G But Dr George Boeree, an expert in Buddhist psychology at Pennsylvania's Shippensburg University, agrees with Brazier. He says Zen therapy, or therapy base d on Buddhist principles, has a great deal of potential. He says, “Because Buddhism has focused as much on the psychology of the individual as it has on anything else, it has behind it some 2,500 years of insight that, while not always in tune with modern science, can nevertheless add a lot to our understanding. Boeree perceives few dangers in relation to Zen therapy, except that participants ma y “forget that we are not all monks" and be unable to cope with the discipline required.
H Although Brazier looks the epitome of the smiling New Age guru, he does not claim to have all the answers. Zen therapy is not a miracle cure, he emphasizes , adding that cost of the courses he runs is “quite modest”. His Amida Trust, which runs the courses, is not a profit-making organization. “Whatever funds we receive go into the various projects we are developing," he says. “We are not salaried professionals. We live Dharma livings the Buddha expounded. Moreover, its influence looks to be spreading, as there has been a whole rash of recent boo ksby shrinks with a Dharma dimension.
Questions 14-19
Reading passage 2 has eight paragraphs A-H. Which paragraphs concentrate on the following information? Write the appropriate letters A-H in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
NB You need write only one letter for each answer.
14. Brazier's approach to Zen
15. the benefits of Zen therapy
16. the financial details of Brazier's organization
17. doubt cast on the efficacy of Zen therapy
18. how Brazier came to develop his therapy
19. academic support for Buddhist-based therapy
Questions 20-22
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
20. The Buddhist and Western approaches to psychotherapy are incompatible.
21.Only monks are capable of undergoing Zen therapy.
22. zen therapy was more suited to 6th century China than to modern times.
Questions 23-26
Match the following statements or points of view 23-26 with the names in the list below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 23-26 on y our answer sheet.
NB There are more names than statements, so you will not use al l of them.
List of Names
A. Frederic Lenz
B. Wendy Grossman
C. David Brazier
D. Doctor George Boeree
23. The brain is not an efficient data processor.
24. We can influence our own future lives.
25. Zen therapy is not a new development.
26. Buddhism has a valuable psychological tradition.
READING PASSAGE 3
Boom in Highrise Living in Central Tokyo
A Nine straight years of falling land prices have brought the cost of residential land in Tokyo to about half its 1991 peak. Doctors , lawyers and entrepreneurs are delighted to find that they can afford to live in one of a rash of luxury apartment towers being built across the city center. A total of 34 towers are scheduled to be completed by 2003.
B Perhaps the most opulent on the market is the 34-story Aoyama Park Tower, built by the Mitsui Fodosan company in Shibuya, a class y residential area. Most of the apartments in the block are 100 sq m or more, compared with the central Tokyo average of about 7 sq m. All offer luxury European fittings. When the first apartments in the building went on sale, they were 10 times over-subscribed, despite average prices of 90 million yen per unit, and a t op price tag of 710 million yen for the penthouse.
C A Mitsui Fudosan official said, “Ordinary salaried workers like me couldn't even think of buying a place like this." He attributed the success of the new! highrises to their prime location and the chance for the buyer to choose the apartment layout rather than being forced to accept the developer's plan. “In the past," he explained, “most Japanese aimed to swap their apartments for houses standing on their own eventually. But here they can simply change the layout and stay for good."
D There are other factors behind the highrise boom besides falling land prices. An easing of regulations on building height is changing the face of the city. I n addition, restructuring is forcing business companies to sell land that is not being profitably used. Aoyama Park Tower, for instance, was built on the site o f a company dormitory belonging to Asahi Glass. Though Tokyo is often portrayed as a cluster of high-technology skyscrapers, highrise building has been confined to limited areas, and was mostly for commercial use.
E ING Barings analyst Mark Brown said falling property prices have changed people's thinking. “Why buy a small house that is an hour and a half away from the center when you can buy a condominium which may be larger in terms of floor space, and is much nearer?" he said. This change in thinking effects Tokyo's local government, too. Officials are happy to encourage the wealthy to move to the city center by requiring commercial developers to add a residential element to offices and shopping centers. According to Brown, “The central wards of Tokyo want t o get people to come back to beef up the night-time populations and the weekend populations to increase the local tax revenue."
F But in one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, people are nervous about moving into highrise buildings. Developers say that tall buildings are n o more prone to collapse than short ones. “In fact, because the Aoyama Park Tower is built to sway very slowly, I think it is virtually impossible for it to collapse," said the Mitsui Fudosan official. “ The only problem would be if a quake results in a loss of electrical power. The n the elevators would stop working, and it's pretty tough to climb 30 flights of stairs." Mindful of buyer concerns, the Tokyo government has enacted laws to make sure that buildings will be able to withstand medium-sized earthquakes. “And even in the case of a big quake like the one in Kobe in 1995, which killed more than 5,000 people, there should be no injuries even if the buildings are damaged," said a municipal official.
G The reason for so much property destruction due to earthquakes in the past w as that houses were put up in a hurry, according to Prof. Haruo Shimada of Keio University. “Houses were thrown up in the fashion of army barracks after the war," he said, “because all the existing housing had been burnt down." But construction of houses in later years was little better. Construction companies found it cheap and convenient to use gravel and sand from the seabed to make concrete. These materials contained salt, which erodes steel girders and can cause collapse.
H Developers are not worried. The tallest building in Tokyo is the metropolitan government headquarters, at 240 m, but new engineering techniques are encouraging builders to look higher still. Mitsui Construction has said that it has developed the technology to build condominium towers up to 254 m tall.
Questions 27-33
Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs A-H. Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-H from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers i-x on boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.
List of Headings
i Ever upward
ii Pinnacle of luxury
iii European fittings
iv Attractions of the central area
v Collapsing dangers
vi Tradition of shoddy housing
vii Reasons for highrise popularity
viii Changes in the Tokyo landscape
ix The role of Asahi Glass
x Earthquake dangers
27. Paragraph B
28. Paragraph C
29. Paragraph D
30. Paragraph E
31. Paragraph F
32. Paragraph G
33. Paragraph H
Questions 34-37
Match the following statements or opinions 34-37 with the people in the box below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 34-37 on your an swersheet.
NB You may use any name more than once.
34. There has been a change in Tokyo residents' attitude toward city dwelling.
35. At one time it was the ambition of apartment dwellers to move into detached houses. 36. It is unlikely that people in Tokyo highrises would be injured in an earthquake. 37. It is unlikely that the Aoyama Park Tower would collapse in an earthquake.
List of Names
A. Official of Mitsui Fodosan B. Prof. Haruo Shimada
C. Mark Brown D. Official of Tokyo Municipality
Questions 38-40
Complete the following sentences with an appropriate word from the passage.
A...38...of luxury apartment buildings is spreading across central Tokyo. It is more convenient to live in a...39... in the center of Tokyo than in a small house in the suburbs. Post-war houses were erected quickly, just like military ...40...
第二部分 阅读理解专项练习
专项练习一 LIST OF HEADINGS
练习一
Myths about Public Speaking
Our fears of public speaking result not only from what we do not know or understand about public communication also from misconceptions and myths about public encounters. These misconceptions and myths persist among professional people as well as the general public. Let us examine these persistent myths about public communication, which, like our ignorance and misunderstandings of the fundamental assumptions and requirements of public speaking, exacerbate our fears and preven our development as competent public persons.
A Perhaps the most dogged and persistent myth about public communication is that it is a “special” activity reserved for unusual occasions. After all, how often do you make a public speech? There are only a few special occasions during the year when even an outgoing professional person will step behind a podium to give a public speech, and many professional people can count on one hand the number of public speeches given in a career. Surely, then, public communication is a rare activity reserved for especially important occasions.
This argument, of course, ignores the true nature of public communication and the nature of the occasions in which it occurs. When we engage with people we do not know well to solve problems, share understanding and perspectives, advocate points of view, or seek stimulation, we are engaged in public speaking. Public communication is a familiar, daily activity that occurs in the streets, in restaurants, in board rooms, courtrooms, parks, offices, factories and meetings.
Is public speaking an unusual activity reserved for special occasions and restricted to the lectern or the platform? Hardly. Rather it is, and should be developed as, an everyday activity occurring in any location where people come together.
B A related misconception about public communication is t he belief that the public speaker is a specially gifted individual with innate a bilities and God-given propensities. While most professional people would reject the idea that public speakers are born, not made, they nevertheless often feel that the effective public communicator has developed unusual personal talents to a remarkable degree. At the heart of this misconception—like the myth of public speaking as a “special”activity—is an overly narrow view of what a public person is and does.
Development as an effective public communicator begins with the understanding that you need not be a nationally-known, speak-for-pay, professional platform speaker to be a competent public person. The public speaker is an ordinary person who confronts the necessity of being a public person and uses common abilities to meet the fundamental assumptions and requirements of daily public encounters.
C A less widespread but serious misconception of public s peaking is reflected in the belief that public speeches are “made for the ages ”. A public speech is something viewed as an historical event which will be part of a continuing and generally available public record. Some public speeches are faithfully recorded, transcribed, reproduced, and made part of broadly available historical records. Those instances are rare compared to the thousands of unrecorded public speeches made every day.
Public communication is usually situation-specific and ephemeral. Most audiences do well if they remember as much as 40 per cent of what a speaker says immediately after the speaker concludes; even less is retained as time goes by. This fact is both reassuring and challenging to the public communicator. On the one hand, it suggests that there is room for human error in making public pronouncements; on the other hand, it challenges the public speaker to be as informed as possible and to strive to defeat the poor listening habits of most public audiences.
D Finally, professional people perhaps more than other groups often subscribe t o the misconception that public communication must be an exact science, that if it is done properly it will succeed. The troublesome corollary to this reasoning is that if public communication fails, it is because it was improperly prepared or executed. This argument blithely ignores the vagaries of human interaction. Public speakers achieve their goals through their listeners, and the only truly predictable aspect of human listeners is their unpredictability. Further, public messages may succeed despite inadequate preparation and dreadful delivery.
Professional people often mismanage their fears of public communication. Once we understand what public encounters assume and demand, once we unburden ourselves of the myths that handicap our growth as public persons, we can properly begin to develop as competent public communicators.
Questions 1-5
The reading Passage “Myths about Public Speaking” has four sections A-D. In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet write the appopriate letter A, B,C, or D to show in which section you can find a discussion of the following points. You may use any letter more than once.
1. A person's ability to be a public speaker.
2. Whether public speeches are remembered for a long time.
3. A definition of public speaking.
4. The relationship of preparation to success in public speaking.
5. Retention rates as a challenge to public speakers.
练习二
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2.
Money as the Unit of Account
Section Ⅰ
The most difficult aspect of money to understand is its function as a u nit of account. In linear measurement we find the definition of a yard, or a met re, easy to accept. In former times these lengths were defined in terms of fine lines etched onto brass rods maintained in standards laboratories at constant temperatures. Money is much more difficult to define, however, because the value o f anything is ultimately in the mind of the observer, and such values will change with time and circumstance.
