Ethanol and methanol， on the other hand， have important advantages over other carbon-based alternative fuels: they have higher energy content per volume and would require minimal changes in the existing network for distributing motor fuel. Ethanol is commonly used as a gasoline supplement， but it is currently about twice as expensive as methanol， the low cost of which is one of its attractive features. Methanol‟s most attractive feature， however， is that it can reduce by about 90 percent the vehicle emissions that form ozone， the most serious urban air pollutant. Like any alternative fuel， methanol has its critics. Yet much of the criticism is based on the use of “gasoline clone” vehicles that do not incorporate even the simplest design improvements that are made possible with the use of methanol. It is true， for example， that a given volume of methanol provides only about one-half of the energy that gasoline and diesel fuel do; other things being equal， the fuel tank would have to be somewhat larger and heavier. However， since methanol-fueled vehicles could be designed to be much more efficient than “gasoline clone” vehicles fueled with methanol they would need comparatively less fuel. Vehicles incorporating only the simplest of the engine improvements that methanol makes feasible would still contribute to an immediate lessening of urban air pollution.
1.The author of the text is primarily concerned with
[A] countering a flawed argument that dismisses a possible solution to a problem.
[B] reconciling contradictory points of view about the nature of a problem.
[C] identifying the strengths of possible solutions to a problem.
[D] discussing a problem and arguing in favor of one solution to it.
2.According to the text， incomplete combustion is more likely to occur with gasoline than with an alternative fuel because
[A] the combustion of gasoline releases photochemically active hydrocarbons.
[B] the combustion of gasoline embraces an intricate set of reactions.
[C] gasoline molecules have a simple molecular structure.
[D] gasoline is composed of small molecules.
3.The text suggests which of the following about air pollution?
[A] Further attempts to reduce emissions from gasoline-fueled vehicles will not help lower urban air-pollution levels.
[B] Attempts to reduce the pollutants that an individual gasoline-fueled vehicle emits have been largely unsuccessful.
[C] Few serious attempts have been made to reduce the amount of pollutants emitted by gasoline-fueled vehicles.
[D] Pollutants emitted by gasoline-fueled vehicles are not the most critical source of urban air pollution.
4.Which of the following most closely parallels the situation described in the first sentence of the text?
[A] Although a town reduces its public services in order to avoid a tax increase， the town‟s tax rate exceeds that of other towns in the surrounding area.
[B] Although a state passes strict laws to limit the type of toxic material that can be disposed of in public landfills， illegal dumping continues to increase.
[C] Although a town‟s citizens reduce their individual use of water， the town‟s water supplies continue to dwindle because of a steady increase in the total populating of the town.
[D] Although a country attempts to increase the sale of domestic goods by adding a tax to the price of imported goods， the sale of imported goods within the country continues to increase.
5.It can be inferred that the author of the text most likely regards the criticism of methanol as
[A] flawed because of the assumptions on which it is based.
[B] inapplicable because of an inconsistency in the critics‟ arguments.
[C] misguided because of its exclusively technological focus.
[D] inaccurate because it ignores consumers‟ concerns.
妇女与工业化这道，又是出自GRE。筒子们，咱别考北师大了，英语考这水平，还不如直接考GRE去美国算了：）
It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the household, their traditional sphere, and fundamentally altered their position in society. In the nineteenth century, when women began to enter factories, Jules Simon, a French politician, warned that by doing so, women would give up their femininity. Friedrich Engels, however, predicted that women would be liberated from the “social, legal, and economic subordination” of the family by technological developments that made possible the recruitment of “the whole female sex… into public industry.” Observers thus differed concerning the social desirability of mechanization‟s effects, but they agreed that it would transform women‟s lives. Historians, particularly those investigating the history of women, now seriously question this assumption of transforming power. They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic changes in women‟s economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women‟s work. The employment of young women in textile mills during the Industrial Revolution was largely an extension of an older pattern of employment of young, single women as domestics.
It was not the change in office technology, but rather the separation of secretarial work, previously seen as an apprenticeship for beginning managers, from administrative work that in the 1880‟s created a new class of “dead-end” jobs, thenceforth considered“women‟s work”. The increase in the numbers of married women employed outside the home in the twentieth century had less to do with the mechanization of housework and an increase in leisure time for these women than it did with their own economic necessity and with high marriage rates that shrank the available pool of single women workers, previously, in many cases, the only women employers would hire. Women‟s work has changed considerably in the past 200 years, moving from the household to the office or the factory, and later becoming mostly white-collar instead of blue-collar work. Fundamentally, however, the conditions under which women work have changed little since before the industrial revolution: the segregation of occupations by sex, lower pay for women as a group, jobs that require relatively low levels of skill and offer women little opportunity for advancement all persist, while women‟s household labor remains demanding. Recent historical investigation has led to a major revision of the notion that technology is always inherently revolutionary in its effects on society. Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.
1. The main idea of the text is that mechanization _____________.
A. does not perform an inherently revolutionary function
B. revolutionizes the traditional values of a society
C. has caused the nature of women‟s work to change
D. creates whole new classes of jobs that did not exist previously
2. In relation to those historians who study the history of women, the author most probably believes that _____________.
A. they provide a valuable insight into the social phenomena affecting the position of women
B. their work can only be used cautiously by scholars in historical studies
C. they tend to draw less reliable conclusions than do other historians
D. their work has not had an impact on other historians‟ current assumptions
3. The text states that, before the twentieth century, many employers ____________.
A. employed women only in traditional household work B. tended to employ single rather than married women
C. resisted changing women‟s roles in their social life D. hired only qualified women to fill the open positions
4. According to the author, which of the following may indicate a fundamental alteration in working women‟s conditions?
A. The majority of women occupy white-collar positions.
B. Married men are doing the same household tasks as are women.
C. Female workers outnumber male ones in a new class of jobs.
D. Working women‟s pay is as high as that of working men.
5. The function of the concluding sentence of the text is that _____________.
A. it sums up the general points concerning the mechanization of work made in the text
B. it draws a conclusion which goes beyond the evidence presented in the text as a whole
C. it restates the point concerning technology made in the sentence immediately preceding it
D. it suggests a compromise between two seemingly contradictory views stated in the text
关于汉译英：可参考：
大英博物馆 网站：http://www.britishmuseum.org/
the british museum information and events for schools and teachers
今日大英博物馆
位于伦敦市中心的罗素广场（Russell Square）旁的大英博物馆，正门是高大的柱廊和装饰着浮雕的山墙屋顶，典型的希腊古典建筑式样。博物馆的主要藏品是古代和中世纪文物，尤以古代埃及和 古代希腊的藏品闻名。2003 年，大英博物馆庆祝了自己250 周年的生日。2000 年这里刚刚完成了由伦敦建筑师诺曼· 福斯特重新设计的大庭院，巨大的半通明屋顶，覆盖着整个大庭院(Great Court), 围绕大庭院中心的阅览室，博物馆的各个功能部分被合理连接，也将大英博物馆建筑本身的利用程度进行了扩充，现在的公共阅览室原来是大英图书馆的位置，现在 这里陈列的主要是博物馆面对公众开放的艺术文献和书籍，大英图书馆的藏书已在1998 年移往别处，当然，图书馆入口所标记的马克思、凯恩斯等人的名字仍然永久地留在了
