1、考研英语-296 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)BDirections:/BRead the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C, or D on Answer Sheet I. Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made objectU (1) /U U(2) /Uof, or at leastU (3) /
2、Uits very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers-they are all made up of plastic, or one of its manyU (4) /U. Since theU (5) /Uof civilization, humankind has been experime
3、ntingU (6) /Ua multifunctional material-one that had to be equally strong and lightweight-to carry, contain and protect valuables.U (7) /Uit could carry, contain and protect humans too, even Better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set offU (8) /Uthe challenge, striking gold some 170 years ag
4、o. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the worlds most utilized material ever. In developing aU (9) /U, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, toU (10) /Ujust two,
5、owe their very existence to plastic. And,U (11) /Ucelluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen.The development of plastic is a story of humanU (12) /U, ingenuity and luck.U (13) /Uthe legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles
6、 Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur treated rubber on a stove; The heat seemed to give rubberU (14) /Uproperties. It was stronger, moreU (15) /Uto abrasion, more elastic, much l
7、essU (16) /Uto temperature,U (17) /Uto gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electricU (18) /U. Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of workU (19) /Uand the birth ofU (20) /Uplastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to ray
8、on; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.（分数：10.00）A.consistsB.comprisesC.constitutesD.composesA.especiallyB.partiallyC.partlyD.entirelyA.ownsB.owesC.thanksD.contributesA.deviationsB.derivativesC.deprivationsD.depressionsA.drownB.drawnC.dawnD.duskA.forB.on
9、C.inD.withA.IfB.WhenC.UnlessD.UntilA.ontoB.withC.onD.toA.versatileB.variousC.variantD.variableA.callB.nameC.takeD.bringA.despiteB.withC.withoutD.forA.presentationB.preservationC.perseveranceD.persistenceA.AsB.AfterC.BeforeD.WhileA.enlightenedB.correctedC.progressedD.improvedA.insistentB.consistentC.
10、proofD.resistantA.sensitiveB.agileC.susceptiveD.acuteA.transparentB.impermeableC.translucentD.inaccessibleA.streamB.torrentC.currentD.flowA.pursuedB.ensuedC.ensuredD.insuredA.numericalB.numerableC.enormousD.numerous二、BSection Readi(总题数：4，分数：40.00)BPart A/BBDirections:/BRead the following four texts.
11、 Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on Answer Sheet 1.BText 1/BSt. Paul didnt like it. Moses warned his people against it. Hesiod declared it “mischievious” and “hard to get rid of it“, but Oscar Wilder said, “Gossip is charming.“History is merely gossip
12、,“ he wrote in one of his famous plays. “But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. In times past, under Jewish law, gossipmongers might be fined or flogged. The Puritans put them in stocks or ducking stools, but no punishment seemed to have the desired effect of preventing gossip, which has co
13、ntinued uninterrupted across the back fences of the centuries.Today, however, the much-maligned human foible is being looked at in a different light. Psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, even evolutionary biologists are concluding that gossip may not be so bad after all.Gossip is “an intrinsic
14、ally valuable activity“, philosophy professor Aaron Ben-Zeev states in a book he has edited, entitled Good Gossip. For one thing, gossip helps us acquire information that we need to know that doesnt come through ordinary channels, such as: “What was the real reason so and-so was fired from the offic
15、e?“ Gossip also is a form of social bonding, Dr. Ben-Zeev says. It is “a kind of sharing“ that also “satisfies the tribal need- namely, the need to belong to and be accepted by a unique group“. Whats more, the professor notes, “Gossip is enjoyable.“Another gossip groupie, Dr. Ronald De Sousa, a prof
16、essor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, describes gossip basically as a form of indiscretion and a “saintly virtue“, by which he means that the knowledge spread by gossip will usually end up being slightly beneficial. “It seems likely that a world in which all information were universally
17、available would be preferable to a world where immense power resides in the control of secrets,“ he writes.Still, everybody knows that gossip can have its ill effects, especially on the poor wretch being gossiped about. And people should refrain from certain kinds of gossip that might be harmful, ev
18、en though the ducking stool is long out of fashion.By the way, there is also an interesting strain of gossip called medical gossip, which in its best form, according to researchers Jerry M. Suls and Franklin Goodkin, can motivate people with symptoms of serious illness, but who are unaware of it, to
19、 seek medical help.So go ahead and gossip. But remember, if (as often is the case among gossipers) you should suddenly become one of the gossipees instead, it is best to employ the foolproof defense recommended by Plato, who may have learned the lesson from Socrates, who as you know was the victim o
20、f gossip spread that he was corrupting the youth of Athens: When men speak ill of thee, so live thiat nobody will believe them. Or, as Will Rogers said, “Live so that you wouldnt .be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.“（分数：10.00）(1).Persons remarks are mentioned at the beginning of
21、 the text to _.（分数：2.00）A.show the general disapproval of gossipB.introduce the topic of gossipC.examine gossip from a historical perspectiveD.prove the real value of gossip(2).By “Gossip also is a form of social bonding“ (Para. 5), Professor Aaron Ben-Zeev means gossip _.（分数：2.00）A.is a valuable so
22、urce of social informationB.produces a joy that most people in society needC.brings people the feel of being part of a groupD.satisfies peoples need of being unusual(3).Which of the following statements is true according to the text?（分数：2.00）A.Everyone involved will not benefit from gossip.B.Philoso
23、phers may hold different attitudes toward gossip.C.Dr. Ronald De Sousa regards gossips as perfectly advantageous.D.People are generally not conscious of the value of medical gossip.(4).We learn from the last paragraph that _.（分数：2.00）A.gossipers will surely become gossipees somedayB.Socrates was a t
24、ypical example of a gossiper becoming a gossipeeC.Plato escaped being a victim of gossip by no gossipingD.an easy way to confront gossip when subjected to it is to live as usual(5).The authors attitude toward “gossip“ can be best described as（分数：2.00）A.neutralB.positiveC.negativeD.indifferentBText 2
25、/BSoBig. F was the more visible of the two recent waves of infection because it propagated itself by e-mail, meaning that victims noticed what was going on. SoBig. F was so effective that it caused substantial disruption even to those protected by anti-virus software. That was because so many copies
26、 of the virus spread (some 500,000 computers were infected) that many machines were overwhelmed by messages from their own anti-virus software. On top of that, one common counter-measure backfired, increasing traffic still further. Anti-virus software often bounces a warning back to the sender of an
27、 infected e-mail, saying that the e-mail in question cannot be delivered because it contains a virus. SoBig. F was able to spoof this system by “harvesting“ e-mail addresses from the hard disks of infected computers. Some of these addresses were then sent infected e-mails that had been doctored to l
28、ook as though they had come from other harvested addresses. The latter were thus sent warnings, even though their machines may not have been infected.Kevin Haley of Symantec, a firm that makes anti-virus software, thinks that one reason SoBig. F was so much more effective than other viruses that wor
29、k this way is because it was better at searching hard drives for addresses. Brian King, of CERT, an internet-security centre at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, notes that, unlike its precursors, SoBig. F was capable of “multi-threading“, it could send multiple e-mails simultaneously, allow
30、ing it to dispatch thousands in minutes.Blaster worked by creating a “buffer overrun in the remote procedure call“. In English, that means it attacked a piece of software used by Microsofts Windows operating system to allow one computer to control another. It did so by causing that software to use t
31、oo much memory.Most worms work by exploiting weaknesses in an operating system, but whoever wrote Blaster had a particularly refined sense of humour, since the website under attack was the one from which users could obtain a program to fix the very weakness in Windows that the worm itself was exploi
32、ting.One Way to deal with a wicked worm like Blaster is to design a fairy godmother worm that goes around repairing vulnerable machines automatically. In the case of Blaster someone seems to have tried exactly that with a program called Welchi. However, according to Mr. Haley, Welchi has caused almo
33、st as many problems as Blaster itself, by overwhelming networks with “pings“ signals that checked for the presence of other computers.Though both of these programs fell short of the apparent objectives of their authors, they still caused damage. For instance, they forced the shutdown of a number of
34、computer networks, including the one used by the New York Times newsroom, and the one organising trains operated by CSX, a freight company on Americas east coast. Computer scientists expect that it is only a matter of time before a truly devastating virus is unleashed.（分数：10.00）(1).SoBig. F damaged
35、computer programs mainly by _.（分数：2.00）A.sending them an overpowering number of messagesB.harvesting the addresses stored in the computersC.infecting the computers with an invisible virusD.destroying the anti-virus software of the computers(2).Which of the following best defines the word “doctored“
36、(Para. 1, Line 10)?（分数：2.00）A.Falsified.B.Cured.C.Deceived.D.Diagnosed.(3).Compared with SoBig. F, Blaster was a virus that was _.（分数：2.00）A.more destructiveB.more humorousC.less vulnerableD.less noticeable(4).From the text we learn that Welchi _.（分数：2.00）A.is a wicked worm causing as many damages a
37、s Blaster didB.is a program designed by Haley to detect worms like BlasterC.is a program intended to fix the infected machinesD.is a worm meant to defeat the virus with “pings“(5).The tone of the text can best described as _.（分数：2.00）A.optimistic and humorousB.analytical but concernedC.passionate bu
38、t pessimisticD.scholarly and cautiousBText 3/BEuropean farm ministers have ended three weeks of negotiations with a deal which they claim represents genuine reform of the common agricultural policy(CAP). Will it be enough to kickstart the Doha world trade negotiations?On the face of it, the deal agr
39、eed in the early hours of Thursday June 26th looks promising. Most subsidies linked to specific farm products are, at last, to be broken-the idea is to replace these with a direct payment to farmers, unconnected to particular products. Support prices for several key products, including milk and butt
40、er, are to be cut-that should mean European prices eventually falling towards the world market level. Cutting the link between subsidy and production was the main objective of proposals put forward by Mr. Fischler, which had formed the starting point for the negotiations.The CAP is hugely unpopular
41、around the world. It subsidises European farmers to such an extent that they can undercut farmers from poor countries, who also face trade barriers that largely exclude them from the potentially lucrative European market. Farm trade is also a key feature of the Doha round of trade talks, launched un
42、der the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in November 2001. Developing countries have lined up alongside a number of industrial countries to demand an end to the massive subsidies Europe pays its farmers. Several Doha deadlines have already been missed because of the EUs intransigence,
43、and the survival of the talks will be at risk if no progress is made by September, when the worlds trade ministers meet in Cancun, Mexico.But now even the French seem to have gone along with the deal hammered out in Luxembourg. Up to a point, anyway. The package of measures gives the green light for
44、 the most eager reformers to move fast to implement the changes within their own countries. But there is an escape clause of sorts for the French and other reform-averse nations. They can delay implementation for up to two years. There is also a suggestion that the reforms might not apply where ther
45、e is a chance that they would lead to a reduction in land under cultivation.These let-outs are potentially damaging for Europes negotiators in the Doha round. They could significantly reduce the cost savings that the reforms might otherwise generate and, in turn, keep European expenditure on farm su
46、pport unacceptably high by world standards. More generally, the escape clauses could undermine the reforms by encouraging the suspicion that the new package will not deliver the changes that its supporters claim. Close analysis of what is inevitably a very complicated package might confirm the scept
47、ics fears.（分数：10.00）(1).The deal agreed on Thursday looks promising in that _.（分数：2.00）A.European farm ministers finally reached a consensusB.the link between farm products and subsidies is removedC.farmers would definitely accept the direct payment to themD.European farm products will reach a lower
48、 price level than the world(2).It can be inferred from the third paragraph that _.（分数：2.00）A.farmers from poor countries were put at a disadvantage by CAPB.the deal will be a key subject of debate in Doha round of trade talksC.the deal was probably a result of pressure from other countriesD.the worl
49、ds trade ministers will resist the new deal reached recently(3).In what case might the escape clauses apply in reform-averse nations?（分数：2.00）A.Farmers lose their interest in farming.B.Reforms have to be delayed for up to two years.C.Implementation of the measures goes too eagerly.D.The measures damage the r
