篇一：
Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in eighteenth-century England. McKendrick has explored the Wedgwood firm’s remarkable success in marketing luxury pottery; Plumb has written about the proliferation of provincial theater, musical festivals, and children’s toys and books. While the fact of this consumer revolution is hardly in doubt, three key questions remain: Who were the consumers? What were their motives? And what were the effects of the new demand for luxuries?
An answer to the first of these has been difficult to obtain. Although it has been possible to infer from the goods and services actually produced what manufacturers and servicing trades thought their customers wanted, only a study of relevant personal documents written by actual consumers will provide a precise picture of who wanted what. We still need to know how large this consumer market was and how far down the social scale the consumer demand for luxury goods penetrated. With regard to this last question, we might note in passing that Thompson, while rightly restoring laboring people to the stage of eighteenth-century English history, has probably exaggerated the opposition of these people to the inroads of capitalist consumerism in general; for example, laboring people in eighteenth-century England readily shifted from home-brewed beer to standardized beer produced by huge, heavily capitalized urban breweries.
To answer the question of why consumers became so eager to buy, some historians have pointed to the ability of manufacturers to advertise in a relatively uncensored press. This, however, hardly seems a sufficient answer. Mckendrick favors a Veblem model of conspicuous consumption stimulated by competition for status. The “middling sort” bought goods and services because they wanted to follow fashions set by the rich. Again, we may wonder whether this explanation is sufficient. Do not people enjoy buying things as a form of self-gratification? If so, consumerism could be seen as a product of the rise of new concepts of individualism and materialism, but not necessarily of the frenzy for cons//
Finally, what were the consequences of this consumer demand for luxuries? McKendrick claims that it goes a long way toward explaining the coming of the Industrial Revolution. But does it? What, for example, does the production of high-quality pottery and toys have to do with the development of iron manufacture or textile mills? It is perfectly possible to have the psychology and reality of a consumer society without a heavy industrial sector.
That future exploration of these key questions is undoubtedly necessary should not, however, diminish the force of the conclusion of recent studies: the insatiable demand in eighteenth-century England for frivolous as well as useful goods and services foreshadows our own world.
1. In the first paragraph, the author mentions McKendrick and Plumb most probably in order to
[A] contrast their views on the subject of luxury consumerism in eighteenth-century England.
[B] indicate the inadequacy of historiographical approaches to eighteenth-century English history.
[C] give examples of historians who have helped to establish the fact of growing consumerism in eighteenth-century England.
[D] support the contention that key questions about eighteenth-century consumerism remain to be answered.
2. Which of the following items, if preserved from eighteenth-century England, would provide an example of the kind of documents mentioned in lines 3-4, paragraph 2?
[A] A written agreement between a supplier of raw materials and a supplier of luxury goods.
[B] A diary that mentions luxury goods and services purchased by its author.
[C] A theater ticket stamped with the date and name of a particular play.
[D] A payroll record from a company that produced luxury goods such as pottery.
3. According to the text, Thompson attributes to laboring people in eighteenth-century England which of the following attitudes toward capitalist consumerism?
[A] Enthusiasm.
[B] Curiosity.
[C] Ambivalence.
[D] Hostility.
4. In the third paragraph, the author is primarily concerned with
[A] contrasting two theses and offering a compromise.
[B] questioning two explanations and proposing a possible alternative to them.
[C] paraphrasing the work of two historians and questioning their assumptions.
[D] examining two theories and endorsing one over the other.
5. According to the text, eighteenth-century England and the contemporary world of the text readers are
[A] dissimilar in the extent to which luxury consumerism could be said to be widespread among the social classes.
[B] dissimilar in their definitions of luxury goods and services.
[C] dissimilar in the extent to which luxury goods could be said to be stimulant of industrial development.
[D] similar in their strong demand for a variety of goods and services.
[答案與考點解析]
1. 【答案】C
【考點解析】本題是一道例(舉)證題型。根據題幹中的“McKendrick and Plumb”可將本題的答案信息來源迅速確定在首段的第二、三句。由於這兩句話和首段第一句之間存在例(舉)證的關係，故針對首段第一句進行認真理解。通過綜合分析和歸納這三句話，可得出含有“examples”的選項C是正確答案。考生在解題時一定要善於識別題型，這一點的基礎是要學會識別句子之間的關係。
2. 【答案】B
【考點解析】這是一道細節推導題。題幹中的信息以將本題的答案信息來源確定在第二段的三、四行。即第二段第二句的主句，該句中的“only a study of relevant personal documents written by actual consumers”暗示本題的答案是選項B。考生在解題時一定要學會識別原文和選項中同義詞的替換。
3. 【答案】D
【考點解析】本題是一道細節推導題。通過題幹中的“Thompson”一詞可迅速將本題的正確選項確定在第二段的尾句。從第二段尾句的前半部分即分號前面的部分我們不難推導出本題正確選項是D。原文中的“opposition”一詞十分重要。考生在解題時要善於從原文的表面歸納出深刻的思想。
4. 【答案】B
【考點解析】這是一道寫作手法題型。旨在考察考生的語言基本功。本題考察考生對於段落寫作結構的認識。本文第三段的第一、二句是對某一個問題的一種解釋。本文第三段的第三、四、五句是對同一個問題的另一種解釋，本文作者對這兩種解釋提出了質疑。本文第三段的第六、七句是作者本人針對前面兩個解釋所提出的另外一種解釋。可見本題的正確選項是B。考生在解題時一定要重視文章或段落的寫作結構。
5. 【答案】D
【考點解析】本題是一道審題定位與關鍵詞理解題。通過題幹中的“the contemporary world of the text readers”可將本題的答案信息迅速確定在尾段，因爲尾段中的“our own world”等於“the contemporary world of the text readers”。尾段最後一行中的“foreshadows”(預示;是……的預兆)一詞暗示本題的正確選項是D。考生在解題時一定要有審題定位能力，並且對於原文中的關鍵詞要有入目三分的理解。
[參考譯文]
直到最近，史學家們才發現在十八世紀的英國，對豪華奢侈商品和服務的需求出現增長的現象。麥克德瑞克研究了韋奇伍德公司在營銷豪華陶製品方面的極大成功;而普拉姆也著文論述了地方劇院、音樂節目以及兒童玩具和書籍激增的情形。儘管這場消費者革命的事實幾乎毋庸置疑，但仍有三個關鍵的問題尚待解決：消費者是些什麼人?他們的動機是什麼?以及這種對奢侈品的新需求的社會影響是什麼?
關於第一問題的答案是很難獲得的。儘管它可能從製造商和服務行業認爲消費者想要什麼而實際製造的商品和提供的服務中推知，但只有對實際消費者的相關私人資料的研究才能提供一種“誰想要什麼”的精確狀況。我們仍然需要知道這種消費市場到底有多大，以及消費者對奢侈商品的需求向下滲透到社會的什麼層次。對最後一個問題而言，我們應當注意到，在過去，湯姆遜雖然正確恢復了勞動人民在十八世紀英國歷史舞臺上的地位，但整體而言可能誇大了他們對資本主義消費方式侵蝕的抵抗情緒。例如，十八世紀英國的勞動人民迅速從家釀的啤酒轉而飲用由那些大規模、高度資本化的城市釀酒廠生產的標準化啤酒。
爲了回答消費者爲什麼變得那麼急於購物這一問題，一些史學家指出，這是因爲製造商們可以在無需審查的報刊上刊登廣告。然而，這似乎並不是個理由充分的答案。麥克德瑞克贊成維布倫模型，即由社會地位的競爭而引起的一種引人注目的消費。“中產階級”購買優質商品和服務，是因爲他們想追隨由富人建立的消費時尚。我們可能再次懷疑這種解釋是否充足。難道人們喜愛購物不是一種自我滿足的形式嗎?如果是這樣，那麼上述消費主義可以被看做是一種個人主義和物質主義新興概念的產物，而不一定是瘋狂進行引人注目的競爭的結果。
最後，這種消費者對奢侈品的需求所導致的後果又是什麼呢?麥克德瑞克聲稱，這將極爲有助於解釋工業革命的到來。但事實果真如此嗎?例如，高質量的陶製品和玩具與鋼鐵製造和紡織工廠的發展有什麼關係呢?即使沒有重工業的存在，消費社會在心理上和現實上都是完全可能存在的。
然而，對這些關鍵問題的進一步探究毫無疑問是需要的，而且不應當減弱近期研究所得結論的說服力：十八世紀英國對那些有用和瑣碎商品及服務的不知足的需求預示了我們目前的'這個世界的特徵。
篇二：
The intensive work of materials scientists and solid-state physicists has given rise to a class of solids known as amorphous metallic alloys or glassy metals. There is a growing interest among theoretical and applied researchers alike in the structural properties of these materials.
When a molten metal or metallic alloy is cooled to a solid, a crystalline structure is formed that depends on the particular alloy composition. In contrast, molten nonmetallic glass-forming materials when cooled do not assume a crystalline structure, but instead retain a structure somewhat like that of the liquid — an amorphous structure. At room temperature the natural long-term tendency for both types of materials is to assume the crystalline structure. The difference between the two is in the kinetics or rate of formation of the crystalline structure which is controlled by factors such as the nature of the chemical bonding and the ease with which atoms move relative to each other. Thus, in metals, the kinetics favors rapid formation of a crystallines structure whereas in nonmetallic glasses the rate of formation is so slow that almost any cooling rate is sufficient to result in an amorphous structure. For glassy metals to be formed, the molten metal must be cooled extremely rapidly so that crystallization is suppressed.
The structure of glassy metals is thought to be similar to that of liquid metals. One of the first attempts to model the structure of a liquid was that by the late J. D. Bernal of the University of London, who packed hard spheres into a rubber vessel in such a way as to obtain the maximum possible density. The resulting dense, random-packed structure was the basis for many attempts to model the structure of glassy metals.
Calculations of the density of alloys based on Bernal-type models of the alloys metal component agree fairly well with the experimentally determined values from measurements on alloys consisting of a noble metal together with a metalloid such as alloys of palladium and silicon or alloys consisting of iron phosphors, and carbon, although small discrepancies remained. One difference between real alloys and the hard spheres area in Bernal models is that the components of an alloy have different size, so that models based on two sizes of spheres are more appropriate for a binary alloy for example. The smaller metalloid atoms of the alloys might fit into holes in the dense random-packed structure of the larger metal atoms.
One of the most promising properties of glassy metals is their high strength combined with high malleability. In usual materials, one finds an inverse relation between the two properties, whereas for many practical applications simultaneous presence of both properties is desirable. One residual obstacle to practical applications that is likely to be overcome is the fact that glassy metals will crystallize at relatively low temperatures when heated slightly.
1. The author is primarily concerned with discussing
[A] crystalline solids and their behavior at different temperatures.
[B] molten materials and the kinetics of the formation of their crystalline structure.
[C] glassy metals and their structural characteristics.
[D] metallic alloys and problems in determining their density.
2. The author’s attitude toward the prospects for the economic utilization of glassy metals is one of
[A] disinterest.
[B] impatience.
[C] optimism.
[D] apprehension.
3. According to the text, which of the following determines the crystalline structure of a metallic alloy?
[A] At what rate the molten alloy is cooled.
[B] How rapid the rate of formation of the crystalline phase is.
[C] How the different-sized atoms fit into a dense random-packed structure.
[D] What the alloy consists of and in what ratios.
4. Which of the following best describes the relationship between the structure of liquid metals and the structure of glassy metals, as it is presented in the text?
[A] The latter is an illustrative example of the former.
[B] The latter is a large-scale version of the former.
[C] The former is a structural elaboration of the latter.
[D] The former is a fair approximation of the latter.
5. It can be inferred from the text that, theoretically, molten nonmetallic glasses assume a crystalline structure rather than an amorphous structure only if they are cooled
[A] very evenly, regardless of the rate.
[B] rapidly, followed by gentle heating.
[C] very slowly.
[D] to room temperature.
