【英语专业考研】【复习资料】北京外国语大学基.doc

北京外国语大学2007年硕士研究生入学考试基础英语试题Please write all the answers on the answer sheets.Time Limit： 3 hoursThe total points for this exam are 150 pointsL Reading Comprehension (50 points)A Multiple Choice (24 points)Please read the passages and choose A > B. C or D to best complete the statements about them.The Quiet CrisisClose games for the Americans were rare in previous Olympics, but now it appears to be something the Americans should get used to.You could find no better metaphor for the way the rest of the world can now compete head-to-head more effectively than ever with America than the struggles of the U.S. Olympic basketball team in 2004・ The American team, made up of NBA stars, limped home to a bronze medal after losing to Puerto Rico, Lithuania, and Argentina・Previously, the United States Olympic basketball team had lost only one game in the history of the modem Olympics. Remember when America sent only NCAA stars to the Olympic basketball events? For a long time these teams totally dominated all corners・ Then they started getting challenged・ So we sent our pros. And they stalled getting challenged・Because the world keeps learning, the diffusion of knowledge happens faster; coaches in other countries now download American coaching methods off the Internet and watch NBA games in their own living rooms on satellite TV. Many of them can even get ESPN and watch the highlight reels. And thanks to the triple convergence, there is a lot of new raw talent walking onto the NBA courts from all over the world一including many new stars from China, Latin America, and Eastern Europe・ They go back and play for their national teams in the Olympics, using the skills they honed in America. So the automatic American superiority of twenty years ago is now gone in Olympic basketball. The NBA standard is increasingly becoming a global commodity一pure vanilla. If the United States wants to continue to dominate in Olympic basketball, we must, in that great sports cliche, step it up a notch・The old standard won^t do anymore. As Joel Cawley of IBM remarked to me, "Star for star, the basketball teams from places like Lithuania or Puerto Rico still don't rank well versus the Americans, but when they play as a team一when they collaborate better than we do, they are extremely competitive?9There is something about post-world War II America that reminds me of the classic wealthy family that by the third generation starts to squander its wealth. The members of the first generation are nose-to-the-grindstone innovators, the second generation holds it all together then their kids come along and get fat, dumb, and lazy and slowly squander it all. I know that is both overly harsh and a gross generalization, but there is, nevertheless, some truth in it. American society started to coast in the 1990s, when our third postwar generation came of age. The dot-com boom left too many people with the impression that they could get rich without investing in hard work. All it took was an MBA and a quick IPO, or one NBA contract, and you were set for life. But while we were admiring the flat world we had created, a lot of people in India, China, andEastern Europe were busy figuring out how to take advantage of it. Lucky for us, we were the only economy standing after World War II, and we had no serious competition for forty years. Thatgave us a huge head of steam but also a huge sense of entitlement and complacency一not to mention a certain tendency in recent years to extol consumption over hard work, investment, and long-term thinking. When we got hit with 9/ 11, it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to summon the nation to sacrifice, to address some of its pressing fiscal, energy, science, and education shortfalls一all the things that we had let slide. But our president did not summon us to sacrifice. He summoned us to go shopping.The truth is, we are in a crisis now, but it is a crisis that is unfolding very slowly and very quietly. It is a quiet crisis and this quiet crisis involves the steady erosion of America's scientific and engineering base, which has always been the source of American innovation and our rising standard of living・"The sky is not falling, nothing horrible is going to happen today, ” said Jackson, a physicist by training who chooses her words carefully. u The U.S. is still the leading engine for innovation in the world. It has the best graduate programs, the best scientific infrastructure, and the capital markets to exploit it. But there is a quiet crisis in U.S. science and technology that we have to wake up to. The U.S. today is in a truly global environment, and those competitor countries are not only wide awake, they are mnning a marathon while we are running sprints・If left unchecked, this could challenge our preeminence and capacity to innovate・”And it is our ability to constantly innovate new products, services, and companies that has been the source of America's horn of plenty and steadily widening middle class for the last two centuries・ It was American innovators who started Google, Intel, HP, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco, and it matters where innovation happens・ The fact that all these companies are headquartered in America means that most of the high-paying jobs are here, even if these companies outsource or offshore some functions. The executives, the department heads, the sales force, and the senior researchers are all located in the cities where the innovation happened・And their jobs create more jobs. The shrinking of the pool of young people with the knowledge skills to innovate wont shrink our standard of living overnight. It will be felt only in fifteen or twenty years, when we discover wc have a critical shortage of scientists and engineers capable of doing innovation or even just high-value-added technology work• Then this won't be a quiet crisis anymore, said Jacks on, M it will be the real McCoy. °Today, Americans are feeling the gradual and subtle effects of globalization that challenge the economic and strategic leadership that the United States has enjoyed since World war II .A substantial portion of our work-force finds itself in direct competition for jobs with lower-wage workers around the globe, and leading-edge scientific and engineering work is being accomplished in many parts of the world・ Thanks to globalization, driven by modern communications and other advances, workers in virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, China, India, or dozens of other nations whose economies are growing・This has been aptly referred to as "the Death of Distance：(1)Why NBA was mentioned in this passage?A.It serves as a metaphor to illustrate how the globe is competing head-to-head with U.S.B.It presents a fact that NBA is now performing very poorly.C.It sends a message that the U.S. overall strength is dropping.D・ It warns the Americans of the grave situation that the status of its super power does notexist any longer.(2)"Star for star, the basketball teams from places like Lithuania or Puerto Rico still don't rank well versus the Americans, but when they play as a team一when they collaborate better than we do—they are extremely competitive. In this sentence, "Star for star..."means ____ .A.when one team plays against anotherB.The place of the stars in a teamC.The time the star is on the courtD.When individual players of the teams arc playing against each other(3)It is stated in paragraph 3 that people are admiring the flat world. What does “flat'、mean?A.It means that the world is getting bigger and bigger and people are losing a lot of choices.B.It means that the world is getting smaller and globalization is the dominant trend.C.It means that the world is getting smaller and easier (o control.D.It means that the world stops being a round globe・(4)The author thinks that the third generation of Americans ______ ・A.are nose-to-the-grindstone innovatorsB.arc holding the wealth all togetherC・ are becoming more diligent and hard workingD.are starting to squander their wealth(5)What can be inferred of the author^ feeling about the fact that many big companies are headquartered in America?A.Negative.B.Indifferent.C.Positive.D.Worried・(6)What does the word aptly in paragraph 7 mean?A.Suitably.B.Fortunately.C.Adaptively.D.Inappropriately.(7)The" Death of Distance” refers to_______ .A.the dying economy in the U.S. because of the competitions from Ireland, Finland, China andIndiaB.lhe intensified competition between the U.S. and other countries due to globalization andadvanced CommunicationsC.the economies in Ireland and Finland that outperform those in China and IndiaD.the closeness of countries like Ireland and Finland, China and India(8)The title of this passage '"The Quiet Crisis" suggests that ______ .A.the crisis that the U S・ faces is seen clearlyB.the U. S. is not yet in a crisisC.the crisis that the U・ S・ faces unfolds very quicklyD.the current crisis develops slowlyThe Nature of CivilizationsDuring the cold war the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds. Thosedivisions are no longer relevant. It is far more meaningful now to group countries not in terms of their political or economic systems or in terms of their level of economic development but rather in terms of their culture and civilization.What do we mean when we talk of a civilization? A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity. The culture of a village in southern Italy may be different from that of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in a common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German villages. European communities, in turn, will share cultural features that distinguish them from Arab or Chinese communities. Arabs, Chinese and Westerners, however, are not part of any broader cultural entity. They constitute civilizations・ A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species・ It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people・People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of intensity as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, or a Westerner. The civilization to which he belongs is the broadest level of identification with which he intensely identifies. People can and do redefine their identities and・as a result, the composition and boundaries of civilizations change・Civilizations may involve a large number of people, as with China ("a civilization pretending to be a state, H as Lucian Pye put it), or a very small number of people, such as the Anglophone Caribbean. A civilization may include several nation states, as is the case with Western, Latin American and Arab civilizations, or only one, as is the case with Japanese civilization. Civilizations obviously blend and overlap, and may include subcivilizations. Western civilization has two major variants, European and North American, and Islam has its Arab, Turkic and Malay subdivisions・ Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between them arc seldom sharp, they arc real. Civilizations arc dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and merge. And, as any student of history knows, civilizations disappear and are buried in the sands of time.Westerners (end Io think of nation states as (he principal actors in global affairs・ They have been that, however, for only a few centuries・ The broader reaches of human history have been the history of civilizations. In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee identified 21 major civilizations; only six of them exist in the contemporary world.(9)According to the passage, what is a more meaningful way now to group countries as compared with the Cold War period?A.In terms of political systems.B.In terms of the level of economic development.C・ In terms of the culture only.D・ In terms of culture and civilization.(10)The author states that a civilization is ______ .A.a cultural entityB.a custom practiced in villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, or religious groupsC.not with any cultural heterogeneityD.nol blending or overlapping with other civilizations(11)According to this passage, how many subdivisions does the Islam Civilization have?A.None・B.One.C.Two.D.Three.(12)It can be inferred from the passage that the author of this passage _________ the following statement： ^Westerners tend to think of nation states as the principal actors in global affairs?5A.agrees withB.disagrees withC.detestsD.does not mention if he agrees or not withB True or False (12 points)Below is a passage followed by six statements・ Read the passage carefully and then decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F)The American CharacterThe American is wonderfully alive; and his vitality, not having often found a suitable outlet, makes him appear agitated on the surface; he is always letting off an unnecessarily loud blast of incidental steam・ Yet his vitality is not superficial; it is inwardly prompted, and as sensitive and quick as a magnetic needle. He is inquisitive, and ready with an answer to any question that he may put to himself of his own accord; but if you try to pour instruction into him, on matters that do not touch his own spontaneous life, he shows the most extraordinary powers of resistance and forgetfulness; so that he often is remarkably expert in some directions and surprisingly slow in others・ He seems to bear lightly the sorrowful burden of human knowledge・ In a word, he is young・What sense is there in this feeling, which we all have that the American is young? His country is blessed with as many elderly people as any other, and his descent from Adam, or from the Darwinian rival of Adam, cannot be shorter than that of his European cousins・ Nor are his ideas always very fresh・ Old conventions and rigid bits of morality and religion, with much seemly and antique political understanding, remain clear-cut in him, as in the mind of a child; he may carry all this about with an unquestioning familiarity which does not comport understanding・To keep traditional sentiments in this way untouched and uncriticised is itself a sign of youth. A good young man is naturally conservative and loyal on all those subjects which his experience has not brought to a test; advanced opinions on politics, marriage, or literature are comparatively rare in America; they are left for the ladies to discuss, and usually to condemn, while the men get on with their work・In spite of what is old fashioned in his more general ideas, the American is unmistakably young； and this, I should say, for two reasons： one, that he is chiefly occupied withhis immediate environment, and the other, that his reactions upon it are inwardly prompted, spontaneous, and full of vivacity and self-trust・ His views are not yet lengthened; his will is not yet broken or transformed. The present moment, however, in this, as in other things, may mark a great change in him; he is perhaps now reaching his majority, and all I say may hardly apply today and may not apply at all tomorrow・ I speak of him as I have known him; and whatever moral strength may occur to him later, I am not sorry to have known him in his youth・ The charm of youth, even when it is a little boisterous, obvious obedience to that pure, seminal principle which, having formed the body and its organs, always directs their movement, unless it is forced by vice or necessity to make them crooked, or remains young, and, wherever it is able to break through, sprouts into something green and tender. We are all as young at heart as the most youthful American, but the seed in his case has fallen upon virgin soil, where it may spring up more bravely and with less respect for the giants of the wood・ People seem older when their perennial natural youth is encumbered with more possessions and prepossessions, and they are mindful of the many things they have lost or missed. The American is not mindful to them.(13)Americans9 vitality is fairly superficial because deep down in their heart, they are very young.(14)Americans tend to be resistant to the things they are told to do and to the things they do notfeel very strongly about.(15)Americans are young because in their country, there are not as many elderly people as thosein any other European countries・(16)A good young man here is generally quite avant-garde, refuting all conventions and traditions.(17)We are all as young at heart as the most youthful Americans but our seed is growing uponvirgin soil.(18)In general, the American character is ambiguous and mysterious.C Gap Filling (14 poin⑸Please choose the best sentence from the list after the passage to fill each of the gaps in the text.Selling out to the StudentsUniversity faculties involve themselves unwittingly in the destruction of the university when they bow to all the pressures of their students and loosen up on requirements. (19) _________ .The students will organize a vote and abolish the language requirement and abolish the science requirement, and then they'll decide they ought to get two units or five units for learning the sita匚As a faculty member my feeling about all this nonsense is that it's not worth fighting for the innovations the students want because they're utterly trivial.(20) _______ .what he wants is to avoid some obvious difficulty, like reading something he doesn't like to read, or having a sadistic exam, or having to sit still for three hours a week listening to some bore talk about something the student feels he ought not to be required to listen to in the first place・Its stupid to expect genuine educational insights to come from kids who are the products of this system. (21) ________ .But the faculties will do it. They'll do it because they feel guilty about their approach to teaching. They'll do it in ways that wont interfere with what their departments are doing. (22) ______ .A good teacher is somebody who is not interested in his own ideas, he is interested in somebodyelse's mind, but the young faculty member in a university typically is bursting with hisown ideas, and his notion of teaching is to tell those ideas to other people・ This has nothing to do with teaching・(23) ____ ・Say that a faculty meeting is scheduled to discuss some utterly meaningless provisions of the curriculum. The students come in with a charming protest against it and a rather neat solution：(24) _______ .This presupposes the continued existence of courses・With student-initiated coursesbeing added all the time, it only strengthens the course system• But the real aim should be to get rid of the course system altogethe匚A teacher gives it another decade of life by saying to a student, “O. K, you object to the course system? What do you want a course in?99 And he says, "African bead, ‘‘ or what not. ”Sold! Go to it.H And so the student goes to it and earns three units ・(25)_ .The fact is, however, that he winds up with contempt for a faculty that permits this sort of thing to go on. The depressing thing is to see, under the guise of revolution, simply the old middle class individualistic free market being pushed to its ultimate absurdity in the name of student consumer demand. To confuse this with revolution in education is tragic.In the meantime he has stopped objecting to courses for a while・They want anything but things taught at universities.To turn academic decisions over to them is ludicrous.The kids will get what they think they want, which isn't really what they want.Confronted with student power the faculty member gives in, and it doesn't bother him because he gets to be a hero by voting yes for freedom.M Thc courses ought to be divided into three groups: a third in the major, a third not in the major, and the other third the student can do anything he wants with/'Teaching is the art of developing or cultivating another mind, and helping it to increase its powers ・The educational imagination of a product for a student of a university is not very significant.IL Please read the following passage and translate the underlined parts into Chinese. (50 points, 5 points each)A Journey by Train： Making Tracks in EuropeWe're taking a train across Europe, from the coast of France all the way to Athens, a trip that has our friends expressing their concern. (26)The general feeling seems to be that France and Italy are free—but the ferry fiom Italy and the train ride across Greece? They call it “traveling rough：The first leg is easy, from the French port of Calais to Paris. And very comfortable too. (27) One of (he benefits of a Eurail pass is (hal you get lo travel firs] class (unless youle using a youth pass), and for (he firs( time in our lives we ride a (rain in a "compartment，just as in the movies. These compartments seat six but today wele the only occupants so we spread ourselves and our luggage around・(28)Our reward: three days in Paris. We thrill to all the things youTe supposed to thrill (o—(he Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, (he Arc de Triomphe・ Bui the really memorable momciH in (his city is one of those spontaneous human events you can never plan for. The trick of traveling, I guess, is to be ready to savor whatever happens・Fm standing on the comer by one of the famous bridges across the River Seine, the PontNeuf. (29)There's nothing special about it. In a city battered by the roar of endless cars, it's just another crossroads where two large streams of traffic meet. All roar、more roar and uproar. (Cars are the great bane of Europe・ The inner city streets of most of the old cities were never designed for this sort of traffic一and it shows.)(30)1 pause among the surging Dedestrians to ease my weary feet. That's when I hear it. Rising triumphantly above the howl of the traffic、catchy music jingles in the air. I look around me Ifs coming from...an organ grinder(街头手风琴师).(31)Everyonc is huirying and straining to be somewhere else・ But my wiry little organ grinder pours his heail into bringing this comer alive with his music. Old favourite songs dance gaily above our heads—“Can Can'：“Lara's Theme”，44Funiculi-Funicula n—these popular songs from past decades have a European father than an American flavou匚(32)Amazingly、a furry ca( is fast nsleep on top of the music machine ignoring everything around it as if this was some peaceful garden mther than a precarious perch that shakes with every turn of its owner's arm. And in a basket by the organs pram wheels, a dog dreams peacefully while commuters pour out from an underground station.My organ grinder has discovered the miracle of perpetual motion・ Round and round goes his arm, his body rocking to the effort. (33)Casually he transfeis the handle from one hand to the other catching it as it twirls、the music leaping around him as if it would whisk him and his machine over the rooftops and away past Noire Dame Calhednd (巴黎圣母院)or along the Champs Elysees (香榭刖舍人道).Mind you, he's not the only one presiding over this noisy come匚Two police officers arc here as well, charged with maintaining order. One is male, youthful and confident. (34) The other is… well, a police girL Her gun is almost as big as she is. Her weapon belt sags on her hips・Maybe in a couple of years she JI develop into a policewoman, but it JI take leasl thal long to grow inlo her oITicial-issuc liouscrs・But, petite as she is, this Parisienne carries with her all the authority of the French gendarmerie・ The traffic at the corner is clogging up-as it does repeatedly during my half-hour here・ Boldly she blows her whistle and strides out into the surge of traffic・(35)Angry cars growl to a hall and sullenly crouch al her feel, snarling lheir annoyance、freeing lo be away. Bui, cowed by her tiny amn they bite back their fnistnition and wait till this unifonned child waves them on.III. Translate the following passage into English. (50 points)学问与趣味由小学到中学，所修习的无非是一些普通的基本知识。