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高級英語閱讀練習材料
高級英語學生應該能用詞典和其他工具書獨立解決語言和文化，背景知識方面的難點，提高自學能力，增加文化知識，尤其是所學語言國家的背景和文化知識，更好地使語言和文化結合在一起。下面是小編整理的高級英語閱讀練習材料，希望大家認真閱讀!
Love is a Fallacy
Max Shulman
4 Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious , acuteand astute--I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemist's scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And--think of it! --I was only eighteen.
5 It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Butch, my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough young fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it--this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
6 One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. "Don't move," I said. "Don't take a laxative. I'll get a doctor."
7 "Raccoon," he mumbled thickly.
8 "Raccoon?" I said, pausing in my flight.
9 "1 want a raccoon coat," he wailed.
10 I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. "Why do you want a raccoon coat?"
11 "1 should have known it," he cried, pounding his temples. "1 should have known they'd come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can't get a raccoon coat."
12 "Can you mean." I said incredulously, "that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?"
13 "All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where've you been?"
14 "In the library," I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus
15 He leaped from the bed and paced the room, "I've got to have a raccoon coat," he said passionately. "I've got to!"
16 "Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weight too much. They're unsightly. They--"
17 " You don't understand," he interrupted impatiently. "It's the thing to do. Don't you want to be in the swim?"
18 "No," I said truthfully.
19 "Well, I do," he declared. "I'd give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!"
20 My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. "Anything?" I asked, looking at him narrowly.
21 "Anything," he affirmed in ringing tones.
22 I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to set my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn't have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.
23 I had long covetedPolly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebralreason.
24 I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer's career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
25 Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportionsbut I felt sure that time would supply the lack She already had the makings.
26 Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding, At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house--a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut--without even getting her fingers moist.
27 Intelligent she was not. in fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
28 "Petey," I said, "are you in love with Polly Espy?"
29 "1 think she's a keen kid," he replied, "but I don't know if you'd call it love. Why?"
30 "Do you," I asked, "have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?"
31 "No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?"
32 "Is there," I asked, "any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?"
33 "Not that I know of. Why?"
34 I nodded with satisfaction. "In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?"
35 "1 guess so. What are you getting at?"
36 "Nothing, nothing," I said innocently, and took my suitcase out of the closet.
37 "Where are you going?" asked Petey.
38 "Home for the weekend." I threw a few things into the bag.
39 "Listen," he said, clutching my arm eagerly, "while you're home, you couldn't get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?"
40 "1 may do better than that," I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
41 "Look," I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
42 " Holy Toledo!" said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. "Holy Toledo!" he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
43 "Would you like it?" I asked.
44 "Oh yes!" he cried, clutching the greasy peltto him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. "What do you want for it?"
45 "Your girl," I said, mincing no words.
46 "Polly?" he said in a horrified whisper. "You want Polly?"
47 "That's right."
48 He flung the coat from him. "Never," he said stoutly.
49 I shrugged. "Okay. If you don't want to be in the swim, I guess it's your business."
50 I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning . Finally he didn't turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.
51 "It isn't as though I was in love with Polly," he said thickly. "Or going steady or anything like that."
52 "That's right," I murmured.
53 "What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"
54 "Not a thing," said I.
55 "It's just been a casual kick --just a few laughs, that's all."
56 "Try on the coat," said I.
57 He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. "Fits fine," he said happily.
58 I rose from my chair. "Is it a deal?" I asked, extending my hand.
59 He swallowed. "It's a deal," he said and shook my hand.
60 I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner. "Gee, that was a delish (=delicious) dinner," she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to a movie. "Gee, that was a marvy (=marvelous) movie," she said as we left the theater. And then I took her home. "Gee, I had a sensaysh (=sensational) time," she said as she bade me good night.
61 I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl's lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information First she had to be taught to think. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort.
62 I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my finger tips. "Polly," I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, "tonight we are going over to the Knolland talk."
63 "0o, terrif (=terrific)," she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.
64 We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. "What are we going to talk about?" she asked.
65 "Logic."
66 She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. "Magnif (=magnificent)," she said.
67 "Logic," I said, clearing my throat, "is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight."
68 " Wow-dow!" she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
69 I winced, but went bravely on. "First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Slmpliciter."
70 "By all means," she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.
71, "Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualifiedgeneralization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise."
72 "1 agree," said Polly earnestly. "1 mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything."
73 "Polly," I said gently, "the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simplioiter. Do you see?"
74 "No, " she confessed. "But this is marvy. Do more! Do morel"
75 "It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve," I told her, and when she desisted, I continued: "Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can't speak French. I can't speak French. Petey Burch can't speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French."
76 "Really?" said Polly, amazed. "Nobody?"
77 I hid my exasperation. "Polly, it's a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion."
78 " Know any more fallacies?" she asked breathlessly. "This is more fun than dancing even."
79 I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued.
80 "Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let's not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it rains."
81 "1 know somebody like that," she exclaimed. "A girl back home--Eula Becker, her name is, it never falls. Every single time we take her on a picnic--"
82 "Polly," I said sharply, "it's a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn't cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker."
83 "I'11 never do that again," she promised contritely."Are you mad at me?"
84 I sighed deeply. "No, Polly, I'm not mad."
85 "Then tell me some more fallacies."
86 "All right. Let's try Contradictory Premises."
87 "Yes, let's," she chirped, blinking" her eyes happily.
88 I frowned, but plunged ahead. "Here's an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won't be able to lift it?"
89 "Of course," she replied promptly.
90 "But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone," I pointed out.
91 "Yeah," she said thoughtfully. "Well, then I guess He can't make the stone."
92 "But He can do anything," I reminded her.
93 She scratched her pretty, empty head. "I'm all cofused," she admitted.
94 "Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?"
95 "Tell me some more of this keen stuff," she said eagerly.
96 I cousulted my watch. "1 think we'd better call it a night. I'll take you home now, and you go over all the things you've learned. We'll have another session tomorrow night."
97 I deposited her at the girls' dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and I went glumly to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.
98 But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening: I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind, a few embers still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try.
99 Seated under the oak the next evening I said, "Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam."
100 She quivered with delight.
101 "Listen closely," I said. "A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming."
102 A tear rolled down each of Polly's pink cheeks. "Oh, this is awful, awful," she sobbed.
103 "Yes, it's awful," I agreed, "but it's no argument. The man never answered the boss's questions about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss's sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?"
104 "Have you got a handkerchief?" she blubbered.
105 I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. "Next," I said in a carefully controlled tone, "we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldn't students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?"
106 "There now," she said enthusiastically, "is the most marvy idea I've heard in years."
107 "Polly," I said testily, "the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren't taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you can't make an analogy between them."
108 "1 still think it's a good idea," said Polly.
109 "Nuts," I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. "Next we'll try HypothesisContrary to Fact."
110 "Sounds yummy," was Polly's reaction.
111 "Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende (n.瀝青油礦), the world today would not know about radium ."
112 "True, true," said Polly, nodding her head. "Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me."
113 "If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment," I said coldly, "I would like to point out that the statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have discovered it. Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can't start with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw any supportable conclusions from it."
114 "They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures," said Polly. "I hardly ever see him any more.
115 One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. "The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well."
116 "How cute!" she gurgled.
117 "Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can't believe a word that he is going to say. '... Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What's wrong?"
118 I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly, a g1immer of intelligence—the first I had seen--came into her eyes. "It's not fair," she said with indignation. "It's not a bit fair. What chance has the second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?"
119 "Right!" I cried exultantly. "One hundred percent right. It's not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start. … Polly, I’m proud of you."
120 " Pshaw" she murmured, blushing with pleasure.
121 "You see, my dear, these things aren't so hard All you have to do is concentrate. Think--examine—evaluate. Come now, let's review everything we have learned.”
122 "Fire away," she said with an airy wave of her hand.
123 Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin , I began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without let-up. It was like digging a tunnel. At first everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.
124 Five grueling nights this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled children.
125 It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary, Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I determined to acquaint her with my feeling at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
126 "Polly," I said when next we sat beneath our oak, "tonight we will not discuss fallacies."
127 "Aw, gee," she said, disappointed.
128 "My dear," I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.”
129 “Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.
130 “I beg your pardon,” said I.
131 “Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates?”
132 I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. "My dear," I Said, Patting her hand in a tolerant manner, "five dates is plenty. After all, you don't have to eat a whole cake to know it's good."
133 "False Analogy”, said Polly promptly. "I'm not a cake. I'm a girl.”
134 I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper words. Then I began:
135 "Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, and the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish (vi.憔悴). I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling (搖搖晃晃地走), hollow-eyed hulk." shambling
136 There, I thought, folding my arms, that ought to do it.
137 "Ad Misericordiam,” Said Polly.
138 I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me. At all costs I had to keep cool.
139 "Well, Polly," I said, forcing a smile, "you certainly have learned your fallacies."
140 "You’re darn right," she said with a vigorous nod.
141 "And who taught them to you, Polly?"
142 "You did."
143 "That's right. So you do owe me something, don't you, my dear? If I hadn't come along you never would have learned about fallacies."
144 "Hypothesis Contrary to Fact," she said instantly.
145 I dashed perspiration from my brow. "Polly," I croaked, "you mustn't take all these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school don't have anything to do with life."
146 "Dicto Simpliciter," she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.
147 That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. "Will you or will you not go steady with me?"
148 "I will not," she replied.
149 "Why not?" I demanded.
150 "Because this afternoon I promised Petey Burch that I would go steady with him."
151 I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! " The rat! I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf . "You can't go with him, Polly. He's a liar. He's a cheat. He's a rat."
152 "Poisoning the Well," said Polly, "and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too."
153 With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. "All right," I said. "You're a logician. Let's look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Burch over me? Look at me--a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Petey--a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who'll never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why you should go stead with Petey Burch?"
154 "I certainly can," declared Polly. "He's got a raccoon coat."
(from Rhetoric in a Modern Modeby James K. Bell and Adrian A. Cohn)
考研英語閱讀材料
Insect Brain System Knows What You Want
昆蟲大腦知你所需?
The goal for a lot of tech companies today: figure out what you, their customer, want next, before you even ask. It’s driven by something called similarity search.
今天，有許多科技公司在追求這樣的目標：弄清楚你，他們的消費者，接下來想要的，甚至這一切發生在你提出要求之前。這種目標背后的驅動力被稱作類似搜索。
"If you go to Y*Tube and you watch a video they’re going to suggest similar videos to the one you’re watching. That’s similarity search. If you go to Amazon and look for similar products to the one you’re going to buy, that’s similarity search."
“如果你上Y*Tube看一個視頻的話，接下來它們會推薦你更多類似視頻。這就是類似搜索。如果你上亞馬遜找一樣你要買的類似產品，那么這種情況就是類似搜索。”
Saket Navlakha, a computer scientist at the Salk Institute. He says we do similarity searches too, for example, when we scan faces in a crowd for the one we know. And even fruit files do a version, related to smell:
薩克生物研究學院電腦科學家，Saket Navlakha說，我們也做類似搜索，例如說，你可以在人群中，掃描這些人的臉面找到你所認識的那個人。甚至是水果也有一個版本，它與氣味相關：
"So the fly is having to solve a similar problem, of kind of searching through its database of previous experiences and previous odors it has smelled, to determine what should be the most appropriate behavioral response to that odor."
“因此，蠅子就面臨著解開一個類似的難題，類似這樣的搜索，即通過自身先前的經歷和已經聞過的氣味來決定什么應該是對那種氣味的最符合的行為反應。”
But flies tag incoming odors differently from the way modern search algorithms parse similarity. A small group of neurons makes an initial evaluation of the smell. Then a much larger set of neurons is activated to make a final decision about the smell. Rather than the way a computer similarity search does it, taking something with many dimensions, and simplifying it down to a few.
但是，蠅子對聞過的氣味做出的標記非同于現代研究算法解析類似的方式。一小組神經造成了這種氣味的最初評判。然后，有更多數量的神經被激活，最終對這種氣味做出判定。而并非像電腦類似搜索的做法，將一些東西分成諸多維度，再精簡到幾個。
So Navlakha and his colleagues tweaked computer similarity search functions to do it fly style. And then pitted the fly-inspired algorithms against conventional ones. And the biologically inspired code won out, better at telling ’like’ from ’unlike’ on an image-similarity test.
因此，Navlakha和他的同事們按照蠅子的方式對電腦搜索功能進行了輕微調整。然后針對傳統的方式，對受蠅子啟發的算法進行標點處理。在一場類似相片的辨別 ‘相似’與‘非相似’的測試中，這種受生物啟發的編碼方式勝出且表現更好。
"You know evolution figured it out, it figured out a very elegant solution to this very important problem." The report is in the journal Science.
刊登在《科學雜志》上的文章這樣寫道：“進化使它把東西分辨清楚，它對這個重要的難題指明了一條優雅的解決途徑。”
Navlakha says he and his team are looking to partner with tech companies now, in hopes of endowing machines with the time-tested problem-solving abilities of the brain. Even if it’s a fruit fly brain.
Navlakha稱他和他的團隊現在正在與多家科技公司尋求合作，希望他們能提供一些具有大腦所具備的測試時間及解決難題能力的儀器。即使是這樣一個果蠅的大腦也可以。
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