课程名称： 大学英语 考试时间：2007年 月 日 姓 名： 准考证号：
Part I Reading Comprehension(每小题2分，共40分)
Directions: There are four passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
Question 1 to 5 are based on the following passage:
When a magazine for high-school students asked its readers what life would be like in twenty years, they said: Machines would be run by solar power. Buildings would rotate so they could follow the sun to take maximum advantage of its light and heat. Walls would “radiate light”and “change color with the push of a button.”Food would be replaced by pills.
School would be taught “by electrical impulse while we sleep.”Cars would have radar. Does this sound like the year 2000? Actually, the article was written in 1958 and the question was “What will life be like in 1978？”
The future is much too important to simply guess about, the way the high school students did, so experts are regularly asked to predict accurately. By carefully studying the present, skilled businessmen, scientists, and politicians are supposedly able to figure out in advance what will happen. But can they? One expert on cities wrote: Cities of the future would not be crowded, but would have space for farms and fields. People would travel to work in “airbuses”, large all-weather helicopters carrying up to 200 passengers. When a person left the airbus station he could drive a coin-operated car equipped with radar. The radar equipment of cars would make traffic accidents “almost unheard of”. Does that sound familiar? If the expert had been accurate it would, because he was writing in 1957. His subject was “The city of 1982”.
If the professionals sometimes sound like high-school students, its probably because futu
re study is still a new field. But economic forecasting, or predicting what the economy will do, has been around for a long time. It should be accurate, and generally it is. But there have been some big mistakes in this field, too. In early 1929, most forecasters saw an excellent future for the stock market. In October of that year, the stock market had its worst losses ever, ruining thousands of investors who had put their faith in financial foreseers.
One forecaster knew that predictions about the future would always be subject to significant error. In 1957, H. J. Rand of the Rand Corporation was asked about the year 2000, “Only one thing is certain,” he answered. “Children born today will have reached the age of 43.”
1. High-school students’ answers to “What would life be in 1978? ”sound _________.
A) accurate B) imaginative C) correct D) OK
2. According to the writer, forecasting is fairly accurate in________.
A) politics B) science C) sociology D) economy
3. Which of the following statements does not confirm with the writers comment on future study?
A) Predictions should be accurate.
B) Professionals sometimes sound like high-school students.
C) There have been some big mistakes in the field of economic forecasting.
D) Predictions about future would always be subject to significant errors.
4. The present passage was most probably written _______.
A) just before 2000 B) in 1958
C) after 1982 D) in 1957
5. H. J. Rand's prediction about the year 2000 shows that________.
A) it is easy to figure out in advance what will happen
B) it is difficult to figure out in advance what will happen
C) only professionals can figure out in advance what will happen
D) very few professionals can figure out in advance what will happen
Passage Two
Question 6 to 10 are based on the following passage:
Humans have long been studying the flight of birds and trying to imitate it. Not until the twentieth century did engineers fully understand the principles of flight that birds have been using for millions of years.
Birds are adapted in their body structure, as no other creatures, to life in the air. Their wings, tails, hollow bones, and internal air sacs(气囊) all contribute to this great faculty. These adaptations make it possible for birds to seek out environments most favorable to t
heir needs at different times of the year. This results in the marvelous phenomenon we know as migration---the regular, seasonal movement of entire populations of birds from one geographic location to another.
