1、考博英语-82 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：0，分数：0.00)二、Text 1(总题数：1，分数：20.00)When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress promp
2、ted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming “I wanted to spend more time with my family“. Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term “downshiftin
3、g“ has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of “having it all“, preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the page of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything. I have discover
4、ed, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of “juggling your life“, and making the alternative move into “downshifting“ brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social statu
5、s. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12 hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on “quality time“. In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less
6、materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshiftingalso known in America as “voluntary simplicity“has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anticonsumerism. There are a number of best-selling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives;
7、there are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette , that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their cling-film to making their own soap; there are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-“90s equivalent of dropping out. While in America t
8、he trend started as a reaction to the economic declineafter the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late “80sand is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class down-shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our li
9、ves. For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the“80s, downshifting in the mid-“90s is not so much a search for the mythical good lifegrowing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into oneas a personal recognition of your limitations.（分数：20.00）(1).Which of th
10、e following is true according to Paragraph 1?（分数：5.00）A.Full-time employment is a new international trend.B.The writer was compelled by circumstances to leave her job.C.“A lateral move“ means stepping out of full-time employment.D.The writer was only too eager to spend more time with her family.(2).
11、The writer“s experiment shows that downshifting _.（分数：5.00）A.enables her to realize her dreamB.helps her mold a new philosophy of lifeC.prompts her to abandon her high social statusD.leads her to accept the doctrine orShemagazine(3).“Juggling one“s life“ probably means living a life characterized by
12、 _.（分数：5.00）A.non-materialistic lifestyleB.a bit of everythingC.extreme stressD.anti-consumerism(4).According to the passage, downshifting emerged in the U.S. as a result of _.（分数：5.00）A.the quick pace of modern lifeB.man“s adventurous spiritC.man“s search for mythical experiencesD.the economic situ
13、ation三、Text 2(总题数：1，分数：20.00)A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight times larger than any comp
14、etitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world“s best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed. It was inevitable that this primacy should hav
15、e narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in
16、the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith. (Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea“s LG Electronics in July.) Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America“s machine-tool industry was on the ropes.
17、 For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty. All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that thei
18、r way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America“s industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition fro
19、m overseas. How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self-doubt has yielded to blind pride. “Am
20、erican industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted,“ according to Richard Cavanagh, executive dean of Harvard“s Kennedy School of Management, “It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity,“ says Ste
21、phen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as “a golden age of business management in the United States“.（分数：20.00）(1).The U.S. achieved its predominance after World War because _
22、.（分数：5.00）A.it had made painstaking efforts towards this goalB.its domestic market was eight times larger than beforeC.the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitorsD.the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy(2).The loss of U.S. predominance in the
23、 world economy in the 1980s is manifested in the fact that the American _.（分数：5.00）A.TV industry had withdrawn to its domestic marketB.semiconductor industry had been taken over by foreign enterprisesC.machine-tool industry had collapsed after suicidal actionsD.auto industry had lost part of its dom
24、estic market(3).What can be inferred from the passage?（分数：5.00）A.It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pried.B.Intense competition may contribute to economic progress.C.The revival of the economy depends on international cooperation.D.A long history of success may pave the way for
25、 further development.(4).The author seems to believe the revival of the U.S. economy in the 1990s can be attributed to the _.（分数：5.00）A.turning of the business cycleB.restructuring of industryC.improved business managementD.success in education四、Text 3(总题数：1，分数：20.00)Being a man has always been dang
26、erous. There are about 105 males born for every 100 females, but this ratio drops to near balance at the age of maturity, and among 70-year-olds there are twice as many women as men. But the great universal of male mortality is being changed now, by babies survive almost as well as girls do. This me
27、ans that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when they are searching for a mate. More important, another chance for natural selection has been removed. Fifty years ago, the chance of a baby (particularly a boy baby) surviving depended on its weight. A kilogram
28、 too light or too heavy meant almost certain death. Today it makes almost no difference. Since much of the variation is due to genes one more agent of evolution has gone. There is another way to commit evolutionary suicide: stay alive, but have fewer children. Few people are as fertile as in the pas
29、t. Except in some religious communities, very few women has 15 children. Nowadays, the number of births, like the age of death, has become average. Most of us have roughly the same number of offspring. Again, differences between people and the opportunity for natural selection to take advantage of i
30、t have diminished India shows what is happening. The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities and poverty for the remaining tribal peoples. The grand mediocrity of today everyone being the same in survival and number of offspring means that natural selection has lost 80% of its power in u
31、pper-middle-class India compared to the tribes. For us, this means that evolution is over; the biological Utopia has arrived. Strangely, it has involved little physical change. No other species fills so many places in nature. But in the pass 100,000 yearseven the pass 100 year our lives have been tr
32、ansformed but our bodies have not. We did not evolve, because machines and society did it for us. Darwin had a phrase to describe those ignorant of evolution: they “look at an organic being as average looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension.“ No doubt we will remember a 20th
33、 century way of life beyond comprehension for its ugliness. But however amazed our descendants may be at how far from Utopia we were, they will look just like us.（分数：20.00）(1).What used to be the danger in being a man according to the first paragraph?（分数：5.00）A.A lack of mates.B.A fierce competition
34、.C.A lower survival rate.D.A defective gene.(2).What does the example of India illustrate?（分数：5.00）A.Wealthy people tend to have fewer children than poor people.B.Natural selection hardly works among the rich and the poor.C.The middle class population is 80% smaller than that of the tribes.D.India i
35、s one of the countries with a very high birth rate.(3).The author argues that our bodies have stopped evolving because _.（分数：5.00）A.life has been improved by technological advanceB.the number of female babies has been decliningC.our species has reached the highest stage of evolutionD.the difference
36、between wealth and poverty is disappearing(4).Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?（分数：5.00）A.Sex Ration Changes in Human EvolutionB.Ways of Continuing Man“s EvolutionC.The Evolutionary Future of NatureD.Human Evolution Going Nowhere五、Text 4(总题数：1，分数：20.00)Aimlessness has h
37、ardly been typical of the postwar Japan whose productivity and social harmony are the envy of the United States and Europe. But increasingly the Japanese are seeing a decline of the traditional work-moral values. Ten years ago young people were hardworking and saw their jobs as their primary reason
38、for being，but now Japan has largely fulfilled its economic needs, and young people don“t know where they should go next. The coming of age of the postwar baby boom and an entry of women into the male-dominated job market have limited the opportunities of teenagers who are already questioning the hea
39、vy personal sacrifices involved in climbing Japan“s rigid social ladder to good schools and jobs. In a recent survey, it was found that only 24.5 percent of Japanese students were fully satisfied with school life, compared with 67.2 percent of students in the United States. In addition, far more Jap
40、anese workers expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs than did their counterparts in the 10 other countries surveyed. While often praised by foreigners for its emphasis on the basics, Japanese education tends to stress test taking and mechanical learning over creativity and self-expression. “Those
41、 things that do not show up in the test scores personality, ability, courage or humanity are completely ignored,“ says Toshiki Kaifu, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party“s education committee, “Frustration against this kind of thing leads kids to drop out and run wild.“ Last year Japan e
42、xperienced 2,125 incidents of school violence, including 929 assaults on teachers. Amid the outcry, many conservative leaders are seeking a return to the prewar emphasis on moral education. Last year Mitsuo Setoyama, who was then education minister, raised eyebrows when he argued that liberal reform
43、s introduced by the American occupation authorities after World War had weakened the “Japanese morality of respect for parents“. But that may have more to do with Japanese life-styles. “In Japan,“ says educator Yoko Muro, “it“s never a question of whether you enjoy your job and your life, but only h
44、ow much you can endure.“ With economic growth has come centralization; fully 76 percent of Japan“s 119 million citizens live in cities where community and the extended family have been abandoned in favor of isolated, two generation households. Urban Japanese have long endured lengthy commutes (trave
45、ls to and from work) and crowded living conditions, but as the old group and family values weaken, the discomfort is beginning to tell. In the past decade, the Japanese divorce rate, while still well below that of the United States, has increased by more than 50 percent, and suicides have increased
46、by nearly one-quarter.（分数：20.00）(1).In the Westerner“s eyes, the postwar Japan was _.（分数：5.00）A.under aimless developmentB.a positive exampleC.a rival to the WestD.on the decline(2).According to the author, what may chiefly be responsible for the moral decline of Japanese society?（分数：5.00）A.Women“s
47、participation in social activities is limited.B.More workers are dissatisfied with their jobs.C.Excessive emphasis has been placed on the basics.D.The life-style has been influenced by Western values.(3).Which of the following is true according to the author?（分数：5.00）A.Japanese education is praised
48、for helping the young climb the social ladder.B.Japanese education is characterized by mechanical learning as well as creativity.C.More stress should be placed on the cultivation of creativity.D.Dropping out leads to frustration against test taking.(4).The change in Japanese life-style is revealed i
49、n the fact that _.（分数：5.00）A.the young are less tolerant of discomfortsB.the divorce rate in Japan exceeds that in the U.S.C.the Japanese endure more than ever beforeD.the Japanese appreciate their present life六、Text 5(总题数：1，分数：20.00)The relationship between formal education and economic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economists and politicians alike. Progress in both areas is undoubtedly necessary for the social, political and intellectual development of these and all other societies, however, the conventional view t
