1、清华大学考博英语-2 及答案解析(总分：263.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、BPart Listenin(总题数：4，分数：200.00)(略)BPart Reading Comprehension/BEach passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each or them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice and then mark the correspondi
2、ng letter on the Answer Sheet.I have had just about enough of being treated like a second-class citizen, simply because I happen to be that put-upon member of society-a customer. The more I go into shops and hotels, banks and post offices, railway stations, airports and the like, the more I am convi
3、nced the things are being run solely to suit the firm, the system, or the union. There seems to be a deceptive new motto for so-called “service“ organizations-Staff Before Service.How often, for example, have you queued for what seems like hours at the Post office or the supermarket because there we
4、re not enough staff on duty to man all the service grilles or checkout counters? Sure? in these days of high unemployment it must be possible to hire cashiers and counter staff. Yet supermarkets, hinting darkly at higher prices, claim that uncovering all their cash registers at any one time would in
5、crease overheads. And the Post office says we cannot expect all their service grilles to be occupied “at times when demand is low“.It is the same with hotels. Because waiters and kitchen staff must finish when it suits them, dining rooms close earlier or menu choice is cut short. As for us guests, w
6、e just have to put up with it. There is also the nonsense of so many friendly hotel night porters having been thrown out of their jobs in the interests of “efficiency“ (i. e. profits) and replaced by coin-eating machines which offer everything from lager to laxatives. Not to mention the creeping thr
7、eat of the tea-making kit in your room: a kettle with a mixed collection of tea bags, plastic milk cartons and lump sugar. Who wants to wake up to a raw teabag? I do not, especially when I am paying for “service“.Can it be stopped, this worsening of service, this growing attitude that the customer i
8、s always a nuisance? I angrily hope so because it is happening, sadly, in all walks of life.Our only hope is to hammer home our anger whenever and wherever we can and, if all else fails, bring back into practice that other, older slogan-Take Our Custom Elsewhere.（分数：50.00）(1).The writer feels that n
9、owadays a customer _（分数：10.00）A.deserves the lowest status in society.B.is unworthy of proper consideration.C.receives unexpected quality service.D.is the victim of some public services.(2).The writer argues that the quality of service is changing because _（分数：10.00）A.customers demands have radicall
10、y changed.B.services provided never become consistent.C.the staff receive more consideration than customers.D.the staff are less considerate than their employers.(3).According to the writer, long queues at counters are caused by _（分数：10.00）A.difficulties in hiring employees.B.deliberate understaffin
11、g.C.lack of cooperation between staff members.D.employers irresponsibility.(4).Service organizations contend that keeping all checkout counters operated can result in _（分数：10.00）A.demands by cashiers for a pay raise.B.insignificant benefits for the customers.C.a rise in the coat for providing servic
12、e.D.needs to purchase expensive equipment.(5).The writer suggests that a customer _（分数：10.00）A.put up with the rode manners of the staff.B.be patient when queuing before checkout counters.C.try to control his temper when ill-treated.D.go to other places where good service is available.EI Nino is the
13、 term used for the period when sea surface temperatures are above normal off the South American coast along the equatorial Pacific, sometimes called the Earths heartbeat, and is a dramatic but mysterious climate system that periodically rages across the Pacific.El Nino means “the little boy“ or “the
14、 Christ child“ in Spanish, and is so called because its warm current is felt along coastal Peru and Ecuador around Christmas. But the local warming is just part of an intricateset of changes in the ocean and atmosphere across the tropical Pacific, which covers a third of the Earths circumference. It
15、s intensity is such that it affects temperatures, storm tracks and rainfall around the world.Droughts in Africa and Australia, tropical storms in the Pacific, torrential rains along the Californian coast and lush greening of Peruvian deserts have all been ascribed to the whim of EI Nino. Until recen
16、tly it has been returning about every three to five years. But recently it has become more frequent-for the first time on record it has returned for a fourth consecutive year-and at the same time a giant pool of unusually warm water has settled down in the middle of the Pacific and is showing no sig
17、ns of moving.Climatologists dont yet know why, though some are saying these aberrations may signal a worldwide change in climate. The problem is that nobody really seems sure what causes the EI Nino to start, and what makes some stronger than others. And this makes it particularly hard to explain wh
18、y it as suddenly started behaving so differently.In the absence of EI Nino and its cold counterpart, La Nina, conditions in the tropical eastern Pacific are the opposite of those in the west: the east is cool and dry, while the west is hot and wet. In the east, its the winds and currents that keep t
19、hings cool. It works like this. Strong, steady winds, called trade winds, blowing west across the Pacific drag the surface water along with them. The varying influence of the Earths rotation at different latitudes, known as the Coriolis effect, causes these surface winds and water to veer towards th
20、e poles, north in the northern hemisphere and south in the southern hemisphere. The surface water is replaced by colder water from deeper in the ocean in a process known as upwelling.The cold surface water in mm chills the air above it. This cold dense air cannot rise high enough or water vapor to c
21、ondense into clouds. The dense air creates an area of high pressure so that the atmosphere over the equatorial eastern Pacific is essentially devoid of rainfall.（分数：50.00）(1).We can learn from the beginning of the text that EI Nino is a phenomenon _（分数：10.00）A.which occurs in some areas other than t
22、he Pacific.B.whose effects direct winds to move to the poles.C.which human activities are chiefly responsible for.D.whose causes remain a mystery to human beings.(2).Paragraphs 2 and 3 are written to（分数：10.00）A.discuss the causes of climatic irregularities.B.exemplify the abnormal effects of EI Nino
23、.C.explain the way in which EI Nino develops.D.show the recent observations of climatologists.(3).The word “aberrations“ (Paragraph 4) can best be replaced by _（分数：10.00）A.irregularities.B.destructions.C.frequencies.D.intensities.(4).It can be inferred that when EI Nino and La Nina occurs simultaneo
24、usly, _（分数：10.00）A.the Coriolis effect may make the wind blow to the poles.B.the atmosphere in the Pacific will be short of rainfall.C.the conditions in the eastern Pacific may be hot and wet.D.the cold dense vapor will rise high enough to form droplets.(5).This passage is most likely to a digest of
25、 _（分数：10.00）A.a popular science article.B.a research report.C.a book review.D.a newspaper editorial.The concept of biodiversity encompasses several different levels of biological organization, from the very specific to the most general. It has been clear for some time that at all of these levels of
26、organization the rich biodiversity that has always characterized the natural world is today declining. The extinctions or threatened extinctions of many species are but the most visible and well- known manifestation of a deeper and more far-reaching trend.Changes in how the land is used are probably
27、 the principal contributor to the current decline in biodiversity. The pressures on terrestrial resources and land depend very much on population growth and the demands of early stages of economic development. Moreover, land acquisition, especially. for agriculture and forestry, focuses initially on
28、 those areas with the most fertile soils and equable climates, which are often the areas of greatest biological diversity. Deforestation in the humid tropics is probably the best-known current example of rapid land-use change.During the decade of the 1970s, vast areas of tropical forest in South Ame
29、rica, Africa, and South-east Asia were cleared and converted to agriculture and other uses. In the middle-to-late 1980s, the rates of deforestation in South America slowed dramatically, largely due to economic and tax policy changes in Brazil, but the pace of cutting in Africa and Southeast Asia, th
30、ough poorly quantified, remains high.Globally, the rate of loss of tropical forests for the 1980s has been estimated at about I percent per year, but there is still considerable uncertainty. The rates of extinction of local species that accompany these rapid changes in land cover may soon be far in
31、excess of what is found today, reaching as high as 10, 000 times the natural background rate. Analyses of potential impacts on biodiversity that are based on simple measures of deforested area can provide little more than very general conclusions. Heavy applications of fertilizers and pesticides hav
32、e the potential of creating additional environmental problems as well as affecting the abundance and viability of the other plants and animals and micro-organisms in the same or adjoining areas.In addition, because of the understandable tendency to put the best land into production first, the expans
33、ion of agriculture into less fertile areas typically requires heavier applications of chemicals, more extensive site preparation, and other forms of more intensive management. The typical result is increased chemical runoff to the landscape, and with ensuing degradation, additional pressure for expa
34、nsion, and the like. It is such a cycle that has led to widespread desertification in some parts of the world, primarily through overgrazing that can be compounded by naturally occurring droughts.（分数：50.00）(1).What is the passage mainly about? _（分数：10.00）A.Changes of biological organizations.B.Impac
35、t of chemicals on the landscape.C.Causes of decrease in biodiversity.D.origins of worldwide deforestation.(2).In discussing the diminishing biodiversity, the authors argument is based mainly on _（分数：10.00）A.the correlations between biodiversity and land features.B.the distinction between specific in
36、stances and generalizations.C.the correspondence of deforestation to land exploitation.D.the separation of endangered species into many sub-groups.(3).It can be inferred from Paragraph 4 that _（分数：10.00）A.deforestation should usually precede large-scale forestry.B.the rates of tropical forest loss a
37、re established by analyses.C.fertilizers and pesticides resulted in the extinctions of species.D.the rates of species extinctions are too complicated to determine.(4).The phrase “are the principal contributor to“ (Paragraph 2) most probably means _（分数：10.00）A.cause the biggest trouble to.B.are chief
38、ly responsible for.C.subscribe simultaneously to.D.are mainly bound up with.(5).The conclusion that can be drawn from the text is that chemicals should be applied（分数：10.00）A.very cautiously.B.rather excessively.C.much naturally.D.quite intensively.Science Fiction can provide students interested in t
39、he future with a basic introduction to the concept of thinking about possible futures in a serious way, a sense of the emotional forces in their own culture that are affecting the shape the future may take, and a multitude of predictions regarding the results of present trends.Although SF seems to t
40、ake as its future social settings nothing more ambiguous than the current status or its totally evil variant, SF is actually a more important vehicle for speculative visions about macroscopic social change. At this level, it is hard to deal with any precision as to when general value changes or evol
41、ving social institutions might appear, but it is most important to think about the kinds of societies that could result from the rise of new forms of interaction, even if one cannot predict exactly when they might occur.In performing this “what if.“ function, SF can act as a social laboratory as aut
42、hors ruminate upon the forms social relationships could take if key variables in their own societies were different, and upon what new belief systems or mythologies could arise in the future to provide the basic rationalizations for human activities. If it is true that most people find it difficult
43、to conceive of the ways in which their society, or human nature itself, could undergo fundamental changes, then SF of this type may provoke ones imagination -to consider the diversity of paths potentially open to society.Moreover, if SF is the laboratory of the imagination, its experiments are often
44、 of the kind that may significantly alter the subject matter even as they are being carried out. That is, SF has always had a certain cybernetic effect on society, as its visions emotionally engage the future-consciousness of the mass public regarding especially desirable and undesirable possibiliti
45、es. The shape a society takes in the present is in part influenced by its image of the future; in this way particularly powerful SF images may become self-fulfilling or self-avoiding prophecies for society. For that matter, some individuals in recent years have even shaped their own life styles afte
46、r appealing models provided by SF stories. The reincarnation and diffusion of SF futuristic images of alternative societies through the media of movies and television may have speeded up and augmented SFs social feedback effects. Thus SF is not only change speculator but change agent, send an echo f
47、rom the future that is becoming into the present that is sculpting it. This fact alone makes imperative in any education system the study of the kinds of works discussed in this section.（分数：50.00）(1).What is the main idea of the passage?（分数：10.00）A.The feedback effects of SF on society.B.The role of
48、 SF and its implications.C.The underlying emotional forces of SF.D.The concept of possible future for students.(2).From Paragraph 2, we can infer that _（分数：10.00）A.SF is able to provide fairly reliable prophecies of social relationships.B.SFs predictions about the evils in a future society have prov
49、ed true.C.SF can provoke imagination and could in itself undergo radical changes.D.SFs representations of present trends may not so accurate as anticipated.(3).According to the last paragraph, “self-fulfilling“ is to “self-avoiding“ as _（分数：10.00）A.“exact“ to “inaccurate“.B.“fictional“ to “factual“.C.“desirable“ to “undesirable“.D.“individual“ to “public“.(4).In discussing the role of SF, the author focuses on _（分数：10.00）A.its main characteristics.B.its general assumptions.C.its
