1、北京外国语大学考研基础英语真题 2007年及答案解析(总分：150.00，做题时间：90 分钟)AThe Quiet CrisisClose games for the Americans were rare in previous Olympics, but now it appears to be something the Americans should get used to. You could find no better metaphor for the way the rest of the world can now compete head-to-head more ef
2、fectively than ever with America than the struggles of the U.S. Olympic basketball team in 2004. The American team, made up of NBA stars, limped home to a bronze medal after losing to Puerto Rico, Lithuania, and Argentina. Previously, United States Olympic basketball team had lost only one game in t
3、he history of the modern Olympics. Remember when America sent only NCAA stars to the Olympic basketball events? For a long time these teams totally dominated all comers. Then they started getting challenged. So we sent our pros. And they started getting challenged. Because the world keeps learning,
4、the diffusion of knowledge happens faster; coaches in other countries now download American coaching methods off the Internet and watch NBA games in their own living rooms on. satellite TV. Many of them can even get ESPN and watch the highlight reeds. And thank to the triple convergence, there is a
5、lot of new raw talent walking onto the NBA courts from all over the worldincluding many new stars from China, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. They go back and play for their national teams in the Olympics, using the skills they honed in America. So the automatic American superiority of twenty yea
6、rs ago is now gone in Olympic basketball. The NBA standard is increasingly becoming a global commoditypure vanilla. If the United States wants to continue to dominate in Olympic basketball, we must, in that great sports clich, step it up a notch. The old standard won“t do anymore. As Joel Cawley of
7、IBM remarked to me, “ Star for star , the basketball teams from places like Lithuania or Puerto Rico still don“t rank well versus the Americans, but when they play as a teamwhen they collaborate better than we do, they are extremely competitive.“ There is something about post-World War America that
8、reminds me of the classic wealthy family that by the third generation starts to squander its wealth. The members of the first generation are nose-to-the-grindstone innovators, the second generation holds it all together then their kids come along and get fat, dumb, and lazy and slowly squander it al
9、l. I know that is both overly harsh and a gross generalization, but there is, nevertheless, some truth in it. American society started to coast in the 1990s, when our third postwar generation came of age. The dot-com boom left too many people with the impression that they could get rich without inve
10、sting in hard work. All it look was an MBA and a quick IPO, or one NBA contract, and you were set form life. But while we were admiring the flat world we had created, a lot of people in India, China, and Eastern Europe were busy figuring out how to take advantage of it. Lucky for us, we were the onl
11、y economy standing after World War , and we had no serious competition for forty years. That gave us a huge head of steam but also a huge sense of entitlement and complacencynot to mention a certain tendency in recent years to extol consumption over hard work, investment, and long-term thinking. Whe
12、n we got hit with 9/11, it was a once-in- a-generation opportunity to summon the nation to sacrifice, to address some 6f its pressing fiscal, energy, science, and education shortfallsall the things that we had let slide. But our president did not summon us to sacrifice. He summoned us to go shopping
13、. The truth is, we are in a crisis now, but it is a crisis that is unfolding very slowly and very quietly. It is a quiet crisis and this quiet crisis involves the steady erosion of America“s scientific and engineering base, which has always been the source of American innovation and our rising stand
14、ard of living. “The sky is not falling, nothing horrible is going to happen today,“ said Jackson, a physicist by training who chooses her words carefully, “The U.S. is still the leading engine for innovation in the world. It has the best graduate programs, the best scientific infrastructure, and the
15、 capital markets to exploit it. But there is a quiet crisis in U.S. science and technology that we have to wake up to. The U.S. today is in a truly global environment, and those competitor countries are not only wide awake, they are running a marathon while we are running sprints. If left unchecked,
16、 this could challenge our preeminence and capacity to innovate.“ And it is our ability to constantly innovate new products, services, and companies that has been the source of American“s horn of plenty and steadily widening middle class for the last two centuries. It was American innovators who star
17、ted Google, Intel, HP, Dell Microsoft, and Cisco, and it matters where innovation happens. The fact that all these companies are headquartered in America means that most of the high-paying jobs are here, even if these companies outsource or offshore some functions. The executives, the department hea
18、ds, the sales force, and the senior researchers are all located in the cities where the innovation happened. And their jobs create more jobs. The shrinking of the pool of young people with the knowledge skills to innovate won“t shrink our standard of living overnight. It will be felt only in fifteen
19、 or twenty years, when we discover we have a critical shortage of scientists and engineers capable of doing innovation or even just high-value-added technology work. Then this won“t be a quiet crisis anymore, said Jackson, “it will be the real McCoy.“ Today Americans are feeling the gradual and subt
20、le effects of globalization that challenge the economic and strategic leadership that the United States has enjoyed since World War . A substantial portion of our work-force finds itself in direct competition for jobs with lower-wage workers around the globe, and leading-edge scientific and engineer
21、ing work is being accomplished in many parts of the world. Thanks to globalization, driven by modern communications and other advances, workers in virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, China, India, or dozens of other nations whose eco
22、nomies are growing. This has been aptly referred to as “ the Death of Distance “.（分数：16.00）(1).Why NBA was mentioned in this passage?（分数：2.00）A.It serves as a metaphor to illustrate how the globe is competing head-to-head with U.S.B.It presents a fact that NBA is now performing very poorly.C.It send
23、s a message that the U.S. overall strength is dropping.D.It warns the Americans of the grave situation that the status of its super power does not exist any longer.(2).“ Star for star , the basketball teams from places like Lithuania or Puerto Rico still don“t rank well versus the Americans, but whe
24、n they play as a teamwhen they collaborate better than we do they are extremely competitive“. In this sentence, “Star for star.“ means _.（分数：2.00）A.when one team plays against anotherB.the place of the stars in a teamC.the time the star is on the courtD.when individual players of the teams are playi
25、ng against each other(3).It is stated in paragraph 3 that people are admiring the flat world. What does “flat“ mean?（分数：2.00）A.It means that the world is getting bigger and bigger and people are losing a lot of choices.B.It means that the world is getting smaller and globalization is the dominant tr
26、end.C.It means that the world is getting smaller and easier to control.D.It means that the world stops being a round globe.(4).The author thinks that the third generation of Americans _.（分数：2.00）A.are nose-to-the-grindstone innovatorsB.are holding the wealth all togetherC.are becoming more diligent
27、and hard workingD.are starting to squander their wealth(5).What can be inferred of the author“s feeling about the fact that many big companies are headquartered in America?（分数：2.00）A.Negative.B.Indifferent.C.Positive.D.Worried.(6).What does the word “aptly“ in Paragraph 7 mean?（分数：2.00）A.Suitably.B.
28、Fortunately.C.Adaptively.D.Inappropriately.(7).The “Death of Distance“ refers to _.（分数：2.00）A.the dying economy in the U.S. because of the competitions from Ireland, Finland, China and IndiaB.the intensified competition between the U.S. and other countries due to globalization and advanced communica
29、tionsC.the economies in Ireland and Finland that outperform those in China and IndiaD.the closeness of countries like Ireland and Finland, China and India(8).The title of this passage “The Quiet Crisis“ suggests that _.（分数：2.00）A.the crisis that the U.S. faces is seen clearlyB.the U.S. is not yet in
30、 a crisisC.the crisis that the U.S. faces unfolds very quicklyD.the current crisis develops slowlyThe Nature of CivilizationsDuring the Cold War the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds. Those divisions are no longer relevant. It is far more meaningful now to group countries not
31、 in terms of their political or economic systems or in terms of their level of economic development but rather in terms of their culture and civilization. What do we mean when we talk of a civilization? A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious g
32、roups, all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity. The culture of a village in southern Italy may be different from that of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in a common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German villages. European communities, i
33、n turn, will share cultural features that distinguish them form Arab or Chinese communities. Arabs, Chinese and Westerners, however, are not part of any broader cultural entity. They constitute civilizations. A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cu
34、ltural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans form other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. People can and do redefine their identities and,
35、as a result, the Composition and boundaries of civilizations change. Civilizations may involve a large number of people, as with China (“a civilization pretending to be a state,“ as Lucian Pye put it), or a very small number of people, such as the Anglophone Caribbean. A civilization may include sev
36、eral nation states, as is the case with Western, Latin American and Arab civilizations, or only one, as is the case with Japanese civilization. Civilizations obviously blend and overlay, and may include sub civilizations. Western civilization has two major variants, European and North American, and
37、Islam has its Arab, Turkic and Malay subdivisions. Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real. Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and merge. And, as any student of history knows, civilizations disappear
38、and are buried in the sands of time. Westerners tend to think of nation states as the principal actors in global affairs . They have been that, however, for only a few centuries. The broader reaches of human history have been the history of civilizations. In A Study of History , Arnold Toynbee ident
39、ified 21 major civilizations; only six of them exist in the contemporary world.（分数：8.00）(1).According to the passage, what is a more meaningful way now to group countries as compared with the Cold War period?（分数：2.00）A.In terms of political systems.B.In terms of the level of economic development.C.I
40、n terms of the culture only.D.In terms of culture and civilization.(2).The author states that a civilization is _.（分数：2.00）A.a cultural entityB.a Custom practiced in villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, or religious groupsC.not with any cultural heterogeneityD.not blending or overlapping
41、 with other civilizations(3).According to this passage, how many subdivisions does the Islam Civilization have?（分数：2.00）A.None.B.One.C.Two.D.Three.(4).It can be inferred from the passage that the author of this passage _ the following statement: “Westerners tend to think of nation states as the prin
42、cipal actors in global affairs.“（分数：2.00）A.agrees withB.disagrees withC.detestsD.does not mention if he agrees or not withBThe American CharacterThe American is wonderfully alive; and his vitality, not having often found a suitable outlet, makes him appear agitated on the surface; he is always letti
43、ng of an unnecessarily loud blast of incidental steam. Yet his vitality is not superficial; it is inwardly prompted, and as sensitive and quick as a magnetic needle. He is inquisitive, and ready with an answer to any question that he may put to himself of his own accord; but if you try to pour instr
44、uction into him, on matters that do not touch his own spontaneous life, he shows the most extraordinary powers of resistance and forgetfulness; so that he often is remarkably expert in some directions and surprisingly slow in others. He seems to bear lightly the sorrowful burden of human knowledge.
45、In a word, he is young. What sense is there in this feeling, which we all have that the American is young? His country is blessed with as many elderly people as any other, and his descent from Adam, or form the Darwinian rival of Adam, cannot be shorter than that of his European cousins. Nor are his
46、 ideas always very fresh. Old conventions and rigid bits of morality and religion, with much seemly and antique political understanding, remain clear-cut in him, as in the mind of a child; he may carry all this about with an unquestioning familiarity which does not comport understanding. To keep tra
47、ditional sentiments in this way untouched and uncriticised is itself a sign of youth. A good young man is naturally conservative and loyal on all those subjects which his experience has not brought to a test; advanced opinions on politics, marriage, or literature are comparatively rare in America; t
48、hey are left for the ladies to discuss, and usually to condemn, while the men get on with their worked. In spite of what is 01d fashioned in his more general ideas, the American is unmistakably young; and this, I should say, for two reasons: one, that he is chiefly occupied with his immediate enviro
49、nment, and the other, that his reactions upon it are inwardly prompted, spontaneous, and full of vivacity and self-trust. His views are not yet lengthened; his will is not yet broken or transformed. The present moment, however in this, as in other things, may mark a great change in him; he is perhaps now reaching his majority, and all I say may hardly apply today, and may not apply at all tomorrow. I speak of him as I have known him; and whatever moral strength may occur to him later, I am not sorry to have known him in his youth. The charm of youth,
