2013年考研英语二真命题及其规范标准答案

2013全国硕士研究生入学统一考试英语二试题MBA, MPA, MPAcc 专业硕士统一考试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 on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)（本题答案在题号后）Given the advantage of electronic money, you might think that we should move quickly to the cashless society in which all payments are made electronically. _1 However , a true cashless society is probably not around the corner. Indeed, predictions have been 2around_ for two decades but have not yet come to fruition.For example, Business Week predicted in 1975 that electronic means of payment “would soon revolutionize the very 3.concept of money itself,” only to 4.reverse itself several years later. Why has the movement to a cashless society been so 5.slow in coming?Although e-money might be more convenient and may be more efficient than a payments system based on paper, several factors work 6.against the disappearance of the paper system. First, it is very 7.expensive to set up the computer, card reader, and telecommunications networks necessary to make electronic money the 8.dominant form of payment.Second, electronic means of payment 14.raise security and privacy concerns. We often hear media reports that an unauthorized hacker has been able to access a computer database and to alter information 15.stored there.Because this is not an 16.uncommon occurrence, unscrupulous persons might be able to access bank accounts in electronic payments systems and 17.steal funds by moving them from someone else’s accounts into their own. The 18.prevention of this type of fraud is no easy task, and a whole new field of computer science has developed to 19.cope with security issues. A further concern is that the use of electronic means of payment leaves an electronic 20.trail that contains a large amount of personal data on buying habits.1. [A] However [B] Moreover [C] Therefore [D] Otherwise2. [A] off [B] back [C] over [D] around3. [A] power [B] concept [C] history [D] role4. [A] reward [B] resist [C] resume [D] reverse5. [A] silent [B] sudden [C] slow [D] steady6. [A] for [B] against [C]with [D] on7. [A] imaginative [B] expensive [C] sensitive [D] productive8. [A] similar [B] original [C] temporary [D] dominant9. [A] collect [B] provide [C] copy [D] print10. [A] give up [B] take over [C] bring back [D] pass down11. [A] before [B] after [C] since [D] when12. [A] kept [B] borrowed [C] released [D] withdrawn13. [A] Unless [B] Until [C] Because [D] Though14. [A] hide [B] express [C] raise [D]ease15. [A] analyzed [B] shared [C] stored [D] displayed16. [A] unsafe [B] unnatural [C] uncommon [D] unclear17. [A] steal [B] choose [C] benefit [D] return18. [A] consideration [B] prevention [C] manipulation [D] justification19. [A] cope with [B] fight against [C] adapt to [D] call for20. [A] chunk [B] chip [C] path [D] trailSection II Reading ComprehensionPart ADirections:Read the following four texts. Answer the questions after each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)Text 1In an essay, entitled “Making It in America,” in the latest issue of The Atlantic, the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from cotton country about just how much a modern textile mill has been automated: The average mill has only two employees today, “a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines.”Davidson’s article is one of a number of pieces that have recent ly appeared making the point that the reason we have such stubbornly high unemployment and sagging middle-class incomes today is largely because of the big drop in demand because of the Great Recession, but it is also because of the quantum advances in both globalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidly than ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers.In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, ave rage is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over.Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total —disappeared.”And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Last April, Annie Lowrey of Slate wrote about a start-up called “E la Carte” that is out to shrink the need for waiters and waitresses: The company “has produced a kind of souped-up iPad that lets you order and pay right at your table. The brainchild of a bunch of M.I.T. engineers, the nifty invention, known as the Presto, might be found at a restaurant near you soon. ... You select what you want to eat and add items to a cart. Depending on the restaurant’s preferences, the console could show you nutritional information, ingredients lists and photographs. You can make special requests, like ‘dressing on the side’ or ‘quintuple bacon.’ When you’re d one, the order zings over to the kitchen, and the Presto tells you how long it will take for your items to come out. ... Bored with your companions? Play games on the machine. When you’re through with your meal, you pay on the console, splitting the bill i tem by item if you wish and paying however you want. And you can have your receipt e-mailed to you. ... Eachconsole goes for $100 per month. If a restaurant serves meals eight hours a day, seven days a week, it works out to 42 cents per hour per table — making the Presto cheaper than even the very cheapest waiter.”What the iPad won’t do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider this paragraph from Sunday’s terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher about why Apple doe s so much of its manufacturing in China: “Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was produc ing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.’ ”And automation is not just coming to manufacturing, explains Curtis Carlson, the chief executive of SRI International, a Silicon Valley idea lab that invented the Apple iPhone program known as Siri, the digital personal assistant. “Siri is the beginning of a huge transformation in how we interact with banks, insurance companies, retail stores, health care providers, information retrieval services and product services.”There will always be change — new jobs, new products, new services. But the one thing we know for sure is that with each advance in globalization and the I.T. revolution, the best jobs will require workers to have more and better education to make themselves above average. Here are the latest unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Americans over 25 years old: those with less than a high school degree, 13.8 percent; those with a high school degree and no college, 8.7 percent; those with some college or associate degree, 7.7 percent; and those with bachelor’s degree or higher, 4.1 percent.In a world where average is officially over, there are many things we need to do to buttress employment, but nothing would be more important than passing some kind of G.I. Bill for the 21st century that ensures that every American has access to post-high school education.21. The joke in Paragraph 1 is used to illustrate_______[A] the impact of technological advances[B] the alleviation of job pressure[C] the shrinkage of textile mills[D] the decline of middle-class incomes22. According to Paragraph 3, to be a successful employee, one has to______[A] work on cheap software[B] ask for a moderate salary[C] adopt an average lifestyle[D] contribute something unique23. The quotation in Paragraph 4 explains that ______[A] gains of technology have been erased[B] job opportunities are disappearing at a high speed[C] factories are making much less money than before[D] new jobs and services have been offered24. According to the author, to reduce unemployment, the most important is_____[A] to accelerate the I.T. revolution[B] to ensure more education for people[C] ro advance economic globalization[D] to pass more bills in the 21st century25. Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the text?[A] New Law Takes Effect[B] Technology Goes Cheap[C] Average Is Over[D] Recession Is BadText 2Imagine a new immigration policyA century ago, the immigrants from across the Atlantic included settlers and sojourners. Along with the many folks looking to make a permanent home in the United States came those who had no intention to stay, and who would make some money and then go home. Between 1908 and 1915, about 7 million people arrived while about 2 million departed. About a quarter of all Italian immigrants, for example, eventually returned to Italy for good. They even had an affectionate nickname, "uccelli di passaggio," birds of passage.Today, we are much more rigid about immigrants. We divide newcomers into two categories: legal or illegal, good or bad. We hail them as Americans in the making, or brand them as aliens fit for deportation. That framework has contributed mightily to our broken immigration system and the long political paralysis over how to fix it.We don't need more categories, but we need to change the way we think about categories. We need to look beyond strict definitions of legal and illegal. To start, we can recognize the new birds of passage, those living and thriving in the gray areas. We might then begin to solve our immigration challenges.Crop pickers, violinists, construction workers, entrepreneurs, engineers, home health-care aides and particle physicists are among today's birds of passage. They are energetic participants in a global economy driven by the flow of work, money and ideas. They prefer to come and go as opportunity calls them. They can manage to have a job in one place and a family in another.With or without permission, they straddle laws, jurisdictions and identities with ease. We need them to imagine the United States as a place where they can be productive for a while without committing themselves to staying forever. We need them to feel that home can be both here and there and that they can belong to two nations honorably.Imagine life with a radically different immigration policy: The Jamaican woman who came as a visitor and was looking after your aunt until she died could try living in Canada for a while. You could eventually ask her to come back to care for your mother.The Indian software developer could take some of his Silicon Valley earnings home to join friends in a little start-up, knowing that he could always work in California again. Or the Mexican laborer who busts his back on a Wisconsin dairy farm for wages that keep milk cheap would come and go as needed because he could decide which dairy to work for, and a bi-national bank program was helping him save money to build a better life for his kids in Mexico.Accommodating this new world of people in motion will require new attitudes on both sides of the immigration battle. Looking beyond the culture war logic of right or wrong means opening up the middle ground and understanding that managing immigration today requires multiple paths and multiple outcomes, including some that are not easy to accomplish legally in the existing system.A new system that encourages both sojourners and settlers would not only help ensure that our society receives the human resources it will need in the future, it also could have an added benefit: Changing the rigid framework might help us resolve the status of the estimated 11 million unauthorized migrants who are our shared legacy of policy failures.Currently, we do not do gray zones well. Hundreds of thousands of people slosh around in indeterminate status because they're caught in bureaucratic limbo or because they have been granted temporary stays that are repeatedly extended. President Barack Obama created a paler shade of gray this summer by exercising prosecutorial discretion not to deport some young people who were brought to this country illegally as children. But these are exceptions, not rules.The basic mechanism for legal immigration today, apart from the special category of refugee, is the legal permanent resident visa, or green card. Most recipients are people sponsored by close relatives who live in the United States. As the name implies, this mechanism is designed for immigrants who are settling down. The visa can be revoked if the holder does not show "intent to remain" by not maintaining a U.S. address, going abroad to work full time or just traveling indefinitely. Legal residents are assumed to be on their way to becoming Americans, physically, culturally and legally. After five years of living here, they become eligible for citizenship and a chance to gain voting rights and full access to the social safety net.This is a fine way to deal with people who arrive with deep connections to the country and who resolve to stay. That can and should be most immigrants. But this mechanism has two problems: The nation is not prepared to offer citizenship to every migrant who is offered a job. And not everyone who comes here wants to stay forever.It may have once made sense to think of immigrants as sodbusters who were coming to settle empty spaces. But that antique reasoning does not apply when the country is looking at a long, steep race to remain competitive in the world economy, particularly not when innovation and entrepreneurship are supposed to be our comparative advantage. To succeed, we need modern birds of passage.The challenges differ depending on whether you are looking at the high end of the skills spectrum, the information workers or at low-skilled laborers.A frequent proposal for highly skilled workers comes with the slogan, "Staple a green card to the diploma." That is supposed to ensure that a greater share of brainy international students remain in the United States after earning degrees in science and technology. But what if they are not ready for a long-term commitment? No one would suggest that investment capital or design processes need to reside permanently in one nation. Talent today yearns to be equally mobile. Rather than try to oblige smart young people from abroad to stay here, we should allow them to think of the United States as a place where they can always return, a place where they will spend part, not all, of their lives, one of several places where they can live and work and invest.Temporary-worker programs are a conventional approach to meeting low-skilled labor needs without illegal immigration. That's what President George W. Bush proposed in 2004, saying the government should "match willing foreign workers with willing American employers." An immigrant comes to do a particular job for a limited period of time and then goes home. But such programs risk replacing one kind of rigidity with another. The relatively small programs currently in place don't manage the matchmaking very well.Competing domestic workers need to be protected, as do the migrant workers, and the process must be nimble enough to meet labor market demand. Nobody really has pulled that off, and there is no reason to believe it can be done on a grand scale. Rather than trying to link specific migrants to specific jobs, different types of temporary work visas could be pegged to industries, to places or to time periods. You could get an engineering visa, not only a visa to work at Intel.Both short-term visas and permanent residence need to be part of the mix, but they are not the whole answer. Another valuable tool is the provisional visa, which Australia uses as a kind of intermediary stage in which temporary immigrants spend several years before becoming eligible for permanent residency. The U.S. system practically obliges visitors to spend time here without authorization when they've married a citizen, gotten a job or done something else that qualifies them to stay legally.We also could borrow from Europe and create long-term permission to reside for certain migrants that is contingent on simply being employed, not on having a specific job. And, legislation could loosen the definitions of permanent residency so that migrants could gain a lifetime right to live and work in the United States without having to be here (and pay taxes here) more or less continuously.The idea that newcomers are either saints or sinners is not written indelibly either in our hearts or in our laws. As the size of the unauthorized population has grown over the past 20 years or so, the political response has dictated seeing immigration policy through the stark lens of law enforcement:Whom do we lock up, kick out, fence off? Prominent politicians of both parties, including both presidential candidates, have engaged in macho one-upmanship when it comes to immigration. So, President Obama broke records for deportations. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, vows to break records for border security.Breaking out of the either/or mentality opens up many avenues for managing future immigration. It could also help break the stalemate over the current population of unauthorized migrants. No election result will produce a Congress that offers a path to citizenship for everybody, but there is no support for total deportation, either.If we accept that there are spaces between legal and illegal, then options multiply.Citizenship could be an eventual outcome for most, not all, people here illegally, but everyone would get some kind of papers, and we can engineer a way for people to work their way from one status to another. The newly arrived and least attached could be granted status for a limited time and receive help with returning to their home countries. Others might be offered life-long privileges to live and work here, but not citizenship. We'd give the fullest welcome to those with homes, children or long time jobs.By insisting that immigrants are either Americans or aliens, we make it harder for some good folks to come and we oblige others to stay for the wrong reasons. Worse, we ensure that there will always be people living among us who are outside the law, and that is not good for them or us.26 “Birds of passage” refers to those who____[A] immigrate across the Atlantic.[B] leave their home countries for good.[C] stay in a foregin temporaily.[D]find permanent jobs overseas.27 It is implied in paragraph 2 that the current immigration stystem in the US____[A] needs new immigrant categories.[B] has loosened control over immigrants.[C] should be adopted to meet challenges.[D]has been fixeed via political means.28 According to the author, today’s birds of passage want___[A] fiancial incentives.[B] a global recognition.[C] opportunities to get regular jobs.[D]the freedom to stay and leave.29 The author suggests that the birds of passage today should be treated __[A] as faithful partners.[B] with economic favors.[C] with regal tolerance.[D]as mighty rivals.30 which is the most title?[A] come and go: big mistake.[B] living and thriving : great risk.[C] with or without : great risk.[D]legal or illegal: big mistake.Text 3Beyond the BlinkWhen the Supreme Court announced its decision on the Affordable Care Act last month, the media went wild. The rush to judgment took seconds. CNN and Fox News initially described the decision incorrectly, saying five justices had struck down the law. Even after corrections, the snap analysis that followed wasn’t very helpful. The multipart decision is complex, and its ramifications will take months or even years to understand.The blink response to this case is only the latest example of a troubling increase in the speed of our reactions. E-mail, social media and the 24-hour news cycle are informational amphetamines, a cocktail of pills that we pop at an increasingly fast pace — and that lead us to make mistaken split-second decisions. Economists lab el the problem “present bias”: we are vulnerable to fast, salient stimulation.Fortunately, there is an antidote: the conscious pause. Scientists have found that although we are prone to snap overreactions, if we take a moment and think about how we are likely to react, we can reduce or even eliminate the negative effects of our quick, hard-wired responses.For example, countless studies have shown that physicians’ immediate, unconscious reactions to racial minorities lead them to undertreat black patients. In one study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in 2007, researchers asked several hundred doctors about a hypothetical 50-year-old male patient who showed up with chest pain. The researchers gave the doctors a photograph of the man, randomly varying his race. Half saw him as white; half saw him as black.Sure enough, although the doctors insisted they were not racially biased, they were more likely to prescribe thrombolysis, an anti-blood-clotting procedure, for the white patient, while giving the black patient a less-aggressive prescription. The doctors didn’t appear racist, yet their unconscious snap reactions led them to treat blacks differently — the very definition of racism.However, about one in four of the doctors guessed that the study was designed to test racial bias. They stopped for a moment and considered how they might react differently depending onrace. The researchers found that this “aware” subgroup did not treat patients differently. Once they paused to consider whether race was an issue, race was no longer an issue.Snap decisions can be important defense mechanisms; if we are judging whether someone is dangerous, our brains and bodies are hard-wired to react very quickly, within milliseconds. But we need more time to assess other factors. To accurately tell whether someone is sociable, studies show, we need at least a minute, preferably five. It takes a while to judge complex aspects of personality, like neuroticism or open-mindedness. If we need to understand how nine justices resolved a difficult legal issue, we need even more time.But snap decisions in reaction to rapid, even subliminal stimuli aren’t exclusive to the interpersonal realm. Sanford DeVoe and Chen-Bo Zhong, psychologists at the University of Toronto, found that viewing a fast-food logo for just a few milliseconds primes us to read 20 percent faster, even though reading has little to do with eating. We unconsciously associate fast food with speed and impatience and carry those impulses into what ever else we’re doing. Subjects exposed to fast-food flashes also tend to think a musical piece lasts too long.Yet we can reverse such influences. If we know we will overreact to consumer products or housing options when we see a happy face (one reason good sales representatives and real estate agents are always smiling), we can take a moment before buying. If we know female job screeners are more likely to reject attractive female applicants, as a study by the economists Bradley Ruffle and Ze’ev Shtudin er shows, we can help screeners understand their biases — or hire outside screeners.John Gottman, the marriage guru made famous in Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book “Blink,” explains that we quickly “thin slice” information reliably only after we groun d such snap reactions in “thick sliced” long-term study. When Dr. Gottman really wants to assess whether a couple will stay together, he invites them to his island retreat for a much longer evaluation: two days, not two seconds.Our ability to mute our hard-wired reactions by pausing is what differentiates us from animals: primates and dogs can think about the future only intermittently or for a few minutes. But historically we have spent about 12 percent of our days contemplating the longer term.The beginning of summer is supposed to be the time for us to slow down and take a breath. Go to the beach with a few books. Spend downtime with family. Tune out. But instead of jumping into the swimming pool, we have leapt into a whirlpool of news.Still, alt hough technology might change the way we react, it hasn’t changed our nature. We still have the imaginative capacity to rise above temptation and reverse the high-speed trend. There are a couple of summer months left, and no time to waste.Frank Partnoy is a law professor at the University of San Diego and the author of “Wait: The Art and Science of Delay.”31. The time needed in making decisions may____.[A] vary according to the urgency of the situation[B] prove the complexity of our brain reaction[C] depend on the importance of the assessment[D] predetermine the accuracy of our judgment32. Our reaction to a fast-food logo shows that snao decisions____.[A] can be associative[B] are not unconscious[C] can be dangerous[D] are not impulsive33. Toreverse the negative influences of snap decisions,we should____.[A] trust our first impression[B] do as people usually do[C] think before we act[D] ask for expert advice34. John Gottman says that reliable snap reaction are based on____.[A] critical assessment[B]‘‘thin sliced ’’study[C] sensible explanation[D] adequate information35. The author’s attitude toward reversing the high-speed trend is____.[A] tolerant[B] uncertain[C] optimistic[D] doubtfulText4Europe is not a gender-equality heaven.In particular, the corporate workplace will never be completely family—friendly until women are part of senior management decisions,and Europe,s top corporate-governance positions remain overwhelmingly male .indeed,women hold only 14 percent of positions on Europe corporate boards.The Europe Union is now considering legislation to compel corporate boards to maintain a certain proportion of women-up to 60 percent.This proposed mandate was born of frustration. Last year, Europe Commission Vice President Viviane Reding issued a call to voluntary action. Reding invited corporations to sign up for gender balance goal of 40 percent female board membership. But her appeal was considered a failure: only 24 companies took it up.Do we need quotas to ensure that women can continue to climb the corporate Ladder fairy as they balance work and family?“Personally, I don’t like quotas,” Reding said recently. “But i like what the quotas do.” Quotas get action: they “open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling,” according to Reding, a result seen in France and other countries with legally binding provisions on placing women in top business positions.I understand Reding’s reluctance-and her frus tration. I don’t like quotas either; they run counter to my belief in meritocracy, government by the capable. Bur, when one considers the。