2024年4月14日发(作者：莫英范)
英语阅读系统阶段阅读测试
姓名： 分数：
Passage 1
It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy.
These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient: 27 million Americans cannot
read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our
society.
But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy
than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the
middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of
domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading.
It has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America’s literate, educated teenagers can
no longer read without an accompanying noise (music) in the background or a television
screen flickering（闪烁）at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the
brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition
suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, solitude
(独处的状态) goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of
part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of
apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can
pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by
brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
1
Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading
is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic (心理的), and social transformations probably
much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in
printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still
being debated. The information revolution will touch every facet of composition, publication,
distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will
happen to the book as we’ve known it.
picture of the reading ability of the American people, drawn by the author, is .
A) rather bleak
B) fairly bright
C) very impressive
D) quite encouraging
2. The author’s biggest concern is ______.
A) elementary school children’s disinterest in reading classics
B) the surprisingly low rate of literacy in the U.S.
C) the musical setting American readers require of reading
2
2024年4月14日发(作者：莫英范)
英语阅读系统阶段阅读测试
姓名： 分数：
Passage 1
It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy.
These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient: 27 million Americans cannot
read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our
society.
But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy
than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the
middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of
domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading.
It has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America’s literate, educated teenagers can
no longer read without an accompanying noise (music) in the background or a television
screen flickering（闪烁）at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the
brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition
suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, solitude
(独处的状态) goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of
part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of
apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can
pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by
brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
1
Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading
is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic (心理的), and social transformations probably
much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in
printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still
being debated. The information revolution will touch every facet of composition, publication,
distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will
happen to the book as we’ve known it.
picture of the reading ability of the American people, drawn by the author, is .
A) rather bleak
B) fairly bright
C) very impressive
D) quite encouraging
2. The author’s biggest concern is ______.
A) elementary school children’s disinterest in reading classics
B) the surprisingly low rate of literacy in the U.S.
C) the musical setting American readers require of reading
2