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be the Camry and the Accord fighting for supremacy, but now you have new (Hyundai) and old (Ford) competitors, among others, joining the fight with interesting, well-made, compelling products. It’s a great time to be shopping for a new family sedan.
Compare that with the state of the tablet market today. Hewlett-Packard is in retreat. Research in Motion is in a holding pattern. Motorola has been sold and its tablet is now an afterthought. Samsung fights the good fight, but it trails Apple’s market share by 50 percentage points.
Apple is not just ahead of the pack, it almost is the pack. Now, some would say that this is also a simple result of economic laws at work: Apple makes a superior product, therefore it gets most of the sales. But what would be really great is that, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and H.P., locked in an epic battle for tablet supremacy, are each releasing new and better products at a furious pace, and each dropping prices substantially at a steady clip.
Apple is driving innovation and creativity with each upgrade of the iPad it releases. But this isn’t about whether you prefer Apple or Android for your tablet. This isn’t about picking sides. As a consumer, I want there to be robust competition across the board. I want Coke and Pepsi, Target and Wal-Mart, Engadget and Gizmodo.
If you’re a fan of Apple, you want there to be a worthy rival to push it, to keep its feet to the fire. If you don’t like Apple, you want someone else in the game so that Apple doesn’t suck all the air out of the room. And you want Apple to do the same pushing and foot scorching to its competitor that another company would do to it.
(29) The phrase “fighting tooth and nail” (Para. 1) means that car makers are ________. A. competing fiercely with one another
B. beating one another with their tooth and nail
C. extremely careful about the family-sedan segment D. paying more attention to their tooth and nail
(30) Why is it a great time to be shopping for a new family sedan? A. Because competition is more interesting and compelling. B. Because Hyundai and Ford are joining the competition.
C. Because customers have enough quality cars to choose from. D. Because the Camry and the Accord are competing for supremacy.
(31) What are the tablet makers strategically doing, facing the brutal competition? A. Developing new products and reducing prices. B. Analyzing the results of the economic laws. C. Adapting to the furious pace of development. D. Providing best possible services for their products.
(32) The author brings in the pairs of “Coke and Pepsi. Target and Wal-Mart, Engadget and Gizmodo” (Para. 4) to make ________. A. a comparison B. a contrast C. an abstraction D. an exemplification (33) What does the phrase “to keep its feet to the fire” in the last paragraph mean? A. To place Apple’s feet close to the fire.
B. To pressure Apple into intensifying its competition. C. To force Apple to dance hard on the fire.
D. To advise Apple to strategically drop its side products.
(34) Why does the author start with the car industry before he focuses on tablet market? A. Because he treats the car industry as the key point for his writing.
B. Because the car industry is more important than tablet market.
C. Because he uses the car analogy for a more effective argumentation. D. Because the model of the car is far more popular in the market. Passage Four
So what are books good for ? My best answer is that books produce knowledge by encasing it. Books take ideas and set them down, transforming them through the limitations of space into thinking usable by others. In 1959, C.P. Snow threw down the challenge of “two cultures”. the scientific and the humanistic, pursuing their separate, unconnected lives within developed societies. In the new-media ecology of the 21st century, we may not have closed that gap, but the two cultures of the contemporary world are the culture of data and the culture of narrative. Narrative is rarely collective. It isn’t infinitely expandable. Narrative has a shape and a temporality, and it ends, just as our lives do. Books tell stories. Scholarly books tell scholarly stories.
Storytelling is central to the work of the narrative-driven disciplines--the humanities and the nonquantitative social sciences--and it is central to the communicative pleasures of reading. Even argument is a form of narrative. Different kinds of books are, of course, good for different things. Some should be created only for download and occasional access, as in the case of most reference projects, which these days are born digital or at least given dual passports. But scholarly writing requires narrative fortitude, on the part of writer and reader. There is nothing wiki about the last set of Cambridge University Press monographs（专著） I purchased, and in each I encounter an individual speaking subject.
Each single-author book is immensely particular, a story told as only one storyteller could recount it. Scholarship is a collagist（拼贴画家）, building the next road map of what we know book by book. Stories end, and that, I think, is a very good thing. A single authorial voice is a kind of performance, with an audience of one at a time, and no performance should outstay its welcome. Because a book must end, it must have a shape, the arc of thought that demonstrates not only the writer’s command of her or his subject but also that writer’s respect for the reader. A book is its own set of bookends.
Even if a book is published in digital form, freed from its materiality, that shaping case of the codex（古书的抄本） is the ghost in the knowledge-machine. We are the case for books. Our bodies hold the capacity to generate thousands of ideas, perhaps even a couple of full-length monographs, and maybe a trade book or two. If we can get them right, books are luminous versions of our ideas, bound by narrative structure so that others can encounter those better, smarter versions of us on the page or screen. Books make the case for us, for the identity of the individual as an embodiment of thinking in the world. The heart of what even scholars do is the endless task of making that world visible again and again by telling stories, complicated and subtle stories that reshape us daily so that new forms of know1edge can shine out. (35) According to the author, the narrative culture is ________. A. connectable B. infinitely expandable C. collective D. nonquantitative
(36) Storytelling can be regarded as the essence of all the following EXCEPT ________. A. the humanities B. the reference books C. the social sciences D. the pleasures of reading
(37) What does the phrase “nothing wiki about” (Para. 2) mean according to the passage? A. Nothing casual about.
B. Nothing stimulating about. C. Nothing referential about. D. Nothing controversial about.
(38) Why is each single-author book immensely particular according to the passage? A. Because it enriches and restructures our knowledge in its own way. B. Because it puts together the particular stories we need. C. Because it tells single-handedly how we should perform.
D. Because it helps to make the map for our travel in particular places. (39) We may think highly of a writer if his or her work helps ________. A. to haunt us like a ghost in the knowledge-machine B. to publish books in a narrative structure C. to review a book on the page or screen
D. to illuminate us in a new form of knowledge
(40) Why does the writer think that even argument is a form of narrative? A. Because it can be accessed and downloaded anywhere anytime. B. Because it is born digital or it might have dual passports.
C. Because it has the 1imitation of time both for the writer and the reader. D. Because it will remain a better and smarter version for us on the page. Section B
Directions: In this section, you are required to read one quoted blog and the comments on it. The blog and comments are followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the answer sheet.
“Years ago, a friend of mine observed that 80 percent of the people in this country have too much self-esteem and 20 percent have much too little. That struck me as pretty accurate, but psychologists will tell you that self-esteem is not a constant. People’s appraisal of their own worth varies… I have the impression that more people have unstable self-esteem than before. I say this because some of the traditional standards people used to measure their own worth have eroded (middle class respectability), whereas more people now seem to measure themselves against celebrities and superstars. It would be interesting to know if anybody has studied changes in the criteria we use to measure self-worth.” Comment1:
You bring up an interesting point because I do believe values and beliefs have changed. It would be very interesting to see the criteria used for self-worth. I find it hard to believe that only 20% of people have low self-esteem. I’ve been following Brene Brown’s thoughts on the subject of self-worth, and low self-worth (on some level) seems much more common. Comment 2:
If the quality of one’s self-esteem is going to be judged by comparisons with those who are celebrities and superstars, then the entire exercise is really pointless. Comment 3:
Self-esteem solution: A happy marriage. Comment 4:
Ego (self-worth) is proportionate to wealth. The more wealth, the more self-worth. Comment 5:
Benjamin Franklin said it best, and it applies to all facets of life. “Contentment will make a poor man rich just as discontent will make a rich man poor.” It does not mean not try to do your best, or be the richest. It simply means once you’ve done your best be content with yourself, just as if you don’t give your best effort discontent is sure to follow. Comment 6:
I’ve “retired” from 30 years of expensive, if interesting, “personal growth” and “self-improvement”. much probably motivated by trying to “fix” myself. Hanging out with friends at a local cafe is way more satisfying. Comment 7:
A related concept you may be interested in is the “sociometer theory” of self-esteem, pioneered by Mark Leary (Wake Forest). Basically it states that our self-esteem is determined by the amount of perceived social acceptance/rejection, and that determination is full of cognitive biases and errors. Awesome stuff.
(41) The main idea of the quoted blog is that ________. A. most people in the country have too much self-esteem B. it is urgent to help those who have too little self-esteem
C. the criteria for people to measure their self-worth are changing D. the traditional standards make people feel unstable
(42) Among all the comments, which of the following choices brings in authoritative sources in their discussion?
A. Comment 1 and Comment 2. B. Comment 3 and Comment 5. C. Comment 1 and Comment 7. D. Comment 4 and Comment 6.
(43) What all the commentators try to respond to in their writing is ________. A. the respect for the traditional values
B. the standards of self-worth measurement C. marriage, celebrities and social activities D. ego, contentment and social judgment
(44) Why does the writer of Comment 5 try to clarify Benjamin Franklin’s saying? A. Because Franklin’s saying is universally applicable.
B. Because contentment means “rich” and discontent means “poor”. C. Because if you do your best, you will be the richest.
D. Because misunderstandings might occur of Franklin’s saying.
(45) What is the writer’s attitude toward the “sociometer theory’’ in Comment 7? A. Affirmative. B. Objective. C. Detached. D. Negative. Part IV Cloze (10 minutes, 10 points)
Directions: In this part, there is a passage with ten blanks. For each blank there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer for each blank and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet.
Almost half of UK internet users are going online via mobile phone data connections, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 45% of people surveyed said they (46) ________use of the net while out and about, compared with 31% in 2010. The most rapid growth was (47) ________ younger people, where 71% of internet-connected 16 to 24-year-olds used mobiles.