2017年考研的小伙伴们，大家在巩固基础的同时不要忘记多抽时间训练自己的阅读能力，阅读不是一朝一夕就可以提高的，长久的积累才可以达到从量到质的巨变，因此，圣才考研网在次给大家提供一篇关于阅读的实训题，希望大家能够认真仔细的做题。
Passage 1
Think of the solitude felt by Marie Smith before she died earlier this year in her native Alaska, at 89. She was the last person who knew the language of the Eyak people as a mother-tongue. Or imagine Ned Mandrell, who died in 1974—he was the last native speaker of Manx, similar to Irish and Scots Gaelic. Both these people had the comfort of being surrounded, some of the time, by enthusiasts who knew something precious was vanishing and tried to record and learn whatever they could of a vanishing tongue. In remote parts of the world, dozens more people are on the point of taking to their staves a system of communication that will never be recorded or reconstructed.
Does it matter? Plenty of languages—among them Akkadian, Etruscan, Tangut and Chibcha—have gone the way of the dodo, without causing much trouble to posterity. Should anyone lose sleep over the fact that many tongues—from Manchu ( spoken inChina) to Hua (Botswana) and Gwich’in (Alaska) —are in danger of suffering a similar fate?
Compared with groups who lobby to save animals or trees, campaigners who lobby to preserve languages are themselves a rare breed. But they are trying both to mitigate and publicise an alarming acceleration in the rate at which languages are vanishing. Of some 6,900 tongues spoken in the world today, some 50% to 90% could be gone by the end of the century. InAfrica, at least 300 languages are in near-term danger, and 200 more have died recently or are on the verge of death. Some 145 languages are threatened in East andSouth-East Asia.
Some languages, even robust ones, face an obvious threat in the shape of a political power bent on imposing a majority tongue. A youngster in any part of the Soviet Union soon realised that whatever you spoke at home, mastering Russian was the key to success; citizens ofChinaface similar pressure to focus on Mandarin, the main Chinese dialect.
Nor did English reach its present global status without ruthless tactics. In years past, Americans, Canadians and Australians took native children away from their families to be raised at boarding schools where English rules. In all the Celtic fringes of theBritish Islesthere are bitter memories of children being punished for speaking the wrong language.
But in an age of mass communications, the threats to linguistic diversity are less draconian and more spontaneous. Parents stop using traditional tongues, thinking it will be better for their children to grow up using a dominant language (such as Swahili inEast Africa) or a global one (such as English, Mandarin or Spanish). And even if parents try to keep the old speech alive, their efforts can be doomed by films and computer games.
(此文选自 The Economist 2008 年刊 )
1. According to paragraph 1, Marie Smith’s solitude results from the fact that .
[A] she lives alone and no one accompanies her.
[B] people around her could not understand her language.
[C] she is the last person having Eyak as mother-tongue.
[D] as a nativeAlaska, she lives far away from that place.
2. What do campaigners who lobby to preserve languages do to save endangered languages?
[A] Take measures to slow down languages’ vanishing rate.
[B] Try to make known languages’ accelerating vanishing rate.
[C] Try all their out to record and reconstruct the vanishing languages.
[D] Slow down languages’ vanishing rate and meanwhile make it known.
3. In paragraphs 4 and 5 the author discusses that .
[A] mastering Russian is the key to success in theSoviet Union.
[B] citizens ofChinashould focus on the acquisition of Mandarin.
[C] English reaches its present global status as a world language.
[D] languages face obvious threat in the shape of a political power.
4. What does the author feel about the vanishing languages throughout the world?
[A] Concerned. [B] Indifferent.
[C] Pleased. [D] Sympathetic.
5. In the future, the number of languages will .
[A] stop decreasing.
[B] begin to increase.
[C] continue to decrease.
[D] stop increasing.
【答案解析】
1. C 事实细节题。根据题干关键词Marie Smith提示定位至第一段。由本段第二句She was the last person who knew the language of the Eyak people as a mother-tongue.可知首句中solitude指除了她之外没有掌握埃亚克人母语的人了，故C正确；A文中未提及；B干扰**，文中讲到她是最后一位掌握埃亚克人母语的人，但并不意味着没人懂她的语言，而且由后文可知她和周围人是可以交流的，故排除；D文中未提及。
2. D 事实细节题。根据关键词campaigners who lobby to preserve languages定位至第三段。该段中提到这些人they are trying both to mitigate and publicise an alarming acceleration in the rate at which languages are vanishing.可知他们正试图降低语言加速消亡的速度，同时使语言加速消亡的现象为公众所知，D为正确答案。
3. D 主旨大意题。根据题干提示定位至第四、五段。第四段首句Some languages, even robust ones, face an obvious threat in the shape of a political power bent on imposing a majority tongue.接下来以俄语、汉语和英语为例证明政治倾向对语言流行的影响，因而正确答案是D。A、B和C都是文中的细节，支撑首句论点，排除。
4. A 观点态度题。根据文中作者的选词造句判断。文中首先出现solitude，然后反问指，当面临语言消失的问题时人们所采取的措施是否见效？人们是否该失眠？这些为保存语言进行游说的人是a rare breed，后又讲到政治对语言流行的obvious threat，这些词充分体现了作者对消失的语言是非常关心的态度，故A正确，排除B、C和D。
5. C 推理判断题。推测语言发展的趋势，这要综合全文进行判断。文章首先讲到某些语言正在消失，然后讲到人们试图降低近年来语言加速消失的速度，以及政治威胁着某些语言的存在和在大众传播工具盛行的时代语言多样化更自发地受到威胁，这说明语言的多样性将会保持继续减少的趋势，所以正确答案是C。
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