Part Ⅰ Reading Comprehension Directions:There are four passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them, there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Read the passages carefully and decide on the best choice.
Passage One There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the death of Elizabeth Steinberg. Without blaming anyone in particular, neighbors, friends, social workers, the police and newspaper editors have struggled to define the community's responsibility to Elizabeth and to other battered children. As the collective soul-searching continues, there is a pervading sense that the system failed her. The fact is, in New York State the system couldn't have saved her. It is almost impossible to protect a child from violent parents, especially if they are white, middle-class, well-educated and represented by counsel. Why does the state permit violence against Children? There are a number of reasons. First, parental privilege is a rationalization. In the past, the law was giving its approval to the biblical injunction against sparing the rod. Second, while everyone agrees that the state must act to remove children from their homes when there is danger of serious physical or emotional harm, many child advocates believe that state intervention in the absence of serious injury is more harmful than helpful. Third, courts and legislatures tread carefully when their actions intrude or threaten to intrude on a relationship protected by the Constitution. In 1923, the Supreme Court recognized the "liberty of parent and guardian to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control." More recently, in 1977, it upheld the teacher's privilege to use corporal punishment against schoolchildren. Read together, these decisions give the constitutional imprimatur to parental use of physical force. Under the best conditions, small children depend utterly on their parents for survival. Under the worst, their dependency dooms them. While it is questionable whether anyone or anything could have saved Elizabeth Steinberg, it is plain that the law provided no protection. To the contrary, by justifying the use of physical force against children as an acceptable method of education and control, the law lent a measure of plausibility and legitimacy to her parents' conduct. More than 80 years ago, in the teeth of parental resistance and Supreme Court doctrine, the New York State Legislature acted to eliminate child labor law. Now, the state must act to eliminate child abuse by banning corporal punishment. To break the vicious cycle of violence, nothing less will answer. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the death of Elizabeth Steinberg, it is this: spare the rod and spare the child.
1. The New York State law seems to provide least protection of a child from violent parents of ______.
A.a family on welfare
B.a poor uneducated family
C.an educated black family
D.a middle-class white family
A B C D
D
[解析] 文章第二段最后一句话指出,it is almost impossible to protect a child from violent parents, especially if they are white, middle-class...,也即中产阶级的白人家庭。
2. "Sparing the rod" means ______.
A.spoiling children
B.punishing children
C.not caring about children
D.not beating children
A B C D
D
[解析] 这一段陈述的是为何允许对孩子的体罚。法院同意the biblical injunction against sparing the rod等同于允许对孩子进行体罚。注意此处的against,所以sparing the rod与体罚是相对的。Spare the rod and spoil the child棍棒下面出孝子/孩子不打不成器。
3. Corporal punishment against schoolchildren is ______.
A.taken as illegal in the New York State
B.considered being in the teacher's province
C.officially approved by law
D.disapproved by school teachers
A B C D
B
[解析] 第五段提到it (the Supreme Court) upheld the teacher's privilege to use corporal punishment against schoolchildren。最高法院维护教师体罚学童的特权,由privilege一词可以看出体罚学生被视作教师的职责之一了。
4. From the article we can infer that Elizabeth Steinberg is probably the victim of ______.
5. The writer of this article thinks that banning corporal punishment will in the long run ______.
A.prevent violence of adults
B.save more children
C.protect children from ill-treatment
D.better the system
A B C D
A
[解析] 选项D从语法上就已不符合题意。最后一段作者提到为了break the vicious cycle of violence,nothing less (than eliminating child abuse by banning corporal punishment) will answer。可知作者认为禁止体罚可直接消除虐待儿童的现象,然后可以打破暴力的恶性循环。选项B和选项C是禁止体罚的直接影响,选项A为隐含的长期作用。
Passage Two For laymen ethnology is the most interesting of the biological sciences for the very reason that it concerns animals in their normal activities and therefore, if we wish, we can assess the possible dangers and advantages in our own behavioral roots. Ethnology also is interesting methodologically because it combines in new ways very scrupulous field observations with experimentation in laboratories. The field workers have had some handicaps in winning respect for themselves. For a long time they were considered as little better than amateur animal-watchers—certainly not scientists, since their facts were not gained by experimental procedures: they could not conform to the hard-and-fast rule that a problem set up and solved by one scientist must be tested by other scientists, under identical conditions and reaching identical results. Of course many situations in the lives of animals simply cannot be rehearsed and controlled in this way. The fall flocking of wild free birds can't be, or the roving animals over long distances, or even details of spontaneous family relationships. Sine these never can be reproduced in a laboratory, they are then not worth knowing about? The ethnologists who choose field work have got themselves out of this impasse by greatly refining the techniques of observing. At the start of a project all the animals to be studied are live-trapped, marked individually, and released. Motion pictures, often in color, provide permanent records of their subsequent activities. Recording of the animals' voices by electrical sound equipment is considered essential, and the most meticulous notes are kept of all that occurs. With this material other biologists, far from the scene, later can verify the reports. Moreover, two field observers often go out together, checking each other's observations right there in the field. Ethnology, the word, is derived from the Greek ethos, meaning the characteristic traits or features which distinguish a group-any particular group of people or, in biology, a group of animals such as a species. Ethnologists have the intention of studying "the whole sequence of acts which constitute an animal's behavior." In abridged dictionaries ethnology is sometimes defined simply as "the objective study of animal behavior," and ethnologists do emphasize their wish to eliminate myths.
1. In the first sentence, the word "laymen" means ______.
A.people who stand aside
B.people who are not trained as biologists
C.people who are amateur biologists
D.people who love animals
A B C D
B
[解析] layman是门外汉的意思,这里是指生物学家以外的人。
2. According to the passage, ethnology is ______.
A.a new branch of biology
B.an old Greek science
C.a pseudo-science
D.a science for amateurs
A B C D
A
[解析] 第一段提到ethnology is probably the most interesting of the biological sciences,并指出it combines in new ways...,综合可得出ethnology是生物科学的一个新分支。
3. "The field workers have handicaps in winning respect for themselves." This sentence means ______.
A.ethnologists when working in the field are handicapped
B.ethnologists have problems in winning recognition as scientists
C.ethnologists are looked down upon when they work in the field
D.ethnologists meet with lots of difficulties when doing field work
A B C D
B
[解析] 文中第二段中提到很长一段时间里they (the field workers) were considered as little better than amateur animal-watchers, certainly not scientists,说明人种学家在赢得人们的承认过程中遇到很大的阻力。
4. According to the explanation of the scientific rule of experiment in the passage, "hard-and-fast" means experiment procedures ______.
A.are difficult and quick to follow
B.must be carried out in a strict and quick way
C.must be followed strictly to avoid false and loose results
D.hard and unreasonable for scientists to observe
A B C D
C
[解析] 文中对其的解释为a problem set up and solved by one scientist must be tested by other scientists, under identical conditions and reaching identical results与选项C的内容“必须严格遵循,以免出现错误和不确切的结果”相符。
5. The meaning of the underlined words in "the details of spontaneous family relationships" can be expressed as ______.
A.natural family relationships
B.quickly occurring family relationships
C.animals acting like a natural family
D.animal family behavior that cannot be preplanned or controlled
A B C D
D
[解析] 文章第二段后半部分讨论的就是动物的许多行为都是不可预知和控制的,包括自发的亲属行为。
Passage Three Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics—the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close. As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with sub-millimeter accuracy—far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves—goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can't yet give a robot enough 'common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world." Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.
1. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in ______.
A.the use of machines to produce science fiction
B.the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry
C.the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work
D.the elite's cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work
A B C D
C
[解析] 本题对应文章的第一句话people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty (人类一直在设计各种日益精巧的工具来处理那些危险、枯燥、繁重或者只是令人讨厌的工作),四个选项中只有C选项符合句意。
2. The word "gizmos" (line 1, paragraph 2) most probably means ______.
3. According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can ______.
A.fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery
B.interact with human beings verbally
C.have a little common sense
D.respond independently to a changing world
A B C D
D
[解析] 文章第二段最后一句话指出there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with sub-millimeter accuracy (已有一些机器人系统能够进行精确到亚毫米的脑部和骨髓手术),选项A的表述与这句话的意思相反,因此是错误答案。选项B在文中没有提及,根据常识判断也是一个错误选项。同时,第三段的最后一句话指出we can't yet give a robot enough 'common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world(我们仍然不能赋予机器人以足够的‘常识’,使它们能够与不断变化的动态世界进行可靠的交流),因此,选项C错误。D选项之所以正确可以从这句话中判断,机器人无法对外界变化做出可靠的反应,但是却是可以独立作出反应的。
4. Besides reducing human labor, robots can also ______.
A.make a few decisions for themselves
B.deal with some errors with human intervention
C.improve factory environments
D.cultivate human creativity
A B C D
B
[解析] 第三段第一句话提到But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves (但是如果机器人要进入帮助人们节省劳力的下一个阶段,它们的运行就应该在更大程度上无需受人监控,并且至少能够独立地做一些决定)。由于这是一个假设的条件,倒推过来就是说现在机器人还不能自己做决定,还需要受人们的控制,因此A选项错误,B选项正确。文章最后一段提到了a controlled factory environment,但也不是C选项“提高”的意思。而D选项在原文并没有涉及。
5. The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are ______.
A.expected to copy human brain in internal structure
B.able to perceive abnormalities immediately
C.far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information
D.best used in a controlled environment
A B C D
C
[解析] 最后一段中提到,human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard 98 percent that is irrelevant,并举了猴子的例子说明这一点:人可以排除无关的信息,而机器做不到。
Passage Four When it comes to the slowing economy, Ellen Spero isn't biting her nails just yet. But the 47-year-old manicurist isn't cutting, filling or polishing as many nails as she'd like to, either. Most of her clients spend $12 to $50 weekly, but last month two longtime customers suddenly stopped showing up. Spero blames the softening economy. "I'm a good economic indicator," she says. "I provide a service that people can do without when they're concerned about saving some dollars." So Spero is downscaling, shopping at middle-brow Dillard's department store near her suburban Cleveland home, instead of Neiman Marcus. "I don't know if other clients are going to abandon me, too" she says. Even before Alan Greenspan's admission that America's red-hot economy is cooling, lots of working folks had already seen signs of the slowdown themselves. From car dealerships to Gap outlets, sales have been lagging for months as shoppers temper their spending. For retailers, who last year took in 24 percent of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the cautious approach is coming at a crucial time. Already, experts say, holiday sales are off 7 percent from last year's pace. But don't sound any alarms just yet. Consumers seem only concerned, not panicked, and many say they remain optimistic about the economy's long-term prospects, even as they do some modest belt-tightening. Consumers say they're not in despair because, despite the dreadful headlines, their own fortunes still feel pretty good. Home prices are holding steady in most regions. In Manhattan, "there's a new gold rush happening in the $4 million to $10 million range, predominantly fed by Wall Street bonuses," says broker Barbara Corcoran. In San Francisco, prices are still rising even as frenzied overbidding quiets. "Instead of 20 to 30 offers, now maybe you only get two or three," says john Deadly, a Bay Area real-estate broker. And most folks still feel pretty comfortable about their ability to find and keep a job. Many folks see silver linings to this slowdown. Potential home buyers would cheer for lower interest rates. Employers wouldn't mind a little fewer bubbles in the job market. Many consumers seem to have been influenced by stock-market swings, which investors now view as a necessary ingredient to a sustained boom. Diners might see an upside, too. Getting a table at Manhattan's hot new Alain Ducasse restaurant need to be impossible. Not anymore. For that, Greenspan & Co. may still be worth toasting.
1. By "Ellen Spero isn't biting her nails just yet" (Line 1, Paragraph 1), the author means ______.
A.Spero can hardly maintain her business
B.Spero is too much engaged in her work
C.Spero has grown out of her bad habit
D.Spero is not in a desperate situation
A B C D
D
[解析] 由文章第一段得知,因为美国经济发展的放缓,Spero的美甲生意不如以前那么好做了,因为她的生意是那种人们想省钱的时候就可以不用光顾的。但是她的生意还没到难以维持即将倒闭的程度,因此选项A错误。选项B的表述与原文无关。选项C干扰在于biting her nails可能会被误解为习惯,实际该选项属无中生有,因而也是错误的。经过排除,即使不知道引文的含义,也可判断D为正确选项。事实上题干中这句话的意思是“Spero还没有到束手无策的时候”,与D选项的意思相符。
2. How do the public feel about the current economic situation? ______
A.Optimistic.
B.Confused.
C.Carefree.
D.Panicked.
A B C D
A
[解析] 从文章中各种带有感情色彩的短语don't sound any alarms, only concerned, not panicked, remain optimistic, not in despair, still feel pretty good, feel pretty comfortable和still be worth toasting等,可以看出作者及美国人对整个经济的不景气持乐观态度。选项B“困惑的”,选项C“无忧虑的”(乐观并不代表没有忧虑,文中谈到only concerned, not panicked正是说明这一点),D“恐慌的”,均可排除。
3. When mentioning "the $4 million to $10 million range" (Line 3, Paragraph 3) the author is talking about ______.
A.gold market
B.real estate
C.stock exchange
D.venture investment
A B C D
B
[解析] 这种类似于指代关系的判断可采用就近原则,即指代的内容通常是之前紧邻的中心词。因为如果指代的内容间隔太远,容易产生歧义,不符合命题原则。本文从第三段从第二句话开始一直在举一个产业的例子,标志性的词汇有home price, real-estate broker等,而the $4 million to $10 million range谈论的正是纽约曼哈顿的房价,选项中只有real estate是房地产的意思,是正确答案。选项A“黄金市场”。选项C“股票交易”。选项D“风险投资”。
4. Why can many people see "silver linings" to the economic slowdown? ______
5. To which of the following idea is the author likely to agree? ______
A.A now boom, around the corner.
B.Tighten the belt, the single remedy.
C.Caution all right, panic not.
D.The more ventures, the more chances.
A B C D
C
[解析] 本文谈论的中心是经济增长速度放缓对美国人的影响及人们所持的态度,选项A意为“即将出现的经济繁荣”,谈到的是经济的复兴,偏离中心,可排除。选项B意为“勒紧腰带,别无选择”,态度过于低沉,和作者乐观态度相悖,排除。选项D意为“风险越多,机会越大”,谈到的是投资,偏离中心,可排除。选项C“谨慎一点,无须恐慌”,态度与作者吻合,且在文中可以找到依据only concerned, not panicked。
Part Ⅱ Vocabulary Directions: In this part, there are 20 sentences with four choices below each sentence. Choose the best one from the 4 choices.
1. The statement was an allusion to recent troubles with the agency's computers.
20. The university has sought to ______ a special fund for physically disabled students.
A.administer
B.compliment
C.perform
D.institute
A B C D
A
[解析] administer a special fund for...向…发放一项特殊基金。Compliment赞扬,恭维。perform执行,履行;扮演。institute建立,制定。
Part Ⅲ Cloze Directions: In this part, there are 20 blanks in the following passage. For each blank there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that best completes the blank. An Ohio State University study has linked behavior in young children 1 the type of job their mother has. Mothers with complex occupations that are self-directed and require working with other people 2 to have offspring with relatively low levels of behavior problems. The opposite held 3 when the jobs were routine, closely supervised, and dealt with things, rather than people. "A job that challenges and interests a mother and gives her an opportunity to exercise judgment and solve problems clearly has 4 consequences for her children's behavior," indicates 5 professor of sociology Elizabeth Mengaghan. Occupations with more positive conditions include management, sales, and teaching positions. Jobs that may be related to increased child behavior problems include book keeping, food service, and 6 line positions. Women who are supervised closely at work and made to 7 strict orders may be more likely to use this same style in 8 their kids. They may emphasize obedience to parental authority and the potential for 9 punishment. "We believe that the choice of such a parenting style may increase the 10 of behavior problems in children." On the 11 hand, mothers whose jobs are less controlled by supervisors and 12 must work closely with other people probably rely less on physical punishment, 13 encouraging children to think about consequences of their actions and 14 responsibility for their behavior. 15 an approach encourages youngsters to follow parental demands 16 they aren't being supervised because they have accepted parental values as their own. Moreover, mothers whose jobs don't 17 constant supervision “ 18 problem-solving skills that they can bring to other parts of their life”. The research also found that those who have 19 challenging and interesting jobs provide better home environments for their children. The mothers give their offspring more intellectual stimulation and emotional support, and this, 20 turn, is linked to fewer behavior problem.
1.
A.of
B.with
C.in
D.on
A B C D
B
[解析] link...with...为固定用法,表示将…与…连接(系)在一起。
2.
A.likely
B.linked
C.related
D.tended
A B C D
D
[解析] 此处要填的词为本句的谓语动词,可以首先排除只能用作形容词和副词的选项A。link to和relate to后面均接名词或动名词,与空后的have不符。再根据句意,选择选项D,tend to do sth.倾向于做某事;易于做某事。
[解析] 下文提到mothers whose jobs are less controlled rely less on physical punishment,而此处提到的是需要在工作中严格执行命令的母亲,与下文形成对比,会强调potential for physical punishment。physical punishment体罚。
Part Ⅳ Translation Directions: Read the following passage carefully and translate the underlined sentences into Chinese. 1 By now it's hardly news that as education has risen to the top of the national agenda, a great wave of school reform has focused on two related objectives: more stringent academic standards and increasingly rigorous accountability for both students and schools. 2 In state after state, legislatures, governors, and state boards, supported by business leaders, have imposed tougher requirements in math, English, science, and other fields, together with new tests by which the performance of both students and schools is to be judged. In some places students have already been denied diplomas or held back in grade if they failed these tests. 3 In some states funding for individual schools and for teachers' and principals' salaries—and in some, such as Virginia, the accreditation of schools—will depend on how well students do on tests. More than half the states now require tests for student promotion or graduation. But a backlash has begun. 4 In Virginia this spring parents, teachers, and school administrators opposed to the state's Standard of Learning assessments, established in 1998, inspired a flurry of bills in the legislature that called for revising the tests of their status as unavoidable hurdles for promotion and graduation. One bill would also have required that each new member of the sate board of education "take the eighth grade Standards of Learning assessments in English, mathematics, science, and social sciences" and that "the results of such assessments...be publicly reported." 5 None of the bills passed, but there's little doubt that if the system isn't revised and the state's high failure rates don't decrease by 2004, when the first Virginia senior may be denied diplomas, the political pressure will intensify. Meanwhile, some parents are talking about Massachusetts-style boycotts.
1. Directions: Write a composition of no less than 150 words about your opinions on academic plagiarism—the dishonest act in academic communication.
[范文]
No Academic Thefts
Plagiarism is the practice of not giving credit for the source of one's ideas. It is equivalent to theft, especially in the field of academy. Academic plagiarism is a problem that is not limited to one or two schools in the world. The existence of internet worsens the situation. Professor Chen Pingyuan once worried that some day writing an academic paper might simply mean to subject, search, browse, download, cut, paste, copy and print. It seems it is true in many places today. Though plagiarism can occur innocently when the writer looking for information on a certain topic fails to cite his work properly, the adjectives such as immoral, dishonest and contemptible are usually applicable when defining the acts of plagiarism. As students, we should recognize and assume our responsibility to document all sources from which words and ideas are borrowed. The administration should do everything they can to stop plagiarism; measures could include lecturing students on how to properly quote references, and also raising the penalties for those who are found guilty of plagiarism. We should work together to fight against academic thefts.