1、考研英语(一)-38 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：0，分数：0.00)二、Directions:(总题数：4，分数：100.00)Think of those fleeting moments when you look out of an aeroplane window and realise that you are flying, higher than a bird. Now think of your laptop, thinner than a brown-paper envelope, or you
2、r cellphone in the palm of your hand. Take a moment or two to wonder at those marvels. You are the lucky inheritor of a dream come true. The second half of the 20th century saw a collection of geniuses, warriors, entrepreneurs and visionaries labour to create a fabulous machine that could function a
3、s a typewriter and printing press, studio and theatre, paintbrush and gallery, piano and radio, the mail as well as the mail carrier. 1 . The networked computer is an amazing device, the first media machine that serves as the mode of production, means of distribution, site of reception, and place of
4、 praise and critique. The computer is the 21st century“s culture machine. But for all the reasons there are to celebrate the computer, we must also tread with caution. 2 . I call it a secret war for two reasons. First, most people do not realise that there are strong commercial agendas at work to ke
5、ep them in passive consumption mode. Second, the majority of people who use networked computers to upload are not even aware of the significance of what they are doing. All animals download, but only a few upload. Beavers build dams and birds make nests. Yet for the most part, the animal kingdom mov
6、es through the world downloading. Humans are unique in their capacity to not only make tools but then turn around and use them to create superfluous material goodspaintings, sculpture and architectureand superfluous experiencesmusic, literature, religion and philosophy. 3 . For all the possibilities
7、 of our new culture machines, most people are still stuck in download mode. Even after the advent of widespread social media, a pyramid of production remains, with a small number of people uploading material, a slightly larger group commenting on or modifying that content, and a huge percentage rema
8、ining content to just consume. 4 . Television is a one-way tap flowing into our homes. The hardest task that television asks of anyone is to turn the power off after he has turned it on. 5 . What counts as meaningful uploading? My definition revolves around the concept of “stickiness“creations and e
9、xperiences to which others adhere. A. Of course, it is precisely these superfluous things that define human culture and ultimately what it is to be human. Downloading and consuming culture requires great skills, but failing to move beyond downloading is to strip oneself of a defining constituent of
10、humanity. B. Applications like , which allow users to combine pictures, words and other media in creative ways and then share them, have the potential to add stickiness by amusing, entertaining and enlightening others. C. Not only did they develop such a device but by the turn of the millennium they
11、 had also managed to embed it in a worldwide system accessed by billions of people every day. D. This is because the networked computer has sparked a secret war between downloading and uploadingbetween passive consumption and active creationwhose outcome will shape our collective future in ways we c
12、an only begin to imagine. E. The challenge the computer mounts to television thus bears little similarity to one format being replaced by another in the manner of record players being replaced by CD players. F. One reason for the persistence of this pyramid of production is that for the past half-ce
13、ntury, much of the world“s media culture has been defined by a single medium televisionand television is defined by downloading. G. The networked computer offers the first chance in 50 years to reverse the flow, to encourage thoughtful downloading and, even more importantly, meaningful uploading.（分数
14、：25.00）The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields in the world, working both inside and outside academia. According to the World Social Science Report 2010, the number of social-science students worldwide has swoll
15、en by about 11% every year since 2000. Yet this enormous resource is not contributing enough to today“s global challenges including climate change, security, sustainable development and health. 6 . Humanity has the necessary ago-technological tools to eradicate hunger, from genetically engineered cr
16、ops to artificial fertilizers. Here, too, the problems are social: the organization and distribution of food, wealth and prosperity. 7 . This is a shamethe community should be grasping the opportunity to raise its influence in the real world. To paraphrase the great social scientist Joseph Schumpete
17、r: there is no radical innovation without creative destruction. Today, the social sciences are largely focused on disciplinary problems and internal scholarly debates, rather than on topics with external impact. Analyses reveal that the number of papers including the keywords “environmental change“
18、or “climate change“ have increased rapidly since 2004. 8 . When social scientists do tackle practical issues, their scope is often local: Belgium is interested mainly in the effects of poverty on Belgium, for example. And whether the community“s work contributes much to an overall accumulation of kn
19、owledge is doubtful. The problem is not necessarily the amount of available funding. 9 . This is an adequate amount so long as it is aimed in the right direction. Social scientists who complain about a lack of funding should not expect more in today“s economic climate. The trick is to direct these f
20、unds better. The European Union Framework funding programs have long had a category specifically targeted at social scientists. This year, it was proposed that the system be changed: Horizon 2020, a new program to be enacted in 2014, would not have such a category. This has resulted in protests from
21、 social scientists. But the intention is not to neglect social science; rather, the complete opposite. 10 . That should create more collaborative endeavors and help to develop projects aimed directly at solving global problems. A. It could be that we are evolving two communities of social scientists
22、: one that is discipline-oriented and publishing in highly specialized journals, and one that is problem-oriented and publishing elsewhere, such as policy briefs. B. However, the numbers are still small: in 2010, about 1,600 of the 100,000 social-sciences papers published globally included one of th
23、ese keywords. C. The idea is to force social scientists to integrate their work with other categories, including health and demographic change, food security, marine research and the bio-economy, clear, efficient energy; and inclusive, innovative and secure societies. D. The solution is to change th
24、e mindset of the academic community, and what it considers to be its main goal. Global challenges and social innovation ought to receive much more attention from scientists, especially the young ones. E. These issues all have root causes in human behavior: all require behavioral change and social in
25、novations, as well as technological development. Stemming climate change, for example, is as much about changing consumption patterns and promoting tax acceptance as it is about developing clean energy. F. Despite these factors, many social scientists seem reluctant to tackle such problems. And in E
26、urope, some are up in arms over a proposal to drop a specific funding category for social-science research and to integrate it within cross-cutting topics of sustainable development. G. During the late 1990s, national spending on social sciences and the humanities as a percentage of all research and
27、 development fundsincluding government, higher education, non-profit and corporatevaried from around 4% to 25%; in most European nations, it is about 15%.（分数：25.00）Long before Man lived on the Earth, there were fishes, reptiles, birds, insects, and some mammals. Although some of these animals were a
28、ncestors of kinds living today, others are now extinct, that is, they have no descendants alive now. 11 . Very occasionally the rocks show impression of skin, so that, apart from color, we can build up a reasonably accurate picture of an animal that died millions of years ago. That kind of rock in w
29、hich the remains are found tells us much about the nature of the original land, often of the plants that grew on it, and even of its climate. 12 . Nearly all of the fossils that we know were preserved in rocks formed by water action, and most of these are of animals that lived in or near water. Thus
30、 it follows that there must be many kinds of mammals, birds, and insects of which we know nothing. 13 . There were also crablike creatures, whose bodies were covered with a horny substance. The body segments each had two pairs of legs, one pair for walking on the sandy bottom, the other for swimming
31、. The head was a kind of shield with a pair of compound eyes, often with thousands of lenses. They were usually an inch or two long but some were 2 feet. 14 . Of these, the ammonites are very interesting and important. They have a shell composed of many chambers, each representing a temporary home o
32、f the animal. As the young grew larger it grew a new chamber and sealed off the previous one. Thousands of these can be seen in the rocks on the Dorset Coast. 15 . About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over and most of the groups died out. The mammals quickly developed, and we can trace
33、 the evolution of many familiar animals such as the elephant and horse. Many of the later mammals though now extinct, were known to primitive man and were featured by him in cave paintings and on bone carvings. A. The shellfish have a long history in the rock and many different kinds are known. B. N
34、evertheless, we know a great deal about many of them because their bones and shells have been preserved in the rocks as fossils, from them we can tell their size and shape, how they walked, the kind of food they ate. C. The first animals with true backbones were the fishes, first known in the rocks
35、of 375 million years ago. About 300 million years ago the amphibians, the animals able to live both on land and in water, appeared. They were giant, sometimes 8 feet long, and many of them lived in the swampy pools in which our coal seam, or layer is formed. The amphibians gave rise to the reptiles
36、and for nearly 150 million years these were the principal forms of life on land, in the sea, and in the air. D. The best index fossils tend to be marine creatures. These animals evolved rapidly and spread over large over large areas of the world. E. The earliest animals whose remains have been found
37、 were all very simple kinds and lived in the sea. Later forms are more complex, and among these are the sea-lilies, relations of the star-fishes, which had long arms and were attached by a long stalk to the sea bed, or to rocks. F. When an animal dies, the body, its bones, or shell, may often be car
38、ried away by streams into lakes or the sea and there get covered up by mud. If the animal lived in the sea its body would probably sink and be covered with mud. More and more mud would fall upon it until the bones or shell become embedded and preserved. G. Many factors can influence how fossils are
39、preserved in rocks. Remains of an organism may be replaced by minerals, dissolved by an acidic solution to leave only their impression, or simply reduced to a more stable form.（分数：25.00）Directions: For Questions, choose the most suitable paragraphs from the list A-G to fill them into the numbered bo
40、xes to form a coherent text. Paragraph E has been correctly placed. There is one paragraph which does not fit in with the text. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. A. The first and more important is the consumer“s growing preference for eating out; consumption of food and drink in places other th
41、an homes has risen from about 32 percent of total consumption in 1995 to 35 percent in 2000 and is expected to approach 38 percent by 2005. This development is boosting wholesale demand from the food service segment by 4 to 5 percent a year across Europe, compared with growth in retail demand of 1 t
42、o 2 percent. Meanwhile, as the recession is looming large, people are getting anxious. They tend to keep a tighter hold on their purse and consider eating at home a realistic alternative. B. Retail sales of food and drink in Europe“s largest markets are at a standstill, leaving European grocery reta
43、ilers hungry for opportunities to grow. Most leading retailers have already tried e-commerce, with limited success, and expansion abroad. But almost all have ignored the big, profitable opportunity in their own backyard: the wholesale food and drink trade, which appears to be just the kind of market
44、 retailers need. C. Will such variations bring about a change in the overall structure of the food and drink market? Definitely not. The functioning of the market is based on flexible trends dominated by potential buyers. In other words, it is up to the buyer, rather than the seller, to decide what
45、to buy. At any rate, this change will ultimately be acclaimed by an ever-growing number of both domestic and international consumers, regardless of how long the current consumer pattern will take hold. D. All in all, this clearly seems to be a market in which big retailers could profitably apply the
46、ir scale, existing infrastructure, and proven skills in the management of product ranges, logistics, and marketing intelligence. Retailers that master the intricacies of wholesaling in Europe may well expect to rake in substantial profits thereby. At least, that is how it looks as a whole. Closer in
47、spection reveals important differences among the biggest national markets, especially in their customer segments and wholesale structures, as well as the competitive dynamics of individual food and drink categories. Big retailers must understand these differences before they can identify the segment
48、s of European wholesaling in which their particular abilities might unseat smaller but entrenched competitors. New skills and unfamiliar business models are needed, too. E. Despite variations in detail, wholesale markets in the countries that have been closely examinedFrance, Germany, Italy and Spai
49、nare made out of the same building blocks. Demand comes mainly from two sources: independent room-and-pop grocery stores, which unlike large retail chains, are too small to buy straight from producers, and food service operators that cater to consumers when they don“t eat at home. Such food service operators range from snack machines to large institutional catering ventures, but most of these businesses are known in the trade as “horeca“: hotels, restaurants and cafes. Overall, Europe“s wholesale market for food and drink is growing at the same sluggish pace as the retail
