1、考博英语-88 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)“I have great confidence that by the end of the decade we“ll know in vast detail how cancer cells arise,“ says microbiologist Robert Weinberg, an expert on cancer. “But,“ he cautions, “some people have th
2、e idea that once one understands the causes, the cure will rapidly follow. Consider Pasteur, he discovered the causes of many kinds of infections, but it was fifty or sixty years before cures were available.“ This year, 50 percent of the 910,000 people who suffer from cancer will survive at least fi
3、ve years. In the year 2000, the National Cancer Institute estimates, that figure will be 75 percent. For some skin cancers, the five-year survival rate is as high as 90 percent. But other survival statistics are still discouraging13 percent for lung cancer, and 2 percent for cancer of the pancreas.
4、With as many as 120 varieties in existence, discovering how cancer works is not easy. The researchers made great progress in the early 1970s, when they discovered that oncogenes, which are cancer-causing genes, are inactive in normal cells. Anything from cosmic rays to radiation to diet may activate
5、 a dormant oncogene, but how remains unknown. If several oncogenes are driven into action, the cell, unable to turn them off, becomes cancerous. The exact mechanisms involved are still mysterious, but the likelihood that many cancers are initiated at the level of genes suggests that we will never pr
6、event all cancers. “Changes are a normal part of the evolutionary process,“ says oncologist William Hayward. Environmental factors can never be totally eliminated; as Hayward points out, “We can“t prepare a medicine against cosmic rays.“ The prospects for cure, though still distant, are brighter. “F
7、irst, we need to understand how the normal cell controls itself. Second, we have to determine whether there are a limited number of genes in cells which are always responsible for at least part of the trouble. If we can understand how cancer works, we can counteract its action.“（分数：20.00）(1).The exa
8、mple of Pasteur in the passage is used to _.（分数：5.00）A.predict that the secret of cancer will be disclosed in a decadeB.indicate that the prospects for curing cancer are brightC.prove that cancer will be cured in fifty to sixty yearsD.warn that there is still a long way to go before cancer can be co
9、nquered(2).The author implies that by the year 2000, _.（分数：5.00）A.there will be a drastic rise in the five-year survival rate of skin-cancer patientsB.90 percent of the skin-cancer patients today will still be livingC.the survival statistics will be fairly even among patients with various cancersD.t
10、here won“t be a drastic increase of survival rate of all cancer patients(3).Oncogenes are cancer-causing genes _.（分数：5.00）A.that are always in operation in a healthy personB.which remain unharmful so long as they are not activatedC.that can be driven out of normal cellsD.which normal cells can“t tur
11、n off(4).The word “dormant“ in the third paragraph most probably means _.（分数：5.00）A.deadB.ever-presentC.inactiveD.potential三、Text 2(总题数：1，分数：20.00)Discoveries in science and technology are thought by “untaught minds“ to come in blinding flashes or as the result of dramatic accidents. Sir Alexander F
12、leming did not, as legend would have it, look at the mold on a piece of cheese and get the idea for penicillin there and then. He experimented with antibacterial substances for nine years before he made his discovery. Inventions and innovations almost always come out of laborious trial and error Inn
13、ovation is like soccer; even the best players miss the goal and have their shots blocked much more frequently than they score. The point is that the players who score most are the ones who take most shots at the goal and so it goes with innovation in any field of activity. The prime difference betwe
14、en innovators and others is one of approach. Everybody gets ideas, but innovators work consciously on theirs, and they follow them through until they prove practicable or otherwise. What ordinary people see as fanciful abstractions, professional innovators see as solid possibilities. “Creative think
15、ing may mean simply the realization that there“s no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done,“ wrote Rudolph Flesch, a language authority, this accounts for our reaction to seemingly simple innovations like plastic garbage bags and suitcases on wheels that make life more
16、convenient: “How come nobody thought of that before?“ The creative approach begins with the proposition that nothing is as it appears. Innovators will not accept that there is only one way to do anything. Faced with getting from A to B, the average person will automatically set out on the best-known
17、 and apparently simplest route. The innovators will search for alternate courses, which may prove easier in the long run and are bound to be more interesting and challenging even if they lead to dead ends. Highly creative individuals really do march to a different drummer.（分数：20.00）(1).What does the
18、 author probably mean by “untaught mind“ in the first paragraph?（分数：5.00）A.A person ignorant of the hard work involved in experimentation.B.A citizen of a society that restricts personal creativity.C.A person who has had no education.D.An individual who often comes up with new ideas by accident.(2).
19、According to the author, what distinguishes innovators from non-innovators?（分数：5.00）A.The variety of ideas they have.B.The intelligence they possess.C.The way they deal with problems.D.The way they present their findings.(3).The author quotes Rudolph Flesch in Paragraph 3 because _.（分数：5.00）A.Rudolp
20、h Flesch is the best-known expert in the study of human creativityB.the quotation strengthens the assertion that creative individuals look for new ways of doing thingsC.the reader is familiar with Rudolph Flesch“s point of viewD.the quotation adds a new idea to the information previously presented(4
21、).The phrase “march to a different drummer“ (the last line of the passage) suggests that highly creative individuals are _.（分数：5.00）A.diligent in pursuing their goalsB.reluctant to follow common ways of doing thingsC.devoted to the progress of scienceD.concerned about the advance of society四、Text 3(
22、总题数：1，分数：20.00)Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother t
23、ongue, he told the nurses to keep silent. All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected. Today no such
24、 severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected,
25、the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at the right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed. Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a con
26、stant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes vowel-like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to
27、fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar. Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What special about man“s brain, compared with that of
28、the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a toy-bear with the sound pattem “toy-bear“. And even more incredible is the young brain“s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyse, to combine and recombin
29、e the parts of a language in new ways. But speech has to be induced, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child“s babbling, grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the i
30、nteraction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child“s non-verbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.（分数：20.00）(1).The purpose of Frederick II“s experiment was _.（分数：4.00）A.to prove that children are born with the
31、ability to speakB.to discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speechC.to find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speakD.to prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language(2).The reason some children are backward in speaking is
32、most probably that _.（分数：4.00）A.they are incapable of learning language rapidlyB.they are exposed to too much language at onceC.their mothers respond inadequately to their attempts to speakD.their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them(3).What is exceptionally remarkable about a child is th
33、at _.（分数：4.00）A.he is born with the capacity to speakB.he has a brain more complex than an animal“sC.he can produce his own sentencesD.he owes his speech ability to good nursing(4).Which of the following can NOT be inferred from the passage?（分数：4.00）A.The faculty of speech is inborn in man.B.Encoura
34、gement is anything but essential to a child in language learning.C.The child“s brain is highly selective.D.Most children learn their language in definite stages.(5).If a child starts to speak later than others, he will _.（分数：4.00）A.have a high IQB.be less intelligentC.be insensitive to verbal signal
35、sD.not necessarily be backward五、Text 4(总题数：1，分数：20.00)In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped music, and
36、 by psychologists and “human-relations“ experts; yet all this oiling does not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to t
37、he tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management. The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confront
38、ed the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings. Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are
39、in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the tight mixture of submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tes
40、ted again and again by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one“s fellow-competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the
41、very causes of unhappiness and illness. Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise“ capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming our soc
42、ial system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialitiesthose of love and of reasonare the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumpt
43、ion should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.（分数：20.00）(1).By “a well-oiled cog in the machinery“ the author intends to render the idea that man is _.（分数：4.00）A.a necessary part of the society though each individual“s function is negligibleB.working in complete
44、 harmony with the rest of the societyC.an unimportant part in comparison with the rest of the society, though functioning smoothlyD.a humble component of the society, especially when working smoothly(2).The real cause of the anxiety of the workers and employees is that _.（分数：4.00）A.they are likely t
45、o lose their jobsB.they have no genuine satisfaction or interest in lifeC.they are faced with the fundamental realities of human existenceD.they are deprived of their individuality and independence(3).From the passage we can infer that real happiness of life belongs to those _.（分数：4.00）A.who are at
46、the bottom of the societyB.who are higher up in their social statusC.who prove better than their fellow-competitorsD.who could keep far away from this competitive world(4).To solve the present social problems the author suggests that we should _.（分数：4.00）A.resort to the production mode of our ancest
47、orsB.offer higher wages to the workers and employeesC.enable man to fully develop his potentialitiesD.take the fundamental realities for granted(5).The author“s attitude towards industrialism might best be summarized as one of _.（分数：4.00）A.approvalB.dissatisfactionC.suspicionD.tolerance六、Text 5(总题数：
48、1，分数：20.00)When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him: he can give the invention to the world by publishing it, keep the idea secret, or patent it. A granted patent is the result of a bargain struck between an inventor and the state, by which the invento
49、r gets a limited period of monopoly and publishes full details of his invention to the public after that period terminates. Only in the most exceptional circumstances is the lifespan of a patent extended to alter this normal process of events. The longest extension ever granted was to Georges Valensi; his 1939 patent for color TV receiver circuitry was extended until 1971 because for most of the patent“s normal life there was no colour TV to receive and thus no hope of reward for the invention. Because a patent rem
