Part II                Reading Comprehension           (35 minutes)

Directions:There are 4 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). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.

Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.

  In the villages of the English countryside there are still people who remember the good old days when no one bothered to lock their doors. There simply wasn't any crime to worry about.
  Amazingly, these happy times appear still to be with us in the world's biggest community. A new study by Dan Farmer, a gifted programmer, using an automated investigative program of his own called SATAN, shows that the owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors.
  SATAN can try out a variety of well-known hacking (黑客的) tricks on an Internet site with-out actually breaking in. Farmer has made the program publicly available, amid much criticism. A person with evil intent could use it to hunt down sites that are easy to burgle (闯入……行窃).
  But Farmer is very concerned about the need to alert the public to poor security and, so far, events have proved him right. SATAN has done more to alert people to the risks than cause new disorder.
  So is the Net becoming more secure? Far from it. In the early days, when you visited a Web site your browser simply looked at the content. Now the Web is full of tiny programs that automatically download when you look at a Web page, and run on your own machine. These programs could, if their authors wished, do all kinds of nasty things to your computer.
  At the same time, the Net is increasingly populated with spiders, worms, agents and other types of automated beasts designed to penetrate the sites and seek out and classify information. All these make wonderful tools for antisocial people who want to invade weak sites and cause damage.
  But let's look on the bright side. Given the lack of locks, the Internet is surely the world's biggest (almost) crime-free society. Maybe that is because hackers are fundamentally honest. Or that there currently isn't much to steal. Or because vandalism ( 恶意破坏) isn't much fun unless you have a peculiar dislike for someone.
  Whatever the reason, let's enjoy it while we can. But expect it all to change, and security to become the number one issue, when the most influential inhabitants of the Net are selling services they want to be paid for.

21. By saying “... owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors" (Lines 3-4, Para. 2), the author means that _____.
A) those happy times appear still to be with us
B) there simply wasn't any crime to worry about
C) many sites are not well-protected
D) hackers try out tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in

22. SATAN, a program designed by Dan Fanner can be used ____________.
A) to investigate the security of Internet sites
B) to improve the security of the Internet system
C) to prevent hackers from breaking into websites
D) to download useful programs and information

23. Fanner's program has been criticized by the public because.
A) it causes damage to Net browsers
B) it can break into Internet sites
C) it can be used to cause disorder on all sites
D) it can be used by people with evil intent

24. The author's attitude toward SATAN is _____.
A) enthusiastic
B) critical
C) positive
D) indifferent

25. The author suggests in the last paragraph that.
A) we should make full use of the Internet before security measures are strengthened
B) we should alert the most influential businessmen to the importance of security
C) influential businessmen should give priority to the improvement of Net security
D) net inhabitants should not let security measures affect their joy of surfing the Internet


Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.

  I came away from my years of teaching on the college and university level with a conviction that enactment (扮演角色), performance, dramatization are the most successful forms of teach-ing. Students must be incorporated, made, so far as possible, an integral part of the learning pro-cess. The notion that learning should have in it an element of inspired play would seem to the greater part of the academic establishment merely silly, but that is nonetheless the case. Of Ezekiel Cheever, the most famous schoolmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, his onetime student Cotton Mather wrote that he so planned his lessons that his pupils "came to work as though they came to play," and Alfred North Whitehead, almost three hundred years later, noted that a teacher should make his/her students "glad they were there."
  Since, we are told, 80 to 90 percent of all instruction in the typical university is by the lecture method, we should give close attention to this form of education. There is, I think, much truth in Patricia Nelson Limerick's observation that "lecturing is an unnatural act, an act for which God did not design humans. It is perfectly all right, now and then, for a human to be possessed by the urge to speak, and to speak while others remain silent. But to do this regularly, one hour and 15 minutes at a time ... for one person to drag on while others sit in silence? ... I do not believe that this is what the Creator ... designed humans to do."
  The strange, almost incomprehensible fact is that many professors, just as they feel obliged to write dully, believe that they should lecture dully. To show enthusiasm is to risk appearing unscientific, unobjective; it is to appeal to the students' emotions rather than their intellect. Thus the ideal lecture is one filled with facts and read in an unchanged monotone.
  The cult (推崇) of lecturing dully, like the cult of writing dully, goes back, of course, some years. Edward Shils, professor of sociology, recalls the professors he encountered at the University of Pennsylvania in his youth. They seemed "a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing; they never referred to anything personal. Some read from old lecture notes and then haltingly explained the thumb-worn last lines. Others lectured from cards that had served for years, to judge by the worn edges .... The teachers began on time, ended on time, and left the room without saying a word more to their students, very seldom being detained by questioners .... The classes were not large, yet there was no discussion-. No questions were raised in class, and there were no office hours."

26. The author believes that a successful teacher should be able to _____.
A) make dramatization an important aspect of students’ learning
B) make inspired play an integral part of the learning process
C) improve students' learning performance
D) make study just as easy as play

27. The majority of university professors prefer the traditional way of lecturing in the belief that _________________.
A) it draws the close attention of the students
B) it conforms in a way to the design of the Creator
C) it presents course content in a scientific and objective manner
D) it helps students to comprehend abstract theories more easily

28. What the author recommends in this passage is that _________.
A) college education should be improved through radical measures
B) more freedom of choice should be given to students in their studies
C) traditional college lectures should be replaced by dramatized performances
D) interaction should be encouraged in the process of teaching

29. By saying "They seemed 'a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing...'" (Lines 3-4, Para. 4), the author means that _____.
A) professors are a group of professionals that differ in their academic ability but behave in the same way
B) professors are like priests wearing the same kind of black gown but having different roles to play
C) there is no fundamental difference between professors and priests though they differ in their merits
D) professors at the University of Pennsylvania used to wear black suits which made them look like priests

30. Whose teaching method is particularly commended by the author?
A) Ezekiel Cheever's. 
B) Cotton Mather's.
C) Alfred North Whitehead's.
D) Patricia Nelson Limerick's.