1、羽天 全国英语六级 阅读理解 1.2007年12月英语六级阅读专项训练(1) Giving Credit Where Credit Is Not Due The big identity-theft bust last week was just a taste of what's to come. Here's how to protect your good name HERE'S THE SCARY THING about the identity-theft ring that the feds cracked
2、 last week: there was nothing any of its estimated 40,000 victims could have done to prevent it from happening. This was an inside job, according to court documents. A lowly help-desk worker at Teledata Communications, a software firm that helps banks access credit reports online, allegedly stole pa
3、sswords for those reports and sold them to a group of 20 thieves at $60 a pop. That allowed the gang to cherry-pick consumers with good credit and apply for all kinds of accounts in their names. Cost to the victims: $3 million and rising. Even scarier is that this, the largest identity-theft bust
4、 to date, is just a drop in the bit bucket. More than 700,000 Americans have their credit hijacked every year. It's one of crime's biggest growth markets. A name, address and Social Security number--which can often be found on the Web--is all anybody needs to apply for a bogus line of credit. Credit
5、 companies make $1.3 trillion annually and lose less than 2% of that revenue to fraud, so there's little financial incentive for them to make the application process more secure. As it stands now, it's up to you to protect your identity. The good news is that there are plenty of steps you can tak
6、e. Most credit thieves are opportunists, not well-organized gangs. A lot of them go Dumpster diving for those millions of "pre-approved" credit-card mailings that go out every day. Others steal wallets and return them, taking only a Social Security number. Shredding your junk mail and leaving your S
7、ocial Security card at home can save a lot of agony later. But the most effective way to keep your identity clean is to check your credit reports once or twice a year. There are three major credit-report outfits: Equifax (at ), Trans-Union () and Experian (). All allow you to order reports online
8、 which is a lot better than wading through voice-mail hell on their 800 lines. Of the three, I found TransUnion's website to be the cheapest and most comprehensive--laying out state-by-state prices, rights and tips for consumers in easy-to-read fashion. If you're lucky enough to live in Colorado
9、 Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey or Vermont, you are entitled to one free report a year by law. Otherwise it's going to cost $8 to $14 each time. Avoid services that offer to monitor your reports year-round for about $70; that's $10 more than the going rate among thieves. If you think
10、you're a victim of identity theft, you can ask for fraud alerts to be put on file at each of the three credit-report companies. You can also download a theft-report form at www.consumer.gov/idtheft, which, along with a local police report, should help when irate creditors come knocking. Just don't e
11、xpect justice. That audacious help-desk worker was one of the fewer than 2% of identity thieves who are ever caught. 引用 By Chris Taylor Time; 12/9/2002, Vol. 160 Issue 24, p100, 3/4p, 1c 注(1):本文选自Time; 12/9/2002, p100, 3/4p, 1c; 注(2):本文习题命题模仿对象2004年真题Text 1; 1.What is the trend of credi
12、t-theft crime? [A]Tightly suppressed. [B]More frightening. [C]Rapidly increasing. [D]loosely controlled. 2.The expression “inside job”(Line 6, Paragraph 1) most probably means _________. [A]a crime that is committed by a person working for the victim [B]a crime that should be punished sever
13、ely [C]a crime that does great harm to the victim [D]a crime that poses a great threat to the society 3.The creditors can protect their identity in the following way except _________. [A]destroying your junk mail [B]leaving your Social Security card at home [C]visiting the credit-report
14、website regularly [D]obtaining the free report from the government 4.Why is it easy to have credit-theft? [A]More people are using credit service. [B]The application program is not safe enough. [C]Creditors usually disclose their identity. [D]Creditors are not careful about their identity
15、 5.What is the best title of the text? [A]The danger of credit-theft [B]The loss of the creditors [C]How to protect your good name [D]Why the creditors lose their identity 答案:CADBC 2. 2007年12月英语六级阅读专项训练(2) Opinion polls are now beginning to show that,whoever is to blame and whateve
16、r happens from now on,high unemployment is probably here to say.This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should
17、 we not rather encourage many ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centers of product
18、ion and work? The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people’s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now becoming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, i
19、n fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom. Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the l
20、and, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people’s homes. Later, as transport improved first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually,
21、 many people’s work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they live. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In preindustrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband t
22、o go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and families to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes. It was not only women whose work status suffered. As employment became the domina
23、nt form of work, young people and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives. All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal
24、creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs. 21.What is the main idea of the passage? A) Employment became widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries. B) Unemployment will remain a major problem for industrialized nations. C) Th
25、e industrial age may now be coming to an end. D) Some efforts and resources should be devoted to helping more people cope with the problem of unemployment. 22.Which of the following was NOT mentioned as a factor contributing to the spread of employment? A) The enclosures of the 17th and 18th
26、centuries.B) The development of factories. C) Relief from housework on the part of women.D) Development of modern means of transportation. 23.It can be inferred from the passage that____. A) most people who have been polled believe that the problem of unemployment may not be solved within a
27、 short period of time B) many farmers lost their land when new railways and factories were being constructed C) in preindustrial societies housework and community service were mainly carried out by women D) some of the changes in work pattern that the industrial age brought have been reversed
28、 24.What does the word “daunting” in the third paragraph mean? A) Shocking B) InterestingC) Confusing D) Stimulating 25.Which of the following is NOT suggested as a possible means to cope with the current situation? A) Create situations in which people work for themselves.B) Treat employme
29、nt as the norm. C) Endeavor to revive the household and the neighborhood as centers of production. D) Encourage people to work in circumstances other than normal working conditions. 答案:DCAAB 3.2007年12月英语六级阅读专项训练(3) No one should be forced to wear a uniform under any circumstance. Uniforms a
30、re demanding to the human spirit and totally unnecessary in a democratic society. Uniforms tell the world that the person who wears one has no value as an individual but only lives to function as a part of a whole. The individual in a uniform loses all self-worth. There are those who say that wea
31、ring a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger, more important concept. What could be more important than the individual himself? If an organization is so weak that it must rely on cloth and buttons to inspire its members, that organization has no right to continue its existen
32、ce. Others say that the practice of making persons wear uniforms, say in a school, eliminates all envy and competition in the matter of dress, such that a poor person who cannot afford good-quality clothing is not to be belittled by a wealthy person who wears expensive quality clothing. Those person
33、s conveniently ignore such critical concepts as freedom of choice, motivation, and individuality. If all persons were to wear the same clothing, why would anyone strive to be better? It is only a short step from forcing everyone to drive the same car, have the same type of foods. When this happens,
34、all incentive to improve one’s life is removed. Why would parents bother to work hard so that their children could have a better life than they had when they know that their children are going to be forced to have exactly the same life that they had? Uniforms also hurt the economy. Right now, bil
35、lions of dollars are spent on the fashion industry yearly. Thousands of persons are employed in designing, creating and marketing different types of clothing. If everyone were forced to wear uniforms, artistic personnel would be unnecessary. Sales persons would be superfluous as well; why bother to
36、sell the only items that are available? The wearing of uniforms would destroy the fashion industry, which in turn would have a ripple effect on such industries as advertising and promotion. Without advertising, newspapers, magazines, and television would not be able to remain in business. One entire
37、 information and entertainment industry would collapse. 26.The author’s primary purpose in writing this passage was to ____. A)plead for the abolishment of uniformsB)show that uniforms are not possible in a democratic society C)advocate stronger governmental controls on the wearing of unifor
38、msD)convince the reader that uniforms have more disadvantages than advantages 27.Why does the author discuss forcing everyone to buy the same car or eat the same food? A) To show that freedom of choice is absolute. B) To show that the government has interfered too much in the lives of individua
39、l. C) To suggest what would happen if uniforms became compulsory. D) To predict the way the society will be in the next few generations. 28.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the author? A) The person who wears a uniform has no self-worth. B) Wearing a uniform gives a
40、 person a sense of identification with a larger concept. C) Uniforms will hurt one entire information and entertainment industry. D) Envy and competition are incentive to improve one’s life. 29.The word “superfluous” (Para. 3) most probably means ____. A) indispensable B) availableC) surpl
41、us D) supplementary 30.The next paragraph in this passage might discuss____. A) the positive effects of wearing uniformsB) more negative effects of wearing uniforms C) alternative to wearing uniformsD) the legal rights of those not wishing to wear uniforms 答案:DCBCB 4.2007年12月英语六级阅读专项训练(4)
42、 A strange thing about humans is their capacity for blind rage. Rage is presumably an emotion resulting from survival instinct, but the surprising thing about it is that we do not deploy it against other animals. If we encounter a dangerous wild animal - a poisonous snake or a wild cat - we do n
43、ot fly into a temper. If we are unarmed, we show fear and attempt to back away; if we are suitably armed, we attack, but in a rational manner not in a rage. We reserve rage for our own species. It is hard to see any survival value in attacking one’s own, but if we take account of the long competitio
44、n, which must have existed between our own subspecies and others like Neanderthal man - indeed others still more remote from us than Neanderthal man - human rage becomes more comprehensible. In our everyday language and behavior there are many reminders of those early struggles. We are always usi
45、ng the words “us and them”. “Our” side is perpetually trying to do down the “other” side. In games we artificially create other subspecies we can attack. The opposition of “us” and “them” is the touchstone of the two-party system of “democratic” politics. Although there are no very serious consequen
46、ces to many of these modern psychological representations of the “us and them” emotion, it is as well to remember that the original aim was not to beat the other subspecies in a game but to exterminate it. The readiness with which humans allow themselves to be regimented has permitted large armie
47、s to be formed, which, taken together with the “us and them” blind rage, has led to destructive clashes within our subspecies itself. The First World War is an example in which Europe divided itself into two imaginary subspecies. And there is a similar extermination battle now in Northern Ireland. T
48、he idea that there is a religious basis for this clash is illusory, for not even the Pope has been able to control it. The clash is much more primitive than the Christian religion, much older in its emotional origin. The conflict in Ireland is unlikely to stop until a greater primitive fear is impos
49、ed from outside the community, or until the combatants become exhausted. 31.A suitable title for this passage would be____. A) Why Human Armies Are FormedB) Man’s Anger Against Rage C) The Human Capacity for RageD) Early Struggles of Angry Man 32.According to the author, the surprising aspect of human anger is____. A) its lengthy and complex developmentB) a conflict such as is now going on in Northern Ireland C) that we do not fly into a temper more oftenD) that we reserve anger for mankind 33.The passage suggests that____. A) h






