哈工大博士英语考试冲刺试题二

哈工大博士英语考试冲刺试题二Passage 1We have come a long way since 1896, and the clock cannot be turned back. Indeed, not only are women increasingly taking their rightful place on the Olympics athletics track, but there are also growing signs that the myth of their inevitable sporting inferiority may be about to be shattered for good.Women certainly are catching up fast. But although all the evidence points to a relentless closing of the gap between the athletics performances of men and women, there is still one last obstacle the women have to overcome: blind male prejudice.“Women can out-perform men in endurance events, and at extremes of heat and cold,” says Dr Graig Sharp, of Birmingham University’s Department of PhysicalEducation. “But in speed events, for a number of physiological reasons, the gender gap will level out at about 10 percent.” Other experts, however, see no reason why women won’t continue to narrow the gap even beyond that margin. “We cannot rely on physiology to assert that sex differences are fixed and inevitable. Women have always had fewer chances to train or participate to the same extent in most sports,” says Dr Kenneth Dyer of Adelaide University.In Britain sportswomen still face discrimination, even after the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act outlawed most forms of discrimination ongrounds of sex alone. In a section devoted specifically to the question of women in sport, the Act lays down that it is still perfectly legal to shut out women from “any sport, game or other activity of a competit ive nature where the physical strength, stamina or physique of the average women puts her at a disadvantage to the average man.” The legislationin its present form begs more questions than it answers. What is an average woman? Who decides whether she is at a disadvantage?During the 1930s, the Olympic Games were dominated by white, Anglo-Saxon males. Not because they were the best, but because they were the best of those who, for a variety of social, economic and cultural reasons were able to compete. Today, many of the same events ate dominated by black athletes. Is it inconceivable that when women have finally been offered the opportunities in the same numbers at the same competitive level, they too may leave men as equals?It is only 10 years since a US judge pronounced the immortal words:” Athletic competition builds character in our boys; we do not need that kind of character in our girls.” Time is catching up. And so are women.1. According to the text, the author believes that ____A. Women have become equals to men in sportsB. Women are inevitably inferior(身份)低下的，下级的) to men in sportsC. Women are at a disadvantage in most items of sportsD. The position of women in sports has changed with their achievements2. In the sentence “Women can out-perform men”, the word “out-perform” mean____A. DistinguishB. EnvyC. DefeatD. Match3. In paragraph 3, Dr. Graig Sharp’s statement shows that ____A. Women are physically and mentally weaker than menB. 10% women can surpass men in endurance sportsC. Women have either an advantage or a disadvantage in physiqueD. Women are catching up fast in their athletics performances4. The word “inconceivable”(Para.6, Sen.3) means ____A. ImaginableB. UnbelievableC. PredictableD. Impossible5. The function of paragraph 4 is ____A. To argue for the ActB. To use an example to support the idea in paragraph 1C. To reason out the controversies in paragraph 2D. To show an example of sex discriminationPassage 2It was the biggest scientific grudge match since the space race. The Genome Wars had everything: two groups with appealing leaders ready to fight in a scientific dead heat, pushing the limits of technology and rhetoric as they battled to become the first to read every last one of the 3 billion DNA “letters” in the human body. The scientific importance of the work is unquestionable. The completed DNA sequence is expected to give scientists unprecedented insights into the workings of the human body, revolutionizing medicine and biology. But the race itself, between the government’sHuman Genome Project and Rockville, Md., biotechnology company Celera Genomics, was at least partly symbolic, the public/private conflict played out in a genetic lab.Now the race is over. After years of public attacks and several failed attempts at reconciliation, the two sides are taking a step toward a period of calm. HGP head Francis Collins (and Ari Patrinos of the Department of Energy, an important ally on the government side) and Craig Venter, the founder of Celera, agreed to hold a joint press conference in Washington this Monday to declare that the race was over (sort of), that both sides had won (kind of) and that the hostilities were resolved (for the time being).No one is exactly sure how things will be different now. Neither side will be turning off its sequencing machines any time soon----the “finish lines” each has crossed arelargely arbitrary points, “first drafts” rather than thedefinitive version. And while the joint announcement brings the former Genome Warriors closer together than they’rebeen in years, insiders say that future agreements are more likelyto take the form of coordination, rather than outright collaboration.The conflict blew up this February when Britain’s Wellcome Trust,an HGPparticipant, released a confidential letter to Celera outlining the HGP’s complains.Venter called the move “a lowlife thing to do,” but by spring, there were the first signs of a thaw. “The attacks and nastiness are bad for science and our inve stors,” Venter told Newsweek in Match, “and fighting back is probably not helpful.” At a cancer meeting earlier this month, Venter and Collins praised each other’s approaches, andexpressed hope that all of the scientists involved in sequencing the human genome would be able to share the credit. By late last week, that hope was becoming a reality as details for Monday’s joint announcement were hammered out. Scientists in both camps welcomed an end to the hostilities. “If this ends the horse race, science wins.” With their difference behind them, or at least set aside, the scientists should now be able to get down to the interesting stuff: figuring how to make use of all that data.6. The recent Genome Wars were symbolic of _____A. The enthusiasm in scientific researchB. The significance of the space raceC. The public versus private conflictD. The prospect of the completion of DNA sequence7. The tone of the author to what they will say on the joint press conference this Monday is____A. AstonishedB. Enthusiastic热心的，热情的;热烈的C. DisappointedD. Doubtful8. It is implies in the third paragraph that ____A. The “finish lines” does mean what it readsB. The sequencing machines have stopped at the “finish lines”C. The former warriors are now collaboratorsD. Both sides will work on independently9. The word “thaw” (line3, para4) most probably means ____A. Aggravation in tensionB. Improvement in relationC. Intensification in attacksD. Stoppage of coordination10. The critical thing facing the scientists is to ____A. Apply the newly-found knowledge to the benefit of mankindB. End their horse race for the success of scienceC. Get down to their genome researchD. Set their differences asidePassage 3Family is older than the human species, work is younger, friendship is about as old as we are. It is friendship that marks us as human. The biologist Lewis Thomas wrote an essay comparing human being with termites. Termites build nests as elaborate and as well designed as our cathedrals. Every termite nest is an architectural wonder, with arches, vaults, galleries, ventilators, storerooms, and nurseries. But no single termite carries the architectural plan in her head. The building of the nest is a collective process. Each termite rolls little balls of mud and sticks them onto other little balls rolled by her neighbors. Out of this collective rolling and sticking the cathedral grows. (状语提前)Thomas is saying that human societies grow in the same fashion. Instead of rolling mud balls we play words. Instead of piling arch upon arch to make a nest we pile conversation upon conversation to make a culture. Just as no single termite knows how to build a nest, no single human knows how to build a culture. A single termite alone cannot survive, and a single human being alone is not human. Human societies are glued together with conversation and friendship. Conversation is the natural and characteristic activity of human beings. Friendship is the milieu within which we function.Work came later in human history than conversation. We invented work when we becamecivilized. Unlike friendship, work is a mixed blessing. At its worst, work is slavery. At its best, work is a sustained and lifelong conversation. The more satisfying and enjoyable work is, the more it partakers of the nature of conversation. Science at the working level is mostly conversation. The building where I work has twenty people in twenty rooms. Most of the doors are open. From morning till night the buzz of conversation seldom ceases. That is the way science is done. When I am not talking with friends down the hall, I am writing papersfor friends around the world. Without the friends, my activity would be pointless. Scientists are as gregarious as species as termites. If the lives of scientists are on the whole joyful, it is because ourfriendships are deep and lasting. Our friendships are lasting because we are engaged in a collective enterprise. Our enterprise, the exploration of nature’s secrets, had nobeginning and will have no end. Exploration is as natural anactivity for human beings as conversation. Our friends the explorers are scattered over the centuries, from Archimedes and Euclid to the unborn genius who will one day understand the mystery of how our exploring minds work.11. Human species distinguish itself from other animals by ____A. Collective workingB. Smooth cooperationC. Immense workingD. Lasting friendship12. The writer’s analogy of termites to human beings suggests that ____A. The building of the neat is a collective processB. Human societies grow in the nest-building fashionC. The nest-making may be likened to culture-makingD. An architectural wonder must be as elaborate as a termite nest13. According to the author, work as one of human inventions is ____A. The source of civilizationB. The product of civilizationC. A premise of civilizationD. A foundation of civilization14. According to the text, friendship emerged in scientists as a result of ____A. Their ceaseless conversationB. The exact number of colleagues and friendsC. The efficiency of making friends on phoneD. Their friendly wording situation15. In the last paragraph, “Scientists are as gregarious as species as termites” where ‘gregarious’is equivalent to ____A. Living in the company of othersB. Industrious in terms of workC. CivilizedD. IngeniousPassage 4happened to them. The world has been Globalization belonged to us; financial crisesturned on its head. Consumers in the wealthiest nations arestruggling with the consequences of the credit crunch and with the soaring cost of energy and food. In China, retail sales have been rising at an annual 15 percent. I cannot think of a better description of the emerging global order.The trouble is that the politics of globalization lags ever further behind the economics. For all its tacit recognition that power has been flowing eastwards, the west still wants to imagine things as they used to be. In this world of them and us, “they” are accused in the USpres idential contest of stealing “our” jobs. Now, you hear Europeans say, “they” are driving up international commodity prices by burning “our” fuel and eating “our” food.What struck me, though, was how this crisis (no one is sure it is over) provides a perfect metaphor for the new geopolitical landscape.Think back to the financial shocks of the 1980s and 1990s. For those of us in the west, these were unfortunate events in faraway places; Latin America, Russia, Asia, Latin American again. There was a risk of contagion, but in so far as rich nations paid a price, it lay largely in the cost of bailing out their own feckless banks. The really unpleasant medicine, prescribed by the International Monetary Fund, had to be taken by the far less fortunate borrowers.The parameters of globalization were set by the west. Liberalization of trade and capital flows was a project owned largely by the US. It was not quite an imperialist enterprise, but, while everyone was supposed to gain from economic integration, the unspoken assumption was that the biggest benefits would flow to the richest. The rules were set out in something called, unsurprisingly, the Washington Consensus.Against that background, the west’s present discomfort is replete with irony. Asizeable chunk of the excess savings that inflated the credit bubble were a product of the Washington Consensus. Never again, the victims of the 1997 East Asian crisis said to themselves after being forced to take the IMF’s medicine. This would be the lasttime they were held hostage to western bailouts. Instead they amassed their own hugeforeign currency reserves.So the boot is now on the other foot. The IMF is forecasting thatthe advanced economies will just about keep their heads above water. With luck, growth this year and next will come in at a touch above 1 percent. If they do avoid recession----and most of my American friends think it unlikely as far as the US is concerned----they will have to thank robust growth rates in Asia and Latin America. The forecast for China is growth of about 9 percent in both years, for India 8 percent and for emerging and developing economies as a whole something more than 6 percent.The old powers have not grasped this new reality. There are nods, of course, to a need to restructure international institutions. The rising nations, you hear western politicians aver, must be given more of a voice. More seats, maybe, at the World Bank, the United Nations and, yes, on the board of the IMF. But the assumption is that the rising powerswill simply be accommodated within the existing system----a small adjustment here, a tweak there and everything will be fine again.Missing is a willingness to see that this is a transformational moment that demands we look at the world entirely afresh.16. According to the passage, we can draw the conclusion that the statement “Globalizationbelonged to us; financial crisis happened to them” is ____A. A valid view held by most EuropeansB. An illusion cherished by most EuropeansC. A result due to the differences between nationsD. A sensible forecast17. The sentence “The world has been turned on its head” can be paraphrased as ____A. The world is radically transformedB. The development pace is acceleratedC. The world is in total confusionD. God has altered it favor18. At the end of the second paragraph, the author employs several “they” and “our” to aim at____A. A vivid descriptionB. An ironic effectC. A precise conclusionD. Being objective19. According to the passage, the financial shocks of the 1980s and 1990s ____A. Is beneficial to the westB. Is strictly confined to the less developed nationsC. Mainly plagued the less developed nationsD. Is attributed to the rich countries20. Which of the following is true?A. The rich countries have made a sense of the new realityB. The countries other than the rich ones have learnt their lessons from the past crisesC. The globalization was launched by the eastD. The globalization only benefits the westPassage 5According to Aristotle, the subject of tragic drama were rightly drawn from ancient mythology, a source considered invariably reliable, for it was believed that if man had invented such strange incidents, they would have appeared impossible. Furthermore, the chief characters of a tragic action should be persons of consequence, of exalted station, according to Aristotle, and the leading personage should not be a mancharacterized by great virtue or great vice, but of a mixed nature, a proclivity for errors and weaknesses that lead him in to misfortune. Such a mixture of good and evil makes the protagonist seem like ourselves, thus more quickly arousing the spectator’ssympathy, saturating him with feelings of compassion, driving outhis petty personal emotions, and thus “purging” the soul through pity and terror. The crimes suitable for tragic treatment may be committed either in ignorance, or intentionally, and are commonly against friends or relatives, though crimes committed intentionally are generally the more dramatic and impressive----this in spite of the fact that the central crime in Oedipus the King was committed in ignorance. As to style, a certain archaic quality of diction is needful to the dignity of tragedy.Another of the most famous of the Aristotelian rules were those relating to the so-called unities of time, place, and action. The unity of time limits the supposed action to the duration of a single day,unity of place limits it to one general locally; and unity of action limits the play to a single set of incidents related cause and effect, “having a beginning, a middle, and an end.” Concerning the unity of time, Aristotlenoted that all the plays since Aeschylus, except two, did illustrate such unity, but he did not lay down such a precept as obligatory. Perhaps tacitly he assumed that observance of the unity of place would be the practice of good playwrights, since the chorus was present duringthe whole performance, and it would indeed be awkward always to devise an excuse for moving fifteen persons about from place to place.But the third unity, that of action, is bound up with the nature not only of Greek but of all drama, for Aristotle conceived the action, or plot, of a play as of far greater importance than the。