1996年1月托福阅读全真试题
Questions 1-7
Joyce Carol Oates published her first collection of short stories. By The Gate， in 1963， two years after she had received her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and become an instructor of English at the University of Detroit. Her productivity since then has been prodigious， accumulating in less than two decades to nearly thirty titles， including novels， collections of short stories and verse， plays， and literary criticism. In the meantime， she has continued to teach，moving in 1967 from the University of Detroit to the University of Windsor， in Ontario， and， in 1978， to Princeton University. Reviewers have admired her enormous energy， but find a productivity of such magnitude difficult to assess.
In a period characterized by the abandonment of so much of the realistic tradition by authors such as John Barth， Donald Barthelme， and Thomas Pynchon， Joyce Carol Oates has seemed at times determinedly old-fashioned in her insistence on the essentially mimetic quality of her fiction. Hers is a world of violence， insanity， fractured love， and hopeless loneliness. Although some of it appears to come from her own direct observations， her dreams， and her fears， much more is clearly from the experiences of others. Her first novel， With Shuddering Fall（1964）， dealt with stock car racing， though she had never seen a race. IN Them（1969） she focused on Detroit from the Depression through the notes of 1967， drawing much of her material from the deep impression made on her by the problems of one of her students. Whatever the source and however shocking the events or the motivations， however， her fictive world remains strikingly akin to that real one reflected in the daily newspapers， the television news and talk shows，and the popular magazines of our day.
1. What is the main purpose of the passage？
（A） To review Oates's By the North Gate
（B） To compare some modern writers
（C） To describe Oates's childhood
（D） To outline Oates's career
2. Which of the following does the passage indicate about Joyce Carol Qate's first publication？
（A） It was part of her master's thesis.
（B） It was a volume of short fiction.
（C） It was not successful.
（D） It was about an English instructor in Detroit.
3. Which of the following does the passage suggest about Joyce Carol Oates in terms of her writing career？
（A） She has experienced long nonproductive periods in her writing.
（B） Her style is imitative of other contemporary authors
（C） She has produced a surprising amount of fictions in a relative short time.
（D） Most of her work is based on personal experience.
4. The word "characterized" in line 10 can best replaced by which of the following？
（A） Shocked
（B） Impressed
（C） Distinguished
（D） Helped
5. What was the subject of Joyce Carol Oates's first novel？
（A） Loneliness
（B） Inanity
（C） Teaching
（D） Racing
6. Why does the author mention Oates's book Them？
（A） It is a typical novel of the 1960's
（B） It is her best piece of nonfiction.
（C） It is a fictional work based on the experiences of another person.
（D） It is an autobiography.
7. Which of the following would Joyce Carol Oates be most likely to write？
（A） A story with an unhappy ending
（B） A romancer novel set in the nineteenth century
（C） A science fiction novel
（D） A dialogue for a talk show
Question 8-18
Certainly no creature in the sea is odder than the common sea cucumber. All living creature， especially human beings，have their peculiarities， but everything about the little sea cucumber seems unusual. What else can be said about a bizarre animal that， among other eccentricities， eats mud， feeds almost continuously day and night but can live without eating for long periods， and can be poisonous but is considered supremely edible by gourmets？
For some fifty million years， despite all its eccentricities，the sea cucumber has subsisted on its diet of mud. It is adaptable enough to live attached to rocks by its tube feet， under rocks in shallow water， or on the surface of mud flats. Common in cool water on both Atlantic and Pacific shores， it has the ability to suck up mud or sand and digest whatever nutrients are present.