2013年在职工程硕士英语阅读理解练习及答案

 

　　A few common misconceptions. Beauty is only skin-deep. One's physical assets and liabilities don't count all that much in a managerial career. A woman should always try to look her best.

　　Over the last 30 years, social scientists have conducted more than 1,000 studies of how we react to beautiful and not-so-beautiful people. The virtually unanimous conclusion: Looks do matter, more than most of us realize. The data suggest, for example, that physically attractive individuals are more likely to be treated well by their parents, sought out as friends, and pursued romantically. With the possible exception of women seeking managerial jobs, they are also more likely to be hired, paid well, and promoted.

　　Un-American, you say, unfair and extremely unbelievable? Once again, the scientists have caught us mouthing pieties （虔诚） while acting just the contrary. Their typical experiment works something like this. They give each member of a group-college students, perhaps, or teachers or corporate personnel managers- a piece of paper relating an individual's accomplishments. Attached to the paper is a photograph. While the papers all say exactly the same thing the pictures are different. Some show a strikingly attractive person, some an average-looking character, and some an unusually unattractive human being. Group members are asked to rate the individual on certain attributes, anything from personal warmth to the likelihood that he or she will be promoted.

　　Almost invariably, the better looking the person in the picture, the higher the person is rated. In the phrase, borrowed from Salppho, that the social scientists use to sum up the common perception, what is beautiful is good.

　　In business, however, good looks cut both ways for women, and deeper than for men. A Utah State University professor, who is an authority on the subject, explains: In terms of their careers, the impact of physical attractiveness on males is only modest. But its potential impact on females can be tremendous, making its easier, for example, for the more attractive to get jobs where they are in the public eye. On another note, though, there is enough literature now for us to conclude that attractive women who aspire to managerial positions do not get on as well as women who may be less attractive.

　　1. According to the passage, people often wrongly believe that in pursuing a career as manager_____.

　　A. a person's property or debts do not matter much

　　B. a person's outward appearance is not a critical qualification

　　C. women should always dress fashionably

　　D. women should not only be attractive but also high-minded

　　2. The result of research carried out by social scientists show that .

　　A. people do not realize the importance of looking one's best

　　B. women in pursuit of managerial jobs are not likely to be paid well

　　C. good-looking women aspire to managerial positions

　　D. attractive people generally have an advantage over those who are not

　　3. Experments by scientists have shown that when people evaluate individuals on certain attributes .

　　A. they observe the principle that beauty is only skin-deep

　　B. they do not usually act according to the views they support

　　C. they give ordinary-looking persons the lowest ratings

　　D. they tend to base their judgment on the individual's accomplishments

　　4. "Good looks cut both ways for women" (Line 1, Para. 5) means that .

　　A. attractive women have tremendous potential impact on public jobs

　　B. good-looking women always get the best of everything

　　C. being attractive is not always an advantage for women

　　D. attractive women do not do as well as unattractive women in managerial positions

　　5. It can inferred from the passage that in the business world .

　　A. handsome men are not affected as much by their looks as attractive women are

　　B. physically attractive women who are in the public eye usually do quite well

　　C. physically attractive men and women who are in the public eye usually get ahmg quite well

　　D. good looks are important for women as they are for men

　　参考答案：B D B C C

 

　　Whether the eyes are "the windows of the soul" is debatable, that they are intensely important in interpersonal communication is a fact. During the first two months of a baby's life, the stimulus that produces a smile is a pair of eyes. The eyes need not be real: a mask with two dots will produce a smile. Significantly, a real human face with eyes covered will not motivate a smile, nor will the sight of only one eye when the face is presented in profile. This attraction to eyes as opposed to the nose or mouth continues as the baby matures: In one study, when American four-year-olds were asked to draw people, 75 percent of them drew people with mouths, but 99 percent of them drew people with eyes. In Japan, however, where babies are carried on their mother's back, infants do not acquire as much attachment to eyes as they do in other cultures. As a result, Japanese adults make little use of the face either to encode or decode meaning. In fact, Argyle reveals that the "proper place to focus one's gaze during a conversation in Japan is on the neck of one's conversation partner."

　　The role of eye contact in a conversational exchange between two Americans is well defined: speakers make contact with the eyes of their listener for about one second, then glance away as they talk; in a few moments they re-establish eye contact with the listener or reassure themselves that their audience is still attentive, then shift their gaze away once more. Listeners, meanwhile, keep their eyes on the face of the speaker, allowing themselves to glance away only briefly. It is important that they be looking at the speaker at the precise moment when the speaker re-establishes eye contact: if they are not looking, the speaker assumes that they are disinterested and either will pause until eye contact is resumed or wild terminate the conversation. Just how critical this eye maneuvering is to the maintenance of conversational flow becomes evident when two speakers are wearing dark glasses: there may be a sort of traffic jam of words caused by interruption, false starts, and unpredictable pauses.

　　1. The author is convinced that the eyes are .

　　A. of extreme importance in expressing feelings and exchanging ideas

　　B. something through which one can see a person's inner world

　　C. of considerable significance in making conversations interesting

　　D. something the value of which is largely a matter of long debate

　　2. Babies will not be stimulated to smile by a person .

　　A. whose front view is fully perceived

　　B. whose face is covered with a mask

　　C. whose face is seen from the side

　　D. whose face is free of any covering

　　3. According to the passage, the Japanese fix their gaze on their conversation partner's neck because .

　　A. they don't like to keep their eyes on the face of the speaker

　　B. they need not communicate through eye contact

　　C. they don't think it polite to have eye contact

　　D. they didn't have much opportunity to communicate through eye contact in babyhood

　　4. According to the passage, a conversation between two Americans may break down due to .

　　A. one temporarily glancing away from the other

　　B. eye contact of more than one second

　　C. improperly-timed ceasing of eye contact

　　D. constant adjustment of eye contact

　　5. To keep a conversation flowing smoothly, it is better for the participants .

　　A. not to wear dark spectacles

　　C. not to glance away from each other

　　B. not to make any interruptions

　　D. not to make unpredictable pauses

　　参考答案：A C D C A

 

　　The biographer has to dance between two shaky positions with respect to the subject (研究对象) . Too close a relation, and the writer may lose objectivity. Not close enough, and the writer may lack the sympathy necessary to any effort to portray a mind, a soul—the quality of life. Who should write the biography of a family, for example? Because of their closeness to the subject, family members may have special information, but by the same token, they may not have the distance that would allow them to be fair. Similarly, a king's servant might not be the best one to write a biography of that king. But a foreigner might not have the knowledge and sympathy necessary to write the king's biography—not for a readership from within the kingdom, at any rate.

　　There is no ideal position for such a task. The biographer has to work with the position he or she has in the world, adjusting that position as necessary to deal with the subject. Every position has strengths and weaknesses: to thrive, a writer must try to become aware of these, evaluate them in terms of the subject, and select a position accordingly.

　　When their subjects are heroes or famous figures, biographies often reveal a democratic motive: they attempt to show that their subjects are only human, no better than anyone else. Other biographies are meant to change us, to invite us to become better than we are. The biographies of Jesus (耶稣) found in the Bible are in this class.

　　Biographers may claim that their account is the "authentic" one. In advancing this claim, they are helped if the biography is "authorized" by the subject; this presumably allows the biographer special access to private information. "Unauthorized" biographies also have their appeal, however, since they can suggest an independence of mind in the biographer. In book promotions, the "unauthorized" characterisation usually suggests the prospect of juicy gossip that the subject had hoped to suppress. A subject might have several biographies, even several "authentic" ones. We sense intuitively that no one is in a position to tell "the" story of a life, perhaps not even the subject, and this has been proved by the history of biography.

　　1. According to the author, an ideal biographer would be one who .

　　A. knows the subject very well and yet maintains a proper distance from him

　　B. is close to the subject and knows the techniques of biography writing

　　C. is independent and knows the techniques of biography writing

　　D. possesses special private information and is sympathetic toward the subjeet

　　2. The author cites the biographies of Jesus in the Bible in order to show that .

　　A. the best biographies are meant to transform their readers

　　B. biographies are authentic accounts of their subjects' lives

　　C. the best biographies are those of heroes and famous figures

　　D. biographies can serve different purposes

　　3. Which of the following statements is true, according to the passage?

　　A. An authentic biography seldom appeals to its readers.

　　B. An authentic biography is one authorized by the subject.

　　C. No one can write a perfect biography.

　　D. Authorized biographies have a wider readership.

　　4. An unauthorized biography is likely to attract more readers because .

　　A. it portrays the subject both faithfully and vividly

　　B. it contains interesting information about the subject s private life

　　C. it reveals a lot of accurate details unknown to outsiders

　　D. it usually gives a sympathetic description of the subject's character

　　5. In this passage, the author focuses on .

　　A. the difficulty of a biographer in finding the proper perspective to do his job

　　B. the secret of a biographer to win more readers

　　C. the techniques required of a biographer to write a good biography

　　D. the characteristics of different kinds of biographies Questions

　　参考答案：A D C B A

 

　　One silly question I simply cannot tolerate is "How do you feel?" Usually the question is asked of a man in action—a man walking along the street, or busily working at his desk. So what do you expect him to say? He'll probably say, "Fine, I 'm all right." But you have put a bug a his ear-maybe now he is not sure. If you are his good friend, you may have seen something on his face, or in his walk, that he overlooked that morning. It makes him worrying a little. He looks in a mirror to see if everything is all right, while you go merrily on your way asking someone else, "How do you feel?"

　　Every question has its time and place. It's perfectly acceptable, for instance, to ask "How do you feel?" if you are visiting a close friend in the hospital. But if the fellow is walking on both legs, hurrying to take a train or sitting at his desk working, it's no time to ask him that silly question.

　　When George Bernard Shaw, the famous British writer of plays was in his eighties, someone asked him, "How do you feel?" Shaw put him in his place. "When you reach my age," he said, "either you feel all right or you are dead."

　　1. According to the writer, greetings, such as "How do you feel?" .

　　A. show one's consideration for others

　　B. are a good way to make friends

　　C. are proper to ask a man in action

　　D. generally make one feel uneasy

　　2. The question "How do you feel?" seems to be correct and suitable when asked of .

　　A. a friend who is ill

　　B. a person who has lost a close friend

　　C. a stranger who looks somewhat worried

　　D. a man who is working at his desk

　　3. George Bernard Shaw's reply in this passage shows his .

　　A. silliness

　　B. cleverness

　　C. carelessness

　　D. politeness

　　4. "You have put a bug in his ear" means that you have .

　　A. made him laugh

　　B. shown concern for him

　　C. made fun of him

　　D. given him some kind of warning

　　5. This passage can be entitled .

　　A. A Silly Question

　　B. Don't Trouble a Busy Man

　　C. What Are Good Greetings

　　D. George Bernard Shaw's Reply

　　参考答案：D A B D A