新GRE中短篇阅读真题精选
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. Summarize a demographic trend overt time
B. Present findings on a demographic group
C. Analyze the demographic composition of a type of job
D. Explain the need for particular social research
E. Argue for the implementation of a social policy
2. Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted sentence in the context of the passage as whole?
A. It hypothesizes a phenomenon that might explain a point made in the preceding sentence.
B. It provides evidence that undermines that assertion made in the first sentence.
C. It offers a projection regarding the development of a trend mentioned earlier in the passage.
D. It presents an interpretation of a discrepancy noted earlier in the passage.
E. It proposed an implementation of a policy mentioned in the preceding sentence.
3. The passage suggests which of the following regarding “access to managerial positions” for disadvantaged groups?
A. This access is only significant when the percentage of disadvantaged group members in managerial positions mirrors the percent of that group in the general public.
B. This access is largely the result of policy decisions made response to interest of those groups.
C. This access has meaning apart from any policy benefits it confer on those groups.
D. This access often creates increased access to non-managerial position for those groups.
E. The extent of this access tends to be similar across different disadvantaged groups.
答案：D C C
Passage 4
Benjamin Franklin is portrayed in American history as the quintessential self-made man. In “Self-reliance”, Emerson asks, “Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin...?” In fact, Franklin took instruction widely, and his scientific work was highly collaborative. Friends in England sent equipment needed for his electrical experiments, others, in Philadelphia, helped him set up his workshop there. Philip Syng constructed a device for generating electrical charges, while Tomas Hopkinson demonstrated the potential of pointed conductors. Franklin, in addition to being the group’s theoretician, wrote and published its results. His fame as an individual researcher is partly a consequence of the shorthand by which when one person writes about a group’s discoveries, history sometimes grants singular credit for collective effort.
1. Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted sentence?
A. It states a viewpoint about Franklin with which the author disagrees.
B. It introduces new evidence about Franklin’s role in the collaborative process.
C. It explains Franklin’s reputation in terms of a broad scholarly phenomenon.
D. It emphasizes the extent to which Franklin relied on others in his workshop.
E. It describes Franklin’s approach to writing scientific results.
2. Emerson is mentioned in the passage primarily to
A. Identify the origin of a particular understanding of Franklin
B. Elaborate on a view of Franklin that the author takes issue with
C. Point to a controversial claim about Franklin’s historical legacy
D. Introduce the question of who Franklin’s main scientific influences were
E. Suggests that Franklin was resistant to collaboration with other scientists
答案：C B
Passage 5
Many scholars have argued that government investment in manufacturing in the southern United States during the Second World War spurred a regional economic boom that lasted into the postwar period. But much of this investment went to specialized plants, many of them unsuitable for postwar production. Large-scale, wartime government funding led to a massive increase in the number and scale of munitions facilities. By the war’s end, 216 munitions establishment costing more than $3.5 billion had been built, many of them located in the south. Indeed, according to one estimate, more than 70 percent of federally financed manufacturing construction capital in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee went into munitions plants.
Even in the northern regions with strong prewar manufacturing economics, these plants were difficult to deal with once the imperative of war had been removed. In the south few industrialists had the capacity or desire to transform these factories to a peacetime function. Accordingly, at war’s end almost all of the southern munitions facilities were shut down, placed on standby, operated at a very low capacity, or converted to nonmanufacturing functions, usually storage. Although some reopened a few years later for use during the Korean War, the impact of the special plants on the South’s postwar economy was marginal at best.