2013年考研英语基础阶段测试卷七
Section IUse of EnglishDirections:
Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B,C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10points)
In the United States, the first day nursery was opened in 1854. Nurseries were established in various areas during the1half of the 19th century; most of2were charitable. Both in Europe and in the U.S., the daynursery movement received great3 during the First World War, when4 of manpower caused the industrial employment of unprecedented numbers of women. In some European countries nurseries were established 5 in munitions(军火) plants, under direct government sponsorship. 6 the number of nurseries in the U.S. also rose 7 , this rise was accomplished without government aid of any kind. During the years following the First World War, 8 , Federal State and local governments gradually began to exercise a measure of control 9 the day nurseries, chiefly by 10 them and by inspecting and regulating the conditions within the nurseries.
The 11 of the Second World War was quickly followed by an increase in the number of day nurseries in almost all countries, as women were 12 called up on to replace men in the factories. On this 13 the U.S. government immediately came to the support of the nursery schools, 14 $ 6000000 in July, 1942, for a nursery school program for the children of working mothers. Many states and local communities 15 this Federal aid. By the end of the war, in August, 1945, more than 1000000 children were being cared 16 in daycare centers receiving Federal 17. Soon afterward, the Federal government18 cut down its expenditures for this purpose and later 19them, causing a sharp drop in the number of nursery schools in operation. However, the expectation that most employed mothers would leave their 20 at the end of the war was only partly fulfilled.
1. latter other late first
2. those them whose which
3. impetus input imitation initiative
4. sources abundance shortage reduction
5. hardly entirely only even
6. Because As Since Although
7. unanimously sharply predominantly militantly
8. therefore consequently however moreover
9. over in at about
10. formulating labeling patenting licensing
11. outset outbreak breakthrough breakdown
12. again thus repeatedly yet
13. circumstance occasion case situation
14. regulating summoning allocating transferring
15. compensated facilitated supplemented expanded
16. about after of for
17. pensions subsidies revenues budgets
18. prevalently furiously statistically drastically
19. abolished diminished jeopardized precluded
20. nurseries homes jobs children
Section IIReading Comprehension
Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on Answer Sheet 1. (40 points)
Text 1
Sloth(怠惰, 懒惰) may be seen as a sin, but some of history’s most accomplished men were fond of lounging around. Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed napping. So did Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. Richard Buckminster Fuller advocated taking 30minute naps every six hours. No one has yet proved a correlation between napping and artistic brilliance or professional success, but an intriguing study published this week claims to find a link between daytime siestas and good health. A team of researchers led by Androniki Naska and Dimitrios Trichopoulos of Harvard’s School of Public Health followed over 23000 Greek patients with no history of cancer or stroke, for an average of six years. Their conclusion: napping just might save your life.
The study found that the group of adults who took 30minute siestas at least three times a week had a third fewer deaths from heart disease than an equivalent group who did not sleep at all during the day. The benefit was greater for men than for women. It was also greater for working males than for those who had retired. However, a number of previous studies done in the Mediterranean and in parts of Central America (where siestas remain common) have come up with conflicting results, but Dr. Naska and Dr. Trichopoulos argue that those studies have often been flawed. The subjects in some, for example, had survived heart attacks and may therefore have benefited more from napping than healthy individuals do.
Given that all of the subjects of this new study were Greeks; could the muchcelebrated Mediterranean diet deserve credit, rather than the siestas? The firm answer from Dr Trichopoulos is “No”. And he is in a good position to say so, for it was he who did the pioneering research that put olive oil and a plantbased diet on the scientific map in the first place. Unlike some other nap studies, his was controlled for diet, smoking, exercise and other relevant variables. The earlier findings about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet are confirmed, he says, and napping seems to help on top of that.
Before buying a sofa for the office, however, it might be wise to consider the possibility of selection bias. Dr Trichopoulos concludes that “Type A” personalities, whose hardworking lives may make them prone to heart attacks, are also much less likely to take naps during the day. That bias might be distorting the study’s results. Even so, he advises, “Take a nap if you can.”
21. The word “siesta” (Line 5, Paragraph 1) most probably denotes
laziness
silence
nap
labor
22. Dr. Naska and Dr. Trichopoulos have concluded in their study that siestas
make scientists more brilliant.
may prolong people’s life.
help people become professionally successful.
can cure patients of some fatal diseases.
23. It can be inferred from the second paragraph that
those taking naps regularly are less likely to die from heart diseases.
men are sure to survive heart attacks better than women.
the retired can enjoy a happier life than the employed.
people in Central America don’t sleep at all during the day.
24. Dr. Trichopoulos firmly denies the advantages of the Mediterranean diet in his study because
the Mediterranean diet does more harm than good to people’s health.
he has done some studies to refute the benefits of Mediterranean diet.
the benefits of the Mediterranean diet are still waiting to be proved.
he has controlled such a related viable as diet in his research.
25. Which of the following is true according to the text?
Most of the celebrities gain a great deal from taking naps.
Taking naps may reduce the incidence of heart attacks at work.
Dr. Trichopoulos’ study of napping conflicts with his previous study on diet.
People should sacrifice napping in order to be successful in their career.
Text 2
As Samuel Goldwyn so widely advised, never make predictions—especially about the future. But here is one: the analogy between 20thcentury physics and 21st century biology will continue, for both good and ill.
Physics gave two things to the 20th century. The most obvious gift was power over nature. That power was not always benign, as the atomic bomb showed. Physics also gave the 20th century a more subtle boon than mere power. It also brought an understanding of the vastness of the universe and humanity’s insignificant place in it. But if the 20th century was distinguished by anything from its predecessors, that distinctive feature was physical technology, from motor cars and airplanes to computers and the internet.
It is too early to be sure if the distinguishing feature of the 21st century will be biological technology, but there is a good chance that it will be. Simple genetic engineering is now routine; indeed, the first patent application for an artificial living organism has recently been filed. Both the idea of such an organism and the idea that someone might own the rights to it would have been science fiction even a decade ago. And it is not merely that such things are now possible.
The other driving force of technological change—necessity—is also there. Many of the big problems facing humanity are biological, or are susceptible to biological intervention. The question of how to deal with an aging population is one example. Climate change, too, is intimately bound up with biology since it is the result of carbon dioxide going into the air faster than plants can remove it. And the risk of a new, lethal infection suddenly becoming pandemic as a result of modern transport links is as biological as it gets. Even the fact that such an infection might itself be the result of synthetic biology only emphasizes the biological nature of future risks.
At the moment, policymakers have inadequate technological tools to deal with these questions. But it is not hard to imagine such tools. Aging is directly biological. It probably cannot be stopped, but knowing how cells work—really knowing—will allow the process to be transformed for the better. At least part of the answer to climate change is fuel that grows, rather than fuel that is dug up. Only biotechnology can create that. And infections, pandemic or otherwise, are best dealt with by vaccines, which take a long time to develop. If cells were truly understood, that process might speed up to the point where the vaccine was ready in time to do something useful.
26. The word “benign” (Line 2, Paragraph 2) most probably means
harmful
beneficial
powerful
frightening
27. According to the author, what distinguishes the 21st century from the 20th century?
biological technology
physical technology
computers and the internet
modern transport links
28. According to the author, biological technology in the 21st century will
speed up the aging population.
aggravate the climate change.
keep new fatal infections in check.
understand the vast universe.
29. It can be inferred from the ending paragraph that
Biotechnology will find fuel that is dug up from underground.
Understanding of cells succeeded in preventing humans from aging.
The vaccines have been developed to curb pandemic infections.
There still lacks adequate technology to handle climate change.
30. What is the author’s attitude towards the 21st century?
carefree
detached
optimistic
dubious
Text 3
The winner takes all, as is widely supposed in computing circles. Indeed, geeks have coined a word, “Googlearchy”, for the way in which search engines encourage web traffic towards the most popular sites. The belief that search engines make popular websites even more fashionable, at the expense of other pages, is now being challenged by research.
The apparently magical ability of search engines such as Google to return relevant websites even when given the sketchiest of clues by the person entering a question relies on the use of mathematical recipes or algorithms(计算程序). Google works by analyzing the structure of the web itself. Each of its billions of pages can link to other pages and can also, in turn, be linked to by others. If a page is linked to many other pages, it is flagged up as being important. Furthermore, if the pages that link to this page are also important, then that page is even more likely to be important. The algorithm has been made increasingly complex over the years, to deter those who would manipulate their pages to appear higher in their rankings, but it remains at the heart of Google’s success.
Google is not alone in this. Many search engines take account of the number of links to a website when they return the results of a search. Because of this, there is a widespread belief among computer, social, and political scientists that search engines create a vicious circle that amplifies the dominance of established and already popular websites. Page returned by research engines are more likely to be discovered and consequently linked to by others.
Not so, according to a controversial new paper that has recently appeared on ArViv, an online collection of physics and related papers. In it, Santo Fortunato and his colleagues at Indiana University in America and Bielefeld University in Germany claim that search engines actually have an egalitarian effect that increases traffic to less popular sites.
The researchers developed a model that described two extreme cases. In the first, people browsed the web only by surfing random links. In the second, people only visited pages that were returned by search engines. The researchers then turned to the real world. To their amazement, they found that the relationship between the two did not lie between the extremes suggested by their model but somewhere completely different. It appears to show that the supposed bias in favor of popular pages is actually alleviated by the combination of search engines and people following random links.
31. What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?
Mathematical methods help search engines become more popular.
The web information seems to be dominated by Google alone.
Sociologists argue that search engines alleviate the inequality of websites.
The ability of search engines is dependent on using algorithms.
32. According to the text, the importance of a page is determined by
controlling other pages.
the number of its links to other pages.
using mathematical methods.
the structure of the web itself.
33. The foremost reason why Google is successful is no other than
its magical ability.
its higher page rankings.
complexity of its algorithms.
its heavy web traffic.
34. Santo Fortunato and his colleagues seem to suggest that
fair effect is created by increasing traffic to less well known sites.
popular websites are made more fashionable by search engines.
the situation in favor of popular pages has become more serious.
Popular pages are more likely to be discovered by random links.
35. The author seems to be mainly concerned with
prejudice against less popular websites.
equality of search engines.
key to Google’s success.
negative effects of search engines.
Test 4
IT is a startling claim, but one that Congresswoman Deborah Pryce uses to good effect: the equivalent of two classrooms full of children are diagnosed with cancer every day. Mrs. Pryce lost her own 9yearold daughter to cancer in 1999. Pediatric cancer remains a littleunderstood issue in America, where the healthcare debate is consumed with the ills, pills and medical bills of the elderly.
Cancer kills more children than any other diseases in America. Although there have been tremendous gains in cancer survival rates in recent decades, the proportion of children and teens diagnosed with different forms of the disease increased by almost a third between 1975 and 2001.
Horrible though these statistics are, they are still tiny when set aside the number of adult lives lost to breast cancer and lung cancer. Advocates for more money for child cancer prefer to look at lifeyears lost. Robert Arceci, a pediatric cancer expert at Johns Hopkins, points out that in terms of total lifeyears saved, the benefit from curing pediatric cancer victims is roughly the same as curing adults with breast cancer.
All the same, breast cancer has attracted the attention of publicity, private fundraising and money from government. Childhood cancer has received less attention and cash. Pediatric cancer, a term which covers people up to 20 years old, receives onetwentieth of the federal research money doled out by the National Cancer Institute. Funding, moan pediatric researchers, has not kept pace with rising costs in the field, and NCI money for collaborative research will actually be cut by 3% this year.
There is no national pediatric cancer registry that would let researchers track child and teenage patients through their lives as they can do in the case of adult sufferers. A pilot childhoodcancer registry is in the works. Groups like Mr. Reaman’s now get cash directly from Congress. But it is plainly a problem most politicians don’t know much about.
The biggest problem could lie with 1519yearolds. Those diagnosed with cancer have not seen the same improvement in their chances as younger children and older adults have done. There are some physical explanations for this: teenagers who have passed adolescence are more vulnerable to different sorts of cancer. But Archie Bleyer, a pediatric oncologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, has produced some data implying that lack of health insurance plays a role. Older teenagers and young adults are less likely to be covered and checked regularly.
36. The case of Mrs. Pryce is mentioned to demonstrate that
children need more concern and care than the elderly.
more children are suffering from cancer nowadays.
students are more inclined to be diagnosed with cancer.
she is so unfortunate as to lose her daughter.
37. According to Robert Arceci, child cancer patients
can also survive long like adult cancer patients.
suffer from a bigger probability of death after being cured.
need more money to be cured than breast cancer patients.
can have higher survival rates than lung cancer patients.
38. Which of the following is Not true according to the text?
The government should allocate more capital to child cancer.
Children cancer should gain more attention from the public.
A child cancer sufferer should be registered for researchers to track.
Statesmen don’t support a national pilot child cancer registry.
39. The text seems to suggest that those 1519yearolds diagnosed with cancer
have a higher rate to be cured than older adults.
are less likely to suffer different forms of cancer.
are short of necessary medical care.
are more often to be examined regularly.
40. This passage is written mainly to
show the indignation against the government.
pay much attention to the wellbeing of children.
explore the possible causes of child cancer.
arouse the public’s greater attention to child cancer.
Part B
Directions:
The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41—45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A—G to fill in each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in Boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
Is that what the American viewing public is getting? Perhaps 10% of primetime network programming is a happy combination of entertainment and enrichment. There used to be televisionmovies rich in human values, but they have now become an endangered species. I find television too much concerned with what people have and too little concerned with who they are, very concerned with taking care of No. 1 and not at all concerned with sharing themselves with other people. All too often it tells us the half truth we want to hear rather than the whole truth we need to hear.
Why is television not more fully realizing its humanizing potential? Is the creative community at fault? Partially. But not primarily. I have lived and worked in that community for 32 years, as both priest and producer. As a group, these people have values. In fact, in Hollywood in recent months, audience enrichment has become their thing. A coalition of media companies has endowed the Humanitas Prize so that it can recognize and celebrate those who accomplish it.
Every good story will not only captivate its viewers but also give them some insight into what it means to be a human being. By so doing, it can help them grow into the deeply centered, sovereignty free, joyously loving human being God made them to be. Meaning, freedom and love are the supreme human values. And this is the kind of human enrichment the American viewing public has a right to expect from those who make its entertainment.
The problem with American TV is not the lack of storytellers of conscience but the commercial system within which they have to operate. Television in the U.S. is a business. In the past, the business side has been balanced by a commitment to public service. But in recent years the fragmentation of the mass audience, huge interest payments and skyrocketing production costs have combined with the FCC’s abdication of its responsibility to protect the common good to produce an almost total preoccupation with the bottom line. The networks are struggling to survive. And that, the statistics seem to indicate, is mindless, heartless, escapist fare. If we are dissatisfied with the moral content of what we are invited to watch, I think we should begin by examining our own consciences. When we tune in, are we ready to plunge into reality, so as to extract its meaning, or are we hoping to escape into a sedated world of illusion? And if church leaders want to elevate the quality of the country’s entertainment, they should forget about boycotts, production codes and censorship. They should work at educating their people in media literacy and at mobilizing them to support quality shows in huge numbers.
It is not a question of entertainment or enrichment. These are complementary concerns and presuppose each other. The story that entertains without enriching is superficial and escapist. The story that enriches without entertaining is simply dull. The story that does both is a delight.
That is the only sure way to improve the moral content of America’s entertainment.
Despite questions of the motivation behind them, the attacks by the President and the Vice President on the moral content of television entertainment have found an echo in the chambers of the American soul. Many who reject the messengers still accept the message. They do not like the moral tone of American TV. In our society only the human family surpasses television in its capacity to communicate values, provide role models, form consciences and motivate human behavior. Few educators, church leaders or politicians possess the moral influence of those who create the nation’s entertainment.
Order:
→ 41. → 42. →43.→ 44.→ 45. →
Part C
Directions:
Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)
Empirical and experimental philosophy has no quarrel with science, either in itself or in its application to education. On the contrary, scientific conclusions and methods are the chief ally of an empirical philosophy of education. For according to empirical philosophy, science provides the only means we have for learning about man and the world in which he lives. Some have thought that this fact makes philosophy unnecessary. They have supposed that the admission that science is supreme in the field of knowledge covers the whole ground of human experience. 46. The elimination does rule out one kind of philosophy, namely, that which held that philosophy is a higher form of knowledge than the scientific kind, one which furnishes knowledge of ultimate higher reality. But it does not follow from the elimination of this particular type of philosophy that philosophy itself must go.
It would follow if man were simply and only a knowing being. He is also an acting being, a creature with desires, hopes, fears, purposes and habits. To the average person knowledge itself is of importance because of its bearing upon what he needs to do. It helps him in clarifying his wants, in constructing his ends and in finding means for realizing them. 47. There exist, in other words, values as well as known facts and principles, and philosophy is concerned primarily with values—with the ends for the sake of which man acts.
48. Given the most extensive and accurate system of knowledge, man is still faced with the question of what he is going to do about it and what he is going to do with the knowledge in his possession.
49. In this matter of the connection of what is known with values, science is an ally of an empirical philosophy against absolute philosophies which pretend that fixed and eternal truths are known by means of organs and methods that are independent of science.
The objection to this position is not merely theoretical. The practical objections to it are that it strengthens appeal to authority and promotes controversies, which can’t be settled by the use of the methods of inquiry and proof that have been worked out in the sciences. There is no great danger that the presentday revival in some quarters of Greek and medieval philosophies will make much headway as a theoretical philosophy. 50. There is always danger that such philosophies will have practical influence in reinforcing established social authority that is exercised on behalf of the maintenance of the existing social situation. Against this danger, an experimental philosophy stands in firm alliance with the methods by which the natural sciences arrive at warranted truths.
Section IIIWriting
Part A
51. Directions:
Suppose Wang Ming, one of your friends, is ill. Write a letter of consolation. Your letter should include:
1) your purpose of writing this letter
2) your true feeling and best wishes
You should write about 100 words. Don’t sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Hong” instead. You don’t need to write the address. (10 points)
Part B
52. Directions:
Study the following drawing carefully and write an essay in which you should
1) describe the drawing
2) interpret its meaning and
3) give your own comments
You should write about 160 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (20 points)
页:
[1]