Text3

　　Shopping has always been something of an impulse activity, in which objects that catch our fancy while strolling are immediately bought on a whim. Advertisers and sellers have taken advantage of this fact, carefully positioning inexpensive but attractive items on paths that we are most likely to cross, hoping that our human nature will lead to a greater profit for them. With the dawn of the Internet and its exploding use across the world, the same tactics apply.

　　Advertisers now place “banners”, links to commercial web sites decorated with attractive pictures designed to catch our eyes while browsing the webs, on key web sites with heavy traffic. They pay top dollar for the right, thus creating profits for the hosting web site as well. These actions are performed in the hopes that during the course of our casual and leisurely web surfing, we'll click on that banner that sparks our interest and thus, in theory, buy the products advertised.

　　Initial results have been positive. Web sites report a huge inflow of cash, both from the advertisers who tempt customers in with the banners and the hosting web sites, which are paid for allowing the banners to be put in place. As trust and confidence in Internet buying increases and information security is heightened with new technology, the volume of buying is increasing, leading to even greater profits.

　　The current situation, however, is not quite as optimistic. Just as magazine readers tend to unconsciously ignore advertisements in their favorite periodicals, web browsers are beginning to allow banners to slip their notice as well. Internet users respond to the flood of banners by viewing them as annoyances, a negative image that is hurting sales, since users are now less reluctant to click on those banners, preferring not to support the system that puts them in place. If Internet advertising is to continue to be a viable and profitable business practice, new methods will need to be considered to reinvigorate the industry.

　　With the recent depression in the technology sector and slowing economy, even new practices may not do the trick. As consumers are saving more and frequenting traditional real estate businesses over their Internet counterparts, the fate of Internet business is called into question. The coming years will be the only reliable indication of whether shopping on the world wide web is the wave of the future or simply an impulse activity whose whim has passed. (404 words)

　　Notes: on a whim 心血潮。surf v. 沖浪。in theory在理論上，順理成章。hosting訪問率高的。call...into question質疑，對…提出疑問。

　　31. It can be learned from the first paragraph that Internet advertising

　　[A] has taken the place of more traditional methods of advertising.

　　[B] is one of the most effective ways to make profits on the web.

　　[C] is paralleling advertising methods in traditional business settings.

　　[D] seeks to tempt customers through impulse shopping methods.

　　32. The second and third paragraphs are written in order to illustrate

　　[A] the policy Internet advertisers design to lure clientele and its outcome.

　　[B] the process and mixed consequences of Internet advertising and shopping.

　　[C] the biggest splash Internet advertisers have recently made in sales promotions.

　　[D] the banners Internet advertisers take advantage of to arouse customers'interest.

　　33. Analyzing the current state of the online advertising in paragraph 4, the author implies that

　　[A] it has to be modified over time to remain effective.

　　[B] for all its current profits, it will fade in the long run.

　　[C] banners are beginning to lose their advertising efficiency.

　　[D] Internet advertising methods will continue to decrease sales.

　　34.The expression “do the trick” in the last paragraph most probably means

　　[A] come to the point.

　　[B] fulfill their purpose.

　　[C] fail of their success.

　　[D] live up to their promise.

　　35. The author's attitude toward online advertising can be summarized as

　　[A] reserved consent but discontent.

　　[B] objective analysis void of opinions.

　　[C] enthusiastic support but slight contempt.

　　[D] approval so far but uncertainty in the future.

　　Text4

　　Picture-taking is a technique both for reflecting the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer's temperament, discovering itself through the camera's cropping of reality. That is, photography has two directly opposite ideals: in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of fearlessness, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all.

　　These conflicting ideals arise from uneasiness on the part of both photographers and viewers of photographs toward the aggressive component in “taking” a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photographer as observer is attracting because it implicitly denies that picture-taking is an aggressive act. The issue, of course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do cannot be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscovered and championed.

　　An important result of the coexistence of these two ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography's means. Whatever are the claims that photography might make to be a form of personal expression just like painting, its originality is closely linked to the power of a machine. The steady growth of these powers has made possible the extraordinary informativeness and imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like Harold Edgerton's high-speed photographs of a bullet hitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed, preferring to submit themselves to the limit imposed by pre-modern camera technology because a cruder, less high-powered machine is thought to give more interesting or emotive results, to leave more room for creative accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans and Cartier Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment. These photographers have come to doubt the value of the camera as an instrument of “fast seeing”. Cartier Bresson, in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast.

　　This ambivalence toward photographic means determines trends in taste. The cult of the future (of faster and faster seeing) alternates over time with the wish to return to a purer past when images had a handmade quality. This longing for some primitive state of the photographic enterprise is currently widespread and underlies the present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the work of forgotten nineteenth-century provincial photographers. Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need periodically to resist their own knowingness. (451 words)

　　Notes: crop vt. 播種，修剪(樹木)，收割。count for little 無關緊要。predatory 掠奪成性的。champion n. 冠軍;vt. 支持。benevolent好心腸的，行善的。ambivalence 矛盾心理。make (+不定式)似乎要: He makes to begin. (他似乎要開始了。)swirls and eddies 漩渦。cult狂熱崇拜。daguerreotypes (初期的)銀板照相法。

　　36. The two directly opposite ideals of photography differ primarily in the

　　[A]emphasis that each places on the emotional impact of the finished product.

　　[B]degree of technical knowledge that each requires of the photographer.

　　[C]way in which each defines the role of the photographer.

　　[D]extent of the power that each requires of the photographer's equipment.

　　37. According to paragraph 2, the interest among photographers in each of the photography's two ideals can be described as

　　[A]steadily growing.

　　[B]cyclically recurring.

　　[C]continuously altering.

　　[D]spontaneously occurring.

　　38. The text states all of the following about photographs EXCEPT:

　　[A]They can display a cropped reality.

　　[B]They can convey information.

　　[C]They can depict the photographer's temperament.

　　[D]They can change the viewer's sensibilities.

　　39. The author mentions the work of Harold Edgerton in order to provide an example of

　　[A]the relationship between photographic originality and technology.

　　[B]how the content of photographs has changed from the nineteenth century to the twentieth.

　　[C]the popularity of high-speed photography in the twentieth century.

　　[D]how a controlled ambivalence toward photography's means can produce outstanding pictures.

　　40. The author is primarily concerned with

　　[A]describing how photographers'individual temperaments are reflected in their work.

　　[B]establishing new technical standards for contemporary photography.

　　[C]analyzing the influence of photographic ideals on picture-taking.

　　[D]explaining how the technical limitations affect photographers'work.

　　2011考研《英語》沖刺模擬試題及答案匯總

　　考試吧考后首發(fā)2011年考研真題及答案通知