GRE阅读练习每日一篇(十六)

　　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。

　　I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense. Virginia Woolf s provocative statement about her intentions in writing Mrs. Dalloway has regularly been ignored by the critics, since it highlights an aspect of her literary interests very different from the traditional picture of the poetic novelist concerned with examining states of reverie and vision and with following the intricate pathways of individual consciousness. But Virginia Woolf was a realistic as well as a poetic novelist, a satirist and social critic as well as a visionary: literary critics cavalier dismissal of Woolf s social vision will not withstand scrutiny.

　　In her novels, Woolf is deeply engaged by the questions of how individuals are shaped by their social environments, how historical forces impinge on people s lives, how class, wealth, and gender help to determine people s fates. Most of her novels are rooted in a realistically rendered social setting and in a precise historical time.

　　Woolf s focus on society has not been generally recognized because of her intense antipathy to propaganda in art. The pictures of reformers in her novels are usually satiric or sharply critical. Even when Woolf is fundamentally sympathetic to their causes, she portrays people anxious to reform their society and possessed of a message or program as arrogant or dishonest, unaware of how their political ideas serve their own psychological needs. Woolf detested what she called preaching in fiction, too, and criticized novelist D. H. Lawrence for working by this method.

　　Woolf s own social criticism is expressed in the language of observation rather than in direct commentary, since for her, fiction is a contemplative, not an active art. She describes phenomena and provides materials for a judgment about society and social issues; it is the reader s work to put the observations together and understand the coherent point of view behind them. As a moralist, Woolf works by indirection, subtly undermining officially accepted mores, mocking, suggesting, calling into question, rather than asserting, advocating, bearing witness: hers is the satirist s art.

　　Woolf s literary models were acute social observers like Chekhov and Chaucer. As she put it in The Common Reader, It is safe to say that not a single law has been framed or one stone set upon another because of anything Chaucer said or wrote; and yet, as we read him, we are absorbing morality at every pore. Like Chaucer, Woolf chose to understand as well as to judge, to know her society root and branch a decision crucial in order to produce art rather than polemic.

　　17. Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the passage?

　　Poetry and Satire as Influences on the Novels of Virginia Woolf

　　Virginia Woolf: Critic and Commentator on the Twentieth-Century Novel

　　Trends in Contemporary Reform Movements as a Key to Understanding Virginia Woolf s Novels

　　Society as Allegory for the Individual in the Novels of Virginia Woolf

　　Virginia Woolf s Novels: Critical Reflections on the Individual and on Society

　　18. In the first paragraph of the passage, the author s attitude toward the literary critics mentioned can best be described as

　　disparaging

　　ironic

　　facetious

　　skeptical but resigned

　　disappointed but hopeful

　　19. It can be inferred from the passage that Woolf chose Chaucer as a literary model because she believed that

　　Chaucer was the first English author to focus on society as a whole as well as on individual characters

　　Chaucer was an honest and forthright author, whereas novelists like D, H, Lawrence did not sincerely wish to change society

　　Chaucer was more concerned with understanding his society than with calling its accepted mores into question

　　Chaucer s writing was greatly, if subtly, effective in influencing the moral attitudes of his readers

　　her own novels would be more widely read if, like Chaucer, she did not overtly and vehemently criticize contemporary society

　　20. It can be inferred from the passage that the most probable reason Woolf realistically described the social setting in the majority of her novels was that she

　　was aware that contemporary literary critics considered the novel to be the most realistic of literary genres

　　was interested in the effect of a person s social milieu on his or her character and actions

　　needed to be as attentive to detail as possible in her novels in order to support the arguments she advanced in them

　　wanted to show that a painstaking fidelity in the representation of reality did not in any way hamper the artist

　　wished to prevent critics from charging that her novels were written in an ambiguous and inexact style

　　21. Which of the following phrases best expresses the sense of the word contemplative as it is used in lines 43-44 of the passage?

　　Gradually elucidating the rational structures underlying accepted mores

　　Reflecting on issues in society without prejudice or emotional commitment

　　Avoiding the aggressive assertion of the author s perspective to the exclusion of the reader s judgment

　　Conveying a broad view of society as a whole rather than focusing on an isolated individual consciousness

　　Appreciating the world as the artist sees it rather than judging it in moral terms

　　22. The author implies that a major element of the satirist s art is the satirist s

　　consistent adherence to a position of lofty disdain when viewing the foibles of humanity

　　insistence on the helplessness of individuals against the social forces that seek to determine an individual s fate

　　cynical disbelief that visionaries can either enlighten or improve their societies

　　fundamental assumption that some ambiguity must remain in a work of art in order for it to reflect society and social mores accurately

　　refusal to indulge in polemic when presenting social mores to readers for their scrutiny

　　23. The passage supplies information for answering which of the following questions?

　　Have literary critics ignored the social criticism inherent in the works of Chekhov and Chaucer?

　　Does the author believe that Woolf is solely an introspective and visionary novelist?

　　What are the social causes with which Woolf shows herself to be sympathetic in her writings?

　　Was D. H. Lawrence as concerned as Woolf was with creating realistic settings for his novels?

　　Does Woolf attribute more power to social environment or to historical forces as shapers of a person s life?

　　It is a popular misconception that nuclear fusion power is free of radioactivity; in fact, the deuterium-tritium reaction that nuclear scientists are currently exploring with such zeal produces both alpha particles and neutrons. Another common misconception is that nuclear fusion power is a virtually unlimited source of energy because of the enormous quantity of deuterium in the sea. Actually, its limits are set by the amount of available lithium, which is about as plentiful as uranium in the Earth s crust. Research should certainly continue on controlled nuclear fusion, but no energy program should be premised on its existence until it has proven practical. For the immediate future, we must continue to use hydroelectric power, nuclear fission, and fossil fuels to meet our energy needs. The energy sources already in major use are in major use for good reason.

　　24. The primary purpose of the passage is to

　　criticize scientists who believe that the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction can be made feasible as an energy source

　　admonish scientists who have failed to correctly calculate the amount of lithium available for use in nuclear fusion reactors

　　defend the continued short-term use of fossil fuels as a major energy source

　　caution against uncritical embrace of nuclear fusion power as a major energy source

　　correct the misconception that nuclear fusion power is entirely free of radioactivity

　　25. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes which of the following about the current state of public awareness concerning nuclear fusion power?

　　The public has been deliberately misinformed about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear fusion power.

　　The public is unaware of the principal advantage of nuclear fusion over nuclear fission as an energy source.

　　The public s awareness of the scientific facts concerning nuclear fusion power is somewhat distorted and incomplete.

　　The public is not interested in increasing its awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear fusion power.

　　The public is aware of the disadvantages of nuclear fusion power but not of its advantages.

　　26. The passage provides information that would answer which of the following questions?

　　What is likely to be the principal source of deuterium for nuclear fusion power?

　　How much incidental radiation is produced in the deuterium tritium fusion reaction?

　　Why are scientists exploring the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction with such zeal?

　　Why must the tritium for nuclear fusion be synthesized from lithium?

　　Why does the deuterium-tritium reaction yield both alpha particles and neutrons?

　　27. Which of the following statements concerning nuclear scientists is most directly suggested in the passage?

　　Nuclear scientists are not themselves aware of all of the facts surrounding the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction.

　　Nuclear scientists exploring the deuterium-tritium reaction have overlooked key facts in their eagerness to prove nuclear fusion practical.

　　Nuclear scientists may have overestimated the amount of lithium actually available in the Earth s crust.

　　Nuclear scientists have not been entirely dispassionate in their investigation of the deuterium-tritium reaction.

　　Nuclear scientists have insufficiently investigated the lithium-to-tritium reaction in nuclear fusion.

　　答案：17-27：EADBCEBDCAD