新视野大学英语快速阅读(是非填空).pdf

Skimming and Scanning(True or False Questions+Blank Filling)Directions:Read the following passage and then answer the questions.For questions 1-7,chooseY(YES)if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage,choose N(NO)if thestatement contradicts the information given in the passage,choose NG(NOT GIVEN)if theinformation is not given in the passage.For questions 8-10,complete the sentences with theinformation given in the passage.Passage 1The Real Danger of Sharks(鲨鱼)With row after row of sharp,white teeth,a mouth as wide as its body and an electrical sixth senseto track down its victims,sharks are easily seen as the most frightening creature of the sea formost people.Much of that fear is unreasonable,however.Humans just arent on the menu of most sharks.George Burgess directs the International Shark Attack File(档案，案卷)，the biggest listing ofshark attacks in the world.He says even with millions of people around the world splashingaround at the beach,swimming in the sea,diving down into the ocean,and fishing near sharks,there are usually fewer than 75 shark attacks each year.Humans arent on the menuThe fact is that if all types of sharks were interested in grabbing human beings,I wouldnt betalking about 75 attacks a year.Fd be talking thousands and thousands/1 Burgess says.In Floridaif you fly in an airplane along the shoreline,youll see sharks swimming in and amongst people ona day-to-day basis,without problems.1Although they are not common,shark attacks do happen and North America gets more than its fairshare.In a survey of shark attacks taken for 2000,the United States experienced 51 of the years79 attacks recorded worldwide.Most of the US attacks occurred in Florida where the beach-goingpopulation is large.The 2000 statistics represents the most attacks ever recorded in the past 40 years that researchershave been keeping track of.There were 10 deaths in 2000:three in Australia,two in Tanzania,andone each in Fiji,Japan,New Guinea,New Caledonia and the United States.For 1997,theInternational Shark Attack File lists 56 unprovoked shark attacks.More than half of those tookplace in North American waters and 10 resulted in death.Unprovoked shark attacks in Canada are very uncommon,but they do happen as well.The earliestshark attack ever recorded there happened in 1851 and involved a half-meter-long shark with along tail.A more recent attack,in 1987,probably involved a different sort of shark that is commonto the mid-Atlantic.Shark Attack File records indicate that both of these attacks were provoked.Burgess says two common ways of provoking a shark are pulling on its tail and removing afishhook from its mouth.There have been only two unprovoked shark attacks in Canadian waters,the first one being in1972 off Vancouver Island,Port Hardy,n he says.The other one was in 1977.A diver off the coastof Newfoundland apparently was bitten by a blue shark.Thats the only one that,by most peoplesdefinition,would really be considered a shark attack*.Fortunately,there have been no deathsthere.Case of mistaken identityIf sharks dont normally attack humans,why do they come after us at all?Burgess says the answeris simple:sharks make mistakes.Sharks often grab people in the heat of battle.Theyre fighting the currents and breaking waves.They probably make quick decisions and go after what they think is a fish and discover that its ahuman foot.*But most sharks quickly realize their mistake and let go.No animal with a brain would attacksomething twice its size.So these are clearly cases where the shark has made a mistake.0Unfortunately,even if mistakes happen,the results can still be deadly（致命的）.The teeth of evena small shark can do a tremendous amount of damage to people and,if not treated immediately,avictim can bleed to death.Man bites sharkDespite the increase in the number of reported shark attacks,the number of sharks in the worldsoceans is actually decreasing.The real story isnt Shark bites man,”Burgess says.Its Man bitesshark*.We*re knocking off sharks all over the world,in some cases severely.In fact,he estimateshumans kill about 300,000 sharks each year for every one of us that dies following a shark attack.This is a rough estimate,according to some other researchers,who suggest the shark death count is70 million every year,by net catch alone.Most,but not all,sharks die in fishing nets,unintended victims of our hunger for seafood.In 1998,a great white shark was washed up on a South African beach.Scientists say it was probably sickand dying.But almost immediately,frightened beach-goers set in on the 4.4-ton animal withanything heavy that they could put their hands on.In minutes,they beat the shark to death.Burgess asks for understanding of the sharks,asking people to recognize the oceans as a foreignand threatening place,where sharks simply rule as king of the food chain.Danger of diving with sharksEven though one of the best ways to get to know sharks is to dive among them,Burgess says hedoesn*t like the idea of eco-tourism（生态旅游）operators feeding sharks around groups of eagerdivers.The feeding shows disturb the distribution（分发，分 由 己）of sharks around the ocean.Theyeven train the fish to associate divers and their boats with free food.Thats just plain dangerous forevery other diver out there.Worst of all,he fears for the sharks themselves if a person is ever injured at one of thesevideo-camera-happy tourist traps.You know whats going to happen.That video and those stills are going to hit the press,theyregoing to hit every TV show,and theyre going to make every newspaper.And you know whosgoing to be the bad guy in all that.The sharks are going to be blamed.The movie image of thekiller sharks is going to be reinforced/1With shark populations shrinking in many parts of the world,thafs the last thing this beautifulocean creature needs.1.Most people think of sharks as the most frightening animal of the sea.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A2.Sharks often take people as food,so it is reasonable for people to fear them.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:B3.George Burgess flies above Florida beaches every day and sees sharks swimming nearpeople.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:C4.There are more reports of shark attacks in the US than in any other country.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A5.In Canada,its common for someone to be attacked without provoking a shark.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:B6.When sharks attack people,its usually because they have made a mistake.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A7.Most often,sharks quickly let go of a person after they have bitten him.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A8.Burgess asks people to understand sharks as the king of an ocean that is.Correct answer:foreign and threatening9.Because of the feeding shows of eco-tourism operators,sharks associate divers with.Correct answer:free food10.The idea of a killer shark is a that is reinforced by reports of shark attacks.Correct answer:movie imagePassage 2MagicMagic（魔术）is a form of entertainment that is based on pretending to do things which areimpossible.The magician（魔术师）is a specially trained actor.He tries to make the audience believe that hehas the power to do things which are against the law of nature.Magic shows are entertaining as long as the audience does not discover how the tricks are done.The magician always tries to keep his tricks a secret.The tricks employed in magic performanceThe magician usually depends on his skill with his hands,on his knowledge of psychology,and,sometimes,on mechanical（机械的）devices.Since magic tricks are meant to fool people,the useof psychology is important.The magician must keep people from noticing all the movements ofhis hands and from thinking about the secret parts of his equipment.He must also lead theaudience to draw false conclusions.The magicians success depends on the fact that many thingsseen by the eye do not register on the mind.Two basic magic tricks are making objects seem to appear and making objects seem to disappear.A combination of these two tricks makes for some interesting effects.For example,the magicianputs a small ball under one of several cups.The ball then seems to jump from one cup to anotheror to change color.What actually happens is that the magician,employing quick hand movementsor a mechanical device,hides one ball.While doing this he talks to the audience and waves abrightly colored cloth with one hand.The audience is too busy watching the cloth and listening tothe magicians words to notice that his other hand is hiding the ball.Another favorite trick is to cut or bum something,and then make it appear whole again.Whatactually happens is that the magician makes the cut or burned object disappear by quickly hiding itwhile the audience watches something else.Then he magically*makes it appear whole again bydisplaying another object that has not been cut or burned.There are a number of tricks in which a magician will appear to read someones mind.In some ofthese,a trained helper will cover the magicians eyes with a cloth.Then the helper has theaudience hand him various objects.The helper can tell the magician what the objects are withoutmentioning their names,by using key words or code words as he talks to the magician.This trickmay take the magician and his helper many months to learn.A magicians powers are really quite limited,but he makes people believe that he can do almostanything by changing or combing several tricks.Tricks in which the magician apparently cuts people in half or makes them disappear are calledillusions（幻 觉）.The word,illusion derives from the fact that mirrors are often used to performthese tricks.A famous illusion trick is to saw（锯）a woman in half.The woman is put into a longbox with her head sticking out of one end and her feet sticking out of the other end.The magiciantakes an ordinary wood saw and cuts the box into two halves.The audience is shocked,thinkingthat perhaps he has killed the woman.A few moments later,however,the magician waves his handover the box and the woman comes out.The woman that the audience saw being cut in two wasonly an image in a mirror-an illusion.History of magicMagic is as popular today as it was in ancient times.Records show that over 2,000 years agomagic performances were being given in ancient Egypt,India,Rome,China and Greece.Theseearly magicians only performed for small groups of people on a street corner or for a king and hisfriends.The magicians in those days used only small objects that they could carry with them orborrow,such as cups,small stones,knives,and strings.About 1400,more specially designed tricks were invented which used larger equipment,such asboxes and barrels with false bottoms.Under these false bottoms the magician could hide a bird,rabbit,plant,or whatever he wanted to make appear suddenly.Some magicians made enough money to buy a donkey,a horse,or even a horse and wagon so thatthey could carry bigger equipment.Magicians also began to use halls or empty stores so that theycould give their shows indoors.The most successful magicians would move only three or four times a year.They kept a lot ofequipment on their stages,but used only a small part of it in each show.In this way they couldconvince the same people back over and over again.Some of their equipment was of no use at all.It was only used for show and to impress the audience.Modern magic did not really start until the 1800s.Its father is considered to be Jean Houdin,aFrenchman,who developed rules for doing magic.Houdin was also a highly skilled mechanic andwatchmaker.Today modern magicians can perform magic tricks that would have been impossibleyears ago because they now have better mechanical equipment and greater knowledge of audiencepsychology.1.Magicians take advantage of their hands and psychology,but not mechanical devices.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:B2.When making something disappear,magicians usually tell people to pay attention to how thetrick is done.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:B3.A magicians assistant helps him with tricks in which he seems to read a persons mind.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A4.The magician makes people believe he has cut a woman in half,but it was only an image in amirror.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A5.The history of magic can be traced back to more than 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece,China,Rome,Egypt and India.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:A6.Around 1400,more specially designed tricks which used larger equipment were invented toplease the kings and other rich people.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:C7.The passage is mainly about the origin and development of magic.A.YB.NC.NGCorrect answer:B8.Magicians started to give shows inside.Correct answer:halls or empty stores9.The man who set rules for magic was also a skilled.Correct answer:mechanic and watchmaker10.Thanks to and greater knowledge of audience psychology,modern magicians can performmore complicated magic than ever before.Correct answer:better mechanical equipmentPassage 3A Roof over Our HeadsMan has three basic needs:food,clothing and shelter.If a man lives in a warm climate,clothing isnot absolutely necessary.However,man cannot live without food,and he has little chance ofsurvival without shelter.Man needs shelter to protect himself from the weather,wild animals,insects,and enemies.History of sheltersLong before man learned how to build houses,he looked for natural shelters,as the animals did.He found that he could protect himself by climbing up into trees or by hiding in caves.The firstshelters or homes actually built by man were very simple.For his building materials,he usedwhatever he could find easily around him:rocks,tree branches,dried grasses,and animal skins.Itwas a long time,however,before man began to build permanent（永久的）shelters because,untilman learned to farm,he lived by hunting（狩猎）.And,in order to follow game（猎物）,he had tobe able to move from one hunting ground to another.Thus,the first man-made shelters were thosethat could be easily transported.The first permanent shelters were probably built twenty or forty thousand years ago by fish-eatingpeople who lived in the places as long as the fish supply lasted.Fish-eaters could stay in one placefor several years.However,once man learned to farm,he could live longer in such a place.Thus,he was able to build a permanent home.Once again,he built his home with the materials he foundat hand.In Egypt,for example,wood was scarce,so most houses were built of dried mud,with aroof supported by tree trunks.When the Norsemen came from Scandinavia to northern Europe,they found many forests,so theybuilt homes with a framework of heavy tree trunks and then filled the space between the trunkswith mud.The Eskimos,on the other hand,lived in a land where there was little or no wood.Theylearned to adapt their homes perfectly to their surroundings.In the wintertime,when everythingwas covered with snow and ice,the Eskimos built their homes with blocks of ice.When the warmweather came and the ice turned to water,the Eskimos lived in a tent made of animal skins.Weather and housesThe weather is mans wor