试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

We do a lot of collective thinking, probably more than any other social species, although it goes on in something like secrecy. We don’t acknowledge the gift publicly, and we are not as celebrated as the insects, but we do it. Effortlessly without giving it a moment's thought, we are capable of changing our language, music, manners, morals, entertainment, even the way we dress, all around the earth in a year's turning. We seem to do this by general agreement, without voting or even polling. We simply think our way along, pass information around, exchange codes disguised as art, change our minds, and transform ourselves.Computers cannot deal with such levels of improbability, and it is just as well. Otherwise, we might be tempted to take over the control of ourselves in order to make long-range plans, and that would surely be the end of us. It would mean that some group or other, marvelously intelligent and superbly informed, undoubtedly guided by a computer, would begin deciding what human society ought to be like, say, over the next five hundred years or so, and the rest of us would be persuaded, one way or another, to go along. The process of social evolution would then grind to a standstill, and we'd be stuck in today's rut for a millennium.Much better we work our way out of it on our own without governance. The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past.It would be nice to have better ways of monitoring what we're up to so that we could recognize change while it is occurring, instead of waking up as we do now to the astonished realization that the whole century just past wasn't what we thought it was at all. Maybe computers can be used to help in this, although I rather doubt it. You can make simulation models of cities, but what you learn is that they seem to be beyond the reach of intelligent analysis; if you try to use common sense to make predictions; things get more botched up than ever. This is interesting, since a city is the most concentrated aggregation of humans, all exerting whatever influence they can bring to bear. The city seems to have a life of its own. If we cannot understand how this works, we are not likely to get very far with human society at large.Still, you’d think there would be some way in. Joined together, the great mass of human minds around the earth seems to behave like a coherent, living system. The trouble is that the flow of information is mostly one-way. We are all obsessed by the need to feed information in, as fast as we can, but we lack sensing mechanisms for getting anything much back. I will confess that I have no more sense of what goes on in the mind of mankind than 1 have of the mind of an ant. Come to think of it, this might be a good place to start.1.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the first paragraph?2.What does the author mean by saying “computer cannot deal with such levels of improbability, and it is just as well’’ (Paragraph 2)?3.Which one of the following options would the author choose?4.What does the author think of simulated models of cities?5.It can be inferred from the passage that（）.

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Most Americans believe that our society of consumption-happy, fun-loving, jet-traveling people creates the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Contrary to this view, I believe that our present way of life leads to increasing anxiety, helpless and, eventually, to the disintegration of our culture. I refuse to identify fun with pleasure, excitement with joy, business with happiness, or the faceless, buck-passing "organization man" with an independent individual.From this critical view our rates of alcoholism, suicide and divorce, as well as juvenile delinquency, gang rule, acts of violence and indifference to life, are characteristic symptoms of our “pathology of normalcy”. It may be argued that all these pathological phenomena exist because we have not yet reached our aim, that of an affluent society. It is true, we are still far from being an affluent society. But the material progress made in the last decades allows us to hope that our system might eventually produce a materially affluent society. Yet will we be happier then? The example of Sweden, one of the most prosperous, democratic and peaceful European countries, is not very encouraging: Sweden, as is often pointed out, in spite of all its material security has the highest alcoholism and suicide rates in Europe, while a much poorer country like Ireland ranks among the lowest in these respects. Could it be that our dream that material welfare per se leads to happiness is just a pipe dream?Certainly the humanist thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who are our ideological ancestors, thought that the goal of life was the full folding of a person's potentialities; what mattered to them was the person who is much, not the one who has much or uses much. For them economic production was a means to the unfolding of man, not an end. it seems that today the means have become ends, that not only “God is dead”，as Nietzsche said in the nineteenth century, but also man is dead, that what is alive are the organizations, the machines; and that man has become their slave rather than being their master.Each society creates its own type of personality by its way of bringing up children in the family, by its system of education, by its effective values (that is, those values that are rewarded rather than only preached.) Every society creates the types of “social character” which is needed for its proper functioning. It forms men who want to do what they have to do. What kind of men does our large scale, bureaucratized industrialism need?It needs men who cooperate smoothly in large groups, who want to consume more and more and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, yet who are willing to be commanded, to do what is expected, to fit into the social machine without friction; men who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without an aim except the aim to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.1.The author uses the example of Sweden in the second paragraph to show that（）.2.Compared with thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries, people today（）.3.It can be inferred from the third paragraph that（）.4.According to the author, which type of individual might be most welcome in today’s society?5.The author writes this article to（）.

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Our species evolved on the move. Recent research on the effects of exercise and the consequences of sedentary living has shown that physical activity is crucial to the proper processing of foods that we eat. In fact, most of the chronic and often life-threatening ailments that besiege Americans in epidemic proportions could be tempered by regular exercise. Among them are heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, and osteoporosis. But let's face it: most people are not motivated to exercise by what it may do for them 20 years down the pike. What gets people like me out moving every day is what exercise does for me right now, especially how it allows me to enjoy eating without gaining. I, along with millions of Americans, have discovered that exercise is the key to permanent and painless weight control.After hearing a description of my usual daily exercise schedule ----a morning run or bike ride and an evening swim, sometimes with an hour of tennis in between —some people remark, “Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to eat one less bagel a day and skip all that exercise?” My answer is, “Easier, yes, but not nearly as effective nor as much fun”. Here’s why exercise, not dieting, is the best route to a leaner, lighter you.Far better for your health and, your future to lose primarily fat is in the first place. The only way to do that is through exercise, which uses body fat as its main source of energy. You may not see that initial rapid (but false) weight loss, but what you lose will be what you want to lose ——fat, not muscle or water. Your loss will be slow but steady, and, if you make exercise a regular part of your life, chances are your loss will be permanent, too. If it’s any consolation, studies have shown that in most cases, the faster people lose weight, the more likely they are to regain it. Slow loss, then, is the secret to lasting success.If you want to lose weight faster than you can with just exercise, simply combine exercise with a reduced-calorie diet. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, showed that exercise can counter the metabolism-lowering effect of a low-calorie diet in many people. It also seems to curb the adverse caloric effect of aging on body metabolism. Whereas ordinarily your metabolism would slow down as you get older (which is one reason people get fatter in middle age even though they don’t eat more), if you continue to exercise regularly, you may keep your youthful metabolic rate by maintaining a muscle body instead of losing muscle and putting on pounds of fat.1.What can be inferred from the passage?2.Which of the following statements about weight control is NOT true?3.Most middle-aged people get fatter, mainly because（）.4.Which of the following would be a best title for the passage?5.The passage is mainly about（）.

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The apparent purpose of allowing the government to invest the trust fund is to take advantage of the higher returns from private capital markets. There is strong evidence, though, that the government’s investment policy substantially could undercut the returns it otherwise might expect to receive. High capital market returns in the US are derived from the high productivity of capital and the efficiency of the market. Investment of the Social security trust fund in private capital markets will hurt both of these sources of American economic performance; capital will be less productive and markets will be less efficient.A 1994 study by the World Bank of government-managed pension fund investments around the world found that they generally earned lower annual returns than privately managed pension investments. It showed that governments generally pursued one of two policies for their investments, both fundamentally flawed.One was to invest heavily in government securities, which can such lower returns than, for example, stocks. There are two reasons for this policy. First, there is a cautionary search for safe investments because governments fear the political reaction if a more aggressive investment policy were to lead to adverse results. Second, buying up government debt allow the government to defer the consequences of its own overspending. Indeed, there is evidence that the power to shift government debt into pension funds actually may induce them to spend and borrow more. Borrowing from the pension fund is less transparent than doing so from the open capital market. In many cases, such borrowing is not even reported as public debt, and the interest rate may be lower.This already is occurring with the Social Security trust fund. The current surplus is used to purchase Federal Treasury obligations that are credited to the Social Security trust fund. The government then utilizes the money it has borrowed from the trust fund to meet current operating expenses.The other investment policy pursued by government-controlled pension funds is to invest in government-supported projects, such as state-owned enterprises or public housing. Again, the result often is extremely low rates of return. In fact, such investments frequently lose money. Moreover, government investment leads to greater government involvement in the economy that could, in turn, lead to policies that slow economic growth and reduce the return on capital for all investors, including the government itself.1.According to the author, government investment of the Social Security trust fund（）.2.A 1994 study by the World Bank of government-managed pension fund investments（）.3.From the last paragraph, we know that（）.4.What tone did the author adopt in this passage?5.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

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Based on accumulated social research, there now can be little doubt that successful and well adjusted children in modern societies are most likely to come from two-parent families consisting of the biological father and mother. Alternative family forms which are attempted, such as single-parent and step families, have been demonstrated to be inferior in child outcomes. The recent movement away from the two-natural-parent family has led to considerable social malaise among the young, not to mention social decay in general.It can be argued that child well-being would be enhanced if families lived among care-giving relatives and in supportive communities, but this has become an ever-diminishing situation. Historically, a substantial stripping down has occurred of both the extended family and the cohesive neighborhood, and this trend is probably irreversible. The state has tried to fill the vacuum, bur without much success. The two-parent nuclear family therefore may be more important today for children, and for society in general, than ever before in history.Constituting one of the greatest dilemmas faced by modern societies, however, is the fact that nuclear families themselves are breaking apart dramatically high rates. The chances in some societies are now less than 50 to 50, thanks mainly to divorce and births, hat a child will live continuously to adulthood with both natural parents. This is despite the fact that, unlike in times past, parents now almost live to see their children reach maturity.One fundamental reason for the high break-up rate is that the nature of marriage has changed. Not so long ago marriage was an economic bond of mutual dependency, a social bond heavily upheld by extended families. Today, marriage is none of these. The economic bond has become displaced by affluence, by female economic pursuit, and by state support; extended family pressures on marriages have all but vanished; and modern societies have become increasingly unconcerned with religions. Marriage has become a purely individual pursuit, an implied and not very enforceable contract between two people; a relationship designed to satisfy basic needs for intimacy, dependency and sex. When these needs change, or when a presumptively better partner is discovered, marriages are easily dissolved. Moreover, more of the everyday needs, traditionally met by marriage, can be met in other days, such as through the marketplace.With its surrounding and supporting social structures collapsing, can there be any hope that the nuclear family can be revived? Yes ---the basis for hope lies in the fundamental biological and psychological makeup of humankind. If the evolutionary biologists are correct, human beings are a pair-boding species.1.Which of the following family forms may be ideal for a child's well-being?2.Which of the following is NOT the trend of modern families today?3.The high break-up rate of two parent nuclear families can be attributed to（）.4.The author's attitude toward the revival of nuclear family is（）.5.The word "affluence" (Paragraph 4) is in similar meaning to（）.

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Folklore is the branch of the study of man (anthropology) which deals with local customs, tales and traditions —for these things can be scientifically studied just like anything else. Everybody is a store-house of folklore, though not everybody realizes it. Often, indeed, the people with least book education commonly cherish most firmly old ideas and superstitions which have been passed on by word of mouth for generations, and it is they who carry on faithfully the customs of their parents and grandparents. Everyone has heard stories of ghosts, witches, fairies, and giants. We all know some proverbs and have come across such ideas as, for example, that it is lucky to see a black cat and unlucky to see a single magpie. We keep certain seasons of the year as festivals, such as Christmas, and we are familiar with the special customs connected with weddings and funerals. It would be hard to find anybody who had not played games such as Blind Man’s Buff. All such things are of interest to those who study folklore.People who are studying folklore put out of their minds the inclination to criticize as silly, childish, or old-fashioned, the old beliefs and practices they come across. They first of all try to collect accurate records of them, then see how these are connected with other ideas and customs of other places or times. By comparison with what is known of old times or the folklore of other countries, they endeavor to discover how certain beliefs and practices came into being, and what purpose they serve now or used to serve in the past.Often we find that the beliefs which seem most peculiar and unreasonable, and the customs which appear least practical, are of the greatest interest and importance because they are commonly the oldest. Sometimes they were part of an ancient ritual or served a useful purpose when people’s way of life was different from what it is now. So we not only learn about what people thought and did in the past but are better able to understand present customs. People often keep up customs when they have forgotten the original reason for them, and in the course of time a fresh reason gets attached to the custom. Thus, when some joker ties an old shoe to the back of the taxi taking the bride and bridegroom to station for their honeymoon, he would say it was "for luck," but actually a shoe is an old fertility symbol and has a place in the wedding customs of China and Palestine.1.Which of the following according to the writer, can be most useful to people who study folklore?2.How do people usually pass on old ideas and superstitions?3.Which of the following art people who study folklore most unlikely to do?4.Which of the following is the reason why people study folklore?5.Which of the following statements is true about customs?

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The other day an acquaintance of mine, a gregarious and charming man, told me he had found himself unexpectedly alone in New York for an hour or two between appointments. He went to the Whitney and spent the empty” time looking at things in solitary bills. For him it proved to be a shock nearly as great as falling in love to discover that he could enjoy himself so much alone.What had he been afraid of, I asked myself? That, suddenly alone, he would discover that he bored himself, or that there was, quite simply, no self there to meet? But having taken the plunge, he is now on the brink of adventure; he is about to be launched into his own inner space, space as immense, unexplored, and sometimes frightening as outer space to the astronaut. His every perception will come to him with a new freshness and, for a time, seem startlingly original. For anyone who can see things for himself with a naked eye becomes, for a moment or two, something of a genius. With another human being present vision becomes double vision, inevitably. We are busy wondering, what does my companion see or think of this, and what do I think of it? The original impact gets lost, or diffused.“Music I heard with you was more than music”. Exactly. And therefore music itself can only be heard alone. “Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.”“Alone one is never lonely: the spirit adventures, walking in a quiet garden, in a cool house, abiding single there.”Loneliness is most acutely felt with other people, for with others, even with a lover sometimes, we suffer from our differences of taste, temperament, and mood. Human intercourse often demands that we soften the edge of perception, or withdraw at the very instant of personal truth for fear of hurting, or of being inappropriately present, which is to say naked, in a social situation. Alone we can afford to be wholly whatever we are, and to feel whatever we feel absolutely. That is a great luxury!For me the most interesting thing about a solitary life, and mine has been that for the last twenty years, is that it becomes increasing rewarding. When I can wake up and watch the sun rise over the ocean, as I do most days, and know that I have an entire day ahead, uninterrupted, in which to write a few pages, take a walk with my dog, lie down in the afternoon for a long think (why does one think better in a horizontal position?), read and listen to music, I am flooded with happiness.1.It can be inferred from the second paragraph that（）.2.Which of the following statements about loneliness is correct?3.By saying “solitude is the salt of personhood” (Paragrph3) the author means that（）.4.The best title for this passage can be “（）”.5.The tone of the author can best be described as（）.

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Each of the early articles about television is invariably accompanied by a photograph or illustration showing a family cozily sitting together before the television set. Jenny sat on Mom's lap. Buddy perched on the arm of Dad’s chair, Dad with his arm around Mon’s shoulder. Who could have guesses that twenty or so years later Mom would be watching a drama in the kitchen, the kids would be looking at cartoons in their room, while Dad would be taking in the ball game in the living room?Of course television sets were enormously expensive in those early days. The idea that by 1975 more than 60 percent of American families would own two or more sets was preposterous. The splintering of the multiple-set family was something the early writers could not foresee. Nor did anyone imagine the number of hours children would eventually devote to television, the common use of television by parents as a child pacifier, the changes television would effect upon child ——rearing methods, the increasing domination of family schedules by children's viewing requirements —in short, the power of the new medium to dominate family life.After the first years, as children’s consumption of the new medium increased, together with parental concern about the possible effects of so much television viewing, a steady refrain helped to soothe and reassure anxious parents. “Television always enters a pattern of influence that already exists: the home, the peer group, the school, the church, and culture generally.” Write the authors of an early and influential study of television’s effects on children. In other words, if the child’s home life is all right, parents need not worry about the effects of all that television watching.But television does not merely influence the child; it deeply influences the “pattern of influences’, that is meant to ameliorate its effects. Home and family life has changed in important ways since the advent of television. The peer group has become television-oriented, arid much of the time children spend together is occupied by television viewing. Culture generally has been transformed by television. Therefore it is improper to assign to television the subsidiary role its many apologists (too often members of the television industry) insist it plays. Television is not merely one of a number of important influences upon today’s child. Through the changes it has made in family life, television emerges as the important influence in children’s lives today.Television’s contribution to family life has been an equivocal one. For while it has, indeed, kept the members of the family from dispersing, it has not served to bring them together. By its domination of the time families spend together, it destroys the special quality that distinguishes one family from another, a quality that depends to a great extent on what a family does, what special rituals，games, recurrent jokes, familiar songs and shared activities it accumulates.1.The reason for why early illustration about television shows an entire family watching TV together might be（）.2.The quotation in the third paragraph illustrates that（）.3.According to the passage, television brings changes to all of the following spheres EXCEPT（）.4.What does television do to domestic life according to the author?5.The aim of the author in writing the passage is（）.

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1.中国是世界上的发明大国，但是很多发明无法走出实验室，归根结底是资金问题。2.当然我们还应该充分意识到，大熊猫生存的主要威胁不是来自于大熊猫的繁殖能力，而是来自于人类对大熊猫自然生态环境的破坏。3.他饮他的花酒，我喝我的清茶。人生需要一种境界：自我安定。4.自幼来自农村且深受“谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦”陶冶的我，是断然不肯将能吃的剩菜倒掉的。5.太多的医学和研究生教育把学生禁闭在黑暗的房间里，使他们成为被强迫灌输信息的笨人。

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1.中国是世界上的发明大国，但是很多发明无法走出实验室，归根结底是资金问题。2.当然我们还应该充分意识到，大熊猫生存的主要威胁不是来自于大熊猫的繁殖能力，而是来自于人类对大熊猫自然生态环境的破坏。3.他饮他的花酒，我喝我的清茶。人生需要一种境界：自我安定。4.自幼来自农村且深受“谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦”陶冶的我，是断然不肯将能吃的剩菜倒掉的。5.太多的医学和研究生教育把学生禁闭在黑暗的房间里，使他们成为被强迫灌输信息的笨人。

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Translate the following sentences into Chinese and write your answers on the Answer Sheet.1. And giving should be strategic---philanthropy should not simply respond to needs but should look for investment opportunities that yield significance returns.2. What remains pertinent is the report’s vision of the role of government in research, including his assertion that the federal government had both the authority and the obligation to support basic research.3. This need is enshrined in the concept of sustainable development, which means that we must, for the benefit of coming generations, leave enough environmental space so that these generations will be able to address their needs and fulfill their aspirations.4. The threat of the Cold War was a prime driving force leading to the expansion of U.S. science, national labs and academic institutions.5. It is worth noting that preventive measures involving smoking and diet are conveniently similar for cancer and heart disease; one exception is alcohol ---a risk factor for the former, a preventive for the later.

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Flight simulator (飞行模拟器)refers to any electronic or mechanical system for training airplane and spacecraft pilot and crew member by simulating flight conditions. The purpose of simulation is not to completely substitute（1）actual flight training but to thoroughly familiarize students with the vehicle（2）before they（3）extensive and possibly dangerous actual flight training. Simulations also are useful for review and for familiarizing pilots with new（4）to existing craft.Two early flight simulators appeared in England within a decade after the first flight of Orville and Wilbur Wright. They were designed to enable pilots to simulate simple aircraft（5）in three dimensions: nose up or down; left wing high and right low, or vice versa; and（6）to left or right. It took until 1929, however, for a truly effective simulator, the Link Trainer, to appear, devised by Edwin A. Link, a self-educated aviator and inventor from Binghamton, New York.（7）, airplane instrumentation had been developed sufficiently to permit “blind” flying on instruments alone, but training pilots to do so involved（8）risk. Link built a model of an airplane cockpit equipped（9）instrument panel and controls that could realistically stimulate all the movements of an airplane. Pilots could use the device for instrument training, manipulating the controls（10）instrument readings so as to maintain straight and level flight or（11）climb or descent with no visual reference（12）— any horizon except for the artificial one on the instrument panel. The trainer was modified（13）aircraft technology advanced. Commercial airlines began to use the Link Trainer for pilot training and the US government began purchasing them in 1934,（14）thousands more as World War II approached.Technological advances during the war, particularly in electronics, helped to make the flight simulator increasingly（15）. The use of efficient analog computers in the early 1950s led to further improvements. Airplane cockpits, controls, and instrument displays had by then become so individualized that it was no longer feasible to use a generalized trainer to prepare pilots to fly anything（16）the simplest light planes. By the 1950s, the US Air Force was using simulators that precisely（17）the cockpits of its planes. During the early 1960s（18）digital and hybrid computers were adopted, and their speed and flexibility revolutionized simulation systems.Further advances in computer and（19）technology, notably the development of virtual-reality simulation, have made it possible to（20）highly complex real-life conditions.

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As a（）actor, he can perform, sing, dance and play several kinds of musical instruments.

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Among the many subjects in school, mathematics is probably the most（）one, depending least on a student’s background and culture.

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Although the town had been（）by the storm several times, little damage was done.

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A scientific law is liable at any time to need（）, that is an eternal truth.

The flowers in the vase（）because they had no water.

The president's（）remarks in his speech met with a lot of attacks from other countries.

The computer can be programmed to（）a whole variety of tasks.

The students take a（）test in March, and the main exam is in July.

As a（）actor, he can perform, sing, dance and play several kinds of musical instruments.

Among the many subjects in school, mathematics is probably the most（）one, depending least on a student’s background and culture.

Although the town had been（）by the storm several times, little damage was done.