2023年英语六级冲刺阅读训练及答案篇.doc

一
The Earth comprises three principal layers: the dense, iron-rich core, the mantle made of silicate (硅酸盐) that are semi-molten at depth, and the thin, solid-surface crust There are two kinds of crust, a lower and denser oceanic crust and an upper，lighter continental crust found over only about 40 percent of the Earth's surface. The rocks of the crust are of very different ages. Some continental rocks are over 3,000 million years old, while those of the ocean floor are less than 200 million years old. The crusts and the top, solid part of the mantle, totaling about 70 to 100 kilometers in thickness, at present appear to consist of about 15 rigid plates, 7 of which are very large. These plates move over the semi-molten lower mantleto produce all of the major topographical(地形学)features of the Earth. Active zones where intense deformation occur are confined to the narrow, interconnecting boundaries of contact of the plates.
　　There are three main types of zones of contact: spreading contacts where plates move apart, converging contacts where plates move towards each other, and transform contacts where plates slide past each other. Newoceanic crust is formed along one or more margins of each plate by material issuing from deeper layers of the Earth' s crust, for example, by volcanic eruptions (爆发) of lava (火山熔岩) at mid-ocean ridges. If at such a spreading contact the two plates support continents，a rift(裂缝) is formed that will gradually widen and become flooded by the tea. The Atlantic Ocean formed like this as the American and Afro-European plates moved in opposite directions. When two plates carrying continents collide, the continental blocks,too light to be drawn down, continue to float and therefore buckle (起褶皱) to form a mountain chain along the length of the margin of the plates.
　　练习题：
　　Choose correct answers to the question:
　　1.The Earth’s crust______.
　　A.can be classified into two types
　　B.is formed along the margins of the plates
　　C.consists of semi-molten rocks
　　D.is about 70 to 100 kilometers thick
　　2.The 15 plates of the Earth are formed from ___.
　　A.the oceanic crusts and continental crusts
　　B.the crusts and the mantle
　　C.the crusts and the top and solid part of the mantle
　　D.the continental crusts and the solid part of the mantle
　　3.Seriously-deformed zones appear _______
　　A.whenever the crusts move over mantle
　　B.when the plates move towards each other
　　C.in the narrow boundaries where two plates meet
　　D.to be the major topographical feature of the Earth
　　4.According to the second paragraph, the formation of the Atlantic Ocean is the example of_______.
　　A.spreading contacts
　　B.the influence of volcanic eruptions
　　C.converging contacts
　　D.transform contacts
　　5.This passage is probably_______.
　　A.a newspaper advertisement
　　B.a chapter of a novel
　　C.an excerpt from a textbook
D.a scientific report of new findings
二
A remarkable variety of insects live in this planet More species of insects exist than all other animal species together. Insects have survived on earth for more than 300 million years, and may possess the ability to survive for millions more.
　　Insects can be found almost everywhere -- on the highest mountains and on the bottom of rushing streams, in the cold South Pole and in bubbling hot springs. They dig through the ground, jump and sing in the trees,and run and dance in the air. They come in many different colors and various shapes. Insects are extremely useful to humans, pollinating (授粉)our crops as well as flowers in meadows, forests, deserts and other areas. But licks and some insects, such as mosquitoes and fleas, can transmit disease.
　　There are many reasons why insects are so successful at surviving. Their amazing ability to adapt permits them to live in extreme ranges of temperatures and environments. The one place they have not yet been found to any major extent is in the open oceans. Insects can survive on a wide range, of natural and artificial foods—paint, pepper, glue, books, grain, cotton，other insects, plants and animals Because they are small they can hide in tiny spaces.
　　A strong, hard but flexible shell covers their soft organs and is resistant to chemicals, water and physical impact. Their wings give them the option of flying away from dangerous situations or toward food or males. Also, insects have an enormous reproductive capacity: An African ant queen can lay as many as 43,000 eggs a day.
　　Another reason for their success is the strategy of protective color. An insect may be right before our eyes, but nearly invisible because it is cleverly disguised like a green leaf, lump of brown soil, gray lichen (青苔),a seed or some other natural object Some insects use bright, bold colors to send warning signals that they taste bad,sting or are poison.Others have wing patterns that look like the eyes of a huge predator, bitter-tasting insects; hungry enemies are fooled into avoiding them.
　　练习题：
　　Choose correct answers to the question:
　　1.Insects can be found in large amounts in the following places EXCEPT _____.
　　A.on the mountains with little air
　　B.in the cold polar areas
　　C.in the hot desert areas
　　D.in the open oceans
　　2.Insects protect themselves from chemicals by _______
　　A.hiding in tiny spaces
　　B.having a strong shell
　　C.flying away when necessary
　　D.changing colors or shapes
　　3.Some insects disguise like natural objects so as to ______
　　A.frighten away their enemies
　　B.avoid being discovered
　　C.send warning signals
　　D.look bitter-tasting
　　4.The passage mentions that insects ______.
　　A.can be found in any extreme environments
　　B.have survived longer than any other creatures
　　C.can be fed on any natural or man-made foods
　　D.are important for the growth of crops and flowers
　　5.The passage is mainly about ______
　　A.how insects survive in different places
　　B.why insects can survive so successfully
　　C.what insects can do to the environment
　　D.where insects can be found in quantity
三
The fridge is considered necessary. It has been so since the 1960s when packaged food list appeared with the label: "Store in the refrigerator."
　　In my fridge less Fifties childhood, 1 was fed well and healthy. The milkman came every day, the grocer, the butcher (肉商), the baker, and the ice-cream man delivered two or three times each week. The Sunday meat would last until Wednesday and surplus(剩余) bread and milk became all kinds of cakes. Nothing was wasted, and we were never troubled by rotten food. Thirty years on food deliveries have ceased, fresh vegetables are almost unobtainable in the country.
　　The invention of the fridge contributed comparatively little to the art of food preservation. Many well-tried techniques already existed -- natural cooling, drying, smoking, salting, sugaring, bottling...
　　What refrigeration did promote was marketing --- marketing hardware and electricity, marketing soft drinks, marketing dead bodies of animals around the world in search of a good price.
　　Consequently, most of the world's fridges are to be found, not in the tropics where they might prove useful, but in the rich countries with mild temperatures where they are climatically almost unnecessary. Every winter, millions of fridges hum away continuously, and at vast expense, busily maintaining an artificially-cooled space inside an artificially-heated house -- while outside, nature provides the desired temperature free of charge.
　　The fridge's effect upon the environment has been evident, while its contribution to human happiness has been not important. If you don't believe me, try it yourself, invest in a food cabinet and mm off your fridge next winter. You may not eat the hamburgers(汉堡包), but at least you'll get rid of that terrible hum.
　　练习题：
　　Choose correct answers to the question:
　　1.The statement "In my fridgeless fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthily." suggests that______.
　　A.the author was well-fed and healthy even without a fridge in his fifties.
　　B.the author was not accustomed to fridges even in his fifties.
　　C.there was no fridge in the author's home in the 1950s.
　　D.the fridge was in its early stage of development in the 1950s.
　　2.Why does the author say that nothing was wasted before the invention of fridges?
　　A.People would not buy more food than was necessary.
　　B.Food was delivered to people two or three times a week.
　　C.Food was sold fresh and did not get rotten easily.
　　D.People had effective ways to preserve their food.
　　3.Who benefited the least from fridges according to the author?
　　A. Inventors.
　　B. Consumers.
　　C. Manufacturers.
　　D. Travelling salesmen.
　　4.Which of the following phrases in the fifth paragraph indicates the fridge's negative effect on the environment?
　　A.“Hum away continuously”.
　　B.“Climatically almost unnecessary”.
　　C.“Artificially-cooled space”.
　　D.“With mild temperatures”.
　　5.What is the author's overall attitude toward fridges?
　　A. Neutral.
　　B. Critical.
　　C. Objective.
　　D. Compromising.
四
Moreover, insofar as any interpretation of its author can be made from the five or six plays attributed to him, the Wake field Master is uniformly considered to be a man of sharp contemporary observation. He was, formally, perhaps clerically educated, as his Latin and music, his Biblical and patristic lore indicate. He is, still, celebrated mainly for his quick sympathy for the oppressed and forgotten man, his sharp eye for character, a ready ear for colloquial vernacular turns of speech and a humor alternately rude and boisterous, coarse and happy. Hence despite his conscious artistry as manifest in his feeling for intricate metrical and stanza forms, he is looked upon as a kind of medieval Steinbeck, indignantly angry at, uncompromisingly and even brutally realistic in presenting the plight of the agricultural poor.
　　Thus taking the play and the author together, it is mow fairly conventional to regard the former as a kind of ultimate point in the secularization of the medieval drama. Hence much emphasis on it as depicting realistically humble manners and pastoral life in the bleak hills of the West Riding of Yorkshire on a typically cold bight of December 24th. After what are often regarded as almost “documentaries” given in the three successive monologues of the three shepherds, critics go on to affirm that the realism is then intensified into a burlesque mock-treatment of the Nativity. Finally as a sort of epilogue or after-thought in deference to the Biblical origins of the materials, the play slides back into an atavistic mood of early innocent reverence. Actually, as we shall see, the final scene is not only the culminating scene but perhaps the raisond’ etre of introductory “realism.”
　　There is much on the surface of the present play to support the conventional view of its mood of secular realism. All the same, the “realism” of the Wake field Master is of a paradoxical turn. His wide knowledge of people, as well as books indicates no cloistered contemplative but one in close relation to his times. Still, that life was after all a predominantly religious one, a time which never neglected the belief that man was a rebellious and sinful creature in need of redemption, So deeply (one can hardly say “naively” of so sophisticated a writer) and implicitly religious is the Master that he is less able (or less willing) to present actual history realistically than is the author of the Brome “Abraham and Isaac”. His historical sense is even less realistic than that of Chaucer who just a few years before had done for his own time costume romances, such as The Knight’s Tale, Troilus and Cressida, etc. Moreover Chaucer had the excuse of highly romantic materials for taking liberties with history.
　　1. Which of the following statements about the Wake field Master is NOT True?
　　[A]. He was Chaucer’s contemporary.
　　[B]. He is remembered as the author of five or six realistic plays.
　　[C]. He write like John Steinbeck.
　　[D]. HE was an accomplished artist.
　　2. By “patristic”, the author means
　　[A]. realistic. [B]. patriotic
　　[C]. superstitious. [C]. pertaining to the Christian Fathers.
　　3. The statement about the “secularization of the medieval drama” refers to the
　　[A]. introduction of mundane matters in religious plays.
　　[B]. presentation of erudite material.
　　[C]. use of contemporary introduction of religious themes in the early days.
　　4. In subsequent paragraphs, we may expect the writer of this passage to
　　[A]. justify his comparison with Steinbeck.
　　[B]. present a point of view which attack the thought of the second paragraph.
　　[C]. point out the anachronisms in the play.
　　[D]. discuss the works of Chaucer.
五
The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photograph’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defence of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.
　　Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. They are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.
　　Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art. For example, those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expression ist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting. Much of photography’s prestige today derives from the convergence of its aims with those of recent art, particularly with the dismissal of abstract art implicit in the phenomenon of Pop painting during the1960’s. Appreciating photographs is a relief to sensibilities tired of the mental exertions demanded by abstract art. Classical Modernist painting—that is, abstract art as developed indifferent ways by Picasso, Kandi