GRE阅读练习每日一篇(十一)

　　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 pathogenic organisms constantly alight on the skin, they find it a very unfavorable environment and, in the absence of injury, have great difficulty colonizing it. This self-sterilizing capacity of the skin results from the tendency of all well-developed ecosystems toward homeostasis, or the maintenance of the status quo.

　　Species that typically live in soil, water, and elsewhere rarely multiply on the skin. Undamaged skin is also unfavorable to most human pathogens. The skin is too acid and too arid for some species. The constant shedding of the surface skin layers further hinders the establishment of invaders. The most interesting defense mechanism, however, results from the metabolic activities of the resident flora . Unsaturated fatty acids, an important component of the lipids in sebum collected from the skin surface, inhibit the growth of several bacterial and fungal cutaneous pathogens. These acids are a metabolic product of certain gram-positive members of the cutaneous community, which break down the more complex lipids in freshly secreted sebum.

　　17. The primary purpose of the passage is to

　　offer an analysis of metabolic processes

　　detail the ways in which bacteria and fungi can be inhibited

　　describe mechanisms by which the skin protects itself against pathogens

　　analyze the methods whereby biological systems maintain the status quo

　　provide a specific example of the skin s basic defenses against pathogens

　　18. The resident flora mentioned in line 16 refer to

　　Unsaturated fatty acids

　　sebum collected from the skin surface

　　bacterial and fungal cutaneous pathogens

　　certain gram-positive members of the cutaneous community

　　more complex lipids

　　19. Among the natural defenses of the skin against pathogenic organisms are all of the following EXCEPT the

　　dryness of the skin

　　acidity of the skin

　　tendency of the pathogens toward homeostasis

　　shedding of surface layers of the skin

　　metabolic breakdown of lipids

　　20. The author presents her material in which of the following ways?

　　Stating a problem and then supplying a solution

　　Presenting a phenomenon and then analyzing reason for it

　　Providing information and then drawing a conclusion from it

　　Making a general statement and then arguing by analogy

　　Making an inference and then developing it by illustration

　　Masterpieces are dumb, wrote Flaubert, They have a tranquil aspect like the very products of nature, like large animals and mountains. He might have been thinking of War and Peace, that vast, silent work, unfathomable and simple, provoking endless questions through the majesty of its being. Tolstoi s simplicity is overpowering , says the critic Bayley, disconcerting, because it comes from his casual assumption that the world is as he sees it. Like other nineteenth-century Russian writers he is impressive because he means what he says, but he stands apart from all others and from most Western writers in his identity with life, which is so complete as to make us forget he is an artist. He is the center of his work, but his egocentricity is of a special kind. Goethe, for example, says Bayley, cared for nothing but himself. Tolstoi was nothing but himself.

　　For all his varied modes of writing and the multiplicity of characters in his fiction, Tolstoi and his work are of a piece . The famous conversion of his middle years, movingly recounted in his Confession, was a culmination of his early spiritual life, not a departure from it. The apparently fundamental changes that led from epic narrative to dogmatic parable, from a joyous, buoyant attitude toward life to pessimism and cynicism, from War and Peace to The Kreutzer Sonata, came from the same restless, impressionable depths of an independent spirit yearning to get at the truth of its experience. Truth is my hero, wrote Tolstoi in his youth, reporting the fighting in Sebastopol. Truth remained his hero his own, not others , truth. Others were awed by Napoleon, believed that a single man could change the destinies of nations, adhered to meaningless rituals, formed their tastes on established canons of art. Tolstoi reversed all preconceptions; and in every reversal he overthrew the system, the machine, the externally ordained belief, the conventional behavior in favor of unsystematic, impulsive life, of inward motivation and the solutions of independent thought.

　　In his work the artificial and the genuine are always exhibited in dramatic opposition: the supposedly great Napoleon and the truly great, unregarded little Captain Tushin, or Nicholas Rostov s actual experience in battle and his later account of it. The simple is always pitted against the elaborate, knowledge gained from observation against assertions of borrowed faiths. Tolstoi s magical simplicity is a product of these tensions; his work is a record of the questions he put to himself and of the answers he found in his search. The greatest characters of his fiction exemplify this search, and their happiness depends on the measure of their answers. Tolstoi wanted happiness, but only hard-won happiness, that emotional fulfillment and intellectual clarity which could come only as the prize of all-consuming effort. He scorned lesser satisfactions.

　　21. Which of the following best characterizes the author s attitude toward Tolstoi?

　　She deprecates the cynicism of his later works.

　　She finds his theatricality artificial.

　　She admires his wholehearted sincerity.

　　She thinks his inconsistency disturbing.

　　She respects his devotion to orthodoxy.

　　22. Which of the following best paraphrases Flaubert s statement quoted in lines 1-4?

　　Masterpiece seem ordinary and unremarkable from the perspective of a later age.

　　Great works of art do not explain themselves to us any more than natural objects do.

　　Important works of art take their place in the pageant of history because of their uniqueness.

　　The most important aspects of good art are the orderliness and tranquility it reflects.

　　Masterpieces which are of enduring value represent the forces of nature.

　　23. The author quotes from Bayley to show that

　　although Tolstoi observes and interprets life, he maintains no self-conscious distance from his experience

　　the realism of Tolstoi s work gives the illusion that his novels are reports of actual events

　　unfortunately, Tolstoi is unaware of his own limitation, though he is sincere in his attempt to describe experience

　　although Tolstoi works casually and makes unwarranted assumption, his work has an inexplicable appearance of truth

　　Tolstoi s personal perspective makes his work almost unintelligible to the majority of his readers

　　24. The author states that Tolstoi s conversion represented

　　a radical renunciation of the world

　　the rejection of avant-garde ideas

　　the natural outcome of his earlier beliefs

　　the acceptance of religion he had earlier rejected

　　a fundamental change in his writing style

　　25. According to the passage, Tolstoi s response to the accepted intellectual and artistic values of his times was to

　　select the most valid from among them

　　combine opposing viewpoints into a new doctrine

　　reject the claims of religion in order to serve his art

　　subvert them in order to defend a new political viewpoint

　　upset them in order to be faithful to his experience

　　26. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is true of War and Peace?

　　It belongs to an early period of Tolstoi s work.

　　It incorporates a polemic against the disorderliness of Russian life.

　　It has a simple structural outline.

　　It is a work that reflects an ironic view of life.

　　It conforms to the standard of aesthetic refinement favored by Tolstoi s contemporaries.

　　27. According to the passage, the explanation of Tolstoi s magical simplicity lies partly in his

　　remarkable power of observation and his facility in exact description

　　persistent disregard for conventional restraints together with his great energy

　　unusual ability to reduce the description of complex situations to a few words

　　abiding hatred of religious doctrine and preference for new scientism

　　continuing attempt to represent the natural in opposition to the pretentious

　　答案：17-27：CDCBCBACEAE