Unit 17All things are difficult before they are easy.万事开头难。
P art ADirections：Read the following texts. Answer the questions blow each text by choosing [A],[B],[C] or [D].Text 1The United States Interstate Highway System is an infrastructure feat of unprecedented proportions. Not only does it join all fifty states in the union together allowing for rapid transport of goods and people, but it also has legitimate claim to the title of the largest public worker program in history. The project was motivated by both military and economic goals. Interest in the project existed since the early 1940s, but was delayed by the outbreak of World War II, followed by the postwar recovery. Although approved by Congress in 1944, the building did not actually begin until 1956.The postwar prosperity in America accentuated the need for such a massive infrastructure project. After America’s success in World War II and recovery of its economy from the Great Depression, the population’s disposable income soared, allowing most families to purchase automobiles, previously thought of as luxury items. With the sudden boom of cars, a more efficient road on which to travel was desperately needed, and the interstate highway system provided that, allowing travelers to safely and reliably visit other states or destinations closer to home.The same surge in car ownership that created the need for the interstate highway system also provided the means by which to pay for the project. A new tax on gasoline provided 90 percent of the funding for the project, and state taxes covered the remaining 10 percent. With the new highway system in place, not only could travelers visit previously unfeasible destinations on their holidays and vacations, but businesses could transport their products to markets in other states, increasing competition across the country, to the benefit of consumers and product quality alike.The military had a keen eye on the system as well. Troop transport was now possible to all corners of America in a rapid and efficient manner, and the long stretches of straight highways instantly provided runways for military aircraft in times of emergency. The country, linked together by a network, of roads that greatly reducedtravel time, could now more efficiently be defended.In the last forty years alone, 17 trillion miles have been traveled on the US Interstate Highway System. Those miles can be equated to three trips around the world for every American, a trip to the moon for 75 million people, or three light years in space. No matter what figure is used, the numbers are stunning. The interstate highway has gotten and continues to get people where they need to go in America, and at a fraction of the time it would otherwise take.1. The outbreak of World War II[A] wasted precious time by delaying the Interstate Highway project.[B] had a positive impact by contributing to the means by which the Interstate Highway System was built.[C] delayed the start of the project but resulted in more money by which to fund it.[D] spurred the military to throw their support in favor of the Interstate Highway project.2. The US Interstate Highway System was built mainly[A] to respond to urgent needs that had arisen.[B] in order to better defend a country in a time of war.[C] with economic and businesses in mind.[D] from state taxpayer dollars.3. What can we infer from the Paragraph 3?[A] The tax on gasoline was the most efficient way by which to fund the building of the interstate highway system.[B] The interstate highway system was an immense financial burden that required huge amounts of resources to complete.[C] Without the postwar surge in car ownership, funding for the interstate highway system would have been insufficient.[D] Those who stood to benefit most from the interstate highway system provided the majority of the funding for its construction.4. By “Those miles…in space”(Line 2-3, Para.5), the author intends to[A] stress the effects of the interstate highway system that continue to this day.[B] highlight the incredible distances that have been traveled on the interstate highway system.[C] state the distances traveled on the interstate highway system in more comparable terms.[D] make a final statement attesting to the greatness of the interstate highway system.5. The author views the United States Interstate Highway System with[A] whole-hearted approval.[B] a judgment of the good outweighing the bad.[C] positive feelings on its economic impact.[D] critical support.Text 2The word science is heard so often in modern times that almost everybody has some notion of its meaning. On the other hand, its definition is difficult for many people. The meaning of the term is confused, but everyone should understand its meaning and objectives. Just to make the explanation as simple as possible, suppose science is defined as classified knowledge (facts).Even in the true sciences distinguishing fact from fiction is not always easy. For this reason great care should be taken to distinguish between beliefs and truths. There is no danger as long as a clear difference is made between temporary and proved explanations. For example, hypotheses and theories are attempts to explain natural phenomena. From these positions the scientist continues to experiment and observe until they are proved or discredited. The exact status of any explanation should be clearly labeled to avoid confusion.The objectives of science are primarily the discovery and the subsequent understanding of the unknown. Man cannot be satisfied with recognizing that secrets exist in nature or that questions are unanswerable; he must solve them. Toward that end specialists in the field of biology and related fields of interest are directing much of their time and energy.Actually, two basic approaches lead to the discovery of new information. One, aimed at satisfying curiosity, is referred to as pure science. The other is aimed at using knowledge for specific purposes—for instance, improving health, raising standards of living, or creating new consumer products. In this case knowledge is put to economic use. Such an approach is referred to as applied science.Sometimes practical-minded people miss the point of pure science in thinking only of its immediate application for economic rewards. Chemists responsible for many of the discoveries could hardly have anticipated that their findings would one day result in applications of such a practical nature as those directly related to life and death. The discoveries of one bit of information opens the door to the discovery of another. Some discoveries seem so simple that one is amazed they were not made years ago; however, one should remember that the construction of the microscope had to precede the discovery of the cell. The hosts of scientists dedicating their lives to pure science are not apologetic about ignoring the practical side of their discoveries; they know from experience that most knowledge is eventually applied.6. We may simply define science as[A] the study of unrelated subjects.[B] an attempt to explain natural phenomena.[C] the study of related fields.[D] labelled knowledge.7. A scientist interested in adding to our general knowledge about oxygen would probably call his approach[A] applied science.[B] agriculture science.[C] pure science.[D] environmental science.18. Pure science, leading to the construction of a microscope,[A] may lead to antiscientific, “impure” results.[B] necessarily precedes applied science, leading to the discovery of a cell.[C] is not always as pure as we suppose.[D] necessarily results from applied science and the discovery of a cell.9. On which of the following statements would the author most probably agree?[A] Scientists engaged in theoretical research should not be blamed for ignoring the practical side of their discoveries.[B] Today few people have any notions of the meaning of science.[C] In science, it is not difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.[D] Practical-minded people can understand the meaning and objectives of pure science.10. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?[A] The Nature of Science and Scientists[B] Biology and the Science and Scientist[C] Hypotheses and Theories[D] On Distinguishing Fact from FictionText 3Great emotional and intellectual resources are demanded in quarrels; stamina helps, as does a capacity for obsession. But no one is born a good quarreler, the craft must be learned.There are two generally recognized apprenticeships. First, and universally preferred, is a long childhood spent in the company of fractious siblings. After several years of rainy afternoon, brothers and sisters develop a sure feel for the tactics of attrition and the niceties of strategy so necessary in first-rate quarreling.The only child, or the child of peaceful or repressed households, is likely to grow up failing to understand that quarrels, unlike arguments, are not about anything, least of all the pursuit of truth. The apparent subject of a quarrel is a mere pretext; the real business is the quarrel itself.Essentially, adversaries in a quarrel are out to establish or rescue their dignity; hence the elementary principle: anything may be said.The unschooled, may spend an hour with knocking heart, sifting the consequences of calling this old acquaintance a lying fraud.Those who miss their first apprenticeship may care to enroll in the second, the bad marriage, This can be perilous for the neophyte; the mutual intimacy of spouses makes them at once more vulnerable and more dangerous in attack. Once sex is involved, the stakes are higher all round. And there is an unspoken rule that those who love, or have loved, one another are granted a license for unlimited beastliness as is denied to mere sworn enemies.For all that some of our most tenacious black belt quarrelers have come to it late in life and mastered every throw.A quarrel may last years. Among brooding types with time on their hands, likewriters, half a lifetime is not uncommon. In its most refined form, a quarrel may consist of the participants not talking to each other. They will need to scheme laboriously to appear in public together to register their silence.Brief, violent quarrels are also known as rows. In all cases the essential ingredient remains the same; the original cause must be forgotten as soon as possible. From here on, dignity, pride, self-esteem, honor are quarrelling, like jealousy, is an ail-consuming business, virtually a profession. For the quarreler’s very self hood is on the line. To lose an argument is a brief disappointment, much like losing a game of tennis; but to be crushed in a quarrel, rather bite off your tongue and spread it at your opponent’s feet.11. The expression“rainy afternoon”(Line 3，Para.2) implies a time when[A] brothers and sisters had to play at home.[B] brothers and sisters felt depressed.[C] family members need money.[D] it is raining in the afternoon.12. The difference between a quarrel and an argument is[A] the former involves individual pride.[B] the former concerns strong points of view.[C] the latter has well-established rules.[D] the latter concerns trivial issues.13. During the quarrel, either among children or between spouses[A] brutality is apparent.[B] politeness is used as a weapon.[C] skillful tactics are employed.[D] feeling is exaggerated.14. The word “register” (Line 5，Pra.6) means[A] show. [B] enroll. [C] conceal. [D] reconcile.15. What does the passage mainly talk about?[A] The reason why quarrel is bitter.[B] How to mind your words while arguing.[C] The characteristics of a quarrel.[D] How to make a good quarrel.Text 4After their 20-year-old son hanged himself during his winter break from the University of Arizona five years ago, Donna and Phil Satow wondered what signs they had overlooked, and started asking other students for answers.What grew from this soul searching was Ulifeline (www. ulifeline, org), a website where students can get answers to questions about depression by logging on through their universities. The site has been adopted as a resource by over 120 colleges, which can customize it with local information, and over 1.3 million students have logged on with their college IDs.“It’s a very solid website that raises awareness of suicide, de-stigmatizesmental illness and encourages people to seek the help they need,” said Paul Grayson, the director of counseling services at New York University, which started using the service nearly a year ago.The main component of the website is the Self-E-Valuator, a self-screening program developed by Duke University Medical Center that tests students to determine whether they are at risk for depression, suicide and disorders like anorexia and drug dependence. Besides helping students, the service compiles anonymous student data, offering administrators an important window onto the mental health of its campus.The site provides university users with links to local mental health services, a catalog of information on prescription drugs and side effects, and access to Go Ask Alice, a vast archive developed by Columbia University with hundreds of responses to anonymously posted inquiries from college students worldwide. For students concerned about their friends, there is a section that describes warning signs for suicidal behavior and depression.Yet it is hard to determine how effective the service is. The anonymity of the offline service can even play out as a negative. “There is no substitute for personal interaction,”said Dr. Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, based in Washington.Ulifeline would be the first to say that its service is no replacement for an actual therapist. “The purpose is to find out if there are signs of depression and then direct people to the right places,” said Ron Gibori, execut ive director of Ulifeline.Mrs. Satow, who is still involved with Ulifeline, called it “a knowledge base” that might have prevented the death of her son, Jed. “If Jed’s friends had known the signs of depression, they might have seen something,” she sai d.16.The son of Mr. and Mrs. Satow is mentioned to[A] introduce the topic of a website called Ulifeline[B] show the suffering of Mr. and Mrs. Satow[C] describe the Satows’ confusion over their son’s death[D] report the suicide of a young man17. Why do many colleges adopt the website Ulifeline?[A] It provides their students with campus information[B] It offers medical treatment to students in mental disorder[C] It encourages their students to seek advice about depression[D] It gives their students various help they may need18. Which of the following is true of Go Ask Alice?[A] It is a kind of side effect caused by some prescription drugs.[B] It counsels college students on mental problems[C] It is a collection of medical responses from students the world over[D] It describes the various signs of mental disorders19. The sentence “Yet it is…the service is.”(Line 1, Para. 6) shows that[A] a therapist’s office is the first place for the depressed to go.[B] the help given by the web service is doubtful.[C] doctors have expressed a negative view of the service.[D] only actual therapist can ensure adequate treatment.20. To which of the following is Mrs. Satow likely to agree?[A] J ed’s friends can prevent her son’s death[B] H er son’s suicide i s unavoidable[C] Ulifeline is a worthwhile website[D] Depression is the final cause of suicidesPart BDirections: You are going to read a list of headings and a text about City Onwards and Outwards. Choose the most suitable heading from the list [A]-[F] for each numbered paragraph (21-25). The first and last paragraphs of the text are not numbered. There is one extra heading which you do not need to use.[A] The vague future situation of city sprawl[B] Tax-base competition encourages city sprawl[C] Reasons for city sprawl[D] The drawbacks of city sprawl[E] The continuing process of city sprawls[F] The government’s role in the process of city sprawl.Even on paper, urban sprawl looks ugly. It looks more so from the 110th floor of Chicago’s Sears Tower. From there you can survey, into the misty distance, a metropolitan area that now encompasses no fewer than 265 separate municipalities and covers 3,800 square miles in six northeastern Illinois counties. The expansion of the region is sometimes described as growth. More accurately, Chicago has simply spread out. Between 1970 and 1990 the population of the metro area increased by only 4%, while land used for housing increased by 46%. More telling, land used for commercial development increased by a whopping 74%.21.A recent series in the Chicago Tribune, “The Graying of Suburbia”, documented the population decline of inner-ring towns ranging from dilapidated Dolton and Harvey to relatively up market Elmhurst and Skokie. In the harder-hit cases, population loss has been compounded by falling property values along with rising crime and unemployment. Less mobile and poorer groups live isolately in the inner cities, and the city’s infrastructure is abandoned. Worse, these problems are now overtaking the very suburbs that were once supposed to escape them.22.The expanding towns on the edges make no apology for their prosperity. Sprawl is natural, they argue; Americans live in smaller households and they want bigger houses. Businesses in turn follow the outwardly mobile workers. They also appreciate the cheaper land and better roads. As a case in point, ask Sears. The very company that built the magnificent downtown skyscraper relocated 5,000 workers to the outer suburb of Hoffman Estates in 1992.23.An article published this summer by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago shows that various incentives in the federal tax code, including the deductibility of mortgage payments, promote over-consumption of housing. The code also allows taxpayers to defer capital-gains taxes if they buy a new home of equal or greater value, which pushes buyers towards higher-priced houses—most of them on the edges of cities. Another subsidy is provided for cars, the sine qua non of suburban life. By some estimates, existing taxes on motorists cover only 60% of the real costs of government road-related services.24.Far from expanding under one central authority, almost all metro areas are tended by a hotch-potch of city, town and other smaller governments. The quality of the services provided by these governments depends on the quality of the local property that they have to tax; so aggressive jurisdictions offer rebates or subsidies to win juicy new developments. The outcome, on one front, is often the premature development of new land. Towns on the outskirts, armed with subsidies and plenty of space, lure development away from the center.25.Over the long term, there is a chance that sprawl will not go unmanaged for ever: that the price of inner-city decline will eventually become too high. But it has not reached that point yet. The inner areas would like to see a regionally coordinated effort to pursue economic development (to diminish tax-base competition), or a region-wide sharing of commercial tax revenues, as has been tried to good effect in the Minneapolis-St Paul metropolitan area. But the deeper incentives to sprawl will still remain. Subsidies for home ownership are well guarded by lobbyists in Washington, and local governments are rightly jealous of their self-determination. For the time being, metropolitan areas like Chicago will just keep expanding.Part CDirections:Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese.In the late 20th century, information has acquired two major utilitarian connotations. On the one hand, it is considered an economic resource, somewhat on a par with other resources such as labor, material, and capital. 26)This view stems from evidence that the possession, manipulation, and use of information can increase the cost-effectiveness on many physical and cognitive processes. The rise in information-processing activities in industrial manufacturing as well as in human problem solving has been remarkable. Analysis of one of the three traditional divisions of the economy, the service sector, shows a sharp increase in information-intensive activities since the beginning of the 20th century. By 1975 these activities accounted for half of the labor force of the United States, giving rise to the so-called information society.As an individual and societal resource, information has some interestingcharacteristics that separate it from the traditional notions of economic resources.27)Unlike other resources, information is expansive, with limits apparently imposed only by time and human cognitive capabilities. Its expansiveness is attributable to the following: (1) it is naturally diffusive; (2) it reproduces rather than being consumed through use; and (3) it can be shared only, not exchanged in transactions. At the same time, information is compressible, both syntactically and semantically.28)Coupled with its ability to be substituted for other economic resources, its transportability at very high speeds, and its ability to impart advantages to the holder of information, these characteristics are at the base of such societal industries as research, education, publishing, marketing, and even politics. Societal concern with the husbanding of information resources has extended from the traditional domain of libraries and archives to encompass organizational, institutional, and governmental information under the umbrella of information resource managementThe second perception of information is that it is an economic commodity, which helps to stimulate the worldwide growth of a new segment of national economies —the information service sector. 29)Taking advantage of the properties of information and building on the perception of its individual and societal utility and value, this sector provides a broad range of information products and services. By 1992 the market share of the U. S. information service sector had grown to about $ 25 billion. This was equivalent to about one-seventh of the country’s computer market, which, in turn, represented roughly 40 percent of the global market in computers in that year. 30)However, the probably convergence of computers and television which constitutes a market share 100 times larger than computers and its impact on information services, entertainment, and education are likely to restructure the respective market shares of the information industry before the onset of the 21st century.做题点拨与全文翻译Part AText 1语境词汇1.infrastructure n.基础结构，基础设施2.feat n.业绩，功绩3.unprecedented a.无前例的；空前的4.legitimate a.合理的；法定的5.accentuate v.强调，使更突出6.disposable a.可支配的；一次性的7.surge n.急剧上升，猛增；(感情等的)洋溢8.unfeasible a.不能实行的，难实施的9.stunning a.令人震惊的；出色的难句突破1.[With the sudden boom of cars], (a more efficient) road (on which to travel) was[desperately] needed, and the interstate highway system provided that, [allowing travelers to safely and reliably visit other states or destinations closer to home]. 【分析】本句是由and引导的并列句。
