2010年武漢大學考博英語真題

Part I Reading Comprehension (2' x20 = 40 points)

Directions: In this part of the test, there will be 5 passages for you to read. Each passage is followed by 4 questions or unfinished statements, and each question or unfinished statement is followed by four choices marked A, B, C and D. You are to decide on the best choice by blackening the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

Passage One

Amazon has given in to publisher pressure and agreed to abandon their $ 9. 99 price point for e-books.

Publisher Macmillan felt that the $ 9. 99 price devalued many of its bestsellers, which often sell for $ 30 in hardcover format. In response to the pricing dispute, Amazon briefly removed all Macmillan books from its store last week. However, the boycott lasted only a few days before Amazon gave in to Macmillan’s demands.

In a statement Sunday, Amazon defended its position to customers:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $ 12. 99 to $ 14. 99 for e-books versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.

Amazon’s decision to throw in the towel may be related to Macmillan’s recent agreement to sell books in Apple’s iBookstore. Amazon has captured an overwhelming share of the e-book market with its Kindle reader, but i￡ the iPad becomes successful publishers' may turn to Apple to sell their e-books.

Publishers seem more interested in protecting the value of their hardcover books than competing in a digital format. Will higher eBook prices convince you to purchase a physical copy of your next novel, or will you accept a modest price increase given that e-books are typically cheaper?

1.What can be said of the pricing dispute between Amazon and Macmillan?

A.Macmillan won the dispute. B. Amazon won the dispute.

C. Neither of them won the dispute. D. Customers enjoyed the dispute.

2.“To throw in the towel” in the last but one paragraph means               .

A.to make up one's mind to try something

B.to indicate your disagreement

C.to threaten to fight back

D.to admit that you have been defeated

3.What accounted for Amazon's failure to continue its boycott according to its statement?

A.Amazon s cowardice. B. Macmillan’s arrogance.

C. Amazon’s generosity. D. Macmillan’s monopoly.

4.Which of the following is true?

A.Macmillan preferred to sell traditional books rather than e-books.

B.Apple made more profit than Amazon in selling e-books.

C.Macmillan intended to increase its e-book market.

D.Amazon was ready to sell e-books at lower prices.

Passage Two

Drunken driving—sometimes called America’s socially accepted form of murder—has become a national epidemic （流行?。? Every hour of every day about three Americans on average are killed by drunken drivers.

A drunken driver is usually defined as one with a 0. 10 blood alcohol content or roughly three beers, glasses of wine or shots of whisky drunk within two hours. Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American man image and judges were tolerant in most courts, but the drunken slaughter has recently caused so many well-publicized tragedies, especially involving young children, that public opinion is no longer so tolerant.

Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, reversing a trend in the 1960s to reduce it to 18. After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed by 18—20-year-old drivers more than doubled, so the state recently upped it back to 21. Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect unless accomplished by educational programs to help young people to develop “responsible attitudes” about drinking and teach them to resist pressure to drink.

Tough new laws have led to increased arrests and tests and, in many areas already, to a marked decline in fatalities. Some states are also penalizing bars for serving customers too many drinks. A tavern（酒店主）in Massachusetts was fined for serving six or more double brandies to a customer who was “obviously intoxicated” and later drove off the road, killing a nine-year-old boy.

As the fatalities continue to occur daily in every state, some Americans are even beginning to speak well of the 13 years of national prohibition of alcohol that began in 1919. They forget that legal prohibition didn’t stop drinking, but encouraged political corruption and organized crime. As with the booming drug trade generally, there is no easy solution.

5.Drunken driving has become a major problem in America because         .

A.most Americans are heavy drinkers

B.Americans are now less shocked by road accidents

C.Accidents attract so much publicity

D.Drinking is a socially accepted habit in America

6.Statistics issued in New Jersey suggested that         .

A.many drivers were not of legal age

B.young people were often bad drivers

C.the level of drinking increased in the 1960s

D.the legal drinking age should be raised

7.Laws recently introduced in some states have         .

A.reduced the number of convictions

B.resulted in fewer serious accidents

C.prevented bars from serving drunken customers

D.specified the amount drivers can drink

8.The problem of drunken driving is difficult to solve because         .

A.alcohol is easily obtained

B.drinking is linked to organized crime

C.legal prohibiting has already failed

D.legislation alone is not sufficient

Passage Three

The most widespread fallacy of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are actually caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in the isolated Arctic Regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.

At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty rooms. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose. If, then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter? Despite the most pains-taking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on. No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain suppressors such as aspirin, but all they do is relieve the symptoms.

9.Which of the following does NOT agree with the chosen passage?

A.The Eskimos do not suffer from colds all the time.

B.Colds are not caused by cold.

C.People suffer from colds just because they like to stay indoors.

D.A person may catch a cold by touching someone who already has one.

10.Arctic explorers may catch colds when         .

A.they are working in the isolated Arctic Regions

B.they are writing reports in terribly cold weather

C.they are free from work in the isolated Arctic Regions

D.they are corning into touch again with the outside world

11.Volunteers of the experiments in the Common Cold Research Unit         .

A.suffered much from coldness B. never caught colds

C. always caught colds D. became very strong

12.The passage mainly discusses             .

A.the experiments on the common cold

B.the viruses of the common cold

C.the reason and the way people catch colds

D.the continued spread of common colds

Passage Four

Paradise Lost is Milton’s masterpiece. Its story is taken from the Bible, about “the fall of man’’, that is, how Adam and Eve are tempted by Satan to disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and how they are punished by God and driven out of Paradise. In Milton’s words, the purpose of writing the epic is to “justify the ways of God to men”, but apparently, Milton is uttering his intense hatred of cruelness of the ruler in the poem. By depicting Satan and his followers as well as their fiery utterance and brave actions, Milton is showing a Puritan’s revolt against the dictator and against the established Catholics and the Anglican Church.

In the poem God is no better than a cruel and selfish ruler, seated on a throne with a group of angels about him singing songs to praise him. His long speeches are not pleasing at all. He is cruel and unjust in punishing Satan. His angels are stupid. But Satan is by far the most striking character in the poem, who rises against God and, though defeated, still persists in his fighting.

The story of Adam and Eve shows Milton’s belief in the power of man. God denies them a chance to pursue for knowledge. It is this longing for knowledge that opens before mankind a wide road to intelligent and active life. It has been noted by many critics that Milton’s revolutionary feeling makes him forget religious doctrines. The angels who surround God never think of expressing any opinions of their own, and they never seem to have any opinions of their own. The image of God surrounded by such angels resembles the court of an absolute monarch. But Satan and his followers, who freely discuss all issues in council, remind us of a Republic Parliament.

13.This passage is most probably taken from            .

A.a review of Milton’s Paradise Lost

B.an introduction to Milton’s Paradise Lost

C.a depiction of the cruelness of the British ruler

D.an introduction to English literature

14.In the poem, Satan is described as            .

A.an evil person          B. a rebellious hero

C. selfish and cruel devil D. a stupid devil

15.Which of the following can NOT be inferred from this passage?

A.God acts as the dictator of the Kingdom.

B.Satan and his followers act as members of Parliament.

C.The angels are depicted as followers of the King.

D.Adam and Eve are the people to be enlightened.

16.According to this passage, the main purpose of Paradise Lost is to            .

A.praise God for the creation of the world

B.change people’s unfavorable impression of Satan

C.express his support for the fight of Satan

D.criticize the cruelness of the British ruler

Passage Five

On February 10, the world of psychiatry will be asked, metaphorically, to lie on the couch and answer questions about the state it thinks it is in. For that is the day the American Psychiatric Association (APA) plans to release a draft of the fifth version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). Mental illness carrying such stigma (污名)as it does, and the brain being as little-understood as it is, revising the DSM is always a controversial undertaking. This time, however, some of the questions asked of the process are likely to be particularly probing.

The DSM, the first version of which was published in 1952, lists recognized psychological disorders and the symptoms used to diagnose them. In the United States,  what is in it influences whether someone will be diagnosed with an illness at all, how he will be treated if he is so diagnosed, and whether his insurance company will pay for that treatment. Researchers in other countries generally defer to the DSM, too, making the manual’s definitions a lingua franca for the science of medical psychology. And, perhaps most profoundly, the DSM influences how mental illness is understood by society at large.

A new DSM, then, is an important document. The APA has been working on the latest revision since 1999, and will not release the final version until May 2013. But some people are already accusing it of excessive secrecy and being too ambitious about the changes it proposes. Those critics will be picking over the draft next week to see if their fears have been realized.

The original DSM reflected the “psychodynamic” view of mental illness, in which problems were thought to result from an interplay between personality and life history. (Think Freud, Jung and long hours recounting your childhood and dreams. ) The third version, which was published in 1980, took a more medical approach. Mental illnesses were seen as distinct and classifiable, like physical diseases. DSM-III came with checklists of symptoms that allowed straightforward, unambiguous diagnosis. Psychiatry began to seem less like an art form and more like a science.

DSM-III also introduced many more diagnoses than had appeared before. These included attention-deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and social phobia. In fact, the number of specific diagnoses more than doubled between DSM-1 and DSM-III, from 106 to 265. DSM-IV, published in 1994, increased the number to 297, but left the underlying model alone.

17.The first paragraph of the passage above suggests that            .

A. the world of psychiatry are about to undertake a probing experiment

B.it is no easy task for the general public to agree on mental disorders

C.it is often possible to reach an agreement on the rewriting of the manual

D.the latest version of the manual will be more successful than its precedents

18.Since its first publication in 1952, the DSM has been influential in that            .

A.it has caused little problem in the actual diagnosis of the illness

B.its stipulation gives exact instructions on the treatment of the illness

C.its principles are adhered to by not only doctors but also patients

D.it is widely recognized as an important part of medical psychology

19.All the following statements are true EXCEPT            .

A.The final draft of the latest version will take four years to complete.

B.The latest version will introduce a number of changes.

C.The third version was much more scientific than the earlier versions.

D.Freud is cited as a scientific account of mental illnesses.

20.Which version of the DSM is given the least discussion in the passage?

A. The second. B. The third. C. The D. The fifth

Part II English-Chinese Translation (5' x4 =20 points)

Directions:Read the following passage, and then translate the underlined parts numbered from (1) to(4) , from English into Chinese. Please write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET.

I have always disliked being a man. 1.The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. Even the expression “Be a man!” strikes me as insulting and abusive. It means: Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly and stop thinking. Man means “manly”一 how can one think about men without considering the terrible ambition of manliness? And yet it is part of every man’s life. It is a hideous and crippling lie; it not only insists on difference and connives at superiority, it is also by its very nature destructive—emotionally damaging and socially harmful.

It is very hard to imagine any concept of manliness that does not belittle women, and it begins very early. At an age when I wanted to meet girls—let’s say the treacherous years of thirteen to sixteen—I was told to take up a sport, get more fresh air, and I was urged not to read so much. If you asked too many questions about sex you were sent to camp—a boy’s camp, of course: the nightmare. Nothing is more unnatural or prison-like than a boy’s camp.

2.It ought to be clear by now that I have something of an objection to the way we turn boys into men. It does not surprise me that when the President of the United States has his customary weekend off he dresses like a cowboy—it is both a measure of his insecurity and his willingness to please. In many ways, American culture does little more for a man than prepare him for modeling clothes in the L. L. Bean catalogue.

There was a fear that writing was not a manly profession- indeed, not a profession at all. The paradox in American letters is that it has always been easier for a woman to write and for a man to be published. 3. Writing is only manly when it produces wealth—money is masculinity. So is drinking, particularly the ability to drink another man under the table. A man in America has to kill lions, hunt ducks, and carry enough knives and guns on his shoulders, to prove that he is just as much a monster as the next man. Everything in stereotyped manliness goes against the life of the mind.

4. There would be no point in saying any of this if it were not generally accepted that to be a man is somehow—even now in feminist-influenced America—a privilege. It is on the contrary an unmerciful and punishing burden. Being a man is bad enough; being manly is appalling. It is the sinister silliness of men’s fashions, and a clubby attitude in the arts. It is the subversion of good students. It is the so-called “Dress Code” of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston, and it is the institutionalized cheating in college sports. It is the most primitive insecurity.

Part II Chinese-English Translation (20 points)

Directions:Translate the following paragraph from Chinese into English. Please write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET.

改革開放以來, 中國找到了一條適合自己國情的促進和發(fā)展人權的道路。中國是一個歷史悠久、人口眾多、資源和財富相對短缺的東方發(fā)展中。在這樣一個促進人權, 既不能照搬西方發(fā)達的人權發(fā)展模式, 也不能因襲其他發(fā)展中的做法, 只能從中國的國情出發(fā), 探索具有自身特點的發(fā)展道路。改革開放以后, 中國在總結歷史經(jīng)驗和教訓的基礎上, 找到了一條真正符合中國國情的促進人權發(fā)展的道路。這就是:將生存權和發(fā)展權放在首位, 在改革、發(fā)展、穩(wěn)定的條件下, 全面推進人權。這條道路的特點是:在發(fā)展人權的基本方向上, 堅持發(fā)展生產(chǎn)力和共同富裕的原則, 立足于改善全國人民的生活和促進全國人民人權的發(fā)展。在促進人權的輕重緩急上, 強調生存權、發(fā)展權的首要地位, 同時兼顧公民的政治、經(jīng)濟、社會、文化權利和個人、集體權利的全面發(fā)展:在促進和保障人權的方式上, 強調穩(wěn)定是前提, 發(fā)展是關鍵, 改革是動力, 法制是保障。20多年來, 由于中國堅持了這條正 確的發(fā)展道路, 不僅使全國人民的生活狀況和精神風貌大為改觀, 而且形成了一整套比較完備的保障人民民主權利的政治制度和法律體系, 從而使人權建設在制度化、法律化的軌道上 取得了長足的進展, 人權狀況呈現(xiàn)出不斷改善的良好態(tài)勢。

Part IV Short Essay Writing (20 points)

Directions:  Presently, there are more and more grown-up children who live off their parents, for which they are often referred to as the “eating-the-old” group. Is there anybody to blame for this? You are required to make a comment on this phenomenon in about 200 words. Don’t forget to give a title to your comment. Please write your essay on the ANSWER SHEET.

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