中国科学院硕士英语-14.doc
中国科学院硕士英语-14
(总分：93.00，做题时间：90分钟)
一、Part Ⅰ Reading Compr(总题数：0，分数：0.00)
二、Section A(总题数：0，分数：0.00)
三、Passage 1(总题数：1，分数：12.00)
Lately I got a chance to read People magazine"s most recent compilation of "The 50 Most Beautiful People in the World." It was fabulous. In addition to offering helpful grooming tips, the issue involves an attempt to answer one of the most difficult questions of our time: Which is ultimately more influential, nature or nurture?
Consider first the extreme nurturists, who abstain from the notion that anything is biologically fixed. There"s John Watson, famous for the statement: "Give me a child and let me control the total environment in which he is raised, and I will turn him into whatever I wish."
A nurture viewpoint is also advanced by TV star Jenna Elfman, who attributes her beauty to drinking 100 ounces of water a day, and using a moisturizer that costs $1,000 a pound. However, even a beginner in the study of human developmental biology might easily note that no degree of expensive moisturizers would get, say, me on People"s beauty list.
Naturally, similarly strong opinions come from the opposing, nature faction—the genetic determinists among the Most Beautiful. Perhaps the cockiest of this school is Josh Brolin, an actor whose statement could readily serve as a manifesto for those in his profession: "I was given my dad"s good genes."
One searches the pages for a middle ground, for the interdisciplinary synthesizer who perceives the contributions of both nature and nurture. At last, we find Monica, a singer, who has an absolutely wondrous skill for applying makeup. This, at first, seems like just more nurture propaganda. But where does she get this cosmetic aptitude? Her mother supplies the answer: it"s something that"s inborn. One gasps at the insight: There is a genetic influence on how one interacts with the environment. Too bad a few more people can"t think this way when figuring out what genes have to do with intelligence, substance abuse, or violence.
In matters of human beauty, hardwired preferences matter but can be overcome. Novelist George Eliot was strikingly homely, but her magnetic character inspired Henry James to write in a letter: "She is magnificently ugly—deliciously hideous. She has a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous nose, a huge mouth, and full of uneven teeth... Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes, steals forth and charms the mind, so that you end as I ended, in falling in love with her."（分数：12.00）
(1).The article suggests that People magazine regularly ______.（分数：2.00）
A.provides a list of the most beautiful people in the world
B.gives advice about how to look like international beauties
C.provides guidance on answering complex questions
D.offers help in dealing with marriage or family problems
(2).What John Watson said can best be interpreted as ______.（分数：2.00）
A.parents" oversight guides a child"s growth
B.one"s upbringing determines what they become
C.a change of environment affects one"s health
D.child-raising is by no means easy
(3).According to Paragraph 3, the author believes ______.（分数：2.00）
A.one can get prettier if drinking enough water every day
B.Jenna Elfman"s experience is worth publicizing
C.the secrets of beauty are found in human biology
D.beauty must depend on more than one or two factors
(4).According to the author, Josh Brolin"s statement shows that the actor is ______.（分数：
2.00）
A.over-charming
B.over-assertive
C.over-confident
D.over-sensitive
(5).As an example in favor of both nature and nurture, the author feels that Monica"s mother is rather ______.（分数：2.00）
A.insightful
B.absurd
C.justifiable
D.irrelevant
(6).As he wrote, Henry James fell in love with George Eliot because of ______.（分数：2.00）
A.her unique ugliness
B.her attractive character
C.her masculine beauty
D.her skillful writing
四、Passage 2(总题数：1，分数：12.00)
All countries have obvious incentives to learn from past mistakes, but those that have successfully risen to the status of great powers may be less inclined to adapt quickly in the future. When it comes to learning the right lessons, paradoxically, nothing fails like prior success. This wouldn"t seem to make sense. After all, strong and wealthy states can afford to devote a lot of resources to analyzing important foreign-policy problems. But then again, when states are really powerful, the negative consequences of foolish behavior rarely prove fatal. Just as America"s "Big Three" automakers were so large and dominant they could resist reform and innovation despite ample signs that foreign competition was rapidly overtaking them, strong and wealthy states can keep misguided policies in place and still manage to limp along for many years. The history of the Soviet Union offers an apt example of this phenomenon. Soviet-style communism was woefully inefficient and brutally inhumane, and its Marxist-Leninist ideology both alarmed the capitalist world and created bitter splits within the international communist movement. Yet the Soviet Union survived for almost 70 years and was one of the world"s two superpowers for more than four decades. The United States has also suffered serious self-inflicted wounds on the foreign-policy front in recent decades, but the consequences have not been so severe as to compel a broader reassessment of the ideas and strategies that have underpinned many of these mistakes. The tendency to cling to questionable ideas or failed practices will be particularly strong when a set of policy initiatives is bound up in a great power"s ruling ideology or political culture. Soviet leaders could never quite abandon the idea of world revolution, and defenders of British and French colonialism continued to see it as the "white man"s burden. "Today, U.S. leaders remain stubbornly committed to the goals of nation-building and democracy promotion despite their discouraging track record with these endeavors.
Yet because the universal ideals of liberty and democracy are core American principles, it is hard for U.S. leaders to acknowledge that other societies cannot be readily remade in America"s image. Even when U.S. leaders recognize that they cannot create "some sort of Central Asian Valhalla," as Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged in 2009, they continue to spend billions of dollars trying to build democracy in Afghanistan, a largely traditional society that has never had a strong central state, let alone a democratic one.（分数：12.00）
(1).Concerning improvement based on past history, great powers often ______.（分数：2.00）
A.fail to distinguish right from wrong
B.understate all their wrongdoings
C.mention their prior success alone
D.ignore having made mistakes
(2).America"s "Big Three" automakers are used as an example to show that ______.（分数：2.00）
A.nations would need to adapt for their future
B.businesses would learn from failures
C.countries could survive their faults
D.enterprises could defeat their rivals
(3).The passage suggests that the Soviet Union ______.（分数：2.00）
A.had long been in crisis before it fell
https://www.360docs.net/doc/7812802814.html,ed to be number one in the world
https://www.360docs.net/doc/7812802814.html,sted for a long time because of its brutality
D.caused separatism in western countries
(4).The US sees the troubles with its foreign affairs as ______.（分数：2.00）
A.a vital blow to its world position
B.resulting from its ideological flaws
C.suffering temporary setbacks
D.a sign of deficiencies in its policies
(5).Britain and France are mentioned as those who ______.（分数：2.00）
A.had their own forms of democracy
https://www.360docs.net/doc/7812802814.html,ed to be enemies of the Soviet Union
C.were once superior to the US
D.wanted to be world leaders
(6).The author most likely intends to give great powers ______.（分数：2.00）
A.advice
B.support
C.sympathy
D.threats
五、Passage 3(总题数：1，分数：12.00)
Much of the debate about multiculturalism in the UK is crass, ignorant and misconceived. The new critics, from the left in particular, risk contributing to the very processes they decry, since they are so dismissive of the achievements that mark this country out from others, particularly in Europe. I can"t think of any other EU state that has been more successful than the UK in managing cultural diversity.
In this country, we need more multiculturalism, not less. That is to say, we should concentrate upon developing further links between different ethnic and cultural communities, and upon dialogue even when on the surface it seems to create problems. Jack Straw"s remarks about women who wear the veil have provoked huge controversy. But he was right to raise the issue, because he was emphasizing the importance of connection and communication. In a pluralistic society all groups should accept the need for interrogation from others, —it is the condition of producing mutual respect, rather than undermining it. He was not suggesting any sort of coercion.
Pakistani groups in particular featured in the riots that happened in Oldham, Leeds and Bradford in the 1990s and early 2000s. At that time as well, multiculturalism came in for a bashing: it was widely blamed in the press for creating segregation between Pakistani and local white communities. These claims were made, however, by writers with scant knowledge of the neighbourhoods in question.
A sociologist at the University of Leeds, Ludi Simpson, later studied the communities concerned in depth and—something often neglected—over time. He found that segregation was far lower than
most outside commentators had suggested. Many Pakistani families originally living in the inner-city areas had in fact moved out across the years to middle-class neighbourhoods or rural areas. Contrary to the idea that the Asian (mostly Muslim) groups wanted to keep to themselves, the evidence showed a desire for more mixing, with most wanting independent lifestyles away from too much ethnic clustering.
For much of the 20th century the main perceived social problem was that of class conflict. Class differences continue to overlap with cultural and ethnic divisions. But for us today the perceived social problem is that of the management of diversity: delivering its benefits, which are many, while containing the conflicts and costs that it can incur. We shan"t get anywhere in pursuing such goals if we abandon multiculturalism.（分数：12.00）
(1).According to the author, the new critics are ______.（分数：2.00）
A.reluctant to understand the differences between cultures
B.getting into a position contrary to their own argument
C.ignorant of the reasons why UK stands out in Europe
D.going to the extreme left in criticizing multiculturalism
(2).Jack Straw"s remarks as mentioned probably convey the idea that ______.（分数：2.00）
A.any kind of culture in the world deserves respect
B.gender bias remains the obstacle to women"s liberation
C.women"s veil wearing shows cultural backwardness
D.social hierarchy remains a problem in Islamic countries
(3).As suggested by the author, the Pakistani groups in the 1990s and early 2000s ______.（分数：2.00）
A.suffered from wide blame in the media
B.made strong criticism of multiculturalism
C.had conflicts with the local white communities
D.rose in rebellion against the government
(4).The author suggests that the blame put on multiculturalism was due to the lack of ______.（分数：2.00）
A.close investigation into the reasons for the racial segregation
B.in-depth knowledge about the cultural groups involved
C.an acute awareness of the feelings of the inner—city dwellers
D.a full understanding of the gap between different social classes
(5).Ludi Simpson"s study showed that ______.（分数：2.00）
A.the cluster of mixed ethnic groups likely gave rise to ethnic tension
B.the Pakistani groups tended to live peacefully much more than before
C.the Muslim community mostly kept separate from other communities
D.the wish to live exclusively with one"s own ethnic groups was a myth
(6).The boldfaced word "containing" in the last paragraph can best be replaced by the word ______."（分数：2.00）
A.controlling
https://www.360docs.net/doc/7812802814.html,promising
C.covering
D.considering
六、Passage 4(总题数：1，分数：12.00)
NASA"s new Mars probe, a $2.5 billion, nuclear-powered rover the size of a small car, is at the Florida launch site being prepared for its nine-month journey to the red planet, with one key issue still unresolved—where to land.
The Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed Curiosity, will delve deeper than any previous science mission to answer the age-old question about whether there is life beyond Earth. The goal of the
project is to determine if the region where Curiosity lands has or ever had the fight conditions to support microbial life.
Scientists spent years poring over pictures and analyzing chemical data collected by a fleet of robotic spacecraft circling Mars before narrowing down the options to four finalists: Eberswalde Crater, Mawrth Vallis, Holden Crater and Gale Crater.
"Each site has things that make it good and things that make it not quite so good," said planetary scientist Matt Golombek. "It"s kind of hard to select because it boils down to which kind of science is important to you, and that"s almost personal."
The rover will touch down within a 12.4-by-15.5 mile targeted area. a relatively small patch of real estate for interplanetary travel. Being able to make a precision touchdown hasn"t made things easy for scientists tapped to choose Curiosity"s landing spot. In the past, lots of scientifically interesting sites were eliminated because of concerns the spacecraft wouldn"t be able to make a safe landing.
Eberswalde Crater stands out among the four contenders because of a single, stunning geologic feature—a delta, believed to be a buildup of sediment left by flowing water.
"If you want a site that probably has the highest chance of preserving organics and biosignatures that might have existed, this is the place," Golombek said. "It"s just a spectacular example where water came and built up a sediment."
The attractive Eberswalde site, however; has a serious drawback as well. If its deposits turn out to be nothing more than clay-dusted rocks, the mission would be largely a bust.
The next candidate site, Mawrth Vallis, is an open book of Martian history, with exposed valley walls that date back about 3.7 billion years, nearly as old as the planet itself. Its clays, known as phyllosilicates, form in the presence of water, believed to be a necessary ingredient for life. Mawrth"s short-coming is that scientists don"t understand how it formed. Water that once flowed in the valley could have been far too acidic for life to flourish.（分数：12.00）
(1).The primary purpose of the passage is to discuss ______.（分数：2.00）
A.the controversy over the mission carried out by Curiosity
B.the age-old efforts to search for life beyond the earth
C.the power of the nuclear-driven probe in collecting data
D.the best place for the landing of a new Mars probe
(2).According to the passage, the four options ______.（分数：2.00）
A.cater to a small group of scientists" tastes
B.represent different disciplines of science
C.have advantages as well as disadvantages
D.differ from others in the goals that they serve
(3).What is true about Eberswalde Crater?（分数：2.00）
A.The delta shows that life might have existed there.
B.Clay-dusted rocks characterize the deposits there.
C.The sediment must have resulted from acidic water.
D.Having water makes it the best choice for the mission.
(4).The boldfaced word "bust" (in the next to the last paragraph) is closest in meaning to "______".（分数：2.00）
A.financial burden
B.daydream
C.vain attempt
D.tough task
(5).In the last paragraph. "Martian history" probably refers to the history of ______.（分数：
2.00）
A.fiction-writing about space
B.Martian-led missions
C.Martian geology
D.Mars exploration
(6).The passage will probably continue with the description of ______.（分数：2.00）
A.other key ingredients for life besides water
B.Holden Crater and Gale Crater respectively
C.scientists" further analysis of Mawrth Vallis
D.different difficulties in making the decision
七、Section B(总题数：0，分数：0.00)
八、Passage 1(总题数：1，分数：5.00)
There is an immense and justified pride in what our colleges have done. At the same time there is a growing uneasiness about their product. The young men and women who carry away our degrees are a very attractive lot—in looks, in bodily fitness, in kindliness, energy, courage, and buoyancy. 1 That too is in some ways admirable; for in spite of President Lowell"s remark that the university should be a repository of great learning, since the freshmen always bring a stock with them and the seniors take little away, the fact is that our graduates have every chance to be well informed, and usually are so. 2 When it becomes articulate, it takes the form of wishes that these attractive young products of ours had more intellectual depth and force, more freedom from trouble and worry in dealing with the different ideas, more of the firm, clear, quiet thoughtfulness that is a very potent and needed guard against fraudulence and deception which exist around them and keep harassing them constantly. 3 Firstly, granting that our graduates know a good deal, their knowledge lies about in fragments and never gets welded together into the stuff of a tempered and mobile mind. Secondly, our university graduates have been so busy boring holes for themselves, acquiring special knowledge and skills, that in later life they have astonishingly little in common in the way of ideas, standards, or principles. Thirdly, it is alleged that the past two decades have revealed a singular want of clarity about the great ends of living, attachment to which gives significance and direction to a life. 4 My argument will be simple, perhaps too simple. What I shall contend is that there is a great deal of truth in each of them, and that the remedy for each is the same. 5
A. Yet the uneasiness persists.
B. It is larger infusion of the philosophic habit of mind.
C. But what of their intellectual equipment?
D. Our colleges have failed.
E. Here are three grave charges against American education, and I want to discuss them briefly.
F. The complaint commonly breaks itself up into a list of three particulars.（分数：5.00）
九、Passage 2(总题数：1，分数：5.00)
Woody Allen, in earlier, funnier days, told a joke about two women in a resort in the Catskills complaining about the cuisine: "The food at this place is really terrible," says one. "Yeah, and such small portions," replies her friend. 1 They are dangerous things, their production and transport often unpleasant, the less visible environmental consequences of their use worse still. And there is not enough of them. The current boom in "unconventional" gas seems likely to provide good news on both fronts.
2 Oil is found in relatively few places, and its energy density, pumpability and ease of use in internal-combustion engines make it particularly well suited as a transportation fuel. Coal is found in many more places and it cannot be pumped around, but can be crushed and burned and so produces baseload power. Gas, typically found and exploited in the same sort of places as oil, is easily moved around through plumbing but is not, usually, seen as a transportation fuel.
3 Other innovations, such as producing liquefied natural gas from offshore sources and shipping
it to its destinations directly, and technologies that might allow exploitation of the natural gas that is frozen into some permafrosts, further increase the scope for new production. 4 Coal, unlike oil, is hard to embargo: and an obvious consequence of the changes in gas production is that they make gas supply a less potent political tool. 5 But countries can benefit from unconventional reserves without actually having any. More producers and a larger capacity to ship the fuel in its liquefied form will make gas a more fungible commodity. That continuing trend will mean that very few countries will ever be locked into a single source.
A. Now new drilling technologies pioneered in America are allowing gas to be extracted from more types of rock, and thus from much more widespread sources.
B. In Europe, where Russia has used supply cut-offs to put pressure on neighbouring Ukraine, discoveries of shale gas in eastern Europe could diversify supply in a useful way.
C. All told, this transition to more plentiful, diverse and widespread reserves in effect makes gas a bit more like coal, and a bit less like oil.
D. Gas that, s now being unconventionally extracted isn"t lying there underground in big natural pools near the earth"s surface, and it"s not easy to collect.
E. Thus the current thinking about fossil fuels.
F. The three conventional forms of fossil carbon—oil, coal and gas—differ both in the way the earth stores them and the way its people use them.（分数：5.00）
十、Part Ⅱ Translation(总题数：1，分数：15.00)
Do today"s kids make terrible entry-level workers? 1 That"s a question much on employers" minds as graduation season kicks off and young adults begin their first full-time jobs. We"ve all heard the stories: assistants who wont "assist", new workers who can"t set an alarm, employees who can"t grasp institutional hierarchies.
Bosses who toiled in the pre-Self Esteem Era salt mines have little patience for these upstarts.
2 A popular advice columnist had some choice words last week for a young employee who dismissively waved her sandwich at a superior requesting back-up during a critical meeting. The young woman explained that she was on her lunch break. Moreover, she noted, being "errand girl" wasn"t in her job description.
It"s easy to laugh off these anecdotes, but there are some complex reasons for the lack of familiarity with work norms. 3 For one thing, many twenty-something adults have never held a menial summer job, once considered training wheels for adult life in the American middle class. It was once common to see teenagers mowing lawns, waiting tables, digging ditches, and bagging groceries for modest wages in the long summer months. 4 Summer employment was a social equalizer, allowing both rich and financially strapped teenagers to gain a foothold on adulthood, learning the virtues of hard work, respect and teamwork in a relatively low-stakes atmosphere. But youth employment has declined precipitously over the years and young people are losing a chance to develop these important life skills in the process. 5 Teenagers and twenty-somethings are the least skilled members of the work force, so it"s not surprising that they would be edged out in a recession by more reliable full-time workers.（分数：15.00）
__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ 十一、Part Ⅲ Writing(总题数：1，分数：20.00)
1.Directions:Write an essay of no less than 200 words on the topic given below. Use the proper space on your ANSWER SHEET Ⅱ.
TOPIC
People who claim to have supernatural powers, like Wang Lin, Yan Xin and many others, have come and gone in the past few decades and have always had a large following. What conclusion may be drawn from this phenomenon?
（分数：20.00）
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