1、公共英语五级-阅读理解(一)及答案解析(总分：175.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Unit 1(总题数：0，分数：0.00)二、Part A(总题数：3，分数：15.00)Text 1Most earthquakes occur within the upper 15 miles of the earths surface. But earthquakes can and do occur at all depths to about 460 miles. Their number decreases as the depth increases. At about 460 miles o
2、ne earthquake occurs only every few years. Near the surface earthquakes may run as high as 100 in a month, but the yearly average does not vary much. In comparison with the total number of earthquakes each year, the number of disastrous earthquakes is very small.The extent of the disaster in an eart
3、hquake depends on many factors. If you carefully build a toy house with an erect set, it will still stand no matter how much you shake the table. But if you build a toy house with a pack of cards, a slight shake of the table will make it fall. An earthquake in Agadir, Morocco, was not strong enough
4、to be recorded on distant instruments, but it completely destroyed the city. Many stronger earthquakes have done comparatively little damage. If a building is well constructed and built on solid ground, it will resist an earthquake. Most deaths in earthquakes have been due to faulty building constru
5、ction or poor building sites. A third and very serious factor is panic. When people rush out into narrow streets, more deaths will result.The United Nations has played an important part in reducing the damage done by earthquakes. It has sent a team of experts to all countries known to be affected by
6、 earthquakes. Working with local geologists and engineers, the experts have studied the nature of the ground and the type of most practical building code for the local area. If followed, these suggestions will make disastrous earthquakes almost a thing of the past.There is one type of earthquake dis
7、aster that little can be done about. This is the disaster caused by seismic sea waves, or tsunamis. (These are often called tidal waves, but the name is incorrect. They have nothing to do with tides.) In certain areas, earthquakes take place beneath the sea. These submarine earthquakes sometimes giv
8、e rise to seismic sea waves. The waves are not noticeable out at sea because of their long wave length. But when they roll into harbors, they pile up into walls of water 6 to 60 feet high. The Japanese call them “tsunamis“, meaning “harbor waves“, because they reach a sizable height only in harbors.
9、 Tsunamis travel fairly slowly, at speeds up to 500 miles an hour. An adequate warning system is in use to warn all shores likely to be reached by the waves. But this only enables people to leave the threatened shores for higher ground. There is no way to stop the oncoming wave.（分数：5.00）(1).Which of
10、 the following CAN NOT be concluded from the passage?A. The number of earthquakes is closely related to depth.B. Roughly the same number of earthquakes occur each year.C. Earthquakes are impossible at depths over 460 miles.D. Earthquakes are most likely to occur near the surfaces.（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(2
11、).The destruction of Agadir is an example of _.A. faulty building construction B. an earthquakes strengthC. widespread panic in earthquakes D. ineffective instruments（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(3).The United Nations experts are supposed to _.A. construct strong buildings B. put forward proposalsC. detect disa
12、strous earthquakes D. monitor earthquakes（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(4).The significance of the slow speed of tsunamis is that people may _.A. notice them out at sea B. find ways to stop themC. be warned early enough D. develop warning systems（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(5).Tsunamis is terrible because _.A. they attack
13、harborsB. a warning system is developedC. there is no way to stop the oncoming waveD. they travel slowly（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.Text 2Why does the Western movie especially have such a hold on our imagination? Chiefly, I think, because it offers serious insights into the problem of violence such as can be f
14、ound almost nowhere in our culture. One of the well-known peculiarities of modern civilized opinion is its refusal to acknowledge the value of violence. This refusal is virtue, but like many virtues it involves a certain willful blindness and it encourages hypocrisy. We train ourselves to be shocked
15、 or bored by cultural images of violence, and our very concept of heroism tends to be a passive one: we are less drawn to the brave young men who kill large numbers of our enemies than to the heroic prisoners who endure torture without capitulating. And in the criticism of popular culture, the prese
16、nce of images of violence is often assumed to be in itself a sufficient ground for condemnation.These attitudes, however, have not reduced the element of violence in our culture but have helped to free it from moral control by letting it take on the aura of “emancipation“. The celebration of acts of
17、 violence is left more and more to the irresponsible. The gangster movie, with its numerous variations, belongs to a cultural “underground“ which glamorizes violence and sets it against all our higher social attitudes. It is more “modern“ genre than the Western movie, perhaps even more profound, bec
18、ause it confronts industrial society on its own ground the city and because, like much of our advanced art, it gains its effects by a gross insistence on its own narrow logic. But it is anti-social, resting on fantasies of irresponsible freedom. If we are brought finally to acquiesce in the denial o
19、f these fantasies, it is only because they have been shown to be dangerous, not because they have given way to higher values of behavior.In war movies, to be sure. it is possible to present violence within a framework of responsibility. But there is the disadvantage that modern war is a co-operative
20、 enterprise in which violence is largely impersonal and heroism belongs to the group more than to the individual. The hero of a war movie is most often simply a leader, and his superiority is likely to be expressed in a denial of the heroic: you are not supposed to be brave, you are supposed to get
21、the job done and stay alive (this too, of course, is a kind of heroic posture, but a new and “practical“ one). At its best, the war movie may represent a more civilized point of view than the Western, and if it was not continually marred by ideological sentimentality we might hope to find it develop
22、ing into a higher form of dry. But it cannot supply the values we seek in the Western movies.These values are in the image of a single man who wears a gun on his thigh. The gun tells us that he lives in a world of violence, and even that he “believes in violence“. But the drama is one of self restra
23、int: the moment of violence must come in its own time and according to its special laws, or else, it is valueless. He is there to remind us of the possibility of style in an age which has put on itself the burden of pretending that style has no meaning, and, in the midst of our anxieties over the pr
24、oblem of violence, to suggest that even in killing or being killed we are not freed from the necessity of establishing satisfactory models of behavior.（分数：5.00）(1).The reason given for our acceptance of a gangsters downfall is our bring convinced that _.A. his behavior is wrong B. he is a threat to
25、societyC. his aspirations are unrealistic D. he represents a denial of freedom（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(2).Violence in modern societies is seen, it is claimed in paragraph 2, as _.A. a symbol of freedom B. something sacredC. morally controlled D. basic to our culture（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(3).The word “acquiesce“
26、 (Line 10, Para. 2) is closest in meaning to _.A. acceptance B. refusal C. devotion D. giving up（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(4).War films present the hero as _.A. pragmatic B. impersonal C. un-heroic D. posturing（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(5).Tile image of the Western hero is intended to show us that _.A. violence need
27、not cause us concernB. killing and death are not importantC. our modern age is lacking in styleD. there is always a need for standards（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.Text 3Travel is at its best a solitary enterprise: to see, to examine, to assess, you have to be alone and unencumbered. Other people can mislead you
28、; they crowd your meandering impressions with their own; if they are companionable they obstruct your view, and if they art-boring they corrupt the silence with non-sequiturs, shattering your concentration with “Oh, look, its raining,“ and “You see it lots of trees here. “ Traveling on your own can
29、be terribly lonely (and it is not understood by Japanese who, coming across you smiling wistfully at an acre of Mexican butter cups tend to say things like “Where is the rest of your team?“), I think of evening in the hotel room in the strange city. My diary has been brought up to date; I hanker for
30、 company: what do I do? I dont know anyone there, so I go out and walk and discover the three streets of the town and rather envy the strolling couples and the people with children. The museums and churches are closed, and toward midnight the streets are empty. If I am mugged, I will have to apologi
31、ze as politely as possible, “I am sorry, sir, but I has nothing valuable on my person.“ Is there a surer way of enraging a thief and driving him to violence?It is hard to, we clearly or to think straight in the company of other people. Not only do I feel, self-conscious, but the perceptions that are
32、 necessary to writing are difficult to manage when someone close by is thinking out loud. I am diverted, but it is discovery, not diversion, that I seek. What is requited is the lucidity of loneliness to capture that vision, which, however banal, seems in my private mood to be special and worthy of
33、interest. There is something in feeling abject that quickens my mind and makes it intensely receptive to fugitive might also be verified and refined; and in any case I had the satisfaction of finishing the business alone. Travel is not a vacation, and it is often the opposite of a rest, “Have a nice
34、 time,“ people said to me at my send-off at South Station, Medford. It was not precisely what I had hoped for. I craved a little risk, some danger, an untoward event, a vivid discomfort, an experience of my own company, and in a modest way the romance of solitude. This I thought might be mine on tha
35、t train to Limon.（分数：5.00）(1).Traveling companions are a disadvantage, according to the writer, because they _.A. give you the wrong impression about the journeyB. distract you from your readingC. intrude on your private observationsD. prevent you from saying what you think（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(2).It ha
36、s been assumed by Japanese that he _.A. belongs to a group of botanists B. is excessively odd to travel aloneC. needs to be directed to his hotel D. has wandered away from his party（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(3).His main concern in the evenings was to _.A. take some physical exercise B. avoid being robbed in
37、the streetC. overcome his loneliness D. explore the sights of the city（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(4).The writer regards his friends farewell to him as _.A. inappropriate B. unsympathetic C. tactless D. cynical（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.(5).We gather from the passage that his main purpose in traveling was to _.A. test h
38、is endurance B. prove his self-sufficiencyC. experience adventure D. respond to new experiences（分数：1.00）A.B.C.D.三、Part B(总题数：1，分数：10.00)In the following article some paragraphs or sentences have been removed for questions 1620, choose the most suitable paragraph or sentence from the lists AF to fit
39、into each of the numbered gaps. There is one paragraph which doesnt fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET 1.Between the end of the World War II and the early sixties, a baby boom occurred in the US, and people born during that period were known as the baby boomers. Bill Clint
40、on is no doubt a typical representative of that generation. Like the 1992 general elections, the presidential election of 1997 was not merely a skirmish between two political parties but also a generation war between the baby boomers and the G.I. generation represented by Bush and Dole.16. _William
41、Jefferson Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, in the mountain city of Hope, Arkansas. In English, “hope“ means “xiwang“.17. _The family circumstances of Clintons childhood years were very unfortunate. Clintons own father died in a traffic accident 3 months before Clinton was born. His stepfather, R
42、oger Clinton, was a habitual drunkard, which caused discord in the family.18. _Self-reliant, diligent and hard working, Clinton gained a good education. In the fall of 1964, he enrolled in Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and majored in international politics. After graduation, he won the f
43、amous Rhodes scholarship pursued advanced studies for 2 years in Englands Oxford University. In 1971, he entered Yale Universitys law college and obtained a doctorate in law two years later. During his university days, Clinton actively participated in the students movement against the Vietnam War, a
44、voided army enlistment, and took a trip to Moscow in 1970.19. _After leaving Yale, Clinton returned to his hometown in Arkansas where he began his political career. In 1974, when he was not quite 28, he formally campaigned for congress. His vivid and dramatic first attempt greatly threatened his opp
45、onents. Though defeated in his campaign, his political talent received confirmation in news and political circles, winning him the title of “child prodigy“. In 1976, Clinton won the post of State Attorney General. In 1978, he succeeded in his campaign for the Governorship and at 32 became the younge
46、st governor in the history of the state of Arkansas. In 1980, he lost to the Republicans in his campaign for re-election but two years later he staged a comeback, which won him the nickname of “undefeated kid“.20. _In October 1997, when Chinas president Jiang Zemin visited the US, he and president C
47、linton reached agreement in the setting up of a constructive, strategic partnership for the 21st century. President Clinton announced that he would move up his visit to China to the end of June in order to give a fresh stimulus to the development and improvement of Sino-US relations.A. Such an exper
48、ience helped Clinton become a man who knew his own mind, had self-restrain and self-control, and was good at competition.B. He kept the Governorship right up until January 1993, when he officially became the master of the White House. His first term of office expired in 1997, but he defeated republi
49、can Dole and was re-elected, and served as president.C. Clintons triumph signaled a shift of US political power from the older generation to the younger one, and might reflect developments of far reaching significance in todays American politics.D. No wonder that later on Clintons supporters often called him “the man from the city of hope“.E. President Clinton has responded by making public apologies to US citizens, who, as recently as the 1950s, we
