考博輔導資料:考博英語閱讀理解第二講
Passage 2
How much pain do animals feel? This is a question which has caused endless controversy. Opponents of big game shooting, for example, arouse our pity by describing tile agonies of a badly-wounded beast that has crawled into a comer to die. In countries where the fox, the hare and the deer are hunted, animal-lovers paint harrowing pictures of the pursued animal suffering not only the physical distress of the chase but the mental anguish of anticipated death.
The usual answer to these criticisms is that animals do not suffer in the same way, or to the same extent, as we de. Man was created with a delicate nervous system and has never lost his acute sensitiveness to pain; animals, on the other hand, had less sensitive systems to begin with and in the course of millions of years, have developed a capacity of ignoring injuries and disorders which human beings would find intolerable. For example, a dog will continue to play with a ball even after a serious injury to his foot; he may be unable to run without limping, but he will go on trying long after a human child would have had to stop because of the pain. We are told, moreover, that even when animals appear to us to be suffering acutely, this is not so; what seems to us to be agonized contortions caused by pain are in fact no more than muscular contractions over which they have no control. These arguments are unsatisfactory because something about which we know a great deal is being compared with something we can only conjecture. We know what we feel; we have no means of knowing what animals feet. Some creatures with a less delicate nervous system than ours may be incapable of feeling pain to the same extent as we do: that as far as we are entitled to do, the most humane attitude, surely, is to assume that no animals are entirely exempt from physical pain and that we ought, therefore, wherever possible, to avoid causing suffering even to the least of them.
6. Animal-lovers assume that animals, being hunted, would suffer from ____.
A) a great deal of agony both in body and in spirit
B) mental distress once they are wounded
C) only body pains without feeling sad
D) crawling into the comer to die
7. Supporters of game shooting may argue that animals ______.
A) cannot control their muscular contractions
B) have developed a capacity of feeling no pain
C) are not as acutely sensitive as human beings to injuries
D) can endure all kinds of disorders
8. The author feels sure that _____.
A) animals don’t show suffering to us
B) dogs are more endurable than human children
C) we cannot know what animals feel
D) comparing animals with human beings is not appropriate
9. What is the author’s opinion about animal hunting?
A) We should feel the same as the hunted animals do.
B) We should protect and save all the animals.
C) We shouldn’t cause suffering to them.
D) We should take care of them if we can.
10. This passage seems to ____.
A) argue for something
B) explain something
C) tell a story
D) describe an object
Passage2
文章大意:
文章第一段交代動物保護者的行為:他們通過描寫或繪畫展示受重傷動物的痛苦以博得同情,并說明動物確實能感到極大的精神和肉體的痛苦(anguish)。第二段是狩獵愛好者的觀點:動物并不像人們想象的那樣對痛苦非常敏感。第三段作者提出自己的觀點:狩獵愛好者的辯解并不能令人滿意,因為這些人只是猜測(conjecture) 動物的神經(jīng)不如人敏感(delicate)。只要我們有權做(be entitled),那么最人道的看法就是認為沒有哪個動物會完全感覺不到(exempt from)痛苦,因此應該盡可能地避免給動物造成傷害,哪怕是最小的動物。
這是一篇議論文,先分別擺出兩種對立的觀點,后提出作者自己的觀點:贊成動物保護者,并進行論證。
答案解析:
[6]A第一段第三句提到他們作畫以揭示動物在被追趕時所遭受的肉體痛苦,同時還
忍受著死亡逼近的精神痛苦,故選[A]。
[7]C第二段第二句后半部分表示,動物們在開始時神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)不敏感,隨后在幾百萬年的進化中發(fā)展了忽略疼痛和錯亂的能力,而這種疼痛和錯亂狀態(tài)是人類無法忍受的,故選[C]。
[8]B根據(jù)第三段第二句可知,應選[B]。
[9]C第三段最后一句表明人們的態(tài)度,即不應傷害動物,故選[C)o
[10]A文中用到了一些短語,如controversy,opponents of game shooting,animal-lovers,answer to criticism,arguments,humane attitude is to assume等,都是表明立場和觀點的,即本文是議論文。應選[A]。