考试日期：

2015年03月28日

Reading Passage 1 （新）

Title:

纽扣发展及起源

Question types:

判断 5

填空 8

文章大意

（参考阅读）

This  entry will explore the history of the button. Not the chocolate button, or  the button on your computer screen, or indeed the one you are said to be  contemplating when being idle. This entry is about the button holding your  trousers up or your shirt closed. Humanity invented the button well before  its time; but, luckily for us, it hung around until someone invented the  buttonhole.

Is  it a Button?

Over  3,000 years ago, during the Bronze Age, the first buttons made their debut.  While recognisably buttons, Bronze Age man didn't fasten anything with them,  but simply wore them for decoration. The dandies of the day wore buttons  fashioned from bone, horn, wood, metal or even seashells; but, in the absence  of a buttonhole, were they anything more than just sew-on brooches?

At  the time, man used belts, pins or brooches to fasten his clothes; even in  extreme weather there was no practical use for a button. So the button just  existed, waiting for the next big clothing innovation.

It  is a Button

The  Greeks, although they had no word for button, did, like the Romans, use them  for decoration. However, at some point, someone thought the button might make  a nifty fastener. To this end, they ran the button through a little loop of  thread and thereby created a use for the button, alongside the pin or the  brooch, to keep garments together.

As  clothing became more fitted, the button and loop became more attractive since  it was less likely to cause injury than a pin. By around 1200, the button and  buttonhole arrived in Europe, delivered, like many other things, by the  returning Crusaders. Not that they invented it themselves — no, they had  'freed' the idea from the Turks and Mongols encountered on their travels. At  any rate, the button and buttonhole were to become a driving force in  clothing design.

So  Button it

The  first buttonholes were slits made in fabric just big enough to pass the  button through, and this was enough to hold clothes fast and inspire a  fashion revolution.

The  word button appeared at around this time and stems from either the French  bouton for bud or bouter to push. Whatever the basis for the word, the French  were quick to spot the potential of the button and by 1250 had established  the Button Makers Guild. The Guild produced beautiful buttons with great  artistry, much to the delight of the aristocracy. The peasants, however,  weren't allowed to join this button fest, even if they could afford it. The  aristocracy passed laws to limit buttons permitted for common usage to  thread- or cloth-covered buttons. As a result, the button became a status  symbol, and it wasn't discrete; buttons were being used like there was no  tomorrow - not just for fastening clothes but, once more, as adornment.

By  the middle of the 1300s buttons were big business and people loved them.  Tailors produced garments with row upon row of buttons with matching  buttonholes. France, by this time, was the button capital of Europe and the  Guild made considerable profit producing buttons for coats, dresses and  anything that looked as if it needed a button. Europe was so button crazy  that even the Church got in on the act and denounced them as 'the devil's  snare', seemingly referring to the ladies in their button-fronted dresses.

This  attraction for buttons resulted in some outfits adorned with thousands of  buttons, all of them with accompanying buttonholes. Dressing and undressing  became a chore, but created a niche for the employment of professional  dressers. Button mania ran on unabated, and in 1520 reports tell of a meeting  where King Francis I of France, his clothing bedecked with some 13,600  buttons, met King Henry VIII of England, similarly weighed down with buttons.

The  button thing couldn't last forever though, and with the Puritans condemning  it as sinful, in the 16th Century its popularity began to wane to more  sensible levels1. That's not to say they weren't still very much in vogue;  it's just that the number of buttons required to be at the height of fashion  diminished. In response to this, the button-makers took to making more and  more elaborate buttons. These artisans made their fancy buttons from precious  materials like gold, ivory and even diamond.

Diamonds  would seem more than a little excessive for buttons, but in 1620 the First  Duke of Buckingham reputedly had a suit and cloak covered in diamond buttons,  although most were purely decorative. Not everyone, however, could afford  such a lavish display, so button-makers also used silver, ceramics and silk.  Even artists of the day filled their time hand-painting portraits or scenery  on buttons.

Louis  XIV adored his buttons and returned to the excesses of previous ages, but he  also encouraged others by having his army wear silver-coloured bone buttons  on their tunics.

If  you are in any doubt as to the importance of buttons in the 17th Century you  could do worse than check out la Guerre des Boutons — not the film, but the  actual war. French tailors started the war and won the first battle with the  use of thread buttons. These were basically little balls of thread which  worked admirably as buttons. The button-makers were furious, and in response  they lobbied the government to help them. A law was passed and the war was  won with the tailors being fined for the production of the thread buttons.  Not satisfied with this, however, the button-makers went on to insist on the  rigorous enforcement of the new law. They wanted homes and wardrobes searched  and even suggested the arrest and fining of people for wearing clothing with  thread buttons. It is unclear how far they got with their demands, beyond the  authorities fining the tailors for their ingenuity.

Around  this time the United Kingdom, America and Germany were muscling in on the  French Button-makers' Guild's lucrative market.

Towards  the end of the 1700s big metallic buttons were in vogue and this resulted in  uniforms and outfits needing fewer. It also saw the introduction, apparently  by Napoleon, of sleeve buttons on tunics2. This didn't, however, halt the  development of the double-breasted jacket. These jackets were much like the  chef's jacket of today. When the outside of the jacket was soiled the wearer  just had to unbutton it and place the soiled surface on the inside then  button the clean side outermost. Now that is practical.

Modern  Buttons

From  the 19th Century buttons were mass-produced, but this didn't detract from the  wide variety available; Dorset buttons, made from thread, competed  side-by-side with bone and metal buttons. The fashion-conscious still prized  buttons and brass or ceramic buttons were sold boxed and in sets to be  affixed to uniforms or other clothing. Every home kept a button box which  held reclaimed buttons from discarded garments, along with odd buttons  suitable for completing repairs.

No  entry about the button would be complete without an honorable mention for the  white pearl button. A shipment from Japan flooded the button market with this  type of button in the 1860s, and this directly resulted in the rise of the  Pearly Kings and Queens of London. Visitors to the city could expect to see  these local celebrities sporting costumes bearing over 30,000 buttons,  although today they are generally only seen at charitable events.

The  most popular button of the 19th Century, however, was the black glass button,  which was mainly pearl-shaped. This was made for the masses in response to  Queen Victoria's usage of black jet buttons - mourning buttons - following  the death of Prince Albert.

By  the turn of the 20th Century, picture and novelty buttons were very much the  fashion. They no longer needed to be hand-painted when they could have scenes  printed onto them, so hunting or other delights were popular for waistcoats.  Molding produced buttons in all shapes and sizes, from the little fox's head  to the Wellington boot or indeed a strawberry, and it was perhaps this that  began the trend for collecting buttons for their own sake.

With  the introduction of plastics, buttons weren't quite so precious. However,  since the arrival of the sewing machine and patterns for the thrifty  dressmaker, they provided the finishing touches while dressing on a budget.

Many  homes still have button boxes, but with today's busy lifestyle few people  take the time to sew buttons on anything - even though most garments come  with a spare.

Buttons  Forever?

Today  buttons, like clothing, come in all shapes and sizes. There are the basic  circular, square or triangular buttons. The buttons with two, three or four  holes for application, the toggle button, leather shaft type or stud buttons.  There are many button collectors clubs, and indeed the winner of the 2005  Antiques Roadshow Collector of the Year was Anne Blight, a champion button  collector - confirming a market for buttons continues to exist.

The  future of the button seems secure despite the popularity of velcro, poppers3  and zips. This could be due to the fact that whatever you're fastening, it  just looks better with the flourish of a button. Or it could just be that the  button and buttonhole are perfect for their job. No matter what, the button  has continued to thrive alongside the various alternatives, and regardless of  what science fiction would have us wearing, the button seems certain to  survive. Just in case it doesn't, however, there is always an online button  museum.

1Even  today in the USA the Amish community don't wear buttons as they consider them  a sign of pride.2This apparently reduced the likelihood of those in uniform  wiping their noses on their sleeves due to the risk of self-mutilation. A  smaller version of these buttons can still be seen today on the jackets of  men's suits.3Poppers are also known as press studs.

部分答案

判断：1. TRUE 2. FALSE  3.TRUE 4.FALSE 5.NOT GIVEN

填空：6.dressers  7.materials 8.diamonds 9.portraits 10.jet 11.box 12.plastics 13.zips

Reading Passage 2 （旧）

Title:

沙漠里昆虫的仿生技术

Question  types:

段落信息配对 4

填空 5

人名配对 4

文章大意

（参考阅读 机经20080308 仿生机器人）

部分答案

段落信息配对：14.G 15.E 16.B 17.I

填空：18.sun 19.droplets 20.wind 21.surface 22.roof

人名配对：23.D 24.A 25.B 26.C 27.D

Reading Passage 3 （旧）

Title:

安慰剂

Question types:

句子完成配对 4

选择 3

判断 6

文章大意

Placebo Effect---The Power of Nothing

Want to devise a new form of alternative  medicine? No problem. Here’s the recipe. Be warm, sympathetic, reassuring  andenthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each  session with your patients should last at least half an hour. Encourage your  patient sto take an active part in their treatment and understand how their  disordersrelate to the rest of their lives. Tell them that their own bodies  possess the true power to heal. Make them pay you out of their own pockets.  Describe your treatment in familiar words, but embroidered with a hint of  mysticism: energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks, meridians, forces,  auras, rhythms and the like. Refer to the knowledge of an earlier age: wisdom  carelessly swept aside by the rise and rise of blind, mechanistic science.  Oh, come off it, you’re saying. Something invented off the top of your head  couldn’t possibly work,could it?

Well yes, it could—and often well enough to  earn you a living. A good living if you are sufficiently convincing or,  better still, really believe in your therapy. Many illnesses get better on  their own,so if you are lucky and administer your treatment at just the right  time you’ll get the credit. But that’s only part of it. Some of the  improvement really would be down to you. Not necessarily because you’d recommended  ginseng rather than chamomile tea or used this crystal as opposed to that  pressure point.Nothing so specific. Your healing power would be the outcome  of a paradoxical force that conventional medicine recognizes but remains  oddly ambivalent about:the placebo effect.

Placebos are treatments that have no direct  effect on the body, yet still work because the patient has faith in their  power to heal. Most often the term refers to a dummy pill, but it applies  just as much to any device or procedure, from a sticking plaster to a crystal  to anoperation. The existence of the placebo effect implies that even  quackery may confer real benefits, which is why any mention of placebo is a  botchy subject for many practitioners of complementary and alternative  medicine (CAM), who are likely to regard it as tantamount to a charge of  charlatanism. In fact, the placebo effect is a powerful part of all medical  care, orthodox or otherwise, though its role is often neglected and  misunderstood.

One of the great strengths of CAM may be  itspractioners’ skill in deploying the placebo effect to accomplish real  healing.“Complementary practitioners are miles better at producing  non-specific effectsand good therapeutic relationships,” saysEdzard Ernst,  professor of CAM atExeter University. The question is whether CAM could be  integrated into conventionalmedicine, as some would like, without losing much  of this power.

At one level, it should come as no surprise  that our state of mind can influence our physiology: anger opens the  superficial blood vessels of the face; sadness pumps the tear glands. But  exactly how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most  of the scant research to date has focused on the control of pain, because  it’s one of the commonest complaints and lends itself to experimental study.  Here, attention has turned to the endorphins, natural counter parts of  morphine that are known to helpcontrol pain. “Any of the neurochemicals  involved in transmitting pain impulsesor modulating them might also be involved  in generating the placebo response,”says Don Price, an oral surgeon at the  University of Florida who studies theplacebo effect in dental pain.

“But endorphins are still out in front.”That  casehas been strengthened by the recent work of Fabrizio Bendeetti of the  University of Turin, who showed that the placebo effect can be abolished by a  drug,naloxone, which blocks the effects of endorphins. Benedetti induced pain  inhuman volunteers by inflating a blood-pressure cuff on the forearm. He did  this several times a day for several days, using morphine each time to  control thepain. On the final day, without saying anything, he replaced the  morphine witha saline solution. This still relieved the subjects’ pain: a  placebo effect,But when he added naloxone to the saline the pain relief  disappeared. Here wasdirect proof that placebo analgesia is mediated, at  least in part, by these natural opiates.

Still, no one knows how belief triggers  endorphin release, or why most people can’t achieve placebo pain relief  simply by willing it. Though scientists don’t know exactly how placebos work,  they have accumulated a fair bit of knowledge about how to trigger the  effect. A London rheumatologist found, for example, that red dummy capsules  made more effective painkillers than blue, green or yellow ones. Research on  American students revealed that blue pills make better sedatives than pink, a  colour more suitable for stimulants. Even branding can make a  difference:ifAspro or Tylenolare what you like to take for a head-ache, their  chemically identical generice quivalents may be less effective.

It matters, too, how the treatment is  delivered.Decades ago, when the major tranquiliser chlorpromazine was being  introduced, adoctor in Kansas categorized his colleagues according to whether  they were keenon it, openly of its benefits, or took a “let’s try and see”  attitude. Hisconclusion: the more enthusiastic the doctor, the better the  drug performed.And this year Ernst surveyed published studies that compared  doctors’ bedsidemanners. The studies turned up one consistent  finding:“Physicians who adopt awarm, friendly and reassuring manner, “he  reported, “are more effective than those whose consultations are formal and  do not offer reassurance.”

Warm, friendly and reassuring are precisely  CAM’sstrong suits, of course. Many of the ingredients of that opening  recipe—thephysical contact, the generous swathes of time, the strong hints of  super normal healing power—are just the kind of thing likely to impress  patients. It’s hardly surprising, then, that complementary practitioners are  generally best at mobilising the placebo effect, says Arthur Kleinman,  professor of social anthropology at Harvard University.

部分答案

28.F 29.H 30.B  31.G

32.D 33.A 34.C

35.NO 36.NOT GIVEN  37.YES 38.YES 39.NOT GIVEN 40.YES

难度分析

本场考试1新2旧，难度中等；第一篇是发明发展史类的新题，文章简单易懂，题目设置也较为简单。第三篇是九分达人2的原文，因此还是建议烤鸭们合理利用机经还原文章，关注题库中的相关话题文章，并适当了解其话题背景知识，做好备考的功课。