People stop paying house mortgages bec...

问答题

By far the most important challenge to a humanist philosophy, however, is that coming from the field of ethics. For the belief in an afterlife, in which a person’s moral performance in this life is infallibly judged and brought to justice, provides impressive supernatural backing for a society’s conventional morality. The decline of this belief exposes the merely conventional character of such a morality. Its various restrictions are then no longer accepted as inescapable and the question why they shouldn’t be evaded when this is advantageous begins to loom large. And since it seems impossible to distinguish the eliminable flaws of a given conventional morality from the essential flaws of any morality whatever, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that now the devil is dead, we can do what we like. In the absence of adequate reasons for accepting such a conventional morality, and of an indubitable method for arriving at moral precepts which everyone can see to be compelling, the natural response is skepticism, cynicism, hypocrisy, and the unbridled pursuit of what makes a life worth living. If humanism is to meet this challenge, it must show whether and why moralities are necessary, what benefits they confer on us and what harm they prevent, how their content must be determined, and why a person should be moral even when that runs counter to his best interest. Our first problem is this. If, in the absence of supernatural beliefs, the voices of conscience, of the moral sense, and of intuition are only the impressively dressed-up demands of our society, then these voices cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong in a sense which provides an adequate reason for doing what is right and refraining from doing what is wrong. How then can we find out what is really right and what is merely supposed so by our society The only alternative to theories based on intuition, it seems, are theories which base our knowledge of right and wrong on some form of calculation. The two most popular candidates are egoism and utilitarianism. The former maintains that each individual can tell what it would be right for him to do by calculating what would be in his best interest. This is, at first sight, an attractive view. It is internally consistent, rational, and brutally honest. It does not enmesh us in the problems of why a person should be moral when being so is contrary to his best interest...Questions 1-5:Read Passage 1 and fill in the five blanks according to the word limit given if there is any.A society’s conventional morality is supported by______.

答案：正确答案：the belief in an afterlife

问答题

By far the most important challenge to a humanist philosophy, however, is that coming from the field of ethics. For the belief in an afterlife, in which a person’s moral performance in this life is infallibly judged and brought to justice, provides impressive supernatural backing for a society’s conventional morality. The decline of this belief exposes the merely conventional character of such a morality. Its various restrictions are then no longer accepted as inescapable and the question why they shouldn’t be evaded when this is advantageous begins to loom large. And since it seems impossible to distinguish the eliminable flaws of a given conventional morality from the essential flaws of any morality whatever, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that now the devil is dead, we can do what we like. In the absence of adequate reasons for accepting such a conventional morality, and of an indubitable method for arriving at moral precepts which everyone can see to be compelling, the natural response is skepticism, cynicism, hypocrisy, and the unbridled pursuit of what makes a life worth living. If humanism is to meet this challenge, it must show whether and why moralities are necessary, what benefits they confer on us and what harm they prevent, how their content must be determined, and why a person should be moral even when that runs counter to his best interest. Our first problem is this. If, in the absence of supernatural beliefs, the voices of conscience, of the moral sense, and of intuition are only the impressively dressed-up demands of our society, then these voices cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong in a sense which provides an adequate reason for doing what is right and refraining from doing what is wrong. How then can we find out what is really right and what is merely supposed so by our society The only alternative to theories based on intuition, it seems, are theories which base our knowledge of right and wrong on some form of calculation. The two most popular candidates are egoism and utilitarianism. The former maintains that each individual can tell what it would be right for him to do by calculating what would be in his best interest. This is, at first sight, an attractive view. It is internally consistent, rational, and brutally honest. It does not enmesh us in the problems of why a person should be moral when being so is contrary to his best interest...Questions 1-5:Read Passage 1 and fill in the five blanks according to the word limit given if there is any.When a different supernatural moral supervisor disappears, then it is tempting for people to evade the different______.(2 words)

答案：正确答案：inescapable restrictions

问答题

By far the most important challenge to a humanist philosophy, however, is that coming from the field of ethics. For the belief in an afterlife, in which a person’s moral performance in this life is infallibly judged and brought to justice, provides impressive supernatural backing for a society’s conventional morality. The decline of this belief exposes the merely conventional character of such a morality. Its various restrictions are then no longer accepted as inescapable and the question why they shouldn’t be evaded when this is advantageous begins to loom large. And since it seems impossible to distinguish the eliminable flaws of a given conventional morality from the essential flaws of any morality whatever, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that now the devil is dead, we can do what we like. In the absence of adequate reasons for accepting such a conventional morality, and of an indubitable method for arriving at moral precepts which everyone can see to be compelling, the natural response is skepticism, cynicism, hypocrisy, and the unbridled pursuit of what makes a life worth living. If humanism is to meet this challenge, it must show whether and why moralities are necessary, what benefits they confer on us and what harm they prevent, how their content must be determined, and why a person should be moral even when that runs counter to his best interest. Our first problem is this. If, in the absence of supernatural beliefs, the voices of conscience, of the moral sense, and of intuition are only the impressively dressed-up demands of our society, then these voices cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong in a sense which provides an adequate reason for doing what is right and refraining from doing what is wrong. How then can we find out what is really right and what is merely supposed so by our society The only alternative to theories based on intuition, it seems, are theories which base our knowledge of right and wrong on some form of calculation. The two most popular candidates are egoism and utilitarianism. The former maintains that each individual can tell what it would be right for him to do by calculating what would be in his best interest. This is, at first sight, an attractive view. It is internally consistent, rational, and brutally honest. It does not enmesh us in the problems of why a person should be moral when being so is contrary to his best interest...Questions 1-5:Read Passage 1 and fill in the five blanks according to the word limit given if there is any.A host of evils will arise if one cannot find convincing______.(2 words)

答案：正确答案：moral percepts

问答题

By far the most important challenge to a humanist philosophy, however, is that coming from the field of ethics. For the belief in an afterlife, in which a person’s moral performance in this life is infallibly judged and brought to justice, provides impressive supernatural backing for a society’s conventional morality. The decline of this belief exposes the merely conventional character of such a morality. Its various restrictions are then no longer accepted as inescapable and the question why they shouldn’t be evaded when this is advantageous begins to loom large. And since it seems impossible to distinguish the eliminable flaws of a given conventional morality from the essential flaws of any morality whatever, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that now the devil is dead, we can do what we like. In the absence of adequate reasons for accepting such a conventional morality, and of an indubitable method for arriving at moral precepts which everyone can see to be compelling, the natural response is skepticism, cynicism, hypocrisy, and the unbridled pursuit of what makes a life worth living. If humanism is to meet this challenge, it must show whether and why moralities are necessary, what benefits they confer on us and what harm they prevent, how their content must be determined, and why a person should be moral even when that runs counter to his best interest. Our first problem is this. If, in the absence of supernatural beliefs, the voices of conscience, of the moral sense, and of intuition are only the impressively dressed-up demands of our society, then these voices cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong in a sense which provides an adequate reason for doing what is right and refraining from doing what is wrong. How then can we find out what is really right and what is merely supposed so by our society The only alternative to theories based on intuition, it seems, are theories which base our knowledge of right and wrong on some form of calculation. The two most popular candidates are egoism and utilitarianism. The former maintains that each individual can tell what it would be right for him to do by calculating what would be in his best interest. This is, at first sight, an attractive view. It is internally consistent, rational, and brutally honest. It does not enmesh us in the problems of why a person should be moral when being so is contrary to his best interest...Questions 1-5:Read Passage 1 and fill in the five blanks according to the word limit given if there is any.The author of this passage seems to doubt the sufficiency of thefor guiding us in the task of distinguishing between.(3 words)

答案：正确答案：indubitable methods；fight and wrong

问答题

By far the most important challenge to a humanist philosophy, however, is that coming from the field of ethics. For the belief in an afterlife, in which a person’s moral performance in this life is infallibly judged and brought to justice, provides impressive supernatural backing for a society’s conventional morality. The decline of this belief exposes the merely conventional character of such a morality. Its various restrictions are then no longer accepted as inescapable and the question why they shouldn’t be evaded when this is advantageous begins to loom large. And since it seems impossible to distinguish the eliminable flaws of a given conventional morality from the essential flaws of any morality whatever, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that now the devil is dead, we can do what we like. In the absence of adequate reasons for accepting such a conventional morality, and of an indubitable method for arriving at moral precepts which everyone can see to be compelling, the natural response is skepticism, cynicism, hypocrisy, and the unbridled pursuit of what makes a life worth living. If humanism is to meet this challenge, it must show whether and why moralities are necessary, what benefits they confer on us and what harm they prevent, how their content must be determined, and why a person should be moral even when that runs counter to his best interest. Our first problem is this. If, in the absence of supernatural beliefs, the voices of conscience, of the moral sense, and of intuition are only the impressively dressed-up demands of our society, then these voices cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong in a sense which provides an adequate reason for doing what is right and refraining from doing what is wrong. How then can we find out what is really right and what is merely supposed so by our society The only alternative to theories based on intuition, it seems, are theories which base our knowledge of right and wrong on some form of calculation. The two most popular candidates are egoism and utilitarianism. The former maintains that each individual can tell what it would be right for him to do by calculating what would be in his best interest. This is, at first sight, an attractive view. It is internally consistent, rational, and brutally honest. It does not enmesh us in the problems of why a person should be moral when being so is contrary to his best interest...Questions 1-5:Read Passage 1 and fill in the five blanks according to the word limit given if there is any.examines moral options by considering their relevance to one’s.

答案：正确答案：Egoism；best interest

单项选择题

For decades, people had continued to pay down mortgages until their last cent was spent. Now, increasing numbers were giving up their homes even as they continued to service other debts. Faced with a plunge in house prices across the US—something that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s—the mortgage industry is already dealing with a surge in the numbers of people defaulting on their payments. The concern is that the losses on risky subprime mortgages could soon swell further as people with good credit histories decide it is not Worth continuing to make payments on houses now worth less than the loan. House prices in the US are already 20 percent from the 2006 highs and are forecast to keep falling. For many, especially those who have put little of their own money into a house, sending back the keys could be perfectly rational. The practice has been given a name in the industry—"jingle mail"—and there are even companies specializing in helping people with the decision. Youwalkaway.com, one such service, almost makes it sound an alluring prospect: "What if you could live payment-free for up to eight months or more and walk away without owing a periny" the website asks. Larry Rosenberger, arguably one of the most experienced crunchers of consumer debt statistics around, was meeting the consortium of mortgage lenders to talk about analyzing their data for clues about which people’s negative equity could be expected to keep paying down their mortgages. "They said: ’We’re getting killed with losses, can we figure out more accurately who will do what, so we can be more accommodating with some borrowers but not with others,’" Mr. Rosenberger says. The accuracy of the models used by the likes of Mr. Rosenberger to flag good and bad customers could make a huge difference to the losses that lenders eventually have to absorb—losses that will, in turn, determine the availability of fresh funds for new loans. His approach was to seek clues to people’s future actions in their past behavior. For example, people with children at local schools may be less likely to walk away than people without school-age children. People with mortgages on second homes may be more likely to give up the investment.Questions 6-10:Read Passage 2 and choose the correct answers.Which of the following is NOT true according to Paragraph 1

A．The pattern that people pay down mortgages has changed recently.
B．The last time that house prices dropped so rapidly was the Great Depression.
C．People stop paying mortgages for not only houses but also everything else.
D．The mortgage industry is facing a big challenge because people can no longer pay their debts.

单项选择题

For decades, people had continued to pay down mortgages until their last cent was spent. Now, increasing numbers were giving up their homes even as they continued to service other debts. Faced with a plunge in house prices across the US—something that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s—the mortgage industry is already dealing with a surge in the numbers of people defaulting on their payments. The concern is that the losses on risky subprime mortgages could soon swell further as people with good credit histories decide it is not Worth continuing to make payments on houses now worth less than the loan. House prices in the US are already 20 percent from the 2006 highs and are forecast to keep falling. For many, especially those who have put little of their own money into a house, sending back the keys could be perfectly rational. The practice has been given a name in the industry—"jingle mail"—and there are even companies specializing in helping people with the decision. Youwalkaway.com, one such service, almost makes it sound an alluring prospect: "What if you could live payment-free for up to eight months or more and walk away without owing a periny" the website asks. Larry Rosenberger, arguably one of the most experienced crunchers of consumer debt statistics around, was meeting the consortium of mortgage lenders to talk about analyzing their data for clues about which people’s negative equity could be expected to keep paying down their mortgages. "They said: ’We’re getting killed with losses, can we figure out more accurately who will do what, so we can be more accommodating with some borrowers but not with others,’" Mr. Rosenberger says. The accuracy of the models used by the likes of Mr. Rosenberger to flag good and bad customers could make a huge difference to the losses that lenders eventually have to absorb—losses that will, in turn, determine the availability of fresh funds for new loans. His approach was to seek clues to people’s future actions in their past behavior. For example, people with children at local schools may be less likely to walk away than people without school-age children. People with mortgages on second homes may be more likely to give up the investment.Questions 6-10:Read Passage 2 and choose the correct answers.People stop paying house mortgages because______.

A．they find that their houses are worth less than the loan
B．their credit cards are closed and they have gone bankruptcy
C．they do not have a good credit history and fail to get the loan
D．they can live in the house without paying anything

单项选择题

Writing as a Native American My writing in my late teens and early adulthood was fashioned after the U.S. short stories and poetry taught in the high schools of the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s, after I had gone to college and dropped out and served in the military, I began to develop topics and themes from my Native American background. The experience in my village of Deetziyarnah and Acoma Pueblo was readily accessible. I had grown up within the oral tradition of speech, social and religious ritual, elders’ counsel and advice, countless and endless stories, everyday events, and the visual art that was symbolically representative of life all around. My mother was a potter of the well-known Acoma clayware, a traditional art form that had been passed to her from her mother and the generations of mothers before. My father carved figures from wood and did beadwork. This was not unusual, as Native American people know; there was always some kind of artistic endeavor that people set themselves to, although they did not necessarily articulate it as "Art" in the sense of Western civilization. One lived and expressed an artful life, whether it was in ceremonial singing and dancing, architecture, painting, speaking, or in the way one’s social-cultural life was structured. When I turned my attention to my own heritage, I did so because this was my identity, the substance of who I was, and I wanted to write about what that meant. My desire was to write about the integrity and dignity of a Native American identity, and at the same time I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Native American heritage. To a great extent my writing has a natural political-cultural bent simply because I was nurtured intellectually and emotionally within an atmosphere of Native American resistance. The Acoma Pueblo, despite losing much of their land and surrounded by a foreign civilization, have not lost sight of their native heritage. This is the factual case with most other Native American peoples, and the clear explanation for this has been the fight-back we have found it necessary to wage. At times, in the past, it was outright armed struggle; currently, it is often in the legal arena, and it is in the field of literature: In 1981, when I was invited to the White House for an event celebrating American poets and poetry, I did not immediately accept the invitation. I questioned myself about the possibility that 1 was merely being exploited as an Indian, and I hedged against accepting. But then I recalled the elders going among our people in the poor days of the 1950s, asking for donations—a dollar here and there, a sheep, perhaps a piece of pottery—in order to finance a trip to the nation’s capital. They were to make another countless appeal on behalf of our people, to demand justice, to reclaim lost land even though there was only spare hope they would be successful. I went to the White House realizing that I was to do no less than they and those who had fought in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and I read my poems and sang songs that were later described as "guttural" by a Washington D.C. newspaper. I suppose it is more or less understandable why such a view of Native American literature is held by many, and it is also clear why there should be a political stand taken in my writing and those of my sister and brother Native American writers. The 1960s and afterward have been an invigorating and liberating period for Native American people. It has been only a little more than twenty years since Native American writers began to write and publish extensively, but we are writing and publishing more and more; we can only go forward. We come from an ageless, continuing oral tradition that informs us of our values, concepts, and notions as native people, and it is amazing how much of this tradition is ingrained so deeply in our contemporary writing, considering the brutal efforts of cultural repression that was not long ago outright US policy. We were not to speak our languages, practice our spiritual beliefs, or accept the values of our past generations; and we were discouraged from pressing for our natural rights as Native American human beings. In spite of the fact that there is to some extent the same repression today, we persist and insist in living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Native Americans.Questions 11-15:Decide whether the following statements are TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.The author went to the army after graduation from the army.

A．True
B．False
C．Not Given

单项选择题

For decades, people had continued to pay down mortgages until their last cent was spent. Now, increasing numbers were giving up their homes even as they continued to service other debts. Faced with a plunge in house prices across the US—something that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s—the mortgage industry is already dealing with a surge in the numbers of people defaulting on their payments. The concern is that the losses on risky subprime mortgages could soon swell further as people with good credit histories decide it is not Worth continuing to make payments on houses now worth less than the loan. House prices in the US are already 20 percent from the 2006 highs and are forecast to keep falling. For many, especially those who have put little of their own money into a house, sending back the keys could be perfectly rational. The practice has been given a name in the industry—"jingle mail"—and there are even companies specializing in helping people with the decision. Youwalkaway.com, one such service, almost makes it sound an alluring prospect: "What if you could live payment-free for up to eight months or more and walk away without owing a periny" the website asks. Larry Rosenberger, arguably one of the most experienced crunchers of consumer debt statistics around, was meeting the consortium of mortgage lenders to talk about analyzing their data for clues about which people’s negative equity could be expected to keep paying down their mortgages. "They said: ’We’re getting killed with losses, can we figure out more accurately who will do what, so we can be more accommodating with some borrowers but not with others,’" Mr. Rosenberger says. The accuracy of the models used by the likes of Mr. Rosenberger to flag good and bad customers could make a huge difference to the losses that lenders eventually have to absorb—losses that will, in turn, determine the availability of fresh funds for new loans. His approach was to seek clues to people’s future actions in their past behavior. For example, people with children at local schools may be less likely to walk away than people without school-age children. People with mortgages on second homes may be more likely to give up the investment.Questions 6-10:Read Passage 2 and choose the correct answers.The worrying situation m mortgage industry______.

A．is accompanied by a new mailing service called "jingle mail"
B．is worsened by the new business such as Youwalkaway.com
C．is caused by those people who have invested little in housing
D．can be changed if people become more rational and law-abiding

单项选择题

Writing as a Native American My writing in my late teens and early adulthood was fashioned after the U.S. short stories and poetry taught in the high schools of the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s, after I had gone to college and dropped out and served in the military, I began to develop topics and themes from my Native American background. The experience in my village of Deetziyarnah and Acoma Pueblo was readily accessible. I had grown up within the oral tradition of speech, social and religious ritual, elders’ counsel and advice, countless and endless stories, everyday events, and the visual art that was symbolically representative of life all around. My mother was a potter of the well-known Acoma clayware, a traditional art form that had been passed to her from her mother and the generations of mothers before. My father carved figures from wood and did beadwork. This was not unusual, as Native American people know; there was always some kind of artistic endeavor that people set themselves to, although they did not necessarily articulate it as "Art" in the sense of Western civilization. One lived and expressed an artful life, whether it was in ceremonial singing and dancing, architecture, painting, speaking, or in the way one’s social-cultural life was structured. When I turned my attention to my own heritage, I did so because this was my identity, the substance of who I was, and I wanted to write about what that meant. My desire was to write about the integrity and dignity of a Native American identity, and at the same time I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Native American heritage. To a great extent my writing has a natural political-cultural bent simply because I was nurtured intellectually and emotionally within an atmosphere of Native American resistance. The Acoma Pueblo, despite losing much of their land and surrounded by a foreign civilization, have not lost sight of their native heritage. This is the factual case with most other Native American peoples, and the clear explanation for this has been the fight-back we have found it necessary to wage. At times, in the past, it was outright armed struggle; currently, it is often in the legal arena, and it is in the field of literature: In 1981, when I was invited to the White House for an event celebrating American poets and poetry, I did not immediately accept the invitation. I questioned myself about the possibility that 1 was merely being exploited as an Indian, and I hedged against accepting. But then I recalled the elders going among our people in the poor days of the 1950s, asking for donations—a dollar here and there, a sheep, perhaps a piece of pottery—in order to finance a trip to the nation’s capital. They were to make another countless appeal on behalf of our people, to demand justice, to reclaim lost land even though there was only spare hope they would be successful. I went to the White House realizing that I was to do no less than they and those who had fought in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and I read my poems and sang songs that were later described as "guttural" by a Washington D.C. newspaper. I suppose it is more or less understandable why such a view of Native American literature is held by many, and it is also clear why there should be a political stand taken in my writing and those of my sister and brother Native American writers. The 1960s and afterward have been an invigorating and liberating period for Native American people. It has been only a little more than twenty years since Native American writers began to write and publish extensively, but we are writing and publishing more and more; we can only go forward. We come from an ageless, continuing oral tradition that informs us of our values, concepts, and notions as native people, and it is amazing how much of this tradition is ingrained so deeply in our contemporary writing, considering the brutal efforts of cultural repression that was not long ago outright US policy. We were not to speak our languages, practice our spiritual beliefs, or accept the values of our past generations; and we were discouraged from pressing for our natural rights as Native American human beings. In spite of the fact that there is to some extent the same repression today, we persist and insist in living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Native Americans.Questions 11-15:Decide whether the following statements are TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.The author felt lucky about his job.

A．True
B．False
C．Not Given

单项选择题

For decades, people had continued to pay down mortgages until their last cent was spent. Now, increasing numbers were giving up their homes even as they continued to service other debts. Faced with a plunge in house prices across the US—something that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s—the mortgage industry is already dealing with a surge in the numbers of people defaulting on their payments. The concern is that the losses on risky subprime mortgages could soon swell further as people with good credit histories decide it is not Worth continuing to make payments on houses now worth less than the loan. House prices in the US are already 20 percent from the 2006 highs and are forecast to keep falling. For many, especially those who have put little of their own money into a house, sending back the keys could be perfectly rational. The practice has been given a name in the industry—"jingle mail"—and there are even companies specializing in helping people with the decision. Youwalkaway.com, one such service, almost makes it sound an alluring prospect: "What if you could live payment-free for up to eight months or more and walk away without owing a periny" the website asks. Larry Rosenberger, arguably one of the most experienced crunchers of consumer debt statistics around, was meeting the consortium of mortgage lenders to talk about analyzing their data for clues about which people’s negative equity could be expected to keep paying down their mortgages. "They said: ’We’re getting killed with losses, can we figure out more accurately who will do what, so we can be more accommodating with some borrowers but not with others,’" Mr. Rosenberger says. The accuracy of the models used by the likes of Mr. Rosenberger to flag good and bad customers could make a huge difference to the losses that lenders eventually have to absorb—losses that will, in turn, determine the availability of fresh funds for new loans. His approach was to seek clues to people’s future actions in their past behavior. For example, people with children at local schools may be less likely to walk away than people without school-age children. People with mortgages on second homes may be more likely to give up the investment.Questions 6-10:Read Passage 2 and choose the correct answers.What do you think Larry Rosenberger does

A．He crunches consumers so that they will pay their debts.
B．He provides borrowers’ financial information to mortgage lenders.
C．He analyses the lenders’ data to predict what customers will do.
D．He uses his experience to help the lenders avoid risks.

单项选择题

Writing as a Native American My writing in my late teens and early adulthood was fashioned after the U.S. short stories and poetry taught in the high schools of the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s, after I had gone to college and dropped out and served in the military, I began to develop topics and themes from my Native American background. The experience in my village of Deetziyarnah and Acoma Pueblo was readily accessible. I had grown up within the oral tradition of speech, social and religious ritual, elders’ counsel and advice, countless and endless stories, everyday events, and the visual art that was symbolically representative of life all around. My mother was a potter of the well-known Acoma clayware, a traditional art form that had been passed to her from her mother and the generations of mothers before. My father carved figures from wood and did beadwork. This was not unusual, as Native American people know; there was always some kind of artistic endeavor that people set themselves to, although they did not necessarily articulate it as "Art" in the sense of Western civilization. One lived and expressed an artful life, whether it was in ceremonial singing and dancing, architecture, painting, speaking, or in the way one’s social-cultural life was structured. When I turned my attention to my own heritage, I did so because this was my identity, the substance of who I was, and I wanted to write about what that meant. My desire was to write about the integrity and dignity of a Native American identity, and at the same time I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Native American heritage. To a great extent my writing has a natural political-cultural bent simply because I was nurtured intellectually and emotionally within an atmosphere of Native American resistance. The Acoma Pueblo, despite losing much of their land and surrounded by a foreign civilization, have not lost sight of their native heritage. This is the factual case with most other Native American peoples, and the clear explanation for this has been the fight-back we have found it necessary to wage. At times, in the past, it was outright armed struggle; currently, it is often in the legal arena, and it is in the field of literature: In 1981, when I was invited to the White House for an event celebrating American poets and poetry, I did not immediately accept the invitation. I questioned myself about the possibility that 1 was merely being exploited as an Indian, and I hedged against accepting. But then I recalled the elders going among our people in the poor days of the 1950s, asking for donations—a dollar here and there, a sheep, perhaps a piece of pottery—in order to finance a trip to the nation’s capital. They were to make another countless appeal on behalf of our people, to demand justice, to reclaim lost land even though there was only spare hope they would be successful. I went to the White House realizing that I was to do no less than they and those who had fought in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and I read my poems and sang songs that were later described as "guttural" by a Washington D.C. newspaper. I suppose it is more or less understandable why such a view of Native American literature is held by many, and it is also clear why there should be a political stand taken in my writing and those of my sister and brother Native American writers. The 1960s and afterward have been an invigorating and liberating period for Native American people. It has been only a little more than twenty years since Native American writers began to write and publish extensively, but we are writing and publishing more and more; we can only go forward. We come from an ageless, continuing oral tradition that informs us of our values, concepts, and notions as native people, and it is amazing how much of this tradition is ingrained so deeply in our contemporary writing, considering the brutal efforts of cultural repression that was not long ago outright US policy. We were not to speak our languages, practice our spiritual beliefs, or accept the values of our past generations; and we were discouraged from pressing for our natural rights as Native American human beings. In spite of the fact that there is to some extent the same repression today, we persist and insist in living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Native Americans.Questions 11-15:Decide whether the following statements are TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.Native Americans in the author’s village were poor in the 1950s.

A．True
B．False
C．Not Given

单项选择题

For decades, people had continued to pay down mortgages until their last cent was spent. Now, increasing numbers were giving up their homes even as they continued to service other debts. Faced with a plunge in house prices across the US—something that has not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s—the mortgage industry is already dealing with a surge in the numbers of people defaulting on their payments. The concern is that the losses on risky subprime mortgages could soon swell further as people with good credit histories decide it is not Worth continuing to make payments on houses now worth less than the loan. House prices in the US are already 20 percent from the 2006 highs and are forecast to keep falling. For many, especially those who have put little of their own money into a house, sending back the keys could be perfectly rational. The practice has been given a name in the industry—"jingle mail"—and there are even companies specializing in helping people with the decision. Youwalkaway.com, one such service, almost makes it sound an alluring prospect: "What if you could live payment-free for up to eight months or more and walk away without owing a periny" the website asks. Larry Rosenberger, arguably one of the most experienced crunchers of consumer debt statistics around, was meeting the consortium of mortgage lenders to talk about analyzing their data for clues about which people’s negative equity could be expected to keep paying down their mortgages. "They said: ’We’re getting killed with losses, can we figure out more accurately who will do what, so we can be more accommodating with some borrowers but not with others,’" Mr. Rosenberger says. The accuracy of the models used by the likes of Mr. Rosenberger to flag good and bad customers could make a huge difference to the losses that lenders eventually have to absorb—losses that will, in turn, determine the availability of fresh funds for new loans. His approach was to seek clues to people’s future actions in their past behavior. For example, people with children at local schools may be less likely to walk away than people without school-age children. People with mortgages on second homes may be more likely to give up the investment.Questions 6-10:Read Passage 2 and choose the correct answers.What does the underlined word "flag" mean in Paragraph 4

A．A symbol
B．A signal
C．To identify
D．To attract

单项选择题

Writing as a Native American My writing in my late teens and early adulthood was fashioned after the U.S. short stories and poetry taught in the high schools of the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s, after I had gone to college and dropped out and served in the military, I began to develop topics and themes from my Native American background. The experience in my village of Deetziyarnah and Acoma Pueblo was readily accessible. I had grown up within the oral tradition of speech, social and religious ritual, elders’ counsel and advice, countless and endless stories, everyday events, and the visual art that was symbolically representative of life all around. My mother was a potter of the well-known Acoma clayware, a traditional art form that had been passed to her from her mother and the generations of mothers before. My father carved figures from wood and did beadwork. This was not unusual, as Native American people know; there was always some kind of artistic endeavor that people set themselves to, although they did not necessarily articulate it as "Art" in the sense of Western civilization. One lived and expressed an artful life, whether it was in ceremonial singing and dancing, architecture, painting, speaking, or in the way one’s social-cultural life was structured. When I turned my attention to my own heritage, I did so because this was my identity, the substance of who I was, and I wanted to write about what that meant. My desire was to write about the integrity and dignity of a Native American identity, and at the same time I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Native American heritage. To a great extent my writing has a natural political-cultural bent simply because I was nurtured intellectually and emotionally within an atmosphere of Native American resistance. The Acoma Pueblo, despite losing much of their land and surrounded by a foreign civilization, have not lost sight of their native heritage. This is the factual case with most other Native American peoples, and the clear explanation for this has been the fight-back we have found it necessary to wage. At times, in the past, it was outright armed struggle; currently, it is often in the legal arena, and it is in the field of literature: In 1981, when I was invited to the White House for an event celebrating American poets and poetry, I did not immediately accept the invitation. I questioned myself about the possibility that 1 was merely being exploited as an Indian, and I hedged against accepting. But then I recalled the elders going among our people in the poor days of the 1950s, asking for donations—a dollar here and there, a sheep, perhaps a piece of pottery—in order to finance a trip to the nation’s capital. They were to make another countless appeal on behalf of our people, to demand justice, to reclaim lost land even though there was only spare hope they would be successful. I went to the White House realizing that I was to do no less than they and those who had fought in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and I read my poems and sang songs that were later described as "guttural" by a Washington D.C. newspaper. I suppose it is more or less understandable why such a view of Native American literature is held by many, and it is also clear why there should be a political stand taken in my writing and those of my sister and brother Native American writers. The 1960s and afterward have been an invigorating and liberating period for Native American people. It has been only a little more than twenty years since Native American writers began to write and publish extensively, but we are writing and publishing more and more; we can only go forward. We come from an ageless, continuing oral tradition that informs us of our values, concepts, and notions as native people, and it is amazing how much of this tradition is ingrained so deeply in our contemporary writing, considering the brutal efforts of cultural repression that was not long ago outright US policy. We were not to speak our languages, practice our spiritual beliefs, or accept the values of our past generations; and we were discouraged from pressing for our natural rights as Native American human beings. In spite of the fact that there is to some extent the same repression today, we persist and insist in living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Native Americans.Questions 11-15:Decide whether the following statements are TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.Native American writers began to write and publish extensively in the 1960s.

A．True
B．False
C．Not Given

单项选择题

Writing as a Native American My writing in my late teens and early adulthood was fashioned after the U.S. short stories and poetry taught in the high schools of the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s, after I had gone to college and dropped out and served in the military, I began to develop topics and themes from my Native American background. The experience in my village of Deetziyarnah and Acoma Pueblo was readily accessible. I had grown up within the oral tradition of speech, social and religious ritual, elders’ counsel and advice, countless and endless stories, everyday events, and the visual art that was symbolically representative of life all around. My mother was a potter of the well-known Acoma clayware, a traditional art form that had been passed to her from her mother and the generations of mothers before. My father carved figures from wood and did beadwork. This was not unusual, as Native American people know; there was always some kind of artistic endeavor that people set themselves to, although they did not necessarily articulate it as "Art" in the sense of Western civilization. One lived and expressed an artful life, whether it was in ceremonial singing and dancing, architecture, painting, speaking, or in the way one’s social-cultural life was structured. When I turned my attention to my own heritage, I did so because this was my identity, the substance of who I was, and I wanted to write about what that meant. My desire was to write about the integrity and dignity of a Native American identity, and at the same time I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Native American heritage. To a great extent my writing has a natural political-cultural bent simply because I was nurtured intellectually and emotionally within an atmosphere of Native American resistance. The Acoma Pueblo, despite losing much of their land and surrounded by a foreign civilization, have not lost sight of their native heritage. This is the factual case with most other Native American peoples, and the clear explanation for this has been the fight-back we have found it necessary to wage. At times, in the past, it was outright armed struggle; currently, it is often in the legal arena, and it is in the field of literature: In 1981, when I was invited to the White House for an event celebrating American poets and poetry, I did not immediately accept the invitation. I questioned myself about the possibility that 1 was merely being exploited as an Indian, and I hedged against accepting. But then I recalled the elders going among our people in the poor days of the 1950s, asking for donations—a dollar here and there, a sheep, perhaps a piece of pottery—in order to finance a trip to the nation’s capital. They were to make another countless appeal on behalf of our people, to demand justice, to reclaim lost land even though there was only spare hope they would be successful. I went to the White House realizing that I was to do no less than they and those who had fought in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and I read my poems and sang songs that were later described as "guttural" by a Washington D.C. newspaper. I suppose it is more or less understandable why such a view of Native American literature is held by many, and it is also clear why there should be a political stand taken in my writing and those of my sister and brother Native American writers. The 1960s and afterward have been an invigorating and liberating period for Native American people. It has been only a little more than twenty years since Native American writers began to write and publish extensively, but we are writing and publishing more and more; we can only go forward. We come from an ageless, continuing oral tradition that informs us of our values, concepts, and notions as native people, and it is amazing how much of this tradition is ingrained so deeply in our contemporary writing, considering the brutal efforts of cultural repression that was not long ago outright US policy. We were not to speak our languages, practice our spiritual beliefs, or accept the values of our past generations; and we were discouraged from pressing for our natural rights as Native American human beings. In spite of the fact that there is to some extent the same repression today, we persist and insist in living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Native Americans.Questions 11-15:Decide whether the following statements are TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.Cultural repression has been finally wiped out today by continuous efforts.

A．True
B．False
C．Not Given

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