2006年12月大学英语六级考试老题型模拟试卷（三）
Part ⅡReading Comprehension(35 minutes)
Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
To emphasize the stagnation ( 死气沉沉 ) and the narrowness of the society depicted in Jane Austin’s novels is to take a narrow and mechanical view of them. Emma is not a period piece, nor is what is sometimes called a “comedy of manners”. We read it to illuminate not only the past but also the present. And we must face here in both its crudity and its important a question. Exactly what relevance and helpfulness does Emma have for us today?
In what sense does a novel dealing skillfully and realistically with a society and its standards,which are dead and gone forever,have value in our very different world today? Stated in such term, the question itself is unsatisfactory. If Emma today captures our imagination and engages our sympathies (as, in fact, it does), then either it has some genuine value for us, or else there is something wrong with the way we give our sympathy and our values are pretty useless.
Put this way, it is clear that anyone who enjoys Emma and then remarks “but of course it has no relevance today” is, in fact, debasing the novel, looking at it not as living, enjoyable work of art but as a mere dead picture of a past society.Such an attitude is fatal both to art and to life. It can be assumed that Emma has relevance. The helpful approach is to ask why this novel still has the power to move us today.
What gives Emma its power to move us is the realism and depth of fe
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