2015江西考研英语二真题及答案.docx

2015江西考研英语二真题及答案Directions:Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)In our contemporary culture, the prospect of communicating with - or even looking at - a stranger is virtually unbearable. Everyone around us seems to agree by the way they fiddle with their phones, even without a 1 underground.It's a sad reality - our desire to avoid interacting with other human beings - because there's 2 to be gained from talking to the stranger standing by you. But you wouldn't know it, 3 into your phone. This universal armor sends the 4 : "Please don't approach me."What is it that makes us feel we need to hide 5 our screens?One answer is fear, according to Jon Wortmann, executive mental coach. We fear rejection, or that our innocent social advances will be 6 as "creepy,". We fear we'll be 7 . We fear we'll be disruptive. Strangers are inherently 8 to us, so we are more likely to feel 9 when communicating with them compared with our friends and acquaintances. To avoid this anxiety, we 10 to our phones. "Phones become our security blanket," Wortmann says. "They are our happy glasses that protect us from what we perceive is going to be more 11 .”But once we rip off the bandaid, tuck our smartphones in our pockets and look up, it doesn't 12 so bad. In one 2011 experiment, behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked commuters to do the unthinkable: Start a 13 . They had Chicago train commuters talk to their fellow 14 . "When Dr. Epley and Ms. Schroeder asked other people in the same train station to 15 how they would feel after talking to a stranger, the commuters thought their 16 would be more pleasant if they sat on their own," the New York Times summarizes. Though the participants didn't expect a positive experience, after they 17 with the experiment, "not a single person reported having been snubbed."18 , these commutes were reportedly more enjoyable compared with those sans communication, which makes absolute sense, 19 human beings thrive off of social connections. It's that 20 : Talking to strangers can make you feel connected.1. A ticket B permit C signal D record2. A nothing B link C another D much3. A beaten B guided C plugged D brought4. A message B cede C notice D sign5. A under B beyond C behind D from6. A misinterpret B misapplied C misadjusted D mismatched7. A fired B judged C replaced D delayed8. A unreasonable B ungrateful C unconventional D unfamiliar9. A comfortable B anxious C confident D angry10. A attend B point C take D turn11. A dangerous B mysterious C violent D boring12. A hurt B resist C bend D decay13. A lecture B conversation C debate D negotiation14. A trainees B employees C researchers D passengers15. A reveal B choose C predict D design16. A voyage B flight C walk D ride17. A went through B did away C caught up D put up18. A In turn B In particular C In fact D In consequence19. A unless B since C if D whereas20. A funny B simple C logical D rareSection II Reading ComprehensionPart ADirections:Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)Text 1A new study suggests that contrary to most surveys, people are actually more stressed at home than at work. Researchers measured peoples cortisol, which is a stress marker, while they were at work and while they were at home and found it higher at what is supposed to be a place of refuge.“Further contradicting conventional wisdom, we found that women as well as men have lower levels of stress at work than at home, ” writes one of the researchers, Sarah Damske. In fact women even say they feel better at work, she notes.“ It is men, not women, who report being happier at home than at work. ”Another surprise is that findings hold true for both those with children and without, but more so for nonparents. This is why people who work outside the home have better health.What the study doesnt measure is whether people are still doing work when theyre at home, whether it is household work or work brought home from the office. For many men, the end of the workday is a time to kick back. For women who stay home, they never get to leave the office. And for women who work outside the home, they often are playing catch-up-with-household tasks. With the blurring of roles, and the fact that the home front lags well behind the workplace a making adjustments for working women, its not surprising that women are more stressed at home.But its not just a gender thing. At work, people pretty much know what theyre supposed to be doing: working, marking money, doing the tasks they have to do in order to draw an income. The bargain is very pure: Employee puts in hours of physical or mental labor and employee draws out life-sustaining moola.On the home front, however, people have no such clarity. Rare is the household in which the division of labor is so clinically and methodically laid out. There are a lot of tasks to be done, there are inadequate rewards for most of them. Your home colleagues-your family-have no clear rewards for their labor; they need to be talked into it, or if theyre teenagers, threatened with complete removal of all electronic devices. Plus, theyre your family. You cannot fire your family. You never really get to go home from home.So its not surprising that people are more stressed at home. Not only are the tasks apparently infinite, the co-workers are much harder to motivate.21.According to Paragraph 1,most previous surveys found that home_A offered greater relaxation than the workplaceB was an ideal place for stress measurementC generated more stress than the workplaceD was an unrealistic place for relaxation22. According to Damaske, who are likely to be the happiest at home?A Childless wivesB Working mothersC Childless husbandsD Working fathers23.The blurring of working women's roles refers to the fact that_A it is difficult for them to leave their officeB their home is also a place for kicking backC there is often much housework left behindD they are both bread winners and housewives24.The word“moola”(Line4,Para4)most probably means_A skillsB energyC earningsD nutrition25.The home front differs from the workplace in that_A division of labor at home is seldom clear-cutB home is hardly a cozier working environmentC household tasks are generally more motivatingD family labor is often adequately rewardedText 2For years, studies have found that first-generation college students- those who do not have a parent with a college degree- lag other students on a range of education achievement factors. Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher. But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them. This has created “a paradox” in that recruiting first- generation students, but then watching many of them fail, means that higher education has “continued to reproduce and widen, rather than close” ab achievement gap based on social class, according to the depressing beginning of a paper forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science.But the article is actually quite optimistic, as it outlines a potential solution to this problem, suggesting that an approach (which involves a one-hour, next-to-no-cost program) can close 63 percent of the achievement gap (measured by such factors as grades) between first-generation and other students.The authors of the paper are from different universities, and their findings are based on a study involving 147 students ( who completed the project) at an unnamed private university. First generation was defined as not having a parent with a four-year college degree. Most of the first-generation students(59.1 percent) were recipients of Pell Grants, a federal grant for undergraduates with financial need, while this was true only for 8.6 percent of the students wit at least one parent with a four-year degree.Their thesis- that a relatively modest intervention could have a big impact- was based on the view that first-generation students may be most lacking not in potential but in practical knowledge about how to deal with the issues that face most college students. They cite past research by several authors to show that this is the gap that must be narrowed to close the achievement gap.Many first- generation students “struggle to navigate the middle-class culture of higher education, learn the rules of the game, and take advantage of college resources,” they write. And this becomes more of a problem when collages dont talk about the class advantage and disadvantages of different groups of students. Because US colleges and universities seldom acknowledge how social class can affect students educational experience, many first-generation students lack sight about why they are struggling and do not understand how students like them can improve.26. Recruiting more first- generation students has_A reduced their dropout ratesB narrowed the achievement gapC missed its original purposeD depressed college students27. The author of the research article are optimistic because_A the problem is solvableB their approach is costlessC the recruiting rate has increasedD their finding appeal to students28. The study suggests that most first- generation students_A study at private universitiesB are from single-parent familiesC are in need of financial supportD have failed their collage29. The author of the paper believe that first-generation students_A are actually indifferent to the achievement gapB can have a potential influence on other studentsC may lack opportunities to apply for research projectsD are inexperienced in handling their issues at college30. We may infer from the last paragraph that_A universities often reject the culture of the middle-classB students are usually to blame for their lack of resourcesC social class greatly helps enrich educational experiencesDcolleges are partly responsible for the problem in questionText 3Even in traditional offices, “the lingua franca of corporate America has gotten much more emotional and much more right-brained than it was 20 years ago,” said Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn. She started spinning off examples. “If you and I parachuted back to Fortune 500 companies in 1990, we would see much less frequent use of terms like journey, mission, passion. There were goals, there were strategies, there were objectives, but we didnt talk about energy; we didnt talk about passion.”Koehn pointed out that this new era of corporate vocabulary is very “team”-orientedand not by coincidence. “Lets not forget sportsin male-dominated corporate America, its still a big deal. Its not explicitly conscious; its the idea that Im a coach, and youre my team, and were in this together. There are lots and lots of CEOs in very different companies, but most think of themselves as coaches and this is their team and they want to win.”These terms are also intended to infuse work with meaningand, as Khurana points out, increase allegiance to the firm. “You have the importation of terminology that historically used to be associated with non-profit organizations and religious organizations: Terms like vision, values, passion, and purpose,” said Khurana.This new focus on personal fulfillment can help keep employees motivated amid increasingly loud debates over work-life balance. The “mommy wars” of the 1990s are still going on today, prompting arguments about why women still cant have it all and books like Sheryl Sandbergs Lean In, whose title has become a buzzword in its own right. Terms like unplug, offline, life-hack, bandwidth, and capacity are all about setting boundaries between the office and the home. But if your work is your “passion,” youll be more likely to devote yourself to it, even if that means going home for dinner and then working long after the kids are in bed.But this seems to be the irony of office speak: Everyone makes fun of it, but managers love it, companies depend on it, and regular people willingly absorb it. As Nunberg said, “You can get people to think its nonsense at the same time that you buy into it.” In a workplace thats fundamentally indifferent to your life and its meaning, office speak can help you figure out how you relate to your workand how your work defines who you are.31. According to Nancy Koehn, office language has become_A more emotionalB more objectiveC less energeticD less strategic32. “Team”-oriented corporate vocabulary is closely related to_A historical incidentsB gender differenceC sports cultureD athletic executives33.Khurana believes that the importation of terminology aims to_A revive historical termsB promote company imageC foster corporate cooperationD strengthen employee loyalty34.It can be inferred that Lean In_A voices for working womenB appeals to passionate workaholicsC triggers debates among mommiesD praises motivated employees35.Which of the following statements is true about office speak?A Managers admire it but avoid itB Linguists believe it to be nonsenseC Companies find it to be fundamentalD Regular people mock it but accept itText 4Many people talked of the 288,000 new jobs the Labor Department reported for June, along with the drop in the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, as good news. And they were right. For now it appears the economy is creating jobs at a decent pace. We still have a long way to go to get back to full employment, but at least we are now finally moving forward at a faster pace.However, there is another important part of the jobs picture that was largely overlooked. There was a big jump in the number of people who repot voluntarily working part-time. This figure is now 830,000(4.4 percent)above its year ago level.Before explaining the connection to the Obamacare, it is worth making an important distinction. Many people who work part-time jobs actually want full-time jobs. They take part-time work because this is all they can get. An incre