中国名校英语六级考试冲刺（五）

Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension(35 minutes)
Directions:There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the center.?
Passage One?
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage:?
    Once upon a time,the United States seemed to have plenty of land to go around.Plenty of rivers to dam and plenty of rural valleys left over.Plenty of space for parks and for cities.Plenty of forests to cut and grasslands to plow.But that was once upon a time.The days of unused land are over.Now the land has been spoken for,fenced off,carved up into cities and farms and industrial parks,put to use.?
    At the same time, the population keeps growing. People need places to work and place to play. So we need more sites for more industries, more beaches for more sunbathers, and more clean rivers for more fishes. And it isn’t just a matter of population growth. Our modern technology has needs that must be met too: We need more coal for energy, and we need more power plants; cars must have highways and parking lots, and jets must have airports.?
Each of these lands uses swallows up precious space. Highways and expressways alone take some 2,000,000 acres each years. And urban sprawl—the spreading out of cities—is expected to gobble up vast areas of land by the year 2000. But there is only so much land to go around.?
    How do you decide what to do with a piece of land? It depends upon the land, and it depend upon the needs of the people and their values. It is always hard to decide. Take, for example, a forest. A forest can be a timber supply. It can provide a home for wildlife. It is scenery and a recreation area for man. It is soil and watershed protection.?
These last two take some explaining. A forest creates its own soil. Leaves and other litter on the forest floor are constantly turned and moved by worms and burrowing animals. Enriched by animal wastes, the litter becomes humus—a rich and spongy mix of organic material. The soil feeds forest plants. The plants in turn protect the soil—roots hold it in place, branches slow rainfall so that it will drop gently to earth. Water slowly trickles through the humus and is purified. Water travels downstream and out to sea.?
    When a forest is cut down, there is nothing left to create or protect the soil. Heavy rains beat and wash away spongy humus. Little soil is left to absorb water. Then rain waters can rush unchecked to the valley below, flooding low-lying areas. If a forest is to supply timber, watershed protection, recreation, and a home for wildlife, it has to be cut carefully. And it must be replanted.?
    In short, land is fragile. Without proper care it can be ruined forever.?
In the debates about how a particular piece of land is to be used, the priorities often conflict. What should you do, for example, if you find out that under the fertile fields of a farming community there is a thick bed of coal which can be strip-minded? Strip mining rips up topsoil and vegetation. But mining may create jobs, bring money to the town’s businesses. Those who approve of strip mining say that the coal is needed, and they point out that it is quicker and cheaper to get coal from the surface than to go deep into the earth to get it by standard mining techniques. On the other hand, it takes nature 500 years to create an inch of topsoil.?As the countryside fills up, people are becoming more aware of the need for open space. Nearly every proposal for a new power plant, highway, or airport draws fierce opposition. Everyone wants the bid, land-eating “uglies” to be in someone else’s backyard. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, for example, having been debating about the site of a future airport for years. Yet if a new airport is needed, it will have to go somewhere. ?
    How do we find our way out of the land-use problem? One way might be to reexamine our values, to think in new directions. Does everyone have to have a car-with its need for highways and parking lots? What about developing mass transit systems that use less land? Do suburbs have to sprawl? Can they be designed so they use less space? Do we have to have more energy? If we do, do we really have to strip-mine coal to provide it? ?
However difficult they may be to arrive at, choices will have to be made if we want to preserve the beauty and usefulness of the land. For there is at least one point on which all of us can agree; the land does have its limits.?
21.Once upon a time,the United States seemed to have plenty of land to __go around__, “go around” means____.?
A) to visit around
B) to see the land?
C) for sharing with every
D) to have the land around?
22.Each of these land uses swallows up precious space, “swallows up” means ____.?
A) occupies B) gives up?C) disappears D) takes completely?
23.In this sentence “In short, land is fragile.”(Line.1, Para. 7), what does the word “fragile” mean??
A) Very poor. B) Rich.?C) Taken. D) Easily destroyed.?
24.The Para 5 mainly discusses ____.?
A) how animal wastes enriched land?
B) how plant roots protected the land?
C) how humus becomes useful?
D) how a forest creates its own soil and protects the watershed?
25.As the countryside fills up, people are becoming more aware of the need for open space, “open space” means ____.?
A) public land B) unoccupied land?C) unplanted land D) private land?

Passage Two?
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:?
    Most of the larger cities in the world have grown without plans and blueprints. London is such a city. Its streets zigzag, snake, and circle. There is no reason or order to its street-numbering system. Indeed, no one but a veteran taxi driver knows the whole of London. And before he gets his cabbie’s license he must first tour the city for months, street by street, then take a comprehensive examination to prove that he can find his way about. New York and Chicago grew in much the same way. They just in spread out, pushed by the demands for residential, business, or industrial space. Like spilled water, they expanded in all directions. Today in New York, even a native-born Manhattanite despairs of finding his way around Brooklyn.?There are a few modern cities, however, that were created out of nothing. They were built strictly by the book according to detailed plans that will also control future growth. Two such American cities are Columbia, Maryland, and Reston, Virginia. But the prime example of a city planned and built from scratch in the twentieth century is Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil.?
    Brasilia was the brain child of Brazil’s President Juscelino Kubitschek, who held office from 1955 to 1960. Kubitschek, like other Brazilian leaders, was concerned that most of Brazil’s people were crammed into its seacoast cities. Rio de Janeiro, then the nation’s capital and its second largest city, occupies a breathtakingly beautiful site on the Atlantic coast. Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, is very near the coast. Consequently, this meant that riches in timber, minerals, and hydroelectric power sources in the interior of the country were untapped. Recognizing that drastic action was needed to develop the interior, Kubitschek decided to build a brand new capital city in the Brazilian Highlands, 600 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro. He chose a site that was right in the middle of the wilderness, on land that had never even been plowed.?
    Ready for business in 1960, Brasilia was an architect’s delight and a planner’s dream. Its public buildings, monuments, and high-rise apartment complexes were magnificently modern. Access roads fed into its streets with no traffic lights. Every feature seemed logical, reasonable, and right. But for more than a decade, Brasilia seemed all wrong to the people brought there to live and to work in government offices. While it was undeniably a beautiful city, it was not yet a community.?
    For it is people and their history of habitation that turn a city from a collection of streets and buildings into a community. It is people who give a city life and character and personality—and a brand-new, tailor-made Brasilia didn’t have those qualities for a long time. But now, happily, its residents no longer feel they need to rush back to Rio or Sao Paulo at every opportunity. Instead, they visit, picnic, and enjoy one another’s company. Brasilia is beginning to feel like home to them.?Other planned cities have faced the same problem of creating a community spirit and identity. Some observers of life in Columbia, Maryland, another planned city, have been concerned with lack of spirit there and have made an interesting comparison between Columbia and Hoboken, New Jersey. Hoboken, an old waterfront town just across the Hudson River from New York City, is an urban planner’s nightmare. It has row upon row of old dingy buildings, and grass and tree are few and far between. Columbia, on the other hand, is an urban planner’s dream. It has charming colonial and modern houses on winding streets. There are lovely lawns and beautiful trees. And there are bicycle paths and hundreds of acres of woods, meadows, and lakes. ?
    Yet something is not quite right. Many Hoboken children are almost fiercely loyal to one another and their community. They may not have lawns and lakes, but they find ways to have fun on the pavements and sidewalks. In Columbia, by contrast, many of the young people seem listless. As one teenager from Detroit put it, “In Detroit it seemed like something was always happening. But here”. And he shrugged his shoulders. ?
    What is it about a treeless,grimy,old city like Hoboken that makes people love it so much?What is it about a beautiful new city like Columbia that makes young people shrug with boredom?These are questions which city planners will have to face up to.For no matter how well it is designed,a city will not ultimately come to life unless it inspires the love and loyalty of the people who live and work in it.?
26.In this sentence “ Indeed, no one but a veteran taxi driver knows the whole of London.”(Sent 5, Para. 1), what does the word “veteran” mean??
Ａ） Local. Ｂ） Experienced.?Ｃ） New. Ｄ） Warm-hearted.?
27.What can we inferred from Para. 1??
A) London’s planning system is sound.?
B) New York and Chicago developed with the help of planning.?
C) It’s difficult to be a cabbie in London.?
D) Finding their way around Brooklyn delights travelers.?
28.Why did Kubitschek decided to build a new capital city??
A) Because he wanted his people to cram into seacoast cities.?
B) Because the new capital city was more prosperous.?
C) Because it was a large city with large population.?
D) Because he thought it necessary to develop inland cities.?
29.Which of the following statements is true??
A) Columbia frightens urban planners.?
B) Although it’s very beautiful, Columbia makes young people bored.?
C) Columbia is just in an urban planner’s dream.?
D) There are rows of grimy buildings and few grass and trees in Columbia.?
30.What is the main idea of this passage??
A) A city must have the spirit to inspire its people, or it will never come to life.?
B) A city’s planning is very important, a well-planned city attracts more people.?
C) Although planned cities are nice, people like old cities more because life in old cities is colorful.?
D) Modern buildings make people love a city.?