1、考研英语(二)-32 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：4，分数：100.00)Not too many decades ago it seemed “obvious“ both to the general public and to sociologists that modern society has changed people“s natural relations, loosened their responsibilities to kin and neighbors, and substituted i
2、n their place superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. However, in recent years a growing body of research has revealed that the “obvious“ is not true. It seems that if you are a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your neighbors than you do if you are a resident o
3、f a smaller community. But, for the most part, this fact has few significant consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few of your neighbors you will know no one else. Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within small, private social worlds. Indeed, the nu
4、mber and quality of meaningful relationships do not differ between more and less urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin than are big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by developing friendships with people who share similar interests and activates. Urbanism may produ
5、ce a different style of life, but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor are residents of large communities any likelier to display psychological symptoms of stress or alienation, a feeling of not belonging, than are residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do
6、 worry more about crime, and this leads them to a distrust of strangers. These findings do not imply that urbanism makes little or no difference. If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living next door or keep an eye out for young t
7、rouble makers. Moreover, as Wirth suggested, there may be a link between a community“s population size and its social heterogeneity. For instance, sociologists have found much evidence that the size of a community is associated with bad behavior including gambling, drugs, etc. Large-city urbanites a
8、re also more likely than their small-town counterparts to have a cosmopolitan outlook, to display less responsibility to traditional kinship roles, to vote for leftist political candidates, and to be tolerant of nontraditional religious groups, unpopular political groups, and so-called undesirables.
9、 Everything considered, heterogeneity and unusual behavior seem to be outcomes of large population size.（分数：25.00）(1).Which of the following statements best describes the organization of the first paragraph?（分数：5.00）A.Two contrasting views are presented.B.An argument is examined and possible solutio
10、ns given.C.Research results concerning the quality of urban life are presented in order of time.D.A detailed description of the difference between urban and small-town life is given.(2).According to the passage, it was once a common belief that urban residents _.（分数：5.00）A.did not have the same inte
11、rests as their neighborsB.could not develop long-standing relationshipsC.tended to be associated with bad behaviorD.usually had more friends(3).One of the consequences of urban life is that impersonal relationships among neighbors _.（分数：5.00）A.disrupt people“s natural relationsB.make them worry abou
12、t crimeC.cause them not to show concern for one anotherD.cause them to be suspicious of each other(4).It can be inferred from the passage that the bigger a community is, _.（分数：5.00）A.the better its quality of lifeB.the more similar its interestsC.the more tolerant and open minded it isD.the likelier
13、 it is to display psychological symptoms of stress(5).What is the passage mainly about?（分数：5.00）A.Similarities in the interpersonal relationships between urbanites and small-town dwellers.B.Advantages of living in big cities as compared with living in small town.C.The positive role that urbanism pla
14、ys in modern life.D.The strong feeling of alienation of city inhabitants.“The world“s environment is surprisingly healthy. Discuss.“ If that were an examination topic, most students would tear it apart, offering a long list of complaints: from local smog to global climate change, from the felling of
15、 forests to the extinction of species. The list would largely be accurate, the concern legitimate. Yet the students who should be given the highest marks would actually be those who agreed with the statement. The surprise is how good things are, not how bad. After all, the world“s population has mor
16、e than tripled during this century, and world output has risen hugely, so you would expect the earth itself to have been affected. Indeed, if people lived, consumed and produced things in the same way as they did in 1900 (or 1950, or indeed 1980), the world by now would be a pretty disgusting place:
17、 smelly, dirty, toxic and dangerous. But they don“t. The reasons why they don“t, and why the environment has not been ruined, have to do with prices, technological innovation, social change and government regulation in response to popular pressure. That is why today“s environmental problems in the p
18、oor countries ought, in principle, to be solvable. Raw materials have not run out, and show no sign of doing so. Logically, one day they must: the planet is a finite place. Yet it is also very big, and man is very ingenious. What has happened is that every time a material seems to be running short,
19、the price has risen and, in response, people have looked for new sources of supply, tried to find ways to use less of the material, or looked for a new substitute. For this reason prices for energy and for minerals have fallen in real terms during the century. The same is true for food. Prices fluct
20、uate, in response to harvests, natural disasters and political instability; and when they rise, it takes some time before new sources of supply become available. But they always do, assisted by new farming and crop technology. The long-term trend has been downwards. It is where prices and markets do
21、 not operate properly that this benign trend begins to stumble, and the genuine problems arise. Markets cannot always keep the environment healthy. If no one owns the resource concerned, no one has an interest in conserving it or fostering it: fish is the best example of this.（分数：25.00）(1).According
22、 to the author, most students _.（分数：5.00）A.believe the world“s environment is in an undesirable conditionB.agree that the environment of the world is not as bad as it is thought to beC.get high marks for their good knowledge of the world“s environmentD.appear somewhat unconcerned about the state of
23、the world“s environment(2).The huge increase in world production and population _.（分数：5.00）A.has made the world a worse place to live inB.has had a positive influence on the environmentC.has not significantly affected the environmentD.has made the world a dangerous place to live in(3).One of the rea
24、sons why the long-term trend of prices has been downwards is that _.（分数：5.00）A.technological innovation can promote social stabilityB.political instability will cause consumption to dropC.new farming and crop technology can lead to overproductionD.new sources are always becoming available(4).Fish re
25、sources are diminishing because _.（分数：5.00）A.no new substitutes can be found in large quantitiesB.they are not owned by any particular entityC.improper methods of fishing have ruined the fishing groundsD.water pollution is extremely serious(5).The primary solution to environmental problems is _.（分数：
26、5.00）A.to allow market forces to operate properlyB.to curb consumption of natural resourcesC.to limit the growth of the world populationD.to avoid fluctuations in pricesAbout the time that schools and others quite reasonably became interested in seeing to it that all children, whatever their backgro
27、und, were fairly treated, intelligence testing became unpopular. Some thought it was unfair to minority children. Through the past few decades such testing has gone out of fashion and many communities have indeed forbidden it. However, paradoxically, just recently a group of black parents filed a la
28、wsuit in California claiming that the state“s ban on IQ testing discriminates against their children by denying them the opportunity to take the test. (They believed, correctly, that IQ tests are a valid method of evaluating children for special education classes.) The judge, therefore, reversed, at
29、 least partially, his original decision. And so the argument goes on and on. Does it benefit or harm children from minority groups to have their intelligence tested? We have always been on the side of permitting, even facilitating, such testing. If a child of any color or group is doing poorly in sc
30、hool it seems to us very important to know whether it is because he or she is of low intelligence, or whether some other factor is the cause. What school and family can do to improve poor performance is influenced by its cause. It is not discriminative to evaluate either a child“s physical condition
31、 or his intellectual level. Unfortunately, intellectual level seems to be a sensitive subject, and what the law allows us to do varies from time to time. The same fluctuation back and forth occurs in areas other than intelligence. Thirty years or so ago, for instance, white families were encouraged
32、to adopt black children. It was considered discriminative not to do so. And then the style changed and this cross-racial adopting became generally unpopular, and social agencies felt that black children should go to black families only. It is hard to say what are the best procedures. But surely good
33、 will on the part of all of us is needed. As to intelligence, in our opinion, the more we know about any child“s intellectual level, the better for the child in question.（分数：25.00）(1).Why did the intelligence test become unpopular in the past few decades?（分数：5.00）A.Its validity was challenged by man
34、y communities.B.It was considered discriminative against minority children.C.It met with strong opposition from the majority of black parents.D.It deprived the black children of their rights to a good education.(2).The recent legal action taken by some black parents in California aimed to _.（分数：5.00
35、）A.draw public attention to IQ testingB.put an end to special educationC.remove the state“s ban on intelligence testsD.have their children enter white schools(3).The author believes that intelligence testing _.（分数：5.00）A.may ease racial confrontation in the United StatesB.can encourage black childre
36、n to keep up with white childrenC.may seriously aggravate racial discrimination in the United StatesD.can help black parents make decisions abut their children“s education(4).The author“s opinion of child adoption seems to be that _.（分数：5.00）A.no rules whatsoever can be prescribedB.white families sh
37、ould adopt black childrenC.adoption should be based on IQ test resultsD.cross-racial adoption is to be advocated(5).Child adoption is mentioned in the passage to show that _.（分数：5.00）A.good will may sometimes complicate racial problemsB.social surroundings are vital to the healthy growth of children
38、C.intelligence testing also applies to non-academic areasD.American opinion can shift when it comes to sensitive issuesEarly in the age of affluence that followed World War , an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, “Our enormously productive economy. demands that we make consump
39、tion our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate.“ Americans have responded to Lebow“s call, an
40、d much of the world has followed. Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world“s two largest economiesJapan and the United Satesshow consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent. Overconsump
41、tion by the world“s fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate. Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in
42、 human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches. Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollowthat, misled by a consumerist culture, they h
43、ave been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things. Of course, the opposite of overconsumptionpovertyis no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world t
44、oo. Dispossessed peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert. If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much
45、 is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction?（分数：25.00）(1).The emergence of the affluent society after World War _.（分数：5.00）A.gave birth to a new generation of upper class consumersB.gave rise to the dominance of the
46、 new egoismC.led to the reform of the retailing systemD.resulted in the worship of consumerism(2).Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is _.（分数：5.00）A.the conversion of the sale of goods into ritualsB.the people“s desire for a rise in their living standards
47、C.the imbalance that has existed between production and consumptionD.the concept that one“s success is measured by how much they consume(3).Why does the author say high consumption is a mixed blessing?（分数：5.00）A.Because poverty still exists in an affluent society.B.Because moral values are sacrifice
48、d in pursuit of material satisfaction.C.Because overconsumption won“t last long due to unrestricted population growth.D.Because traditional rituals are often neglected in the process of modernization.(4).According to the passage, consumerist culture _.（分数：5.00）A.cannot thrive on a fragile economyB.w
49、ill not aggravate environmental problemsC.cannot satisfy human spiritual needsD.will not alleviate poverty in wealthy countries(5).It can be inferred from the passage that _.（分数：5.00）A.human spiritual needs should match material affluenceB.there is never an end to satisfying people“s material needsC.whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issueD.how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem考研英语(二)-32 答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：4，分数：100.00)Not too
