1、专业英语八级-阅读理解(八)及答案解析 (总分：20.00，做题时间：90分钟)一、Text A(总题数：1，分数：5.00)If theres a sensitive investigation into the flaws of crime fighters, the man the feds often call in to do the job is William H. Webster. Over the decades, the former FBI and CIA chief has headed numerous high-profile investigations into
2、 public agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Departments response to the 1992 Rodney King riots and the FBIs failure to catch Soviet and Russian mole Robert Hanssen.But the probe into whether the FBI mishandled information about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people an
3、d wounding 32 at Fort Hood in Texas, could be Websters trickiest assignment yet. The Nov. 5 shootings have raised a host of nettlesome issues regarding Hasan and his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric in Yemen, and why the FBI decided not to raise the alarm about Hasan even though it ha
4、d tracked his suspect communications. In the aftermath of the shootings, critics have raised questions not only about intelligence-sharing, but also about whether the U.S. Army psychiatrist successfully used the cloak of research as a smoke screen for his personal extremism and, perhaps, murderous i
5、ntentions.At the heart of the inquiry is the troublesome revelation that the FBI knew that Hasan, who became more religiously devout after his parents deaths, corresponded with al- Awlaki, an American-born imam who led a northern Virginia mosque where two of the Sept. 11 hijackers worshipped. After
6、al-Awlaki departed the U.S. in 2002, eventually ending up in Yemen, his sermons and teachingsdelivered in Englishapparently became a source of inspiration for the Fort Dix six and some of the young men who eventually left the U.S. to join al-Shabaab, the Islamist group in Somalia.E-mail surveillance
7、 turned up as many as 20 messages between al-Awlaki and Hasan, which an FBI-headed Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington reviewed. At the time, the task force concluded that the correspondence matched Hasans research into the mind-set of Muslim soldiers who turn on their comrades and was insuffic
8、ient evidence to launch an investigation. Separately, U.S. Army colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington have said they raised concerns with supervisors about Hasan, his statements about Islam and whether he was mentally stable or possibly even dangerous. The Army, however, did no
9、t share the information with the FBI.Its not yet clear how wide-ranging Websters probe will be, and opinions vary on its scope. Bill Burck, a former deputy counsel to President George W. Bush, said that while Websters previous probes tended to look for policy lapses or fault, this review may be more
10、 difficult. The review could go to the heart of assessing threats posed by radicalized Americans, who have rights that terrorists from outside the country do not. That presents a very difficult set of questions about how do you balance the traditional law-enforcement approach to deal with those thre
11、atswhich is typically how weve dealt with those things in the pastwith the reality that youre dealing with people that are much harder to deter, Burck says.The FBI has already turned over to the White House a preliminary internal review of the agencys actions before the shootings. Director Robert Mu
12、eller appointed Webster, who headed the FBI from 1978 until 1987 before becoming CIA director, to perform an open-ended, independent review of FBI policies, practices and actions preceding the incident. That will include a review of the initial findings as well as any additional issues that Webster
13、has the discretion to take up.In a statement, Mueller said Webster would have complete access to necessary information and resources that Webster would coordinate with existing Department of Defense probes. It is essential to determine whether there are improvements to our current practices or other
14、 authorities that could make us all safer in the future, he said.（分数：5.00）(1).According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true about Hasan?（分数：1.00）A.He was mentally unstable.B.He was a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army.C.He kept in touch with a clergyman in Yemen.D.He killed 13 people and w
15、ounded 32 at Fort Hoo(2).What can be inferred from the appointment of Webster to investigate the incident?（分数：1.00）A.He headed the FBI and knew it well.B.The Fort Hood incident is no easy case.C.Director Robert Mueller had confidence in Webster.D.He has headed many investigations into public agencie
16、s.(3).It can be inferred from the Fort Hood incident that（分数：1.00）A.There was something wrong with Hasans mentality.B.The FBI did not have sufficient evidence to start a probe.C.It could have been stopped if the FBI had taken some measures.D.The Army did not share with the FBI the information about
17、Hasan.(4).What does discretion mean in Paragraph 6?（分数：1.00）A.freedomB.judgmentC.responsibilityD.ability(5).Which of the following has made Websters probe more difficult?（分数：1.00）A.It is lacking in evidence on Hasans motives for the murder.B.It is an investigation into the FBI policies, practices an
18、d actions.C.It deals with terrorism from Americans which is even harder to stop.D.It deals with a case related to an imam in Yemen to whom it can do nothin二、Text B(总题数：1，分数：5.00)Looking back, it was naive to expect Wikipedias joyride to last forever. Since its inception in 2001, the user-written onl
19、ine encyclopedia has expanded just as everything else online has: exponentially. Up until about two years ago, Wikipedians were adding, on average, some 2,200 new articles to the project every day. The English version hit the 2 millionarticle mark in September 2007 and then the 3 million mark in Aug
20、ust 2009surpassing the 600-year-old Chinese Yongle Encyclopedia as the largest collection of general knowledge ever compiled (well, at least according to Wikipedias entry on itself).But early in 2007, something strange happened: Wikipedias growth line flattened. People suddenly became reluctant to c
21、reate new articles or fix errors or add their kernels of wisdom to existing pages. When we first noticed it, we thought it was a blip, says Ed Chi, a computer scientist at Californias Palo Alto Research Center whose lab has studied Wikipedia extensively. But Wikipedia peaked in March 2007 at about 8
22、20,000 contributors; the site hasnt seen as many editors before. By the middle of 2009, we have realized that this was a real phenomenon, says Chi. Its no longer growing exponentially. Something very different is happening now.What stunted Wikipedias growth? And what does the slump tell us about the
23、 long- term viability of such strange and invaluable online experiments? Perhaps the Web has limits after all, particularly when it comes to the phenomenon known as crowd sourcing. Wikipediansthe volunteers who run the site, especially the approximately 1,000 editors who wield the most power over wh
24、at you seehave been in a self-reflective mood. Not only is Wikipedia slowing, but also new stats suggest that hard-core participants are a pretty homogeneous setthe opposite of the ecumenical wiki ideal. Women, for instance, make up only 13% of contributors. The projects annual conference in Buenos
25、Aires this summer bustled with discussions about the numbers and how the movement can attract a wider class of participants.At the same time, volunteers have been trying to improve Wikipedias trustworthiness, which has been sullied by a few defamatory hoaxesmost notably, one involving the journalist
26、 John Seigenthaler, whose Wikipedia entry falsely stated that hed been a suspect in the John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations. They recently instituted a major change, imposing a layer of editorial control on entries about living people. In the past, only articles on high-profile subj
27、ects like Barack Obama were protected from anonymous revisions. Under the new plan, people can freely alter Wikipedia articles on, say, their local officials or company headsbut those changes will become live only once theyve been vetted by a Wikipedia administrator. Few articles on Wikipedia are mo
28、re important than those that are about people who are actually walking the earth, says Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees the encyclopedia. What we want to do is to find ways to be more fair, accurate, and to do betterto be nicerto those people.Yet that
29、gets to Wikipedias central dilemma. Chis research suggests that the encyclopedia thrives on chaosthat the more freewheeling it is, the better it can attract committed volunteers who keep adding to its corpus. But over the years, as Wikipedia has added layers of control to bolster accuracy and fairne
30、ss, it has developed a kind of bureaucracy. It may be that the bureaucracy is inevitable when a project like this becomes sufficiently important, Chi says. But who wants to participate in a project lousy with bureaucrats?There is a benign explanation for Wikipedias slackening pace: the site has simp
31、ly hit the natural limit of knowledge expansion. In its early days, it was easy to add stuff. But once others had entered historical sketches of every American city, taxonomies of all the worlds species, bios of every character on The Sopranos and essentially everything elsewell, what more could the
32、y expect you to add? So the only stuff left is esoteric, and it attracts fewer participants because the only editing jobs left are janitorial making sure that articles are well formatted and readable.Chi thinks something more drastic has occurred: the Webs first major ecosystem collapses. Think of W
33、ikipedias community of volunteer editors as a family of bunnies left to roam freely over an abundant green prairie. In early, fat times, their numbers grow geometrically. More bunnies consume more resources, though, and at some point, the prairie becomes depleted, and the population crashes.Instead
34、of prairie grasses, Wikipedias natural resource is an emotion. Theres the rush of joy that you get the first time you make an edit to Wikipedia, and you realize that 330 million people are seeing it live, says Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundations executive director. In Wikipedias early days, every new
35、 addition to the site had a roughly equal chance of surviving editors scrutiny. Over time, though, a class system emerged; now revisions made by infrequent contributors are much likelier to be undone by 61ite Wikipedians. Chi also notes the rise of wiki-lawyering: for your editors to stick, youve go
36、t to learn to cite the complex laws of Wikipedia in arguments with other editors. Together, these changes have created a community not very hospitable to newcomers. Chi says, People begin to wonder, Why should I contribute anymore? and suddenly, like rabbits out of food, Wikipedias population stops
37、growing.The foundation has been working to address some of these issues; for example, it is improving the sites antiquated, often incomprehensible editing interface. But as for the larger issue of trying to attract a more diverse constituency, it has no specific planonly a goal. The average Wikipedi
38、an is a young man in a wealthy country whos probably a graduate studentsomebody whos smart, literate, engaged in the world of ideas, thinking, learning, writing all the time, Gardner says. Those people are invaluable, she notes, but the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing coun
39、tries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech. Were just starting to get our heads around this. Its a genuinely difficult problem, Gardner says. Obviously, Wikipedia is pretty good now. It works. But our challenge is to build a rich, diverse, broad c
40、ulture of people, which is harder than it looks.Before Wikipedia, nobody would have believed that an anonymous band of strangers could create something so useful. So is it crazy to imagine that, given the difficulties it faces, someday the whole experiment might blow up? There are some bloggers out
41、there who say, Oh, yeah, Wikipedia will be gone in five years, Chi says. I think thats sensational. But our data does suggest its existence in 10 or 15 years may be in question.Ten years is a long time on the Internetlonger than Wikipedia has even existed. Michael Snow, the foundations chairman, say
42、s hes got a fair amount of confidence that Wikipedia will go on. It remains a precious resourcea completely free journal available to anyone and the model for a mode of online collaboration once hailed as revolutionary. Still, Wikipedias troubles suggest the limits of Web 2.0that when an idealized c
43、ommunity gets too big, it starts becoming dysfunctional. Just like every other human organization.（分数：5.00）(1).Which of the following is TRUE about Wikipedia?（分数：1.00）A.It is growing very fast.B.It is the oldest online encyclopedia.C.It is an online encyclopedia run by users.D.It is said to be the s
44、econd largest encyclopedi(2).What does blip mean in Paragraph 2?（分数：1.00）A.a tricky problemB.a strange problemC.a temporary problemD.an unexpected problem(3).Which of the following is NOT the factor that impeded Wikipedias development?（分数：1.00）A.There are many other online encyclopedias.B.The consti
45、tuency is not as diverse as possible.C.Some people have spoiled the reputation of Wikipedia.D.The web is limited in its capability to deal with so many contributors.(4).What is the situation Wikipedia now faces?（分数：1.00）A.Wikipedias control system is working effectively.B.Wikipedia is trying to get
46、rid of bureaucracy.C.Wikipedia is developing healthily.D.Wikipedia is facing a dilemm(5).What can be inferred from the passage?（分数：1.00）A.Wikipedia is an accurate and fair system.B.Wikipedia is a victim of its own success.C.Wikipedia faces severe competition from other websites.D.Wikipedia is gettin
47、g better under the new plan of control.三、Text C(总题数：1，分数：5.00)Even if they produced no other positive result, the attacks on the London Underground have compelled Europeans of all faiths to think with new urgency about the Continents Muslim minority. Such a reckoning was long overdue. Some left-wing
48、 politicians, like Londons mayor, Ken Livingstone, have chosen to emphasize the proximate causes of Muslim anger, focusing on the outrage widely felt in Islamic immigrant communities over the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the harsh reality is that the crisis in relations between the European mainstream and the Islamic diaspora has far deeper roots, consoling as it might be to pretend otherwise.Indeed, the news could scarcely be worse. What Europeans are waking up to is a difficult truth: the immigrants who perform the Continents menial jobs, and, as is ofte
