we can find a balance between the need of people to earn a living and the need to preserve the tigers’ habitat. Questions 71 to 75 Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank. One of the threats to the survival of the wild tiger is【E1】______, although it is hard to put the blame on the poor who have done this.【E2】______is another threat to their survival. Tigers are trapped in small areas of forest and there is no longer any【E3】______for them to hunt. Various solutions have been suggested. Scientists have been studying the tigers’ habits so that they can help solve the problems between people and the tigers. Sometimes tigers are caught and taken to zoos, where they are used in breeding programmes to introduce【E4】______into the wild tiger population. Wildlife tourism can generate money and jobs for local people and is also useful in helping to【E5】______ and tourists. While there are still a lot of problems between tigers and humans, there are a lot of people who are working hard to save these rare animals.

For most people, keeping fit involves an established exercise routine built around a regular weekly schedule. But what if your job involves large amounts of travel? Many people come back from trips carrying extra pounds from disruption to regular exercise, as well as an increased tendency to overindulge on business dinners paid for on the company card. [*] According to the World Health Organization, lack of exercise not only impairs your waistline, but can also reduce energy and concentration levels—the exact qualities that are required when conducting business abroad. Shani Anderson is a personal trainer and managing director of London-based Anderson Fitness Consultants. The British former Olympian says that with the right foresight, it’s possible to incorporate a healthy regime wherever and however you travel. 1)Don’t treat business travel as a “vacation“ from your health regime There’s a temptation to regard exercise as a means to looking good on vacation, rather than as an ongoing strategy for health and well-being. “ A lot of people diet or work out to go on holiday. And for me that’s a problem, because you have short-term goals,“ says Anderson. “You switch off when you reach the goal, and your body goes ’ great, I’m done’ —and in two weeks you’re back the way you were before. “ According to Anderson, this exemplifies the most common obstacle to keeping fit while traveling—Attitude. People tend to perceive trips away from home as in some way separate from the rest of their lives and that therefore the same rules no longer apply. 2)Prepare and do research Before you travel, investigate the best locations for your preferred form of exercise. If you’re into cycling, see if there’s a local bike hire company nearby: if you’re a jogger, plan the most scenic route to get the most of your new environment. Anderson’s motto is “plan, plan, plan. “ She says that a common trap during hectic business trips is failing to schedule and prioritize your adapted exercise regime before you leave. “It should be exactly the same process as planning a meeting. You put it in your diary. If you had a meeting at work you would have to be there, it’s the same thing,“ instructs Anderson. “It’s a mental battle more than anything else. “ 3)Bring portable fitness equipment Sometimes there simply won’t be an opportunity to access a gym. If so, there is an extensive range of portable exercise equipment, from simple skip ropes to more sophisticated gadgets—such as the magnetic tension mini-bike. For Anderson’s money, the tiny TRX suspension system is hard to beat. “ It’s basically using gravity against your ankle, it’s a nice idea. It’s completely portable. You can even put it in your handbag. I use it a lot. “ 4)Don’t overindulge in business dinners There’s no getting away from it—maintaining a healthy diet during a business trip is a challenge. There’s little or no opportunity to prepare your own meals and the most delicious eat-out options will rarely flatter your physique the following day. This, combined with a generous expenses card, is a recipe for disaster. Anderson, though, has a few simple tricks: “ Instead of using calories, you look at your plate, and put your fist next to your carbohydrate section and it should be the same size,“ she says. “The size and thickness of your palm is the amount of protein you can eat. So it would be the size of a chicken fillet or turkey. “ Additionally, you can prevent yourself gorging out at the end of a long day by making sure you eat small amounts at regular intervals. “It’s all about not getting hungry. People starve themselves thinking it’s going to help, but it really doesn’t, especially if you’re travelling,“ explains Anderson. 5)Take advantage of hotel fitness services Malcolm Hendry is general manager of London’s prestigious Hotel 41. A few years ago it introduced a “sports buddy“ program, whereby staff with particular sporting skills are teamed up with guests keen to keep fit during their stay. “ It came along about seven years ago,“ he says. “ We had two guests that were very keen sports people. But they were single travelers—and things like playing tennis and squash, you need another person to play with. “ His hotel reflects a growing trend within the hospitality industry to provide high-quality, bespoke fitness options. Questions 56 to 60 Fill in the blanks below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank. [*]

Read the following passage. Choose from the sentences A—G the one which best fits each gap of 61— 65. There are two extra sentences which you do not need to use. Denim’s history suggests that American attitudes to work are more complex than they seem.【R1】______ “They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity,“ sighed the owlish Frenchman. “All I hope for in my clothes. “ American denim-lovers might add other attributes. As far back as the 1930s, when the popularity of cowboy films helped jeans make the leap from workwear into the wardrobes of Hollywood stars, denim has been understood to stand for something larger about the American spirit: for rugged individualism, informality and a classless respect for hard work. [*] “Deep down in every American’s breast... is a longing for the frontier,“ enthused Vogue magazine in 1935, advising readers on how to dress with true “ Western chic“(combine jeans with a Stetson hat and “a great free air of Bravado“ , it counselled). Levi Strauss & Co. , the San Francisco firm which invented modern blue jeans in 1873 , saw sales boom after it crafted posters showing denim-clad cowboys toting saddles and kissing cowgirls. 【R2】______They were told that the tough blue cloth began life as “ Serge de Nimes“ , in the French town of that name, and was used by Columbus for his ships’ sails, before outfitting the pioneers who tamed the West. In a country so often riven by culture wars, jeans crossed lines of ideology, class, gender and race. Presidents from Jimmy Carter onwards have worn denim when fishing, clearing brush or playing sports to signal their everyman credentials—though Barack Obama has endured mockery for donning capacious jeans that he later conceded were “a little frumpy“. 【R3】______Emma McClendon, a curator at the Fashion Institute of Technology(FIT)in New York, notes in a fine new book, Denim: Fashion’s Frontier, that when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, reporters were surprised to see young East Berliners dressed exactly like their cousins from the West-in stonewashed jeans. Ms McClendon’s book accompanies a small but splendid exhibition on denim at the FIT on Seventh Avenue. 【R4】______ Ms. McClendon argues, persuasively, that much of what Americans think theyknow about denim draws on a set of “origin myths“ , crafted and disseminated by manufacturers over many years, both individually and in campaigns run by the Denim Council, an industry group of clothing-makers and textile mills that was active from 1955 to 1975. Committees of denim manufacturers and advertising executives set out to combat “anxieties over juvenile delinquency“. Wholesome films about jeans appeared on over 70 television stations, and How It All Began cartoons ran in newspapers, tracing the origins of denim back to medieval Europe. From the late 1950s Levi Strauss & Co. ran advertisements and a letter-writing campaign urging schools to allow students to attend classes in denim. Their pitch combined images of clean-cut, studious children in jeans with such slogans as “Right for School“ , explains Tracey Panek, Levi’s company historian. [*] 【R5】______There is no evidence that Columbus crossed oceans under billowing denim sails, while the latest research is that the term “ denim“ may have been invented in England. Perhaps most strikingly, relatively few cowboys wore blue jeans at the height of the Wild West, Ms McClendon says: canvas and leather trousers were also common. Denim was mostly worn by small farmers, field-hands, labourers and miners-some of the oldest pieces in the archives of Levi Strauss & Co. were found in disused mines in California and Nevada. Questions 61 to 65 A. Quite a lot of this marketing was hokum, or close to it. B. Since the Second World War, when GIs and sailors took blue jeans to the Old World and Asia, denim has carried ideas of American liberty around the globe, often leaving governments scrambling to catch up. C. Jump to the 1950s and 1960s, and American consumers learned the heroic history of denim from nationwide magazine and television advertising campaigns. D. The popularity of clothing invented to survive hard labour is of topical interest in America, a country gripped by election-year debates about blue-collar, working-class voters, and whether their interests have been ignored by ruling elites. E. At the same time ranchers in need of extra income touted their properties as “dude ranches“ at which affluent tourists could play at cowboys, aping favourite film stars. F. In an interview near the end of his career the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent confessed to a regret: that he had not invented blue jeans. G. Denim sales to working-class customers slumped during the Depression.

Cows will Parade Across Edinburgh, May 15—23. If you’re reading this in Edinburgh, a word of warning. At some point on Monday morning you might come face to face with a brightly colored fiberglass cow. Then, later in the day, you might see another, and another. Do not be alarmed. You are not losing your mind. You have simply walked into the middle of the largest ongoing public art event in the world. [*] Since it started in 1998 in Zurich, Cow Parade has appeared in cities across the world, from New York to Tokyo, Prague to Sao Paulo. More than 3000 bovines, designed by artists, celebrities, and community groups, have grazed around the world’s most famous landmarks, before being auctioned to help fund charity groups. Under cover of darkness on Sunday night, 94 cows will take up their stations at Edinburgh landmarks, as well as some more unmoosual spots. Night Moo on Blair Street will glow in the dark. Cow for the Castle has the city’s famous skyline on her side, while a specially modeled Bravemoo stands on her hind legs and wears an ethnic costume, in the manner of William “Braveheart“ Wallace, the Scottish folk hero. “Never before has Edinburgh seen such a sight,“ says gallery director Richard Demarco. “I think it’s great that you don’t have to build a multi-million-pound new gallery to house what is in fact an extremely large-scale city-transforming exhibition. I’m going to enjoy them while they’re here. I recognize a life-enhancing exhibition when I see one. “ Benefits for business and charities For the idea of the cow as art object, we must thank Zurich window-dresser Waller Knapp, who came up with the concept of a fiberglass herd to boost business in the city. His artist son Pascal was tasked with designing a “unique three-dimensional canvas“ for artists, which was, well, cow-shaped. His three cow designs—standing, reclining and grazing—are now mass-produced by a Polish factory to meet Cow Parade demands around the world. The Zurich cows achieved Knapp’s goal: they brought visitors to the city in droves, and the visitors increased the income of local businesses. The following year, Cows on Parade was unveiled in Chicago, where it was proclaimed the most successful public art exhibition in the history of the city. Now, Cow Parade is a private company that has perfected its idea, limiting itself to several cities a year in order to retain its prestige(this year is the turn of Edinburgh, Lisbon, Paris, Budapest and Boston). Businesses pay up to ￡5, 000 to sponsor a cow, though there is a reduced rate for community groups. While the show is free, the retail and service sectors benefit enormously from the increased tourism. Then, at the end of the show, instead of puzzling over what to do with hundreds of life-size fiberglass cows, which aren’t a novelty anymore, Cow Parade auctions them for charity. In Edinburgh , 70 percent of proceeds will be divided between the OneCity Trust, which tackles social exclusion, and VetAid, which works to alleviate poverty by sustainable farming in developing countries. Artists and sponsors For the artists involved, designing a cow is a process of negotiating guidelines with the sponsors, who generally wants their animal to reflect a topic related to their business. According to the Cow Parade policy, logos and brands are not allowed. Bad puns involving bovine vocabulary, however, are actively encouraged. [*] Edinburgh artist Clare Waddle has designed An Udder Cowch for the Omni Centre, a careful fusion of her own playfully kitsch artistic ideas and the criteria of the sponsor. The cow, one of very few reclining cows in Edinburgh, reflects the Centre’s desire to promote itself as a “ home from home“ with a built-in couch and standard lamp. Waddle believes the project has mutual benefit for artists and sponsors. “ When I submitted my designs 1 was working on an exhibition for the Amber Roome Gallery, and I was interested to see if I could take some of the concepts I’d been working with for the last year into the cow. I presented drawing to the Omni Centre and we came to an agreement. I took their needs into consideration from the start, and they liked what I did. “ Sense of humor brings success One thing’s for certain, normally straight-laced Edinburgh is in for a shock when the hooves hit the streets. Demarco chuckles, suggesting that the city’s famous conservative, religious forefathers could never have imagined such a thing. But as well as bringing people and art together, he believes it’s a great antidote to the over-seriousness of some contemporary art. He believes that art needs a sense of humor, and sees the cows’ silliness as the answer to the depressing, self-important modern art that he believes most young artists seem to favor. Questions 66 to 70 Answer the following questions with the information given in the passage.

In China calligraphy occupies a distinguished position in the field of traditional art. It is not only a means of communication , but also a means of expressing a person’s inner world in an aesthetic sense. [*] Ancient people paid great attention to calligraphy. It was the essential whereby a candidate could manifest his literary talent in the Imperial Examination, for it gave a first impression to the examiners. Children of high officials had to learn and try to write a good hand: even emperors themselves were good at calligraphy, for example, the versatile Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty(1644—1911)has left us many examples of his handwriting on steles in temples and palaces. To practice calligraphy requires the basic tools of “four treasures of study“(writing brush, ink stick, paper, and ink slab)as well as much concentration on guiding the soft writing brush charged with fluid ink, and writing on the paper where the ink will diffuse quickly. Once the brush movement hesitates, a black mark is created, so speed, strength and agility are the essence of fine artworks. When writing, many calligraphers will forget all worries and even themselves, combining all thoughts in the beauty of their art. Thus it can be compared with Qigong, which also can mould and improve a person’s temper and promote well being. Calligraphy, like a mirror, is a silent reflection of the soul. It is believed to have verve, optimism , moderateness, or pessimism. Su Dongpo, one of the four litterateurs in the Song Dynasty(960—1279), composed many bold and unconstrained “ci“(a form of poetry that flourished in the Song Dynasty), also could write handsome characters in good taste. Today, although various modern ways have been substituted for the original calligraphy, especially that created with a writing brush, people still love the ancient form and practise it untiringly. During the traditional festivals, propitious couplets are always indispensable decorations each written in a beautiful style. Calligraphy has endured for more than 2, 000 years, and evolved into five main ways of writing each with different techniques. Even today, these are still followed and practised often as a hobby. Just as it is an art practised in western cultures so Chinese writing is a leading component in the four traditional arts, namely, lute-playing, chess, calligraphy and painting. With the unification of the Chinese people by the Qin Dynasty(221 BC—206 BC)the Prime Minister Li Si actively promoted a unified form of writing based on inscriptions on bronze wares of previous states. This was the first example—known as “seal character“(Zhuanshu). Calligraphers of seal character stress a slender font, even speed and strength, and even thick lines and strokes. When seen as a whole, this is quite round and contracted. In the Eastern Han Dynasty(25—220), people tended to simplify the seal character which had many strokes and created the official script. The new calligraphy appeared to be neater and delicate, turning the round style into a flat one. When beginning to write a horizontal line, one must let the brush go against the direction of point like a silkworm, and concentrate on stretching steadily, then end up with warp like a swallow’s tail. This is one of the characteristics—“silkworm’s head and swallow’s tail“. Just as the name implies, the regular script features its regularity and varies from the flat font to a square one. In Chinese, it provides a model that can be followed by calligraphy lovers. It has developed since the late Han Dynasty and is today’s most popular and influential writing style. The Sage of Calligraphy, Wang Xizhi led the art of calligraphy to its summit. It is recorded that when a carpenter was asked to engrave the wooden stele where there were characters written by Wang Xizhi, he found the ink had filtered into the wood piece “three fen“ deep(3. 3cm or 1. 3 inch)! This demonstrated the magnitude of his force and people admired him all the more because of it. The period when regular script thrived most was during the Tang Dynasty(618—907), when Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan successively established schools of their own styles noted for their strength and mellowness. Questions 71 to 75 Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank. Calligraphy occupies a distinguished position in the field of traditional art. It is a means of communication , and can also reflect a person’s【E1】______. In the ancient times, people attended the Imperial Examination to show their【E2】______. Calligraphy was the first impression to the examiners. To practise calligraphy requires the basic tools of “four treasures of study“—writing brush, ink stick, paper, and ink slab.【E3】______, strength and agility are the essence of fine artworks. It is also a way to mould and improve a person’s temper and【E4】______. Calligraphy has endured for more than 2,000 years, and evolved into five main ways of writing each with different techniques. In the Qin Dynasty, the Prime Minister Li Si actively promoted a unified form of writing which later developed into “seal character“. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, people simplified the seal character that had many strokes and created the official script, which appeared to be【E5】______. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wang Xizhi, the Sage of Calligraphy, led the art of calligraphy to its summit.