[考研类试卷]考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷42及答案与解析.doc

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1、考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷 42 及答案与解析Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)0 A Among farmers and researchers, there is disagreement about which types of growers climate change will impact mostlarge agribusiness growing operations,

2、 or smaller, family-run farms. Some agriculture industry observers say that the bigger farmers will have an advantage in coping with weather changes, as they will have more resources to switch to new crops. Others say that since family farms usually grow a wider range of crops, their biological dive

3、rsity will make it easier to cope with whatever changes occur.B The culprit is climate change, caused by societys burning of fossil fuels. When it comes to global warming, farmers who are more attuned to weather patterns than most peoplemay be the proverbial canaries in the coalmine. The weather, of

4、 course, has never been exactly dependablefarmers have always been at the mercy of the vagaries of sun and rain. But general weather patterns have at least been broadly predictable, allowing farmers to know when to sow their seed, when to transplant, when to harvest. As weather patterns become less

5、reliable, growers will be tested to develop new rhythms and systems for growing crops.C Most keyboard jockeys would die for the view from Orin Martins office window: apple trees in blossom, lines of citrus, dozens of varieties of flowers and neat rows of peppers and potatoes. Martin is a farmer in S

6、anta Cruz, Calif. , where for last 30 years he has been an instructor at the University of Cahfornias agro-ecology program, one of the nations oldest organic agriculture currieulums.D What all agriculture experts agree on is that farmers need to start preparing today for climate change. Growers ough

7、t to be thinking about what warmer temperatures, fluctuations in precipitation, and an increase in extreme weather events will mean for their farms, and how they can respond. “This is change; its not necessarily disaster, “ says Gruhinger. “The disaster will come if people arent prepared. “E In rece

8、nt years, however, something has been wrong in his idyllic setting. The weather is changing in strange ways. From New England to the Midwest to California, farmers and scientists are noticing that once-dependable weather patterns are shifting.F There is a misconception that the scientific community

9、is in a state of disagreement about global warming. In fact, there is virtually no serious disagreement on the central points. The misconception of disagreement is actually an illusion that has been deliberately fostered by oil & coal companies. These companies want to prevent any new policies that

10、would interfere with their current business plans that rely on the massive unrestrained dumping of CO2 into the Earth atmosphere every day.G Too much rain at the wrong time can make it difficult to plant or harvest crops, Above-average rainfall also contributes to fungi and insects that can dramatic

11、ally reduce crop yields. Too much warmth is equally problematic. Some plants require a certain number of frost days each year in order to thrive the following spring. As temperatures warm, farmers may find themselves having to either shift to different crops or actually move their operations to new

12、locales. Unreliable weather will make it harder for farmers to he as productive as we have come to expect.Order:5 Smoking, inhalation and exhalation of the fumes of burning tobacco. Leaves of the tobacco plant are smoked in various ways. After a drying and curing process, they may be rolled into cig

13、ars or shredded for insertion into smoking pipes. Cigarettes, the most popular method of smoking, consist of finely shredded tobacco rolled in lightweight paper. About 50 million people in the United States currently smoke an estimated total of 570 billion cigarettes each year. But, is smoking a goo

14、d habit?21. Increased risk of cancerSome experts noticed that lung cancer, which was rare before the 20th century, had increased dramatically since about 1930. The American Cancer Society and other organizations initiated studies comparing deaths among smokers and nonsmokers over a period of several

15、 years.22. More deaths from other diseasesSmokers also run greater risk of dying from diseases apart from cancers.23. Cigar and pipe smoke, as dangerousCigar and pipe smoke contains the same toxic and carcinogenic compounds found in cigarette smoke.24. The effect of environmental tobacco smokeRecent

16、 research has focused on the effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), that is, the effect of tobacco smoke on nonsmokers who must share the same environment with a smoker.25. Addiction at an early ageThe smoking habit and addiction to nicotine usually begins at an early age. This has led to par

17、ticular concern over smoking in teenagers and young adults.There is no need to kill innocent human beings. Restricting tobacco use may be the only answer to a healthy world. Tobacco is harmful not only to us, but to the people in surrounding areas. Tobacco use has been passed on from generation to g

18、eneration. It is now time to put a ban on smoking. With the help of thousands of people, smoking can be controlled. Now it is the time to start a tobacco battle. Smoking needs to become extinct worldwide.A A report by the National Cancer Institute concluded that the mortality rates from cancer of th

19、e mouth, throat, larynx, pharynx, and esophagus are approximately equal in users of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Rates of coronary heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis are elevated for cigar and pipe smokers and are correlated to the amount of smoking and the degree of inh

20、alation.B In the United States, more than 70 percent of adults who smoke began smoking before the age of 18. From the early to mid-1990s the proportion of teenage smokers in the United States rose from one-quarter to one-third, despite increasing warnings about the health hazards of smoking and wide

21、spread bans on smoking in public places. In 2001 surveys of students in grades 9 through 12 found that more than 38 percent of male students and nearly 30 percent of female students smoke. Although black teenagers have the lowest smoking rates of any racial group, cigarette smoking among black teens

22、 increased 80 percent in the late 1990s.C It is estimated that cigarettes are responsible for about 431, 000 deaths in the United States each year. Lung cancer accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States, and smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. T

23、he risks of dying from lung cancer are 23 times higher for male smokers and 13 times higher for female smokers than nonsmokers. Additionally, smokers are at increased risk for cancer of the larynx, oral cavity, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas.D Research has shown that mothers who smoke give

24、 birth more frequently to premature or underweight babies, probably because of a decrease in blood flow to the placenta.E The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that exposure to the environment that contains all the toxic agents inhaled by a smoker, causes 3, 000 cancer de

25、aths and an estimated 40, 000 deaths from heart disease per year in nonsmokers. Secondhand smoke can aggravate asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, and impaired blood circulation.F Smoking causes a fivefold increase in the risk of dying from chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and a twofold increase in deat

26、hs from diseases of the heart and coronary arteries. Smoking also increases the risk of stroke by 50 percent40 percent among men and 60 percent among women.10 Life, at least for a seed, is better out in the world.21)_ Seeds know how to get around. 22)_ But they all have the same goal: to take root a

27、nd give rise to the next generation.Scientists can understand what type of dispersal strategy a plant employs by looking at its environment. For example, dispersal by sea currents in important for plants that grow on seashores, wind is important in open grasslands. And for each type of dispersal, th

28、ere is a type of design. 23)_“Among species with seends dispersed internallt by animals, the size of the seed or fruit, its color, and the presence of protective adaptationsfor example, the huskwill reflect the swallowing, visual, and processing abilities of the seed disperser, “ Birkinshaw said. Fo

29、r example, seeds spread by small birds will be small in size, covered with plant flesh (to give the birds a reward for eating it), buskless (since most birds are ill equipped to remove such an outer shell), and brightly colored (since birds have good color vision).Some seeds have no specific dispers

30、al strategy, like the coco-de-mer, a palm tree that only grows in the Seychelles, an island chain in the Indian Ocean. These palms have the largest seeds of any plant and lack any seed dispersal method other than gravity, Birkinshaw said. In other cases, as with the rare Madagascan palms Satranala d

31、ecussilvae and Voanioala gerardii, the seeds collect in piles beneath their parent trees. 24)_According to John Dransfield, an expert on Madagascan palms with the United Kingdoms Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, both of these palms have very large seeds that animals alive toaday are incapable of moving. “

32、You start dreaming up stories that it could have been distributed by a now extinct animal, “ he said.Possible extinct dispersers of the palms are large lemurs that once roamed Madagascar or flightless elephant birds, which were the largest birds known to have lived in Madagascar.There are only a few

33、 of these Madagascan palms left standing. 25)_Donald Drake is a botanist with the University of Hawaii in Honolulu who studies how plant and animal interaction affects reproduction of native plants and food for native animals in the Pacific Ocean islands. He said loss of animals to disperse seeds ce

34、rtainly impacts a plants viability, but “hard, conclusive data are difficult to come by“.He and colleague Kim McConkey are currently engaged in research that suggests animals may stop performing ecological functions such as seed dispersal long before they go extinct. “We found this to be the case wi

35、th flying foxes, “ Drake said. Flying foxes are among the few remaining large animals that disperse seeds on islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. “Many flying foxes are either rare or extinct, “ Drake said, “If they cease to be effective dispersers long before reaching that stage, there is a po

36、ssibility that the results we found are of wide applicability. “A Wind-dispersed seeds are generally lightweight and have adaptations such as wings and parachutes so they can catch a ride on the breeze Water-dispersed seeds, such as coconuts, are buoyant. Seeds dispersedby animals usually offer a nu

37、tritional reward so that they are eaten, or they are sticky or barbed so they can latch on to passing bodies.B If researchers can confirm that indeed the animal disperser of the palms seeds are extinct, then the only way to prevent the trees themselves from becoming extinct may be to reintroduce see

38、dlings into the forest with a controlled program of replanting, Dransfield said.C In order to maintain effective seed-dispersing populations, the researchers say it is important to take conservation actions before seed-dispersing animal species drop below this threshold.D Some fly with the wind, oth

39、ers go with the flow. Many hitch a ride with unsuspecting animals.E Some animals cease being effective seed dispersers when their population densities fall below a point that induces them to compete over food resourcesthey stop bothering to scatter and hide their food stores.F In general, seed dispe

40、rsal away from the parent plant increases the chances that a seed will reach maturity.G Researchers believe that perhaps their animal dispersers are long extinct.15 A Chihale complains bitterly about how his nations memory is fading away. “Our culture has a rich oral tradition, oral history, stories

41、 told from one generation to another. But it is an oral literature our kids will never hear, “ says Chihale, who speaks the Chopi language at home. Anthropologists speculate that tribal people whose ancestors have lived for tens of thousands of years on Indias Andaman and Nicobar islands survived As

42、ias tsunami catastrophe because of ancient knowledge.B Along a boulevard lined with flowering acacia trees, young people in designer clothes and high-heeled shoes chatter on the sidewalk struggling to be heard over the driving Latin rhythms spilling from a nightclub. Maputos vibrant nightlife lets p

43、eople forget it is the capital of one of the worlds poorest countries. Here you can eat Italian, dance like a Brazilian and talk in Portuguese.C In Mozambique, cheap foreign imports have destroyed the market for local crafts beyond what little can be sold to tourists. Horacio Arab, the son of a bask

44、et weaver who learned his fathers trade, said he improved his skills at MozArte but then abandoned weaving because he could not make a living. Mozambican linguist Rafael Shambela says the pressures from globalization are often too great to resist. To conserve native languages and culture will requir

45、e societies to find ways to cast them with an inherent value, he argues.D One thing thats in ever shorter supply and perhaps even less demand. Mozambiques own indigenous languages. “Sons no longer speak the language of their fathers. . , our culture is dying, “ laments Paulo Chihale, director of a p

46、roject that seeks to train Mozambican youths in traditional crafts. While Mozambique has 23 native languages, the only official one is Portuguesea hand-me-down tongue from colonial times that at once unities a linguistically diverse country and undermines the African traditions that help make it uni

47、que.E Maputo, Mozambiquea U. N. Conference on Trade and Development report on protecting traditional knowledge argues that beyond a devastating impact on culture, the death of a language wipes out centuries of know-how in preserving ecosystemsleading to grave consequences for biodiversity.F On a sma

48、ll campus along a dirt road south of Maputo, Shambela has joined a government effort to write textbooks and curriculums that will allow public school students to learn in 16 of the countrys 23 languages. But the program is limited by Mozambiques poverty. “A language is a culture, “ says Shambela. “I

49、t contains the history of a people and all the knowledge they have passed down for generations. “ The trade-off in settling on Portuguese as a unifying force after independence in 1975 has been an erosion of the rites and rhythms of traditional life. “From dating to mourning, the rules are becoming less clear, “ Shambela says.G The United Nations estimates half of the worlds 6, 000 languages will disappear in less than a century. Roughly a third of those are spoken in Africa and abo