第59篇:(Unit 15 ,Passage 3)
Most people would probably agree that many individual consumer adverts function on the level of the daydream. By picturing quite unusually happy and glamorous people whose success in either career of sexual terms, or both, is obvious, adverts construct an imaginary world in which the reader is able to make come true those desires which remain unsatisfied in his or her everyday life.
An advert for a science fiction magazine is unusually explicit about this. In addition to the primary use value of the magazine, the reader is promised access to a wonderful universe through the product—access to other mysterious and tantalizing worlds and epochs, the realms of the imagination. When studying advertising, it is therefore unreasonable to expect readers to decipher adverts as factual statements about reality. Most adverts are just too meagre in informative content and too rich in emotional suggestive detail to be read literally. If people read then literally, they would soon be forced to realize their error when the glamorous promises held out by the adverts didn’t materialize.
The average consumer is not surprised that his purchase of the commodity does not redeem the promise of the advertisement, for this is what he is used to in life: the individual’s pursuit of happiness and success is usually in vain. But the fantasy is his to keep; in his dream world he enjoys a “future endlessly deferred”.
The Estivalia advert is quite explicit about the fact that advertising shows us not reality, but a fantasy; it does so by openly admitting the daydream but in a way that insists on the existence of a bridge linking daydream to reality—Estivalia, which is “for daydream believers”, those who refuse to give up trying to make the hazy ideal of natural beauty and harmony come true.
If adverts function on the daydream level, it clearly becomes in adequate to merely condemn advertising for channeling readers’ attention and desires towards an unrealistic, paradisiacal nowhere land. Advertising certainly does that, but in order for people to find it relevant, the utopia visualized in adverts must be linked to our surrounding reality by a casual connection.
1.The people in adverts are in most coves ___.
A.happy and glamorous
B.successful
C.obvious
D.both A and B
2.When the glamorous promises held out by the adverts didn’t materialize the average consumer is not surprised, because ___.
A.The consumer is used to the fact that the individual’s pursuit of happiness and success is usually in vain.
B.Adverts are factual statements about reality.
C.The consumer can come into the realms of imagination pictured by adverts.
D.Adverts can make the consumer’s dreams come true.
3.What’s the bridge linking daydream to reality in adverts?
A.The product.
B.Estivalia.
C.Pictures.
D.Happy and glamorous people.
4.Why does the consumer accept the daydream in adverts?
A.Because the consumer enjoys a “future endlessly deferred.”
B.Because the consumer gives up trying to make his dream come true.
C.Because the utopia is visualized in adverts.
D.Because his purchased of the commodity does not redeem the promise of the advertisement.
5.What is this passage mainly concerned with?
A.Many adverts can be read literally.
B.Everyone has a daydream.
C.Many adverts function on the level of the daydream.
D.Many adverts are deceitful because they can not make good their promises.
第59篇答案:DABAC
第60篇:(Unit 15 ,Passage 4)
The establishment of the Third Reich influence events in American history by starting a chain of event, which culminated in war between Germany and the United states. The complete destruction of democracy, the persecution of Jew, the war on religion, the cruelty and barbarism of the Nazis, and especially, the plans of Germany and her allies, Italy and Japan, for world conquest caused great indignation in this country and brought on fear of another world war. While speaking out against Hitler’s atrocities, the American people generally favored isolationist policies and neutrality. The Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936 prohibited trade with any belligerents or loans to them. In 1937 the President was empowered to declare an arms embargo(禁运)in wars between nations at his discretion.
American opinion began to change somewhat after president Roosevelt’s “quarantine the aggressor” speech at Chicago (1937) in which he severely criticized Hitler’s policies. Germany’s seizure of Austria and the Munich Pact for the partition of Czechoslovakia (1938) also aroused the American people. The conquest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 was another rude awakening to the menace of the Third Reich. In August 1939 came the shock of Nazi-Soviet Pact and in September the attack on Poland, the outbreak of European war. The United States attempted to maintain neutrality in spite of sympathy for the democracies arrayed against the Third Reich. The Neutrality Act of 1939 repealed the arms embargo and permitted “cash and carry” exports of arms to belligerent nations. A strong national defense program was begun. A draft act was passed (1940) to strengthen the military service. A Lend Lease Act (1941) authorized the President to sell, exchange, or lend materials to any country deemed necessary by him for the defense of the United States. Help was given to Britain by exchanging certain overage destroyers for the right to establish American bases in British territory in the Western Hemisphere. In August 1941, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met and issued the Atlantic Charter that proclaimed the kind of a world which should be established after the war. In December 1941, Japan launched the unprovoked attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. Immediately thereafter, Germany declared war on the United States.
1.One item occurring before 1937 that the author does not mention in his list of actions that alienated the American public was ___.
A.Nazi barbarism
B.The pacts with Italy
C.German plans for conquest
D.The burning of the Reichstag
2.The Neutrality Act of 1939 ___.
A.restated America’s isolationist policies
B.proclaimed American neutrality
C.permitted the selling of arms to belligerent nations
D.was a cause of our entrance into World War Ⅱ
3.An event that did not occur in 1939 was the ___.
A.invasion of Poland
B.invasion of Czechoslovakia
C.passing of the Neutrality Act
D.establishment of the University of Leipzig in Germany
4.The Lend Lease Act was blueprinted to ___.
A.strengthen our national defense
B.provide battleships to the Allies
C.help the British
D.promote the Atlantic Charter
5.The Neutrality Act of 1939 favored Great Britain because ___.
A.the British had command of the sea
B.the law permitted us to trade only with the Allies
C.it antagonized Japan
D.it led to the Lend Lease Act
第60篇答案:DCDAA