GRE阅读练习每日一篇(四)

　　编辑点评： GRE阅读的方法相信大家已经积累了很多了，本文就为大家提供一些GRE阅读的材料，大家来练一练，把平时学到的东西运用到实际中，也多多积累词汇和句子，提高自己的阅读能力。

　　每天做一些标准的GRE阅读练习，有助于大家在GRE考试的复习过程中不断地进行练习和总结。希望大家在进行GRE阅读练习时，充分运用平时所积累的知识，这样才能有效果。

　　Although scientists observe that an organism s behavior falls into rhythmic patterns, they disagree about how these patterns are affected when the organism is transported to a new environment. One experimenter, Brown, brought oysters from Connecticut waters to Illinois waters. She noted that the oysters initially opened their shells widest when it was high tide in Connecticut, but that after fourteen days their rhythms had adapted to the tide schedule in Illinois. Although she could not posit an unequivocal causal relationship between behavior and environmental change, Brown concluded that a change in tide schedule is one of several possible exogenous influences on the oysters rhythms. Another experimenter, Hamner, however, discovered that hamsters from California maintain their original rhythms even at the South Pole. He concluded that endogenous influences seem to affect an organism s rhythmic behavior.

　　17. All of the following could be considered examples of exogenous influences on an organism EXCEPT the influence of the

　　level of a hormone on a field mouse s readiness for mating

　　temperature of a region on a bear s hibernation

　　salt level of a river on a fish s migration

　　humidity of an area on a cat s shedding of its fur

　　proximity of an owl on a lizard s searching for food

　　18. Which of the following statements best describes the conclusion drawn by Brown

　　A change in tide schedule is the primary influence on an oyster s rhythms.

　　A change in tide schedule may be an important exogenous influence on an oyster s rhythms.

　　Exogenous influences, such as a change in tide schedule, seldom affect an oyster s rhythms.

　　Endogenous influences have no effect on an oyster s rhythms.

　　Endogenous influences are the only influences on an oyster s rhythms.

　　19. The passage suggests that Brown s study was similar to Hamner s in which of the following ways?

　　I. Both experimenters discovered that a new environment had a significant effect on an organism s behavior rhythms.

　　II. Both experimenters observed an organism s behavioral rhythms after the organism had been transported to a new environment.

　　III. Both experimenters knew an organism s rhythmic patterns in its original environment.

　　I only

　　II only

　　I and II only

　　II and III only

　　I, II, and III

　　20. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken Brown s conclusion?

　　The oyster gradually closed their shells after high tide in Illinois had passed.

　　The oysters behavioral rhythms maintained their adaptation to the tide schedule in Illinois throughout thirty days of observation.

　　Sixteen days after they were moved to Illinois, the oysters opened their shells widest when it was high tide in Connecticut.

　　A scientist who brought Maryland oysters to Maine found that the oysters opened their shells widest when it was high tide in Maine.

　　In an experiment similar to Brown s, a scientist was able to establish a clear causal relationship between environmental change and behavioral rhythms.

　　Picture-taking is a technique both for annexing the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer s temperament, discovering itself through the camera s cropping of reality. That is, photography has two antithetical ideals: in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observe who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of intrepid, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all.

　　These conflicting ideals arise from a fundamental uneasiness on the part of both photographers and viewers of photographs toward the aggressive component in taking a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photographer as observer is attractive because it implicitly denies that picture-taking is an aggressive act. The issue, of course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do cannot be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscovered and championed.

　　An important result of the coexistence of these two ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography s means. Whatever the claims that photography might make to be a form of personal expression on a par with painting, its originality is inextricably linked to the powers of a machine. The steady growth of these powers has made possible the extraordinary informativeness and imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like Harold Edgerton s high-speed photographs of a bullet hitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed, preferring to submit themselves to the limits imposed by premodern camera technology because a cruder, less high-powered machine is thought to give more interesting or emotive results, to leave more room for creative accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans and Cartier-Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment. These photographers have come to doubt the value of the camera as an instrument of fast seeing. Cartier-Bresson, in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast.

　　This ambivalence toward photographic means determines trends in taste. The cult of the future alternates over time with the wish to return to a purer past when images had a handmade quality. This nostalgia for some pristine state of the photographic enterprise is currently widespread and underlies the present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the wok of forgotten nineteenth-century provincial photographers. Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need periodically to resist their own knowingness.

　　21. According to the passage, interest among photographers in each of photography s two ideals can be described as

　　rapidly changing

　　cyclically recurring

　　steadily growing

　　unimportant to the viewers of photographs

　　unrelated to changes in technology

　　22. The author is primarily concerned with

　　establishing new technical standards for contemporary photography

　　analyzing the influence of photographic ideals on picture-taking

　　tracing the development of camera technology in the twentieth century

　　describing how photographers individual temperaments are reflected in their work

　　explaining how the technical limitations imposed by certain photographers on themselves affect their work

　　23. The passage states all of the following about photographs EXCEPT:

　　They can display a cropped reality.

　　The can convey information.

　　They can depict the photographer s temperament.

　　They can possess great formal beauty.

　　They can change the viewer s sensibilities.

　　24. The author mentions the work of Harold Edgerton in order to provide an example of

　　how a controlled ambivalence toward photography s means can produce outstanding pictures

　　how the content of photographs has changed from the nineteenth century to the twentieth

　　the popularity of high-speed photography in the twentieth century

　　the relationship between photographic originality and technology

　　the primacy of formal beauty over emotional content

　　25. The passage suggests that photographers such as Walker Evans prefer old-fashioned techniques and equipment because these photographers

　　admire instruments of fast seeing

　　need to feel armed by technology

　　strive for intense formal beauty in their photographs

　　like the discipline that comes from self-imposed limitations

　　dislike the dependence of photographic effectiveness on the powers of a machine

　　26. According to the passage, the two antithetical ideals of photography differ primarily in the

　　value that each places on the beauty of the finished product

　　emphasis that each places on the emotional impact of the finished product

　　degree of technical knowledge that each requires of the photographer

　　extent of the power that each requires of the photographer s equipment

　　way in which each defines the role of the photographer

　　27. Which of the following statements would be most likely to begin the paragraph immediately following the passage?

　　Photographers, as a result of their heightened awareness of time, are constantly trying to capture events and actions that are fleeting.

　　Thus the cult of the future, the worship of machines and speed, is firmly established in spite of efforts to the contrary by some photographers.

　　The rejection of technical knowledge, however, can never be complete and photography cannot for any length of time pretend that it has no weapons.

　　The point of honor involved in rejecting complex equipment is, however, of no significance to the viewer of a photograph.

　　Consequently the impulse to return to the past through images that suggest a handwrought quality is nothing more that a passing fad.

　　答案：17-27：ABDCBBEDEEC