短篇阅读
A novel that is a bestseller is often, because of its popularity, not taken seriously as literature. Critics seem to presuppose that great literature must be somehow burdensome to the reader; it must be difficult for the uninitiated to understand. It is precisely this inverted snobbery that has hindered Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits from gaining the critical attention it deserves.
Published in 1982, the novel draws deeply on the author's own family history. Allende is the first cousin once removed of former Chilean president Salvador Allende, who was murdered during a right-wing military coup in 1973. Yet rather than the to-be-expected socialist harangue, Allende subtly works her political message within the fabric of the compelling narrative she weaves. While Allende borrows a bit too freely from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work, she nevertheless has a powerful and original voice within the construct of magical realism.
1. It can be inferred from the passage that
A. Allende’ novel is a retelling of her family's political struggles
B. Allende's novel would have received more favorable reviews if critics had believed it to be great literature
C. Allende learned about magical realism from Gabriel Garcia Marquez
D. Allende's novel could have been more compelling if she had included a stronger political message
E. readers might have expected Allende's work to be more political than it actually was
答案：A
解析：题干问可以从文中推测什么，定位至原文第二段第一句话“Published in 1982…family history. Allende is the first…in 1973.”，这两句话是说小说用了很多自己家庭的故事，，所以选择A.
长篇阅读
By 1950, the results of attempts to relate brain processes to mental experience appeared rather discouraging. Herring suggested that different modes of sensation, such as pain, taste, and color, might be correlated with the discharge of specific kinds of nervous energy. However, subsequently developed methods of recording and analyzing nerve potentials failed to reveal any such qualitative diversity. Although qualitative variance among nerve energies was never rigidly disproved, the doctrine was generally abandoned in favor of the opposing view, namely, that nerve impulses are essentially homogeneous in quality and are transmitted as common currency throughout the nervous system.
According to this theory, it is not the quality of the sensory nerve impulses that determines the diverse conscious sensations they produce, but rather the different areas of the brain into which they discharge, and there is some evidence for this view. In one experiment, when an electric stimulus was applied to a given sensory field of the cerebral cortex of a conscious human subject, it produced a sensation of the appropriate modality for that particular locus, that is, a visual sensation from the visual cortex, an auditory sensation from the auditory cortex, and so on. However, cortical locus, in itself, turned out to have little explanatory value.
1. The author mentions common currency primarily in order to emphasize the
A. lack of differentiation among nerve impulses in human beings
B. similarity of the sensations that all human beings experience
C. similarities in the views of scientists who have studied the human nervous system
D. continuous passage of nerve impulses through the nervous system
E. recurrent questioning by scientists of an accepted explanation about the nervous system
答案：A
解析：原句翻译：神经冲动本质上质量相似，并在神经系统中流通传输。通过语法分析，我们可以知道common currency与前面的从句成分nerve impulses are essentially homogeneous in quality是并列的，主语都是nerve impulses，并且common和前面的homogeneous都是在讲相似，差异小。
2. The description of an experiment in which electric stimuli were applied to different sensory fields of the cerebral cortex tends to support the theory that
A. the simple presence of different cortical areas cannot account for the diversity of mental experience
B. variation in spatiotemporal patterning of nerve impulses correlates with variation in subjective experience
C. nerve impulses are essentially homogeneous and are relatively unaffected as they travel through the nervous system
D. the mental experiences produced by sensory nerve impulses are determined by the cortical area activated
E. variation in neuron types affects the quality of nerve impulses
答案：D
解析：定位到文章：可以直接得出答案“it produced a sensation of the appropriate modality for that particular locus, that is, a visual sensation from the visual cortex“电刺激能产生一种对特定位置的恰当的感知，也就是视觉中枢的视觉感知。和D选项的cortical area脑皮层被刺激使神经产生精神反应对应。
3. Which of the following best summarizes the author‘s opinion of the suggestion that different areas of the brain determine perceptions produced by sensory nerve impulses?
A. It is a plausible explanation, but it has not been completely proved.
B. It is the best explanation of brain processes currently available.
C. It is disproved by the fact that the various areas of the brain are physiologically very similar.
D. There is some evidence to support it, but it fails to explain the diversity of mental experience.
E. There is experimental evidence that confirms its correctness.
答案：D
解析：结合结尾句：However, cortical locus, in itself, turned out to have little explanatory value.大脑区位理论就其本身是几乎没有解释的意义，说明其解释的价值和意义还是有限的。
逻辑阅读
In a plausible but speculative scenario, oceanographer Douglas Martinson suggests that temperature increases caused by global warming would not significantly affect the stability of the Antarctic environment, where sea ice forms on the periphery of the continent in the autumn and winter and mostly disappears in the summer. True, less sea ice would form in the winter because global warming would cause temperatures to rise. However, Martinson argues, the effect of a warmer atmosphere may be offset as follows. The formation of sea ice causes the concentration of salt in surface waters to increase; less sea ice would mean a smaller increase in the concentration of salt. Less salty surface waters would be less dense and therefore less likely to sink and stir up deep water. The deep water, with all its stored heat, would rise to the surface at a slower rate. Thus, although the winter sea-ice cover might decrease, the surface waters would remain cold enough so that the decrease would not be excessive.
1. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is true of the surface waters in the current Antarctic environment?
A. They are more affected by annual fluctuations in atmospheric temperatures than they would be if they were less salty.
B. They are less salty than they would be if global warming were to occur.
C. They are more likely to sink and stir up deep waters than they would be if atmospheric temperatures were to increase.
D. They are able to offset some of the effects of global warming beyond the Antarctic region.
E. They are less affected by the temperature of deep water than they would be if atmospheric temperatures were to increase.
答案：C
解析：选项是拿ice当前的状态和将来的状态对比，而不是习惯性理解的ice将要如何如何。例如C选项，是说如果气温上升，现在的ice比将来的ice更可能下沉而stir up deep waters，反过来说就是将来的ice(大气温度上升之后) less likely to stir up deep waters。