1、考研英语（阅读）-试卷 175 及答案解析(总分：70.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：7，分数：70.00)1.Section II Reading Comprehension（分数：10.00）_2.Part B（分数：10.00）_Among certain parents, it is an article of faith not only that they should treat their sons and daughters alike, but also that they do. If Jack gets videos
2、games, and joins the soccer team and the math club, so does Jane. 1. In one, scientists dressed newborns in gender-neutral clothes and misled adults about their sex. The adults described the “boys“(actually girls)as angry or distressed more often than did adults who thought they were observing girls
3、, and described the “girls“(actually boys)as happy and socially engaged more than adults who knew the babies were boys. 2. In another study, mothers estimated how steep a slope their 11-month-olds could crawl down. Moms of boys got it right to within one degree; moms of girls underestimated what the
4、ir daughters could do by nine degrees, even though there are no differences in the motor skills of infant boys and girls. 3. How we perceive childrensociable or remote, physically bold or quietshapes how we treat them and therefore what experiences we give them. Since life leaves footprints on the v
5、ery structure and function of the brain, these various experiences produce sex differences in adult behavior and brainsthe result not of innate and inborn nature but of nurture. Yet there are differences in adults“ brains, and here Eliot is at her most original and persuasive: explaining how they ar
6、ise from tiny sex differences in infancy. For instance, baby boys are more irritable than girls. 4. By 4 months of age, boys and girls differ in how much eye contact they make, and differences in sociability, emotional expressivity, and verbal abilityall of which depend on interactions with parentsg
7、row throughout childhood. 5. You often see the claim that toy preferencestrucks or dollsappear so early, they must be innate. But as Eliot points out, 6 and 12-month-olds of both sexes prefer dolls to trucks, according to a host of studies. Children settle into sex-based play preferences only around
8、 age 1, which is when they grasp which sex they are, identify strongly with it, and conform to how they see other, usually older, boys or girls behaving. “Preschoolers are already aware of what“s acceptable to their peers and what“s not,“ writes Eliot. Those play preferences then snowball, producing
9、 brains with different talents. The belief in blue brains and pink brains has real-world consequences, which is why Eliot goes after them with such vigor(and rigor). It encourages parents to treat children in ways that make the claims come true, denying boys and girls their full potential. “Kids ris
10、e or fall according to what we believe about them,“ she notes. And the belief fuels the drive for single-sex schools, which is based in part on the false claim that boy brains and girl brains process sensory information and think differently. A. That makes parents likely to interact less with their
11、“nonsocial“ sons, which could cause the sexes“ developmental pathways to diverge. B. Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, doesn“t think these parents are lying, exactly. But she would like to bring some studies to their attention. C. Those differences
12、 also arise from geider conformity. D. Dozens of such disguised-gender experiments have shown that adults perceive baby boys and girls differently, seeing identical behavior through a gender-tinted lens. E. For instance, the idea that the band of fibers connecting the right and left brain is larger
13、in women, supposedly supporting their more “holistic“ thinking, is based on a single 1982 study of only 14 brains. F. But that prejudice may cause parents to unconsciously limit their daughter“s physical activity. G. Eliot“s inescapable conclusion: there is “little solid evidence of sex differences
14、in children“s brains.“（分数：10.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_David Cameron, 40, the leader of Britain“s Conservative Party, just looks handsome. His appeal has propelled the Tories to a consistent lead in opinion polls for the first time since Tony Blair“s 1997 victory. That has infused Britai
15、n“s Conservatives with a sensation so unfamiliar, they barely recognize it: optimism. Surprised at this turn of fortune, some are already mythologizing the man behind it. 1Indeed, Cameron and his wife Samanthathe daughter of a baronetare among London“s most sought-after party guests. Actually, Camer
16、on has more in common with a certain British politician than he does with J.F.K. Whether nodding elegantly to recovering drug addicts at a health center north of Aberdeen or charming Scottish journalists on the train journey to Edinburgh, the person whom Cameron resembles more than any other is a yo
17、ung Blair. He has the same brow-furrowing desire not only to understand those with whom he is having conversation with, but to empathize with them; the same rootless accent that in Britain indicates an easy start in life. 2 Yet the time might be ripe for Cameron. Every second week he makes a raid fr
18、om what he calls “the Westminster bubble“ to some farther-flung area of the kingdom, meeting as many people as possible. “Obviously,“ he says, “in politics, people want to have a look at you and understand who you are and what makes you tick.“ That“s where the trouble begins. It“s easy enough to loc
19、ate Cameron“s heart; that“s with his family. He and Samantha have three children under 5 and he says he spends most of his home life “knee-deep in nappies and crying children.“ 3 Unlike Blair and Brown, Cameron doesn“t show a strong love for the U.S. And in a departure from his predecessors, Cameron
20、 rarely invokes the name of the Conservative“s biggest icon: Margaret Thatcher. “To me, Mrs. Thatcherit“s all a long time in the past,“ says Cameron. “People are voting at the next election who were born after Mrs. Thatcher left office.“ Many Conservatives of Cameron“s generation believe that their
21、party needs to reclaim the middle ground so brilliantly colonized by Blair and distance itself from the fiercely ideological course it charted during the Thatcher era. “We“re seen as the nasty party,“ says Barker, a member of Cameron“s campaign team. 4He“s also promoting a doctrine he calls “modern,
22、 compassionate Conservatism,“ which is “about helping those people who can get left behind.“ In a nod to a nation where opposing global warming has become a semi-religious duty, he claims to be more environmentally friendly than Labour. Cameron“s slogan in local elections last May was “Vote blue, go
23、 green.“ That sort of talk has worried some of the party faithful, but Cameron wants his big ideas to appeal across party lines. “You have to do what Bill Clinton did and build a big tent,“ says Dale. But even Dale would like Cameron to signal to traditional Tories that “the old issues will be treat
24、ed as seriously as the new ones.“ 5 So far, though, Cameron has avoided making many explicit policy statements, relying instead on warm and fuzzy ideas like a belief in “social responsibility“ that he says will empower business, individuals and local government. A. Gordon Brown, is troubled by a mor
25、e leaden style, a darker visage and a government that is losing popularity, largely because of the mess in Iraq. B. To change that image, Cameron has engaged in conspicuously un-Conservative-like behavior, traveling widely and posting a confessional blog at www.webcameron.org.uk. C. The wellsprings
26、of his political conviction are harder to trace. D. But in Britain“s red-meat political and media landscape, such a warm and fuzzy style is rarely enough. Popular attitudes to politicians are still set by the tabloids. E. And like Blair a decade agowhen he was dumping his party“s traditions to appea
27、l to a wider constituencyCameron inspires suspicion as well as excitement. F. Iain Dale, who writes a Conservative blog, speaks of Cameron“s “Kennedyesque glamour.“ He thinks that Cameron has a lot in common with J. F. Kennedy. G. That might mean an open repetition of the Tories“ traditional claim t
28、o be the party of low taxation. Oralways a favorite with the right wingblaming the European Union for Britain“s ills.（分数：10.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_A. The Responsibility of Companies to Reduce Waste B. Means Adopted to Reduce Household Waste C. The Drawbacks of Fly-tipping D. Producers
29、“ Effort on Waste Reduction E. Obstacles to the New Programme F. The Role Consumers Play in Reducing Waste G. The Significance of Generating Less Rubbish Until recently most people in the waste industry had assumed that it was impossible to reduce the amount being produced and were concentrating on
30、putting the stuff to better use. But lately that assumption has been challenged. For one thing, the pace at which the rich world churns out rubbish has been slowing. 1. Reducing the amount of waste being produced makes a great deal of sense, provided it does not cost more, in either environmental or
31、 financial terms, than disposing of it in the usual way. Governments hope it might help to trim both greenhouse-gas emissions and waste-management costs. But they are not sure how best to encourage it. 2 Some are trying to persuade consumers to throw away less. The simplest method is to collect the
32、rubbish less often. In areas of Britain where the dustmen come round only every other week, recycling rates are 10% higher than elsewhere. Another tactic is to make households pay by volume for the rubbish they generate, rather than through a flat fee or through local taxes. Many places in Europe, A
33、merica and Asia have adopted “pay-as-you-throw“ schemes. About a quarter of Americans live in communities with such programmes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reckons that they reduce the volume of rubbish by 14-27% and increase recycling(which usually remains free)by 32-59%. 3. However, t
34、here are drawbacks. 1%-tippingthe illegal dumping of wastetends to rise slightly as people try to avoid paying. And householders generally grumble a lot if they have to pay extra to have their rubbish collected. In addition, most local authorities have simply decided against the idea. When the Briti
35、sh government offered them money to experiment with pay-as-you-throw schemes earlier this year, no one signed up. 4. Businesses are generally seen as a softer target than consumers. It can be argued that manufacturers bear some responsibility for the amount of waste rich countries produce. They ofte
36、n have an incentive to reduce waste anyway, since most already pay for disposal by volume. There is even a name for the steady reduction in materials used to make the same goods: “lightweighting“. It is not only electronic gadgets that have become smaller and lighter over the years even as their per
37、formance has improved but many other things too, from cars to plastic bags. 5. In theory, consumers could steer firms towards waste reduction by buying products that are easy to recycle. To some extent this is happening. Tesco“s Alasdair. James says British consumers rank the environment as their th
38、ird priority after price and convenience. Further, if governments oblige manufacturers to include the cost of disposal in their prices, firms will pass those costs on to consumers, who will have an incentive to buy the products that are the easiest to dispose of. Many governments are currently tryin
39、g to give greenery an extra push with compulsory waste-reduction schemes. Thirty-six states in America, for example, charge for the disposal of tyres. The states spend the money on clean-up programmes or pay others to run such programmes. Many of the tyres are blended into road surfaces or burned in
40、 cement kilns. Several other states have “advance recovery fees“ for computer monitors and televisions. All this should provide a spur to the waste industry and speed the adoption of new technology.（分数：10.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_A. For one thing, many young “vegetarians“ continue to ea
41、t the white meat of defenseless chickens(25% in the current study)as well as the flesh of those adorable animals known as fish(46%), even when they are butchered and served up raw as sushi. And in a recent study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, researchers found that the most common reason teens
42、 gave for vegetarianism was to lose weight or keep from gaining it. Adolescent vegetarians are far more likely than other teens to diet or to use extreme and unhealthy measures to control their weight, studies suggest. The reverse is also true: teens with eating disorders are more likely to practice
43、 vegetarianism than any other age group. B. But approximately 20% of the vegetarians turned out to be binge(excessive eating and drinking)eaters, compared with only 5% of those who had always eaten meat. Similarly, 25% of current vegetarians, ages 15 to 18, and 20% of former vegetarians in the same
44、age group said they had engaged in extreme weight-control measures such as taking diet pills or laxatives and forcing themselves to vomit. Only 1 in 10 teens who had never been vegetarian reported similar behavior. C. Being a teenager means experimenting with foolish things like dyeing your hair pur
45、ple or candy flipping or going door-to-door for a political party. Parents tend to overlook seemingly mild, earnest teen pursuits, but a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggests that another common teen fad, vegetarianism, isn“t always healthy. Instead, it seems that a
46、significant number of kids experiment with a vegetarian diet as a way to mask an eating disorder. D. In another research venture by Robinson-O“Brien called Project EAT-II: Eating Among Teens, the researchers surveyed 2,516 young Minnesotans, ages 15 to 23. Of the respondents, 108(or 4.3%)described t
47、hemselves as currently vegetarian, another 268(10.8%)said they were former vegetarians and the rest were lifelong meat eaters. The researchers found that in one sense, the vegetarians were healthier: they tended to consume less than 30% of their calories as fat, while non-vegetarians got more than 3
48、0% of their calories from fat. Not surprisingly, the vegetarians were also less likely to be overweight. E. The study, led by nutritionist Ramona Robinson-O“Brien, found that while adolescent and young adult vegetarians were less likely than meat eaters to be overweight and more likely to eat a relatively healthful diet, they were also more likely to binge eat Although most teens in Robinson-O“Brien“s study claimed to embark on vegetarianism to be
