考研英语真题4.pdf
Directions：For each numbered blank in the following passage,there are four choices marked A,B,C and D.Choose the best one and mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET 1 byblackening the corresponding letter in the brackets with a pencil.(10 points)If a farmer wishes to succeed,he must try to keep a wide gap between his consumption andhis production.He must store a large quantity of grain 1 consuming all his grainimmediately.He can continue to support himself and his family 2 he produces a suiplus.He must use this surplus in three ways:as seed for sowing,as an insurance 3 thuunpredictable effects of bad weather and as a commodity which he must sell in order to 4 oldagricultural implements and obtain chemical fertilizers to 5 the soil.He may also needmoney to construct irrigation 6 and improve his farm in other ways.If no surplus isavailable,a farmer cannot be 7.He must either sell some of his property or 8 extrafunds in the form of loans.Naturally he will try to borrow money at a low 9 of interest,butloans of this kind are not 10 obtainable.139 words1.LAother thanBas well asLcinstead ofEDmore than2.LAonly ifLBmuch asLclong beforeEDever since3.LAforBagainstLcofEDtowards4.LAreplaceLBpurchaseLcsupplementEDdispose5.LAenhanceBmixLcfeedEDraise6.LAvesselsLBroutesLcpathsEDchannels7.Aself-confidentBself-sufficientcself-satisfiedD self-restrained8.AsearchBsavecofferDseek9.AproportionLBpercentageCrateEDratio10.AgenuinelyLBobviouslyCpresumablyDfrequentlyPart II Reading ComprehensionDirections:Each of the passages below is followed by some questions.For each question there are fouranswers marked A,B,C and D .Read the passages carefully and choose the bestanswer to each of the questions.Then mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET 1 by blackeningthe corresponding letter in the brackets with a pencil.(40 points)Passage 1A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap,but,if properlyhandled,it may become a driving force.When the United States entered just such a glowingperiod after the end of the Second World War,it had a market eight times larger than anycompetitor,giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale.Its scientists were the worlds best;its workers the most skilled.America and Americans were Drosperous beyond thedreams of ihe Europeans and Asians whose economies ihe war had destroyed.It was inevitable that this primacy should have nan owed as other countries grew richer.Just as inevitably,the retreat from predominance proved painful.By the mid-1980s Americanshad found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness.Some hugeA merican industries,such as consumer electronics,had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreigncompetition.By 198 7 there was only one A merican television maker left,Zenith.(Nowthere is none:Zenith was bought by South Korea*s LG Electronics in July.)F oreign-madecars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market.A merica*s machine-tool industrywas on the ropes.F or a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors,whichA merica had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age,was going to be thenext casualty.A 11 of this caused a crisis of confidence.A mericans stopped taking prosperity forgranted.(3)They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing,and that theirincomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well.The mid-198 0s brought one inquiry afteranother into the causes of A merica*s industrial decline.Their sometimes sensational findingswere filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.How things have changed!In 1995 the United States can look back on five years ofsolid growth while Japan has been struggling.F ow A mericans attribute Ihis solely to suchobvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle.Self-doubt has yieldedto blind pride.“A merican industry has changed its structure,has gone on a diet,has learnt to bemore quick-witted,w according to Richard Cavanaugh,executive dean of Harvard?s KennedySchool of Government.“It makes me proud to be an A merican just to see how our businessesare improving their productivity,says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute,a think-tank inWashington,DC.A nd William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that peoplewill look back on this period as u a golden age of business management in the United States.”42 9words11.The U.S.achieved its predominance after World War II because.A it had made painstaking efforts towards this goalB its domestic market was eight times larger than beforeC the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitorsD the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy12.The loss of U.S.predominance in the world economy in the 198 0s is manifested in thefact that the A merican.A TV industry had withdrawn to its domestic marketB semiconductor industry had been taken over by foreign enterprisesC machine-tool industry had collapsed after suicidal actionsD auto industry had lost part of its domestic market13.What can be inferred from the passage?A It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pride.B Intense competition may contribute to economic progress.C The revival of the economy depends on international cooperation.D A long history of success may pave the way for further development.14.The author seems to believe the revival of the U.S.economy in the 1990s can beattributed to the.A turning of the business cycle B restructuring of industryC improved business management D success in educationPassage 2 Being a man has always been dangerous.There are about 105 males bom for every100 females,but this ratio drops to near balance at the age of maturity,and among 70-year-oldsthere are twice as many women as m en.But the great universal of male mortality is beingchanged.Now,boy babies survive almost as well as girls d o.This means that,for the firsttime,there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when they are searching for a mate.More important,another chance for natural selection has been removed.F ifty years ago,thechance of a baby(particularly a boy baby)surviving depended on its weight.A kilogram toolight or too heavy meant almost certain death.Today it makes almost no difference.Sincemuch of the variation is due to genes,one more agent of evolution has gone.There is another way to commit evolutionary suicide:stay alive,but have fewer children.F ew people are as fertile as in the past.Except in some religious communities,very fewwomen have 15 children.Nowadays the number of births,like the age of death,has becomeaverage.Most of us have roughly the same number of offspring.A gain,differencesbetween people and the opportunity for natural selection to take advantage of it have diminished.India shows what is happening.The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities andpoverty for the remaining tribal peoples.The grand mediocrity of todayeveryone being thesame in survival and number of offspring一means that natural selection has lost 8 0%of its powerin upper-middle-class India compared to the tribes.F or us,this means that evolution is over;the biological Utopia has arrived.Strangely,ithas involved little physical change.No other species fills so many places in nature.But inthe past 100,000 years-even the past 100 yearsour lives have been transformed but our bodieshave not.“We did not evolve,because machines and society did it for us.Darwin had aphrase to describe those ignorant of evolution:they“look at an organic being as a savage looks ata ship,as at something wholly beyond his comprehension.No doubt we will remember a 2 0thcentury way of life beyond comprehension for its ugliness.But however amazed ourdescendants may be at how far from Utopia we were,they will look just like us.406 words15.What used to be the danger in being a man according to the first paragraph?A A lack of mates.B A fierce competition.C A lower survival rate.D A defective gene.16.What does the example of India illustrate?A Wealthy people tend to have fewer children than poor people.B Natural selection hardly works among the rich and the poor.C The middle class population is 8 0%smaller than that of the tribes.D India is one of the countries with a very high birth rate.17.The author argues that our bodies have stopped evolving because.A life has been improved by technological advanceB the number of female babies has been decliningC our species has reached the highest stage of evolutionD the difference between wealth and poverty is disappearing18.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?A Sex Ratio Changes in Human Evolution.B Ways of Continuing Man s Evolution.C The Evolutionary F uture of Nature.D Human Evolution Going Nowhere.Passage 3When a new movement in art attains a certain fashion,it is advisable to find out what itsadvocates are aiming at,for,however farfelched and unreasonable their principles may seem today,it is possible that in years to come they may be regarded as normal.With regard to Futuristpoetry,however,the case is rather difficult,for whatever Futurist poetry may be一even admittingthat the theory on which it is based may be rightit can hardly be classed as Literature.This,in brief,is what the Futurist says:for a century,past conditions of life have beenconditionally speeding up,till now we live in a world of noise and violence and speed.Consequently,our feelings,thoughts and emotions have undergone a corresponding change.This speeding up of life,says the Futurist,requires a new form of expression.We must speedup our literature too,if we want to interpret modem stress.We must pour out a large stream ofessential words,unhampered by stops,or qualifying adjectives,or finite verbs.Instead ofdescribing sounds we must make up words that imitate them;we must use many sizes of type anddifferent colored inks on the same page,and shorten or lengthen words at will.Certainly their descriptions of battles are confused.But it is a little upsetting to read inthe explanatory notes that a certain line describes a fight between a Turkish and a Bulgarianofficer on a bridge off which they both fall into the river 一and then to find that the line consistsof the noise of their falling and the weights of the officers:Pluff!Pluff!A hundred andeighty-five kilograms.vThis,though it fulfills the laws and requirements of Futurist poetry,can hardly beclassed as Literature.AH the same,no thinking man can refuse to accept their first proposition:that a great change in our emotional life calls for a change of expression.The whole question isreally this:have we essentially changed?334 words19.This passage is mainly.A a survey of new approaches to artB a review of Futurist poetryC about merits of the Futurist movementD about laws and requirements of literature20.When a novel literary idea appears,people should try to.A determine its purposes B ignore its flawsC follow the new fashions D accept the principles21.Futurists claim that we must.A increase the production of literatureB use poetry to relieve modern stressC develop new modes of expression D avoid using adjectives and verbs22.The author believes that Futurist poetry is.A based on reasonable principlesB new and acceptable to ordinary peopleC indicative of a basic change in human natureD more of a transient phenomenon than literaturePassage 4(2 Aimlessness has hardly been lypical of the postwar Japan whose paoduclivity and socialharmony are the envy of the United States and Europe.But increasingly the Japanese are seeinga decline of the traditional work-moral values.Ten years ago young people were hardworkingand saw their jobs as their primary reason for being,but now Japan has largely fulfilled itseconomic needs,and young people don t know where they should go next.The coming of age of the postwar baby boom and an entry of women into themale-dominated job market have limited the opportunities of teen-agers who are alreadyquestioning the heavy personal sacrifices involved in climbing Japan*s rigid social ladder togood schools and jobs.In a recent survey,it was found that only 24.5 percent of Japanesestudents were fully satisfied with school life,compared with 67.2 percent of students in the UnitedStates.In addition,far more Japanese workers expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs than didtheir counterparts in the 10 other countries surveyed.While often praised by foreigners for its emphasis on the basics,Japanese education tendsto stress test taking and mechanical learning over creativity and self-expression.Thosethings that do not show up in the test scorespersonality,ability,courage or humanityarecompletely ignored says Toshiki Kaifu,chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party seducation committee.Frustration against this kind of thing leads kids to drop out and runwild.Last year Japan experienced 2,125 incidents of school violence,including 929 assaultson teachers.Amid the outcry,many conservative leaders are seeking a return to the prewaremphasis on moral education.Last year Mitsuo Setoyama,who was then education minister,raised eyebrows when he argued that liberal reforms introduced by the American occupationauthorities after World War II had weakened the Japanese morality of respect for parents.”Bui ihal may have more lo do wilh Japanese life-slyles.In Japan,“says educatorYoko Muro,it s never a question of whether you enjoy your job and your life,but only howmuch you can endure.n With economic growth has come centralization;fully 76 percent ofJapan s 119 million citizens live in cities where community and the extended family have beenabandoned in favor of isolated,two-generation households.Urban Japanese have long enduredlengthy commutes(travels to and from work)and crowded living conditions,but as the old groupand family values weaken,the discomfort is beginning to tell.In the past decade,the Japanesedivorce rate,while still well below that of the United States,has increased by more than 50percent,and suicides have increased by nearly one-quarter,447 words23.In the Westerners eyes,the postwar Japan was.A under aimless development B a positive exampleC a rival to the West D on the decline24.According to the author,what may chiefly be responsible for the moral decline ofJapanese society?A Women s participation in social activities is limited.B More workers are dissatisfied with their jobs.C Excessive emphasis has been placed on the basics.D The life-style has been influenced by Western values.25.Which of the following is true according to the author?A Japanese education is praised for helping the young climb the social ladder.B Japanese education is characterized by mechanical learning as well as creativity.C More stress should be placed on the cultivation of creativity.D Dropping out leads to frustration against test taking.26.The change in Japanese life-style is revealed in the fact that.A the young are less tolerant of discomforts in lifeB the divorce rate in Japan exceeds that in the U.S.C the Japanese e
