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SAT阅读练习题:Reading Comprehension Test 14
Much of what goes by the name of pleasure is simply an effort
to destroy consciousness. If one started by asking, what is
man? what are his needs? how can he best express himself?
one would discover that merely having the power to avoid work
5 and live one’s life from birth to death in electric light and
to the tune of tinned music is not a reason for doing so. Man
needs warmth, society, leisure, comfort and security: he also
needs solitude, creative work and the sense of wonder. If he
recognized this he could use the products of science and
10 industrialism eclectically, applying always the same test:
does this make me more human or less human? He would then
learn that the highest happiness does not lie in relaxing,
resting, playing poker, drinking and making love simultaneously.
1. The author implies that the answers to the questions in sentence two would reveal that human beings
A. are less human when they seek pleasure
B. need to evaluate their purpose in life
C. are being alienated from their true nature by technology
D. have needs beyond physical comforts
E. are always seeking the meaning of life
2. The author would apparently agree that playing poker is
A. often an effort to avoid thinking
B. something that gives true pleasure
C. an example of man’s need for society
D. something that man must learn to avoid
E. inhuman
Examine the recently laid egg of some common animal, such as
a salamander or newt. It is a minute spheroid – an apparently
structureless sac, enclosing a fluid, holding granules in
suspension. But let a moderate supply of warmth reach its
5 watery cradle, and the plastic matter undergoes changes so
rapid, yet so steady and purposeful in their succession, that
one can only compare them to those operated by a skilled
modeler upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible
trowel, the mass is divided and subdivided into smaller and
10 smaller portions. And, then, it is as if a delicate finger
traced out the line to be occupied by the spinal column, and
molded the contour of the body; pinching up the head at one
end, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb
into due proportions, in so artistic a way, that, after
15 watching the process hour by hour, one is almost
involuntarily possessed by the notion, that some more subtle
aid to vision than a microscope, would show the hidden
artist, with his plan before him, striving with skilful
manipulation to perfect his work.
3. The author makes his main point with the aid of
A. logical paradox
B. complex rationalization
C. observations on the connection between art and science
D. scientific deductions
E. extended simile
4. In the context of the final sentence the word “subtle” most nearly means
A. not obvious
B. indirect
C. discriminating
D. surreptitious
E. scientific
