2013年4月全国自主考试英语阅读(一)真题及答案

(67)

(66)

(65)

(64)

What measures did the United States take to solve the monetary problem when the Revolutionary War was over?

The prince had waited until Cinderella came, then immediately took her by the hand, and danced only with her.[ (63) When others came and asked her to dance. with them he said, She is my dance partner."][(64) When evening came she wanted to leave and the prince followed her wanting to see into which house she went .]But she ran away from him and into the garden behind the house. [(65) A beautiful tall tree stood there. on which hung the most magnificent pears.] She climbed as nimbly as a squirrel into the branches, and the prince did not know where she had gone. He waited until her father came, then said to him. [(66) The unknown girl has eluded me and I believe she has climbed up the pear tree."]

The father thought, Could it be Cinderella? [(67) He had an ax brought to him and cut down the tree, but no one was in it.]When they came to the kitchen,

Cinderella was lying there in the ashes as usual, for she had jumped down from the other side of the tree, had taken the beautiful dress back to the bird in the hazel tree, and had put on her gray smock.

(From Cinderella)

Why did England keep money out of American colonies? And what was the result?

(59)

(58)

(60)

(56)

(55)

(57)

(52)

(54)

(53)

The football coach is a very important member of the college staff (56)_ important than the professors, some say! The coach picks promising football players from the high schools, and recommends that they (57)__given scholarships. This is the only way some boys from poor families with no intellectual background can get to college. Quite a few of these students go on to become processional football players. The names of processional football clubs are

as well (S8)___ to Americans as professional soccer clubs are to Europeans and South Americans.

Soccer games can now draw crowds of over 70 thousand in cities (59)_baseball attracts a mere 20 thousand spectators. The soccer stadiums are much

more luxurious than the vast majority of European and South American League grounds. There is a seat for everyone and a (60)_lot for 25 thousand cars. Soccer is being brilliantly promoted, like any other promising American product.

(From Two Kinds of Football)

(51)

(appearance) Better-paying jobs in the city have attracted many young people from farming, which led to the gradual of the farmhands required to operate most farms.

(remark) A man who could stand up to such treatment was a man of physical courage and moral strength.

(attend) at football matches has dropped off since the coming of television.

(month) Local leaders meet to discuss progress in their work.

(local) We have got cards which are drawn and printed and designed .

(person) These are general criticisms which should not be taken .

(compete)How will such a small firm survive in the world of business?

(grow) The government is trying to control population .

(music) The shop sells__ instruments, sheet music, tapes and CDs.

(express) The recent strikes are an of the workers' dissatisfaction

(38)

(39)

(40)

(37)

(35)

(36)

(33)

(34)

Why must an international language necessarily be a made-up language? Why can't one of the existing languages be chosen (31)___?

In the United Nations, for example, (32)__- English, Chinese, Russian, French, and Spanish and at all official meetings simultaneous translation is carried on, (33)__ .If a delegate does not know at least one of these languages, (34)__  . How about making one of these into an international language? Of these, Chinese and Russian are not likely to gain many supporters (35)__ . The Russian alphabet stems from the Greek but is like that of very few other languages in the world today. The Chinese alphabet is not an alphabet at all. Its characters represent ideas, not sounds, and would therefore require someone to learn two separate languages the written and the spoken. The fact that (36)__ would make it a fine written international language, since each reader could apply the symbol to the appropriate word in his or her own language.

French was once the language of international diplomats, and a great many people involved in international relations had to learn French. But it has never been a language of science. Its spelling is difficult for foreigners and some of the sounds in French, (37)____ are hard for non-French speakers to master. Spanish comes off well in both spelling and pronunciation, (38)__ ,and there are almost no exceptions to those rules, but it is highly inflected and even adds such complications as having two different forms for the verb "to be," depending upon (39) __. In simplified form, (40)___ but no one has tried to promote Spanish as the international language. English, on the other hand, has been worked on for this purpose.

(From Bricks from the Tower of the Babel)

[A] because of the difficulties of their alphabets

(B] there are five official languages

[C] it might do very well

[D] being unlike those of other Latin-based languages

[E] if the language is a ell-constructed one

[F] as the best one to try to internationalize

[G] he or she must learn one

[H] for its rules are simple

[I] Chinese characters are associated with idea, not sound

[J] where each word stands alone

[K] so that it is possible to listen to the speeches in any one of the five languages

[L] whether the state of being is permanent or temporary

(31)

Where can you go if you plan to enjoy the lake and mountain resorts?

(32)

Touring around Switzerland is very easy because the country has .

According to the passage, what kind of city is Basle?

Why doesn't the author suggest touring Switzerland in a rush?

Passage 6

Questions 26 to 30 are based on the. following passage.

How you organize your trip will depend on several variables: where you are coming from and how you are traveling, the season, and, of course, your interest -mountains and lakes, historic sights, picturesque villages, sports, and art.

Getting around Switzerland couldn't be easier. The highway system is highly developed, trains run precisely to timetable and almost every town has an efficient array of buses, trams, taxis, or whatever is appropriate.

The survey that follows divides the country into a dozen regions, which correspond almost entirely to those established by the national tourist authority for its area offices. In a country as small as Switzerland, it's no problem to visit more than one district in a day. However, we don't recommend seeing Switzerland in a rush. There's a great deal to discover off the beaten path. Nearly every town and village has something to offer, it seems.

We begin with Zurich, the biggest Swiss city, served by the county's busiest international airport. After covering the pastoral northeast, bordering Germany, we venture across the undefended border to Liechtenstein. Safely back in Switzerland, we go north-west to Basle, an industrial but appealing city. The federal capital, Berne, leads to the popular tourist area around Interlaken. From there we turn to the historic central area with Luceme, its capital. Then eastwards to the charming Grisons and on to Italian-speaking Ticino. Continuing clock-wise around Switzerland, we consider the rugged mountain country of the Valais. Then the French-speaking western part of the country: the lake and mountain resorts of Vaud; the hills of Jura. We end our survey in the international city of Geneva, another important gateway to Switzerland.

What is the passage mainly about?

The year 1827 marks .

What is the earliest secondary school in the United States?

In the southern states, the principal means of secondary education even after 1900 continued to be .

According to the author, Franklin's school, as distinguished from the Latin grammar school, was__.

Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "disarray" in the last paragraph?

Passage5

Questions 21 to 25 are based on the. Foll wing passage.

The three main types of secondary education in the US have been provided by the Latin grammar school, the academy, and the public high school. The first of these was a colonial institution. It began in New England with the establishment in 1635 of the Boston Free Latin School. The curriculum consisted mainly of the classical languages, and the purpose of this kind of school was the preparation of boys for college, where most of them would be fitted for the ministry.

The academy began in the early 1750s with Benjamin Franklin's school in Philadelphia. It extended generally to about the middle of the nineteenth century, except in the southern states where the public high school was late in developing and where the academy continued to be a principal means of secondary education even after 1900. The academy was coeducational, meaning open to girls as well as to boys, and it provided a wider curriculum than the Latin grammar school had furnished. It was designed not only as a preparation for college but also for practical life in commercial and business activities. Although its wide educational values were evident and are recognized as important contributions to secondary education in the country, the academy was never considered a public institution as the public high school has come to be.

The public high school had its origin in Massachusetts in 1821 when the English Classical School was established in Boston. In 1827, that state enacted the first state- wide public high- school law in the US. By 1840, there were perhaps a dozen public high schools in Massachusetts and many in other eastern states; by 1850, they were also to be found in many other states.

Just as the curriculum of the academy grew out of that of the Latin grammar school, so the curriculum of the public high school developed out of that of the academy. The public high school in the US is the repudiation (声讨) of the aristocratic and selective principle of the European educational tradition. Since 1890, enrollments in secondary schools, mainly public high schools, have practically doubled in the US every ten years.

 What does the passage mainly discuss?

According to the passage, what happened during the Revolutionary War?

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was allowed to make coins__.

Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a substitute for money during the colonial period?

Passage 4

Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.

In the American colonies there was little money. England did not supply the colonies with coins and it did not allow the colonies to make their own coins, except for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which received permission for a short period in 1652 to make several kinds of silver coins. England wanted to keep money out of America as a means of controlling trade: America was forced to trade only with England if it did not have the money to buy products from other countries. The result during this pre-revolutionary period was that the colonists used various goods in place of money: beaver pelts (生皮), Indian wampum (贝壳珠), and tobacco leaves were all commonly used substitutes for money. The colonists also made use of any foreign coins they could obtain. Dutch, Spanish, French, and English coins were all in use in the American colonies.

During the Revolutionary War, funds were needed to finance the war, so each of the individual states and the Continental Congress issued paper money. So much of this paper money was printed that by the end of the war， it was virtually worthless. As a result, trade in goods and the use of foreign coins still flourished during this period.

By the time the Revolutionary War had been won by the American colonists, the monetary system was in a state of total disarray. To remedy this situation, the new Constitution of the United States, approved in 1789, allowed only Congress to issue money. The individual states could no longer have their own money supply. A few years later, the Coinage Act of 1792 made the dollar the official currency of the United States and put the country on a bimetallic standard, In this bimetallic system, both gold and silver were legal money, and the rate of exchange of silver to gold was fixed by the government at sixteen to one.

What does this passage mainly discuss?

According to the passage, one element that might NOT appear in her novels is .

Where did Cather spend most of her early years?

What is special about Cather’s childhood?

The word "nowadays" at the beginning of the 2nd paragraph is used to___.

What does the sentence：The end is nothing; the road is all. in the 1st paragraph most probably mean?

Passage 3

Questions 11 to 15 are based on the. Following passage.

Willa Cather once said: When people ask me if writing has been a hard or easy road, I always answer with the quotation, The end is nothing; the road is all.'

That is what I mean when I say writing has been a pleasure. I have never faced the typewriter with the thought that one more chore had to be done.

Like most authors, Willa Cather did not write books for the money that they brought her, but rather for the pleasure that came in writing them. Her works were, like her, sturdy and simple. They were full of the vigor of her pioneer days in Nebraska, where she grew from childhood to young womanhood.

Born near Winchester, Virginia, on December 7, 1873, Willa Cather moved with her family to Webster County, Nebraska, in 1883. There her father farmed for seven months before moving the family into neighboring Red Cloud, a fast developing town of 2,500 people. At Red Cloud, Mr. Cather gave up farming and opened an office dealing in farm loans and mortgages. Young Willa, with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes, lived in that small prairie town from 1883 to 1896.

The word "creole" as described in the passage originated from .

The 1st paragraph is developed in relation to .

Why did a pidgin language arise among the slaves?

Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage was .

Passage2

Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage.

The history of the word “creole" itself dates back to the slave trade. After slaves had been gathered from many parts of Africa, they were imprisoned in West African camps, euphemistically (委婉地) called factories," for "processing before being shipped out to "markets." The managers of the factories took great care to separate slaves who spoke the same tribal language, thereby lessening the danger of revolt among slaves who could communicate with one another. And further separation on the basis of language was made by the purchasers in the New World. As a result, the only tongue the slaves had in common was a pidgin that originated in West Africa and developed in the colonies to which they were sent. These pidgins became entrenched (根深蒂固), and after a generation or two they began to expand to meet the needs of the slaves' way of life. The slaves' new language became known as creole, a French word meaning “native" which in tum was derived from Portuguese.

Nowadays "creole” refers to any language that developed from a pidgin by expansion of vocabulary and grammar and became the mother tongue for many speakers in a community. The largest center of creole languages today is undoubtedly the Caribbean area, with more than six million speakers. Several million additional people speak creoles in West Africa, South Africa, and Southeast Asia, and probably another three million people around the world use various pidgin languages. Clearly, pidgin and creole are not rare or isolated phenomena; they number more speakers today than do such languages as Dutch, Swedish, or Greek.

 What is the purpose of writing this passage?

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is a novel that deals with .

It can be seen from the passage that Crane is regarded mainly as .

According to the passage, The Red Badge of Courage is__.

Passage 1

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the. Following passage.

Stephen Crane is probably best known for his American Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, a story of the reactions of an inexperienced soldier to the horrors of war. He, however, was chiefly a writer of short stories, the most noteworthy (值得注意的）of which are “The Blue Hotel," “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”, and “The Open Boat”.

Crane lived during the last three decades of the nineteenth century and, like many artists of his time, rejected traditional, romantic themes and wrote about what he saw around him in the most realistic terms the cruel and violent, as well as the gentle and humorous.

Robert E. Spiller, one of America's leading literary historians, believes that modern American fiction was born with Stephen Crane's work. Though the total

volume of his work may be too slender (不足的) to qualify him as a first-rate writer, he is still an important figure in the American fiction of the nineteenth century.

Son of a Methodist minister, Crane was born on November l, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of 14 children. His childhood was a happy one. In school, he was more interested in baseball than in his studies, and at one time he considered becoming a professional ball player. But the career of a writer was his natural choice, and after two years of college, he went to New York to write. There he lived for five hard years, enduring much illness and achieving no success in his work.

In New York, Crane made a small amount of money by writing for newspapers, but his real writing at this time was his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Unlike other writers who sentimentalized (情绪化) or moralized about what they saw, Crane accurately told of the cruelty and poverty of city life. He published Maggie at his own expense, but it did not sell well. At that time, the story was considered so shockingly realistic that the publisher refused to identify himself with the book.

Meanwhile, half-starved and often ill, Crane continued to write. He completed The Red Badge of Courage in 1893 when he was only 22 years old. It was published two years later and quickly became a best- seller. Suddenly Crane found himself a famous young man. Unfortunately, he made only $100 from the book.