中山大学研究生英语期末考试题2.docx

Passage 1One motivational analyst who became curious to know there had been such a great rise in impulse buying at supermarkets was James Vicary. He suspected that some special psychology must be going on inside the women as they shopped in supermarkets. His suspicion was that perhaps they underwent such an increase in tension when confronted with so many possibilities that they were forced into making quick purchases. He set outto find out if this was true. The best way to detect what was going on inside the shopper was through the use of a galvanometer or lie detector. That obviously was impractical. The next best thing was to use a hidden motion-picture camera and record the eye-blink rate of the women as they shopped. How fast a person blinks his eyes is a pretty good index of his state of inner tension. The average person, according to Mr. Vicary, normally blinks his eyes about 32 times a minute. If he is tense, he blinks them more frequently; and, under extreme tension, he may blink up to 50 or 60 times. If he is notably relaxed, on the other hand, his eye-blink rate may drop to a subnormal twenty or less.Mr. Vicary set up his cameras and started following the ladies as they entered the store.The results were startling, even to him. Their eye-blink rate, instead of going up to indicate mounting tension, went down and down, to a very subnormal fourteen blinks a minute. The ladies fell into what Mr. Vicary calls a hypnoidal trance, a light kind of trance that, he explains, is the first stage of hypnosis. Mr. Vicary has decided that the main cause of the trance is that the supermarket is packed with products which in former years would have been items only kings and queens could have afforded and here in this fairyland theywere available to all. Mr. Vi cary theorizes: “ Just within this generation, anyone can be aking or queen and go through these stores where the products say ‘ buy me, buy me1 Vicary ’ s curiosity was aroused by the fact that .A. there was a decrease in sales in supermarketsB. women were showing strong resistance to products in supermarketsC. there seemed to be no logic in women ’ s buying habitsD. women were shopping very carefully2 According to the article, eye-blink rate is an indication of .A. the truth or falsity of a statementB. the mental ability of a personC. blood pressureD. the emotional state of a person3 Mr. Vicary ’ s test .A. proved his original hypothesis to be trueB. proved that the tension of a woman shopper, after entering the store, decreased rather than increasedC. nullified the eye-blink rate as a measurement of tensionD. showed that a woman ’ s reaction to the products in a supermarket is impossible to determine4 After his tests, Mr. Vicary concluded that .A. shopping was apt to create serious nervous disordersB. a supermarket is a fantastic place1C. women are entranced by the many wonderful items available in supermarketsD. women develop an inferiority complex when in supermarkets5 Implied but not stated: .A. Quick purchases are the result of inner tensionB. The first stage of hypnosis is a light tranceC. Research conducted by motivation analysis can disprove their original premisesD. Supermarkets seeking a fairyland atmosphere should install hidden movie camerasPassage 2In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in constant motion.A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has been publicized, scientists designexperiments to test the theory. If observations confirm the scientists pre’d ictions, thetheory is supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment, or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting information and performing experiments. Facts by themselves are not science. As the mathematicianJules Henri Poincare said: Science“is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks,but a collection of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house”.Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses.In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown. It extends the scientist。