考研英语-试卷63_真题-无答案

考研英语-试卷63 (总分142,考试时间90分钟)

1. Use of English

Section I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D.

What would happen if consumers decided to simplify their lives and spend less on material goods and services? This (1)_____ is taking on\" a certain urgency as rates of economic growth continue to decelerate throughout the industrialized world, and (2)_____ millions of consumers appear to be (3)_____ for more frugal lifestyle. The Stanford Research Institute, which has done some of the most extensive work on the frugality phenomenon, (4)_____ that nearly five million American adults number\" (5)_____ to and act on some but not all\" of its basic tenets. The frugality phenomenon first achieved prominence as a middle-class (6)_____ of high consumption lifestyle in the industrial world during the 50\"s and 60\"s. In the Silent Revolution, Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michingan\"s Institute of Social Research examined this (7)_____ in the United States and 10 Western European nations. He concluded that a change has taken place \"from an (8)_____ emphasis on material well-being and physical security (9)_____ greater emphasis on the quality of life\ Inglehart calls the 60s the \"fat year\". Among their more visible trappings were the ragged blue jeans favored by the affluent young. Most of them (11)_____ from materialism; however, this was (12)_____ Comfortably fixed Americans were going (13)_____, (14)_____ making things last longer, sharing things with others, learning to do things for themselves and so on. But (15)_____ economically significant, it was hardly (16)_____ in a US Gross National Product climbing vigorously toward the $2 thousand billion mark (17)_____, as the frugality phenomenon matured—growing out of the soaring 80s and into the somber 90s—it seemed to undergo a (18)_____ transformation. American consumers continued to lose (19)_____ in materialism and were being joined by new converts who were (20)_____ frugality because of the darkening economic skies they saw ahead. 1.

A. question B. problem C. issue D. dilemma 2.

A. though B. as C. much as D. ever since 3.

A. answering B. making C. opting D. planning 4.

A. predicts B. discovers C. demonstrates D. estimates 5.

A. amount B. attend C. lead D. adhere 6.

A. rejection B. denial C. retention D. defiance 7.

A. adventure B. maturity C. experience D. existence 8.

A. overwhelming B. imaginary C. trivial D. apparent 9.

A. about B. toward C. with D. for 10.

A. relief B. variation C. range D. shift 11.

A. suffer B. differ C. diverge D. retreat 12.

A. sound B. subtle C. superficial D. obscure 13.

A. without B. off C. about D. with 14.

A. in general B. in effect C. for example D. in a sense 15.

A. when B. whereas C. while D. once 16.

A. decisive B. discernible C. incredible D. negligible 17.

A. Indeed B. Moreover C. Therefore D. However 18.

A. elementary B. fundamental C. comprehensive D. primary

19.

A. faith B. doubt C. patience D. interest 20.

A. accommodating B. discarding C. embracing D. presenting

2. Reading Comprehension

Section II Reading Comprehension

Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D.

What our society suffers from most today is the absence of consensus about what it and life in it ought to be; such consensus cannot be gained from society\"s present stage, or from fantasies about what it ought to be. For that the present is too close and too diversified, and the future too uncertain, to make believable claims about it. A consensus in the present hence can be achieved only through a shared understanding of the past, as Homer\"s epics informed those who lived centuries later what it meant to be Greek, and by what images and ideals they were to live their lives and organize their societies. Most societies derive consensus from a long history, a language all their own, a common religion, common ancestry. The myths by which they live are based on all of these. But the United States is a country of immigrants, coming from a great variety of nations. Lately, it has been emphasized that an asocial, narcissistic personality has become characteristic of Americans, and that it is this type of personality that makes for the lack of well-being, because it prevents us from achieving consensus that would counteract a tendency to withdraw into private worlds. In this study of narcissism, Christopher Lash says that modern man, \"tortured by self-consciousness, turns to new therapies not to free himself of his personal worries but to find meaning and purpose in life, to find something to live for\". There is widespread distress because national morale has declined, and we have lost an earlier sense of national vision and purpose. Contrary to rigid religions or political beliefs, as are found in totalitarian societies, our culture is one of the great individual differences, at least in principle and in theory; but this leads to disunity, even chaos. Americans believe in the value of diversity, but just because ours is a society based on individual diversity, it needs consensus about some dominating ideas more than societies based on uniform origin of their citizens. Hence, if we are to have consensus, it must be based on a myth—a vision about a common experience, a conquest that made us Americans, as the myth about the conquest of Troy formed the Greeks. Only a common myth can offer relief from the fear that life is without meaning or purpose. Myths permit us to examine our place in the world by comparing it to a shared idea. Myths are shared fantasies that form the tie that binds the individual to other members of his group. Such myths help to ward off feelings of isolations, guilt, anxiety, and purposelessness—in short, **bat isolation and the breakdown of social standards and values.

1. This text is mainly intended to ______.

A. explore certain ways of making for a consensus. B. spotlight the role of myths in binding a community. C. interpret the meaning and purpose of modern life.

D. reverse the decline of social standards and values.

2. From the text we learn that Christopher Lash is most probably ______. A. a reform advocate. B. a social psychologist. C. a reputed poet.

D. a historical specialist.

3. Americans may find themselves in a society characterized by ______. A. extreme stress.

B. worry and suffering. C. shared beliefs. D. void and isolation.

4. Homer\"s epics is mentioned in Paragraph 1 in order to ______. A. exemplify the contributions made by ancient poets. B. show an ideal concept of what life ought to be. C. illustrate the role of shared myths in society.

D. make known myths of what a society ought to be.

5. The author concludes that only shared myths can help Americans ______. A. to bring about the uniformity of their culture.

B. to regain their consensus about a common experience. C. to perceive the effects of consensus about society. D. to stay away from negative feelings in their life.

In the next century we\"ll be able to alter our DNA radically, encoding our visions and vanities while concocting new life-forms. When Dr. Frankenstein made his monster, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether he should allow it to reproduce, \"Had I the right, for my own benefit, to inflict the curse upon everlasting generations?\" Will such questions require us to develop new moral philosophies? Probably not. Instead, we\"ll reach again for a time-tested moral concept, one sometimes called the Golden Rule and which Kant, the millennium\"s most prudent moralist, conjured up into a categorical imperative: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; treat each person as an individual rather than as a means to some end. Under this moral precept we should recoil at human cloning, because it inevitably entails using humans as means to other humans\" ends and valuing them as copies of others we loved or as collections of body parts, not as individuals in their own right. We should also draw a line, however fuzzy, that would permit using genetic engineering to cure diseases and disabilities but not to change the personal attributes that make someone an individual (IQ, physical appearance, gender and sexuality). The biotech age will also give us more reason to guard our personal privacy. Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, got it wrong: rather than centralizing power in the hands of the state, DNA technology has empowered individuals and families. But the state will have an important role, making sure that no one, including **panies, can look at our genetic data without our permission or use it to discriminate against us. Then we can get ready for the breakthroughs that **e at the end of the next century and the technology is comparable to mapping our genes: plotting the 10 billion or more neurons of our brain. With that information we might someday be able to create artificial intelligences that think and experience consciousness in ways that are indistinguishable from a human brain. Eventually we might be able to replicate our own minds in a \"dry-ware\" machine, so that we could live on without the \"wet-ware\" of a biological brain and body. The 20th century\"s

revolution in infotechnology will thereby merge with the 21st century\"s revolution in biotechnology. But this is science fiction. Let\"s turn the page now and get back to real science. 6. Dr. Frankenstein\"s remarks are mentioned in the text ______. A. to give an episode of the DNA technological breakthroughs. B. to highlight the inevitability of a means to some evil ends.

C. to show how he created a new form of life a thousand years ago.

D. to introduce the topic of moral philosophies concerning biotechnology.

7. It can be concluded from the text that the technology of human cloning should be employed ______.

A. excessively and extravagantly. B. sensibly and cautiously.

C. aggressively and indiscriminately. D. openly and enthusiastically.

8. From the text, we learn that Aldous Huxley is of the opinion that ______. A. the power of biotechnology is to be decentralized. B. no one is entitled to discriminate against others. C. biotechnology is nothing more than gene-mapping. D. artificial **pete with a human brain.

9. According to the last paragraph, \"dry-ware\" is to \"wet-ware\" as ______. A. collective to \"individual\". B. fictional to \"factual\".

C. mechanical to \"biological\". D. illegal to \"immoral\".

10. Judged from the information in the last paragraph, we can predict that the author is likely to write which of the following in the next section? A. The reflection upon biotechnological morality. B. The offensive invasion of our personal privacy. C. The inevitable change of IQs for our descendants. D. The present state of biotechnological research.

When a disease of epidemic proportions rips into the populace, scientists immediately get to work, trying to locate the source of the affliction and find ways to combat it. Oftentimes, success is achieved, as medical science is able to isolate the parasite, germ or cell that causes the problem and finds ways to effectively kill or contain it. In the most serious of cases, in which the entire population of a region or country may be at grave risk, it is deemed necessary to protect the entire population through vaccination, so as to safeguard lives and ensure that the disease will not spread. The process of vaccination allows the patient\"s body to develop immunity to the virus or disease so that, if it is encountered, one can ward it off naturally. To accomplish this, a small weak or dead strain of the disease is actually injected into the patient in a controlled environment, so that his body\"s immune system can learn to fight the invader properly. Information on how to penetrate the disease\"s defenses is transmitted to all elements of the patient\"s immune system in a process that occurs naturally, in which genetic information is passed from cell to cell. This makes sure that, should the patient **e into contact with the real problem, his body is well equipped and trained to deal with it, having already done so before. There are dangers inherent in the process, however. On occasion, even the weakened version of the disease contained in the vaccine proves

too much for the body to handle, resulting in the immune system succumbing, and, therefore, the patient\"s death. Such is the case of the smallpox vaccine, designed to eradicate the smallpox epidemic that nearly wiped out the entire Native American population and killed massive numbers of settlers. Approximately 1 in 10,000 people who receives the vaccine contract the smallpox disease from the vaccine itself and dies from it. Thus, if the entire population of the United States were to receive the Smallpox Vaccine today, 3000 Americans would be left dead. Fortunately, the smallpox virus was considered eradicated in the early 1970\"s, ending the mandatory vaccination of all babies in America. In the event of a reintroduction of the disease, however, mandatory vaccinations may resume, resulting in more unexpected deaths from vaccination. The process, which is truly a mixed blessing, may indeed hide some hidden curses. 11. The best title for the text may be ______. A. Vaccinations: A Blessing or A Curse. B. Principles of Vaccinations.

C. Vaccines: Methods and Implications. D. A Miracle Cure Under Attack.

12. What does the example of the Smallpox Vaccine illustrate? A. A possible negative outcome of administering vaccines.

B. The practical use of a vaccine to control an epidemic disease. C. A method by which vaccines are employed against the disease. D. The effectiveness of vaccines in curing certain disease.

13. The phrase \"ward it off naturally\" (Paragraph 2) most probably means ______. A. dispose of it naturally. B. combat against it readily. C. attend to it reluctantly. D. split it up properly.

14. Which of the following is true according to the text?

A. Saving the majority would necessarily justify the death of the minority. B. The immune system can be trained to fight weaker versions of a disease. C. Mandatory vaccinations are indispensable to the survival of the populace. D. The process of vaccination remains a mystery to be further resolved. 15. The purpose of the author in writing this passage is ______. A. to comment and criticize. B. to demonstrate and argue. C. to interest and entertain. D. to explain and inform.

Euthanasia is clearly a deliberate and intentional aspect of a killing. Taking a human life, even with subtle rites and consent of the party involved is barbaric. No one can justly kill another human being. Just as it is wrong for a serial killer to murder, it is wrong for a physician to do so as well, no matter what the motive for doing so may be. Many thinkers, including almost all orthodox Catholics, believe that euthanasia is immoral. They oppose killing patients in any circumstances whatever. However, they think it is all right, in some special circumstances, to allow patients to die by withholding treatment. The American Medical Association\"s policy statement on mercy killing supports this traditional view. In my paper \"Active and Passive Euthanasia\" I argue, against the traditional view, that there is in fact no normal difference between

killing and letting die—if one is permissible, then so is the other. Professor Sullivan does not dispute my argument; instead he dismisses it as irrelevant. The traditional doctrine, he says, does not appeal to or depend on the distinction between killing and letting die. Therefore, arguments against that distinction \"leave the traditional position untouched\". Is my argument really irrelevant? I don\"t see how it can be. As Sullivan himself points out, nearly everyone holds that it is sometimes meaningless to prolong the process of dying and that in those cases it is morally permissible to let a patient die even though a few more hours or days could be saved by procedures that would also increase the agonies of the dying. But if it is impossible to defend a general distinction between letting people die and acting to terminate their lives directly, then it would seem that active euthanasia also may be morally permissible. But traditionalists like Professor Sullivan hold that active euthanasia—the direct killing of patients—is not morally permissible; so, if my argument is sound, their view must be mistaken. I can not agree, then, that my argument \"leave the traditional position untouched\". However, I shall not press this point. Instead I shall present some further arguments against the traditional position, concentrating on those elements of the position which professor Sullivan himself thinks most important. According to him, what is important is, first, that we should never intentionally terminate the life of a patient, either by action or omission, and second, that we may cease or omit treatment of a patient, knowing that this will result in death, only if the means of treatment involved are extraordinary. 16. The author\"s purpose in writing this passage is ______. A. to air his opinions on Sullivan\"s arguments. B. to attack the traditional view on euthanasia. C. to explain how his argument is much relevant. D. to draw a line between killing and letting die.

17. According to the author, the views held by traditional orthodox Catholics on euthanasia is ______.

A. rather confusing. B. partially reasonable. C. quite convincing. D. totally groundless.

18. Which of the following best defines the word \"omission\" (Paragraph 6)? A. Involvement. B. Sympathy. C. Suspension. D. Dismissal.

19. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A. Euthanasia is a term whose meanings are too subtle to be definite.

B. Sullivan contends that there is difference between killing and letting die. C. Modern medicine has assisted terminally ill patients in painless recovery. D. The author doesn\"t agree that he left the traditional position untouched. 20. It seems that the writer is most concerned about ______. A. the interpretations of euthanasia. B. the sufferings of the dying.

C. the effects of medical treatments. D. the traditional view on death. Part B

You are going to read a text about The Big Melt, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best

example from the list A—F for each numbered subheading (41—45). There is one extra example which you do not need to use. Say goodbye to the world\"s tropical glaciers and ice caps. Many will vanish within 20 years. When Lonnie Thompson visited Peru\"s Quelccaya ice cap in 1977, he couldn\"t help noticing a school-bus-size boulder that was upended by ice pushing against it. Thompson returned to the same spot last year, and the boulder was still there, but it was lying on its side. The ice that once supported the massive rock had retreated far into the distance, leaving behind a giant lake as it melted away. Foe Thompson, a geologist with Ohio State University\"s Byrd Polar Research Center, the rolled-back rock was an obvious sign of climate change in the Andes Mountains. \"Observing that over 25 years personally really brings it home\he says. \"You don\"t have to be a believer in global warming to see what\"s happening\". (41) Thawed ice caps in the tropics. Quelccaya is the largest ice cap in the tropics, but it isn\"t the only one that is melting, according to decades of research by Thompson\"s team. No tropical glaciers are currently known to be advancing, and Thompson predicts that many mountaintops will be completely melted within the next 20 years. (42) Situation in areas other than the tropics. The phenomenon isn\"t confined to the tropics. Glaciers in Europe, Russia, New Zealand, the United States, and elsewhere are also melting. (43) The worsening effects of global warming. For many scientists, the widespread melt-down is a clear sign that humans are affecting global climate, primarily by raising the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (44) Receding ice caps. That\"s not to say that glaciers, currently found on every continent except Australia, haven\"t melted in the past as a result of natural variability. These rivers of ice exist in a delicate balance between inputs (accumulating snow and ice) and outputs (melting and \"calving\" of large chunks of ice). Over time, the balance can tilt in either direction, causing glaciers to advance or retreat. What\"s different now is the speed at which the scales have tipped. \"We\"ve been surprised at how rapid the rate of retreat has been\says Thompson. His team began mapping one of the main glaciers flowing out of the Quelccaya ice cap in 1978, using satellite images and ground surveys. (45) Thinning ice cores. And its\" not just the margin of the ice cap that is melting. At Quelccaya and Mount Kilimanjaro, the researchers have found that the ice fields are thinning as well. Besides mapping ice caps and glaciers, Thompson and his colleagues have taken core samples from Quelccaya since 1976, when the ice at the drilling location was 154 meters thick. Thompson and his colleagues have also drilled ice cores from other locations in South America, Africa, and China. Trapped within each of these cores is a climate record spanning more than 8,000 years. It shows that the past 50 years are the warmest in history. The 4-inch-thick ice cores are now stored in freezers at Ohio State. On the future, says Thompson, that may be the only place to see what\"s left of the glaciers of Africa and Peru.A. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, prepared by hundreds of scientists and approved by government delegates from more than 100 nations, states. \"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities\". The report, released in January, says that the planet\"s average surface temperature increased by about 0.6℃ during the 20th century, and is projected to increase another 1.4℃ to 5.8℃ by 2100. That rate of warming is \"with-out precedent during at least the last 10,000 years\nontropical regions, for example, have receded by more than 10 kilometers during the past century. And a study by geologists at the University of Colorado at Boulder predicts that Glacier National Park in Montana, under the influence of melting, will lose all of its glaciers by 2070.C. For

example, about 97 per cent of the planet\"s water is seawater. Another 2 per cent is locked in icecaps and glaciers. There are also reserves of fresh water under the earth\"s surface but these are too deep for us to use economically.D. For example, Africa\"s Mount Kilimanjaro in tropical areas has lost 82 percent of its ice field since it was first mapped in 1912. That year, Kilimanjaro had 12.1 square kilometers of ice. By last year, the ice covered only 2.2 square kilometers. At the current rate of melting, the snows of Kilimanjaro that Ernest Hemingway wrote about will be gone within 15 years, Thompson estimates. \"But it probably will happen sooner, because the rate is speeding up\".E. \"I fully expect to be able to return there in a dozen years or so and see the marks on the rock where our drill bit punched through the ice\mean that a layer of ice more than 500 feet thick has vanished into thin air.F. The glacier, Qori Kalis, was then retreating by 4.9 meters per year. Every time the scientists returned, Qori Kalis was melting faster. Between 1998 and 2000, it was retreating at a rate of 155 meters per years (more than a foot per day), 32 times faster than in 1978. \"You can almost sit there and watch it move\21. 22. 23. 24.

Part CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese.

The old adage of the title has a parallel in the scientific world \"all research leads to biomedical advances\". The fact that research in one discipline contributes to another is well understood by the **munity. It is not, however, so clear to the public or to public policy-makers. (46)Because public support for funding of biomedical research is strong, the **munity could build a more effective case for public support of all science by articulating how research in other disciplines benefits biological medicine.The time is ripe to improve public appreciation of science. A recent National Science Foundation survey suggested that Americans continue to support research expenditures. In addition, public opinion polls indicate that scientists and science leaders enjoy enviably high public esteems. (47)Instead of lamenting the lack of public understanding of science, we can work to enhance public appreciation of scientific research by showing how investigations are in many areas close-knit and contribute to biomedical advances.A crucial task is to convey to the public, in easily understood terms, the specific benefits and the overall good that result from research in all areas of science. Take, for example, agricultural research. (48)On the surface, it may appear to have made few significant contributions to biomedical advances, except those directly related to human nutrition.This view is incorrect, however. In the case of nutrition, the connections between agricultural and biomedical research are best exemplified by the vitamin discoveries. (49)At the turn of the century, when the concept of vitamins had not yet surfaced and nutrition as a scientific discipline did not exist, it was in a department of agricultural chemistry that the first true demonstration of vitamins was made.Single-grain feeding experiments documented the roles of vitamins A and B. The essential role of some minerals (iron and copper) was shown later, and these discoveries provided the basis of modern human nutrition research. (50)Despite such direct links, however, it is the latest discoveries that have been made in agricultural research that reveal its true importance to biomedicine.Life-saving antibiotics such as streptomycin were discovered in soil microorganisms. The first embryo transplant was made in a dairy cow, and

related research led to advances in the understanding of human reproduction. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

3. Writing

Section III Writing

Part ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information.

1. The Students\" Union of English Department will hold an English speech contest. You are required to write a poster through which students and teachers can be informed of the event. The poster should include: 1) schedule of the contest, 2) and requirements and other details. Write your letter in no less than 100 words and write it neatly.

Part BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information.

2. A. Study the following picture carefully and write an essay in no less than 160—200 words. B. Your essay must be written clearly. C. Your essay should meet the requirements below: 1) Describe the picture 2) interpret its meaning, and 3) give **ments.