考研英语冲刺模拟试题
Section I Use of English
Directions:
Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
Where culture is concerned, in Madrid variety reigns. With modern art centers 1 from discarded factories and traditional Spanish musical theater 2 modern themes, there are seemingly endless ways to dive into the arts in Madrid.
One of those old industrial spaces is Matadero Madrid, 3 a vast slaughterhouse and now a lively multidisciplinary arts 4 with design, technology and art exhibitions, as well as experimental theater.
Then there’s the Filmoteca Espafiola in the Cines Dor6, in an easy-to-miss 5 next to a fish market. With about 10 6 film series each month—retrospectives of beloved directors, a series of documentaries about gypsies— 7 a bookstore and restaurant, all 8 in a gorgeous Art Deco theater, it’s a great 9 for a rainy autumn afternoon.
One flight above that same fish market, the Mercado Anton Martin, you’ll 10 feet stomping in the hallowed halls of Amor de Dios, the famed flamenco school 11 which legends like Antonio Gades, Sara Baras and Joaquin Cort6s have passed as either students or teachers. Whether you’re thinking of 12 or just sneaking up to 13 on a class in action, it’s the city’s most 14 scene for flamenco.
15 the cutting-edge crowd out the classics, there are always operettas to be heard at the historic Teatro de la Zarzuela, named for a Spanish genre that 16 means huge productions with lavish 17 and sets, exaggerated comic gestures and 18 happy endings. The new 19 begins Oct. 17 with the classic “Soto del Parral”, 20 pokes fun at provincial ways, and will close in June with the world premiere of “YoDali”, a contemporary opera about the life of Salvador Dali. ( 本文选自 The New York Times)
1. [A] deriving [B] inheriting [C] emerging [D] accepting
2. [A] embracing [B] composing [C]performing [D] consisting
3. [A] barely [B] formerly [C]essentially [D] namely
4. [A] collection [B] combination [C] complex [D] completion
5. [A] area [B] existence [C] scene [D] spot
6. [A] comic [B] occasional [C] detective [D] simultaneous
7. [A] despite of [B] as well as C] opposite to [D] such as
8. [A] packed [B] housed [C] included [D] dwelled
9. [A] destination [B] entertainment [C] recommendation [D] inspiration
10. [A] hear [B] recall [C] witness [D] discover
11. [A] through [B] beyond [C] across [D] without
12. [A] attending [B] supervising [C] enrolling [D] touring
13. [A] survey [B] spy [C] search [D] swing
14. [A] flourishing [B] sporty [C] vigorous [D] conservative
15. [A] Provided [B] Although [C] Whereas [D] Lest
16. [A] generally [B] accidentally [C] presumably [D] constantly
17. [A] suits [B] stages [C] decorations [D] costumes
18. [A] imagined [B] predicted [C] suspected [D] guaranteed
19. [A] year [B] season [C] section [D] period
20. [A] that [B] so [C] which [D] and
Section II Reading Comprehension
Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)
Text 1
It has been 50 years since the Trieste submersible made the only descent of humans into the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench. In the coming decades, we need to look again into the depths of our own piece of the solar system. We’ve explored only about 5 percent of the ocean. It’s maddening that we know so little about what the seafloor looked like at the site of the Deepwater Horizon spill before the oil began to leak. It’s only a mile underwater! For us to have better maps of the moon, Mars, and Jupiter than our own ocean floor is baffling.
The natural world, especially the ocean, keeps us alive. More than half of all of the oxygen in our atmosphere is generated by organisms in the sea. We need to understand the systems that sustain us. Underwater monitoring and remote-operated vehicles such as the Nereus are improving, but those alone are not enough. The human brain and senses, the ability to wonder and to confront the unexpected—you can’t get that out of a machine.
Japan, Russia, and France (but not the United States) have deep-diving submersibles that can carry humans down to 5,000 meters and beyond. There is currently no manned sub with the capacity to go to full ocean depth, 11,000 meters. The technology already exists: We could build a pair of three-person deep diving subs for less than $ 50 million. James Cameron is well on the way to having a one-person sub for that depth.
Therefore, we need to pull up our socks and realize that we still have a chance to prevent the loss of all sharks, coral reefs, and rain forests and to stabilize our atmosphere and the acidification of our oceans. Living in undersea laboratories nine times, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know individual fish and their quirky habits. I’ve met humpback whales, sea turtles, giant groupers, and an egg-bearing octopus! encountered in a one-person sub—creatures who had never seen a human before.
Many animals are struggling through this time of perilous change. But we alone can understand what is happening and what to do about it. Seeing the sharp declines in parts of the ocean I have come to know and love reminds me that as we look into new ways to protect our planet from climate change, we need to look again at the natural machinery that already works, that developed over four and a half billion years, and do everything we can to restore its functions. It is the engine that will power us to the future. (本文选自Discover)
21. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?
[A] Ocean exploration has made little progress so far.
[B] Deep parts of the solar system should be studied.
[C] More work is needed for a better use of marine resources.
[D] Submersibles can hardly reach as deep as one mile underwater.
22. The author holds that further ocean exploration mostly relies on ______.
[A] human intellect [B] cost reduction
[C] development of technology [D] participation of more nations
23. The author’s experience in the sub mentioned in Paragraph 4 is to ______.
[A] introduce some species people scarcely know
[B] enrich our knowledge about the ocean
[C] amuse us with more vivid details
[D] exemplify the need for marine conservation
24. It is implied in the last two paragraphs that ______.
[A] the acidification is an indicator of the declines of the ocean
[B] humans should harmonize their activity with the laws of nature
[C] climate change has endangered many marine creatures
[D] most energy for future development can be obtained from the sea
25. Which of the following best summarizes the main idea of the text?
[A] More financial support is a key to new technology.
[B] Greater focus is required for ocean exploration.
[C] Oil production has done great damage to the sea.
[D] The United States can benefit more from deep-diving.
Text 2
The nation’s economic collapse jolted many New Yorkers into financial distress, driving some into poverty and dependence on food stamps and unemployment benefits and even altering their living arrangements between 2007 and 2009, according to census data released Tuesday that offered the first extensive measure of how the city weathered the recession.
Although New York City has fared better than the country as a whole, recording smaller increases in poverty and smaller declines in household income, more subtle indicators, like the rise in the number of New Yorkers living in homes without kitchens, underscore the struggles confronting many.
The Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey also found that from 2007 to 2009, the income of single people in the city shrank the most among New Yorkers; the poverty rate edged up among people 15 to 64 years old; both parents were in the work force more often; home values dipped; the share of renters increased compared with owners; more renters were paying over 35 percent of their income on housing; and a smaller share said they owned two vehicles. The proportion of very rich and very poor New Yorkers rose slightly, and the gap between them remained higher in New York than in any other state, and, in Manhattan, higher than in any other county in the country.
Earlier this year, the city said its own more sophisticated measure of poverty classified 22 percent of New Yorkers as poor in 2008, when the Census Bureau put the official figure at 17.6 percent. Officials would not speculate on what the 2009 rate would be by the more complex measure that takes account of costs like commuting and day care and benefits like tax credits.
“The official measure does not include much of what has been done to cushion the blow of the recession on low-income families,” said Mark K. Levitan, poverty research director for the city’s Center for Economic Opportunity. “The new and expanded tax credits and the large increase in food stamp participation don’t get counted in the official measure; they will get counted in ours.”
Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, said the rising raw numbers and percentages of city residents living below the federal poverty line ($ 17,600 for a family of three) and the shrinking income of many New Yorkers were “the latest proof that low-income, hungry and even middle-class New Yorkers are suffering mightily in this recession, even as the ultrarich become even wealthier. ” (本文选自The New York Times)
26. What can we infer from Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2?
[A] Dependence on food stamps may not have been counted in previous census.
[B] Few people suffered from recession in New York than in other cities.
[C] The recession affects the New Yorkers in some subtle ways.
[D] The household income in New York is higher than that in other cities.
27. By citing the data from the 2009 survey, the author intends to show ______.
[A] a remarkable change in home value
[B] a growing gap between the rich and the poor
[C] various difference between renters and owners
[D] specific aspects of the financial distress
28. According to Mark K. Levitan, the official measure of poverty seems to be ______.
[A] less comprehensive [B] potentially misleading
[C] falsely low [D] entirely wrong
29. The word “cushion” (Line 1, Paragraph 5) is closest in meaning to ______.
[A] relieve [B] reinforce [C] reveal [D] remove
30. What can we conclude from the text?
[A] The government may be over-optimistic about the situation.
[B] Measure of poverty tends to be more complicated in the future.
[C] New Yorkers are suffering more from the recession than expected.
[D] The recession has confronted every stratum of American society.
Text 3
Nobody likes stress. Not only can it cause sleepless nights and irritable days, we all suspect, at some level, that it can’t be good for our health. Now we can add another reason to reduce the stress in our lives: It may impair our thinking when we’re older, adding tarnish to the luster of our golden years.
A recent study in the journal Neurology concludes that people who experience chronic psychological distress, such as anxiety or depression, are up to 40 percent more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI) than people not prone to distress. What is MCI? Well, it’s not dementia, but it does represent a measurable decline in thinking ability and may affect more than 15 percent of the older population. It was found that psychological distress did not appear to correlate with age, education, or gender. But people with higher distress scores tended to have more depressive symptoms. And those who are prone to chronic distress have been shown to be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. They also are more likely to have their thinking decline at a faster rate.
What this study doesn’t tell us is how chronic distress leads to the development of MCI. The authors of the study have some ideas: Perhaps being prone to chronic distress is one of the earliest signs of having MCI. I find this idea less than appealing, because it suggests that the horse is already out of the barn when it comes to chronic distress and the development of MCI. Fortunately, the authors believe there is a more likely explanation.
Their leading theory is that stress has adverse effects on the parts of our brains that help us form and keep memories. They point out that there is evidence that stress has been shown to reduce our ability to form memories, and that severe stress—like post-traumatic stress disorder—may cause changes in the memory-forming parts of the brain. I find this a far more appealing theory, as it’s based on studies of how our brains work and gives us a chance to “turn things around” by dealing with chronic distress in a positive way.
So for now, let’s focus on what we do know: that reducing the stress in our lives is good for lots of reasons. It’s good for our complexions, probably good for our hearts, and maybe even good for our brains. (本文选自Discover)
31. In the first paragraph, the author introduces the topic by ______.
[A] justifying an assumption
[B] describing a scene
[C] making a comparison
[D] challenging a theory
32. Which of the following is TRUE of MCI?
[A] It may lead to sharp decline in thinking.
[B] It relates to Alzheimer’s disease in some way.
[C] It is the earliest sign of chronic distress.
[D] It can be a result of longtime stress.
33. By “the horse is already out of the barn’ (Line 3, Paragraph 3) the author means ______.
[A] it is too late to do anything
[B] we are at a total loss
[C] the result is unpredictable
[D] people’s lives may be threatened
34. It is suggested in Paragraph 4 that ______.
[A] loss of memory can be attributed to stress
[B] post-traumatic stress is a kind of brain disorder
[C] severe stress may hinder memory forming
[D] chronic distress has not been correctly dealt with
35. In the author’s opinion, the new study ______.
[A] failed to draw a firm conclusion
[B] gave contradictory explanations
[C] raised practical solution to mental diseases
[D] shed some light on the problem concerned
Text 4
Traditionally, the labor market is seen as a mechanism for pairing people with jobs in which matching cannot take place instantly. This way of thinking about the jobs market owes an intellectual debt to research on markets with search frictions carried out by Peter Diamond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University and Christopher Pissarides of the London School of Economics. On October 11th they were awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics for their work.
The economists’ approach was a sharp break from the norm in the early 1970s, when standard economic models mostly treated labor as a commodity which had the worker’s wage as its price. There could be no unemployment in the simplest versions of these models, because wages would fall instantly to eliminate it. True, few economists took these simple models literally: lots of research was done to modify their assumptions and generate more realistic results, often by making it harder for wages to fall. But even the modified models took little note of data on how people flowed into and out of employment. The stretches of unemployment, the job hunts, the moves from job to job, the rate at which workers were fired or hired: all this was absent. Mr. Mortensen argued that this needed to change. Investigating the way people actually went about finding jobs in an uncertain environment, he believed, should be a central concern of the analysis of labor markets.
The three economists built upon earlier work by George Stigler, who had studied the process by which people acquired information, and who won the Nobel prize himself in 1982. Pointing out that getting information costs time and effort, Mr. Stigler argued that people would do so only as long as the additional benefits of having more information exceeded the additional costs of acquiring it. Mr. Mortensen saw this framework as a useful way of thinking about labor markets, because finding employment in a decentralized labor market typically involves gathering and evaluating information on vacancies and wages.
Mr. Diamond modeled this job-search process in a series of seminal papers written between 1979 and 1982. One was based on the premise that not all jobs are equally suitable for all workers. The first person offered a job might not be as good a match for it as the second or third person. So if every unemployed person grabbed the first job that came his way, the match between workers and jobs that resulted would not be optimal. By making it possible for workers to be more selective about the jobs they accepted, Mr. Diamond showed, unemployment insurance would improve the efficiency of the labor market. (本文选自The Economist)
36. Traditional economic models found it hard to explain the phenomenon of ______.
[A] search frictions [B] unemployment
[C] labor as commodity [D] wage falls
37. According to Paragraph 2, the modified models ______.
[A] take unemployment into account
[B] miscalculate the fluctuation of labor price
[C] neglect the flowing of labor force
[D] analyze the process of job-hunting
38. What can we infer from the last two paragraphs?
[A] The more information gathered, the more confused people may feel.
[B] People are often in a dilemma about whether to collect information or not.
[C] It is usually not wise to accept the first job you are offered.
[D] Selective job-hunting leads to efficient match between jobs and people.
39. Mr. Diamond’s attitude towards unemployment insurance is one of ______.
[A] strong discontent [B] slight suspicion
[C] moderate approval [D] enthusiastic support
40. It can be concluded that the three economists were awarded Nobel Prize for ______.
[A] bringing in crucial elements for analysis
[B] establishing a whole new economic model
[C] providing the government with practical suggestions
[D] setting a framework for thinking about labor markets
Part B
Directions:
For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable paragraphs from the list A-G and fill them into the numbered boxes to form a coherent text. Paragraph C and F has been correctly placed. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
[A] Global climate change—average temperatures have risen by roughly 0.6 degree Celsius since the beginning of the 20th century—is caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases, chief among them carbon dioxide (CO2), act as a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat that would otherwise be radiated back into space. Rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere means rising average temperatures for the planet, causing climate change.
[B] Regardless, the solar change is dwarfed by the impact from the extra heat trapped by CO2 alone since 1750: an additional 1.66 watts per square meter, an effect that other greenhouse gases, such as methane, strengthen further. In other words, whereas the new satellite measurements call into question computer models of solar output, it does not change the fundamental physics of human-induced global warming.
[C] The sun controls Earth’s climate, bathing us in light ranging from ultraviolet to visible that warms the planet and drives the heat engines we know as weather systems and ocean currents. The sun is changeable, cycling from maximum to minimum outputs over a roughly 11-year cycle, increasing or decreasing the amount of light that reaches Earth as a result of the poorly understood aspects of the sun’s seething nuclear fusion. Now new satellite measurements reveal that from 2004 to 2007—the declining phase of an unusually low and prolonged solar minimum—the sun put out even less ultraviolet light than expected but compensated by putting out more visible light.
[D] Still, the finding suggests that scientists’ understanding of solar cycles and their impact on climate needs more work. “The result reverses understanding of solar cycle climate effects,” which had been that the sun generally warms the climate on the way up from minimum to maximum and generally cools the climate on the way down from maximum to minimum, explains atmospheric scientist Piers Forster of the University of Leeds in England. “But the opposite seems to have been true of the last solar cycle.”
[E] “The amount of visible radiation entering the lower atmosphere was increasing, which implies warming at the surface,” says atmospheric physicist Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London, who led the research, published in Nature on October 7. “The solar radiative forcing of climate increased by 0.1 watt per square meter.” That means the sun, at least for those three years, played a larger role in ongoing climate change than previously thought.
[ F] In addition, the larger than expected loss of UV light meant less stratospheric ozone up to 45 kilometers above the surface, but more above that line. That distinguishes this solar cycle from the preceding two and “suggests that the declining phase of solar cycle 23 is behaving differently to previous solar cycles,” the team wrote.
[G] But the change from 2004 to 2007 in the sun’s output of visible light, and the attendant warming at Earth’s surface of 0.1 watt per square meter, is roughly equivalent to the overall forcing of the sun on the climate over the past 25 years—estimated by the U. N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be an additional 0.12 watt per square meter. That suggests scientists may have overestimated the sun’s role in climate change. (本文选自Scientific American)
Part C
Directions:
Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. (46) Don’t you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check?
It is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. (47) It is a game which has been played for untold ag, es, every man and woman of, , us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. (48) To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.
My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. (49) Substitute for the mocking devil in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept it as an image of human life.
Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, (50) education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. ( 本文选自托马斯•亨利•赫胥黎的A Liberal Education)
Section III Writing
Part A
51. Directions:
The Student Union in the English Department takes pleasure in announcing that a “Graduates Experience Exchange Meeting” is to be held in the assembly hall on Wednesday, Dec. 1, at 8:00 p. m. Several outstanding graduates will share their experience of studies and job hunting. Write a notice for the Student Union.
You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2.
Do not sign your own name at the end of the notice. Use “Student Union” instead. (10 points)
Part B
52. Directions:
Write an easy of 160 -200 words based on the following drawing. In your essay, you should
1) describe the drawing briefly,
2) explain its intended meaning, and
3) give your comments.
You should write neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (20 points)
1-10 CABCD DBBAA
11-20 ACBCD ADDBC
21-30 CADBB CDAAB
31-40 ADACD BCDCA
41-45 EAGBD
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