we rarely think twice when we switch on the light or turn on the radio. At night, roads are brightly lit, enabling people and traffic to move freely. Neon lighting used in advertising has become part of the character of every modern city. In the home, many labour-saving devices are powered by electricity. (82) Even when we turn off the bedside lamp and are fat asleep, electricity is working for us, driving our refrigerators, heating our water, or keeping our rooms air-conditioned. Every day, trains, trolley-buses, and trams take us to and from work. (83) We rarely bother to consider why or how they run until something goes wrong.
One summer something did go wrong with the power plant that provides New York with electricity. For a great many hours, life came almost to a standstill. Trains refused to move and the people in them sat in the dark, powerless to do anything; (84) lifts stopped working, so that even if you were lucky enough not to be trapped between two floors, you had the unpleasant task of finding your way down hundreds of flights of stairs. Famous streets like Broadway and Fifth Avenue in an instant became as gloomy and uninviting as the most remote back streets. (85) People were afraid to leave their houses, for although the police had been ordered to stand by in case of emergency, they were just as confused and helpless as anybody else.
Meanwhile, similar disorder prevailed in the home. New York can be stifling in the summer and this year was no exception. Cool, air-conditioned apartments became furnaces. Food went bad in refrigerators. Cakes and joints of meat remained uncooked in cooling ovens. (86) People sat impatient and frightened in the dark as if an unseen enemy had landed from Mars. (87) One of the strange things that occurred during the power-cut was that some fifty blind people lead many sighted workers home. (88) When the lights came on again, hardly a person in the city can have turned on a switch without reflecting how great a servant he had at his fingertips.
- 45 -
(2)
A mineral is a material that is mined, not grown. (89) In other words mineral substances which are found on the earth must be extracted by digging, boring holes, artificial explosions, or similar operations which make them available to us. Some minerals, for example coal and oil, were originally living substances; others, like iron, never had life. (90) Coal and oil are the remains of plants and animals. Crude mineral ores and crude oil must be purified before they can be used.
(91) A stage in human civilization is often called by the name of the substance mainly used at that stage: the Stone Age, the Iron Age, and so on. The level of civilization reached by a society depends on the materials it can use, not only on those which are available. (92) The capacity to use a raw material depends on various factors, such as means of access, methods of extraction, and techniques of processing. In order to be purified, or combined into alloys, metals must be melted. For this purpose they must be placed in containers which can be heated to enormous temperatures. These containers or enclosed spaces are called furnaces. (93) Plants which refine crude ores are often located in countries other than those in which the crude ores are mined.
Although much was known previously about the chemical properties of aluminum and their application to practical uses, (94) it was not until sixty years ago that a method of extracting aluminum ore was found which could lead to a cheap large-scale process.
(95) In the past few decades men behaved as if their supplies of minerals were inexhaustible. (96) But now it is realized that supplies of some of them are limited, and it is even possible to give a reasonable estimate of their \reserves of these materials.
But in the case of minerals it is especially difficult to give a reliable estimate of reserves because
- 46 -
surveys have not been completed and it is not certain that all sources are known. Uranium provides a good example of this fact.
- 47 -
1984年考研英语真题答案
Section I: Structure and Vocabulary (15 points) 1. [A] 6. [C] 11. [A] 16. [A] 21. [D] 26. [D] 2. [A] 7. [D] 12. [D] 17. [C] 22. [B] 27. [C] 3. [B] 8. [C] 13. [C] 18. [D] 23. [B] 28. [C] 4. [A] 9. [A] 14. [D] 19. [C] 24. [D] 29. [B] 5. [D] 10. [C] 15. [B] 20. [A] 25. [C] 30. [B] Section II: Cloze Test (10 points) 31. [D] 36. [A] 32. [D] 37. [B] 33. [B] 38. [A] 34. [B] 39. [D] 35. [D] 40. [A] Section III: Reading Comprehension (10 points) 41. [A] 42. [B] 43. [C] 44. [B] 45. [A] Section IV: Structure and Vocabulary (10 points) 46. [D] 51. [B] 47. [D] 52. [C] 48. [C] 53. [D] 49. [B] 54. [C] 50. [A] 55. [A] Section V: Error-detection and Correction (10 points) 56. [A] at 58. [B] drunk 60. [C] before 62. [C] as long as
57. [B] we start 49. [C] seeing 61. [A] ending 63. [B] most - 48 -
相关推荐：
loading