1、考研英语（阅读）-试卷 96 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 ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D.（分数：10.00）_The staggering variety of free stuff available on th
2、e Internet sometimes seems to have repealed the first law of economics: There“s no such thing as a free lunch. But as so often happens, the dismal science actually has it right. When it looks like you“re getting something for nothing, somebody is paying, and it“s often instructive to know who that i
3、s. I“ve been testing a new phone service called ooma that provides an interesting case in point. Once you pay $399 up front for a box called the ooma Hub and connect it to your phone and the Internet via your home network, you are promised free, unlimited phone calls over two lines, plus voice mail.
4、 The system works fine and is simple to set up. When a voice-over-Internet call has to go to a regular phone number, a service such as ooma usually has to pay a “termination fee“ to a carrier such as Verizon. Skype, for example, charges 2% per minute for calls outside the Skype network. But ooma avo
5、ids this by using some of its customersthose who have kept regular phone linesto serve as gateways onto the local phone network at no charge. When you want to call outside the ooma network, the call moves from your Hub over the Internet to a second landline-connected Hub within the destination“s loc
6、al calling area. The Hub dials the target number and patches the call through. In effect, ooma customers with landlines pay to keep the whole system going. You don“t even notice if your landline is being used because your own phone calls go out over your broadband connection, with your flat-rate mon
7、thly phone bill covering the ooma traffic. In fact, this improves the efficiency of the phone system by putting idle lines to work. But if ooma ever gains real traction, I expect a legal assault from big phone companies, which are losing income from termination fees. Web services do take advantage o
8、f genuine economies. The phone network is more expensive than the Net. Lots of Net players build on these advantages. Skype relies on selected users who act, often without their knowledge, as “super nodes“ to manage the system. FreeC provides calls by taking advantage of regulatory quirksnamely, the
9、 stiff termination fees long-distance carriers must pay to certain rural phone companies that handle calls into their territory. In effect, the free conferences are subsidized by customers and shareholders of the long-distance carriers. You may as well enjoy free calls while you can. But it“s always
10、 a good idea to read the fine print. If it isn“t obvious who“s paying for a free service, it might well be you.（分数：10.00）(1).The phrase “a free lunch“ (Para 1) implies that the free stuff on the Internet seems to be _.（分数：2.00）A.totally freeB.impossible as a free lunchC.as right as the scienceD.paid
11、 by someone you know(2).The ooma system promised free, unlimited phone calls by _.（分数：2.00）A.connecting the ooma Hub to your phoneB.taking advantage of their customersC.paying termination fee to carrier VerizonD.keeping regular local phone lines(3).It could be concluded from the passage that the oom
12、a service _.（分数：2.00）A.worked illegally by losing termination feesB.improved the efficiency of the phone systemC.was paid by the ooma customersD.covered the ooma traffic by broadband connection(4).One cannot notice if the landline is being used by others because _.（分数：2.00）A.the ooma traffic cannot
13、be calculated by the outside networkB.your monthly phone bill still remains stable with new trafficC.your Hub will dial the target number from a second HubD.the whole system keeps going with the broadband connection(5).The author suggests that readers _.（分数：2.00）A.enjoy their free callsB.pay their b
14、ills by themselvesC.read carefully their billsD.avoid paying others“ billsTechnology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder. This spiral of complexity, often called “feature creep,“ costs consumers tim
15、e, but it also costs businesses money.Product returns in the U.S. cost a hundred billion dollars a year, and a recent study by Elke den Ouden, of Philips Electronics,found that at least half of returned products have nothing wrong with them. Consumers just couldn“t figure out how to use them. Compan
16、ies now know a great deal about problems of usability and consumer behavior, so why is it that feature creep proves unstoppable? In part, feature creep is the product of the so-called internal-audience problem: the people who design and sell products are not the ones who buy and use them, and what e
17、ngineers and marketers think is important is not necessarily what“s best for consumers. The engineers tend not to notice when more options make a product less usable. And marketing and sales departments see each additional feature as a new selling point, and a new way to lure customers. You might th
18、ink, then, that companies could avoid feature creep by just paying attention to what customers really want. But that“s where the trouble begins, because although consumers find overloaded gadgets unmanageable, they also find them attractive. It turns out that when we look at a new product in a store
19、 we tend to think that the more features there are, the better. It“s only once we get the product home and try to use it that we realize the virtues of simplicity. It seems odd that we don“t anticipate feature fatigue and thus avoid it. But, as numerous studies have shown, people are not, in general
20、, good at predicting what will make them happy in the future. As a result, we will pay more for more features because we systematically overestimate how often we“ll use them. We also overestimate our ability to figure out how a complicated product works. The fact that buyers want bells and whistles
21、but users want something clear and simple creates a peculiar problem for companies.A product that doesn“t have enough features may fail to catch our eye in the store. But a product with too many features is likely to annoy consumers and generate bad word of mouth, as BMWs original iDrive system did.
22、（分数：10.00）(1).In the first paragraph, the author mainly discusses _.（分数：2.00）A.the benefits brought by the advanced technologyB.the recent study conducted by Elke den OudenC.the loss incurred by the feature creep of technologyD.many problems of usability known by the consumers(2).Which of the follow
23、ing is true according to the second paragraph?（分数：2.00）A.It is the audience problem that leads to feature creep.B.What matters to designers and marketers is not good for consumers.C.Feature creep brings blessings to the people in marketing and sales.D.The engineers will not pay attention to the qual
24、ity of the products.(3).Companies find it difficult to avoid feature creep because consumers _.（分数：2.00）A.find complex gadgets easy to manageB.are attracted by gadgets with more featuresC.do not like the gadgets featured by simplicityD.know the virtues of complexity very well(4).It is stated in Para
25、graph 4 that the buyers generally _.（分数：2.00）A.are too confident of their ability to use the complicated products properlyB.are deeply convinced that all the products work in a simple wayC.are fed up with the more and more features of the productsD.are quite clear about the products which will make
26、them happy in the future(5).By saying “buyers want bells and whistles“ (Para. 5), the author means that they want to buy _.（分数：2.00）A.a variety of products which they could use to generate loud noisesB.the product which will generate good word of mouth for its featuresC.the product which has many fe
27、atures but doesn“t annoy consumersD.the product with many non-essential but often engaging featuresJudith Vogtli, director of an upstate New York-based abstinence (the practice of refraining from sex, alcohol, etc) organization called Project Truth, is worried that the golden age of “abstinence-only
28、“ education may have come to an end. The former president helped increase funding for this kind of sex education which focuses on chastity as the way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitteddiseases, and discusses condoms only in terms of failureto over $175m a year. The fate of that money, and
29、 of abstinence education itself, is uncertain under a new adrninistration and Congress. Ms Vogtli need only wait a few weeks. The president will submit the first draft of his budget to Congress later this month. In the meantime, her organization, funded entirely by a government grant, is trying to g
30、o about business as usual. That means teaching about abstaining from sex, drugs and alcohol in New York schools and holding its sixth annual abstinence Creativity Contest, to which students submitted essays, poems, artwork and music on the theme of “Waiting is easier because.“ Abstinence-only educat
31、ion programs have been controversial ever since they were introduced under Ronald Reagan in 1981.Some liberals have labeled it “ignorance-only“ education and most favor a curriculum that includes discussion of both abstinence and contraception (the method to prevent pregnancy). Since the start of ab
32、stinence-only programs, the federal government has spent over $1.5 billion on them, but the United States still has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates of any developed country. Supporters of abstinence-only education mostly think that the media and a culture of casual sexual behaviors are to bl
33、ame for this and that more government support for abstinence could help offset the rise of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. But opponents blame abstinence-only education. There is some evidence to support their case. According to Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Tee
34、n and Unplanned Pregnancy, an advocacy organization, there has been no randomized study showing that abstinence-only education delays sexual activity, and research from the University of Washington suggests that teens who receive comprehensive sex education have a 50% lower risk of becoming pregnant
35、 than those enrolled in abstinence-only courses. Abstinence-only advocates want the government to let school districts choose which type of sex education they prefer. But in an unfavorable sign for them, the new Congress is already shifting its emphasis. Louise Slaughter, a congresswoman from New Yo
36、rk and a former scientist, has introduced a bill that would fund “medically accurate“ comprehensive sex education in schools. It is likely to pass.（分数：10.00）(1).We learn from the first paragraph that “abstinence-only“ education _.（分数：2.00）A.fails to win the support from the new administrationB.focus
37、es on both chastity and condomsC.enjoys great popularity among the young peopleD.might see a decline of public interest in such education(2).Which of the following is true of Paragraph 2?（分数：2.00）A.Ms Vogth“s organization is funded by the government and the private companies.B.Ms Vogth“s organizatio
38、n is trying its best to do business well as usual.C.The annual abstinence Creativity Contest has been held for six consecutive years.D.Student participants of the contest should submit essays, poems, artwork of any themes.(3).According to Paragraph 3, the teen-pregnancy rates are high because of_.（分
39、数：2.00）A.a lack of government support for abstinence educationB.the casual attitude towards abstinence educationC.the casual attitude towards sex and mass mediaD.the curriculum that excludes discussion of contraception(4).It is suggested in the fourth paragraph that comprehensive sex education _.（分数
40、：2.00）A.does not put off sexual activity among the teensB.helps the teens reduce the risk of becoming pregnant by 50%C.helps 50% of the teens avoid the sexual behaviorD.helps the teens avoid becoming pregnant more effectively(5).We may infer from the last paragraph that _.（分数：2.00）A.the new Congress
41、 still emphasizes the abstinence-only educationB.the comprehensive sex education may receive more supportC.a bill of funding comprehensive sex education has been passedD.Louise Slaughter is in favor of abstinence-only educationDon“t talk: your cell phone may be eavesdropping. Thanks to recent develo
42、pments in “spy phone“ software, a do-it-yourself spook can now wirelessly transfer a wiretapping program to any mobile phone. The programs are inexpensive, and the transfer requires no special skill. The would-be spy needs to get his hands on your phone to press keys authorizing the download, but it
43、takes just a few minutesabout the time needed to download a ringtone. This new generation of user-friendly spy-phone software has become widely available in the last year and it confers stunning powers. The latest programs can silently turn on handset microphones even when no call is being made, all
44、owing a spy to listen to voices in a room halfway around the world. Targets are none the wiser: neither call logs nor phone bills show records of the secretly transmitted data. More than 200 companies sell spy-phone software online, at prices as low as $50. Vendors are loath to release sales figures
45、. But some experts claim that a surprising number of people carry a mobile that has been compromised, usually by a spouse, lover, parent or co-worker. Many employees, experts say, hope to discover a supervisor“s dishonest dealings and tip off the top boss anonymously. Max Maiellaro, head of Agata Ch
46、ristie Investigation, a private-investigation firm in Milan, estimates that 3 percent of mobiles in France and Germany are tapped, and about 5 percent or so in Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain. James Atkinson, a spy-phone expert at Granite Island Group, a security consultancy in Gloucester, Massachu
47、setts, puts the number of tapped phones in the U.S. at 3 percent. Even if these numbers are inflated, clearly many otherwise law-abiding citizens are willing to break wiretapping laws. Spyware thrives on iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smart phones because they have ample processing power. In the Uni
48、ted States, the spread of GSM networks, which are more vulnerable than older technologies, has also enlarged the pool of potential victims. Spyware being developed for law-enforcement agencies will accompany a text message and automatically install itself in the victim“s phone when the message is op
49、ened, according to an Italian developer who declined to be identified. One worry is that the software will find its way into the hands of criminals. The current embarrassment is partly the result of decisions by Apple, Microsoft and Research In Motion (producer of the BlackBerry) to open their phones to outside application-software developers, whic
