1、2005年武汉大学考博英语真题试卷及答案与解析 一、 Reading Comprehension 0 The calendar used in Australia and in most other countries was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It provides for 366 days in those years for which the year number when divided by 4 gives a whole number (i. e. without a remainder), those years
2、 are called leap years. All other years have 365 days. The Gregorian calendar further specifies that years whose year number is divisible evenly by 100 are not leap years, unless the year number is also divisible by 400. In a leap year February has 29 days, whereas in a non-leap year it has 28 days.
3、 A decade is a 10-year period, such as I January 1885-31 December 1894. 1 Which one of the following years was a leap year? （ A） 1880 （ B） 1894 （ C） 1906 （ D） 1926 2 Which one of the following years will not be a leap year? （ A） 2000 （ B） 2024 （ C） 2052 （ D） 3000 3 How many leap years will there be
4、in the decade commencing 1 January 2019? （ A） 1 （ B） 2 （ C） 3 （ D） 4 4 Since 1582, the maximum number of leap years possible in any decade is _. （ A） 2 （ B） 3 （ C） 4 （ D） 5 4 When you meet Tim Winton, its easy to understand his success at writing for teenagers. He likes surfing and fishing and campi
5、ng and hanging out in the vast tract of sand dunes that borders the one-pub fishing town where he lives in Western Australia. He even looks like the big kid who sat behind you in high school and has the kind of laid-back manner and earthy conversation that you know appeals to those too young to be t
6、reated as kids but not grown-up enough to be admitted to the adult world. Wintons first foray into teenage fiction, Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, is about to go into its second printing. Even more gratifying for the writer has been the response the book has prompted. Hes had scores of appreciative
7、letters “from kids, parents, teachers“, and has read passages from the book to students in country high schools. Writing for young readers has also enabled Winton to find a wider, non-literary audience. “Its very difficult to break out of the few-thousand-group of Australians who read, of whom half
8、or all are professional or semi-professional readers. Its nice to get to people who arent jaded, who will come at a story and read it for what it is. “You dont have to deal with their education and their past and their biases.“ Winton was himself still a teenager when he started writing seriously at
9、 16. Three years later, in 1981, he was named joint winner of The Australian Vogel Literary Award for his first novel, An Open Swimmer. Had he known when he was 16 how difficult it is to make a living as a writer, he would never have started. “I was about 10 when I decided I wanted to be a writer, a
10、nd I guess I lacked the imagination to think of anything else,“ he said. “I got the idea and I just stuck with it. I was unaware of how hard it is to make a living from the people you have to deal with.“ Neither lack of imagination nor inattention to detail is evident in Wintons writing. In That Eye
11、, The Sky, he takes us into the turbulent soul of his 12-year-old protagonist, Morton Flack, with prose that sends you back to long, hot summer holidays in the country. The hot white day swims along real snow like the sun is breast-stroking through that blue sky when it should be going freestyle. Ev
12、eryone hangs around the shade of the house listening to the trees in the east wind. The ground is wobbly with heat. The house ticks. You can hear seeds popping, grass drying up and fainting flat. You can hear the snakes puffing. Other young protagonists have been given voice in Wintons short stories
13、, so the transition to writing for teenagers, instead of about them, was a smooth one. “Lockies not so different in tone from the adult books,“ he said. “If you get too self-conscious when youre writing for kids, you end up talking down to them-you just use your own tone and be yourself, and if that
14、 doesnt work, it probably wouldnt have anyway.“ 5 Winton hopes to reach an audience (in Paragraph 4) that is _. （ A） youthful and caring （ B） unprofessional and jaded （ C） educated and widely read （ D） unbiased and spontaneous 6 Which of these statements is best supported from the passage in Paragra
15、ph 5? （ A） It is best to start writing when you are young. （ B） Earning a living from writing requires painstaking effort. （ C） The decision to become a writer was carefully considered. （ D） The decision to become a writer was not carefully considered. 7 According to the last paragraph, the transiti
16、on from writing for an adult audience to writing for a younger audience is easy for Winton because _. （ A） he deliberately adopts a suitable tone （ B） it has happened later in his writing career （ C） he has written about young people before （ D） he has been preparing for this for much of his writing
17、 career 8 The kind of tone Tim Winton aims for in his writing is best described as _. （ A） gentle （ B） natural （ C） humble （ D） self-conscious 8 Robert Menzies was conservative Prime Minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1949 until his retirement in 1966. Menzies provoked a variety
18、of responses during his political career. Views to below summarize some of those responses. View The supreme twentieth-century statesman and politician, presiding with ease over the nation, and representing Australia abroad with dignity and aplomb. View Authoritarian despite his professed liberal be
19、liefs, he was the enemy of the workers, who stayed in office for seventeen years through a combination of unscrupulous opportunism, remarkable good luck, and the gullibility of the Australian people. View Menzies imposed the values of a bygone age on Australia, with his devotion to Britain and the B
20、ritish monarchy, and his cautious conservatism. He suppressed a new, creative, energetic generation by cultivating smugness, fear and indifference in the Australia of the 50s and 60s. View Downright democratic, something new and different but with an easy-going manner and aggressive independence. 9
21、Which one of the Views( - )expresses the strongest admiration for Menzies? （ A） （ B） （ C） （ D） 10 Which one of the Views( - ) is most damning about Menzies effect on Australias cultural identity? （ A） （ B） （ C） （ D） 11 “Aggressive independence“ (View ) is most at odds with the suggestion of Menzies
22、_. （ A） easy authority (View ) （ B） hypocrisy (View ) （ C） political cunning (View ) （ D） devotion to Britain (View ) 12 Views I to IV of Menzies all represent him as a man who was _. （ A） dignified and remote （ B） scheming and ruthless （ C） rigid and old-fashioned （ D） forceful and influential 12 I
23、n the following passage, Philip Roth is talking to a friend, Joanna, about his father. “Did I ever tell you what happened when he was mugged a couple of years ago? He could have got himself killed. “No. Tell me.“ “A black kid about fourteen approached him with a gun on a side street leading to their
24、 little temple. It was the middle of the afternoon. My father had been at the temple office helping them with mailing or something and he was coming home. The black kids prey on the elderly Jews in his neighborhood even in broad daylight. They bicycle in from Newark, he tells me, take their money, l
25、augh, and go home“. “Get in the bushes,“ he tells my father. “Im not getting in any bushes,“ my father says. “You can have whatever you want, and you dont need that piece to get it. You can put that piece away.“ The kid lowers the gun and my father gives him his wallet.“ Take all the money,“ my fath
26、er says, “but if the wallets of no value to you, I wouldnt mind it back. “The kid takes the money, gives back the wallet, and he runs. And you know what my father does? He calls across the street, “How much did you get?“ And the kid is obedient-he counts it for him. “Twenty-three dollars, “the kid s
27、ays.“ Good,“ my father tells him- “now dont go out and spend it on crap.“ Joanna laughed. “Well, hes not guilty, your father. Of course he treats him like a son. He knows that the Jews in Bialystok were not responsible for the New England slave trade.“ “Its that-its more. He doesnt experience powerl
28、essness in the usual way.“ “Yes, hes oblivious to it,“she said. “He wont give in to it. It makes for terrific insensitivity but also for terrific guts“. “Yes, what goes into survival isnt always pretty. He got a lot of mileage out of never recognizing the differences among people. All my life I have
29、 been trying to tell him that people are different one from the other. My mother understood this in a way that he didnt. Couldnt. This is what I used to long for in him, some of her forbearance and tolerance, this simple recognition that people are different and that the difference is legitimate. Bu
30、t he couldnt grasp it. They all had to work the same way, want the same way, be dutiful in the same way, and whoever did it different was meshugge-crazy.“ 13 Philip Roths father refused to go into the bushes. This was most likely because he _. （ A） didnt think it was necessary （ B） didnt believe the
31、 mugger was serious （ C） thought he would lose his money if he did （ D） was showing the “black kid“ that he didnt understand him 14 What is the most likely explanation for the kids “obedience“ (Line 15)? （ A） He felt sorry for the man. （ B） He was frightened by the old mans aggressiveness. （ C） He r
32、esponded spontaneously to the old mans natural manner. （ D） He realized he could compensate for his offence by behaving respectfully. 15 Philip Roth tells Joanna that he used to long for his father to be less _. （ A） gutsy and courageous （ B） boring and conventional （ C） powerless and vulnerable （ D
33、） rigid and uncompromising 16 The whole passage suggests that Philip Roth is _. （ A） unable to explain or come to terms with the contradictory elements of his fathers nature. （ B） able to assess his fathers strengths generously while being conscious of his fathers failings. （ C） eager to accept Joan
34、nas explanation of his father, and to conceal any flaws in the familys relationships. （ D） resentful and bitter about his fathers life-long antagonism to how he and his mother dealt with the world. 16 The nuclear age in which the human race is living, and may soon be dying, began for the general pub
35、lic with the dropping of an atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. But for nuclear scientists and for certain American authorities, it had been known for some time that such a weapon was possible. Work towards making it had been begun by the United States, Canada and Britain very soon after the be
36、ginning of the Second World War. The existence of possibly explosive forces in the nuclei of atoms had been known ever since the structure of atoms was discovered by Rutherford. An atom consists of a tiny core called the “nucleus“ with attendant electrons circling round it. The hydrogen atom, which
37、is the simplest and lightest, has only one electron. Heavier atoms have more and more as they go up the scale. The first discovery that had to do with what goes on in nuclei was radioactivity, which is caused by particles being shot out of the nucleus. It was known that a great deal of energy is loc
38、ked up in the nucleus, but, until just before the outbreak of the Second World War, there was no way of releasing this energy in any large quantity. A revolutionary discovery was that, in certain circumstances, mass can be transformed into energy in accordance with Einsteins formula which states tha
39、t the energy generated is equal to the mass lost multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The A-bomb, however, used a different process, depending upon radioactivity. In this process, called “fission“, a heavier atom splits into two lighter atoms. In general, in radioactive substances this
40、 fission proceeds at a constant rate which is slow where substances occurring in nature are concerned. But there is one form of uranium called “U235“ which, when it is pure, sets up a chain reaction which spreads like fire, though with enormously greater rapidity. It is this substance which was used
41、 in making the atom bomb. The political background of the atomic scientists work was the determination to defeat the Nazis. It was held-I think rightly-that a Nazi victory would be an appalling disaster. It was also held, in Western countries, that German scientists must be well advanced towards mak
42、ing an A-bomb, and that if they succeeded before the West did they would probably win the war. When the war was over, it was discovered, to the complete astonishment of both American and British scientists, that the Germans were nowhere near success, and as everybody knows, the Germans were defeated
43、 before any nuclear weapons had been made. But I do not think that nuclear scientists of the West can be blamed for thinking the work urgent and necessary. Even Einstein favored it. When, however, the German war was finished, the great majority of those scientists who had collaborated towards making
44、 the A-bomb considered that it should not be used against the Japanese, who were already on the verge of defeat and, in any case, did not constitute such a menace to the world as Hitler. Many of them made urgent representations to the American Government advocating that, instead of using the bomb as
45、 a weapon of war, they should after a public announcement, explode it in a desert, and that future control of nuclear energy should be placed in the hands of an international authority. Seven of the most eminent of nuclear scientists drew up what is known as “The Franck Report“ which they presented
46、to the Secretary of War in June 1945. This is a very admirable and far-seeing document, and if it had won the assent of the politicians, none of our subsequent terrors would have arisen. 17 We may infer that the writers attitude towards the A-bomb is that _. （ A） it is a necessary evil （ B） it is a
47、terrible threat to the whole of mankind （ C） it played a vital part in defeating the Japanese （ D） it was a wonderful invention 18 The American and British scientists were astonished at the end of the Second World War against Germany because _. （ A） the Germans had been defeated without the use of n
48、uclear weapons （ B） the Western countries had won before they had invented nuclear weapons （ C） they thought the Germans would probably win the war （ D） the Germans had made little progress in developing nuclear weapons 19 According to the writer, most scientists who had helped in making the A-bomb
49、considered that it should not be used against the Japanese because _. （ A） it was such a dangerous weapon （ B） its use against the Japanese was unnecessary （ C） it was a very inhumane weapon （ D） the German war was finished 20 It is implied that the nuclear scientists _. （ A） might not have agreed to develop the bomb if there had been no Nazi threat （ B） would have developed the bomb even without the Nazi threat （ C
