华中师范大学08年考博真题

2008年华中师范大学博士研究生入学考试英语试题（A卷）（注意：答案必须写在答题纸上，写在试卷上无效）Part I Reading Comprehension (40%)Directions: In this part there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answersmarked A, B, C, and D. Choose the one you think is thebest answer, and then write your answer on the AnswerSheet.Passage OneIn America’s fiercely adversarial legal system, a good lawyer is essential. Ask O.J Simpson. In a landmark case 35 years ago, Gideon v. Wainwright, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that indigent defendants must be provided with a lawyer at state expense because there could be no fair trial in a serious criminal case without one. “This seems to us to be an obvious truth,” wrote Justice Hugo Black in his opinion. At the time, the decision was hailed as a triumph for justice, an example of America’s commitment to the ideal of equality before the law.This is the image most Americans still have of their criminal-justice system---the fairest in the world, in which any defendant, no matter how,gets a smart lawyer who, too often, manages to get the culprit off on a technicality. Nothing could be further from the truth. About 80% of people accused of a felony have to depend on a publicly-provided lawyer; but over the past two decades the eagerness of politicians to look harsh on crime, their reluctance to pay for public defenders, and a series of Supreme Court judgments restricting the grounds for appeal have made a mockery of Gideon. Today many indigent defendants, including those facing long terms of imprisonment or even death, are treated to a “meet’em and plead’em”defense --- a brief consultation in which a harried or incompetent lawyer encourages them to plead guilty on if that fail, struggle through a short trial in which the defense is massively outgunned by a more experienced, better-paid and better-prepared prosecutor.“We have a wealth-based system of justice,” says Stephen Bright, the director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. “For the wealthy, it’s gold-plated. For the average poor person, it’s like being herded to the slaughter-house. In many places the adversarial system barely exists for the poor.”Many lawyers, of course, have made heroic efforts for particular defendants for little or no pay, but the charity of lawyers can be relied on to handle only a tiny fraction of cases. As spending on police, prosecutors and prisons has steadily climbed in the past decade, increasing the number of people charged and imprisoned, spending on indigent defense has not keptpace overwhelming an already hard-pressed system.1. It can be inferred from the passage that O.J Simpson was probably______.A. a person who was found not guilty because he hired a very good lawyer.B. a person who won his case because he was provided with a lawyer at state expense.C. a person who was denied a lawyer and thus lost his case in the court.D. a brilliant lawyer who won numerous cases for the average poor people.2. What is the author’s view of America’s adversarial legal system?A. It is the embodiment of the ideal of equality before the law.B. It is the fairest criminal-justice system in the world.C. As it is, it benefits the rich but works against the poor.D. It is unfair by nature and should be overhauled.3. Which of the following statements is true?A. Lawyers who provide defense for the poor often work heroically for little or no pay at all.B. As crime rate increases, American politicians have become more tolerant towards crime than before.C. In America, if a person refuses to accept the judgment of a lower court, he can always appeal to the Supreme Court.D. Government-provided lawyers tend to go through the formalities of defense and prove to be no match for the prosecutors.4. What is the author’s specific purpose in writing this passage?A. To appeal for more public spending on court defense for the poor.B. To criticize America’s fiercely adversarial legal system.C. To draw attention to the injustice of the American legal system.D. To make a suggestion on how to mend the criminal-justice system.Passage TwoThe media can impact current events. As a graduate student at Berkeley in the 1960s, I remember experiencing the events related to the People’s Park that were occurring on campus. Some of these events were given national media coverage in the press and on TV. I found it interesting to compare my impressions of that was going on with perceptions obtained from the news media. I could begin to see events of that time feed on news coverage. This also provided me with some healthy insights into the distinctions between these realities.Electronic media are having a greater impact on the people’s lives every day. People gather more and more of their impressions from representations. Television and telephone communications are linkingpeople to a global village, or what one writer calls the electronic city. Consider the information that television brings into your home every day. Consider also the contract you have with others simply by using telephone. These media extend your consciousness and your contact. For example, the video coverage of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake focused on “live action” such as the fires or the rescue efforts. This gave the viewer the impression of total disaster. Television coverage of the Iraqi War also developed any immediacy. CNN reported events as they happened. This coverage was distributed worldwide. Although most people were far away from these events, they developed some perception of these realities.In 1992, many people watched in horror as riots broke out on a sad Wednesday evening in Los Angeles, seemingly fed by video coverage from helicopters. This event was triggered by the verdict in the Rodney King beating. We are now in an age where the public can have access to information that enables it to make its own judgment, and most people, who had seen the video of this beating, could not understand how the jury was able to acquit the policemen involved. Media coverage of events as they occur also provides powerful feedback that influences events. This can have harmful results, as it seemed on that Wednesday night in Los Angeles. By Friday night the public got to see Rodney King on television pleading, “Can we all get along?”By Saturday, television seemed to provide positive feedback as the Los Angeles riot turned out into a rally forpeace. The television showed thousands of people marching with banners and cleaning tools. Because of that, many more people turned out to join the peaceful event they saw unfolding on television. The real healing, of course, will take much longer, but electronic media will continue to be a part of that process.5. The best title for the passage is_____.A. The 1992 Los Angeles Riots.B. The Impact of Media on Current Events.C. The 1989 San Francisco Earthquake and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.D. How Media Cover Events.6. All the following statements are true EXCEPT that____.A. electronic media can extend one’s contact with the world.B. those living far away from a certain event can also have some perception of realities by watching television.C. all the events occurring on the university campus at Berkeley were given national media coverage.D. video coverage of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake gave the viewers the impression of total disaster.7. The 1992 Los Angeles riots broke out because ______.A. the jury acquitted the policemen who had beaten Rodney King.B. people can make their own judgments.C. video coverage from helicopters had made people angry.D. video coverage had provided powerful feedback.8. It can be inferred from the passage that______.A. media coverage of events as they occur can have either good or bad results.B. most people who had seen the video of the Rodney King beating agree with the verdict of the jury.C. the 1992 Los Angeles riots lasted a whole week.D. Rodney King seemed very angry when he appeared on television on Friday.Passage ThreeNo one knows for sure when or where the first cow went mad, but the first recorded case occurred in December 1984 when a dairy cow on a farm in West Sussex began to act strange. That cow, identified only as No.133 in a British government report, died two months late, as other on the same farm fell ill. An autopsy on one in 1985 found its brain full of hole, like a sponge. Sick animals turned up on other farms, and by 1986 the British knew they were facing an epidemic of a terrible new cattle disease.By 1994, the illness had spread to people, probably from eating beef. The disease inspires fear because it is fatal and people have no way toknowing they have been infected until they get sick. Many victims were young, including some in their teens and 20s.Later a cow in Washington State was found infected. If the Washington cow was infected by feed, it seems unlikely that only one could have been infected, since feed is shared. But if the cow developed the disease spontaneously, which is theoretically possible though not proved to occur in cows, then it may be possible to have one mad cow at a time.Many scientists think Britain’s mad cow epidemic had its origins in scrape, a spongiform brain disease that occurs in sheep and goats. The name comes from the sick animals’tendency to rub against things and scrape off patches of wool. But a widely (though not universally) accepted theory holds that mad cow disease and several other related brain disorders are caused not by bacteria or viruses, but by prion, abnormal proteins that build up and damage the brain.The term prion and the theory were developed by Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, a neurologist who won a Nobel Prize in 1997. Dr. Prusiner built on the work of another researcher who won a Nobel Prize in 1976, Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek. Dr. Gajdusek proved that members of the Fore tribe in New Guinea contracted a brain disease called kuru from eating the brains of relatives who had died of the disease. At the time, he thought the disease agent was a “slow virus”, meaning one with an incubation period lasting years or decades. But no virus was ever found for any of the spongiformdiseases, and Dr. Prusiner eventually concluded that a prion was responsible.9. When the cow identified as No.133 died, ______.A. it was found that its brain was full of holes.B. it became the first cow that went mad and died.C. other cows on the farm had already been infected.D. the British knew they were facing a new cattle disease.10. Which of the following statements in NOT true?A. Human mad cow disease can cause death.B. The majority of the victims were of an older age.C. The real cause of human mad cow disease is still unknown.D. People infected with the disease may not immediately know it.11. According to Dr. Prusiner, the mad cow disease was caused by______.A. abnormal proteinB. fatal bacteriaC. sheep diseaseD. slow viruses12. Dr. Prusiner’s theory______.A. has been questioned by many scientists.B. has benefited from other scientist’s research.C. is used to breed resistant livestock.D. is used to diagnose who’s likely to be infected.Passage FourNext week, as millions of families gather for their Thanksgiving feasts, many other Americans will go without. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 12 million households lack enough food for everyone in their family at some time during the year---including holidays.Hunger is surprisingly widespread in our country---one of the world’s wealthiest---yet the government estimates that we waste almost 100 billion pounds of food each year, more than one-quarter of our total supply.Reducing this improper distribution of resources is a goal of America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. Last year, it distributed nearly 2 billion pounds of food to more than 23 million people in need.America’s Second Harvest is a network of 214 inter-connected food banks and other organizations that gather food from growers, processors, grocery stores and restaurants. In turn, the network distributes food to some 50,000 soup kitchens, homeless shelters and old people’s centers in every country of every state.A great deal of work is involved in distributing tons of food from thousands of donors to hundreds of small, nonprofit organizations. Until a few years ago, America’s Second Harvest lacked any effective way tomanage their inventory. Without accurate and timely information, soup kitchens were sometimes empty while food was left to spoil in loading places.In 2000, America’s Second Harvest began to use a new inventory and financial management system---Ceres. It is software designed specifically for hunger-relief operations. It is used by more than 100 America’s Second Harvest organizations to track food from donation to distribution.Ceres has helped reduce the spoiling of food and improve distribution. An evaluation found that the software streamlined food banks’ operations by 23 percent in the first year alone.With more accurate and timely reports, Ceres saves time, frees staff members to focus on finding new donors, and promises more efficient use of donations.Hunger in America remains a troubling social problem. Technology alone cannot solve it, but in the hands of organizations such as America’s Second Harvest, it is a powerful tool that is helping to make a difference and helping more Americans to join in the feast.13. By “this improper distribution of resources” in Para.3, the write means that many Americans lack enough food while______.A. their country is one of the richest in the world.B. much food is left to spoil.C. others waste too much food.D. others consume too much food.14. A problem for America’s Second Harvest a few years ago was that_____.A. it did not get enough food from donors.B. it did not have a large enough network.C. it did not have enough soup kitchens.D. it did not have a good way to manage its food stock.15. With Ceres, America’s Second Harvest is now able to_____.A. enlarge its network.B. prevent food from spoiling.C. give out food more efficiently.D. solve the hunger problem in the country.16. The main idea of the passage is that______.A. technology can help in the fight against hunger.B. America’s Second Harvest has found more donors.C. America’s Second Harvest promotes the development of technology.D. hunger is a problem even in the wealthiest country in the world.Passage FiveSpace is a dangerous place, not only because of meteors but alsobecause of rays from the sun and other stars. The atmosphere again acts as our protective blanket on the earth. Light gets through, and this is essential for plants to make the food which we eat. Heat, too, makes our environments tolerable and some ultraviolet rays penetrate the atmosphere. Cosmic rays of various kinds come through the air from outer space, but enormous quantities of radiation from the sun are screened off. As soon as men leave the atmosphere they are exposed to this radiation but their spacesuits or the walls of their spacecraft, if they are inside, do prevent a lot of radiation damage.Radiation is the greatest known danger to explorers in space. Doses of radiation are measured in units called “rems”. We all receive radiation here on the Earth from the sun, from cosmic rats and from radioactive minerals. The “normal”dose of radiation that we receive each year is about 100 millirems(0.1rem); it varies according to where you live, and this is a very rough estimate. Scientists have reason to think that a man can put up with far more radiation than this without being damaged; the figure of 60 rems has been agreed. The trouble is that it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage---a person may feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered until the birth of (deformed) children or even grandchildren.Early space probes showed that radiation varies in different parts of space around the Earth. It also varies in time because, when great spurts ofgas shoot out of the sun (solar flares), they are accompanies by a lot of extra radiation. Some estimates of the amount of radiation in space, based on various measurements and calculations, are as low as 10 rems per year, others are as high as 5 rems per hour! Missions to the moon (the Apollo fights) have had to cross the Van Allen belts of high radiation and, during the outward and return journeys, the Apollo 8 crew accumulated a total dose of about 200 millirems per man. It was hoped that there would not be any large solar flares during the times of the Apollo moon walks because the walls of the LEMs (lunar excursion modules) were not thick enough to protect the men inside, though the command modules did give reasonable protection. So far, no dangerous doses of radiation have been reported, but the Gemini orbits and the Apollo missions have been quite short. We simply do not know yet how men are going to get on when they spend weeks and months outside the protection of the atmosphere, working in a space laboratory or in a base on the moon. Drags might help to decrease the damage done by radiation, but no really effective ones have been found so far. At present, radiation seems to be the greatest physical hazard to space travelers, but it is impossible to say just how serious the hazard will turn out to be in the future.17. Scientists have fixed a safety level of_____.A. 10 rems per yearB. 60 rems per yearC. 100 millirems per yearD. 5 rems per year18. How will men protect themselves when they spend long periods in space?A. By taking special drugs.B. By wearing special suits.C. By using a protective blanket.D. No solution has been found yet.19. Which of the following is true according to the passage?A. The grandchildren of astronauts are deformed.B. The children of astronauts have damaged sex organs.C. Radiation damage may show only in later generations.D. Radiation does not seem to be very harmful.20. The best title for this passage could be_____.A. Journey in the SpaceB. Gas, Rays, and MeteorsC. Hazards and ProtectionD. Radiation as it isPart II Vocabulary (10%)Directions: There are twenty incomplete sentences in this section. For each sentence there are four choices marked A, B, C,and D. Choose the ONE answer that best completes thesentence. Then write your answer on the Answer Sheet.21. Owing to an_______ lack of lower-income housing, the municipalgovernment is embarrassed by the impressing housing issue.A. urgentB. acuteC. eccentricD. original22. World population will continue rising from the current 5 billion untilabout 2050, but if the trends of the 1980s continue, it will _____at about 9 billion.A. level upB. level offC. level onD. level down23. Because of the massive oil spillage in the Gulf, both the plant andanimal living in the area are in ______.A. jeopardyB. prohibitionC. innovationD. integration24. The conflict between romantic____ and harsh reality has been thetheme of many great novels.A. affairsB. fantasiesC. perceptionsD. revelations25. Language, culture, and personality may be considered ______ of eachother in thought, but they are inseparable in fact.A. indistinctlyB. respectivelyC. irrelevantlyD. independently26. The wealth of a country should be measured ______ the health andhappiness of its people as well as the material goods it can produce.A. in line withB. in regard toC. in terms ofD. in case of27. The teacher gave the students extra work because she was ______ byall the noise and talking in the classroom.A. interruptedB. degeneratedC. terminatedD. exasperated28. The laser represents a true marriage between science and technology,and the men who devised it were _____ engineers and physicists.A. spontaneouslyB. simultaneouslyC. instantaneouslyD. homogeneously29. The newly designed zoom has overcome distortion previously ______in a zoom of this range.A. inherentB. geneticC. coherentD. generic30. Protesters claim that there is a link between the chemical plant and theincreased ______ of cancer in the community.A. emergenceB. reoccurrenceC. incidenceD. wave31. It was a shrewd move _____ to buy the house just before propertyprices started to rise.A. on her partB. at handC. at her expenseD. on record32. They decided to _____ their differences in pursuit of a common goal.A. submitB. surrenderC. substituteD. submerge33. The mayor’s abuse of power and negligence of duty were ----- in all thenewspapers.A. renouncedB. demonstratedC. denouncedD. protested34. Many quarrels have ______ through misunderstanding; how to solvethem is of vital importance.A. come aboutB. come alongC. come aroundD. come by35. The newly elected leader has declared his intention of cleaning ______the civil administrative organs.A. downB. offC. upD. out36. He had a considerable reputation in England as a critic and was the______ exponent in this country of modern French literature.A. ascribedB. accreditedC. prescribedD. attributed37. Because a circle has no beginning or end, the wedding ring is a symbolof ______ love.A. profoundB. externalC. eternalD. extensive38. Tian An Men Square really looks magnificent at night when it’s______.A. illuminatedB. illustratedC. decoratedD. elaborated39. The fierce heat of this summer ______ most of the crops on Allen’sfarm.A. withdrewB. witheredC. witnessedD. weakened40. The house has remained______ since its owner left for a foreigncountry two years ago.A. desolateB. ruinedC. inhabitedD. hauntedPart III Cloze(10%)Directions: For each numbered bracket in the following passage, fill in a suitable word in the blank on the Answer Sheet.Only there strategies are available for controlling cancer: prevention, screening and treatment. Lung cancer causes more deaths than any other type of cancer. A major (41) ______ of the disease is reliably known; there is no good evidence that screening is of much help; and treatment (42) ______ in about 90 percent of all cases. At present, therefore, the main strategy must be prevention. This may not always be true, of course (43) ______ for some other types of cancer, research over the past few decades has produced some important progress in prevention, screening or treatment.If, however, we consider not what research may one day offer (44) ______ what today’s knowledge could already deliver that is not being delivered. (45) ______ the most practicable and cost-effective opportunities for (46) ______ premature death from cancer. (47) ______ lung cancer, probably involve neither screening nor improved treatment, but prevention.This conclusion does not depend on the unrealistic (48) ______ that we can eliminate tobacco. It merely assumes that we can reduce cigarette sales appreciably by raising prices (49) ______ by expanding the type of education that already appears to have had a (50) ______ effect oncigarette consumption by white-collar workers and that we can substantially reduce the (51) ______ of tar contained per cigarette. The practicabilitypreventing cancer by such measures applies not only in those countries, such as the U. S (52) ______, because cigarette smoking has been common for decades, 25 to 30 percent of all cancer deaths now involve lung cancer, but also in those where it has become widespread only (53) ______, In China, for example, lung cancer as yet accounts (54) ______ only about 5 to 10 percent of all cancer deaths. This is because it may (55) ______ as much as half a century for the rise in smoking to increase the incidence of lung cancer. Countries where cigarette smoking is only now becoming widespread can expect enormous increases in lung cancer during the 1990s or early in the next century, (56) ______ prompt effective action is taken against the habit---indeed, such increases are already plainly evident in parts of (57) ______.There are four reasons why the prevention of lung cancer is of such overwhelming importance: first, the disease is extremely common, causing more deaths than any other type of cancer now (58) ______; secondly, it is generally incurable; thirdly, effective practicable measures to reduce its (59) ______ are already reliably known; and finally, reducing tobacco (60) ______ will also have a substantial impact on many other diseases.Part IV English-Chinese Translation(10%)Directions: In this part there are 5 numbered underlined sentences in the passage. Read the passage carefully and then translatethe underlined sentences into Chinese. Write yourtranslation in the corresponding places on your AnswerSheet.Carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse” gas, which means that it helps to trap heat in the atmosphere. (61)More carbon dioxide on the face of it means a hotter earth and that might lead to heaving seas, scorching summers, dying forests, and a watery end to the world’s coastal cities. But carbon dioxide is also an inevitable by-product of burning the fuels---coal, oil and natural gas---that make an industrial way of life possible. The results of cutting its production could therefore be profound. People in rich countries might have to change their comfortable existence in order to consume less energy. (62)Those in countries trying to become rich might see their own aspirations to such comforts confounded, or at least delayed. It is therefore important to ask exactly how real the threat of global warming is, just what sort of climate change it implies, how imminently that change can be expected, and what the cheapest way to deal with any adverse consequences it brings would actually be.(63)That the greenhouse effect exists is not a matter of dispute. JosephFourier, a French physicist, theorized as far back as 1827 that the earth’s atmosphere acts rather like the glass of a plant-breeder’s hothouse: in other words, the air lets in the sun’s heat while slowing its release back into space.(64)Without this effect, the earth would be some 300C colder than it is, and life would scarcely exist.The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising for more than a century, as the use of fossil fuels has become widespread. And human activity also puts other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Though released in smaller quantities, some of these are more potent in their warmth-inducing effects than carbon dioxide. All told, manmade emissions account for slightly less than 4% of all greenhouse gases.That may not sound a lot, but this 4% is reckoned to have enhanced the earth’s average temperature by between 0.30C and 0.60C over the past 100 years. And in matters climatic small change can sometimes have large consequences. (65)The glaciers that rumbled over Europe and North America during the last ice age, for example, were triggered by a fall of 20C in the average summer temperature around 115,000 years ago.Part V Chinese-English Translation (15%)Directions: Translate the following paragraphs into English and write your translation on the Answer Sheet.。