西南政法大学外语学院研究生2008年基础英语真题 (1)

西南政法大学

2008年招收攻读硕士学位研究生入学考试试题

学科专业：外国语言学及应用语言学

考试科目：605 基础英语（150分）

共7页

考生注意：请在答题纸上答题，在试题上答题不给分。试题和答题纸同时交回，否则成绩无效。

I. Paraphrase the following underlined sentences and tell their implications. (35 points, 5 for each)

1. “Those are my lucky birds. Each day that I escape death, each day of suffering that helps me earthly cares, I make a new little paper bird, and add it to the others. This way I look at them and congratulate myself on the good fortune that my illness has brought me. Because, thanks to it, I have the opportunity to improve my character.”

2. The eventual solution to the arms race will be found, not in a new deployment by one side or the other of some ultimate weapon or in a decision by either side to disarm unilaterally, but rather in new understandings and in a mutual transformation of the relationship itself. This transformation will involve changes in the technology

of weaponry and the denial of nuclear technology to rogue states. But the key change will be in the way we think about the institution of warfare and about the relationship between states.

3. This is no time to moralize on the follies of countries and governments which have allowed themselves to be stricken down one by one, when by united action they could have saved themselves and saved the world from this catastrophe.

4. Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh. The moralizing of his earlier writing had been well padded with humor. Now the gloves came off with biting satire.

5. “Today it is the teachers,” he continued, “and tomorrow the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until we are marching backwards to the glorious age of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.”

6. But there is one thought which every white man (and in this connection it doesn't matter twopence if he calls himself a socialist) thinks when he sees a black army marching past. “How long can we go on kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?”

7. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom, and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by ridding the back of the tiger ended inside.

II. Tell which of the following figures of speech is used in the following sentences: metaphor, zeugma, simile, allusion, transferred epithet, pun, personification, alliteration, irony, paradox, hyperbole, euphemism. (10 points, 1 for each)

1. He was a beautiful horse that looked as though he had come out of a painting by

Velasquez.

2. There is a mixture of the tiger and the ape in the character of a Frenchman.

3. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called pneumonia,

stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers.

4. This diligent student seldom reads more than an hour per month.

5. Why are lawyers all uneasy sleepers? Because they lie first on one side, and then

on the other, and remain wide awake all the time.

6. Unaware of the sword of Damocles hanging on them, they indulged in

fun-making with abandon.

7. The oldest profession in the world is reviving in the booming towns.

8. An ounce of wisdom is worth a million tons of books.

9. The murderer has been put into the condemned cell.

10. I believe, though, that praise should be measured. If there must be any, it should

be negative to be constructive.

III. Match the following words with the given definition. (10 points, 1 for each)

1. scenario a. mental process

2. abili b. habitual

3. charismatic c. connection

4. compulsive d. obsession of any kind

5. catalyst e. description of a possible course of

event

6. schizophrenia f. excuse

7. sadism g. cruelty

8. interface h. any mental or emotional disorder

9. complex i. any stimulus in hastening a result

10. phychology j. having popular appeal

IV. Match the following nouns and verbs. (10points, 1 for each)

1. injury a. administer

2. suspicion b. effect

3. siege c. hatch

4. medicine d. assume

5. change e. develop

6. scheme f. cast

7. tendency g. attain

8. leadership h. inflict

9. object i. confirm

10.slander j. raise

V. Reading.(10points,1 point each)

Passage One

In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled November 23, 1998, in Mainstream Loudown v. Board of Trustees of the Loundown County Library that the use of blocking software to restrict Internet access in public libraries is unconstitutional. Despite the library's claims that its actions were justified in the name of “protecting minors from harmful content,” Judge Brinkema rule d that the library could not reduce adult access to standards established for children.

“The use of blocking software in libraries offends the guarantee of free speech,” she ruled, and “constitutes a prior restraint” on all speech. The Loudown County

X-Stop software blocked access to a wide range of websites, including those of Quakers, the conservative Heritage Foundation, and AIDS education groups, as well as information about banned books and safe sex.

Playing on Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, Brinkema rejected arguments that the installation of such filtering devices constitutes “a library

acquisition decision, to which the First Amendment does not apply.” She pointed out that, since the library had originally provided uncensored Internet access and then had taken special actions to limit it, the situation is analogous to the removal of library materials. The result, she said, was similar to “a collection of encyclopedias from which defendants have laboriously revised portions deemed unfi t for library patrons.”

Although Brinkema's decision will have a major impact on the development of library polices nationwide, there is a crucial underlying problem that cannot be resolved through the legal process. Filtering software is created and produced by private companies that are quite eager and happy to make all the decisions for us. And by purchasing and installing their products, we are agreeing to let them to do just that. It is to these private companies we are surrendering selection and access to the Internet's huge database of electronic information. This means that even the staffs at public libraries have no role in the selection process.

The Washington Coalition Against Censorship's new original T-shirt design advocates the only solution we can trust to preserve our First Amendment libraries: Use your brain: the filter you were born with.”

1. The passage is mainly concerned with

a. whether it is legal to install computer software in public libraries

b. whether libraries have to remove materials they consider harmful

c. what reading material public libraries should provide to their patrons

d. what kind of online services public libraries should offer their readers

2. One of the defendant's arguments is that

a. the First Amendment does not apply to library purchasing decisions

b. certain materials have to be filtered to protect the ethnic minorities

c. adults are guaranteed greater freedom to information than children

d. the library intends to give their readers only healthy information

3. Which of the following is not true of X-Stop software?

a. It was purchased from a private commercial company.

b. It denied both children and adults access to certain websites.

c. It revised a certain portion of encyclopedias in the library.

d. Its installation in a country library was declared illegal by the court.

4. Even after the 1998 court decision, the public still have to face the fundamental problem of___________.

a. giving up their freedom of speech on the Internet

b. having more restricted access to electronic information

c. not allowing the libraries to select reading materials for them

d. letting the commercial companies decide what they would read

5. According to the author, the decision about what is the best to read lies with___________.

a. the librarians

b. the individual citizen

c. the government

d. the legal courts

Passage Two

Standing up for what you believe in can be tough. Sometimes it's got to be done, but the price can be high.

Biochemist Jeffery Wigand found this out the hard way when he took on his former employer, tobacco giant Brown & Willimnson, over its claim that cigarettes were not addictive. So too did climate modeler Bell Santer when he put his name to a UN report which argued that it is people who are warming the planet. Both men found themselves under sustained attacks, Wigand from the combined might of oil and car industries.

The two men got into their dreadful predicaments by totally different routes. But they had one thing in common--- they fought powerful vested interests with scientific data that those interests wished would go away.

Commercial companies are not, of course, the only vested interests in town. Governments have a habit of backing the ideas whoever pays the most tax. Academia also has its version: scientific theories often come with fragile egos and reputations still attached, and supporters of those theories can be overly resistant to new ideas.

For example, Alfred Wegener's idea that the continents drift across the surface of the planet was laughed at when he proposed it in 1915. This ides was only accepted finally in 1960s, when plate tectonics came of age. More recently, in 1982, Stanly Prusiner was labeled crazy for his controversial suggestion that infectious diseases such as BSE were caused by a protein that self-replicated. A decade later, the notion had gained ground. Finally, in 1997, he received a Nobel Prize for his idea.

Western science has always thrived on individualism--one person's ambition to topple a theory. So independence of thought is crucial. But this applies not only for scientists, but also their institutions

With governments and commercial sponsors increasingly pulling the strings of university research ---perhaps it's time to spend some lottery money, say, on truly independent research. Overcoming scientists' inertia will be much more difficult.

Yet we cannot afford to be slow to hear new ideas and adapt to them. Back in the 1950s, if governments had taken seriously the findings of epidemiologist Richard Doll about the link between smoking and lung cancer, millions of people would have been spared disability and premature death.

6. One of the ideas that are highlighted in the passage is that_________.

a. individuals have greater chance of success in scientific research than collectives

b. personality plays a crucial role in the advances of science

c. originality of thinking is the key to the advances of science

d. the intelligence of scientists is of vital importance to scientific achievements

7. Jeffery Wigand was attacked by the tobacco giant because________.

a. his idea could lead to a financial loss for the company

b. he had been eager to defeat his company

c. his idea was scientifically invalid

d. he had long been an enemy of the company

8. The underlined phrase “plate tectonics” in the fifth paragraph probably refers to

a. the study of the structure of the earth

b. scientific study of the climate if the earth

c. the theory that the earth's surface consists of plates in constant motion

d. the theory that the earth's surface was originally a plate-shaped heavenly body

9. One of the conclusions that we can reach from this passage is that

a. governmental interests always seem to clash with those of the private companies

b. scientific findings are often obtained at the sacrifice of personal interests

c. scientific truths are often rejected before they are widely accepted

d. scientists are sometimes doubtful about their beliefs

10. The author seems to be suggesting that ___________.

a. the vested interests are sometimes an obstacle to the progress of science

b. governments are the one to blame for the deterioration of the environment

c. a timely response to people’s demand is appreciated by the academia

d. the interference by the government resulted in the tragedy of the 1950s

六． Reading the following passage and answer the questions (25 marks)

Usually, all it takes is a phone call. Inside his small Virginia office, Jim Sedlak picks up the receiver and listens as worried callers wound off about the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's newest clinic or its distribution of pamphlets ill their area. They don't like it, they tell him, but they don't know how to stop it. So Sedlak leans back in his chair and, drawing on almost 20 years of experience, tells them how tiny anti-abortion groups can tackle the nation's largest abortion-rights group.

Sedlak has been taking aim at Planned Parenthood for years through his small, grassroots anti-abortion organization, American Life League's STOPP international, a two-man group whose sole mission is to bring down its giant ideological opponent. Planned Parenthood normally brushes off attacks from such "fringe groups," reserving its considerable strength for reproductive healthcare services and advocacy. But it's hard to ignore recent anti-abortion legislative victories like the ban on so-called partial birth abortion passed in November, the more recent Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which defines fetuses as unborn children, and similar state measures against fetal homicide. Anti-abortion activists are gaining ground, and that's forced Planned Parenthood to take a closer look at the opposition. "lt gives us a big challenge," Planned Parenthood President Gloria told NEWSSWEEK. "But we're ready."

Feldt has learnt that even individual efforts can have nationwide ripple effects. Take the case of John Pisciotta, director of Pro-Life Waco and a Baylor University economics professor, who sparked a furor in Waco, Texas, this Feberary when he decided to attack the relationship between the local Girl Scouts Council and Planned Parenthood. The council, long a participate in a half-day Planned Parenthood conference on puberty education, had ignored Pisciotta's pleas to distance itself from what he considered "an assault on Christian morality." After chatting with Sedlak, a long-time friend, Pisciotta recorded a 60-second spot for a Christian radio station urging listeners to reconsider supporting the scouts. Then, he asked them to boycott their Thin Mints.

The cookie boycott wasn't successful-- sales actually rose 2 percent-- but the local council did break off its relationship with the group. And, much to Pisciotta's surprise, his concern became a national one. STOPP was flooded with phone calls from angry parents demanding to know whether their councils were linked with Planned Parenthood. Individual Girl Scout troops have autonomy in choosing their programs, and national CEO Kim Cloninger has said that those aligned with Planned Parenthood would continue their relationship. Sedlak compiled a list of them that he posted online last week. It's up to individual viewers, he says, to decide what to do with that information.

Chris Danze is another anti-abortion activist who attracted attention last fall when he learned of plans to build anther Planned Parenthood clinic in his hometown of Austin, Texas. He decided to fight back, with a little help from STOPP. On a Web site designed for the protest (boycott planned parenthood, org), which STOPP helped publicize, Danze posted the phone numbers of each company involved in the clinic's construction, many of them mom-and-pop businesses with a lot to lose. The calls started immediately, and became so overwhelming that one subcontractor reported receiving 1200 phone calls in one week. Other companies received faxes of aborted fetuses. After six weeks, the main contractors pulled out, halting the project. Construction resumed in January after Planned Parenthood took over as general contractor, fueled by what they say was an outpouring of monetary and moral support. But Danze's disruptions had earned the organization's attention. "In the beginning, we did regard Chris Danze as someone that was simply nipping at our heels," says Danielle Tierney, spokeswoman for the group's Texas Capital Region. "There was no way we could have predicted his ability to convince our general contractor to withdraw from the project." Since then, her affiliate has become more organized, stepping up volunteer recruiting, talking to the media and calling on local and state political allies, including former Texas Governor Ann Richards, to reassure subcontractors that they wouldn't be put out of business for aligning with Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion-rights group still play down such victories, but they are paying more attention to them. "The anti-choice groups like STOPP are zealots," says Planned Parenthood's Feldt. While she argues that her organization has more than enough strength and "extraordinarily deep taproots" to fend them off, she does acknowledge that abortion-rights activists have grown

dangerously complacent in their confidence that they have the law on their side. "There is a war on their choice," says Feldt.

Her strategy? To try to assemble the largest abortion-rights demonstration ever at the March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C on April 25. "Now," she says, "is the time we must get activated." And she doesn't mind taking a cue from the

anti-abortionists about harnessing grassroots power to do it.

I. What kind of organization is STOPP?

2. Why did the contractors in Austin, Texas receive so many calls and faxes?

3. What is the lesson that Planned Parenthood side learn?

4. What might be STOPP's suggestion to Pisciotta?

5. What is your attitude towards the abortion?

七． Writing (50 marks)

Write a composition of more than 500 words on the following topic: The Effect of Science and Technology 0n Our Lives