Part II Reading Comprehension (40 points)

Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each of the passages is followed by 5 questions or unfin-ished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the centre.

Passage 1

Some psychologists(心理学家) maintain that mental acts such as thinking are not performed in the brain alone, but that one' s muscles also participate. It may be said that we think with our muscles in somewhat the same way that we listen to music with our bodies.

You surely are not surprised to be told that you usually listen to music not only with your ears but with your whole body. Few people can listen to music without moving their body or, more specifically,some part of their body. Often when one listens to a symphonic concert on the radio, he is attracted to direct the orchestra (乐队) even though he knows there is a good conductor on the job.

Strange as this behavior may be, there is a very good reason for it. One cannot derive all pos-sible enjoyment from music unless he participates, so to speak, in its performance. The listener"feels" himself into the music with more or less noticeable motions of his body.

The muscles of the body actually participate in the mental process of thinking in the same way, but this participation is less obvious because it is less noticeable.

11. Some psychologists think that thinking is__________.

A. not a mental process

B. more of a physical process than a mental action

C. a process that involves our entire bodies

D. a process that involves the muscles as well as the brain

12. The process of thinking and that of listening to music are similar in that__________.

A. both are mental acts

B. muscles participate in both processes

C. both processes are performed by the entire body

D. we derive equal enjoyment from them

13. Few people are able to listen to familiar music without__________.

A. moving some part of their body

B. stopping what they are doing to listen

C. directing the orchestra playing it

D. wishing that they could conduct music properly

14. The listener' s way of "feeling" the music is__________.

A. the unnoticed motion of his muscles

B. "participating" in the performance

C. bending an ear to the music

D. being the conductor of the orchestra

15. According to the passage, muscle participation in the process of thinking is__________.

A. deliberate

B. apparent

C. indistinct

D. impressive

Passage 2

It is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory. The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions, the bases for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory.

Memory can be defined as the capacity to keep information available for later use. It includes not only "remembering" things like arithmetic or historical facts, but also involving any change in the way an animal typically behaves. Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile. Memory is also involved when a six-year-old child learns to swing a baseball bat.

Memory' exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and ma-chines. Computers, for example, contain devices for storing data for later use. It is interesting to compare the memory-storage capacity of a computer with that of a human being. The instant-access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100,000 "words"--ready for instant use. An average U.S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 100,000 words of English. However, this is but a fraction of the total amount of information which the teenager has stored. Consider, for ex- ample, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight.

The use of words is the basis of the advanced problem-solving intelligence of human beings.

A large part of aperson' s memory is in terms of words and combinations of words.

16. According to the passage, memory is considered to be__________.

A. the basis for decision making and problem solving

B. an ability to store experiences for future use

C. an intelligence typically possessed by human beings

D. the data mainly consisting of words and combinations of words

17. The comparison made between the memory capacity of a large computer and that of a human being shows that__________.

A. the computer' s memory has a little bigger capacity than a teenager' s

B. the computer's memory capacity is much smaller that an adult human being' s

C.the computer' s memory capacity is much smaller even than a teenager' s

D. both A and B

18. The whole passage implies that__________.

A. only human beings have problem-solving intelligence

B. a person' s memory is different from a computer' s in every respect

C. animals are able to solve only very simple problems

D. animals solve problems by instincts rather than intelligence

19. The phrase "in terms of" in the last sentence can best be replaced by__________.

A. "in connection with"

B. "expressed by"

C. "consisting"

D. "by means of"

20. The topic of the passage is:__________.

A. What would life be like without memory ?

B. Memory is of vital importance to life.

C. How is a person' s memory different from an animal' s or a computer' s?

D. What is contained in memory ?

考试报名：2016年学位英语考试报名新手指南报考答疑考试大纲

考试试题：2016学位英语考试冲刺试题及答案专题