SECTION 2: STUDY SKILLS (50 minutes)

Directions: In this section, you will read several passage. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. You  are to choose ONE best  answer, A., B., C., or  D., to each question.  Answer  all  the  questions  following  each  passage  on  the  basis  of  what  is  stated  or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

Questions 1～5.
     The bath was invented before the bath plug. The bath plug could not have been invented before the bath,  except  as  a  small  object  with  which  to play  ice  hockey. The  order  in  which inventions  are  made  is  very  important,  much   more  important  than  has  ever   been  realised, because  we  tend  automatically  to  think  that  later inventions  are  better  than  earlier ones.  A  moment's thought  will  show this is not  so. If, for  example, a  solution to today's urban traffic problems was proposed in the shape of a small man-powered two-wheeled vehicle which would make the motor car look like a cumbersome overpowered device, a space rocket trying to tackle suburban problems, we would greet it as a great technological break through.“Bicycle makes car obsolete!”we would cry. Unfortunately, the bike came first, so we shall unconsciously see it as a cruder version of the car.

      Other things which may have been invented too early are the airship, the radio, the railway train, the piano-roll player and the cuff-link.

      Consider  also the zip. Zips represent a technological advance on buttons, being faster  and more  complete.  They  are  also  more  liable to  come  adrift, break, jam,  malfunction,  stick  and catch. Buttons can only go wrong if the thread is faulty. Even then, buttons can be mended by the user. Zips rarely can.

1. The expression“ice hockey”(sentence 2) means_________.
   A. a freezing compartment                                   B. a game played on an ice rink 
   C. a sweet flavoured frozen food                         D. a building in which ice is made.
2. If the bicycle were to be invented now the car would appear__________.
   A. unsuitable for its purpose                              B. in advance of its time
   C. unnecessarily expensive                                D. too fast for safety
3. The airship and the radio are examples of thins which__________.
   A. were not fully appreciated at the time of their invention
   B. are more suitable for use now than when they were invented
   C. have been neglected in favour of more recent inventions
   D. are less suited to their purpose than earlier inventions
4. According to the writer, buttons are preferable to zips because they__________.
   A. are more convenient                                   B. are more reliable
   C. cost less to replace                                     D. are safer to use
5. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
   A. A Cumbersome Over-Powered Device
   B. A Great Technological Breakthrough
   C. Do Zips Represent A Technological Advance?
   D. Does Technological Progress Work Backwards?

Questions 6～10
      It  took policeman  John Pooley  only  an  hour  or  two to  solve the Case of the Thorpeness Burglary.  It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  crime  was  not  difficult.  The  description,  though slight, narrowed the number of persons likely to commit such a crime...to one. Pooley, of course, knows everyone in the three villages in his care, and their  children. But after he had made the arrest —something he has to do more rarely than once a month—he felt troubled because he not only knew the man, but also knew that he had family problems.

      Like  most  village  police  men,  John  Pooley  is  in  charge  of  a  very  large  area  by  police standards, which  includes the three  villages  of Middleton, Dunwich  and Westleton, where he lives. With a total population of 1, 219, he has more than twice as many people to look after as the  average  policeman  has.  Moreover,  he  is  attached  to  the  Halesworth subdivision   and  is frequently given duties outside his home area. After  15 years as a policeman, he accepts these duties without question, but his villages are clearly where his heart and interest really lie. When he was first  sent  to Westleton, he lived in the police house whichwas both his home and the police station; when the system was changed, he bought the house where he now lives with his wife, Ann, and his two daughters.

      He could hardly be better  qualified for the job  of village policeman. Before he joined the police, he was an agricultural worker for five years and a male nurse in a mental hospital for six years. He  says:“If you haven't  had another job  before you join the police, you tend to think nothing but police.”

      Crime  in  the  country,  of  course,  is  somewhat  different  from  city  crime.  Who  was  ever attacked while walking along the village street in Middleton? The things which John Pooley has to  watch  for  are  people  stealing  tools  and  equipment  from  farm  vehicles,  or  wood  from  the surrounding forests. There are natural dangers too: he is so worried about the fire risk in forests that he has turned his bedroom window into a look-post.

6. Why was John Pooley able to solve the Case of the Thorpeness Burglary so easily?
   A. He had been given a full description of the criminal.
   B. He knew everything that happened in the area.
   C. There were few crime cases in his area.
   D. There was only one possible suspect.
7.  From the passage it appears that nowadays a village policeman, like John Pooley, has to _______.
   A. live in a village police house
   B. put out forest fires
   C. go through a long period of training
   D. look after more people than policemen elsewhere
8. According to the passage, we learn that he________.
   A. is unpopular with the people in the villages
   B. objects when he is given work outside his own area
   C. prefers working in the villages of Middleton, Dunwich and Westleton
   D. feels unhappy when he arrests anybody.
9. John Pooley thinks he is well qualified for hisjob because_________.
   A. he had other jobs before he became a policeman
   B. has has been a policeman for fifteen years
   C. he has lived in Westleton all his life
   D. he is a countryman at heart
10. Crime in this area is different from crime in a big city because_________.
   A. it is hardly ever violent                   
   B. people here have more family problems
   C. the victim is easily attacked
   D. it is connected with natural disasters

Questions 11～15
      Another dropped stitch in life's rich tapestry: 15-year-old schoolboy who was caught in the Stock Market  crash after a ￡100,000 shares gamble. Peeved stockbrokers to whom he owes  ￡20,000 now say in injured tones:“He has been very naughty. We thought he was 19. ”

      I  must say that small fry finances have come on  a bit  since the era of  Billy  Bunter's nonarriving five bob postal order. While not in the same league as Britain's youngest yuppie, I see from a Health Education Authority survey that school teenagers are now spending  ￡10 a week or more on records, clothes and booze. The good news is that nearly one in two of the big spenders holds, the girls either babysitting or working in shops and cafes.

      I call this a very welcome trend. For a very long time, going right back to the golden age of the Welfate  State, there was a real  social  stigma  attached to the idea  of  school  kids working. Local  authorities  frowned on  it,  teachers  disapproved of  it,  parents  felt  guilty  about  it,  and children themselves  came to believe that  having to earn  their  own pocket  money was a  great imposition.

      To be sure, there is still opposition in some quarters. But by and large the pendulum seems to be  swinging  the  right  way  again. The other day I heard of a gang of  lads who station themselves outside a car wash every  Saturday offering, much to the rage of the manager, to do the  job half-price.  Now that's enterprise. Back in the  days  of the  Saturday penny.  I  was something  of an entrepreneur myself. I had   five paper  rounds, a  firewood  business, a golf-caddying concession and a contract to carry groceries back to the convent  for  a bunch  of local nuns. I was working a good twenty-four hours a week out of school, and as the saying goes, it never did me any harm. Indeed I'm sure it did me a good deal of good.

      Ten pounds a week does seem an awful lot to be squandering on fripperies, but at least it's as often as not their  own hard earned cash. More to the point, they learn at  a tender  age that while it may  or  may not be ture that  money  cannot buy happiness, at  least happiness—in the form of satisfaction at a job well done, that is—can buy money.

      But don't sink it all in futures, kids.

11.According to the passage, which of the following indicates the stockbrokers' attitude to the schoolboy?
    A. Guilty              B. Awful.                C. Satisfied.              D. Annoyed
12.According to the passage, which of the following is the most popular job for boys?
    A. Baby-sitting.                                   B. Working in cafes.
    C. Paper rounds.                                 D. Working in shops.
13. It can be concluded from the passage that local authorities and teachers frowned on children  working part-time because_________.
    A. it was socially unacceptable                 
    B. nearly one in two of the big spenders got a poor mark
    C. teenagers had spent too much money on records
    D. money cannot buy happiness and progress
14. How did the writer earn extra money when he was a teenager?
    A. Selling sandalwood.                       B. Working in shops.
    C. Working in cafes.                           D. Delivering groceries.
15.Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
    A. Children may get satisfaction from working part-time.
    B. School teenagers usually spend ￡10 a week on records.
    C. A good 24 hours a week out of school is the right amount of time for kids.
    D. School girls often work in shops and cafes.

Questions 16～20
      In the mid-1980's no thrusting executive was complete without his her personal organiser— a leather binder  containing everything from address-book and diary to a career-planning chart. Then   came    the  portable  telephone,   whispered    into  with   ostentatious  discretion.  Now    the electronic  organiser   has  arrived.  Psion,  a  British  firm  which   created  the  first such   digital diarycum-calculator, sells about 200,000 a year. Competitors are piling into the market.

      When Psion launched its hand-held computer in  1982, it foresaw two markets. One was in the  salerooms  and  warehouses  of  large  companies.  Here,  stocktakers  and  salesmen  needed  a portable way to talk to the big computers back at head office. About half  of  Psion's sales now come from companies—as well as many lucrative contracts to write software specially tailored to link its little machines into a firm's computer network.

      The other half  of  Psion's sales  come from individuals keen  to organise  themselves electronically. Most use the machine as a“personal data base”(i.e., address book and diary) or to crunch numbers too tough for their calculators to handle. It takes several times longer to tap a name or a date into the tiny keyboard of a hand-held computer than it does to write it down on an Asprey pad. But hundreds of thousands of people seem to think it worthwhile—maybe because the computer can search speedily through electronically stored names—or because it impresses their friends.

      Whatever the reasons, other companies are impressed with the market the Psion Organiser Ⅱhas  discovered.  Japan's  Sharp  recently  launched  a  similar  machine,  and  Casio  has  been nibbling at the edges of the market  for  some time. Other  companies are selling programs that enable   Psion to do tasks ranging  from complex  financial  calculations to  rudimentary French-English translation.

      A fledgling British firm has launched an electronic“Agenda”with a new, faster way of entering“lunch with Desdemona ”. It uses the Microwriter keyboard, which was invented some years ago by Mr. Cy Endfield, a film director whose other works include“Zulu”. His idea soon gained the support of Sir Mark Weinberg, chairman of an insurance group. Allied Dunbar. He is a 30% shareholder in Microwriter and has written its notably undaunting instruction book.   

     In addition to the standard letter keys, the Microwriter has a second keyboard consisting of five unmarked keys, one for each finger. By pressing the keys in various combinations, one can learn quickly to“type”almost as fast as on a full keyboard. The Microwriter was first peddled as a sort of hand-held word-processor, but only about 7,000 were sold. Now the firm is hoping that the boom in electronic organisers will revive its fortunes.

16. According to the passage, which of the following is true about a personal organiser popular in the mid-1980's?
   A. It had an expensive binding.
   B. It contained all the information needed.
   C. It was an impact made on status-conscious friends.
   D. It was indispensable to ambitious executives.
17. The advantage of the Psion product over earlier personal organisers is.
    A. that information can be retrieved more quickly
    B. the ability to provide a quicker input of information
    C. improved electronics
    D. its processing of numbers
18. Compared to traditional calculators, the Psion product                      .
    A. is cheaper                                    B. is more durable
    C. has greater capacity                     D. has a longer quality guarantee
19.According to the author, the response of other companies to Psion has been to                   .
    A. criticize its technology
    B. launch more competitively priced products
    C. capitalise on its success
    D. produce bilingual models
20. We can learn from the passage that one novel feature of the Microwriter is                        .
    A. its instruction book
    B. the fact that it was invented by a film director
    C. its dual keyboard
    D. the fact that it is a word-processor

Questions 21～25
       Great  emotional  and  intellectual  resources  are  demanded  in  quarrels;  stamina  helps,  as does a capacity for obsession. But no one is born a good quarreller; the craft must be learned.

       There are two generally recognised apprenticeships. First, and universally preferred, is a long childhood spent in the company of fractious siblings. After several years of rainy afternoons, brothers and sister  develop a sure feel for the tactics of attrition and the niceties of strategy so necessary in first-rate quarrelling.

     The only child, or the child of peaceful or repressed households, is likely to grow up failing to understand that quarrels, unlike arguments, are not about anything, least of all the pursuit of truth. The apparent subject of a quarrel is a mere pretext; the real business is the quarrel itself.

      Essentially, adversaries in a quarrel are out to establish or rescue their  dignity. Hence the elementary principle: anything may be said. The unschooled, probably no less quarrelsome by inclination than anyone else, may spend an hour with knocking heart, sifting the consequences of calling this old acquaintance a lying fraud. Too late! With a cheerful wave the old acquaintance has left the room.

      Those who miss their first apprenticeship may care to enrol in the second, the bad marriage. This can be perilous for the neophyte; the mutual intimacy of spouses makes them at once more vulnerable and more dangerous in attack. Once sex is involved, the stakes are higher all round. And there is an  unspoken rule that  those who love,  or  have loved, one another  are granted a licence for unlimited beastliness such as is denied to mere sworn enemies. For all that, some of our most tenacious black belt quarrellers have come to it late in lie and mastered every throw, from the Grushing Silence to the Gloating Apology, in less than ten years of marriage.

      A quarrel may last years among brooding types with time on their hands, like writers, half a lifetime is not uncommon. In its most refined form, a quarrel may consist of the participants not talking  to  each  other.  They  will  need  to  scheme  laboriously  to  appear  in  public  together  to register their silence.

      Brief, violent quarrels are also known as rows. In all cases the essential ingredient remains the  same;  the  original  must  be  forgotten  as  soon  as  possible.  From  here  on,  dignity,  pride, self-esteem   honour    are  the  crucial  issues, which    is why    quarrelling,  like  jealousy,  is an all-consuming business, virtually a profession. For the quarreler's very sefl-hood is on the line. To  lose  an  argument  is  a  brief  disappointment,  much  like  losing  a  game  of tennis, but  to be crushed in a quarrel...rather bite off your tongue and spread it at your opponent's feet.

21. Unschooled quarrelers are said to be at disadvantage because_________.
    A. their insults fail to offend their opponent
    B. they reveal their nervousness to their opponent
    C. they suffer from remorse for what they've said
    D. they are apprehensive about speaking their minds
22. According to the writer, quarrels between married couples may be_________.
    A. physically violent                           B. extremely frequent
    C. essentially trivial                          D. sincerely regretted
23. When quarreling, both children and married couples may__________.
    A. be particularly brutal                      B. use politeness as a weapon
    C. employ skillful maneuvers                   D. exaggerate their feelings
24. The difference between a quarrel and an argument is said to be that__________.
    A. the former involves individual egos
    B. the former concerns strong points of view
    C. the latter has well-established rules
    D. the latter concerns trivial issues
25. In the passage as a whole, the writer treats quarreling as if it were__________.
    A. a military campaign                         B. a social skill              
    C. a moral evil                                   D. a natural gift

Questions 26～30
      When an  individual  enters  the  presence  of  others, they commonly seek   to  acquire information about him or to bring into play information about him already possessed. They will be interested in  his general  socio-economic  status, his conception  of  self, his attitude towards them, his competence and his trustworthiness. Although  some of this information  seems to be sought  almost  as  an  end  in  itself,  there  are  usually  quite  practical  reasons  for  acquiring  it. Information    about   the  individual  helps  to  define  the   situation,  enabling   others  to  know    in advance what he will expect of them and what they may expect of him. Informed in these ways, the others will know how best to act in order to call forth a desired response from him.

      For  those present, many  sources of information become accessible and many carriers (or“sign-vehicles”) become available for  conveying this information. If unacquatinted with the individual, observers can glean clues from his conduct and appearnce which allow them to apply their  previous  experience  with  individuals  roughly  similar  to  the  one  before  them  or,  more important, to apply untested stereotypes to him. They can also assume from past experience that only individuals of a particular kind are likely to be found in a given social setting. They can rely on what the individual  says about himself or  on  documentary evidence he provides as to who and what he is. If prior to the interaction, they can rely on assumptions as to the persistence and generality of psychological traits as a means of prediciting his present and future behaviour

      However,  during  the period  in  which  the  individual  is  in  the  immediate  presence  of the others, few events may occur which directly provide the others with the conclusive information they will need if they are to direct wisely their  own activity. Many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of interaction to lie concealed within it. For example,“true”or real attitudes, beliefs and emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly, through his avowals or through what appears to be involuntary expressive behaviour. Similarly, if the individual offers the others a product or  service, they will often find that  during the interaction there will be no time and place immediately available for eating the pudding that the proof can be found in. They will be forced to accept some e vents as conventional or natural signs of something not directly available to the senses.

26. In paragraph 2, what does the underlined word “ them”in“ ...which allow them to apply  their previous experience with individuals...”refer to?
    A. beliefs                                          B. emotions
    C. individuals                                    D. observers
27. The expression“untested stereotypes”(paragraph 2) means_________.
    A. unstable mental characteristics
    B. the capacity not proved by a person's earning power
    C. fixed views that have not been questioned
    D. areas of information not available
28.  When people meet someone they generally want to find out all of  the following EXCEPT_____.
    A. his general socio-economic status
    B. his general attitude towards life
    C. his future behaviour
    D. key information about his education
29.  Which of  the following  is NOT  true about  the points given by the author about self-presentation?
      A.  Key factors in self-presentation are to do with personality,  characteristics and socio-economic status.
      B. People carry sign-vehicles—such as appearance and conduct—that give information about them.
      C. Self-presentation may mask deeper realities
      D. Self-presentation is important for successful interpersonal communication.
30. According to the passage, how can people find out about another person's“real”beliefs and attitudes?
      A. By studying crucial facts               B. by talking with the person.
      C. Only directly.                               D. Only indirectly.