1、考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷 188 及答案与解析Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)0 Most parents say good-bye to their kids one at a time. But Stephanie Furstenau Asklof, a middle-school vice principal in Des Moines, Iowa, is the mother
2、 of twins. So last month she had the bittersweet pleasure of emptying the family nest in a single swoop when she and her husband dropped off daughters Adrienne and Tori at Northwestern University. Driving back home afterward, Asklof says, “I probably cried about halfway across Illinois. “ Now, as sh
3、e slowly adjusts to a quiet house, shes grateful to be distracted by work and is still not sure what comes next. “Ive got a chance to reinvent myself, “ says Asklof, 5 2. But how?1. A mass exodus from the nestFor baby-boomer parents, life without kids often feels like suddenly slamming on the brakes
4、 after years in the fast lane. Theyre the healthiest, wealthiest and best-educated generation of parents in human history, and theyve poured their energy into making sure that their kids got the best of everything. Now a great number of kids are leaving their parents.2. Anxieties of life without kid
5、sNearly 30% of 18-year-olds come from single-parent families, which means greater separation anxiety for parents(and kids)because theres really no one at home to talk to. Even in two-parent families, couples often face an unaccustomed silence across the dinner table without kids to make constant con
6、versation. Some discover new ways to reinvigorate their marriagesmoving from the suburbs to the city or planning a romantic holiday in Tuscany. But others struggle.3. Schools now prepare parents for the empty nestIn the old days, schools did next to nothing to prepare parents for the empty nest. It
7、was, “Good-bye, honey. “ and back to the highway. But now the transition has become so fraught that many colleges have begun adding special sessions for parents to the freshman orientation schedule.4. Some parents are happy with life without kidsAfter the first few weeks many parents find that its n
8、ot so bad to live in a clean, peaceful house with only one load of laundry a week.5. Stay-at-home moms have the chance to plan their new lifeIn the past, the empty nest often seemed toughest on stay-at-home moras, who made raising children their career. Thats still true, but now many say they also s
9、ee a chance for a new start.Despite rough moments in the first few weeks, most parents usually have settled into a routine by Thanksgiving, just in time for another rite of passage: the First Visit Home. Parents may be looking for quality time, but the kids are usually eager to hang out with their h
10、igh-school friends. Mark Turnowski, whos been through the drill with his older daughter, Lauren, 25, says the best approach is to welcome them home without too many restrictions on their time. “Parents are there for warmth and security, “ he says, “and then you have to step away. “ That gives them t
11、he space they need to stand on their ownand make their parents proud.ASophia Benders father, Thomas, a history professor at New York University, says one of the “everyday emptinesses“ he feels is at breakfast, when the family would read The New York Times and chat.BA few weeks ago, Shanda Schneider
12、sent her youngest daughter, Molly, 18, off to Northwestern University. As Mollys departure grew closer, she made plans. Last month she started commuting to DePaul University to get a masters degree in public service. Planning her new life was important, she says, because her husband, Joseph, 51, a s
13、urgeon, works long hours.C“What has surprised me is how happy some parents are to be empty nesters, “ says New York child psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld. Thats especially true for working mothers, who no longer feel so torn.DThe goal is to convince mom and dad that letting go is a good thingeven if it
14、 means that their kid might make a few mistakes along the way.EPsychologists who study marriage say the first year without kids is typically the second most stressful adjustment in a marriage; ironically, the only more perilous period is the first year of parenthood.FOver the next few years the numb
15、er of high-school graduates will rise steadily to a peak of 3. 2 million in 2008, the largest class ever.5 Tesco is the closest thing that Europe has to Wal-Mart. The U. K. s leading food and household-goods retailer sells everything from bananas to banking services, all at low prices. Two weeks ago
16、 the chain added yet another product to its massive lineup-phone calls. Tesco wont be the first European retailer to provide Internet phone services to its customers. But it will be the biggest. Whats more, Tesco isnt trying to make money selling phone calls. Its going to use cheap phone calls to se
17、ll you the things it actually does make money onlike clothing, food and household goods.1. The rise of voice-over-Internet servicesWelcome to the 21st-century telecommunications business. Its a place in which pretty much anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can become your phone company.
18、How did this happen? One wordVoIP. Thats “voice over Internet protocol“ for the uninitiated, and its what companies like Skype and Vonage have been offering for a while now. VoIP turns your voice into just another form of digital data that can be sent through the Internet.2. Big telecoms are sufferi
19、ngThe shift is beginning to hit national telecoms and multinational mobile-phone companies. Just look at the last several months worth of profit warnings at companies like France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and, most important, Vodafone, the largest mobile carrier in the world. It derives 80% of its r
20、evenue from voice, compared with an average of 55% for European telecoms, and is thus particularly vulnerable to the rise of voice-over-Internet services.3. Phone services tend to be freeWhile the telecommunications giants are suffering for a variety of reasons, the underlying problem is the same. N
21、ormally, products in highly competitive mass markets eventually become cheap cyclical commodities, which is what is happening to cell phones and all manner of consumer electronics.4. Companies are offering cheap or free Internet phone servicesOver the last year or so, Google, Microsoft, ATT, AOL, Br
22、itish Telecom and hundreds of other companies of all kinds have launched VoIP services.5. A new form of marketingIn a world where the phone is a staple of daily life, providing this service becomes a new way to connect to customers, an intimate form of marketing.The commercial possibilities dont sto
23、p there. Because once a customer is given his special handset and VoIP software, Tesco has made the leap from the grocery cart to the digital hub of the home. And in the Internet age, thats where the money is. Once a company like Tesco is in your home, it can help you manage all sorts of things digi
24、tally what you watch, who you speak to, what you buy, how your fridge gets stocked.ABut the ease of establishing Internet connections is pushing phone services beyond the commodity graveyard toward the purgatory of marketing giveaways, like those plastic toys that come free with your kids Happy Meal
25、.B“Tesco is a big and trusted brand, “notes Ovum telecom analyst Mark Main. “You buy your groceries from them, and maybe even have a Tesco credit card. So why not trust them to deliver your phone service?“ That service becomes either a new way to get customers into the store, or to cement their loya
26、lty. This is not only about simplifying phone services for people, but also about getting them used to the Tesco range of products and services, “says commercial manager Alex Freudmann, who is heading up the companys Internet phone service.CWitness the huge number of media and technology mergers and
27、 acquisitions over the last several months, most of them done with an eye to convergence. The largest deals included the SBC buyout of AT one Italian newspaper now sells phone calls. Like Tesco, all these companies are offering cheap phone connections as a way to lure you into buying their other pro
28、ducts and services.FLargely as a result, Vodafone has seen its share price fall 17% over the last six months.10 Theres a lot of money in religion. Look at the tax-free income of American TV evangelists, or at St Peters and all the goodies in the Papal collection, or the real estate holdings of Austr
29、alias Presbyterian Church. Heavens above, even a minor religious cult can provide its leader with a few hundred Rolls-Royces.1. Shakespeare as a new religionSo this isnt just another magazine column. Its a prospectus, seeking your investment in a new religion based on Shakespeare.2. Shakespeare is,
30、by any measure, extraordinaryThough studied at every university, he never attended one. He didnt own a radio, visit Web sites or watch television. Though his plays were set in Scotland, Rome, Verona and France, he never visited any of them, limiting his travels to commutes between Stratford and Lond
31、on. The poor fellow never had the opportunity to marvel at the view from an aeroplane window or to behold the respective universes revealed by microscope or telescope.3. A giant in human historyShakespeare is profound on virtually any topic you care to choose. On most issues Shakespeare is erudite a
32、nd insightful. Not to mention witty. In the era of silent film alone, there were more than 500 features based on his plays and not just because they were out of copyright. Since then, there have been thousands of films inspired by his texts and while Jesus is much discussed in churches on Sunday, Sh
33、akespeare packs live theatres across the planet six days a week plus matinees. Put Bill on the scales of literature and you need hundreds of other writers to balance his contribution.4. Did Shakespeare write his plays?There are people who still deny that the world is round. So, just as some question
34、 whether Jesus ever existed, there are crackpots who insist that Shakespeare didnt write Shakespeare.5. A greatest celebrity in the worldWere he alive today, Bills royalties would make him wealthier than any royalty. Hed be among the greatest celebrities on Earth, eclipsing even Nicole Kidman. Were
35、he in Australia, hed be able to make a marvellous contribution to the revived republican debate on both sides of the argument. Had he lived in France, he(and Hamlet)would have been a great help to the existentialists, particularly to Camus when writing The Outsider.But back to basing a religion on S
36、hakespeare. True, he hasnt risen from the dead. But, better than that, hes never got around to dying. He remains not only alive but livelier than almost anyone else in human history. Even more so than George Bernard Shaw, who regarded himself as immensely superior. Shakespeares genius is either God-
37、given or, perhaps, he was an extraterrestrial. Either way, send me your cheques and you, too, can profit from a religious Shakesperience. Hallowed be His name.AYes, Dante has made a contribution, while Dickens, Dostoyevsky and David Williamson havent been entirely a waste of time. But all those nove
38、lists, poets, playwrights and pundits amount to little more than a handful of gravel to Bills Qomolangma.BThe principal arguments sound snobbish, apparently based on the fact that he was a working-class scrubber, whereas Marlowe, their preferred author, was more aristocratic and educated.CIn the U.
39、S. , he could have sued Leonard Bernstein for plagiarism over West Side Story, among countless others, for copyright infringements.DShakespeare is not only alive but livelier than almost anyone else in human history.EWell, if you can create one out of an unknown carpenter from Nazareth, whose authen
40、ticated utterances amount to no more than a few hundred words, then think what you could get out of the most celebrated playwright in history.FHe was entirely ignorant of quantum mechanics, germ theory, biology, geology and the theory of evolution and his understanding of human beings was unaided or
41、 untainted by Sigmund Freudianism. So how come this playwright was so smart? So wise? So intelligent?15 ABrokeback Mountain is financially a successBCritical acclaim has been wonCA daring but serious movieDA gay western art movieEA slow and heartbreaking movieFThe process of making Brokeback Mountai
42、n was longBrokeback Mountain, a western about two cowboys, Ennis and Jack, and the convulsive, frustrating, 20-year love affair they endure, has quickly become the favorite topic of every late-night TV host. Jacks plaintive cry to Ennis, “I wish I knew how to quit you!“, is already on T-shirts.【R1】
43、_Critics groups had heaped awards on the stars, director Ang Lee, producers Diana Ossana and James Schamus and screenwriters Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The scrolls gave way to statuettes, handed out at the Golden Globes in front of almost 19 million TV viewers. Brokeback Mountain won for Best Pictur
44、e, Director and Screenplay. The film is the front runner for the Oscars.【R2】 _The next step is to turn buzz into bucks, cachet into cash, and Brokeback Mountain has been doing just that. Opened in a mere six theaters Dec. 9, the film has expanded its screens each week. Late last week, it had amassed
45、 $34 milliona take that could easily reach $100 million between the announcement of the Academy Award nominations(Jan. 31)and Oscar night(Mar. 5). It has now expanded to 1,190 screens.【R3】 _The film has managed to carry the luster of its daring, as one of the rare Hollywood movies that are frank abo
46、ut gay sexuality, without provoking the sustained ire of social and political conservatives. Most of those who disapprove of Brokeback Mountainor think they would if they saw ithave curbed their outrage. They believe its a serious, sensitive movie.【R4】 _Jack and Ennis, who come together on the range
47、 one cold night in 1963, are neither heroes nor villainsand never masters of their fates. They cannot articulate to each other or themselves the love and need they feel. The movie doesnt judge any of that. It observes, compassionately, and thats the secret of its hold on audiences of all social and
48、political persuasions. The movie is heartbreaking because it shows the hearts of two strong menand their womenin the long process of breaking.【R5】 _McMurtry and Ossana bought the rights to Annie Proulxs 11-page story soon after it appeared in the New Yorker in 1997 and have nursed it ever since. But
49、 for years it seemed one of those Hollywood dreams doomed to eternal turnaround. Directors Gus Van Sant and Joel Schumacher were attached to it, then cut loose. Finally Lee signed on. Lee and Schamus submitted the film to the Cannes festival, but were rejected. Not until the fests at Venice, and Toronto, did the Brokeback Mountain team get its first sniff of roses.The films distributor, Focus Features had a marketing strategy that may be called a modified limite
