1、专业八级-615 及答案解析(总分：100.10，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：2，分数：100.00)Section A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are several passages followed by fourteen multiple-choice questions. For each multiple-choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose t
2、he one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. Passage One There are around 6,000 languages in the world today. At least there were until January of 2001 Then Carlos Westez died. Westez was the last speaker of the native American language Catawba. With him passed
3、 away the language itself. The death of Westez was mourned not just by professional linguists, but more generally by advocates of cultural diversity. Writing in The Independent of London , Peter Popham warned that “when a language dies“ we lose “the possibility of a unique way of perceiving and desc
4、ribing the world“. What particularly worries people like Popham is that many other languages are likely to follow the fate of Catawba. Aore is a language native to one of the islands of the Pacific state of Vanuatu. When the island“s single inhabitant dies, so will the language. Ironically, the stat
5、us of Gafat, an Ethiopian language spoken by fewer than 30 people, has been made more precarious thanks to the efforts of linguists attempting to preserve it. A language researcher took two speakers out of their native land, whereupon they caught cold and died. Of the 6,000 extant languages in the w
6、orld, more than 3,000 will disappear over the next century. Linguist Jean Aitcheson believes that “this massive disappearance of so many languages will be an irretrievable loss“. Popham compares this loss to the “death of untold species of plants and insects“ from rainforest destruction. Warning of
7、the “impact of a homogenizing monoculture upon our way of life,“ he worries about the “spread of English carried by American culture, delivered by Japanese technology“ and the “ hegemony of a few great transnational languages : Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi.“ Yet the whole point of a language is
8、to enable communication. A language spoken by one person is not a language at all. It is a private conceit, like a child“s secret code. Carlos Westez might well have had “a unique way of perceiving the world,“ but it was so unique that only he had access to it. However happy Westez might have been t
9、alking to himself, to everyone else in the world he may as well have been talking gibberish. It is, of course, enriching to learn other languages and delve into other cultures. But it is enriching not because different languages and cultures are unique, but because making contact across barriers of
10、language and culture allows us to expand our own horizons and become more universal in our outlook. Cultural homogenization is something to be welcomed, not feared. The more universally we can communicate, the more dynamic our culture will be. It is not being parochial to believe that the more peopl
11、e to speak Englishor Spanish, Chinese, or Hindithe better it would be. The real chauvinists are surely those who worry about the spread of “American culture“ and “Japanese technology“. The idea that particular languages embody unique visions of the world derives from the romantic concept of cultural
12、 difference, a concept that underlies much of contemporary thinking about multiculturalism. “Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks,“ Johann Gottfried von Herder argued in the 18th century, “and thinks in the manner it speaks.“ For Herder the nature of a people was expressed through its Volksgei
13、stthe unchanging spirit of a people refined through history. Language was particularly crucial to the delineation of a people, because “in it dwells its entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul.“ Herder“s Volksgeist became transformed into racia
14、l makeup, an unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and mental potential, and the basis for division and difference within humankind. The contemporary argument for the preservation of linguistic diversity, liberally framed though it may be, draws on the same philosophy that
15、gave rise to racial difference. “Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial for a Breton or a Basque to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship.than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in h
16、is own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world.“ So wrote John Stuart Mill, more than a century ago. “The same applies,“ he added, “to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as members of the British nation.“ It would have astonished him that, as
17、we approach a new era, there are those who think that sulking on your own rock is a state worth preserving. (此文选自 Time)Passage Two When school starts each year, the most important question on the minds of parents and children is, Who will be my teacher? The concern is well founded. Researchers have
18、discovered that school“s deepest influence on learning depends on the quality of the teacher. Students lucky enough to have teachers who know their content and how to teach it well achieve more. And the effects of a very good (or very poor) teacher last beyond a single year, influencing a student“s
19、learning for years. Put simply, expert teachers are the most fundamental resource for improving education. This lesson has been well learned by societies that top international rankings in education. The highest-achieving countriesFinland, Sweden, lreland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sout
20、h Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canadahave been pouring resources into teacher training and support. These countries routinely prepare their teachers more extensively, pay them well in relation to competing occupations and give them lots of time for professional learning. They also provid
21、e well-trained teachers for all studentsrather than allowing some to be taught by untrained novicesby offering equitable salaries and adding incentives for harder-to-staff locations. All teacher candidates in Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, for example, receive two to three years of gra
22、duate-level preparation for teaching, at government expense, plus a living stipend. Unlike the U.S., where teachers either go into debt to prepare for a profession that will pay them poorly or enter with little or no training, these countries made the decision to invest in a uniformly well-prepared
23、teaching force by recruiting top candidates and paying them while they receive extensive training. With its steep climb in the international rankings, Finland has been a poster child for school improvement. Teachers learn how to create programs that engage students in research and inquiry on a regul
24、ar basis. There, training focuses on how to teach students who learn in different waysincluding those with special needs. The Finns reason that if teachers learn to help students who struggle, they will be able to teach their students more effectively. Singapore, top-ranked in math by the Trends in
25、International Mathematics and Science Study, treats teaching similarly. When I visited Singapore“s National Institute of Education, the nation“s only teacher-training institution, nearly all the people I spoke with described how they were investing in teachers“ abilities to teach a curriculum focuse
26、d on critical thinking and inquiryskills needed in a high-tech economy. To get the best teachers, the institute recruits students from the top third of each graduating high school class into a fully paid four-year teacher-education program (or, if they enter later, a one-to-two-year graduate program
27、) and puts them on the government“s payroll. When they enter the profession, teachers“ salaries are higher than those of beginning doctors. Expert teachers are given time to serve as mentors to help beginners learn their craft. The government pays for 100 hours of professional development each year
28、for all teachers. In addition, they have 20 hours a week to work with other teachers and visit one another“s classrooms. And teachers continue to advance throughout their career. With aid from the government, teachers in Singapore can pursue three separate career ladders, which help them become curr
29、iculum specialists, mentors for other teachers or school principals. These opportunities bring recognition, extra compensation and new challenges that keep teaching exciting and allow teachers to share their expertise. Most U.S. teachers, on the other hand, have no time to work with colleagues durin
30、g the school day. They plan by themselves and get a few hit-and-run workshops after school, with little opportunity to share knowledge or improve their practice. In a study of mathematics teaching and learning in Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., James Stigler and Harold Stevenson noted that “Asian class
31、lessons are so well crafted (because) there is a very systematic effort to pass on the accumulated wisdom of teaching practice to each new generation of teachers and to keep perfecting that practice by providing teachers the opportunities to continually learn from each other.“ With these kinds of in
32、vestments, it is possible to ensure that every teacher has access to the knowledge he or she needs to teach effectively and that every child has access to competent teachers. Such a goal is critical for the U.S. if it is indeed to leave no child behind. (此文选自 Time)Passage Three In the competitive mo
33、delthe economy of many sellers each with a small share of the total marketthe restraint on the private exercise of economic power was provided by other firms on the same side of the market. It was the eagerness of competitors to sell, not the complaints of buyers, that saved the latter from spoliati
34、on . It was assumed, no doubt accurately, that the nineteenth- century textile manufacturer who overcharged for his product would promptly lose his market to another manufacturer who did not. If all manufacturers found themselves in a position where they could exploit a strong demand, and mark up th
35、eir prices accordingly, there would soon be an inflow of new competitors. The resulting increase in supply would bring prices and profits back to normal. As with the seller who was tempted to use his economic power against the customer, so with the buyer who was tempted to use it against his labor o
36、r suppliers, the man who paid less than the prevailing wage would lose his labor force to those who paid the worker his full (marginal) contribution to the earnings of the firm. In all cases the incentive to socially desirable behavior was provided by the competitor. It was to the same side of the m
37、arketthe restraint of sellers by other sellers and of buyers by other buyers, in other words to competitionthat economists came to look for the self-regulatory mechanisms of the economy. They also came to look to competition exclusively and in formal theory still do. The notion that there might be a
38、nother regulatory mechanism in the economy had been almost completely excluded from economic thought. Thus, with the widespread disappearance of competition in its classical form and its replacement by the small group of firms if not in overt, at least in conventional or tacit, collusion, it was eas
39、y to suppose that since competition had disappeared, all effective restraint on private power had disappeared. Indeed, this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made. In fact, new restraints
40、 on private power did appear to replace competition. They were nurtured by the same process of concentration which impaired or destroyed competition. But they appeared not on the same side of the market but on the opposite side, not with competitors but with customers or suppliers. It will be conven
41、ient to have a name for this counterpart of competition and I shall call it countervailing power. To begin with a broad and somewhat too dogmatically stated proposition, private economic power is held in check by the countervailing power of those who are subject to it. The first begets the second. T
42、he long trend toward concentration of industrial enterprise in the hands of a relatively few firms has brought into existence not only strong sellers, as economists have supposed, but also strong buyers, a fact they have failed to see. The two develop together, not in precise step, but in such manne
43、r that there can be no doubt that the one is in response to the other. (此文选自 How to Prepare for the LSAT: Law School Admission Test)Passage Four Global warming could actually chill down North America within just a few decades, according to a new study that says a sudden cooling event gripped the reg
44、ion about 8,300 years ago. Analysis of ancient moss from Newfoundland, Canada, links an injection of freshwater from a burst glacial lake to a rapid drop in air temperatures by a few degrees Celsius along North America“s East Coast. This event created a colder year-round climate with a much shorter
45、growing season for about 150 years, from northern Canada to what is now Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The results suggest that North America“s climate is highly sensitive to meltwater flowing into the ocean, said lead study author Tim Daley of Swansea University in the U. K. The work also means tha
46、t history could repeat itself: Currently Greenland“s ice sheet is melting at a rapid clip, releasing freshwater into the North Atlantic. In a worst-case scenario, the authors say, a sudden melt could trigger another regional cooling eventalthough other experts say today“s extreme, human-driven warmi
47、ng might cancel out any strong cooling effect. Daley and colleagues studied mosses dating back more than 8,700 years that were preserved in a Newfoundland peat bog. The ratios of two different types of oxygen in the mosses allowed the team to trace changes in atmospheric temperature over time. When
48、air temperatures are lower, the mosses contain less oxygen-18, a heavier version of the more common type, oxygen-16. About 8,350 years ago, the amount of oxygen-18 relative to oxygen-16 suddenly dropped , the team reports in the September issue of the journal Geology . Previous research had found th
49、at, around the same time, a northern ice dam burst, releasing the contents of a vast glacial lake into the Labrador Sea, between Canada and Denmark. Normally a warm ocean current called the Gulf Stream runs up the east coast of North America, helping to keep the region balmier than it should be, considering how far north it is. But the entire glacial lake drained within less than a year, injecting a huge pulse of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. Daley and colleagues think the lake water diluted the salty ocean current and slowed the Gulf Stream, which in turn led to rapi
