第二课时
Unit 7－Passage 1
A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight times larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world s best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.
It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith. (Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea s LG Electronics in July.) Foreign made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America s machine-tool industry was on the ropes. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.
All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America s industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.
How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self doubt has yielded to blind pride. "American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick witted," according to Richard Cavanagh, executive dean of Harvard s Kennedy School of Government. "It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity," says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as "a golden age of business management in the United States."
1. The U.S. achieved its predominance after World War II because ________.
[A] it had made painstaking efforts towards this goal
[B] its domestic market was eight times larger than before
[C] the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitors
[D] the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy
2. The loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy in the 1980s is manifested in the fact that the American ________.
[A] TV industry had withdrawn to its domestic market
[B] semiconductor industry had been taken over by foreign enterprises
[C] machine-tool industry had collapsed after suicidal actions
[D] auto industry had lost part of its domestic market
3. What can be inferred from the passage?
[A] It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pride.
[B] Intense competition may contribute to economic progress.
[C] The revival of the economy depends on international cooperation.
[D] A long history of success may pave the way for further development.
4. The author seems to believe the revival of the U.S. economy in the 1990s can be attributed to the ________.
[A] turning of the business cycle
[B] restructuring of industry
[C] improved business management
[D] success in education
答案：C D B A
考研英语阅读解题思路：时间安排1 : 1，解题步骤四步走
If you intend using humor in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the audience and should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whom you are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to a group of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of their secretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want to comment on their disorganized bosses.
Here is an example, which I heard at a nurses convention, of a story which works well because the audience all shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around by St. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather, and so on.. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in a line for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps over to a table by himself. "Who is that?" the new arrival asked St. Peter. "Oh, that s God." came the reply, "but sometimes he thinks he s a doctor."
If you are part of the group which you are addressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problems which are common to all of you and it ll be appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the inedible canteen food or the chairman s notorious bad taste in ties. With other audiences you mustn t attempt to cut in with humor as they will resent an outsider
making disparaging remarks about their canteen or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats like the Post Office or the telephone system.
If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual and apparently off-the-cuff remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforced manner. Often it s the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speak slowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help to show that you are making a light-hearted remark.
Look for the humor. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar quote "If at first you don t succeed, give up" or a play on words or on a situation. Search for exaggeration and understatements. Look at your talk and pick out a few words or sentences which you can turn about and inject with humor.
41. To make your humor work, you should
[A] take advantage of different kinds of audience.
[B] make fun of the disorganized people.
[C] address different problems to different people.
[D] show sympathy for your listeners.
42. The joke about doctors implies that, in the eyes of nurses, they are
[A] impolite to new arrivals.
[B] very conscious of their godlike role.
[C] entitled to some privileges.
[D] very busy even during lunch hours.
43. It can be inferred from the text that public services
[A] have benefited many people.
[B] are the focus of public attention.
[C] are an inappropriate subject for humor.
[D] have often been the laughing stock.
44. To achieve the desired result, humorous stories should be delivered
[A] in well-worded language.
[B] as awkwardly as possible.
[C] in exaggerated statement.
[D] as casually as possible.
45. The best title for the text may be
[A] Use Humor Effectively.
[B] Various Kinds of Humor.
[C] Add Humor to Speech.
[D] Different Humor Strategies.
The Supreme Court s decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering.
Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect," a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects — a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is
foreseen — is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect.
Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient.
Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death."
George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. "It s like surgery," he says, "We don t call those deaths homicides because the doctors didn t intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you re a physician, you can risk your patient s suicide as long as you don t intend their suicide."
On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modem medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying.
Just three weeks before the Court s ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care.
The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospitals, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, to develop a Medicare billing code for hospital-based care, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life.
Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. "Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering," to the extent that it constitutes "systematic patient abuse." He says medical licensing boards "must make it clear ... that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension."
56. From the first three paragraphs, we learn that
[A] doctors used to increase drug dosages to control their patients pain.
[B] it is still illegal for doctors to help the dying end their lives.
[C] the Supreme Court strongly opposes physician-assisted suicide.
[D] patients have no constitutional right to commit suicide.
57. Which of the following statements is true according to the text?
[A] Doctors will be held guilty if they risk their patients death.
[B] Modern medicine has assisted terminally ill patients in painless recovery.
[C] The Court ruled that high-dosage pain-relieving medication can be prescribed.
[D] A doctor s medication is no longer justified by his intentions.
58. According to the NAS s report, one of the problems in end-of-life care is
[A] prolonged medical procedures.
[B] inadequate treatment of pain.
[C] systematic drug abuse.
[D] insufficient hospital care.
59. Which of the following best defines the word "aggressive" (line 4, paragraph 7)?
[A] Bold.
[B] Harmful.
[C] Careless.
[D] Desperate.
60. George Annas would probably agree that doctors should be punished if they
[A] manage their patients incompetently.
[B] give patients more medicine than needed.
[C] reduce drug dosages for their patients.
[D] prolong the needless suffering of the patients.
