1、2009年武汉大学考博英语真题试卷及答案与解析 一、 Reading Comprehension 0 “There is a senseless notion that children grow up and leave home when theyre 18, and the truth is far from that,“ says sociologist Larry Bumpass of the University of Wisconsin. Today, unexpected numbers of young adults are living with their parents
2、. “There is a major shift in the middle class,“ declared sociologist Allan Schnaiberg of Northwestern University whose son, 19, moved back in after an absence of eight months. Analysts cite a variety of reasons for this return to the nest. The marriage age is rising, a condition that makes home and
3、its pleasantness particularly attractive to young people. A high divorce rate and a declining remarriage rate are sending economically pressed and emotionally hurt survivors back to parental shelters. For some, the expense of an away-from-home college education has become so excessively great that m
4、any students now attend local schools. Even after graduation, young people find their wings clipped by skyrocketing housing costs. Living at home, says Knighton, a school teacher, continues to give her security and moral support. Her mother agreed, “Its ridiculous for the kids to pay all that money
5、for rent. It makes sense for kids to stay at home.“ But sharing the family home requires adjustments for all. There are the hassles over bathrooms, telephones and privacy. Some families, however, manage the delicate balancing act. But for others, it proves too difficult. Michelle Del Turco, 24, has
6、been home three times and left three times. “What I considered a social drink, my dad considered an alcohol problem,“ she explains. “He never liked anyone I dated, so I either had to hide away or meet them at friends houses.“ Just how long should adult children live with their parents before moving
7、on? Most psychologists feel lengthy homecomings are a mistake. Children, struggling to establish separate identities, can end up with “a sense of inadequacy, defeat and failure.“ And aging parents, who should be enjoying some financial and personal freedom, find themselves stuck with responsibilitie
8、s. Many agree that brief visits, however, can work beneficially. 1 According to the author, there was once a trend in the U.S_ （ A） for young adults to leave their parents and live independently （ B） for middle class young adults to stay with their parents （ C） for married young adults to move back
9、home after a lengthy absence （ D） for young adults to get jobs nearby in order to live with their parents 2 Which of the following does not account for young adults returning to the nest? （ A） Young adults find housing costs too high. （ B） Young adults are psychologically and intellectually immature
10、. （ C） Young adults seek parental comfort and moral support. （ D） Quite a number of young adults attend local schools. 3 One of the disadvantages for young adults returning to stay with their parents is that _ （ A） there will inevitably be inconveniences in everyday life （ B） most parents find it di
11、fficult to keep a bigger family going （ C） the young adults tend to be overprotected by their parents （ D） public opinion is against young adults staying with their parents 4 According to the passage, what is the best for both parents and children? （ A） They should adjust themselves to sharing the f
12、amily expenses. （ B） Children should leave their parents when they are grown up. （ C） Adult children should visit their parents from time to time. （ D） Parents should support their adult children when they are in troubl 4 In a perfectly free and open market economy, the type of employer-government o
13、r private- should have little or no impact on the earnings differentials between women and men. However, if there is discrimination against one sex, it is unlikely that the degree of discrimination by government and private employers will be the same. Differences in the degree of discrimination woul
14、d result in earnings differentials associated with the type of employer. Given the nature of government and private employers, it seems most likely that discrimination by private employers would be greater. Thus, one would expect that, if women are being discriminated against, government employment
15、would have a positive effect on womens earnings as compared with their earnings fiom private employment. The results of a study by Fuchs support this assumption. Fuchs results suggest that the earnings of women in an industry composed entirely of government employees would be 14.6 percent greater th
16、an the earnings of women in an industry composed exclusively of private employees, other things being equal. In addition, both Fuchs and Sanborn have suggested that the effect of discrimination by consumers on the earnings of self-employed women may be greater than the effect of either government or
17、 private employer discrimination on the earnings of women employees. To test this hypothesis, Brown selected a large sample of white male and female workers from the 1970 census and divided them into three categories: private employees, government employees, and self-employed. (Black workers were ex
18、cluded from the sample to avoid picking up earnings differentials that were the result of racial disparities.) Browns research design was controlled for education, labor-force participation, mobility, motivation, and age in order to eliminate these factors as explanation of the studys results. Brown
19、s results suggest that men and women are not treated the same by employers and consumers. For men, self-employment is the highest earnings category, with private employment next, and government lowest. For women, this order is reversed. One can infer from Browns results that consumers discriminate a
20、gainst self-employed women. In addition, self-employed women may have more difficulty than men in getting good employees and may encounter discrimination from suppliers and from financial institutions. Browns results are clearly consistent with Fuchs argument that discrimination by consumers has a g
21、reater impact on the earnings of women than does discrimination by either government or private employers. Also, the fact that women do better work for government than for private employers implies that private employers are discriminating against women. The results do not prove that government does
22、 not discriminate against women. They do, however, demonstrate that if government is discriminating against women, its discriminating is not having as much effect on womens earnings as is discrimination in the private sector. 5 The passage mentions all of the following as difficulties that self-empl
23、oyed women may encounter except_ （ A） discrimination from consumers and suppliers （ B） discrimination from financial institutions （ C） problems in obtaining good employees （ D） problems in obtaining government assistance 6 Which of the following conclusions would the author be most likely to agree w
24、ith about discrimination against women by private employers and by government employers? （ A） Both private employers and government employers discriminate with equal effects on womens earnings. （ B） Both private employers and government employers discriminate, but the discrimination by private emplo
25、yers has a greater effect on womens earnings. （ C） Both private employers and government employers discriminate, but the discrimination by government employers has a greater effect on womens earnings. （ D） Private employers discriminate: it is possible that government employers discriminat 7 A study
26、 of the practices of financial institutions that revealed no discrimination against self-employed women would tend to contradict_ （ A） some tentative results of Fuchs study （ B） some explicit results of Browns study （ C） a suggestion made by the author （ D） Fuchs hypothesis 8 According to Browns stu
27、dy, womens earning categories occur in orders, from the highest earnings to the lowest earnings. （ A） government employment, self-employment, private employment （ B） government employment, private employment, self-employment （ C） private employment, self-employment, government employment （ D） privat
28、e employment, government employment, self-employment 8 In Americas fiercely adversarial legal system, a good lawyer is essential. Ask O.J. Simpson. In a landmark case 35 years ago, Gideon v. Wainwright, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that indigent defendants must be provided with a lawyer at state
29、expense because there could be no fair trial in a serious criminal case without one. “This seems to us to be an obvious truth,“ wrote Justice Hugo Black in his opinion. At the time, the decision was hailed as a triumph for justice, an example of Americas commitment to the ideal of equality before th
30、e law. This is the image most Americans still have of their criminal-justice system - the fairest in the world, in which any defendant, no matter how, gets a smart lawyer who, too often, manages to get the culprit off on a technicality. Nothing could be further from the truth. About 80% of people ac
31、cused of a felony have to depend on a publicly-provided lawyer; but over the past two decades the eagerness of politicians to look harsh on crime, their reluctance to pay for public defenders, and a series of Supreme Court judgments restricting the grounds for appeal have made a mockery of Gideon. T
32、oday many indigent defendants, including those facing long terms of imprisonment or even death, are treated to a “meetem and pleadem “ defense - a brief consultation in which a harried or incompetent lawyer encourages them to plead guilty or, if that fails, struggle through a short trial in which th
33、e defense is massively outgunned by a more experienced, better-paid and better-prepared prosecutor. “We have a wealth-based system of justice,“ says Stephen Bright, the director of the Southern Center for Human Right. “For the wealthy, its gold-plated. For the average poor person, its like being her
34、ded to the slaughterhouse. In many places the adversarial system barely exists for the poor.“ Many lawyers, of course, have made heroic efforts for particular defendants for little or no pay, but the charity of lawyers can be relied on to handle only a tiny fraction of cases. As spending on police,
35、prosecutors and prisons has steadily climbed in the past decade, increasing the number of people charged and imprisoned, spending on indigent defense has not kept pace, overwhelming an already hard-pressed system. 9 The word “indigent“ most probably means_ （ A） wealthy （ B） criminal （ C） poverty-str
36、icken （ D） innocent 10 It can be inferred from the passage that O.J. Simpson was probably_ （ A） a person who was found not guilty because he hired a very good lawyer （ B） a person who won his case because he was provided with a lawyer at state expense （ C） A person who was denied a lawyer and thus l
37、ost his case in the court （ D） a brilliant lawyer who won numerous cases for the average poor people 11 What is the authors view of Americas adversarial legal system? （ A） It is the embodiment of the ideal of equality before the law. （ B） It is the fairest criminal-justice system in the world. （ C）
38、As it is, it benefits the rich but works against the poor. （ D） It is unfair by nature and should be overhaule 12 Which of the following statements is true? （ A） Lawyers who provide defense for the poor often work heroically for little or no pay at all. （ B） As crime rate increases, American politic
39、ians have become more tolerant towards crime than before. （ C） In America, if a person refuses to accept the judgment of a lower court, he can always appeal to the Supreme Court. （ D） Government-provided lawyers tend to go through the formalities of defense and prove to be no match for the prosecuto
40、rs. 12 No reference book, perhaps no book of any kind except the Bible, is so widely used as “the dictionary“. Even houses that have few books or none at all possess at least one dictionary; most business offices have dictionaries, and most typists keep a copy on their desks; at one time or another
41、most girls and boys are required by their teachers to obtain and use a dictionary. Admittedly, the dictionary is often used merely to determine the correct spelling of words, or to find out the accepted pronunciation, and such a use is perhaps not the most important from an intellectual point of vie
42、w. Dictionaries may, however, have social importance, for it is often a matter of some concern to the person using the dictionary for such purposes that he should not suggest to others, by misspelling a word in a letter, or mispronouncing it in conversation, that he is not “well-bred“, and has not b
43、een well educated. Yet, despite this familiarity with dictionary, the average person is likely to have many wrong ideas about it, and little idea of how to use it profitably, or interpret it rightly. For example, it is often believed that the mere presence of a word in a dictionary is evidence that
44、it is acceptable in good writing. Though most dictionaries have a system of marking words as obsolete, or in use only as slang, many people, more especially if their use of a particular word has been challenged, are likely to conclude, if they find it in a dictionary, that it is accepted as being us
45、ed by writers of established reputation. This would certainly have been true of dictionaries a hundred years or so ago. For a long time after they were first firmly established in the eighteenth century, their aim was to include only what was used by the best writers, and all else was suppressed, an
46、d the compiler frequently claimed that this dictionary contained no “low“ words. Apparently this aspect of the dictionary achieved such importance in the mind of the average person that most people today were unaware of the great change that has taken place in the compilation of present-day dictiona
47、ries. Similarly, the ordinary man invariably supposes that one dictionary is as good and authoritative as another, and, moreover, believes that “the dictionary“ has absolute authority, and quotes it to clinch arguments. Although this is an advantage, in that the dictionary presents a definition the
48、basic meaning of which cant be altered by the speaker, yet it could be accepted only if all dictionaries agreed on the particular point in question. But ultimately the authority of the dictionary rests only on the authority of the man who compiled it, and, however careful he may be, a dictionary-mak
49、er is fallible: reputable dictionaries may disagree in their judgments, and indeed different sections of the same dictionary may differ. 13 Which of the following statements is true according to the passage? （ A） The Bible is the most widely used reference book. （ B） The dictionary is the most widely used reference book. （ C） The dictionary is actually the more widely used book than the Bible. （ D） The Bible is used as widely as the dictionary. 14 By “the great change“ in present-day dictionaries, the author implies that_
