六级阅读训练（二）

Passage One
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.
    Bill Gates, the billionaire Microsoft chairman without a single earned university degree, is by his success raising new doubts about the worth of the business world’s favorite academic title: the MBA (Master of Business Administration).
    The MBA, a 20th-century product, always has borne the mark of lowly commerce and greed (贪婪) on the tree-lined campuses ruled by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature.
     But even with the recession apparently cutting into the hiring of business school graduates, about 79,000 people are expected to receive MBAs in 1993. This is nearly 16 times the number of business graduates in 1960, a testimony to the widespread assumption that the MBA is vital for young men and women who want to run companies some day.
 “If you are going into the corporate world it is still a disadvantage not to have one,” said Donald Morrison, professor of marketing and management science. “But in the last five years or so, when someone says, ‘Should I attempt to get an MBA,’ the answer a lot more is: It depends.”
 The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs, such as the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has helped inspire self-conscious debates on business school campuses over the worth of a business degree and whether management skills can be taught.
 The Harvard Business Review printed a lively, fictional exchange of letters to dramatize complaints about business degree holders.
 The article called MBA hires “extremely disappointing” and said “MBAs want to move up too fast, they don’t understand politics and people, and they aren’t able to function as part of a team until their third year. But by then, they’re out looking for other jobs.”
 The problem, most participants in the debate acknowledge, is that the MBA has acquired an aura (光环) of future fiches and power far beyond its actual importance and usefulness.
 Enrollment in business schools exploded in the 1970s and 1980s and created the assumption that no one who pursued a business career could do without one. The growth was fueled by a backlash (反冲) against the anti-business values of the 1960s and by the women’s movement.
 Business people who have hired or worked with MBAs say those with the degrees often know how to analyze systems but are not so skillful at motivating people. “They don’t get a lot of grounding in the people side of the business,” said James Shaffer, vice-president and principal of the Towers Per-fin management consulting firm.

1. According to Paragraph 2, what is the general attitude towards business on campuses dominated by purer disciplines?
 A) Scornful C) Envious.
 B) Appreciative. D) Realistic.
2. It seems that the controversy over the value of MBA degrees has been fueled mainly by ______.
 A) the complaints from various employers
 B) the success of many non-MBAs
 C) the criticism from the scientists of purer disciplines
 D) the poor performance of MBAs at work
3. What is the major weakness of MBA holders according to The Harvard Business Review?
 A) They are usually serf-centered.
 B) They are aggressive and greedy.
 C) They keep complaining about their jobs.
 D) They are not good at dealing with people.
4. From the passage we know that most MBAs _______.
 A) can climb the corporate ladder fairly quickly
 B) quit their jobs once they are familiar with their workmates
 C) receive salaries that do not match their professional training
 D) cherish unrealistic expectations about their future
5. What is the passage mainly about?
 A) Why there is an increased enrollment in MBA programs.
 B) The necessity of reforming MBA programs in business schools.
 C) Doubts about the worth of holding an MBA degree.
 D) A debate held recently on university campuses.

Passage Two
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage.

 When school officials in Kalkaska, Michigan, closed classes last week, the media flocked to the story, portraying the town’s 2,305 students as victims of stingy (吝啬的) taxpayers. There is some truth to that; the property-tax rate here is one-third lower than the state average. But shutting their schools also allowed Kalkaska’s educators and the state’s largest teachers’ union, the Michigan Education Association, to make a political point. Their aim was to spur passage of legislation Michigan lawmakers are debating to increase the state’s share of school funding.
 It was no coincidence that Kalkaska shut its schools two weeks after residents rejected a 28 percent property-tax increase. The school board argued that without the increase it lacked the $1.5 million needed to keep schools open.
 But the school system had not done all it could to keep the schools open. Officials declined to borrow against next ear’s state aid, they refused to trim extracurricular activities and they did not consider seeking a smaller―perhaps more acceptable―tax increase. In fact, closing early is costing Kalkaska a significant amount, including $600,000 in unemployment payments to teachers and staff and $250,000 in lost state aid. In February, the school system promised teachers and staff two months of retirement payments in case schools closed early, a deal that will cost the district $275,000 more.
 Other signs suggest school authorities were at least as eager to make a political statement as to keep schools open. The Michigan Education Association hired a public relations firm to stage a rally marking the school closings, which attracted 14 local and national television stations and networks. The president of the National Education Association, the MEA’s parent organization, flew from Washington, D. C., for the event. And the union tutored school officials in the art of television interviews. School supervisor Doyle Disbrow acknowledges the district could have kept schools open by cutting programs but denies the moves were politically motivated.
 Michigan lawmakers have reacted angrily to the closings. The state Senate has already voted to put the system into receivership (破产管理) and reopen schools immediately; the Michigan House plans to consider the bill this week.
6. We learn from the passage that schools in Kalkaska, Michigan, are funded ______.
 A) by both the local and state governments
 B) exclusively by the local government
 C) mainly by the state government
 D) by the National Education Association
7. One of the pumoses for which school officials closed classes was _______.
 A) to avoid paying retirement benefits to teachers and staff
 B) to draw the attention of local taxpayers to political issues
 C) to make the financial difficulties of their teachers and staff known to the public
 D) to pressure Michigan lawmakers into increasing state funds for local schools
8. The author seems to disapprove of _______.
 A) the Michigan lawmakers’ endless debating
 B) the shutting of schools in Kalkaska
 C) the involvement of the mass media
 D) delaying the passage of the school funding legislation
9. We learn from the passage that school authorities in Kalkaska are more concerned about _______.
 A) a raise in the property-tax rate in Michigan
 B) reopening the schools there immediately
 C) the attitude of the MEA’s parent organization
 D) making a political issue of the closing of the schools
10. According to the passage, the closing of the schools developed into a crisis because of ______.
 A) the complexity of the problem
 B) the political motives on the part of the educators
 C) the weak response of the state officials
 D) the strong protest on the part of the students’ parents

Passage Three
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage.

 German Chancellor (首相) Otto Von Bismarck may be most famous for his military and diplomatic talent, but his legacy (遗产) includes many of today’s social insurance programs. During the middle of the 19th century, Germany, along with other European nations, experienced an unprecedented rash of workplace deaths and accidents as a result of growing industrialization. Motivated in part by Christian compassion (怜悯) for the helpless as well as a practical political impulse to undercut the support of the socialist labor movement, Chancellor Bismarck created the world’s first workers’ compensation law in 1884.
 By 1908, the United States was the only industrial nation in the world that lacked workers’ compensation insurance. America’s injured workers could sue for damages in a court of law, but they still faced a number of tough legal barriers. For example, employees had to prove that their injuries directly resulted from employer negligence and that they themselves were ignorant about potential hazards in the workplace. The first state workers’ compensation law in this country passed in 1911, and the program soon spread throughout the nation.
 After World War II, benefit payments to American workers did not keep up with the cost of living. In fact, real benefit levels were lower in the 1970s than they were in the 1940s, and in most states the maximum benefit was below the poverty level for a family of four. In 1970, President Richard Nixon set up a national commission to study the problems of workers’ compensation. Two years later, the commission issued 19 key recommendations, including one that called for increasing compensation benefit levels to 100 percent of the states’ average weekly wages.
 In fact, the average compensation benefit in America has climbed from 55 percent of the states’ average weekly wages in 1972 to 97 percent today. But, as most studies show, every 10 percent increase in compensation benefits results in a 5 percent increase in the numbers of workers who file for claims. And with so much more money floating in the workers’ compensation system, it’s not surprising that doctors and lawyers have helped themselves to a large slice of the growing pie.
11. The world’s first workers’ compensation law was introduced by Bismarck _______.
 A) to make industrial production safer
 B) to speed up the pace of industrialization
 C) out of religious and political considerations
 D) for fear of losing the support of the socialist labor movement
12. We learn from the passage that the process of industrialization in Europe _______.
 A) Was accompanied by an increased number of workshop accidents
 B) resulted in the development of popular social insurance programs
 C) required workers to be aware of the potential dangers at the workplace
 D) met growing resistance from laborers working at machines
13. One of the problems the American injured workers faced in getting compensation in the early 19th century was that ______.
 A) they had to have the courage to sue for damages in a court of law
 B) different sums in the U.S. had totally different compensation programs
 C) America’s average compensation benefit was much lower than the cost of living
 D) they had to produce evidence that their employers were responsible for the accident
14. After 1972 workers’ compensation insurance in the U.S. became more favorable to workers so that _______.
 A) the poverty level for a family of four went up drastically
 B) there were fewer legal barriers when they filed for claims
 C) the number of workers suing for damages increased
 D) more money was allocated to their compensation system
15. The author ends the passage with the implication that ______.
 A) compensation benefits in America are soaring to new heights
 B) the workers are not the only ones to benefit from the compensation system
 C) people from all walks of life can benefit from the compensation system
 D) money floating in the compensation system is a huge drain on the U.S. economy

Passage Four
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.

 Early in the age of affluence (富裕) that followed World War 12, an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, “Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. ... We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate.”
 Americans have responded to Lebow’s call, and much of the world has followed.
 Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world’s two largest economies―Japan and the United Sates -- show consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent.
 Overconsumption by the world’s fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate.
 Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.
 Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow―that, misled by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things.
 Of course, the opposite of overconsumption―poverty―is no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too. Dirpossessed (被剥夺得一无所有的) peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads (游牧民族) turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert.
 If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction?

16. The emergence of the affluent society after World War II ________.
 A) gave birth to a new generation of upper class consumers
 B) gave rise to the dominance of the new egoism
 C) led to the reform of the retailing system
 D) resulted in the worship of consumerism
17. Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is _______.
 A) the conversion of the sale of goods into rituals
 B) the people’s desire for a rise in their living standards
 C) the imbalance that has existed between production and consumption
 D) the concept that one’s success is measured by how much they consume
18. Why does the author say high consumption is a mixed blessing?
 A) Because poverty still exists in an affluent society.
 B) Because moral values are sacrificed in pursuit of material satisfaction.
 C) Because overconsumption won’t last long due to unrestricted population growth.
 D) Because traditional rituals are often neglected in the process of modernization.
19. According to the passage, consumerist culture ________.
 A) cannot thrive on a fragile economy
 B) will not aggravate environmental problems
 C) cannot satisfy human spiritual needs
 D) will not alleviate poverty in wealthy countries
20. It can be inferred from the passage that _______.
 A) human spiritual needs should match material affluence
 B) there is never an end to satisfying people’s material needs
 C) whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issue
 D) how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem

参考答案与详解

1. A.）。观点态度题。本题问根据第二段，在校园中纯理论学科的普遍态度是什么。根据文章第二段：“The MBA, a 20 th-century product, always has borne the mark of lowly commerce and greed on the tree-lined campuses ruled by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature.”出现于20世纪的MBA学位一直以来就在绿树成荫，以哲学、文学等纯理论科目为主的校园内被冠以庸俗商业和贪婪的头衔。单从 lowly commerce 和greed 两词我们也可看出“The general attitude towards business on campuses dominated by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature.”是含有贬义成分的，是蔑视的。故A）为正确答案。B）选项 appreciative “欣赏的”；C）选项envious “羡慕的”；D）选项realistic“现实的”均不符合题意。
2. B）。 细节题。本题问关于MBA学位的价值的争论主要是由于什么引发的。文章第一段说 “Bill Gates, …… is by his success raising new doubts about the worth of the business world’s favorite academic title: the MBA”, 即Bill Gates 的成功使人们开始质疑MBA。第五段中 “The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs, such as the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has helped inspire self-conscious debates on business school campuses over the worth of a business degree and whether management skills can be taught”, 由此句的主语“The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs”,可知B）与题意相符合，故为正确答案。
3. D）。本题问根据《哈拂商业评论》，MBA学位拥有者的主要弱点是什么。文章的倒数第一段和倒数第四段都反映了这一问题。倒数第四段受引“哈拂商业评论”上的一篇文章说，MBA们非常令人失望，“MBAs want to move up too fast, they don’t understand politics and people, and they aren’t able to function as part of a team until their third year. But by then, they’re out looking for other jobs.” 所谓不能成为团队的一部分就是不会和人打交道，不知道协作，另外前面也提到他们不了解人，即不善于和人打交道。倒数第一段 “….. those with the degrees often know how to analyze systems but are not so skilled at motivating people”  即他们善于分析而不善于发挥员工的积极性。这些都说明MBA们不善于处理人际关系。D）not good at dealing with people与题意相符。
4、D）。推断题。本题问根据文章对于大部分MBA，我们可以得到什么结论。由倒数第三段可知，大多数参与辩论的人都承认，问题是MBA已被赋予远远超出其实际的重要性和有用性，可在未来获得财富和权利的这样一种光环。即：大多数拥有MBA的人总是对未来抱有不现实的期待，这正是D）的内容。另外由倒数第四段我们可知他们想迅速晋升，不懂得人际关系，不会与人合作，等他们学会了他们就又去找别的工作了。这也说明他们对自己的前途期望值过高。A）能够爬得相当快，而文章中只说了他们自己想升得快，想并不是能够。文章中只是说他们能够作为团队的一员时就去找其他工作，并没有说他们和同时熟悉了以后就辞职，所以不能选B）。C）说他们拿的工资不符合他们接受的职业训练，这在文章没有提到。
5、C）。主旨题。本题问文章的主题。本文第一段即是全文的主旨句：微软总裁比尔、盖茨，这位从未获得过任何大学学位的亿万富翁，用他的成功向商业社会中最受青睐的MBA（工商管理硕士）学位的价值提出了质疑。这正是C）的内容。A）只是当今的一个现象，借以引出文章主题。B）选项文章没有提及。D）说的过于泛泛，所述争论不明确，没有说清楚到底是关于什么。因此并没有真正切入到文章的主旨问题。
6、A）。推断题。本题问我们可以从文章推出Kalkaska的学校是由谁提供资金的。文章第一段第一句 “….portraying the town’s 2 305 students as victims of stingy taxpayers… the property-tax rate here is one-third lower than the state average.” 当学校被关闭后，媒体称镇上的2 305名学生做了当地吝啬纳税人的牺牲品…这里的财产税率比州财产税率低三分之一。从这里我们可以推断出当地政府通过收税来为学校提供部分资金。再看第一段最后一句， “Kalkaska的学校的教育者们和密歇根教育联合会的目的就是催促密歇根的立法者们正讨论的一项法令的通过，以增加州政府对学校资助的份额。”由此句可知，当地学校的资金一部分也是由州提供的。另外第二段第一句，“在当地居民拒绝接受增加28%的税收两周后，Kalkaska的学校关门停课，这决不是巧合。”由此可以使我们进一步确定税收也是学校资金的一部分