资料来源：《考博英语真题解析》育明教育出品，北外夏衍教授主编
更多考博资讯、资料获取、考博课程QQ：547063862 电话：153-1148-1034
针对北京地区院校的考博开设的辅导课程包括：专业课小班课程·一对一课程·视频班·定向保录班·复试保过班。欢迎你的加入，为自己的考博成功打下坚实的基础。育明教育考博分校致力于北京地区高校的考博英语及专业课课程辅导，辅导学员人数及辅导成绩连续多年稳居第一。根植育明学校深厚的高校资源，整合利用历届育明优秀学员的成功经验与高分资料，为每一位学员构建考研考博成功的基础保障。
Part III: Reading Comprehension (25%)
Directions: There are 5 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark the corresponding letter on ANSWER SHEEt I with a single line through the center:
Passage 1
Is happiness proportional to income to the money a person has? Is a man with two rooms and loaves of bread happier than a man with only one of each? Clearly poverty and destitution (that is, having no room and no bread) do produce unhappiness. Obviously, men need money to buy the necessities of life.
But this presents another question. How many rooms and how many loaves of bread (and thus how much money) does a man need? Most people in the Western world can satisfy a minimal requirement for the necessities of life, but they still desire to increase their incomes to buy more and more material possessions and status symbols. Why?
The answer may be that as things are today, if a man is not rich, admiration and respect are not given him by other people. Accordingly this may be the chief reason why people wish to be richer and richer, as the actual goods or possessions play a secondary part to the envy or admiration that this wealth brings them. This veneration from other people may be a greater source of happiness than the money or possessions themselves.
This has not, however, always been true. In aristocratic ages men were admired for their birth and breeding. In other ages men would not have been respected if they had not proved their artistic excellence or learning. In India, for example, poor and saintly men are respected, and in China, the old and wise. In such circles many men are, as long as they have enough to live on, indifferent to money. They value more and are happier with the respect they merit for other reasons.
The modern desire for wealth is not inherent in human nature, and varies with social values. If, by law, we all had exactly the same income, we should have to find some other way of being superior to our peers, as most of our craving for material possessions would cease. Thus a general increase of wealth gives no competitive advantage to an individual and therefore brings him no competitive happiness.
51 > Which of the following is the author's point in the first paragraph?
A. The more one earns, the more he wants.
B. Rooms and bread are the only sources of happiness.
C. One can't be happy without money.
D. Poor people need money to buy the necessities of life.
52. Most people in the Western world ________.
A. are not content with what they possess
B. are not sure how many rooms they want
C. are satisfied with having minimal necessities of life
D. consider happiness most important in life
53. According to the author, people seeking wealth are actually in pursuit of ________.
A. | goods | B. | scholarship | C. | wisdom | D. | veneration |
54. According to the passage, in China, people generally respect those who are ________.
A. old and wise
B. of high breeding
C. poor and holy
D. artistically excellent
55. The author suggests that Man would cease chasing after money if ________.
A. he were not born with the desire for it
B. social values were emphasized
C. it did not carry sense of superiority with it
D. laws were established to forbid all forms of competition
Passage 2
The crucial years of the Depression, as they are brought into historical focus, increasingly emerge as the decisive decade for American art, if not for American culture in general. For it was during this decade that many of the conflicts which had blocked the progress of American art in the past came to a head and sometimes boiled over. Janus-faced, the thirties look backward, sometimes as far as the Renaissance; and at the same time forward, as far as the present and beyond. It was the moment when artists, like Thomas Hart Benton, who wished to turn back the clock to regain the virtues of simpler times came into direct conflict with others, like Stuart Davis and Frank Lloyd Wright, who were ready to come to terms with the Machine Age and to deal with its consequences.
America in the thirties was changing rapidly. In many areas the past was giving way to the present, although not without a struggle. A predominantly rural and small town society was being replaced by the giant complexes of the big cities, power was becoming increasingly centralized in the federal government and in large corporations. Many Americans, deeply attached to the old way of life, felt disinherited. At the same time, as immigration decreased and the population became more homogeneous, the need arose in art and literature to commemorate the ethnic and regional differences that were fast disappearing. Thus, paradoxically, the conviction that art, at least, should serve some purpose or carry some message of moral uplift grew stronger as the Puritan ethos lost its contemporary reality. Often this elevating message was a sermon in favor of just those traditional American virtues, which were now threatened with obsolescence in a changed social and political context.
In this new context, the appeal of the paintings by the regionalists and the American Scene painters often lay in their ability to recreate an atmosphere that glorified the traditional American values — self-reliance tempered with good-neighborliness, independence modified by a sense of community, hard work rewarded by a sense of order and purpose. Given the actual temper of the times, these themes were strangely anachronistic, just as the rhetoric supporting political isolationism was equally inappropriate in an international situation soon to involve America in a second world war. Such themes gained popularity because they filled a genome need for a comfortable collective fantasy of a God-fearing, white-picket fence America, which in retrospect took on the nostalgic appeal of a lost Golden Age.
In this light, an autonomous art-for-art's sake was viewed as a foreign invade liable to subvert the Native American desire for a purposeful art. Abstract art we assigned the role of the villainous alien; realism was to personify the genuine American means of expression. The arguments drew favor in many camps: among the artists, because most were realists; among the politically oriented intellectual because abstract art was apolitical; and among museum officials, because they wet surfeited with mediocre imitations of European modernism and were convinced the American art must develop its own distinct identity. To help along this road to self-definition, the museums were prepared to set up an artificial double standard, on for American art, and another for European art. In 1934, Ralph Flint wrote in Art News, "We have today in our midst a greater array of what may be called second, third, and fourth string artists than any other country. Our big annuals are marvelous outpouring of intelligence and skill; they have all the diversity and animation of fine-ring circus."
56. According to the passage, in the 1930s, abstract art was seen as ________.
A. uniquely America
B. uniquely European
C. imitative of European modernism
D. counter to American regionalism
57. The second paragraph deals mainly with ________ in America.
A. the rapid growth of urban population
B. the impact of industrialization on rural life
C. the disappearance of traditional values
D. the changing scenes in religion and politics
58. According to the passage, the best word to describe America in the 1930s would be ________.
A. | reactionary | B. | consistent | C. | dynamic | D. | melancholic |
59. "The artificial standard" (Para 4) refers to the difference between standards of judgment for ________.
A. realism and abstract art
B. politically oriented intellectuals and museum officials
C. European art and American art
D. landscape painting and abstract painting
60. The best choice for the title the passage would be ________.
A. The Thirties in Art: Reaction and Rebellion
B. America in the Thirties: A Changing Time
C. Thomas Hart Benton and Regionalism
D. American Art: Appeal and Diversity
参考答案：
51. 选C。从原文Clearly poverty and destitution (that is, having no room and no bread) do produce unhappiness可知，作者认为没钱的人肯定不会快乐。
52. 选A。从原文but they still desire to increase their incomes to buy more and more material possessions and status symbols可知，西方人对自己的经济现状大多并不满意，还想赚更多的钱。
53. 选D。文章多次提到，人们追求钱其实是为了追求被人尊重和敬佩（admiration and respect）。veneration与这两个词意思相近。
54. 选A。从原文and in China, the old and wise可知选A。
55. 选C。从原文If, by law, we all had exactly the same income, we should have to find some other way of being superior to our peers, as most of our craving for material possessions would cease可知，如果钱不能给人带来高人一等的感觉，那么许多人就会停止拜金。