gre的機經對我們的備考有很強的參考價值，為了方便大家，下面小編給大家?guī)鞧RE閱讀高頻機經原文：彗星的pristine relics，來看看吧！

GRE閱讀高頻機經原文：彗星的pristine relics

11. 彗星的pristine relics

The long-held perspective that comets are pristine remnants from the formation of the solar system has evolved from the prevailing views of 30 years ago, finds planetary scientist Dr. S. Alan Stern in a paper published in the journal Nature.

"It's fair to say that a sea change has taken place," says Stern, director of the Space Studies Department in the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division. "We used to consider comets as wholly unchanged relics that had been stored ever since the era of solar system formation in a distant, cold, timeless deep freeze called the Oort cloud. We now appreciate that a variety of processes slowly modify comets during their storage there," he says. "As a result, it's become clear that the Oort cloud and its cousin the Kuiper Belt are not such perfect deep freezes."

The first evolutionary process to be recognized as affecting comets during their long storage was radiation damage, followed by the discovery that sandblasting from dust grains in the interstellar medium plays an important role. Next, researchers theorized that comets in the Oort cloud are heated to scientifically significant temperatures by passing stars and supernovae, says Stern. More recently, researchers are finding that comets in the Kuiper Belt are heavily damaged by collisions.

"It also now seems inevitable that most comets from the Kuiper Belt, though constructed of ancient material, cannot themselves be ancient -- instead they must be 'recently' created chips off larger Kuiper Belt Objects, formed as a result of violent impacts," says Stern. "This is truly a paradigm shift. Many of the short-period comets we see aren't even ancient!"

The classical view that comets do not evolve while they are stored far from the sun in the Oort cloud and Kuiper Belt began to change as far back as the 1970s, but the pace of discoveries about the way comets evolve picked up considerably in the 1980s and 1990s.

As a result of these findings, astronomers now better appreciate that comets, though still the most pristine bodies known, have been modified in several important ways since their birth, says Stern.

The realization that comets evolve during their long storage in the Oort cloud and Kuiper Belt provides insight and context to more confidently evaluate the results of astronomical and space mission observations of comets. So, too, it suggests that cometary sample return missions now on the drawing board for NASA should employ relatively deep subsurface sampling if truly pristine, ancient material is to be collected.

GRE閱讀高頻機經原文及答案：法國二月革命

12. .法國二月革命 B 9304

In February 1848 the people of Paris rose in revolt against the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe. Despite the existence of excellent narrative accounts, the February Days, as this revolt is called, have been largely ignored by social historians of the past two decades. For each of the three other major insurrections in nineteenth-century Paris—July 1830, June 1848, and May 1871—there exists at least a sketch of participants’ backgrounds and an analysis, more or less rigorous, of the reasons for the occurrence of the uprisings. Only in the case of the February Revolution do we lack a useful description of participants that might characterize it in the light of what social history has taught us about the process of revolutionary mobilization.

Two reasons for this relative neglect seem obvious. First, the insurrection of February has been overshadowed by that of June. The February Revolution overthrew a regime, to be sure, but met with so little resistance that it failed to generate any real sense of historical drama. Its successor, on the other hand, appeared to pit key socioeconomic groups in a life-or-death struggle and was widely seen by contemporary observers as marking a historical departure. Through their interpretations, which exert a continuing influence on our understanding of the revolutionary process, the impact of the events of June has been magnified, while, as an unintended consequence, the significance of the February insurrection has been diminished. Second, like other “successful” insurrections, the events of February failed to generate the most desirable kinds of historical records. Although the June insurrection of 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871 would be considered watersheds of nineteenth-century French history by any standard, they also present the social historian with a signal advantage: these failed insurrections created a mass of invaluable documentation as a by-product of authorities’ efforts to search out and punish the rebels.

Quite different is the outcome of successful insurrections like those of July 1830 and February 1848. Experiences are retold, but participants typically resume their daily routines without ever recording their activities. Those who played salient roles may become the objects of highly embellished verbal accounts or in rare cases, of celebratory articles in contemporary periodicals. And it is true that the publicly acknowledged leaders of an uprising frequently write memoirs. However, such documents are likely to be highly unreliable, unrepresentative, and unsystematically preserved, especially when compared to the detailed judicial dossiers prepared for everyone arrested following a failed insurrection. As a consequence, it may prove difficult or impossible to establish for a successful revolution a comprehensive and trustworthy picture of those who participated, or to answer even the most basic questions one might pose concerning the social origins of the insurgents.

12.1. According to the passage, “a useful description of participants” (lines 11-12) exists for which of the following insurrections of nineteenth-century France?

I. The July Insurrection of 1830

II. The February Revolution of 1848

III. The June insurrection of 1848

IV. The May insurrection of 1871

(A) I and III only

(B) II and IV only

(C) I, II, and III only

(D) I, III, and IV only

(E) II, III, and IV only

12.2. It can be inferred from the passage that support for the objectives of the February Revolution was

(A) negligible

(B) misguided

(C) fanatical

(D) spontaneous

(E) widespread

12.3. Which of the following, best describes the organization of the second paragraph?

(A) The thesis of the passage is stated and supporting evidence systematically presented.

(B) Two views regarding the thesis presented in the first paragraph are compared and contrasted.

(C) Evidence refuting the thesis presented in the first paragraph is systematically presented.

(D) The thesis presented in the first paragraph is systematically supported.

(E) The thesis presented in the first paragraph is further defined and a conclusion drawn.

12.4. It can be inferred from the passage that the author considers which of the following essential for understanding a revolutionary mobilization?

(A) A comprehensive theory of revolution that can be applied to the major insurrections of the nineteenth century

(B) Awareness of the events necessary for a revolution to be successful

(C) Access to narratives and memoirs written by eyewitnesses of a given revolution

(D) The historical perspective provided by the passage of a considerable amount of time

(E) Knowledge of the socioeconomic backgrounds of a revolution’s participants

12.5. Which of the following can be inferred about the “detailed judicial dossiers” referred to in line 49?

(A) Information contained in the dossiers sheds light on the social origins of a revolution’s participants.

(B) The dossiers closely resemble the narratives written by the revolution’s leaders in their personal memoirs.

(C) The information that such dossiers contain is untrustworthy and unrepresentative of a revolution’s participants.

(D) Social historians prefer to avoid such dossiers whenever possible because they are excessively detailed.

(E) The February Revolution of 1848 produced more of these dossiers than did the June insurrection.

12.6. Which of the following is the most logical objection to the claim made in lines 38-39?

(A) The February Revolution of 1848 is much less significant than the July insurrection of 1830.

(B) The backgrounds and motivations of participants in the July insurrection of 1830 have been identified, however cursorily.

(C) Even less is known about the July insurrection of 1830 than about the February Revolution of 1848.

(D) Historical records made during the July insurrection of 1830 are less reliable than those made during the May insurrection of 1871.

(E) The importance of the July insurrection of 1830 has been magnified at the expense of the significance of the February Revolution of 1848.

12.7. With which of the following statements regarding revolution would the author most likely agree?

(A) Revolutionary mobilization requires a great deal of planning by people representing disaffected groups.

(B) The objectives of the February Revolution were more radical than those of the June insurrection.

(C) The process of revolutionary mobilization varies greatly from one revolution to the next.

(D) Revolutions vary greatly in the usefulness of the historical records that they produce.

(E) As knowledge of the February Revolution increases, chances are good that its importance will eventually eclipse that of the June insurrection.

答案：DEDEABD

GRE閱讀高頻機經原文及答案：小說Mary Barton

13. 小說Mary Barton A 9604

Mary Barton, particularly in its early chapters, is a moving response to the suffering of the industrial worker in the England of the 1840’s. What is most impressive about the book is the intense and painstaking effort made by the author, Elizabeth Gaskell, to convey the experience of everyday life in working-class homes. Her method is partly documentary in nature: the novel includes such features as a carefully annotated reproduction of dialect, the exact details of food prices in an account of a tea party, an itemized description of the furniture of the Bartons’ living room, and a transcription (again annotated) of the ballad “The Oldham Weaver.” The interest of this record is considerable, even though the method has a slightly distancing effect.

As a member of the middle class, Gaskell could hardly help approaching working-class life as an outside observer and a reporter, and the reader of the novel is always conscious of this fact. But there is genuine imaginative re-creation in her accounts of the walk in Green Heys Fields, of tea at the Bartons’ house, and of John Barton and his friend’s discovery of the starving family in the cellar in the chapter “Poverty and Death.” Indeed, for a similarly convincing re-creation of such families’ emotions and responses (which are more crucial than the material details on which the mere reporter is apt to concentrate), the English novel had to wait 60 years for the early writing of D. H. Lawrence. If Gaskell never quite conveys the sense of full participation that would completely authenticate this aspect of Mary Barton, she still brings to these scenes an intuitive recognition of feelings that has its own sufficient conviction.

The chapter “Old Alice’s History” brilliantly dramatizes the situation of that early generation of workers brought from the villages and the countryside to the urban industrial centers. The account of Job Legh, the weaver and naturalist who is devoted to the study of biology, vividly embodies one kind of response to an urban industrial environment: an affinity for living things that hardens, by its very contrast with its environment, into a kind of crankiness. The early chapters—about factory workers walking out in spring into Green Heys Fields; about Alice Wilson, remembering in her cellar the twig-gathering for brooms in the native village that she will never again see; about Job Legh, intent on his impaled insects—capture the characteristic responses of a generation to the new and crushing experience of industrialism. The other early chapters eloquently portray the development of the instinctive cooperation with each other that was already becoming an important tradition among workers.

13.1. Which of the following best describes the author’s attitude toward Gaskell’s use of the method of documentary record in Mary Barton?

(A) Uncritical enthusiasm

(B) Unresolved ambivalence

(C) Qualified approval

(D) Resigned acceptance

(E) Mild irritation

13.2. According to the passage, Mary Barton and the early novels of D. H. Lawrence share which of the following?

(A) Depiction of the feelings of working-class families

(B) Documentary objectivity about working-class circumstances

(C) Richly detailed description of working-class adjustment to urban life

(D) Imaginatively structured plots about working-class characters

(E) Experimental prose style based on working-class dialect

13.3. Which of the following is most closely analogous to Job Legh in Mary Barton, as that character is described in the passage?

(A) An entomologist who collected butterflies as a child

(B) A small-town attorney whose hobby is nature photography

(C) A young man who leaves his family’s dairy farm to start his own business

(D) A city dweller who raises exotic plants on the roof of his apartment building

(E) A union organizer who works in a textile mill under dangerous conditions

13.4. It can be inferred from examples given in the last paragraph of the passage that which of the following was part of “the new and crushing experience of industrialism” (lines 46-47) for many members of the English working class in the nineteenth century?

(A) Extortionate food prices

(B) Geographical displacement

(C) Hazardous working conditions

(D) Alienation from fellow workers

(E) Dissolution of family ties

13.5. It can be inferred that the author of the passage believes that Mary Barton might have been an even better novel if Gaskell had

(A) concentrated on the emotions of a single character

(B) made no attempt to re-create experiences of which she had no firsthand knowledge

(C) made no attempt to reproduce working-class dialects

(D) grown up in an industrial city

(E) managed to transcend her position as an outsider

13.6. Which of the following phrases could best be substituted for the phrase “this aspect of Mary Barton” in line 29 without changing the meaning of the passage as a whole?

(A) the material details in an urban working-class environment

(B) the influence of Mary Barton on lawrence’s early work

(C) the place of Mary Barton in the development of the English novel

(D) the extent of the poverty and physical suffering among England’s industrial workers in the 1840’s

(E) the portrayal of the particular feelings and responses of working-class characters

13.7. The author of the passage describes Mary Barton as each of the following EXCEPT:

(A) insightful

(B) meticulous

(C) vivid

(D) poignant

(E) lyrical

KEY: CADBEEE

GRE閱讀高頻機經原文：彗星的pristine relics相關文章：