新G OG阅读梯度练习抽取.doc

使用说明
内容为新GRE(GRE revised) OG中的阅读梯度练习，参照阅读2772设置，答案被隐藏。显示的方法是鼠标左键单击“常用”工具栏“显示/隐藏编辑标记”按钮（只有WORD才有此按钮，写字板没有）。再次单击又被隐藏。见下图：

SET 2. Reading Comprehension Questions: Easy
For each of Questions 1 to 9, select one answer choice unless otherwise instructed.

1. A person who agrees to serve as mediator between two warring factions at the request of both abandons by so agreeing the right to take sides later. To take sides at a later point would be to suggest that the earlier presumptive impartiality was a sham.

The passage above emphasizes which of the following points about mediators?
A They should try to form no opinions of their own about any issue that is related to the dispute.
B They should not agree to serve unless they are committed to maintaining a stance of impartiality.
C They should not agree to serve unless they are equally acceptable to all parties to a dispute.
D They should feel free to take sides in the dispute right from the start, provided that they make their biases publicly known.
E They should reserve the right to abandon their impartiality so as not to be open to the charge of having been deceitful.

Explanation
By pointing out the consequences of abandoning impartiality, the paragraph points out the importance for mediators of maintaining impartiality at all times. This is the point made in Choice B, which is therefore the correct answer. Choice A is incorrect, because it goes further than anything asserted in the passage. The passage does not rule out the possibility that one can have an opinion about issues related to a dispute without taking sides in the actual dispute. Choice C is incorrect because it is a presupposition on which the passage is based rather than the point of the passage; that is, the fact that the mediator is acceptable to both parties is a given, since they both ask the mediator to serve. Choices D and E are both inconsistent with the main point of the passage, the importance of impartiality at all times, so both are incorrect.

Questions 2 to 5 are based on the following reading passage.

Was Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) a great composer? On its face, the question seems absurd. One of the most gifted prodigies in the history of music, he produced his first masterpiece at sixteen. From then on, he was recognized as an artist of preternatural abilities, not only as a composer but also as a pianist and conductor. But Mendelssohn’s enduring popularity has often been at odds — sometimes quite sharply — with his critical standing. Despite general acknowledgment of his genius, there has been a noticeable reluctance to rank him with, say, Schumann or Brahms. As Haggin put it, Mendelssohn, as a composer, was a “minor master . . . working on a small scale of emotion and texture.”

Description
The passage starts by outlining the popular view that Mendelssohn was a great composer and then points out that critics do not generally accord him that status.

2. Select a sentence in the passage whose function is to indicate the range of Mendelssohn’s musical talents.

Explanation
This question asks which sentence in the passage serves to indicate the range of Mendelssohn’s musical talents. The correct answer is the fourth sentence (“From then . . . conductor”), the only sentence in the passage that mentions Mendelssohn’s achievements across three different realms: composing, piano performance, and conducting. All the other sentences can be eliminated because, while they consider the question of Mendelssohn’s claim to greatness, they do not specifically discuss the broad range of his musical talents.

3. The passage suggests that anyone attempting to evaluate Mendelssohn’s career must confront which of the following dichotomies?
A The tension between Mendelssohn’s career as a composer and his career
as a pianist and conductor
B The contrast between Mendelssohn’s popularity and that of Schumann and Brahms
C The discrepancy between Mendelssohn’s popularity and his standing among critics
D The inconsistency between Mendelssohn’s reputation during his lifetime and his reputation since his death
E The gap between Mendelssohn’s prodigious musical beginnings and his decline in later years

Explanation
The passage clearly presents the discrepancy between Mendelssohn’s popularity and his critical standing as an interpretive problem. Therefore, Choice C is correct. The other answer choices are incorrect because the passage never indicates that there was any conflict among the different aspects of Mendelssohn’s professional life; never discusses Schumann’s and Brahms’s popularity; does not discuss any differences between Mendelssohn’s reputation during his lifetime and after his death; and makes no mention of a decline in Mendelssohn’s later life.

4. It can be inferred that the “reluctance” mentioned in the passage is being ascribed to
A most composers since Mendelssohn
B Schumann and Brahms
C the music-listening public
D music critics generally
E Haggin exclusively

Explanation
Choice D is correct. The “reluctance” is mentioned in the context of a discussion about Mendelssohn’s critical standing and thus is being ascribed to music critics generally. Choices A and B can be eliminated because the passage does not discuss any composers’ views of Mendelssohn. Choice C is incorrect because the word “reluctance” is mentioned only after the passage turns from discussing the popular view of Mendelssohn to the critical view. Choice E is incorrect because the words “As Haggin put it” indicate that Haggin is only one example of critics who have this reluctance.

5. The author mentions Schumann and Brahms primarily in order to
A provide examples of composers who are often compared with Mendelssohn
B identify certain composers who are more popular than Mendelssohn
C identify composers whom Mendelssohn influenced
D establish the milieu in which Mendelssohn worked
E establish a standard of comparison for Mendelssohn as a composer

Explanation
Schumann and Brahms are mentioned as a way of explaining how critics rank Mendelssohn — that is, as less accomplished than some other composers who are widely acknowledged as major. Therefore, Choice E is correct. Choice A might look like a correct answer at first glance. However, careful consideration reveals that the point the author is making when Schumann and Brahms are mentioned is not the frequency of that comparison but the results of it. Therefore, Choice A can be eliminated. Choices B, C, and D are incorrect because the passage does not discuss Schumann’s and Brahms’s popularity, Mendelssohn’s influence on other composers, or the milieu in which Mendelssohn worked.

Questions 6 and 7 are based on the following reading passage.

While most scholarship on women’s employment in the United States recognizes that the Second World War (1939–1945) dramatically changed the role of women in the workforce, these studies also acknowledge that few women remained in manufacturing jobs once men returned from the war. But in agriculture, unlike other industries where women were viewed as temporary workers, women’s employment did not end with the war. Instead, the expansion of agriculture and a steady decrease in the number of male farmworkers combined to cause the industry to hire more women in the postwar years. Consequently, the 1950s saw a growing number of women engaged in farm labor, even though rhetoric in the popular media called for the return of women to domestic life.

Description
The first sentence states that the Second World War led to significant changes in women’s employment, but that these changes were largely reversed in manufacturing after the war. The second sentence discusses the fact that unlike in other industries, employment of women in agriculture was more permanent; the third provides more detail regarding the trend in agriculture and the reasons for it; and the fourth summarizes the consequences of the trend.

6. It can be inferred from the passage that the manufacturing and agricultural sectors in the United States following the Second World War differed in which of the following respects?
A The rate of expansion in each sector
B The percentage of employees in each sector who were men
C The trend in the wages of men employed in each sector
D The attitude of the popular media toward the employment of women in
each sector
E The extent to which women in each sector were satisfied with their jobs

Explanation
The correct choice for this question is Choice B. We are told that few women remained in the manufacturing sector once men returned from the war, while the number of women who worked in agriculture increased after the war as the number of men in agriculture decreased. It is therefore inferable that the percentage of employees working in manufacturing who were men increased while the percentage of employees working in agriculture who were men decreased. Choices A, C, and E are incorrect because the passage provides no information about rates of expansion, wage trends, or women’s job satisfaction. Choice D is incorrect because the only mention of the popular media occurs in the final sentence, and no distinction is made between the sectors there.

7. Which of the following statements about women’s employment in the United States during and after the Second World War is most clearly supported by the passage?
A Most women who joined the workforce during the Second World War wanted to return to domestic life when the war ended.
B The great majority of women who joined the workforce during the Second
World War were employed in manufacturing jobs.
C The end of the Second World War was followed by a large-scale transfer of women workers from manufacturing to agriculture.
D The increase in women’s employment that accompanied the Second World
War was longer lasting in agriculture than it was in manufacturing.
E The popular media were more forceful in calling for women to join the workforce during the Second World War than in calling for women to return to domestic life after the war.

Explanation
The correct choice for this question is Choice D. We are told in the passage that women’s employment in manufacturing fell quickly after men returned from the war. However, not only did women’s employment in agriculture not decline after the end of the war, it actually increased. The other choices are incorrect because the passage provides no information about what women who joined the workforce wanted to do; about the distribution of women across industries; about what happened to women who left manufacturing; nor about media appeals for women to join the wartime workforce.

Questions 8 and 9 are based on the following reading passage.
Since the Hawaiian Islands have never been connected to other land masses, the great variety of plants in Hawaii must be a result of the long-distance dispersal of seeds, a process that requires both a method of transport and an equivalence between the ecology of the source area and that of the recipient area.
There is some dispute about the method of transport involved. Some biologists argue that ocean and air currents are responsible for the transport of plant seeds to Hawaii. Yet the results of flotation experiments and the low temperatures of air currents cast doubt on these hypotheses. More probable is bird transport, either externally, by accidental attachment of the seeds to feathers, or internally, by the swallowing of fruit and subsequent excretion of the seeds. While it is likely that fewer varieties of plant seeds have reached Hawaii externally than internally, more varieties are known to be adapted to external than to internal transport.

Description
The passage raises the question of how seeds reached the Hawaiian Islands. It introduces one possible method — ocean and air currents — but refers to evidence that casts doubt on that method. It then introduces a second method — bird transport — and discusses two ways in which that might occur.

8. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with
A. discussing different approaches biologists have taken to testing theories about the distribution of plants in Hawaii
B. discussing different theories about the transport of plant seeds to Hawaii
C. discussing the extent to which air currents are responsible for the dispersal of plant seeds to Hawaii
D. resolving a dispute about the adaptability of plant seeds to bird transport
E. resolving a dispute about the ability of birds to carry plant seeds long distances

Explanation
Given the description of the passage above, it is clear that Choice B is correct: the passage focuses on “different theories about the transport of plant seeds to Hawaii.” Choice A can be eliminated: while the passage does refer to flotation experiments, it does not elaborate on experimental methods. Choice C identifies an idea that is part of the passage’s main concern, but since this is only one of the competing theories discussed in the passage, not the primary focus, Choice C is incorrect. Choices D and E are incorrect because the passage does not resolve any disputes.

9. The author mentions the results of flotation experiments on plant seeds (lines 7–8) most probably in order to
A. support the claim that the distribution of plants in Hawaii is the result of the long-distance dispersal of seeds
B. lend credibility to the thesis that air currents provide a method of transport for plant seeds to Hawaii
C. suggest that the long-distance dispersal of seeds is a process that requires long periods of time
D. challenge the claim that ocean currents are responsible for the transport of plant seeds to Hawaii
E. refute the claim that Hawaiian flora evolved independently from flora in other parts of the world

Explanation
This question asks why the author mentions flotation experiments. Flotation experiments are mentioned in the passage in order to show that some evidence casts doubt on the claim that ocean currents were the means by which seeds were transported to Hawaii. Thus, Choice D is correct. Choice A is incorrect since the claim that plant distribution in Hawaii is the result of long-distance dispersal of seeds is a given in the passage, not an idea that the author feels a need to substantiate. Choice B is eliminable since the flotation experiments are introduced at a point where the author is challenging, rather than lending credibility to, the air current hypothesis and because flotation experiments would more likely reflect on ocean currents than air currents. Choice C is eliminable since the passage does not address the length of time required for longdistance seed dispersal. Finally, Choice E is eliminable since it too describes an idea that is not discussed in the passage

SET 4. Reading Comprehension Ques