Part II Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Direction: There are 4 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 and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:
I believe very strongly that our overproduction of cheap grain in general, and corn in particular, has a lot to do with the fact that three-fifths of Americans are now overweight. The obesity crisis is complicated in some ways, but it’s very simple in another way. Basically, Americans are on average eating 200 more calories a day than they were in the 1970s. If you do that and don’t get correspondingly more exercise, you’re going to get a lot fatter. Many demographers are predicting that this is the first generation of Americans whose life span may be shorter than their parents’. The reason for that is obesity, essentially, and diabetes specifically.
Where do those calories come from? Except for seafood, all our calories come from the farm. Compared with the mid-to-late 1970s, American farms are producing 500 more calories of food a day per American. We’re managing to pack away 200 of them, which is pretty heroic on our part. A lot of the rest is being dumped overseas, or wasted, or burned in our cars.
Overproduction sooner or later leads to over-consumption, because we’re very good at figuring out how to turn surpluses into inexpensive, portable new products. Our cheap, value-added, portable corn commodity is corn sweetener, specifically high-fructose(高糖) corn syrup. But we also dispose of overproduction in corn-fed beef, pork, and chicken. And now we’re even teaching salmon to eat corn, because there’s so much of it to get rid of.
There is a powerful industrial logic at work here, the logic of processing. We discovered that corn is this big, fat packet of starch(淀粉) that can be broken down into almost any basic organic molecules and reassembled as sweeteners and many other food additives. Of the 37 ingredients in chicken nuggets, something like 30 are made, directly or indirectly, from corn.
11. Which of the following best summarizes the passage?
A. Overproduction of corn products leads to overweight.
B. Corn is the most popular portable product in America.
C. Corn processing is a powerful industrial logic at work.
D. A balanced diet of corn is beneficial to one’s life span.
12. The word “obesity”(Line 3, Para. 1) most probably means __________.
A. having much nutrition
B. becoming too fat
C. abundance in calories
D. shortening of life span
13. Which of the following is true according to the passage?
A. Americans’ standard of living is relatively low in the 1970s.
B. Americans are on average consuming 200 calories every day.
C. Farms are responsible for American over-consumption of calories.
D. Diabetes is the unavoidable result of Americans’ consuming corn.
14. Overproduced corn in American farms has been converted to __________.
A. feed cattle, pigs and poultry
B. manufacture automobile components
C. make artificial beef, pork, and chicken
D. become high-fructose low fat products
15. The reason why corn can be processed into other food additives is that __________.
A. it can serve as sweeteners during cooking
B. it contains an unparalleled amount of starch
C. its basic organic molecules can be broken down
D. its chemical composition can be changed and reorganized
Passage Two
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage:
In California the regulators, the utilities and the governor all want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to cap spot (現(xiàn)貨的) market prices. The Californians claim it will rein in outrageous prices. Federal regulators have refused. The battle is on.
Direction: There are 4 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 and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:
I believe very strongly that our overproduction of cheap grain in general, and corn in particular, has a lot to do with the fact that three-fifths of Americans are now overweight. The obesity crisis is complicated in some ways, but it’s very simple in another way. Basically, Americans are on average eating 200 more calories a day than they were in the 1970s. If you do that and don’t get correspondingly more exercise, you’re going to get a lot fatter. Many demographers are predicting that this is the first generation of Americans whose life span may be shorter than their parents’. The reason for that is obesity, essentially, and diabetes specifically.
Where do those calories come from? Except for seafood, all our calories come from the farm. Compared with the mid-to-late 1970s, American farms are producing 500 more calories of food a day per American. We’re managing to pack away 200 of them, which is pretty heroic on our part. A lot of the rest is being dumped overseas, or wasted, or burned in our cars.
Overproduction sooner or later leads to over-consumption, because we’re very good at figuring out how to turn surpluses into inexpensive, portable new products. Our cheap, value-added, portable corn commodity is corn sweetener, specifically high-fructose(高糖) corn syrup. But we also dispose of overproduction in corn-fed beef, pork, and chicken. And now we’re even teaching salmon to eat corn, because there’s so much of it to get rid of.
There is a powerful industrial logic at work here, the logic of processing. We discovered that corn is this big, fat packet of starch(淀粉) that can be broken down into almost any basic organic molecules and reassembled as sweeteners and many other food additives. Of the 37 ingredients in chicken nuggets, something like 30 are made, directly or indirectly, from corn.
11. Which of the following best summarizes the passage?
A. Overproduction of corn products leads to overweight.
B. Corn is the most popular portable product in America.
C. Corn processing is a powerful industrial logic at work.
D. A balanced diet of corn is beneficial to one’s life span.
12. The word “obesity”(Line 3, Para. 1) most probably means __________.
A. having much nutrition
B. becoming too fat
C. abundance in calories
D. shortening of life span
13. Which of the following is true according to the passage?
A. Americans’ standard of living is relatively low in the 1970s.
B. Americans are on average consuming 200 calories every day.
C. Farms are responsible for American over-consumption of calories.
D. Diabetes is the unavoidable result of Americans’ consuming corn.
14. Overproduced corn in American farms has been converted to __________.
A. feed cattle, pigs and poultry
B. manufacture automobile components
C. make artificial beef, pork, and chicken
D. become high-fructose low fat products
15. The reason why corn can be processed into other food additives is that __________.
A. it can serve as sweeteners during cooking
B. it contains an unparalleled amount of starch
C. its basic organic molecules can be broken down
D. its chemical composition can be changed and reorganized
Passage Two
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage:
In California the regulators, the utilities and the governor all want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to cap spot (現(xiàn)貨的) market prices. The Californians claim it will rein in outrageous prices. Federal regulators have refused. The battle is on.