2015年6月SAT真题(北美)Section 4

1.Emperor Ying Zheng created aristocratic ranks that were not ------: they couldnot be passed to the next generation.a)strictb)significantc)economicald)hereditarye)unique2.What had been ------ procession began to ------ when the parade participantsbecame distracted and wandered out of their assigned places.a) a jumbled .. unravelb) a methodical .. streamlinec)an orderly .. deteriorated)an unruly .. acceleratee) a regulated .. mobilize3.For 150, 000 years or more, humans led a ----- existence, wandering ashunter-gathers in bands of 15 to 40.a)nomadicb)hastyc)solitaryd)terminale)progressive4.The aqueduct is largely an outmoded technology : in most locations it hasbeen ------ more modern piping.a)associated withb)competitive withc)defined byd)created bye)supplanted by5.William H. Johnson’s paintings were seldom ------ major exhibitions duringhis lifetime; similarly, Johnson’s work was given ------ consideration by art historians until quite recently.a)excluded from .. inadequateb)ignored by .. limitedc)conspicuous in .. carefuld)featured in .. scante)derived from .. critical6.Some zoologists have ------ a recent estimate of the number of giant pandas inChina, claiming that the figures are too conservative.a)discountedb)decreasedc)miscalculatedd)promotede)verified7.Some ancient Egyptian words resemble words in the archaic Indo-Europeanlanguage; such similarities have yet to be ------, as the two ancient languagesare generally thought to have been ------.a)discerned .. unrelatedb)understood .. successivec)deciphered .. vernaculard)verified .. familiare)explained .. independent8.By providing meteorological details about very small areas, even individualneighborhoods, new software yields ----- view of weather.a) a granularb) a probabilisticc) a conjecturald)an instantaneouse)an infallibleQuestions 9-10 are based on the following passage.When I first discovered the work of Nicaraguan poetRuben Dario, I could not understand how such a titanicartist has remained so obscure in the united States. Hisaudacious rhyme schemes, singsong rhythms, and daringly5modern use of language placed him on a level with thepoets he most admired, among them Walt Whitman andVictor Hugo. He liberated Spanish-language literature fromcenturies of stiffness and inspired generations of writers tofollow, such Pablo Neruda and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.Yet he remained all but unknown in the English-speaking10world. The reason, I came to realize, is that thetranscendent beauty of his verses is entirely lost intranslation.9.The primary purpose of the passage is toa)discuss Dario’s influence on Spanish-language literatureb)encourage speakers of English to read Dario’s poetryc)account for an incongruity in how Dario is regardedd)explain why translators have failed to capture the unique qualities ofDario’s worke)illustrate some of Dario’s most important poetic innov ations10.Which statement about Dario’s “rhyme schemes”(line 4) is best supported bythe passage?a)They form rhyming patterns that are unique to the Spanish language.b)They are similar to those found in the work of Whitman and Hugo.c)They have not been adequately appreciated except by readers inNicaragua.d)They are somewhat at odds with Dario’s modern use of languages.e)They were not familiar patterns in Spanish-language poetry prior toDario.Questions 11-12 are based on the following passage.The parasitic plants known as dodders produce finethreads that spiral outward until they converge upon asuitable host plant, from which they extract nutrients.Biologist Consuelo de Moraes studied the tracking5techniques of dodders that prey on tomatoes. She found thatthe growing tips of these plants rotate slowly, “sniffing” forthe host, then aim decisively for it. They ignore artificialtomatoes fashioned from red felt and pipe cleaners, andglobes of colored liquid, so are not reacting to color cues.10But when de Moraes extracted scent chemicals from actualtomatoes and applied them to a piece of rubber, the dodderimmediately shot out tendrils in tis direction.11.The author uses quotation marks in line 6 primarily to indicatea) a figurative use of a wordb)an instance of reported speechc)an application of a technical termd) a sarcastic view of a situatione) a common misunderstanding of a concept12.De Moraes most likely used “a piece of rubber” (line 11) with tomato scentchemicals on it because if she had used actual tomatoes, she could not havea)determined which color cues affect dodders the mostb)concluded that the dodder was responding to scentc)known if the dodder reacted to scents other than that of tomatoesd)proved that the dodder’s movements were not randome)identified which nutrients the dodder was seekingQuestions 13-24 are based on the following passage.This passage is from a 2011 book about the human brain.In 1997, neuroscientist Antoine Bechara and hiscolleagues laid out four decks of cards in front of subjectsand asked them to choose one card at a time. Each cardrevealed a gain or loss of money. With time, the subjects5began to realize that each deck had a character to it: twoof the decks were “good,” meaning that the subjects wouldmake money, while the other two were “bad,” meaningthey would end up with a net loss.As subjects pondered which deck to draw from, they10were stopped at various points by the investigators andasked for their opinion: which decks were good? Whichwere bad? In this way, the investigators found that ittypically required about twenty-five draws from the decksfor subjects to be able to say which ones they thought were 15good and bad. Not terribly interesting, right? Well, not yet.The investigators also measured the subjects’ skin conductance response, which reflects the activity of thesympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system. And here theynoticed something amazing: the nervous system picked up 20on the statics of the deck well before a subject’sconsciousness did. That is, when subjects reached for thebad decks, there was an anticipator spike of activity ---essentially a warning sign. This spike was detectable byabout the thirteenth card draw. So some part of the25subjects’ brains was picking up the expected return fromthe decks well before the subjects’ conscious minds couldaccess that information. And the information was beingdelivered in the form of a hunch: subjects began to choosethe good decks even before they could consciously say30why. This means that conscious knowledge of the situationwas not required for making advantageous decisions.Even better, it turned out that people needed the gut feeling; without it their decision making would never bevery good. Antonio Damasio and his colleagues ran the35card choice task using patients with damage to a frontalpart of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex,an area involved in making decisions. The team discoveredthat these patients were unable to form an anticipatorywarning signal for the g alvanic* skin response. The patients’brains simply w eren’t picking up on the statistics and40giving them an admonition. Amazingly, even after thesepatients consciously realized which decks were bad, theystill continued to make the wrong choice. In other words,the gut feeling was essential for advantageous decision45making.This led Damasio to propose that the feelings produced by physical states of the body come to guide behavior anddecision making. Body states become linked to outcomesof events in the world. When something bad happens, the 50brain leverages the entire body (heart rate, contraction ofthe gut, weakness of the muscles, and so on) to register that feeling, and that feeling becomes associated with the event.When the event is next pondered, the brain essentially runsa simulation, reliving the physical feelings of the event.55Those feelings then serve to navigate, or at least bias,subsequent decision making. If the feelings from a givenevent are bad, they dissuade the action; if they are good,they encourage it.In this view, physical states of the body provide the60hunches that can steer behavior. These hunches turn out tobe correct more often than chance would predict, mostlybecause your unconscious brain is picking up on thingsfirst, and your consciousness lags behind.In fact, conscious system can break entirely, with on65effect on the unconscious systems. People with a conditioncalled prosopagnosia cannot distinguish between familiarand unfamiliar faces. They rely entirely on cues such ashairlines, gait, and voices to recognize people they know.Pondering this condition led researchers Daniel Tranel andAntonio Damasio to try something clever: even though70prosopaganosics cannot consciously recognize faces, would they have a measurable skin conductance response to faces that were familiar? Indeed, they did. Even thoughprosopagnosics insist that they are unable to recognize75faces, some part of their brains can (and does) distinguishfamiliar faces from unfamiliar ones.If you cannot always elicit a straight answer from the unconscious brain, how can you access its knowledge?Sometimes the trick is merely to probe what your gut is80telling you. So the next time a friend laments that shecannot decide between two options, tell her the easiest way to solve her problem: flip a coin. She should specify whichoption belong to heads and which to tails, and then let thecoin fly. The important part is to assess her gut feeling after85the coin lands. If she feels subtle sense of relief at being“told” what to do by the coin, that’s the right choice for her.If, indeed, she concludes that it’s ludicrous for her to makea decision based on a coin toss, that will cue her to choosethe other option.* electrical conductance13.The passage as a whole most clearly supports which of the followingstatements about hunches?a)They elude the understanding of mainstream scientific researchers.b)They increase the likelihood of making beneficial choices.c)They result in fewer definitive outcomes than do conscious choices.d)They are necessary fro any conscious choices to be made.e)They are regularly at odds with conscious choices.14.The rhetorical question in line 15 primarily serves toa)acknowledge the apparent triviality of a findingb)highlight the obvious difficulty of a solutionc)admit the fundamental flaw in an experimentd)introduce the central hypothesis of a studye)concede the unexpected nature of a result15.The passage suggests that by “the thirteenth card draw”(line 24), theparticipants in Bechara’s experiment were likely subject toa) a confirmation of their earlier hunchesb)an increasing desire to draw more cardsc)frustration at consistently losing moneyd)physiological changes as they considered their choicese)reservations about their participation in the task16.The author’s use of italics in lines 24 and 75 serves toa)highlight a potential responseb)clarify a contested pointc)indicate an unusual usaged)emphasize an intense feelinge)underscore an important distinction17.In line 25, “return” most nearly meansa)recurrenceb)restorationc)resultd)tradee)departure18.The phrase “Even better”(line 32) is used to suggest that compared toBechara’s results, Damasio’s werea)more accurateb)more fascinatingc)more replicabled)less surprisinge)less abstract19.Which statement about the “patients” in Damasio’s study (line 32-45) can beinferred?a)They took the same amount of time to consciously recognize the baddecks as did Bechara’s subjects.b)They underwent physical changes much sooner than did Bechara’ssubjects.c)They drew from the bad decks at a significantly higher rate than theydrew from the good decks.d)They did not experience a significant change in their physical statesduring the experiment.e)They did not recognize that their changing physical states werewarning signs.20.If the explanation put forward in lines 46-58 is true, which statement is alsotrue?a)Decisions resulting in negative physical feelings are more likely to occurthan are decisions resulting in positive physical feelings.b)Decisions about familiar situations are more likely to be biased than aredecisions about unfamiliar situations.c)The association of negative physical feelings with an event will preventthat event from recurring.d)The association of physical feelings with choices enables a subject tomake truly unbiased decisions.e)The association of physical feelings with events is weaker when theevents are relived than when they originally occurred.21.The parenthetical list in lines50-51 primarily serves toa)note specific elements of a reactionb)mention important exceptions to a tendencyc)propose possible causes of an effectd)offer empirical evidence against a findinge)describe unstated assumptions of an argument22.The discussion of the “feelings” (lines 55-58) indicates that they area)helpful but not commonb)influential but not bindingc)mysterious but not harmfuld)insignificant but not sillye)controllable but not eliminable23.For Tranel and Damasio to reach the conclusion described in lines 73-76(“Even …ones”), what must have ben true about the faces in their experiment?a)At least some of the faces were familiar to each of the experiment’ssubjects.b)The faces shown to the experiment’s subjects included the subject s’own faces.c)The length of time each face was shown to the experiment’s subjectsvaried.d)The hairlines at the top of the faces were not adequately concealed fromthe experiment’s subjects.e)The facial features of certain faces were so similar that the experiment’ssubjects could not distinguish between familiar faces.24.In line 79, “trick” most nearly meansa)traitb)deceptionc)follyd)pranke)way。