SAT阅读真题资料2

　　Each passage below is followed by questions based on its content. Answer the questions on the basis of what is stated or implied in each passage and in any introductory material that may be provided.

　　Questions 6-7 are based on the following passage.

　　Sometimes the meaning of old phrases is self-evident,as with to move like greased lightning and a close shave.But quite often we are left with language that seems to have sprung out of the blue and does not appear to signify 5 anything in particular even steven, fit as a fiddle, or to

　　paint the town red. Explanations are frequently posited but are too often unpersuasive. One popular dictionary, for example, suggests that to be joshing might be connected to the humorist Josh Billings, but in fact the term was current 10 as early as 1845. Josh Billings was unknown outside his neighborhood until 1860.

　　6. Which of the following phrases would the author he most likely to add to the list in lines 5-6?

　　A To take a chance

　　B To jump for joy

　　C To lend an ear

　　D To talk through your hat

　　E To flareup

　　7. The last sentence of the passage primarily

　　serves to

　　A cite a well-known fact

　　B invalidate a theory

　　C make a veiled accusation

　　D note a puzzling incident

　　E explain the origins of a phrase

　　Questions 8-9 are based on the following passage.

　　The following study is concerned with Western cities from the Middle Ages up to the twentieth century, in terms of who did what, why, where, and when. It aims to start with the functions that have drawn people to cities, and to 5 work outward from them to the spaces and buildings that

　　grew up to cater to them. Savoring cities in ignorance or drinking them in visually is not enough; I want to find out not just who designed the buildings and when they were built but why they were built.

　　8. Which of the following would most likely be found at the beginning of this study?

　　A A statistical analysis of crime rates in several ancient Western cities

　　B A discussion of the role of central market- places in the early Middle Ages

　　C A series of portraits of famous people who have chosen city life

　　D An account of the architectural challenges involved in building large cathedrals

　　E An essay on ancient archaeological sites worth visiting today

　　9. The primary purpose of the passage is to

　　A criticize a study

　　B justify an expense

　　C explain an approach

　　D depict an era

　　E defend a decision

　　Questions 10-18 are based on the following passage.In this passage, a British novelist and critic recalls a favorite painring.

　　The first painting I ever bought was by Sheila Fell I went to her studio in Redcliffe Square feeling uncom-fortable and even embarrassed, thinking how awful to be an artist. having to put up with prospective buyers coming 5 to gape, whereas writers never need to see anyone read their books. I kept wishing, all the way up the steep flights of stairs, that I could go and look without Sheila being there. I imagined she must be feeling the same.I was wrong. Sheila didn’t care who looked at her 10 paintings or what they thought of them or whether she sold them. She was perfectly at ease, seemed to me to enjoy showing her work. There was a confidence about how she propped up canvas after canvas tha(made me in turn relax.I don t know why I d been so apprehensive after all,

　　15 we had Cumberland in common, there was no need for me to explain why I was drawn to her work. What I missed,exiled in London, she missed: the landscape of where we had both been born and brought up.The painting was of a haystack in a field. The haystack 20 had clearly just been made. it was golden and the field flooded with a red-gold light. the whole atmosphere mellow and rich.It was a large painting and I realized as soon as it arrived at my home,that however much 1 loved it I had no wall and 25 no room to do it justice. I put it on the largest wall we had in the biggest room and still I felt I was insulting it ---the power of the picture was too huge to be contained in our ordinary house. And the light was wrong. The painting couldn’t glow. as it wanted to it needed a vast, empty 30 room and a great distance in front of it. One day, 1 hoped,I’d take it back to Cumberland and find a house there,where it could settle happily. But when, after thirty years,we found that house, the painting was failed again. Thewalls were no bigger and neither were the rooms. So I sold 35 the painting and bought another, smaller hei1a Fell. It was a terrible mistake. The moment The painting had been taken away I realized how stupid I¡¯d been. So it had been overwhelming, too large, too dramatic to contain in either house but I shouldn’t have let that matter, I should 40 have found a way to keep it. I grieved for it and wished I could buy it back, marry it again after the folly of a divorce. But it was too late. And then, in I 990, 1 went to the Sheila Fell Exhibition at the Royal Academy and there, in pride of place, at the end of the longest room, the room it had 45 always needed, was my painting. Its beauty was stunning. People stopped and stared and admired and I wanted to shout that what they were looking at was mine. I am not at all possessive by nature but suddenly I felt fiercely possessive. This glorious painting had been part of my life 50 for so very long and I didn’t seem to be able to grasp that I had willfully let it go.I went back to the exhibition day after day and on the last one became almost maudlin at saying my goodbyes.I don’ t know who owns the painting now it merely said55 “Private Collection¡± in the catalog -- but I doubt if I’ll ever. see it again. In a way, that’s better than being able to go and look at it hanging in a public gallery I’d only go on torturingiyse1f with wanting it back. I can see every detail of it in my mind’s eye anyway. It lives in my head. I can 60 recite it like a poem, and so in a sense I can never lose it.

　　10. Which statement best summarizes the description of the hypothetical group of people in lines 45 compared to that of the actual group in line 46 ?

　　A The first is uneducated; the second has professional training.

　　B The first slights the artist; the second is overly respectful.

　　C The first is somewhat intrusive; the second is apparently appreciative.

　　D The first rejects the artist’s methodology; the second praises it. . .

　　E The first is acquisitive; the second is generous and giving.

　　11. Line 8 (“I imagined . . . the same” suggests that the narrator

　　A believes that most artists feel as she does in the presence of an audience

　　B is as excited about Sheila Fell’s work as she is about her own

　　C is insecure about promoting her books in front of prospective buyers

　　D regards Sheila Fell’s attitude as eccentric

　　E enjoys the company of artists and writers

　　12. The central contrast between the first paragraph (lines 1-8 and the second (lines 9-18 is best described in which terms?

　　A Idealism versus practicality

　　B Expectation versus reality

　　C Speculation versus investigation

　　D Anticipation versus disappointment

　　E Generosity versus possessiveness

　　13 In line 25, the author assumes that “justice” would be

　　A recognizing the unique achievements of an artist

　　B ensuring that a work of art reaches the widest possible audience

　　C displaying a work of art to its best advantage

　　D enhancing one’s daily life with beautiful art

　　E providing elegant surroundings for exceptional paintings

　　14. “It was a terrible mistake”(line 36 because the narrator

　　A had no other souvenirs of Cumberland

　　B allowed pragmatic concerns to override her fondness for the painting

　　C did not realize how valuable the painting would become to collectors

　　D felt that she had betrayed Sheila Fell’s trust

　　E was unable to appreciate the smaller Sheila Fell painting

　　15 In line 41, the metaphor describing “folly” suggests that paintings can

　　A lose their aura when seen too often in familiar surroundings

　　B reinforce misleading recollections of childhood places

　　C arouse strong emotions in their owners

　　D provoke artists to make premature decisions p bring back

　　E painful memories of what they depict

　　16 The narrator says that for her the painting is “like a poem”(line 60 because it

　　A may be shared with others as a source of pleasure

　　B is essential to the narrator’s sense of identity

　　C represents the narrator’ s longing for beautiful objects

　　D makes a powerful firm impression upon the narrator

　　E is preserved vividly within the narrator’s mind

　　17 In the closing paragraphs, the narrator uses the language of human interaction in describing the painting in order to emphasize the

　　A empathy she feels with its creator

　　B difficulty she encounters in maintaining it

　　C pressure she feels to “divorce”

　　D it extent to which she feels its loss

　　E quality of her nostalgia for what it depicts

　　18. The passage serves mainly to

　　A discuss the influence of environment on artistic achievement

　　B defend the works of a controversial artist explore the emotional C context of a particular series of events

　　D argue against placing undue emphasis on the economic value of art

　　E stimulate interest in an overlooked artistic genre

　　Questions 19-24 are based on the following passage.

　　The following passage is excerpted from a review of a book about aviation’s early years.Aviation belonged to the new century in payt because the engineering that went into flying machines was utterly. different from that of the Industrial Revolution. Nineteenth-century engineering revolved around the steam engine. It 5 was about weight and brute power beautifully machined heavy steel, burnished bronze, polished copper pipes, ornamental cast iron everything built, with no expense spared, to withstand great pressures and last any number of lifetimes. Airplane construction was the opposite of all that;10 it was about lightness.The Wright brothers, who created 4rne of the first airplanes, started out making bicycles, which were all the rage at the turn of the century. They knew about thin-wall steel tubes, wire-spoked wheels, chain droves, and whatever 15 else it took to construct efficient machines that weighed as little as possible. In effect, they were practical engineers at the cheap end of the market, but they happened to be fascinated by flight. Says one writer, “Wilbur [Wright] spent his time studying the flight of vultures, eagles,20 ospreys, and hawks, trying to discover the secret of their ability to maneuver with their wings in unstable air.To those who later asked him how he learned to fly, he loved to reply through his scarcely opened lips: ‘Like a bird.’”

　　This is the point at which engineering intersects with the 25 imagination, with humanity’s ancient dream of freeing itself from gravity. Until the first fliers got to work, the body was earthbound,but it enclosed a soul that flew--- in meditation, in poetry, and, as the seventeenth-century English poet Andrew Marvell showed, sometimes 30 spectacularly in both: Casting the body’ s vest aside My soul into the boughs does glide: There, like a Bird, it sits and sings,Then whets and combs its silver wings,35 And, till prepared for longer flight,Waves in its plumes the various light.At the beginning of this century, the new light engineering that allowed people to fly seemed to the uninitiated a kind of poetry . In 1913 , a writer in the 40 Atlantic Monthly claimed that “machinery is our new art form” and praised “the engineers whose poetry is too deep to look poetic” and whose gifts “have swung. their souls free . . . like gods.” One of Wright’s most eloquent admirers called him a poet and compared him to one of 45 “those monks of Asia Minor who live perched on the tops of inaccessible mountain peaks. The soul of Wilbur Wright is just as high and faraway.” Wright was, in fact, “deeply middle-class and unheroic,¡” writes one biographer, but those obsessed with the glamour of flight pretended not to 50 notice.

　　19. The primary purpose of the passage is to

　　A profile the unique personalities of aviation pioneers

　　B examine the theme pf flight in contemporary poetry

　　C survey the effects of aviation on twentieth-century lifestyles

　　D explain important principles of flight in nontechnical language

　　E discuss how early aviation captured people’s imagination

　　20. In lines 3-9, the description of the steam engine is primarily intended to illustrate

　　A how train engineers provided a model that aviation engineers could follow

　　B how the Industrial Revolution accelerated society’s interest in travel

　　C a form of engineering that emphasized immense mass and strength

　　D a twentieth-century preoccupation with style over

　　practicality

　　E an inefficient mode of transportation whose value was overrated

　　21. The author refers to “the cheap end of the market” (line 17 to make the point that

　　A aviation’s progress was hindered by people who had little concern for quality

　　B the public could afford to fly because airplanes used inexpensive materials

　　C aviators were the target of unwarranted and petty criticism

　　D the pioneers of aviation had modest technological beginnings

　　E nineteenth-century engineering methods were too extravagant

　　22 In lines 3 1 -36, the author quotes Marvell’s poetry primarily to illustrate

　　A the contrast between imaginative and practical engineering

　　B the solution to the mystery of flight

　　C how the advantages of flight outweigh its dangers

　　D how those who analyze the mechanics of flight overlook its beauty

　　E humanity’s deep longing to be able to fly

　　23. The quotation in lines 41-42 (“the engineers. . . poetic” serves to reinforce the point that

　　A machines can be as inspiring as works of art

　　B technology and poetry are both misunderstood

　　C scientific practicality is more important than artistic creativity

　　D the technical language of engineers has a lyrical quality

　　E artistic pretensions are not suitable for engineers

　　24. In lines 47-48, the inclusion of the biographer’s remarks is intended to

　　A criticize an instance of unimaginative thinking

　　B demystify the image of an individual

　　C reiterate a generally accepted view

　　D reassess the importance of an invention

　　E perpetuate the legacy of a scientific hero