1、考研英语-216 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、BSection Use o(总题数：1，分数：10.00)For those who regard the al-Jazeera TV channel as a biased, anti-western mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden, the announcement that it will start broadcasting 24 hours a day in English next year will be unwelcome. Its likeliest audience
2、is MuslimsU (1) /Uthe Middle East who do not speak Arabic. Will al-Jazeeras reports of suffering and rage in Iraq and beyond inspire angerU (2) /UAmerica and itsU (3) /Uat home, too?The new service may prove a bit lessU (4) /Uthan its Arabic sibling. Nigel Parsons, its managing editor, says that al-
3、Jazeera has been too strident onU (5) /Uin the past, and that the English channel willU (6) /Uto redress that. It will striveU (7) /Ubalance, credibility and authority, he says, and it will signal a new maturity for al-Jazeera, which was started by the emir of Qatar in 1996.It will broadcast its own
4、 original contentnews, documentaries and talk showsU (8) /Ustudios in Doha, London and Washington,U (9) /Uinternational news beyond the Middle East. especially the developing countries oftenU (10) /Uby existing English-language channels.A1-Jazeera is already enjoying a fresh burst ofU (11) /Uoutside
5、 the Middle East. Around the same time that the interim government in Iraq ordered it to shut its bureau in Baghdad, westerners started watching “Control Room,“ a film sympatheticU (12) /Uthe station directed by Jehane Noujaim. At a screening in London last week an audience of local journalists laug
6、hed alongU (13) /Ual-Jazeeras reporters and editorsU (14) /UtheU (15) /Uof the American military.The biggest mystery about al-Jazeera surround its funding, which “Control Room“ sadly did notU (16) /U. Qatar has a newU (17) /Uin the worldU (18) /Uto the station. That may be why the emir is willing to
7、 spendU (19) /Uan English-language channel evenU (20) /Uthe original Arabic one is probably losing money.（分数：10.00）A.outsideB.insideC.inD.outA.onB.atC.withD.againstA.enemiesB.partnersC.alliesD.supportersA.contentiousB.controversialC.competitiveD.competentA.circumstanceB.occasionC.timeD.eventsA.seekB
8、.lookC.aimD.searchA.toB.onC.atD.forA.inB.atC.onD.fromA.dealingB.containingC.coveringD.involvingA.forgottenB.neglectedC.desertedD.disregardedA.interestB.noticeC.appealD.attentionA.toB.withC.aboutD.onA.withB.atC.aboutD.toA.onB.aboutC.atD.inA.sacrificeB.expenseC.costD.priceA.searchB.researchC.probeD.ex
9、amineA.prominenceB.fameC.statusD.importanceA.due toB.because ofC.thanks toD.owing toA.inB.onC.atD.withA.thatB.sinceC.althoughD.though二、BSection Readi(总题数：4，分数：40.00)BPart A/BBText 1/BClouds may have silver linings, but even the sunniest of us seldom glimpse them on foot. The marvelous Blur Building
10、that hovers above the lake of Yverdon les Bains in Switzerland provides such an opportunity. It gives anyone who has ever wanted to step into the clouds they watch from the airplane window a chance to realize their dream. Visitors wear waterproof ponchos before setting off along a walkway above the
11、lake that takes them into the foggy atmosphere of the cloud. The experience of physical forms blurring before your eyes as you enter the cloud is both disorientating and liberating. However firmly your feet are planted on the floor, it is hard to escape the sensation of floating. On the upper deck o
12、f this spaceship-shaped structure, the Angel Bar, a translucent counter lit in tones of aqueous blue, beckons with a dozen different kinds of mineral water.To enter this sublime building situated in the landscape of the Swiss Alps feels like walking into a poemit is part of nature but removed from r
13、eality, Its architects, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio of New York, designed it as a pavilion for the Swiss Expo 2002 in the Three Lakes region of Switzerland, an hours train ride from Geneva, which features a series of exhibits on the lakes. The Blur Building is easily the most successful. I
14、ndeed, you can skip the rest of the Expoa Swiss kitsch version of Britains Millennium Domeand head straight for the cloud, which is there until the end of October.The architects asked themselves what was the ideal material for building on a lake and decided on water itself. the element of the lake,
15、the snow. the rivers and the mist above it. They wanted to play on and lay bare the notion of a worlds fair pavilion by creating an ethereal ghost of one in which there is nothing to see. The result is a refuge from the surveillance cameras and high-definition images of our everyday worlda particula
16、r tease in Switzerland, where clarity and precision are so prized. (Anti- architecture or not, the Blur Building cost a cool $7.5 million.)Out-of-the-box thinking is a trademark of Diller+Scofidio. a husband-and-wife team of architecture professors who became the first architects to win a genius gra
17、nt from the MacArthur Foundation in 1999. Although they have built very little, they are interested in the social experience of architecture, in challenging peoples ideas about buildings. They treat architecture as an analytical art form that combines other disciplines, such as visual art and photog
18、raphy, dance and theatre.To realize its Utopian poetry, the Blur Building has to be technologically state-of-the-art. Water from the lake is pumped through 32.000 fog nozzles positioned throughout the skeleton-like stainless steel structure; so the building does not just look like a cloud on the out
19、side, it feels like a cloud on the inside. And while the 300-foot-wide platform can accommodate up to 400 people, visitors vanish from each other in the mist at about five paces, so you really can wander lonely as a cloud. Wordsworth must be smiling.（分数：10.00）(1).The spectacle on the deck of this st
20、ructure is NOT_.（分数：2.00）A.dazingB.freeC.spine-chillingD.dazzling(2).One should directly come to the Blur Building in the Expo 2002 and skip the rest because_.（分数：2.00）A.it will be there temporarilyB.its the most important expo workC.its not real and will vanish in the thin airD.its near Geneva(3).T
21、he expression“ out-of-the-box“(Line 1. Para. 4) most probably means_.（分数：2.00）A.traditionalB.logicalC.invariableD.inspirational(4).The last sentence “Wordsworth must be smiling“ means_.（分数：2.00）A.Wordsworth has asked the architects to build it in this wayB.the architecture is just like a beautiful p
22、oemC.Wordsworth will be happy to see the scene in his poem come trueD.Wordsworth is satisfied with this architecture(5).Which one is NOT true about the building?（分数：2.00）A.It is a piece of art.B.It differs from the traditional concept of buildings.C.There is no difference from the images of our ever
23、yday world.D.The splendid spectacle cant be photoset.BText 2/BDuring its formative years, the inner solar system was a rough-and-tumble place. There were a couple of hundred large objects flying around. Moon-size or bigger, and for millions of years they collided with one another. Out of these impac
24、ts grew the terrestrial planetsMercury, Venus, Earth with its Moon, and Marsand the asteroids.Scientists have thought of these collisions as mergers: a smaller object (the impactor) hits a larger one (the target) and sticks to it. But new computer modeling by Erik Asphaug and Craig B. Agnor of the U
25、niversity of California, Santa Cruz, shows that things werent that simple. “Most of the time, the impactor and the target go off on their merry ways,“ Dr. Asphaug said. About half the collisions are these hit-and-nm affairs. Now the two researchers and a colleague, Quentin Williams. have done simula
26、tions to study the effects of these collisions on the impactors. They are not pretty.“The impactors suffer all kinds of fates,“ Dr. Asphaug said. They undergo tremendous shearing and gravitational forces that can cause them to fracture into smaller pieces or melt, causing chemical changes in the mat
27、erial and loss of water or other volatile compounds. Or the crust and cover can be stripped off. leaving just an embryonic iron core.The researchers, whose findings are published in Nature, discovered that two objects did not even have to collide to create an effect on the smaller one. from the grav
28、itational forces of a near-collision. During the simulations. Dr. Asphaug said, “Wed look and say, Gosh, we just got rid of the whole atmosphere of that planetoid: it didnt even hit and it sucked the whole atmosphere off.“The researchers suggest that the remains of these beaten-up, fractured and mel
29、ted objects can be found in the asteroid belt. Dr. Asphaug said that could explain the prevalence of “iron relics“ in the belt. Some of these planetoid remnants also eventually hit Earth: that would help explain why certain meteorites lack water and other volatile elements.The hit-and-run collision
30、model also provides an explanation for Vesta. a large asteroid with an intact crust and cover. How did Vesta keep its cover while so many other objects were losing theirs? Dr. Asphang said it could be that Vesta was always the target, never the impactor, and was thus less affected. “It just had to a
31、void being the hitter,“ he said, “until bigger objects left the system.“（分数：10.00）(1).The planets were formed as a result of_.（分数：2.00）A.collisions of objects in inner solar systemB.the merging of a smaller object and a larger oneC.the impactor sticking to the targetD.chemical changes(2).In the last
32、 sentence of the second paragraph, “they“ refers to_.（分数：2.00）A.the researchersB.the collisionsC.the simulationsD.the impactors(3).Certain meteorites lack water and other volatile elements probably because_.（分数：2.00）A.these elements are not suitable to exist in these meteoritesB.these elements are l
33、ost during the medical changes during collisionC.their crest and cover have been stripped offD.they are planetoid remnants(4).According to the hit-and-nm collision model, Vesta keeps its cover probably because_.（分数：2.00）A.it was always staticB.it always acted as the targetC.there is no collision hap
34、pening to itD.its cover is very hard(5).The model developed by Erik Asphaug and Craig B. can explain the following facts EXCEPT_.（分数：2.00）A.there are a lot of remnants in the asteroid beltB.some elements are scarcer in some planetoid remnantsC.the terrestrial planets grew out of the collisionD.the i
35、mpactors are still affected in near-collisionBText 3/BZimbabweans cope with the shortage of the dollars that count in various ways. The government grabs them from other people. On February 9th. it told the countrys banks to start selling all their hard- currency inflows to the central bank and the s
36、tate petrol-importing monopoly, at the official rate. It said that Zimbabwean embassies abroad face power cuts because they cannot pay their bills. But if staff in Moscow felt chilly, the grab did not warm them. Exporters told their customers to delay payments.Hard-currency inflows fell by some 90%,
37、 forcing the government to relent.Business folk were relieved. The economy is so stormy that many exporters stay afloat only by selling American dollars on the black market. Others try to keep their foreign earnings offshore. This is not easy, since most sell tobacco, gold, roses and other goods tha
38、t can be observed and recorded as they leave the country. But some quietly set up overseas subsidiaries to buy their own products at artificially low prices. The subsidiary then sells the goods m the real buyer, and keeps the proceeds abroad.Since petrol, which must be imported, is scarce, some empl
39、oyers give their staff bicycles. But the two local bicycle makers have gone bankrupt, so bicycles must be imported too. Where possible, local products are replaced for imports. One firm, for example, has devised a way to make glue using oil from locally-grown castor beans instead of petroleum-based
40、chemicals. But even the simplest products often have imported components. One manufacturer found it could not make first-aid kits, because it could not obtain zips for the bags. The local zip-maker had no dollars to import small but essential metal studs. An order worth $8,000 was lost for want of p
41、erhaps $100 in hard cash.Rich individuals are putting their savings into tangible assets, though not houses or land, which they fear the government may seize. Instead, they buy movable goods such as cars or jewellery. Unlike the Zimbabwean dollar, such assets do not lose half their value every year.
42、 Jewellery is also an easy way m move money abroad. Wear it on the plane, sell it in London. and leave the money there. The poor have fewer options. A typical unskilled wage now buys a loaf of bread and a litre of milk a day, plus the bus fare to work. For most poor Zimbabweans, the only measure aga
43、inst inflation is to plant maize in the back yard and hope they can harvest it before their landlord expels them.（分数：10.00）(1).“But if staff in Moscow felt chilly, the grab did not warm them.“ means the measure government adopted is_.（分数：2.00）A.funnyB.efficientC.activeD.useless(2).The overseas subsi
44、diaries arc set up to_.（分数：2.00）A.puzzle the Zimbabwean governmentB.act as a sellerC.import some productsD.store the products which are produced in Zimbabwean(3).The example of “zips“ reflects_.（分数：2.00）A.if possible, imports will be replaced by the local productsB.some products cant be produced wit
45、hout imported componentsC.the people try to find a way m produce the local materialsD.a small lack leads to a big loss(4).Under current circumstances, people in the country do the following EXCEPT_.（分数：2.00）A.put savings into tangible assetsB.buy cars and jewelersC.plant maize in the back yardD.buy
46、houses and land(5).Which one is NOT true about effects resulted from economic problems in Zimbabwea?（分数：2.00）A.People dont want to hold the Zimbabwean dollars.B.Some people will give you mom Zimbabwean dollars for hard currency.C.The staff use bicycles instead of cars.D.Business folk have nothing to
47、 do with the governmental policies.BText 4/BStephen Colberts performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner nine days ago has already created a debate over politics, the press and humor. Now, a commercial rivalry has broken out over its rebroadcast.On Wednesday, C-Span, the nonprofit network t
48、hat first showed Mr. Colberts speech, wrote letters to the video sites YouT and , demanding that the clips of the speech be taken off their Web sites. The action was a first for C-Span, whose prime-time schedule tends to feature events like Congressional hearings on auto fuel-economy standards.“We have had other hotI hate to use that wordvideos that generated a lot of buzz,“ said Rob Kennedy, executive vice president of C-Span, which was founded in 1979. “But this is the first time it has occurred since the advent of the video clipping sites.“After the clips of Mr. Colb
