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例1、When it comes to the slowing economy, Ellen Spero isn’t biting her nails just yet. But the 47-year-old manicurist isn’t cutting, filling or polishing as many nails as she’d like to, either. Most of her clients spend $12 to $50 weekly, but last month two longtime customers suddenly stopped showing up. Spero blames the softening economy. “I’m a good economic indicator,” she says. “I provide a service that people can do without when they’re concerned about saving some dollars.” So Spero is downscaling, shopping at middle-brow Dillard’s department store near her suburban Cleveland home, instead of Neiman Marcus. “I don’t know if other clients are going to abandon me, too” she says.
Even before Alan Greenspan’s admission that America’s red-hot economy is cooling, lots of working folks had already seen signs of the slowdown themselves. From car dealerships to Gap outlets, sales have been lagging for months as shoppers temper their spending. For retailers, who last year took in 24 percent of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the cautious approach is coming at a crucial time. Already, experts say, holiday sales are off 7 percent from last year’s pace. But don’t sound any alarms just yet. Consumers seem only concerned, not panicked, and many say they remain optimistic about the economy’s long-term prospects, even as they do some modest belt-tightening.
Consumers say they’re not in despair because, despite the dreadful headlines, their own fortunes still feel pretty good. Home prices are holding steady in most regions. In Manhattan, “there’s a new gold rush happening in the $4 million to $10 million range, predominantly fed by Wall Street bonuses,” says broker Barbara Corcoran. In San Francisco, prices are still rising even as frenzied overbidding quiets.
“Instead of 20 to 30 offers, now maybe you only get two or three,” says john Deadly, a Bay Area real-estate broker. And most folks still feel pretty comfortable about their ability to find and keep a job.
Many folks see silver linings to this slowdown. Potential home buyers would cheer for lower interest rates. Employers wouldn’t mind a little fewer bubbles in the job market. Many consumers seem to have been influenced by stock-market swings, which investors now view as a necessary ingredient to a sustained boom.
Diners might see an upside, too. Getting a table at Manhattan’s hot new Alain Ducasse restaurant need to be impossible. Not anymore. For that, Greenspan & Co. may still be worth toasting.
52.How do the public feel about the current economic situation? (2004)
(A) Optimistic.(B) Confused. (C) Carefree.(D) Panicked.
【解析】：
第一步：根据局部对象或者局部对象的主体找出本题的出题句;我们发现本题根本就没有对应的出题句。因为文章中没有the
public这个短语。在没有一样的词语的时候我们应该寻找一个近意词来替代。结果发现在文章倒数第二段的第一句话中的Consumers即是指大众，因此本句为出题句。
第二步：在出题句(或称得分句)中寻找含有感情色彩的词语或句子;在最后一段的第一句中我们找到了not
in despair这个词组，是没有绝望的意思;
第三步：比较该感情色彩的词语或句子和四个选项，选择一个意思和该词语最为接近的选项;发现A是乐观的意思，是四个选项中意思最为接近的选项。
例2、Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education —— not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren’t difficult to find.
“Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual,” says education writer Diane Ravitch. “Schools could be a counterbalance.” Razitch’s latest bock, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits.
But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, “We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society.”
“Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege,” writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in US politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism.
Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalistphilosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children:“We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized —— going to school and learning to read —— so he can preserve his innate goodness.
Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines.
School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country’s educational system is in the grips of people who “joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise.”
58. The views of Ravish and Emerson on schooling are(2004)
(A) identical. (B) similar. (C) complementary. (D)opposite.
【解析】：
第一步：根据局部对象或者局部对象的主体找出本题的出题句;我们发现本题根本就没有对应的出题句。我们发现文章中没有一句话是即包括Ravish有包括Emerson的，但是我们能很轻易的找到Ravish在第二段的第一句话中，Emerson在第五段的第一句话中，因此这个题目的得分句是这个两句。
第二步：在出题句(或称得分句)中寻找含有感情色彩的词语或句子;我们发现这个两句话的意思正好是相反的;
第三步：比较该感情色彩的词语或句子和四个选项，我们只能选择D;另外因为这个题目中A、B、C的意思是相近的，所以同时排除，我们也可以知道这个题目选D。 |
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发表于 2016-7-14 15:56:43