Part A: Reading Comprehension

Directions: Read the following text. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)

Text 1

People often complain that plastics are too durable. Water bottles, shopping bags, and other trash litter the planet, from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench, because plastics are everywhere and don’t break down easily. But some plastic materials change over time. They crack and frizzle. They “weep” out additives. They melt into sludge. All of which creates huge headaches for institutions, such as museums, trying to preserve culturally important objects. The variety of plastic objects at risk is dizzying: early radios, avant-garde sculptures, celluloid animation stills from Disney films, the first artificial heart.

Certain artifacts are especially vulnerable because some pioneers in plastic art didn’t always know how to mix ingredients properly, says Thea van Oosten, a polymer chemist who, until retiring a few years ago, worked for decades at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). “It’s like baking a cake: If you don’t have exact amounts, it goes wrong,” she says. “The object you make is already a time bomb.”

And sometimes, it’s not the artist’s fault. In the 1960s, the Italian artist Piero Gilardi began to create hundreds of bright, colorful foam pieces. Those pieces included small beds of roses and other items as well as a few dozen “nature carpets”—large rectangles decorated with foam pumpkins, cabbages, and watermelons. He wanted viewers to walk around on the carpets—which meant they had to be durable.

Unfortunately, the polyurethane foam he used is inherently unstable. It’s especially vulnerable to light damage, and by the mid-1990s, Gilardi’s pumpkins, roses, and other figures were splitting and crumbling. Museums locked some of them away in the dark.

So van Oosten and her colleagues worked to preserve Gilardi’s sculptures. They infused some with stabilizing and consolidating chemicals. Van Oosten calls those chemicals “sunscreens” because their goal was to prevent further light damage and rebuild worn polymer fibers. She is proud that several sculptures have even gone on display again, albeit sometimes beneath protective cases.

Despite success stories like van Oosten’s, preservation of plastics will likely get harder. Old objects continue to deteriorate. Worse, biodegradable plastics, designed to disintegrate, are increasingly common.

And more is at stake here than individual objects. Joana Lia Ferreira, an assistant professor of conservation and restoration at the NOVA School of Science and Technology, notes that archaeologists first defined the great material ages of human history—Stone Age, Iron Age, and so on—after examining artifacts in museums. We now live in an age of plastic, she says, “and what we decide to collect today, what we decide to preserve…will have a strong impact on how in the future we’ll be seen.”

21. According to Paragraph 1, museums are faced with difficulties in

[A]

maintaining their plastic items. 

[B]

obtaining durable plastic artifacts. 

[C]

handling outdated plastic exhibits. 

[D]

classifying their plastic collections. 

22. Van Oosten believes that certain plastic objects are

[A]

immune to decay. 

[B]

improperly shaped. 

[C]

inherently flawed. 

[D]

complex in structure. 

23. Museums stopped exhibiting some of Gilardi’s artworks to

[A]

keep them from hurting visitors. 

[B]

duplicate them for future display. 

[C]

have their ingredients analyzed. 

[D]

prevent them from further damage. 

24. The author thinks that preservation of plastics is

[A]

costly. 

[B]

unworthy. 

[C]

unpopular. 

[D]

challenging. 

25. In Ferreira’s opinion, preservation of plastic artifacts

[A]

will inspire future scientific research. 

[B]

has profound historical significance. 

[C]

will help us separate the material ages. 

[D]

has an impact on today’s cultural life. 

答案与解析 (Answers)

21. [A] maintaining their plastic items.
解析：第一段指出某些塑料材料会开裂、卷曲、渗出添加剂、融化成淤泥，所有这些都给试图“保护具有重要文化意义物品的机构（如博物馆）带来了巨大的头痛（huge headaches for institutions, such as museums, trying to preserve culturally important objects）”。“保护（preserve）”对应 A 选项的“保养/维护（maintaining）”，“具有文化意义的物品（objects）”对应“塑料物品（plastic items）”。

22. [C] inherently flawed.
解析：第二段 Van Oosten 指出，某些文物特别脆弱是因为早期的塑料艺术先驱“不知道如何正确混合成分（didn’t always know how to mix ingredients properly）”，并比喻说这就像烤蛋糕，如果不按确切数量就会出错，做出来的东西“already a time bomb（已经是一颗定时炸弹）”。这表明这些物品从一开始成分配比就不对，即“天生有缺陷（inherently flawed）”。

23. [D] prevent them from further damage.
解析：第四段指出 Gilardi 使用的聚氨酯泡沫天生不稳定，特别容易受到光损伤（especially vulnerable to light damage），并且到了1990年代中期，他的南瓜、玫瑰等作品正在开裂和崩塌。因此，“Museums locked some of them away in the dark（博物馆把其中一些锁在黑暗中）”显然是为了避光，防止它们受到进一步的损害。

24. [D] challenging.
解析：第六段明确指出：“尽管有像 van Oosten 这样的成功案例，塑料的保存可能会变得更加困难（preservation of plastics will likely get harder）”。并且列举了旧物体继续恶化、生物可降解塑料越来越多等原因。变得更加困难（get harder）完美对应 D 选项的“具有挑战性的（challenging）”。

25. [B] has profound historical significance.
解析：最后一段中 Ferreira 指出，考古学家是通过在博物馆检查文物来定义人类历史的伟大物质时代的。她接着说我们现在生活在塑料时代，“今天我们决定收集什么、保护什么……将对未来人们如何看待我们产生强烈影响”。这表明保护塑料文物事关如何定义我们这个时代在历史长河中的面貌，具有“深远的历史意义（profound historical significance）”。

核心长难句精解 (Highlighted Sentences)

1. 非限制性定语从句与现在分词作后置定语：
"All of which creates huge headaches for institutions, such as museums, trying to preserve culturally important objects."
【解析】All of which 引导非限制性定语从句，which 指代前文提到的塑料开裂、渗出、融化等所有恶化现象。trying to... 是现在分词短语作后置定语，修饰 institutions。
【翻译】所有这些都给像博物馆这样试图保存重要文化物品的机构带来了巨大的头痛。

2. 插入语与定语从句嵌套：
"Certain artifacts are especially vulnerable because some pioneers in plastic art didn’t always know how to mix ingredients properly, says Thea van Oosten, a polymer chemist who, until retiring a few years ago, worked for decades at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE)."
【解析】who 引导定语从句修饰 a polymer chemist。在定语从句中，插入了时间状语 until retiring a few years ago，将主语 who 和谓语 worked 隔开。
【翻译】某些文物极其脆弱，因为一些塑料艺术的先驱并不总是知道如何正确混合成分，西娅·范·奥斯滕说道，她是一位聚合物化学家，直到几年前退休前，她在荷兰文化遗产局（RCE）工作了几十年。

3. 并列主语从句与宾语从句：
"We now live in an age of plastic, she says, 'and what we decide to collect today, what we decide to preserve…will have a strong impact on how in the future we’ll be seen.'"
【解析】由 what 引导的两个并列主语从句作整句话的主语。how 引导宾语从句，作介词 on 的宾语。
【翻译】她表示，我们现在生活在塑料时代，“今天我们决定收集什么、我们决定保存什么……将对未来我们如何被看待产生强烈影响。”