2006年博英语试题

考博英语试题

02年部分II. Reading Comprehension (25 points)

Directions: There are five passages in this part. Each of the passages is followed by five questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.

1

There is a new type of small advertisement becoming increasingly common in newspaper classified columns. It is sometimes placed among “situations vacant”, although it does not offer anyone a job; and sometimes it appears among “situations wanted”, although it is not placed by someone looking for a job either. What it does is to offer help in applying for a job.

“Contact us before writing application”, or “Make use of our long experience in preparing your curriculum vitae, or job history”, is how it is usually expressed. The growth and apparent success of such a specialized service is , of course, a reflection on the current high levels of unemployment. It is also, an indication of growing importance of the curriculum vitae.(or job history), with the suggestion that it may now qualify as an art form in its own right.

There was a time when job seekers simply wrote letters of application. “Just put down your name, address, age and whether you have passed any exams”, was about the average level of advice offered to young people applying for their first jobs when I left school. The letter was really just for openers, it was explained. Everything else could and should be saved for the interview. And in those days of full employment the technique worked. The letter proved that you could write and were available for work. Your eager face and intelligent replies did the rest.

Later, as you moved up the ladder, something slightly more sophisticated was called for. The advice then was to put something in the letter which would distinguish you from the rest. It might be the aggressive approach.” your search is over. I am the person you are looking for,” was a widely used trick that occasionally succeeded. Or it might be some special feature special feature specially designed for the job in view.

There is no doubt, however, that it is the increasing number of applicants with university education at all points in the process of engaging staff that has led to the greater importance of the curriculum vitae.

16. The new type of advertisement which is appearing in newspaper columns .

A. informs job hunters of the opportunities available

B. promises useful advice to those looking for employment

C. divides available jobs into various types

D. informs employers that people are available for work.

17. Nowadays a demand for this specialized type of service has been created because .

A. there is lack of jobs available for artistic people

B. there are so many top-level jobs available

C. there are so many people out of work

D. the job history is considered to be a work of art .

18. In the past it was expected that first-job hunters would .

A. write an initial letter giving their life history

B. pass some exams before applying for a job

C. have no qualifications other than being able to read and write

D. keep any detailed information until they obtained an interview

19. Later, as one went on to apply more important jobs, one was advised to include in the letter

.

A.something that would attract attention to one?s application

B. a personal opinion about the organization one was trying to join

C.something that would offered that person reading it

D. a lie that one could easily get with telling

20. The job history has become such an important document because .

A. there has been a decrease in the number of jobs advertised

B. there has been an increase in the number of “qualified” job hunters

C. jobs are becoming much more complicated nowadays

D. the other processes of applying for jobs are more complicated

2

Pity those who aspire to put the initials PhD after their names. After 16 years of closely supervised education, prospective doctors of philosophy are left more or less alone to write the equivalent of a large book. Most social-science postgraduates have still not completed their theses by the time their grant runs out after three years. They must then get a job and finish in their spare time, which can often take a further three years. By then , most new doctors are sick to death of the narrowly defined subject which has blighted their holidays and ruined their evenings.

The Economic and Social Research Council, which gives grants to postgraduate social scientists, wants to get better value for money by cutting short this agony. It would like to see faster completion rates: until recently, only about 25% of PhD candidates were finishing within four years. The ESRC?s response has been to stop PhD grants to all institutions where the proportion taking less than four years is below 10%; in the first year of this policy the national average shot up to 39%. The ESRC feels vindicated in its toughness, and will progressively raise the threshold to 40% in two years. Unless completion rates improve further, this would exclude 55 out of 73 universities and polytechnics-including Oxford University, the London School of Economics and the London Business School.

Predictably, howls of protest have come from the universities, who view the blacklisting of whole institutions as arbitrary and negative. They point out that many of the best students go quickly into jobs where they can apply their research skills, but consequently take longer to finis their theses. Polytechnics with as few as two PhD candidates complain that they are penalized by random fluctuations in student performance. The colleges say there is no hard evidence to prove that faster completion rates result from greater efficiency rather than lower standards or less ambitious doctoral topics.

The ESRC thinks it might not be a bad thing if PhD students were more modest in their aims. It would prefer to see more systematic teaching of research skills and fewer unrealistic expectations placed on young men and women who are undertaking their first piece of serious research. So in future its grants will be given only where it is convinced that students are being trained as researchers, rather than carrying out purely knowledge-based studies.

The ESRC can not dictate the standard of thesis required by external examiners, or force departments to give graduates more teaching time. The most it can do is to try to persuade universities to change their ways. Recalcitrant professors should note that students want more research training and a less elaborate style of thesis, too.

21. By time new doctors get a job and try to finish their theses in spare time, .

A. most of them died of some sickness

B. their holidays and evenings have been ruined by their jobs

C. most of them are completely tired of the narrowly defined subject

D. most of their grants run out

22. Oxford University would be excluded out of those universities that receive PhD grants from ESRC, because the completion rate of its PhD students? theses within four years is lower than

.

A. 25%

B. 40%

C. 39%

D. 10%

23. All the following statements are the arguments against ESRC?s policy except .

A. all the institutions on the blacklist are arbitrary and negative

B. there is no hard evidence to prove that faster completion rates result from greater efficiency rather than lower standards or less ambitious doctoral topics.

C. many of the best students go quickly into jobs where they can apply their research skills, but consequently take longer to finish their theses.

D. some polytechnics are penalized by random fluctuations in student performance

24. The ESRC would prefer .

A. that the students were carrying out purely knowledge-based studies rather than being trained as researchers.

B. to see higher standards of PhD students? theses and more ambitious doctoral topics

C. more systematic teaching of research skills to fewer unrealistic expectations placed on inexperienced young PhD students.

D. that PhD students were less modest in their aims

25. what the ESRC can do is to .

A. force departments to give graduates more teaching time

B. try to persuade universities to change their ways

C. dictate the standard of thesis required by external examiners

D. note that students want more research training and less elaborate style of thesis

3

Influenza should not be dismissed as a trivial disease. It kills thousands of people every year at a very high cost to the economy, hits hardest the young and the elderly, and is most dangerous for people over the age of 65. influenza is mainly a seasonal illness of the winter months, though in tropical and subtropical areas of Asia and the Pacific it can occur all the year round.

The damaging effects of influenza can be prevented by immunization, but constant changes of antigenic specificity of the virus necessitate a different composition of the vaccine from one year to another. The network of WHO Collaborating Centers for Influenza and national institutes carries out influenza surveillance activities to monitor the evaluation of influenza virus strains, and WHO hold an annual consultation at the end of February to recommend the composition of the vaccine for the forthcoming epidemiological season. These recommendations are published immediately in the Weekly epidemiological record.

Vaccination each year against influenza is recommended for certain high-risk populations. In closed or semi-closed settings, maximum benefit from immunization is likely to be achieved when more than three-quarters of the population are vaccinated so that the benefit of “herd immunity” can be exploited. Special care should be taken of the following groups:

--adults and children with chronic disorders of the pulmonary or cardiovascular systems requiring regular medical follow-up or who had been hospitalized during the previous year, including children with asthma;

--residents of nursing homes and other establishments for patients of any age with chronic medical conditions;

--all people over the age of 65.

Physicians, nurses, and other personal in primary and intensive care units, who are potentially capable of transmitting influenza to high risk persons, should be immunized; visiting nurses and volunteer workers providing home care to high-risk persons should also be included.

26. This passage .

A. concerns the damaging effects of influenza

B. mentions the steps of fighting against the harmful effects of influenza

C. emphasizes the worry expressed by all age groups

D. both A and B

27. That a different component part of the vaccine is necessary is principally due to the variable change of .

A. virus

B. strain

C. antigen

D. immunization

28. Which has been done by World Health Organization in combating the bad effects of influenza?

A. supervising the assessment of influenza virus strains.

B. Holding meetings twice a year to provide the latest data concerning the composition of the vaccines.

C. Publishing the related information in a WHO almanac.

D. Stressing the importance of preventing influenza for people living in tropical areas of Asia.

29. According to the passage, high-risk persons exclude which of the following kinds of people ?

A. Children suffering from asthma.

B. The elderly with chronic pulmonary diseases.

C. Middle aged people with chronic heart diseases.

D. Nurses taking special care of the sick.

30. In which of the following publications would this passage most likely be printed?

A. A surgery book.

B. A psychology book

C. An epidemiology book.

D. An obstetrics book

4

In science the meaning of the word “explain” suffers with civilization?s every step in search of reality. Science can not really explain electricity, magnetism, and gravitation; their effects can be measured and predicted, but of their nature no more is known to the modern scientist than to Thales who first speculated on the electrification of amber. Most contemporary physicists reject the notion that man can ever discover what these mysterious forces “really”are. Electricity, Bertrand Russell says, “is not a thing, like St. Paul?s Cathedral; it is a way in which things behave. When we have told how things behave when they are electrified, we have told all thee is to tell.” Until recently scientists would

have disapproved of such an idea. Aristotle, for example, whose natural science dominated Western thought for two thousand years, believed that man could arrive at an understanding of reality by reasoning from self-evident principles. He felt, for example, that it is a self-evident principle that everything in the universe has its proper place, hence one can conclude that objects fall to the ground because that is where they belong, and smoking goes up because that is where it belongs. The goal of Aristotelian science was to explain why things happen. Modern science was born when Galileo began trying to explain how things happen and thus originated the method of controlled experiment which now forms the basis of scientific investigation.

31. The aim of controlled scientific experiments is .

A. to explain why things happen

B. to explain how things happen

C. to describe self-evident principles

D. to support Aristotelian science

32. what principles most influenced scientific thought for two thousand years?

A. The speculations of Thales

B. The forces of electricity, magnetism, and gravity

C. Aristotle?s natural science

D. Galileo?s discoveries

33. Bertrand Russell?s notion about electricity is .

A. disapproved of by most modern scientists

B. in agreement with Aristotle?s theory of self-evident principles

C. in agreement with scientific investigation directed toward “how” things happen

D. in agreement with scientific investigation directed toward “why ” things happen

34. The passage says that until recently scientists disagreed with the idea .

A. that there are mysterious forces in the universe

B. that man can not discover what forces “really” are

C. that there are self-evident principles

D. that we can discover why things behave as they do

35. Which of the following is the topic most likely to be discussed right after the passage?

A. The most recent definition of “explain”

B. The relationship between science and religion

C. The limitations of science

D. Galileo and the birth of modern science.

5

Some weeks ago, riding in a cab from Boston to Cambridge, my driver turned and asked me what I did for a living . “Teach English”, I said. “Is that so? ” The young man continued. “I was an English major” But then, instead of chatting idly about Joyce or dropping the subject altogether, this driver caught me short. “You guys,” he said, turning back so that his furry face pressed into the glass partition, “ought to be shot” I think he meant it .

The guilty party in this present state of affairs is not really the academic discipline. It is not the fault of English and philosophy and biology that engineering and accounting and computer science afford students better job opportunities and increased flexibility in career choice. Literature and an understanding of, say, man?s evolutionary past are as important as ever. They simply are no longer perceived in today?s market as salable. That is a harsh economic fact. And it is not only true in the United States. Employment prospects for liberal arts graduates in Canada, for example, are said to be the worst since the 1930s.

What to do? I think it would be shortsighted for colleges and universities to advise students against majoring in certain subjects that do not appear linked (at least directly) to careers. Where our energies should be directed instead is toward the development of educational programs that combine course sequences in the liberal arts with course in the viable professions. Double majors---one for enrichment, one for earning one?s bread---have never been promoted very seriously in our institutions of higher learning, mainly because liberal arts and professional-vocational faculties have long been suspicious or contemptuous of one another. Thus students have been directed to one path or the other, to the disadvantage of both students and faculty.

A hopeful cue could be taken, it seems to me, from new attempts in the health profession(nursing and pharmacy, for example), where jobs are still plentiful, to give the humanities and social sciences a greater share of the curriculum. Why could not the traditional history major in the college of arts and sciences be pointed toward additional courses in the business school, or to engineering, or to physical therapy? This strategy requires a new commitment from both the institution and the student and demands a much harder look at the allocation of time and resources. But in an age of adversity, double majors are one way liberal arts students can more effectively prepare for the world outside.

36. What is the chief purpose of double majors?

A. To help graduates of history major become successful businessmen.

B. To provide liberal arts graduates with a method of meeting effectively the challenge in employment.

C. To extend their knowledge learnt in the college.

D. To moderate the tension between liberal arts and vocational faculties.

37. In paragraph 1, the sentence “You guys ought to be shot” shows that at heart the driver .

A. felt greatly regretted about the major he had chosen

B. felt a deep hatred for all the English teachers in his former college

C. complained that his teachers hadn?t taught him how to survive in this competitive society.

D. held a deep contempt in the author because of his scholastic manner

38. It can be inferred from the passage that the blame for the present state of affairs lies in the fact that .

A. the course sequences themselves are unreliable.

B. more and more students start to select science majors

C. almost none of the specialties the students major in might be salable in today?s market

D. the opportunities of employment are scarce for graduates of non-science majors

39. The obstacles in course sequences in academic schooling are indicated in all of the following EXCEPT .

A. the misguidance of major-selection in some of the institutions of higher learning

B. the current curriculum couldn?t keep up with the development of the society

C. the inharmonious relation among the teaching faculties

D. the authorities of higher learning attach only little importance to course sequences

40. This passage can best be titled as .

A. Harsh Economic Fact

B. Double Majors, a Way Out

C. Careers, Schooling fro Better

D. Market for Graduates

6

Does an unborn baby know his mother?s voice? psychology professor Anthony DeCasper advised an ingenious experiment to find out. He placed padded earphones over a newborn?s ears and gave him a bottle nipple attached to a closed rubber tube. Changes in pressure in the tube switched channels on a tape recorder. If the baby paused extra long between bursts of sucking, he heard on channel; if he paused shorter than average, he heard the other. The baby now had the ability, in effect to change channels.

DeCasper found that newborns choose the recording of their mother?s voice over that of another woman?s. The baby, however, has no innate interest in his father?s voice, which is heard in the womb only from time to time, while the mother?s voice is ever present. Within two weeks after birth, however, the baby can recognize Dad?s voice too.

A newborn is even attuned to the cadence and rhythm of his native language. In a French study using a setup similar to DeCasper?s, French babies given the choice between French and Russian words responded more to the sound of French.

Brian Satt, a research specialist in clinical psychology, has parents sing a lullaby-like “womb song” to their babies. The unborn baby often develops a specific, consistent movement pattern when its song is sung. According to Satt, most parents can calm a fussy newborn with the song most of the time, which is a prize worth more than rubies to a new parent.

He is roused by a heavy jolt. His mother has tripped and fallen heavily on one hip. He is much too well cushioned to experience any injury, but her pain and the fear that she may have hurt him floods both their bodies with adrenaline and other stress-related hormones. He cries and kicks vigorously, a cry never heard because there is no air to make sound. As she recovers the stress hormones ebb away, and he calms down too.

41. Which of the following is NOT mentioned about the unborn baby in the passage?

A. An unborn baby can occasionally hear his father?s voice.

B. Dc. Casper?s approach proved absolutely effective in a French experiment.

C. An unborn baby is able to identify the tone and rhythm of his native language.

D. Parents are able to soothe a fussy newly-born baby.

42. According to the author, an unborn baby .

A. is unable to identify his mother?s lullaby after birth

B. is able to identify his mother?s voice rather than that of others?

C. is able to help release adrenaline and other stress-related hormones

D. is able to distinguish French accent from Russian accent

43. It is known from the passage that .

A. mother?s stress, anger, shock or grief might not hurt the unborn baby in the womb

B. an unborn baby?s cry might never be heard because of the particular condition of the womb.

C. lullabies are the most precious means to young parents

D. an unborn baby has to move at intervals in the womb

44. The author believes that the reaction of an unborn baby to his mother?s voice .

A. belongs to one of the natural tendencies

B. is an indication which shows an unborn baby can use all his senses after birth

C. is but a physiological circulation of any human being

D. is the most important factor which leads an unborn baby to the survival in the womb

45. It can be assumed that the paragraph preceding the passage most probably discussed .

A. the development of the baby in his mother? s womb

B. the well-developed taste buds of the baby

C. the fact that the baby remains motionless just as what he performs in the first month of his mother?s pregnancy

D. the fact that the baby can start to use some of his senses by the last few weeks of pregnancy

Ⅲ. Translation and Writing (55 points)

Part A Translation

Translate the following into Chinese (30 points):

Engineering is the professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of the resources of nature to the uses of humankind. Engineering has been defined as the creative application of “scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination.”The term engineering is sometimes more loosely defined, especially in Great Britain, as the manufacture or assembly of engines, machine tools, and machine parts.

Associated with engineering is a great body of special knowledge; preparation for professional practice involves extensive training in the application of that knowledge. The function of the scientist is to know, while that of the engineer is to do. The scientist adds to the store of verified, systematized knowledge of the physical world; the engineer brings this knowledge to bear on practical problems. Engineering is based principally on physics, chemistry, and mathematics and their extensions into materials science, solid and fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and systems analysis.

2

Although for the purpose of this article English literature is treated as being confined to writings in English by natives or inhabitants of the British Isles, it is to a certain extent the case that literature---and this is particularly true of the literature written in English---knows no frontiers. Thus, English literature can be regarded as a cultural whole of which the mainstream literatures of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada and important elements in the literatures of other commonwealth countries are parts. It can be argued that no single English novel attains the universality of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy?s War and Peace. Yet in the Middle ages the Old English literature was influenced and gradually changed by the Latin and French writings, eminently foreign in origin in which the churchmen and the Norman conquerors expressed themselves. From this combination emerged a flexible and subtle linguistic instrument exploited by Geoffrey Chaucer and brought to supreme application by William Shakespeare.

Translate the following into English (10 points):

从二十世纪中叶起，名国政府对科学技术的重视引起了各级教育机构的响应，理论科学和应用科学的巨大进步也激起了人们学习自然科学的兴趣，科学技术因此有了飞速的发展。但与此同时，人们忽视了对人文科学和社会科学的学习，公民对道德观念和社会准则在生活中的意义缺乏认识。这在一定程度上导致了以下后果：地方、民族和国际间的暴力冲突层出不穷，环境污染日益严重，这些都给人类生活带来了危险。因此，在教育

中应纠正重理轻文的倾向，在生活中恢复人文主义的价值，以求物质文明和精神文明的平衡发展。

Part B Summary Writing (15 points)

Read the following passage carefully and then write a summary of it in English in about 120 words.

Developments in 19th century Europe are bounded by two great events. The French Revolution broke out in 1789, and its effects reverberated throughout much of Europe for many decades. World War I began in 1914. Its inception resulted from many trends in European society, culture, and diplomacy during the late 19th century. In between these boundaries---the one opening a new set of trends, the other bringing long-standing tensions to a head---much of modern Europe was defined.

Europe during this 125-year span was both united and deeply divided. A number of basic cultural trends, including new literary styles and the spread of science, ran through the entire continent. European states were increasingly locked in diplomatic interaction, culminating in continentwide alliance system after 1871. At the same time, this was the century of growing nationalism, in which individual states jealously protected their identities and indeed established more rigorous border controls than ever before. Finally, the European continent was to an extent divided between two zones of differential development. Changes such as the Industrial Revolution and political liberalization spread first and fastest in western Europe---Britain, France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and, to an extent, Germany and Italy. Eastern and southern Europe, more rural at the outset of the period, changed more slowly and in somewhat different ways.

Europe witnessed important common patterns and increasing interconnections, but these developments must be assessed in terms of nation-state divisions and, even more, of larger regional differences. Some trends, including the ongoing impact of the French Revolution, ran through virtually the entire 19th century. Other characteristics, however, had a shorter life span.

Some historians prefer to divide 19th century history into relatively small chunks. Thus 1789-1815 is defined by the French Revolution and Napoleon; 1815-48 forms a period of reaction and adjustment; 1848-71 is dominated by a new round of revolution and the unifications of the German and Italian nations; and 1871-1914, an age of imperialism, is shaped by new kinds of political debate and the pressures that culminated in war. Overriding these important markers, however, a simpler division can also be useful. Between 1789 and 1849 Europe dealt with the forces of political revolution and the first impact of the Industrial Revolution. Between 1849 and 1914 a fuller industrial society emerged, including new forms of states and of diplomatic and military alignments. The mid-19th century, in either formulation, looms as a particularly important point of transition within the extended 19th century.

03年部分II. Reading Comprehension (25 points)

Directions: There are five passages in this part. Each of the passages is followed by five questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.

1

The great advance in rocket theory 40 years ago showed that liquid-fuel rockets were far superior in every respect to the skyrocket with its weak solid fuel, the only kind of rocket then known. However, during, the last decade, large solid-fuel rockets with solid fuels about as powerful as liquid fuels have made their appearance, and it is a favorite layman?s question to inquire which one is “better”. The question is meaningless; one might as well ask whether a gasoline or a diesel engine is “better”. It all depends on the purpose. A liquid-fuel rocket is complicated, but has the advantage tat it can be controlled beautifully. The burning of the rocket engine can be stopped completely it can be re-ignited when desired. In addition, the thrust can be made to vary by adjusting the speed of the fuel pumps. A solid-fuel rocket, on the other hand, is rather simple in construction, though hard to build when a really large size is desired. But once you have a solid-fuel rocket, it is ready for action at very short notice. A liquid-fuel rocket has to be fueled first and cannot be held in readiness for very long after it has been fueled. However, once a solid-fuel rocket has been ignited, it will keep burning. It cannot be stopped and re-ignited whenever desired (it could conceivably be stopped and re-ignited after a pre-calculated time of burning has elapsed) and its thrust cannot be varied. Because a solid-fuel rocket can be kept ready for a long time, most military missiles employ solid fuels, but manned space flight needs the

fine adjustments that can only be provided by liquid fuels. It may be added that a liquid-fuel rocket is an expensive device; a large solid-fuel rocket is, by comparison, cheap. But the solid fuel, pound per pound, costs about 10 times as much as the liquid fuel. So you have on the one hand, an expensive rocket with a cheep fuel and on the other hand a comparatively cheap rocket with an expensive fuel.

21. The author feels that a comparison of liquid and solid-fuel rockets shows that ______.

A. neither type is very economical

B. the liquid-fuel rocket is best

C. each type has certain advantages

D. the solid-fuel rocket is best

22. The most important consideration for manned space flight is that the rocker be ________.

A. inexpensive to construct

B. capable of lifting heavy spacecraft into orbit

C. inexpensive to operate

D. inexpensive to operate

23. Solid fuel rockets are expensive to operate because of their _______.

A. size

B. fuel

C. construction

D. complicated engines

24. Which of the following statements is not characteristic of liquid-fuel rockets?

A. The fuel is cheap.

B. They are cheap to build.

C. They can be stopped and re-ignited.

D. They must be used soon after fueling.

25. The author tells us that ______.

A. whether a liquid-fuel or a solid-fuel rocket is better depends on the purpose

B. neither type is superior

C. forty years ago, large solid-fuel rockets with solid fuels as powerful as liquid fuels were made

D. the thrust can be made to vary by adjusting the direction of the pump

2

Imagine an accident in which a nuclear power plant releases radioactive gas. The cloud starts moving with the wind. Clearly, the authorities will want to evacuate anyone in its path, but what is that path? Local wind information is meaningless without information about terrain; a mountain range or series of valleys can divert both wind and gas in unpredictable directions.

To make “downwind” a useful term, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have put the United States on a computer, the entire United States—every hill, every valley, every mile of seashore. Within minutes of a disaster, they can give meteorologists a context for weather data, and thus the ability to predict how toxic gases might spread.

The database for this computer map is a series of altitude measurements, made over many years by the Defense Department and the U.S. Geological Survey. They represent the height above sea level of over a billion separate points—a grid of points 200 feet apart, spanning the country. Armed with these data, plus a program that manipulates them, a Cray-1 computer can produce an image of any piece of terrain, seen from any angle, illuminated by an imaginary sun at any time of day placing the “observer” at any altitude from zero to 40,000 feet.

“We use a technique called ray tracing,”says Patrick Weidhaas, one of the Livermore computer scientists who wrote the program. The computer is told where the observer is. The program traces an imaginary ray from there outward until it “intersects” with one of the points of altitude recorded in the machine?s memory. The computer then puts a dot of color at the proper place on the screen, and the program traces another ray.

At its highest resolution of 2,000 horizontal and 1,700 vertical dots per picture, the computer has to trace several million rays, Even on the Cray, the most powerful computer in the world, this takes about a minute. Reducing the resolution to 400-800 (a TV screen has 800×700) speeds it up to about eight seconds. “We can?t produce a movie simulating flight on the screen in real time,” says Weidhaas. There is a way around the problem: Two movies have been made using still pictures generated by the computer as individual frames. “The results were impressive,” he says, “but it was cumbersome to do. At twenty-four frames per second, it takes fourteen hundred separate computer images to make a one-minute film.”Another limitation: The computer can access only enough memory to cove a 15-mile-square area. An “observer” high up will see blank spaces beyond those limits.

Weidhaas wants to add information about what overlies the terrain—cities, vegetation, roads, and so on. “Making the image as realistic as possible will make our advice more effective,” he says, “and might lead to uses we

haven?t thought of yet.”

26. As used in the first paragraph, thrrain most clearly means _______.

A. available information about the weather

B. surrounding land area

C. blank spaces between the mountain ranges

D. amount of forest per square mile

27. Livermore?s computer map, in combination with weather reports, might be useful in predicting _____.

A. the path of toxic gases from a nuclear power plant explosion

B. where incoming nuclear missiles might strike

C. the average annual rainfall for North Dakota

D. the amount of pollution in the air

28. The information used by the computer to make its detailed maps _______.

I. was gathered by the Defense Department and the U.S. Geological Survey

II. shows points roughly 200 feet apart

III. involves altitude measurements

A. I

B. I and II

C. I and III

D. I, II and III

29. Which of the following is the best description of ray tracing?

A. The computer simulates rays of the sun, filling in areas of light and shadow.

B. Lines radiate outward from the imagined observer and a dot of color is placed where the line intersects with one

of the points of altitude in the machine?s memory.

C. X-rays are used to trace the outline of the terrain through buildings and trees.

D. The exact movement of rays is used by private detectives to solve mysteries and locate missing persons.

30. Information about cities, vegetation, and road overlying the terrain ______.

A. has to be eliminated before correct readings can be obtained

B. would be impossible to convert to data that a computer would accept.

C. might lead to new applications and improve effectiveness of present uses

D. would make ray tracing obsolete

3

Should doctors ever lie to benefit their patients—to speed recovery or to conceal the approach of death? In medicine as in law, government, and other lines of work, the requirements of honesty often seem dwarfed by greater needs: The need to shelter from brutal news or to uphold a promise of secrecy.

What should doctors say, for example, to a 46-year-old man coming in for a routine physical checkup who, though he feels in perfect health, is found to have a form of cancer? If he asks, should the doctor deny that he is ill, or minimize the gravity of the illness Doctors confront such choices often and urgently. At times, they see important reasons to lie for the patient?s own sake. In their eyes, such lies differ sharply from self-serving ones.

Studies show that most doctors sincerely believe that the seriously ill do not want to know the truth about their condition, and that informing them risks destroying their hope, so that they may recover more slowly, or deteriorate faster, perhaps even commit suicide. As one physician wrote: “Ours is a profession which traditionally has been guided by a precept that transcends the virtue of uttering the truth for truth?s sake, and that is, as far as possible …do no harm?.”Armed with such a precept a number of doctors may slip into deceptive practices that they assume will “do no harm”and may well help their patients.

But the illusory nature of the benefits such deception is meant to produce is now coming to be documented. Studies show that, contrary to the belief of many physicians, an overwhelming majority of patients do want to be told the truth, even about grave illness, and feel betrayed when they learn that they have been misled. We are also learning that truthful information, humanely conveyed, helps patients cope with illness.

Not only do lies not provide the “help” hoped for by advocates of benevolent deception, they invade the autonomy of patients and render them unable to make informed choices concerning their own health.

Lies also do harms to those who tell them: harm to their integrity and, in the long run, to their credibility. Lies hurt their colleagues as well. The suspicion of deceit undercuts the work of the many doctors who are scrupulously honest

with their patients; it contributes to the spiral of lawsuits and of “defensive medicine”, and thus it injures, in turn, the entire medical profession.

31. Who are most likely to lie for serving purposes?

A. physicians

B. surgeons

C. psychiatrists

D. lawyers

32. Doctors think that lying to their patients is _______.

A. a medical tradition

B. to harm their own integrity

C. to defend medicine

D. uttering the truth for truth?s sake

33. Most patients think that being told the truth of their illness may ______.

A. slow down recovery

B. lead to suicide in some cases

C. be too hard for them to accept

D. help deal with illness

34. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the author?

A. Doctors are often in a dilemma as to tell the patient his real condition of health.

B. Doctor s? reluctance to tell patient truth has no real support in reality.

C. Doctors? lies are different from that of lawyers and government officials.

D. Doctors and patients hold different views about telling truth.

35. What is the author?s attitude towards doctors?

A. sarcastic

B. praising

C. objective

D. appreciative

4

China today is home to 13 billion people—nearly one quarter of the world?s population. The growth of china?s population is largely the result of modernization, which has brought with it more food, better medical care, less disease, and fewer epidemics and famines. The death rate in China has decreased, and more children survive. The higher survival rate in China means that more people are entering childbearing age. This population growth was threatening to destroy China?s chances to become a richer country: just providing food and basic necessities for everyone would consume all of its economic gains.

To tame the explosive population growth, the Chinese government launched a drastic policy of allowing one child per family. To enforce this policy, the government has a variety of incentives for those who comply and punishment for those who do not. For example, couples who have only one child get a monthly pay until the child is fourteen, special consideration for scarce housing, free medical care, and extra pension benefits. The pressure to conform is powerful. Couples who ignore the state?s directive suffer social disgrace and economic penalties.

The family-planning policy, instituted in China in 1979, has been remarkably effective (though considerably more so in cities than in the countryside). Births to women of childbearing age have fallen dramatically—to about 2.5 children for every woman.

China may eventually succeed in balancing its population growth, but in doing so, it is creating a new problem. The irony is that because of the very success of China?s population policy, the Chinese population is aging rapidly. In 1982, 5% of the population was over age 64. In 2010, about 9% will be over 64, and in 2050, 25% will be. At the family level, children without brothers or sisters will each have to care for two aging parents. At the national level, the great numbers of aging people will tax the society?s resources. China shares this problem—a rapidly aging population without a large enough following generation to support it—with many of the developed nations of the world.

36. The primary purpose of this passage is to _______.

A. predict the population problem in China.

B. explain why the family-planning policy is adopted in China

C. illustrate the result of family-planning policy

D. demonstrate the cause and effect of the family-planning policy

37. According to the passage, all of the following are the causes for the population explosion in China except ______.

A. better life

B. decreased death rate

C. better education

D. better health

38. According to the passage, China is in a population dilemma in the sense that ______.

A. it is difficult to carry out the family-planning policy

B. Chinese population will continue to increase rapidly in the near future

C. birth-rate decreases but the percentage of old people increases

D. more old people survive in the society

39. To punish those who violate the family-planning policy, the Chinese government does which of the following?

A. Put them into prison.

B. Fine those couples.

C. Reduce their wages.

D. Advise them to observe the rule.

40. All of the following can be inferred form the passage except that ______.

A. many developed nations suffer from the problem of a rapidly aging population

B. the family-planning policy meets more difficulty in the countryside than in cities

C. the increasing number of aged people is a result of the reduced birth-rate

D. in the year of 2010 each child will have to look after one parent

5

Americans had always been preoccupied with reforming their society; with “making it over,”and between the 1890s and the end of the First World War, the reform spirit intensified. More and more people tried to address the problem of their time directly, to impose order on a confusing world, and, especially, to create a conflict-free society. Their efforts, inspired by a complicated mixture of calculated self-interest and unselfish benevolence, helped what can be called the Progressive era. The urge for reform had many sources. Industrialization had brought unprecedented productivity, awesome technology, and plenty of consumer goods. But it had also included labor struggle, waste of natural resources, and abuse of corporate power. Rapidly growing cities facilitated the accumulation and distribution of goods, services, and cultural amenities but also magnified problems of poverty, disease, crime, and political corruption. Massive inflows of immigrants and the rise of a new class of managers and professionals shook the foundations of old social classes. And the depression that crippled the nation in the 1890s made many leading citizens realize what working people had known for some time: the central promise of American life was not being kept; equality of opportunity—whether economic, political, or social—was a myth.

Progressives tried to resolve these problems by organizing ideas and actions around three basic themes. First, they sought to end abuses of power. Second, progressives aimed to replace corrupt power with the power of reformed institutions such as schools, charities, medical clinics, and the family. Third progressives wanted to apply principles of science and efficiency on a nationwide scale to all economic, social, and political institutions, to minimize social and economic disorder and to establish cooperation, especially between business and government, that would end wasteful competition and labor conflict.

Befitting their name, progressives had strong faith in the ability of humankind to create a better world. More than ever before, Americans looked to government as an agent of the people that could and should intervene in social and economic relations to protect the common good and substitute public interest for self-interest.

41. The passage is primarily concerned with .

A. the reasons for the Progressive Movement

B. the problems that American society faced between the 1890s and the end of World war I

C. the causes and contents of the Progressive reform

D. the belief that Americans possessed in their society

42. All of the following can be inferred from the passage about the American society before the 1890s except that .

A. there was little equal opportunity for general Americans

B. industry developed very rapidly

C. thousands of people immigrated to the United States

D. economic depression did great harm to its development

43. The author believed that the remedy for the social problems is .

A. to stop the use of power

B. to establish more schools and medical clinics

C. to depend on government to make reforms

D. to minimize the conflict between the labor and capital

44. It can be inferred from the passage that Progressives believed that .

A. the rate of industrial development should be reduced

B. rapid growth of cities resulted mainly from the massive immigration

C. human beings are able to do anything well

D. government tended to protect the businesses rather than the masses

45. It can be concluded from the passage that the spirit of the progressive movement is the spirit

.

A.to end political corruption

B.to minimize social and economic disorder

C.to promote free competition

D.to reform all the social evils and problems

Ⅲ. Translation and Writing (55 points)

Part A Translation

Translate the following into Chinese (30 points):

1.Culture is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour. Culture thus defined consists of

language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, ceremonies, and other related components; and the development of culture depends upon man?s capacity to learn and to transmit knowledge to succeeding generations.

Every human society has its own particular culture, or sociocultural system, which overlaps to some extent with other systems. Variation among sociocultural systems is attributable to physical habitats and resources; to the range of possibilities inherent in various areas of activity, such as language, rituals and customs, and the manufacture and use of tools; and to the degree of social development. Adaptation and change take place within and among cultures by means of ecological and environmental changes.

2.Data base (or database): any collection of data that is specially organized for rapid search and retrieval, usually by a

computer. Databases are organized and integrated in such a way as to facilitate the accessing, manipulation, and deletion of data in conjunction with various data-processing operations.

The information in many databases consists of natural-language texts of documents. Information is retrieved from these computerized records based on the presence in them of words or short phrases that are identical to those posed in the user?s query. In a typical query, the user provides a sequence of characters, such as the title of a journal or the name of a subject area, and the computer searches in the database for a corresponding sequence of characters and provides the source materials in which those characters appear. Queries are the principal means by which users retrieve database information.

Translate the following into English (10 points):

3.摩天大楼、高速公路、小轿车和市场上品种繁多的家用电器，这一切都说明中国自1978年实行改革开放以

来经历了深刻的变化—这是人们能够亲眼看见的变化。然而，在人们物质生活变化的背后，还有其他一些可能是具有更重要意义的变化。社会学家们发现，随着人们生活水平提高，传统的生活方式和观念也慢慢地发生了变化。社会学家们一直在关注这些变化，从家庭结构的演变到妇女社会地位的变化，从人们对婚姻的态度到消费观念的转变，还有收入水平的两极分化等，这些都成为社会学家们研究的课题。

Part B Summary Writing (15 points)

Read the following passage carefully and then write a summary of it in English in about 120 words.

Europe was the first of the major world regions to develop a modern economy based on commercial agriculture and industrial development. Its successful modernization can be traced to the continent?s rich endowment of economic resources, its history of innovations, the evolution of a skilled and educated labour force, and the interconnectedness of all its parts-both naturally existing and man-made—which facilitated the easy movement of massive quantities of raw materials and finished goods and the communication of ideas.

Europe?s economic modernization began with a marked improvement in agriculture output in the 17th century, particularly in England. The traditional method of cultivation involved periodically allowing land to remain fallow; this gave way to continuous cropping on fields that were fertilized with nature from animals raised as food for rapidly

expanding urban markets. Greater wealth was accumulated by landowners at the same time that fewer farmhands were needed to work the land. The accumulated capital and abundant cheap labour created by this revolution in agriculture fueled the development of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.

The revolution vegan in northern England in the 1730s with the development of water-driven machinery to spin and weave wool and cotton. By mid-century James Watt had developed a practical steam engine that emancipated machinery from sites adjacent to waterfalls and rapids. Britain had been practically deforested by this time, and the incessant demand for more fuel to run the engines led to the exploitation of coal as a major industry. Industries were built on the coalfields to minimize the cost of transporting coal over long distances. The increasingly surplus rural population flocked to the new manufacturing areas. Canals and other improvements in the transportation infrastructure were made in these regions, which made them attractive to other industries that were not necessarily dependent on coal and thus prompted development in adjacent regions.

Industrialization outside of England began in the mid-19th century in Belgium and northeastern France and spread to Germany, the Netherlands, southern Scandinavia, and other areas in conjunction with the construction of railways. By the 1870s the governments of the European nations had recognized the vital importance of factory production and had taken steps to encourage local development through subsidies and tariff protection against foreign competition. Large areas, however, remained virtually untouched by modern industrial development, including most of the Iberian Peninsula, southern Italy, and a broad belt of eastern Europe extending from the Balkans on the south to Finland and northern Scandinavia.

During the 20the century Europe has experienced periods of considerable economic growth and prosperity, and industrial development has proliferated much more widely throughout the continent; but continued economic development in Europe has been handicapped to a large degree by its multinational character—which has spawned economic rivalries among states and two devastating world wars-as well as by the exhaustion of many of its resources and by increased economic competition from overseas. Governmental protectionism, which has tended to restrict the potential market for a product to a single country, has deprived many industrial concerns of the efficiencies of large-scale production serving a mass market (such as is found in the United States). In addition, enterprise efficiency has suffered from government support and from a lack of competition within a national market area. Within individual countries there have been growing tensions between regions that have prospered and those that have not. This “core-periphery”problem has been particularly acute in situations where the contrasting regions are inhabited by different ethnic groups.

04年部分Directions:There are five passages in this part. Each of the passages is followed by five questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSER SHEET.

1

Imagine eating everything delicious you want with none of the fat. That would be great, w ouldn’t it?

New “fake fat” products appeared on store shelves in the United States recently, but not everyone is happy about it. Makers of the products, which contain a compound called olestra, say food manufacturers can now eliminate fat from certain foods, Critics, however, say that the new compound can rob the body of essential vitamins and nutrients and can also cause unpleasant side effects in some people. So it is up to consumers to decide whether the new fat-free products taste good enough to keep eating.

Chemists discovered olestra in the late 1960s, when they were searching for a fat that could be digested by infants more easily. Instead of finding the desired fat, the researchers created a fat that can’t be digested at all.

Normally, special chemic als in the intestines “grab” molecules of regular fat and break them down so they can be used by the body. A molecule of regular fat is made up of three molecules of substances called fatty acids.

The fatty acids are absorbed by the intestines and bring with them the essential vitamins A, D, E and K. When fat molecules are present in the intestines with any of those vitamins, the vitamins attach to the molecules and are carried into the bloodstream.

Olestra, which is made from six to eight molecules of fatty acids, is too large for the intestines to absorb. It just slides through the intestines without being broken down. Manufacturers say it’s that ability to slide unchanged through the intestines that makes olestra so valuable as a fat substitute. It provides consumers with the taste of regular fat without any bad effects on the body. But critics say olestra can prevent vitamins A, D, E, and K from being absorbed. It can also prevent the absorption of carotenoids, compounds that may reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, etc.

Manufacturers are adding vitamins A, D, E and K as well as carotenoids to their products now. Even so, some nutritionists are still concerned that people might eat unlimited amounts of food made with the fat substitute without worrying about how many calories they are consuming.

21. We learn from the passage that olestra is a substance that ？？？？？？？？？.

A. contains plenty of nutrients

B. renders foods calorie-free while retaining their vitamins

C. makes foods easily digestible

D. makes foods fat-free while keeping them delicious

22. The result of the search for an easily digestible fat turned out to be ？？？？？？？？？？.

A. commercially useless

B. just as anticipated

C. somewhat controversial

D. quite unexpected

23. Olestra is different from ordinary fats in that ？？？？？？？？？？？.

A. it passes through the intestines without being absorbed

B. it facilitates the absorption of vitamins by the body

C. it helps reduce the incidence of heart disease

D. it prevents excessive intake of vitamins

24. What is a possible effect of olestra according to some critics?

A. It may impair the digestive system.

B. It may affect the overall fat intake.

C. It may increase the risk of cancer.

D. It may spoil the consumers’ appetite.

25. Why are nutritionists concerned about adding vitamins to olestra?

A. It may lead to the over-consumption of vitamins.

B. People may be induced to eat more than is necessary.

C. The function of the intestines may be weakened.

D. It may trigger a new wave of fake food production.

2

Although rarely seen, bats, as compared to other mammals, are quite common. Bats rank second only to rodents in number and diversity of species. Their numbers probably total in the tens of billions. Bats also vary considerably in size-from the tiny Philippine bamboo bat, with a six-inch wingspan and weighing 1/20th of an ounce to the “flying fox” with a wingspan of four or five feet and weight of two pounds.

The diet of bats is varied. Most types eat insects, but they also consume blood, pollen, and nectar and fruits. Some eat other vertebrates (animals with backbones) such as fish, lizards, and even other bats. Those that feed on flowers very often server as the primary pollinator of the flowers. The insect-consuming forms, quite obviously, are very beneficial.

Perhaps the most unusual characteristic of bats is their skilled nocturnal flying ability. This skill is so highly developed that they are capable of avoiding obstacles even in total darkness. Bats possess a high degree of tactile sense that may help them in avoiding obstacles, but their primary ability to do so is based on their ability to make high-pitched sounds and on their acute hearing ability.

Flying bats were long thought to be silent creatures, but this is now known not to be the case. While in flight, bats are continuously emitting a series of ultrasonic orientation pulses that are inaudible to the human ear. The frequency of the cries of bats, at 50,000 vibrations per second, is estimated to be two and half times higher than the human ear can hear.

This unique operation, a highly refined type of sonar system, allows the bat to detect rebounding pulses from obstacles near and far in its environment. They system is unique, additionally, in that the bat is capable of sorting through numerous rebounding pulses so as to avoid objects in its immediate path. Rescarchers are attempting to understand this system in hopes that it may reveal how the human brain processes sensory information.

In the final analysis bats are interesting and amazing; and to contrast to popular legends, they are quite useful and helpful to nature and man.

26. Which of the following is true?

A. There are more rodents in the world than bats.

B. There are more bats in the world than rodents.

C. Bats are usually bigger than rodents.

D. Rodents are usually bigger than bats.

27. According to the passage, some bats eat ？？？？？？？.

A. human-beings

B. rodents

C. foxes

D. other bats

28. The word “nocturnal” in Paragraph 3 is related to ？？？？？？？？.

A. sound

B. vibrations

C. night

D. reputation

29. What can make bats avoid objects in flight?

A. Their sharp sense of hearing.

B. Their ability to emit ultrasonic sounds.

C. Their unique sense of seeing.

D. Both A and B.

30. We can conclude from the passage that bats are ？？？？？？.

A. really more intelligent than man

B. often wronged in popular legends

C. ugly and dangerous

D. beautiful in appearance

3

There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedicated to keeping orderly records of g overnmental units (“state” and “statistics” come from the same Latin root, “status&rdquo and a gentlemanly gambling father who relied on mathematics to increase his skill at playing the odds in games of chance. The influence of the mother on the offspring, statistics, is represented by counting, measuring, describing, tabulating, ordering, and the taking of censuses—all of which led to modern descriptive statistics. From the influence of the father came modern inferential statistics, which is based squarely on theories of probability.

Descriptive statistics involves tabulating, depicting, and describing collections of data. Theses data may be quantitative, such as measures of height, intelligence, or grade level—variables that are characterized by an underlying continuum—or the data may represent qualitative variables, such as ***, college major, or personality type. Large masses of data must generally undergo a process of summarization or reduction before they are comprehensible. Descriptive statistics is a tool for describing or summarizing or reducing to comprehensible form the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data.

Inferential statistics is a formalized body of methods for solving another class of problems that present great difficulties for the unaided human mind. This general class of problems characteristically involves attempts to make predictions using a sample of observations. For example, a school superintendent wishes to determine the proportion of children in a large school system who come to school without breakfast, have been vaccinated for flu, or whatever. Having a little knowledge

of statistics, the superintendent would know that it is unnecessary and inefficient to question each child: the proportion for the entire district could be estimated fairly accurately from a sample of as few as 100 children. Thus, the purpose of inferential statistics is to predict or estimate characteristics of a population from a knowledge of the characteristics of only a sample of the population.

31. The word “divergent” (Para. 1, Line 1) is closest in meaning to ？？？？？.

A. distributed

B. different

C. recorded

D. prominent

32. According to the first paragraph, counting and census-taking are associated with ？？？？？？.

A. inferential statistics

B. qualitative changes

C. descriptive statistics

D. unknown variables

33. Why does the author mention the “mother” and “father” in the passage?

A. To point out that parents can teach their children statistics.

B. To introduce inferential statistics.

C. To explain that there are different kinds of variables.

D. To present the background of statistics in a humorous and understandable way.

34. Which of the following statements about descriptive statistics is best supported by the passage?

A. It reduces large amount of data to a more comprehensible form.

B. It is based on probability.

C. It can be used by people with little knowledge of mathematics.

D. It measures only qualitative differences.

35. With what is the passage mainly concerned?

A. The drawbacks of descriptive and inferential statistics.

B. The development and use of statistics.

C. Applications of inferential statistics.

D. How to use descriptive statistics.

4

It is possible to persuade mankind to live without war? War is an ancient institution which has existed for at least six thousand years. It was always wicked and usually foolish, but in the past the human race managed to live with it. Modern ingenuity has changed this. Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man. For the present, it is nuclear weapons that cause the gravest danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapons may, before long, offer an even greater threat. If we succeed

in abolishing nuclear weapons, our work will not be done. It will never be done until we have succeeded in abolishing war. To do this, we need to persuade mankind to look upon international questions in a new way, not as contests of force, in which the victory goes to the side which is most skillful in massacre, but by arbitration in accordance with agreed principles of law. It is not easy to change age-old mental habits, but this is what must be attempted.

There are those who say that the adoption of this or that ideology would prevent war. I believe this to be a profound error. All ideologies are based upon dogmatic assertions which are, at best, doubtful, and at worst, totally false. Their adherents believe in them so fanatically that they are willing to go to war in support of them.

The movement of world opinion during the past two years has been very largely such as we can welcome. It has become a commonplace that nuclear war must be avoided. Of course very difficult problems remain in the international sphere, but the spirit in which they are being approached is a better one than it was some years ago. It has began to be though, even by the powerful men who decide whether we shall live or die, that negotiations should reach agreements even if both sides do not find these agreements wholly satisfactory. It has begun to be understood that the important conflict nowadays is not between East and West, but between Man and the H-bomb.

36. This passage implies that war is now ？？？？？.

A. more wicked than in the past

B. as wicked as in the past

C. less wicked than in the past

D. what people try to live with

37. According to the author ？？？？？？.

A. it is impossible to live without war

B. war is the only way to suede international disagreements

C. war must be abolished if man wants to survive

D. war will be abolished by modern ingenuity

38. The author says that modern weapons ？？？？？.

A. will help abolish war

B. put mankind in grave danger

C. will gradually become part of man’s life

D. need further improving

39. The author believes that the only way to abolish war is to ？？？？.

A. abolish nuclear weapons

B. let the stronger side take over the world

C. improve bacteriological and chemical weapons

D. settle international issues through negotiation

40. The last paragraph suggests that ？？？？.

A. nuclear war will definitely not take place

B. international agreements are now reached more and more easily

C. man is beginning to realize that nuclear war is his greatest enemy

D. world opinion is in favour of nuclear war

5

The acknowledged “King of Ragtime” w as the black pianist and composer Scott Joplin. Joplin (1868-1917), originally from Texarkana, Texas, began his career as an itinerant pianist. By 1885 he was in St. Louis, playing in honky-tonks and sporting houses. He went to Chicago briefly (1893) to tr y his luck in the entertainment halls that had sprung up around the Word’s Fair, then in 1894 to Sedalia, Missouri, to stay until the turn of the century. His first published rag, Original Rags, came out in March, 1899; later the same year appeared Maple Leaf Rag, named for a saloon and dance hall in Sedalia. The work has an instant and resounding success, and by the time of his death Joplin had published more than thirty original rags, and other piano pieces, songs, and arrangements. He had even larger aims: in 1902 he finished a ballet score called Rag Time Dance, and in 1903 the opera A Guest of Honor, unpublished and now apparently lost, in 1911 came another opera, Treemonisha. The artistic success of these larger works is debatable, but that of Joplin’s piano rags is not; they can only be described as elegant, varied, often subtle, and as sharply incised as a cameo. They are the precise American equivalent, in terms of a native style of dance music, of minuets by Mozart, mazurkas by Chopin, or waltzes by Brahams. They can both be lovely and powerful, infectious and moving-depending, of course, on the skill and stylishness of the pianist, for they are not easy music technically and they demand a clean but “swinging” performance.

41. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. Scott Joplin’s Early Career

B. Rare Piano Works of Scott Joplin

C. Sedalia: The Birthplace of Ragtime

D. A Ragtime composer and His Music

42. It can be inferred from the passage that Joplin is recognized as the “King of Ragtime” because he ？？？？？？.

A. was probably the greatest composer of ragtime music

B. began his career as a famous child pianist

C. created the character “King of Ragtime” in one of his operas

D. was a descendant of a European royal family

43. According to the passage, which of the following is an accurate statement about Maple Leaf Rag?

A. It was Joplin’s favorite composition.

B. Its name came from an establishment in Missouri.

C. It was published in March 1899.

D. Its popularity grew slowly.

44. Toward the end of the passage, the author refers to the works of other composers in order to illustrate the ？？？？？？.

A. popularity of different styles of dance music of recent centuries

B. success of Joplin’s operas in Europe

C. high quality of Joplin’s work a s an American musical form

D. powerful movement attributed to Joplin’s compositions

45. From the last sentence of the passage, one may infer that Joplin’s piano music can best be appreciated when played ？？？？？？.

A. by a highly skilled pianist

B. in an elegant setting

C. with a moving classical style

D. for a small audience

Ⅲ.？ Translation and Writing (55 points)

Part A Translation

Translate the following into Chinese (30 points):

？？？ 1. We care for literature primarily on account of its deep and lasting human significance.

A great book grows directly out of life; in reading it, we are brought into large, close, and fresh relations with life; and in that fact lies the final explanation of its power. Literature is a vital record of what men have seen in life, what they experienced of it, what they have though and felt about those aspects of it which have the most immediate and enduring interest for all of us. It is thus fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of language. Such expression is fashioned into the various forms of literary art. But it is important to understand, to begin with, that literature lives by virtue of the life it embodies. By remembering this, we shall be saved from the besetting danger of confusing the study of literature with the study of philology, rhetoric, and even literary technique.

2. Physical science is the systematic study of the inorganic world, as distinguished from the study of the organic world, which is the province of biological science. Physical science is ordinarily though of as consisting of four broad areas: astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences. Physics is the basic physical science. It deals with the structure and behaviour of individual atoms and their components, as well as with the different forces of nature and their relationships. It also is concerned with the physical properties of matter and with such phenomena as electricity and magnetism. Chemistry focuses on the properties and reactions of molecules. Broadly speaking, it tends to concentrate on the specific properties of different elements and compounds, as opposed to physics which is chiefly concerned with the general properties of matter as a whole. Astronomy entails the study of the entire universe beyond the Earth. It includes investigations of the gross physical properties of the earth primarily as they relate to interactions with other components of the solar system. Most other aspects are dealt with by the Earth sciences.