中国矿业大学2014年博士研究生入学考试英语试题
Part One Reading Comprehension (2*20=40)
There are 5 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice and write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET.
Passage One
About six years ago I was eating lunch in a restaurant in New York City when a woman and a young boy sat down at the next table, I couldn't help overhearing parts of their conversation. At one point the woman asked:“So, how have you been?”And the boy—who could not have been more than seven or eight years old—replied.“Frankly, I've been feeling a little depressed lately.”
This incident stuck in my mind because it confirmed my growing belief that children are changing. As far as I can remember, my friends and I didn't find out we were“depressed”until we were in high school.
The evidence of a change in children has increased steadily in recent years. Children don't seem childlike anymore. Children speak more like adults, dress more like adults and behave more like adults than they used to.
Whether this is good or bad is difficult to say, but it certainly is different. Childhood as it once was no longer exists, why?
Human development is based not only on innate biological states, but also on patterns of access to social knowledge. Movement from one social role to another usually involves learning the secrets of the new status. Children have always been taught adult secrets, but slowly and in stages: traditionally, we tell sixth graders things we keep hidden from fifth graders.
In the last 30 years, however, a secret-revelation（揭示）machine has been installed in 98 percent of American homes. It is called television. Television passes information, and indiscriminately, to all viewers alike, be they children or adults. Unable to resist the temptation, many children turn their attention from printed texts to the less challenging, more vivid moving pictures.
Communication through print, as a matter of fact, allows for a great deal of control over the social information to which children have access. Reading and writing involve a complex code of symbols that must be memorized and practices. Children must read simple books before they can read complex materials.
1. According to the author, feeling depressed is______.
A. a mental scale present in all humans, including children
B. a sure sign of a psychological problem in a child
C. an inevitable part of children's mental development
D. something hardly to be expected in a young child
2. Traditionally, a child is supposed to learn about the adult world______.
A. through contact with society
B. through exposure to social information
C. gradually and under guidance
D. naturally and by biological instinct
3. The phenomenon that today's children seem adult like is attributed by the author to______.
A. the poor arrangement of teaching content
B. the widespread influence of television
C. the constantly rising standard of living
D. the fast pace of human intellectual development
4. Why is the author in favor of communication through print for children?
A. It can control what children are to learn.
B. It enables children to gain more social information.
C. It helps children to memorize and practice more.
D. It develops children's interest in reading and writing.
Passage Two
In an article some Chinese scholars are described as being “tantalized by the mysterious dragon bone hieroglyphics.” Tantalized is one of many English words that have their origins in myths and legends of the past (in this case, Greek and Roman ones). The meaning of the verb tantalize is a very particular one:“to promise or show something desirable to a person and then take it away; to tease by arousing hope.” Many (but not all) English dictionaries give you a brief indication of a word's origins in brackets before or after the explanation of the meaning. For tantalize the following explanation is given:[>Tantalus]. This means that you should look up the name Tantalus to find out the word's origins, and if you do, you will find out that in Greek mythology, Tantalus was a king who was punished in the lower world with eternal hunger and thirst;he was put up to his chin in water that always moved away when he tried to drink it and with fruit on branches above him placed just a little bit out of his reach. Can you see why his name was changed into a verb meaning“to tease or torment by arousing desire”?
Another example is the word siren, familiar to us as the mechanical device that makes such an alarming sound when police cars, ambulances, or fire engines approach. This word also has its origins in Greek mythology. The traveler Odysseus (Ulysses to the Romans) made his men plug their ears so that they wouldn't hear the dangerous voices of the sirens, creatures who were half bird and half woman and who lured sailors to their deaths on sharp rocks. So the word came to be associated both with a loud sound and with danger!
When someone speaks of a “jovial mood” or a “herculean effort,” he or she is using words with origins in mythology. Look these words up to find their meaning and relationship to myths.
Many common words, such as the names for the days of the week and the months of the year, also come from mythology. Wednesday derives from the ancient Norse king of the gods, Woden, and Thursday was originally Thor's day, in honour of Thor, the god of thunder. As a matter of fact, all the planets, except the one we live on, bear names that come from Roman mythology, including the planet that is farthest away from the sun and for that reason was called after the Roman god of the dead. This god has also given his name to one of the chemical elements. Several other elements have names that come from mythology, too.
It seems that myths and legends live on in the English language.
5. The purpose of the first sentence in Paragraph One is______.
A. to describe the work of some Chinese scholars
B. to lead readers onto the main theme
C. to link the preceding part to the present one
D. to arouse readers' interest in hieroglyphics
6. We learn from the passage, all English dictionaries include______.
A. legends
B. word definitions
C. mythology
D. word origins
7. The example of tantalize is to show______.
A. how all English dictionaries show word origins
B. how Tantalus was punished in the lower world
C. how the word came into existence
D. how the meaning of the word changed over the years
8. Which of the following can best serve as the title of the passage?
A. Mythological Origins of English Words.
B. Historical Changes in Word Meanings.
C. Greek and Roman Mythology in Language.
D. Mythology and Common Words.
Passage Three
We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who's responsible? Actually, it's more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it—Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.
There's been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived;in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before—there are more and more readers, and more and more books.
The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example. Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.
As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.
On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long “digests” of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span—that we will be incapable of, reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.
In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.
In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.
9. Which of the following paragraphs briefly reviews the historical challenges for reading?
A. Paragraph One.
B. Paragraph Two.
C. Paragraph Three.
D. Paragraph Four.
10. The following are all cited as advantages of e-books EXCEPT______.
A. multimodal content
B. imaginative design
C. environmental friendliness
D. convenience for readers
11. Which of the following can best describe how the author feels toward single-sentence-long novels?
A. Ironic.
B. Sarcastic.
C. Doubtful.
D. Worried.
12. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. Interconnectivity is a feature of new reading experience.
B. Technology pushes the way forward for reading and writing.
C. Technology offers a greater variety of reading practice.
D. Technology is an opportunity and a challenge for traditional reading.
Passage Four
Have you ever seen a movie in which a building was burned down or a bridge was destroyed? Have you seen films in which a train crashed or a ship sank into the ocean? If so, you may have wondered how these things could happen without harming the people in the film.
The man who knows the answer is the“special-effect”man. He has one of the most important jobs in the film industry. He may be ordered to create a flood or to make a battlefield explode. And he may also be asked to create a special effect which is much less exciting, though just as important to the success of the film.
In a scene for one movie there was a big glass bowl filled with water in which small fish were swimming. The director of the movie wanted the fish to stop swimming suddenly while they seemed to stare at an actor. Then the director wanted the fish to stop staring and swim away. But fish can't be ordered to do anything. It was quite a problem.
The special-effect man thought about this problem for a long time. The result was an idea for controlling the fish with a harmless use of electricity. First he applied electricity to the fish bowl, causing the fish to be absolutely still. Then he rapidly reduced the amount of electricity, allowing the fish to swim away. Thus he got the humorous effect that the director wanted.
As in other parts of movie making, there are those who have developed particular skill in creating certain kinds of effects. Jim White，who has been a special-effect man for thirty-two years，is best known for work with ships and airplanes.
Calmly he builds and crashes airplanes or sends tiny models of ships on dangerous voyages. For a movie about the Second World War, he built a boat which was a copy of a real ship. The copy was made of wood and was 165 feet long. As it sailed along at a speed of seven sea miles an hour in the Pacific Ocean, it seemed so real that a United States military airplane flew down near it, trying to discover which country owned it.
For fires, the special-effect man does not trust the normal burning process of wood or other materials. He does not have time to wait until large flames appear. Usually he places metal pipes in the area that is to be burned. Gas flowing through the pipes burns instantly but can be kept under control easily by opening or closing the pipes.
When explosives are use, as in battlefield scenes, special-effect men usually receive extra pay. There's danger, and sometimes there're accidents. For a large battlefield scene, the special-effect man talks with the director, examines the area, and plans the effect several day before the filming is to begin. He then places his explosives. They must not be too powerful in the areas where actors will pass. Bust there must be enough power so that with sound effects added later the explosions seem real.
The special-effect man may cover two acres of ground with explosives, each connected individually by wire to a special device for controlling the course of an electric current. When the scene begins, he causes explosions in the air by sending up large bags filled with explosives. The bags float in the air and are held by wires. At the right time he makes them explode. If a church tower, for example, must seem to be hit by guns, he puts explosives in several places in the tower. He usually cuts through some of the supports of the tower first so that he can be sure they will fall.
All this requires training, skill, and experience. It also adds a great deal to the expense of producing the film. It helps explain why so many movies are very expensive to make.
13. The special-effect men are those who can______.
A. have the most important jobs in the film industry
B. create special effects in the films
C. make a crash without harming the people
D. burn houses quickly
14. The special-effect man liked to use metal pipes in making fires for the following reasons EXCEPT______.
A. the gas fire can be easily controlled
B. wood was more expensive
C. the burning of other materials cannot be trusted
D. the burning of wood cannot have large flames at once
15. If a church tower must seem to be hit by guns, the special-effect man______.
A. uses the model of a church
B. puts explosives in some places in the tower
C. destroys the church first
D. uses explosives and put them on the roof of the church
16. Many films are very expensive to make because______.
A. special effects add a great deal to the expense
B. the burning of houses, churches, bridges, and ships costs a great deal
C. the special-effect men sometimes ask for extra pay
D. the crushing of planes and trains is costly
Passage Five
It used to be that people were proud to work for the same company for the whole of their working lives. They'd get a gold watch at the end of their productive years and a dinner featuring speeches by their bosses praising their loyalty. But today's rich capitalists have regressed to the“survival of the fittest” ideas and their loyalty extends not to their workers or even to their stockholders but only to themselves. Instead of giving out gold watches worth a hundred or so dollars for forty or so years of work, they grab tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars as they sell for their own profit the company they may have been with for only a few years.
The new rich selfishly act on their own to unfairly grab the wealth that the country as a whole has produced. The top l percent of the population now has wealth equal to the whole bottom 95 percent and they want more. Their selfishness is most shamelessly expressed in downsizing and outsourcing（将产品包给分公司做）because these business maneuvers don't act to create new jobs as the founders of new industries used to do, but only to cut jobs while keeping the money value of what those jobs produced for themselves.
To keep the money machine working smoothly the rich have bought all the politicians from the top down. The president himself is constantly leaving Washington and the business at the nation because he is summoned to“fundraising dinners”where fat cats pay a thousand or so dollars a plate to worm their way into government not through service but through donations of vast amounts of money. Once on the inside they have both political parties busily tearing up all the regulations that protect the rest of us from the greed of the rich.
The middle class used to be loyal to the free enterprise system. In the past, the people of the middle class mostly thought they'd be rich themselves someday or have a good shot at becoming rich. But nowadays income is being distributed more and more unevenly and corporate loyalty is a thing of the past. The middle class may also wake up to forget its loyalty to the so-called free enterprise system altogether and the government which governs only the rest of us while letting the corporations do what they please with our jobs. As things stand, if somebody doesn't wake up, the middle class is on a path to being downsized all the way to the bottom of society.
17. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that people used to place a high value on______.
A. job security
B. bosses' praise
C. retirement benefits
D. corporate loyalty
18. The immediate consequence of the new capitalists' practice is______.
A. loss of corporate reputation
B. lower pay for the employees
C. a higher rate of unemployment
D. a decline in business transactions
19. The rich try to sway the policy of the government by______.
A. pleasing the public with generous donations
B. occupying important positions in both political parties
C. making monetary contributions to decision-makers
D. constantly hosting fundraising dinners
20. What is the author's purpose in writing this passage?
A. To call on the middle class to remain loyal to the free enterprise system.
B. To urge the middle class to wake up and protect their own interests.
C. To warn the government of the shrinking of the American middle class.
D. To persuade the government to change its current economic policies.
Part Two Cloze (0.5*20=10)
Decide which of the choices given below would best complete the passage if inserted in the corresponding blanks. Mark the best choice for each blank on the ANSWER SHEET.
A person's home is as much a reflection of his personality as the clothes he wears, the food he eats and the friends with whom he spends his time. Depending on personality, most have in mind a(n)“ 21 home”. But in general, and especially for the student or new wage earners, there are practical 22 of cash and location on achieving that idea.
Cash 23 , in fact, often means that the only way of 24 when you leave school is to stay at home for a while until things 25 financially. There are obvious 26 of living at home—personal laundry is usually 27 done along with the family wash;meals are provided and there will be a well-established circle of friends to 28 . And there is 29 the responsibility for paying bills, rates, etc.
On the other hand, 30 depends on how a family gets on. Do your parents like your friends? You may love your family— 31 do you like them? Are you prepared to be 32 when your parents ask where you are going in the evening and what time you expect to be back? If you find that you cannot manage a(n) 33 , and that you finally have the money to leave, how do you 34 finding somewhere else to live?
If you plan to stay in your home area, the possibilities are 35 well-known to you already. Friends and the local paper are always 36 . If you are going to work in a 37 area, again there are the papers—and the accommodation agencies, 38 these should be approached with 39 . Agencies are allowed to charge a fee, usually the 40 of the first week's rent, if you take accommodation they have found for you.
21. A. ideal
B. perfect
C. satisfactory
D. imaginary
22. A. insufficiencies
B. deficiencies
C. limitations
D. weaknesses
23. A. shortage
B. cut
C. lack
D. drain
24. A. getting over
B. getting along
C. getting in
D. getting back
25. A. improve
B. enhance
C. develop
D. proceed
26. A. advantages
B. problems
C. concerns
D. issues
27. A. still
B. habitually
C. consequently
D. always
28. A. call out
B. call over
C. call upon
D. call in
29. A. little
B. always
C. rarely
D. sometimes
30. A. little
B. enough
C. many
D. much
31. A.and
B. still
C. but
D. or
32. A.indifferent
B. tolerant
C. hostile
D. good-tempered
33. A.agreement
B. consensus
C. deal
D. compromise
34. A.go over
B. go about
C. go through
D. go in for
35. A.less
B. probably
C. seldom
D. certainly
36. A.dependent
B. reliable
C. of great value
D. a good source of information
37. A.familiar
B. cold
C. new
D. humid
38. A.while
B. as
C. since
D. though
39. A.concern
B. hesitation
C. caution
D. enthusiasm
40. A.same
B. equal
C. equivalent
D. similarity
Part Three Translation (10*3=30)
1) Translate the underlined part in the following two passages into Chinese.Write your translation on the ANSWER SHEET.
Passage One
A Korean wave is sweeping across China, with many Chinese women worshipping South Korean actors Kin Soo-hyun（金秀贤）and Lee Min-ho（李敏镐）as demigods. Chinese netizens have always been divided over South Korean TV dramas, but there is no doubt that programs from the neighboring country are now enjoying a new round of popularity in China. And a big part of the credit for that goes to You Who Came from the Star, the South Korean TV series which is on the air now.
Recent years have seen great innovations in South Korean TV productions in terms of themes and narrative patterns. Take You Who Came from the Star as an example. Although aliens visiting Earth is an oft-used theme, You Who Came from the Star 's script remains logical. It mixes the plot with romance and murder and keeps the audience guessing about how the story will unfold. When it comes to love stories, the new South Korean teleplays no longer use the distress card; instead, they intersperse them with whimsy（奇妙的）and romantic punch lines.
In contrast, Chinese TV screens are flooded by knock-off and/or poorly made soap operas. Most of the Chinese TV dramas either distort the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, which is a distortion of history, or blindly copy foreign programs. The lack of good stories has of late resulted in loads of TV series on time travel or fights in the harems（后宫）of Qing Dynasty emperors. These, in short, are the bane of Chinese TV productions。
Passage Two
As Beijing creeps closer to the notoriously noxious winter season for air pollution, Westerners here are tracking executives' moves from the city and asking whether pollution is the culprit. U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke's surprise resignation from his post in Beijing is the latest fodder.
Locke's resignation follows a trend I've heard for the past few weeks as I've asked businesspeople and others in Beijing about pollution's influence on their decisions to live here, questions I've had ever since moving to China's capital city this year. Invariably, they say pollution is a top factor, especially for those with children, and it's something that has real influence on those who have a choice about living in China.
One prominent headhunter in Asia I spoke with this week said in the corporate world, there's a shortage of executives for CEO roles who want to come to China. Sure, the country's luster has slightly worn off—there are no longer eye-popping, double-digit GDP growth rates, for one. But the headhunter said it doesn't matter how much you pay prospective CEOs to come here (or in Locke's case, how much prestige comes with the job), their decisions often come down to pollution and lifestyle. For some, pollution's on the top of the list of considerations, for others it's somewhere in the middle. But it's an issue for all.
Locke may never reveal the degree to which pollution affected his decision. But his resignation highlights this truth:Career prestige is one thing, the reality of living in Beijing is another.
2) Translate the underlined part in the following passage into English.Write your translation on the ANSWER SHEET.
即便是对中国所知不多的人，也听说过计划生育政策，这项政策限制大部分中国夫妇只能生一个孩子。上周，中国领导人表示将放宽计划生育政策，允许有一方为独生子女的夫妇生二胎。政策变化的原因在于中国正寻求解决人口迅速老龄化背后所隐现的劳工短缺问题。这一人口结构的变化也将出人意料地影响到中国经济的某一块——蓬勃发展的房地产市场。
房价长期上涨，已超出了很多中国人的承受范围。一些研究发现，中国房价的飙升与日益扩大的男女比例失衡有关。因为男性比女性多很多，中国的婚恋竞争已变得异常激烈。
在美国，闪闪发光的钻石是“你愿意嫁给我吗？”的最佳代言，然而，在中国，求婚的典型必备品是房子。作为挑选如意郎君的标准，女性往往期待男性要么拥有自己的房产，要么有足够的首付。
然而，随着中国放宽计划生育政策，房屋需求量最终有可能下降。
Part Four Writing (20)
In recent years, there are more and more people who have participated in the test for national civil servants（国家公务员）. The craze in civil servant test has attracted widespread attention. What do you think about this phenomenon? Write a composition of no less than 200 words on this issue.