1、考研英语（阅读）-试卷 89 及答案解析(总分：60.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：6，分数：60.00)1.Section II Reading Comprehension（分数：10.00）_2.Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D.（分数：10.00）_It“s no secret that the job of a political pollster
2、is getting harder and harder every election cycle. People are cutting the landline, and regulations make it incredibly hard for pollsters to reach voters on their cell phones. Mass onslaughts of getoutthe-vote phone calls near Election Day swamp phone lines and make voters recoil from the idea of ac
3、tually picking up the phone. Finding voters who are willing to talk about their attitudes and beliefs on politics over the phone is an increasingly difficult challenge. It“s hard out there for a pollster these days. Advances in computing allow us to analyze huge quantities of unstructured data(think
4、 “my random 140 character musings“ instead of “my clear answer to a yes or no question“). Culturally, people are more and more comfortable putting it all out there online, from their tastes in music to their political preferences. Not to mention, samples can be enormous, dwarfing the “small data“ sa
5、mples of a pollster who interviews a thousand registered voters. Technological innovation and a cultural shift toward sharing(and oversharing)make it possible for researchers to assess what people think without having to go to the trouble of actually asking questions. Or do they? This week, the Few
6、Research Center is out with a study throwing cold water on the idea that analyzing data from sources like Twitter can be an accurate substitute fur more traditional research methods. They find that Tweets are inconsistent in how they match up with polling data. Twitter users were more excited than A
7、merican voters as a whole about the re-election of Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Pew finds that Twitter users were less excited about Obama “ s inaugural address than their poll respondents. If the challenges facing more traditional “small data“ pollsters are actually pretty big. the challenges facing “b
8、ig data“ analysts are huge in this area. It seems obvious that the demographics of the universe of “people Tweeting about the inaugural address“ might be different from the universe of “registered voters nationwide. “ While traditional pollsters can get a sense of the race, age, and gender of their
9、samples and make corrections accordingly, it“s a lot harder to know all the demographic data behind the Tweets being analyzed. Not to mention, it“s much less clear what counts as a “positive“ or “negative“ Tweet in any given context, and that this up-or-down-vote approach to sentiment analysis might
10、 be too blunt an instrument to be useful. As technology moves forward, so too must the way people gather information about public opinion. But don“t count the “small data“ polls out quite yet. While some high-profile misses by political pollsters raised important questions about how accurate electio
11、n polls really are, quite a few pollsters managed to get it very close to right, even given all the aforementioned challenges pollsters face these days. Both “big data“ analysis of online conversations and “small data“ surveys and focus groups have a role to play in politics, and smart campaigns wil
12、l value both as complementary methods of learning about where voters stand.（分数：10.00）(1).Which one of the following statements is TRUE of the traditional “small data“ polls?（分数：2.00）A.Traditional pollsters don“t actually asking questions.B.Traditional pollsters can gel a sense of the race, age, and
13、gender of their samples and make corrections accordingly.C.Traditional “small data“ polls is a better method than “big data“ analysis of online conversations.D.Traditional “small data“ polls made more high-profile misses than “big data“ polls.(2).By citing the examples of Obama“s re-election and ina
14、ugural address, the author intends to show that _.（分数：2.00）A.analyzing data from sources like Twitter can be an accurate substitute for more traditional research methodsB.Pew Research Center“s study on Twitter users“ online musings and their poll respondents is questionableC.Tweets are inconsistent
15、in how they match up with polling dataD.Twitter users usually hold mutually contradictory political beliefs(3).The author“s attitude towards the idea that analyzing data from sources like Twitter can be an accurate substitute for more traditional research methods can be said as_.（分数：2.00）A.unrestrai
16、ned approvalB.mild disapprovalC.amused toleranceD.indifference(4).It can be inferred from the last paragraph that _.（分数：2.00）A.as technology moves forward “small“ data polls will be phased outB.to get accurate election polls will be an mission impossible in the futureC.Technological innovation makes
17、 it easy to gather information about public opinionD.combining “small“ and “big“ data surveys will be the trend of future political polls.(5).The best title for the passage would be_.（分数：2.00）A.Political polling in the age of TwitterB.The power of dataC.Technology makes polling easierD.The developme
18、nt of Modern CampaignIt is hard to pinpoint the date at which Americans developed an Indianor perhaps British fatalism about the declining quality of their infrastructure. When my British mother spent several months in the US in the 1950s, it was dazzlingly futuristic. There was air conditioning, an
19、 icebox in every fridge, ubiquitous neon lights and an open road on which even the working class could afford to drive. But bit by bit over the past 30 years, the world“s first truly modern infrastructure has shown its age. It has been starved by a generation of under-investment. And Americans have
20、adapted around it. At some point in the next 12 months, we will discover whether the US has the will to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century. If all goes well, Congress will take steps to avert a fiscal cliff before January 1. As part of that deal lawmakers will schedule another ticking ti
21、me bomb for late 2013, before which they will have to strike a larger bargain or hit another fiscal cliff. The likelihood is that Congress will shrink the already meagre federal investment budget. The hope, as the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Center puts it, is that Congress will “cut to inves
22、t“ rather than doing so crudely across the board. There are three reasons to worry. First, there is remarkably little public outrage over the dilapidation in the power grid, public roads, domestic airports and waterways. This means that lawmakers will be feeling stronger pressures in other direction
23、s(such as defending the existing low level of capital gains tax, for example, or maintaining job-creating defence budgets). It is hard to fly domestically in the US and not at regular intervals face heavy delays, cancellations or being bumped off your flight. It is also hard not to miss the impressi
24、vely stoical reaction of most passengers. Second, most Americans are unaware of how far behind the rest of the world their country has fallen. According to the World Economic Forum“s competitiveness report, US infrastructure ranks below 20th in most of the nine categories, and below 30 for quality o
25、f air transport and electricity supply. The US gave birth to the internet the kind of decentralised network that the US power grid desperately needs, yet according to the OECD club of mostly rich nations, average US internet speeds are barely a 10th of those in countries such as South Korea and Germ
26、any. In an age where the global IT superhighway is no longer a slogan, this is no joke. The budding US entrepreneur can survive gridlocked traffic, but a slow internet can be crippling. Third, it may be asking too much of Washington in its present state of polarisation to give the green light to an
27、ambitious infrastructure plan. In a departure from their party“s traditions, many Republicans are now ideologically opposed to any serious federal role in infrastructure and want to decentralise it to the states. It is thus also a stretch to imagine Congress setting up a public infrastructure bank,
28、as President Barack Obama has requested. The bank would use $ 10bn in seed money to leverage a multiple of that in private money for cross-state projects much like the European Investment Bank. The chances are it will stay on the drawing board.（分数：10.00）(1).The word “stoical“(Line 5, Paragraph 3)is
29、closest in meaning to_.（分数：2.00）A.impatientB.perseveringC.proudD.disdainful(2).The US infrastructure falls behind many countries of the world because_.（分数：2.00）A.the US has a larger and larger population in recent yearsB.the US has experienced frequent natural disasters and political turmoilC.its cu
30、rrent infrastructure has already existed over 50 yearsD.the quality of its old infrastructure is low(3).Which one of the following is not a reason to worry about the US“s will to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century?（分数：2.00）A.Most Americans are remarkbly tolerant over the di lapidation of
31、 their infrastructure.B.Most Americans have no idea how far behind the rest of the world their country has fallen.C.The two parlies could not reach an agreement on an ambitious infrastructure plan.D.President Obama opposed to any serious federal role in infrastructure.(4).Accraording to the passage,
32、 the determining factor for the US“s will to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century is_.（分数：2.00）A.federal investmentB.public outrageC.public awakeningD.bipartisan consensus(5).It can be inferred from the last paragraph that_.（分数：2.00）A.infrastructure transformation is a bipartisan pursuit i
33、n the USB.the US still has a long way to go to bring its infrastructure into the 21st centuryC.republicans have a tradition of opposing to any serious federal role in infrastructureD.congress will set up a public infrastructure bank by the end of this yearBlast injuries, caused by the sort of explos
34、ions that occurred in Boston Monday, can be sonic of the most difficult and complex injuries to treat. The “blast wave“ from the explosion acts like “an invisible wall of energy. “ Its tremendous energy can inflict massive internal injuries, says Mark Morocco, associate professor of emergency medici
35、ne. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “Blast injury is one of the most challenging constellations of injuries,“ says John Chovanes, trauma surgeon at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N. J. , and an Army reservist who has done three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has treated dozens of
36、 blast victims. In one explosive event, Chovanes says, a victim can suffer the blunt trauma of a high-speed auto accident from the high-pressure blast wave, the penetrating destruction of multiple bullet wounds from the shrapnel and potentially a swath of disfiguring burns. The rapid pressure wave c
37、an instantly inflate the stomach with air, then immediately suck it out. Such pressure is many times worse than the sudden pressure changes that people feel in their ears when a plane changes altitude. The force can rupture intestines, collapse lungs and knock the brain around inside the skull, he s
38、ays. “You can have disruption of brain function without any physical finding,“ Morocco says,“ You can have internal injuries even without any obvious bleeding. “ Boston hospitals reported that many patients had injuries to their lower legs. That“s consistent with a bomb placed at ground level, such
39、as in a backpack, Morocco says. “Bits of leg can be blown away from the pressure wave, which is like a big wind,“ Morocco says. “It knocks you down.“ In addition to creating a massive shock wave, an explosion can also cause shrapnel or other bits of metal to slice through flesh like a knife, Morocco
40、 says. While no city is ever completely prepared for the kind of horror that beset Boston Monday, the city“ s emergency management system is about as good as it gets, says Richard Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “Boston has the most robust mass cas
41、ualty plan of any city in the United States,“ says Zane. who previously worked in Boston“ s Brigham and Women“s Hospital for 14 years. “I“m certain this response was so well orchestrated because they have planned for this before, they have drilled for this before. “ Boston is home to some of the bes
42、t regarded hospitals in the world. Beyond the skill of its surgeons and staff, however, the city also has an integrated emergency response system-including police, fire and othersto coordinate and direct care in an emergency. That ensures that patients are portioned out to hospitals evenly, so that
43、individual facilities aren“t overwhelmed. Coordinating care at the scene of a disaster can save lives, Morocco says, through making hard choices about which patients need to be taken first to a hospital, which can wait and which is too injured to even try. Even patients with extensive injuries are l
44、ikely to survive if treated within “the golden hour,“ Morocco says. Patients who languish more than an hour without treatment often don“t make it.（分数：10.00）(1).By saying that the “blast wave“ from the explosion acts like “an invisible wall of energy“, the author intends to say that _.（分数：2.00）A.blas
45、t can cause shrapnel or other bits of metal to slice through flesh like a knifeB.its energy can cause a swath of disfiguring burnsC.this energy wall can prevent victims from physical injury and obvious bleedingD.its tremendous energy can inflict massive internal injuries(2).According to the second p
46、aragraph, which of the following is not an injury a victim can suffer in one explosive event?（分数：2.00）A.blunt trauma of a high-speed auto accidentB.damage to the nervous system and spinal injuriesC.disruption of brain functionD.rupturing intestines, collapsing lungs and knocking the brain(3).What“s
47、the possible meaning of the underlined words “portioned out“(line 4, paragraph 5)?（分数：2.00）A.dealt outB.given outC.sent outD.taken out(4).What“s the author“s attitude toward Boston“s emergency management system?（分数：2.00）A.criticalB.negativeC.satisfiedD.neutral(5).Which one of the following is not a
48、characteristic of Boston“s emergency management system?（分数：2.00）A.hospital, police, fire and others coordinate and direct careB.patients are portioned out to hospitals evenlyC.it is created by a non-governmental organizationD.coordinating care makes hard choice about which patients need treatment fi
49、rstUndeniably, many Europeans arc suffering. Levels of unemployment are the highest since records began in France(3. 2 million)and Spain(6 million). Bad European news mounts almost daily. Europe is having a terrible timeexcept compared with probably every other continent and any time in history. Look at crisis stricken Spain, for instance. The average Spaniard now lives t
