GRE阅读日常练习文章

2019-03-08 11:15

来源：新东方在线

作者：

　　Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American slaves has unfortunately taken precedence over analysis of the tales’ meaning and function. Cultural continuities with Africa were not dependent on importation and perpetuation of specific folktales in their pristine form. It is in the place that tales occupied in the lives of the slaves and in the meaning slaves derived from them that the clearest resemblances to African tradition can be found. Afro-American slaves did not borrow tales indiscriminately from the Whites among whom they lived. Black people were most influenced by those Euro-American tales whose functional meaning and aesthetic appeal had the greatest similarity to the tales with deep roots in their ancestral homeland. Regardless of where slave tales came from, the essential point is that, with respect to language, delivery, details of characterization, and plot, slaves quickly made them their own.

　　17. The author claims that most studies of folktales told by Afro-American slaves are inadequate because the studies

　　(A) fail to recognize any possible Euro-American influence on the folktales

　　(B) do not pay enough attention to the features of a folktale that best reveal an African influence

　　(C) overestimate the number of folktales brought from Africa by the slaves

　　(D) do not consider the fact that a folktale can be changed as it is retold many times

　　(E) oversimplify the diverse and complex traditions of the slaves ancestral homeland

　　18. The author’s main purpose is to

　　(A) create a new field of study

　　(B) discredit an existing field of study

　　(C) change the focus of a field of study

　　(D) transplant scholarly techniques from one field of study to another

　　(E) restrict the scope of a burgeoning new field of study

　　19. The passage suggests that the author would regard which of the following areas of inquiry as most likely to reveal the slaves’ cultural continuities with Africa?

　　(A) The means by which Blacks disseminated their folktales in nineteenth-century America

　　(B) Specific regional differences in the styles of delivery used by the slaves in telling folktales

　　(C) The functional meaning of Black folktales in the lives of White children raised by slave

　　(D) The specific way the slaves used folktales to impart moral teaching to their children

　　(E) The complexities of plot that appear most frequently in the slaves’ tales

　　20. Which of the following techniques is used by the author in developing the argument in the passage?

　　(A) Giving a cliché a new meaning

　　(B) Pointedly refusing to define key terms

　　(C) Alternately presenting generalities and concrete details

　　(D) Concluding the passage with a restatement of the first point made in the passage

　　(E) Juxtaposing statements of what is not the case and statements of what is the case

　　The energy contained in rock within the earth’s crust represents a nearly unlimited energy source, but until recently commercial retrieval has been limited to underground hot water and/or steam recovery systems. These systems have been developed in areas of recent volcanic activity, where high rates of heat flow cause visible eruption of water in the form of (in the form of: 以...的形式) geysers and hot springs. In other areas, however, hot rock also exists near the surface but there is insufficient water present to produce eruptive phenomena. Thus a potential hot dry rock (HDR) reservoir exists whenever the amount of spontaneously produced geothermal fluid has been judged inadequate for existing commercial systems.

　　As a result of recent energy crisis, new concepts for creating HDR recovery systems—which involve drilling holes and connecting them to artificial reservoirs placed deep within the crust—are being developed. In all attempts to retrieve energy from HDR’s, artificial stimulation will be required to create either sufficient permeability or bounded flow paths to facilitate the removal of heat by circulation of a fluid over the surface of the rock.

　　The HDR resource base is generally defined to included crustal rock that is hotter than 150℃, is at depths less than ten kilometers, and can be drilled with presently available equipment. Although wells deeper than ten kilometers are technically feasible, prevailing economic factors will obviously determine the commercial feasibility of wells at such depths. Rock temperatures as low as 100℃ may be useful for space heating (heating of spaces especially for human comfort by any means (as fuel, electricity, or solar radiation) with the heater either within the space or external to it); however, for producing electricity, temperatures greater than 200℃ are desirable.

　　The geothermal gradient, which specifically determines the depth of drilling required to reach a desired temperature, is a major factor in the recoverability of geothermal resources. Temperature gradient maps generated from oil and gas well temperature-depth records kept by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists suggest that tappable high-temperature gradients are distributed all across the United States. (There are many areas, however, for which no temperature gradient records exist.)

　　Indications are that the HDR resource base is very large. If an average geothermal temperature gradient of 22℃ per kilometer of depth is used, a staggering 13,000,000 quadrillion B.T.U.’s of total energy are calculated to be contained in crustal rock to a ten-kilometer depth in the United States. If we conservatively estimate that only about 0.2 percent is recoverable, we find a total of all the coal remaining in the United States. The remaining problem is to balance the economics of deeper, hotter, more costly wells and shallower, cooler, less expensive wells against the value of the final product, electricity and/or heat.

　　21. The primary purpose of the passage is to

　　(A) alert readers to the existence of HDR’s as an available energy source

　　(B) document the challengers that have been surmounted in the effort to recover energy from HDR’s

　　(C) warn the users of coal and oil that HDR’s are not an economically feasible alternative

　　(D) encourage the use of new techniques for the recovery of energy from underground hot water and steam

　　(E) urge consumers to demand quicker development of HDR resources for the production of energy

　　22. The passage would be most likely to appear in a

　　(A) petrological research report focused on the history of temperature-depth records in the United States

　　(B) congressional report urging the conservation of oil and natural gas reserves in the United States

　　(C) technical journal article concerned with the recoverability of newly identified energy sources

　　(D) consumer report describing the extent and accessibility of remaining coal resources

　　(E) pamphlet designed to introduce homeowners to the advantages of HDR space-heating systems

　　23. According the passage, an average geothermal gradient of 22℃ per kilometer of depth can be used to

　　(A) balance the economics of HDR energy retrieval against that of underground hot water or steam recovery systems

　　(B) determine the amount of energy that will used for space heating in the United States

　　(C) provide comparisons between hot water and HDR energy sources in United States

　　(D) revise the estimates on the extent of remaining coal resources in the United States

　　(E) estimate the total HDR resource base in the United States

　　24. It can be inferred from the passage that the availability of temperature-depth records for any specific area in the United States depends primarily on the

　　(A) possibility that HDR’s may be found in that area

　　(B) existence of previous attempts to obtain oil or gas in that area

　　(C) history of successful hot water or steam recovery efforts in that area

　　(D) failure of inhabitants to conserve oil gas reserves in that area

　　(E) use of coal as a substitute for oil or gas in that area

　　25. According to the passage, in all HDR recovery systems fluid will be necessary in order to allow

　　(A) sufficient permeability

　　(B) artificial stimulation

　　(C) drilling of holes

　　(D) construction of reservoirs

　　(E) transfer of heat

　　26. According to the passage, if the average geothermal gradient in an area is 22℃ per kilometer of depth, which of the following can be reliably predicted?

　　I. The temperature at the base of a 10-kilometer well will be sufficient for the production of electricity.

　　II. Drilling of wells deeper than 10 kilometers will be economically feasible.

　　III. Insufficient water is present to produce eruptive phenomena.

　　(A) I only

　　(B) II only

　　(C) I and II only

　　(D) II and III only

　　(E) I, II, and III

　　27. Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the passage?

　　(A) Energy from Water Sources: The Feasibility of Commercial Systems

　　(B) Geothermal Energy Retrieval: Volcanic Activity and Hot Dry Rocks

　　(C) Energy Underground: Geothermal Sources Give Way to Fossil Fuels