大一期末考试英语试题7
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07 Passage 1
Humans are social animals. They live in groups all over the world. As these groups of people live apart from
other groups, over the years and centuries they develop their own habits and ideas, which form unique cultures.
One important aspect of every culture is how its people deal with time.
Time is not very important in nonindustrial societies. The Nuer people of East Africa, for example, do not even
have a word time that corresponds to the abstract thing we call time. The daily lives of the people of such
nonindustrial societies tend to be patterned around their physical needs and natural events rather than around a
time schedule based on the clock. They cook and eat when they are hungry and sleep when the sun goes down.
They plant crops during the growing seasons and harvest them when the crops are ripe. They measure time not by
a clock or calendar, but by saying that an event takes place before or after some other event. Frequently such a
society measures days in terms of "sleeps" or longer periods in terms of "moons. " Some cultures, such as the
Eskimos of Greenland, measure seasons according to the migration of certain animals.
Some preliterate cultures have developed interesting ways of " telling time. " For instance, when several
Australian aborigines want to plan an event for a future time, one of them places a stone on a cliff or in a tree. Each
day the angle of the sun changes slightly. In a few days, the rays of the sun strike the stone in a certain way. When
this happens, the people see that the agreed-upon time has arrived and the event can take place.
In contrast, accurate measurement of time is very important in modern, industrialized societies. This is because
industrialized societies require the cooperative efforts of many people in order to function. For a factory to work
efficiently, for example, all of the workers must work at the same time. Therefore, they must know what time to
start work in the morning and what time they may go home in the afternoon. Passengers must know the exact time
an airplane will arrive or depart. Students and teachers need to know when a class starts and ends. Stores must
open on time in order to serve their customers. Complicated societies need clocks and calendars. Thus, we can see
that if each person worked according to his or her own schedule, a complicated society could hardly function at all.
1. By saying "Humans are social animals", the author means ____
[A] they live all over the world.
[B] they are different from other animals.
[C] they live in communities. [D] they are divided into many groups.
2. Time is not very important in nonindustrial societies. This is because people in those
societies ____
[A] don't have the word "time" in their languages.
[B] don't get accustomed to using clocks and other timepieces.
[C] don't measure time in their daily lives.
[D] don't need to plan their daily lives around an exact time schedule.
3. From this passage, we can infer that the Eskimos of Greenland most probably ____
[A] plant crops during the growing seasons and harvest them when the crops are ripe.
[B] pattern their daily lives around physical needs and natural events.
[C] measure time according to certain animals.
[D] measure days in terms of "sleeps" and "moon. "
4. The Australian aborigines' way of "telling time" is based on ____
[A] the change of the sun rays.
[B] the movement of the earth.
[C] the position of the stone. [D] the position of the tree or the cliff.
5. In the last paragraph, the author considers accurate measurement of time very important mainly
in the sense of ____
[A] modern transportation. [B] factory production
. [C] school education. [D] social cooperation
6. Which of the following is NOT true? ____
[A] In modern societies people often have to follow a common time schedule.
[B] Human beings have different cultures.
[C] Both the Eskimos of Greenland and the Australian aborigines are living in undeveloped
countries.
[D] The Nuer people of East Africa may have difficulty understanding the abstract word "time.
7. Which of the following might be the best title for this passage? ____
[A] Time and Culture[B] The Measurement of Time
[C] Time Schedule and Daily Life [D] Clock, Calendar and Society
Passage 2
In October 1949 the United Nations brought a number of specialists on food to Geneva, to discuss the problems of
eating habits and food supplies of peoples throughout the world. One problem that interested the specialists
particularly was a form of illness, about which little was known, among the children in Africa and Latin America.
