职称英语《综合类A》预测试卷三

The Fat Problem that Men Face
It is a pleasure to see men of a certain age worrying about their weight.Listening to them is not such a pleasure.Because the men are new at the game,they don't hesitate to discuss the fat problem incessantly.
However women of the same age do not discuss the fat problem,especially not in mixed company.They prefer to face the problem with quiet dignity.Discussing the problem might only draw attention to some stray body part that mnay be successfully tucked away under an article of clothing.
The age at which a man begins to explore the fat problem can vary.The actual problem can manifest it-self in the early 30's,but broad-range discussion usually starts later.There are early nonverbal symptoms.
I've watched the rugged journalist who shares my apartment sneak by with a Diet Coke.His shirts are no longer neatly tucked in to display a trim waist.Recently he has begun to verbalize his anxiety.He tells me,with a sheepish grin,that he is taking his suits to Chinatown to have them"tailored".
Still older men have lost their dignity and rattle on unabashedly.Often wives and children play important roles in their fat-inspection rituals.Take my oldest brother,a former college football player.His daughter says that several times a day he will stand at attention and call out,"Fat,medium or thin?"She knows the correct answer:medium.Thin would be an obvious stretch,and fat may not get her that new video.According to his wife,he stands in front of the mirror in the morning(before the day's meals take their toll),puts his hands behind his head and lurches into a side bend,then clutches the roll that has developed and says,"am I getting fatter?"His wife is expected to answer,"you look like you may have lost a few pounds".
And then there are the ex-husbands a pitiful group.They are extremely vocal.When I go to the movies with one,he confides that he is suffering from great hunger because he is dieting.He hasn't eaten since the pancakes and sausages he wolfed down that morning.He pauses in his monologue while he buys his popcorn.
After the movie,we sprint to a restaurant,where he again pauses to devour a basket of bread.Before he orders his chaste salad and soup,he grows plaintive.Do I think he's fat?

How Human's Personalities and Behaviors are Formed
1 People have wondered for a long time how their personalities and behaviors are formed.It is not easy to explain why one person is intelligent and another is not,or why one is cooperative and another is competitive.
2 Social scientists are,of course,extremely interested in these types of questions.They want to explain why we possess certain characteristics and exhibit certain behaviors.There are no clear answers yet,but two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed.As one might expect,the two approaches are very different from each other.The controversy is often conveniently referred to as"nature vs.nurture".
3 Those who support the"nature"side of the conflict believe that our personalities and behavior pat-terns are largely determined by biological factors.That our environment has little,if anything,to do with our abilities,characteristics and behavior is central to this theory.Taken to an extreme,this theory maintains tha our behavior is pre-determined to such a great degree that we are almost completely governed by our instincts.
4 Those who support the"nurture"theory,that is,they advocate education, are often called behaviorists.
They claim that our environment is more important than our biologically based instincts in determining how we will act.A behaviorist,B.F.Skinner,sees humans as beings whose behavior is almost completely shaped by their surroundings.The behaviorists maintain that,like machines,humans respond to environmental stimuli as the basis of their behavior.
5 Let us examine the different explanations about one human characteristic,intelligence,offered by the two theories.Supporters of the"nature"theory insist that we are born with a certain capacity for learning that is biologically determined.Needless to say:They don't believe that factors in the environment have much in-fluence on what is basically a predetermined characteristic.On the other hand,behaviorists argue that our in-telligence levels are the product of our experiences.Behaviorists suggest that the child who is raised in an environment where there are many stimuli which develop his or her capacity for appropriate responses will ex-perience greater intellectual development.

第三篇
Save Pandas
With the Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund(WWF),China is making a concerted and dedicated effort to save the endangered pandas.The results,officials here in Chengdu indicate,are mixed but encouraging.
A clear disappointment is the failure to breed pandas in captivity,necessary if their decreasing numbers are to be replaced.Another failure has been the incapability to find a natural,readily available food to replace the arrow bamboo.
Despite these failures,success has come on two fronts.One achievement has been the physical rescue effort.Some pandas have been kept alive by salting（空投）the mountains with tons of cooked meat , which pandas will eat as a substitute for bamboo,and by the planting of new bamboo in isolated areas.Animals in some Sichuan areas have been rescued by local peasants and given emergency treatment by animal doctors.
A second achievement is a massive fund-raising effort.Publicity about the pandas plight has resulted in a new$100,000 emergency allocation by the WWF and independent fund drives both in China and abroad.
In spite of this support,there have been conflicts in the panda relief program.One important problem is the difficulty Peking is having balancing the recommendations of environmentalists with China's ambitious goal of agricultural and industrial modernization.
Wolong is but one example of this difficulty.This 494,000-acre preserve was declared a protected area in 1975.Yet 1,800 people,mostly Tibetans,still live in the preserve,logging trucks still roll down the narrow mountain roads,and blasting work still goes on at the site of a new 160,000-kilowatt hydroelectric plant just six miles away.
This all means that the pandas' fight for survival will not be an easy one,even with the concerted effort of man.For in the end,even if they can survive the dangers of the wild,they must still contend with man himself.

第三篇
Nuclear Power and Its Danger
Nqclear power's danger to health,safety,and even life itself can be summed up in one word:radiation.
Nuclear radiation has a certain mystery about it,partly because it cannot be detected by human senses.
It can't be seen or heard,or touched,or tasted,even though it may be all around us.There are other things like that.For example,radio waves are all around us but we can't detect them,sense them,without a radio receiver.Similarly,we can't sense radioactivity without a radiation detector.But unlike common radio waves,nuclear radiation is not harmless to human beings and other living things.
At very high levels,radiation can kill an animal or human being outright by killing masses of cells in vital or-gans.But even the lowest level of radiation can do serious damage.There is no level of radiation that is completely safe.if the radiation does not hit anything important,the damage may not be significant.This is the case when only a few cells are hit,and if they are killed outright.Your body will replace the dead cells with healthy ones.But if the few cells are only damaged,and if they reproduce themselves,you may be in trouble.They reproduce them-selves in a deformed way.They can grow into cancer.Sometimes this does not show up for many years.
This is another reason for some of the mystery about nuclear radiation.Serious damage can be done with-out the victim being aware at the time that damage has occurred.A person can be irradiated and feel fine,then die of cancer five,ten,or twenty years later as a result.Or a child can be born weak or liable to serious illness as result of radiation absorbed by its grandparents.
Radiation can hurt us.We must know the truth.

第一篇
Goal of American Education
Education is an enormous and expensive part of American life.Its size is matched by its variety.
Differences in American schools compared with those found in the majority of other countries lie in the fact that education here has long been intended for everyone一not just for a privileged elite.Schools are ex-pected to meet the needs of every child,regardless of ability,and also the needs of society itself.This means that public schools offer more than academic subjects.It surprises many people when they come here to find high schools offering such courses as typing,sewing,radio repair,computer programming or driver training,along with traditional academic subjects such as mathematics,history,and languages.Students choose their curricula depending on their interests,future goals,and level of ability.The underlying goal of American edu-cation is to develop every child to the utmost of his or her own possibilities,and to give each one a sense of civic and community consciousness.
Schools have traditionally played an important role in creating national unity and"Americanizing"the millions of immigrants who have poured into this country from many different backgrounds and origins.
Schools still play a large role in the community,especially in the small towns.
The approach to teaching may seem unfamiliar to many,not only because it is informal,but also because there is not much emphasis on learning facts.Instead,Americans try to teach their children to think for themselves and to develop their own intellectual and creative abilities.Students spend much time,learning how to use resource materials,libraries,statistics and computers.Americans believe that if children are taught to reason well and to research well,they will be able to find whatever facts they need throughout the rest of their lives.Knowing how to solve problems is considered more important than the accumulation of facts.
This is America's answer to the searching question that thoughtful parents all over the world are asking themselves in the fast-moving time:"How can one prepare today's child for a tomorrow that one can neither predict nor understand?"

The Value of Motherhood
In shopping malls,the assistants try to push you into buying"a gift to thank her for her unselfish love".
When you log onto a website,a small pop-up invites you to book a bouquet for her.Commercial warmth and gratitude are the atmosphere being spread around for this special Sunday in May.
_______(46)The popularity of Mother's Day around the world suggests that Jarvis got all she wanted.
In fact,she got more一enough to make her horrified.
_______ (47)They buy,among other things,132 million cards.Mother's Day is the No.1 holiday for flower purchases.Then there are the various commodities,ranging from jewelry and clothes to cosmetics and washing powder,that take advantage of the promotion opportunities.Because of this,Jarvis spent the last 40 years of her life trying to stop Mother's Day.One protest against the commercialization of Mother's Day even got her arrested一for disturbing the peace,interestingly.
_______(48)As Ralph Fevre,a reporter at the UK newspaper The Guardian,observes,traditionally "motherhood is something that we do because we think it's right."But in the logic of commercialism,people need something in exchange for their time and energy.A career serves this purpose better.
_______(49)So they work hard and play hard.Becoming a mother,however,inevitably handicaps career anticipation.
_______ (50)According to The Guardian,there are twice as many child-free young women as there were a generation ago.Or,they put off the responsibility of parenting until later in their lives.
So,Fevre writes that the meaning of celebrating Mother's Day needs to he updated:"It is to persuade people that parenting is a good idea and to honor people for their attempt to be good people."

Man of Few Words
Everyone chases success,but not all of us want to be famous.
South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee is _______(51)for keeping to himself.When the 63-year-old man was named the 2003 Nobel Prize winner for literature,reporters were warned that they would find him"particularly difficult to_________(52)".
Coetzee lives in Australia but spends part of the year teaching at the, University of Chicago.He seemed _________(53)by the news that he won the US $1.3 million prize.
"It came as a complete surprise.I wasn't even aware they were due to make the announcement,"he said.His_________(54)of privacy led to doubts as to whether Coetzee will attend prize-giving in Stockholm,Sweden,on December 10.But despite being described as_______(55)to track down,the critics agree that his writing is easy to get to know.
Born in Cape Town,South Africa,to an English-speakingfamily,Coetzee_______(56)his break-through in 1980 with the novel"Waiting for the Barbarians".He__________(57)hisplace among the world's leading writers with two Booker prize victories,Britain's highest honour for novels.He first _______(58)in 1983 for the Life and Times of Michael K and his second title came in 1999 for Disgrace.
A major theme in his work is South Africa's former apartheid system,which divided whites from blacks.
_______(59)with the problems of violence,crime and racial division that still exist in the country,his books have enabled ordinary people to understand apartheid_________(60)within.
"I have always been more interested in the past than the future,"he said in a rare interview.
"The past________(61)its shadow over the present.I hope I have made one or two people think _______(62)about whether they want to forget the past completely."In fact this purity in his writing seems to be_________(63)in his personal life.Coetzee is a vegetarian,a cyclist rather than a motorist and he doesn't drink alcohol.But what he has________(64)to literature,culture and the people of South Africa is far greater than the things he has given up."In looking at weakness and failure in life,"the Nobel prize judging panel said,"Coetzee's work_________(65)the divine spark in man."