Text 1

      In spite of “endless talk of difference,” American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing （定位 21 ） people. This is “the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference” characteristic of popular culture. People are absorbed into “a culture of consumption” launched by the 19th-century （定位 22 ） department stores that offered “vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere.” Instead of intimate shops catering to “a knowledgeable elite, ” （ 22A ） these were stores “anyone could enter, regardless of class or background.” This turned shopping into a public and democratic act. The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization.

Immigrants are quickly fitting into this common culture, which may not be altogether elevating but is hardly poisonous （定位 23 、 23C ） . Writing for the National Immigration Forum, Gregory Rodriguez reports that today’s immigration is neither at unprecedented level nor resistant to assimilation. In 1998 immigrants were 9.8 percent of population; in 1900, 13.6 percent. In the 10 years prior to 1990, 3.1 immigrants arrived for every 1,000 residents; in the 10 years prior to 1890, 9.2 for every 1,000. Now, consider three indices of assimilation -- language, home ownership and intermarriage.

      The 1990 Census revealed that “a majority of immigrants from each of the fifteen most common countries of origin spoke English ‘well’ or ‘very well’ after ten years of residence.” The children of immigrants tend to be bilingual and proficient in English. “By the third generation, the original language is lost in the majority of immigrant families.” Hence the description of America as a “graveyard” for language. By 1996 foreign-born immigrants who had arrive before 1970 had a home ownership rate of 75.6 percent, higher than the 69.8 percent rate among native-born Americans.

      Foreign-born Asians and Hispanics “have higher rates of intermarriage than do U.S.-born whites and blacks.” By the third generation, one third of Hispanic women are married to non-Hispanics, and 41 percent of Asian-American women are married to non-Asians.

      Rodriguez notes that children in remote villages around world are fans of superstars likeAmold Schwarzenegger and Garth Brooks, （定位 24 ） yet “some Americans fear that immigrant living within the United States remain somehow immune to the nation’s assimilative power.” （ 24D ）

      Are there divisive issues and pockets of seething in America? Indeed. It is big enough to have a bit of everything. But particularly when viewed against America’s turbulent past, today’s social indices hardly suggest a dark and deteriorating social environment. （ 25B ）

21.   The word “homogenizing” (Line 2, Paragraph 1) most probably means ________.

[A] identifying

[B] associating

[C] assimilating （用构词法就可以搞定，所以说单词一定要上去。）（ C ）

[D] monopolizing

22.   According to the author, the department stores of the 19th century ________.

[A] played a role in the spread of popular culture （本题较难，用定位 + 段内转来解，即便如此，但不选 B 很奇怪。）

[B] became intimate shops for common consumers

[C] satisfied the needs of a knowledgeable elite （具体非解）（ A ）

[D] owed its emergence to the culture of consumption

23.   The text suggests that immigrants now in the U.S. ________.

[A] are resistant to homogenization

[B] exert a great influence on American culture

[C] are hardly a threat to the common culture （定位 + 段内转）（ C ）

[D] constitute the majority of the population

24.   Why are Amold Schwarzenegger and Garth Brooks mentioned in Paragraph 5?

[A] To prove their popularity around the world.

[B] To reveal the public’s fear of immigrants.

[C] To give examples of successful immigrants. （ D ）

[D] To show the powerful influence of American culture. （定位 + 段内转，注意对 yet 前后的理解： yet 前讲同化， yet 后讲有免疫不同化，重点在 yet 后。）

25.   In the author’s opinion, the absorption of immigrants into American society is ________.

[A] rewarding

[B] successful （难定位，由问题的顺序可以大致断定在最后一段，然后用段内转。）

这里要说一句题外话，有的真题资料做得很不负责任，竟然有缺漏单词。比如我就遇到一份，将以上的 hardly 给漏掉了，很严重的错误！！还有一份竟然漏掉一整段！

[C] fruitless （ B ）

[D] harmful

Text 2

      Stratford-on-Avon, as we all know, has only one industry -- William Shakespeare -- but there are two distinctly separate and increasingly hostile branches. There is the Royal Shakespeare Company (ASC), which presents superb productions of the plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on the Avon. And there are the townsfolk who largely live off the tourists who come, not to see the plays, but to look at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare’s birthplace and the other sights.

     The worthy residents of Stratford （意思定位 26） doubt that the theatre adds a penny to their revenue（ 26A） . They frankly dislike the RSC’s actors, them with their long hair and beards and sandals and noisiness. It’s all deliciously ironic when you consider that Shakespeare, who earns their living, was himself an actor (with a beard) and did his share of noise-making.

      The tourist streams are not entirely separate. The sightseers who come by bus -- and often take in WarwickCastle and BlenheimPalace on the side -- don’t usually see the plays, and some of them are even surprised to find a theatre in Stratford. However, the playgoers do manage a little sight-seeing along with their playgoing. （ 27B ） It is the playgoers, the ESC contends, who bring in much of the town’s revenue because they spend the night (some of them four or five nights) pouring cash into the hotels and restaurants. The sightseers can take in everything and get out of town by nightfall.

      The townsfolk don’t see it this way and local council does not contribute directly to the subsidy of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford cries poor traditionally （定位 28 ） . Nevertheless every hotel in town seems to be adding a new wing or cocktail lounge. （ 28C ） Hilton is building its own hotel there, which you may be sure will be decorated with Hamlet Hamburger Bars, the Lear Lounge, the Banquo Banqueting Room, and so forth, and will be very expensive.

     Anyway, the townsfolk can’t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. （ 29） (The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1,431 seats were 94 percent occupied all year long and this year they’ll do better.) The reason, of course, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low. （ 29 ）

      It would be a shame to raise prices too much because it would drive away the young people who are Stratford’s most attractive clientele. They come entirely for the plays, not the sights. They all seem to look alike (though they come from all over) -- lean, pointed, dedicated faces, wearing jeans and sandals, eating their buns and bedding down for the night on the flagstones outside the theatre to buy the 20 seats and 80 standing-room tickets held for the sleepers and sold to them when the box office opens at 10:30 a.m.

26.   From the first two Paragraphs, we learn that ________.

[A] the townsfolk deny the RSC’s contribution to the town’s revenue （定位处有解）

[B] the actors of the RSC imitate Shakespeare on and off stage

[C] the two branches of the RSC are not on good terms （ A ）

[D] the townsfolk earn little from tourism

27.   It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that ________.

[A] the sightseers cannot visit the Castle and the Palace separately

[B] the playgoers spend more money than the sightseers （段内转有解）

[C] the sightseers do more shopping than the playgoers （ B ）

[D] the playgoers go to no other places in town than the theater

28.   By saying “Stratford cries poor traditionally” (Line 2-3, Paragraph 4), the author implies that ________.

[A] Stratford cannot afford the expansion projects

[B] Stratford has long been in financial difficulties

[C] the town is not really short of money （定位 + 段内转）（ C ）

[D] the townsfolk used to be poorly paid

29.   According to the townsfolk, the RSC deserves no subsidy because ________.

[A] ticket prices can be raised to cover the spending （此题十分扯淡！不同的参考书有不同的答案， AD 似乎都对。如果从技巧角度去看一个符合“首句有解”，一个符合“末句有解”，再翻译成中文就更说不清了。不扯淡就不叫做真题了！）

[B] the company is financially ill-managed

[C] the behavior of the actors is not socially acceptable （ D ）

[D] the theatre attendance is on the rise

30.   From the text we can conclude that the author ________. （态度题，一般没有什么关键词）

[A] is supportive of both sides

[B] favors the townsfolk’s view

[C] takes a detached attitude （ D ）

[D] is sympathetic （我说过，作者的态度一般不会明显的偏袒一方。这里 sympathetic=objective 。）

Text 3

      When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals （意思定位 31 ） . They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction.Now something similar could be happening in the oceans. （ 31C ）

      That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then. （ 32A ）

      Dr. Worm acknowledges that the figures are conservative. （定位 33 ） One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today’s vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught,so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes （ 33C ） . In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now.

      Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the “shifting baseline.” The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target （ 35B ） species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries （定位 35 ） are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

31.   The extinction of large prehistoric animals is noted to suggest that ________.

[A] large animal were vulnerable to the changing environment

[B] small species survived as large animals disappeared

[C] large sea animals may face the same threat today （定位处 + 特殊位置之末句有解）（ C ）

[D] slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones

32.   We can infer from Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm’s paper that ________.

[A] the stock of large predators in some old fisheries has reduced by 90% （此题较难， 90% 在原文中没有出现过，用“ some 是解”。）

注：一般来说，选项中出现具体数字，就可以用“具体非解”排除，但这里三个选项都出现了数字，一定有诈！要长一些心眼儿，所谓出题专家也有脑筋好使的时候。做真题就像是和出题专家博弈，看谁更狡诈，更擅长在纷繁复杂的现象中抓住本质。而像这种连问题选项也要进行斟酌和拿捏的，在模拟题里是绝对没有的！大家就应该多做真题，再买一些高教出版社的资料就行了。具体选什么资料，我在本书《前言》中已经说得很清楚了。

[B] there are only half as many fisheries as there were 15 years ago （有 only ，说话太绝对，非解）

[C] the catch sizes in new fisheries are only20% of the original amount 有 only ，说话太绝对，非解）（ A ）

[D] the number of larger predators dropped faster in new fisheries than in the old

33.   By saying these figures are conservative (Line 1, paragraph 3), Dr. Worm means that ________.

[A] fishing technology has improved rapidly

[B] then catch-sizes are actually smaller then recorded

[C] the marine biomass has suffered a greater loss （定位 + 特殊位置有解 so ，本题也可以通过中文意思猜到答案，注意是问原因。）（ C ）

[D] the data collected so far are out of date

34.   Dr. Myers and other researchers hold that ________.

[A] people should look for a baseline that can’t work for a longer time

[B] fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass

[C] the ocean biomass should restored its original level （ D ）

[D] people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation （无技巧，难定位）

35.   The author seems to be mainly concerned with most fisheries’ ________.

[A] management efficiency

[B] biomass level （定位处有解）

[C] catch-size limits （ B ）

[D] technological application

Text 4

      Many things make people think artists are weird and the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.

      This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th century, more artists began seeing happiness as insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil. （定位 36 ）

      You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen such misery. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.

      After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. （定位 38 ） The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.

     People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. （ 37B） They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer （定位 37 ） too.

      Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda -- to lure us to open our wallets -- they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. “Celebrate!” commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.

      But what we forget -- what our economy depends on us forgetting -- is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need someone to tell us as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.

36.   By citing the example of poets Wordsworth and Baudelaire, the author intends to show that ________.

[A] poetryis not as expressive of joy as painting or music （具体非解）

[B] art grow out of both positive and negative feeling （段内转说明侧重在 bad ）

[C] poets today are less skeptical of happiness （ less=not ，不符题意。）（ D ）

[D] artists have changed their focus of interest （定位 + 段内转 + 抽象是解）

37.   The word “bummer” (Line 5. paragraph 5) most probably means something ________.

[A] religious

[B] unpleasant （定位 + 首句有解 + 同义转换 unpleasant=misery ）

[C] entertaining （ B ）

[D] commercial

38.   In the author’s opinion, advertising ________.

[A] emerges in the wake of the anti-happy part

[B] is a cause of disappointment for the general public （具体非解）

[C] replace the church as a major source of information （具体非解）（ D ）

[D] creates an illusion of happiness rather than happiness itself （本题定位处没有解，得用解的特征，抽象是解。与 A 相比， D 更抽象）

39.   We can learn from the last paragraph that the author believes ________.

[A] happiness more often than not ends in sadness （与首句不符。）

[B] the anti-happy art is distasteful but refreshing （本题比较难，因为读完最后一段也找不出 anti-happy 这个词，但 AD 项都很显眼的出现了。此时不能因为它们没有在原文中出现而排除它们。我把这种现象叫做“高姿态未出现”，答案必定在它们其中一个。如果没有用，那出题者写它们干什么？而 D 中有 whene conomy booms 这个条件，但原文中没有说，所以排除 D ）

[C] misery should be enjoyed rather than denied （ misery 没有在原文中出现，排除之）（ B ）

[D] the anti-happy art flourishes when economy booms

注意“高姿态未出现” AD 和“普通未出现” C 的区别。很新的一种考法哦。呵呵，其实扯淡的是我。

40.   Which of the following is true of the text?

[A] Religion once functioned as a reminder of misery. （无技巧，个人感觉 B 更正确）

[B] Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.

[C] People feel disappointed at the realities of morality. （ A ）

[D] Mass media are inclined to cover disasters and deaths.

    注：本篇应该说是历年考研中最难的。文章开篇段落短且多，容易给人一种“行文松散，中心游离”的错觉。但如果你统计 4 篇的段落数，你会发现其实差不多的。还有就是本篇的问题都问了细节题，没有就文章主题提问，所以大家没有必要害怕抓不到主题，只要对局部进行推敲即可。一定要推敲，千万不要凭第一感觉！很多人喜欢做大量的习题，说是培养所谓的做题感觉。这不能说完全不对。但你必须知道，真正的做题感觉是在弄透出题者的心理喜好和出题风格的基础上进行的。真题做多了，你就会发现一些年的出题风格是相似的，因为出题专家组时隔几年才换一次。这些都要在你考研情报之列。