1、同济大学考博英语模拟试卷 5及答案与解析 一、 Reading Comprehension 0 Few people would defend the Victorian attitude to children, but if you were a parent in those days, at least you knew where you stood: children were to be seen and not heard. Freud and company did away with all that and parents have been bewildered eve
2、r since. The childs happiness is all-important, the psychologists say, but what about the parents happiness? Parents suffer continually from fear and guilt while their children gaily romp about pulling the place apart A good “old-fashioned“ spanking is out of the question; no modern child-rearing ma
3、nual would permit such barbarity. The trouble is you are not allowed even to shout Who knows what deep psychological wounds you might inflict? The poor child may never recover from the dreadful traumatic experience. So it is that parents bend over backwards to avoid giving their children complexes w
4、hich a hundred years ago hadnt even been heard of. Certainly a child needs love, and a lot of it But the excessive permissiveness of modern parents is surely doing more harm than good. Psychologists have succeeded in undermining parents confidence in their own authority. And it hasnt taken children
5、long to get wind of the fact In addition to the great modern classics on childcare, there are countless articles in magazines and newspapers. With so much unsolicited advice flying about, mum and dad just dont know what to do any more. In the end, they do nothing at all. So, from early childhood, th
6、e kids are in charge and parents lives are regulated according to the needs of heir offspring. When the little dears develop into teenagers, they take complete control. Lax authority over the years makes adolescent rebellion a-gainst parents all the more violent If the young people are going to have
7、 a party, for instance, parents are asked to leave the house. Their presence merely spoils the fun. What else can the poor parents do but obey? Children are hardy creatures (far hardier than the psychologists would have us believe) and most of them survive the harmful influence of extreme permissive
8、ness which is the normal condition in the modern household. But a great many do not The spread of juvenile delinquency in our own age is largely due to parental laxity. Mother, believing that little Johnny can look after himself, is not at home when he returns from school, so little Johnny roams the
9、 streets. The dividing-line between permissiveness and sheer negligence is very fine indeed. The psychologists have much to answer for. They should keep their mouths shut and let parents get on with the job. And if children are knocked about a little bit in the process, it may not really matter too
10、much. At least this will help them to develop vigorous views of their own and give them something positive to react against Perhaps theres some truth in the idea that children who have had a surfeit of happiness in their childhood appear like stodgy puddings and fail to make a success of life. 1 Wha
11、t is implied in the first sentence? （ A） There is no defense for Victorian harshness. （ B） Parents are grateful to Freud for his advice. （ C） Parents can be too strict with their children. （ D） Child-care books prove sensible and practical. 2 The author says that todays parents_ （ A） are bombarded w
12、ith excessive amounts of child-care literature. （ B） draw a distinction between permissiveness and negligence. （ C） are partial towards children from happy home backgrounds. （ D） weigh their childrens intellect rather than intelligence. 3 What does the author wants to illustrate with Johnny roaming
13、the streets? （ A） An instance of arbitrariness. （ B） A case of juvenile delinquency. （ C） An example of responsibility. （ D） A prototype of classics. 4 From the last paragraph the conclusion can be drawn that children who enjoy all-important happiness will （ A） soon gain independence from their negl
14、igent parents. （ B） stay away from the influence of juvenile delinquency. （ C） avoid being given uncertain psychological complexes. （ D） grow up to be more immature and irresponsible adults. 4 Ever since this governments term began, the attitude to teachers has been overshadowed by the mantra that g
15、ood teachers cannot be rewarded if it means bad teachers are rewarded, too. Thats why, despite the obvious need for them, big pay rises have not been awarded to teachers across the board. The latest pay rise was 3.6 per cent mad in the present situation. Thats why, as well, the long battle over perf
16、ormance-related pay was fought as teacher numbers slid. The idea is that some kind of year zero can eventually be achieved whereby all the bad teachers are gone and only the good teachers remain. That is why the Governments attempts to relieve the teacher shortage have been so focused on offering in
17、centives to get a new generation of teachers into training. The assumption is that so many of the teachers we have already are bad, that only by starting again can standards be raised But the teacher shortage is not caused only because of a lack of new teachers coming into the profession. It is also
18、 because teaching has a retention problem, with many leaving the profession. These people have their reasons for doing so, which cannot be purely about wanting irresponsibly to “abandon“ pupils more permanently. Such an exodus suggests that even beyond the hated union grandstanding, teachers are not
19、 happy. Unions and government appear to be in broad agreement that the shortage of teachers is a parlous state of affairs. Oddly, though, they dont seem entirely to agree that the reasons for this may lie in features of the profession itself and the way it is run. Instead, the Government is so suspi
20、cious of the idea that teachers may be able to represent themselves, that they have set up the General Teaching Council, a body that will represent teachers whether they want it to or not, and to which they have to pay 25 a year whether they want to or not The attitudes of both sides promise to exac
21、erbate rather than solve the problem. Teachers are certainly exacerbating the problem by stressing just how bad things are. Quite a few potential teachers must be put off. And while the Government has made quite a success of convincing the public that bad education is almost exclusively linked to ba
22、d teachers represented by destructive unions, it also seems appalling that in a survey last year, working hours for primary teachers averaged 53 hours per week, while secondary teachers clocked up 51 hours. At their spring conferences, the four major teaching unions intend to ballot their members on
23、 demanding from government an independent inquiry into working conditions. This follows the McCrone report in Scotland , which produced an agreement to limit hours to 35 per week, with a maximum class contact-time of 22 and a half hours. That sounds most attractive. 5 The third sentence of Paragraph
24、 1 implies that a 3% pay rise_ （ A） is too small to be attractive to teachers. （ B） is too big even for good teachers. （ C） is close-knit to teachers performance. （ D） is in itself anything but a reward. 6 It seems that the author believes that the governments perception of the present situation is_
25、 （ A） fairly insightful. （ B） rather destructive. （ C） very illuminating. （ D） partially true. 7 The word “ exacerbate“ ( Paragraph 5) denotes_ （ A） identify. （ B） aggravate. （ C） astonish. （ D） alleviate. 8 One important reason why teachers are leaving their profession is that they are_ （ A） only t
26、oo irresponsible to abandon pupils permanently. （ B） stuck in the conflict between government and unions. （ C） much dissatisfied with their prolonged working hours. （ D） found the governments rewards rather unattractive. 8 In promising to fuse media as diverse as television, telephone communication,
27、 video games, music and data transmission, , the era of digital convergence goes better than yesterdays celebrated “information superhighway“. Yet achieving this single technology is far from straightforward. There are currently three major television broadcast standards, and they are all incompatib
28、le with each other. But this is nothing compared to the many technologies supporting the Internet, each with a different bandwidth and physical media The prob lems faced in designing platforms and communication systems that will be accepted across the world can appear insuperable. Even once global s
29、tandards are assured, however, a further obstacle lies in wait The Internet is plagued by long, erratic response times because it is a pull-technology, driven by patterns of user demands. Push technology, on the other hand, reverses the relationship: servers simply send information to passive users,
30、 as in television and radio. But if some form of combination between one-way television flow and interactive Internet is to be the basis of our future media, it is hard to see how it could be operated. Moreover, the problem of fusing Internet with television is also one of defining the services offe
31、red. Information, entertainment and relaxation appear at first to be quite different needs. Serious doubts remain over whether consumers will be interested in having to make the sort of mental effort associated with computing while also settling down in front of a sitcom. Besides the issue of consum
32、er habits, infrastructure costs are set to be immense, and will have to be met by national states or the private sector before being passed on to users. Platforms do not necessarily have to be expensive. The mobile phone is a good example of how something that is technologically sophisticated can al
33、most be given away, with its cost recovered through service charges. Users are then coerced through clever marketing to upgrade to newer phones with more features to reinforce their dependence. Whatever the outcome, it is obvious that technology will play an increasing part in our everyday lives. Be
34、yond technology, digital convergence embraces the services, industrial practices and social behavior that form modern society. We have in our hands the technology to construct the most sophisticated machines ever built, but if they are unusable, simply because of their operating instructions, then r
35、ecent lessons have taught us they will not survive. Whatever we design must be simple, reliable and useful. Perhaps this is where artificial intelligence will come in. 9 By digital convergence, the writer means_ （ A） diversification of communication systems. （ B） integrating a wide range of means of
36、 media. （ C） adaptation of global standards to consumer habits. （ D） detaching entertainment from communications. 10 In pointing out the problems faced in digital convergence, the author mainly employs the technique of_ （ A） cause and effect analysis. （ B） argumentation and comments. （ C） contrast a
37、nd comparison. （ D） enumeration and elaboration. 11 By referring to the mobile phone, the author intends to show_ （ A） a solution to costs involved in the technology. （ B） the importance of catering to customers needs. （ C） a trick imposed on users by telephone companies. （ D） the necessity of addin
38、g more features to phones. 12 The author asserts that the success of digital convergence will ultimately depend upon_ （ A） considerable reduction of infrastructure costs. （ B） standardization of communications systems. （ C） practical designs by artificial intelligence. （ D） dismissal of conventional
39、 consumer habits. 13 Towards the technology of digital convergence, the authors attitude can best be said to be one of_ （ A） suspicion. （ B） optimism. （ C） frustration. （ D） pessimism. 13 Never has a straitjacket seemed so ill-fitting or so insecure. The Euro areas “stability and growth pact“ was su
40、pposed to stop irresponsible member states running excessive budget deficits, defined as 3% of GDP or more. Chief among the restraints was the threat of large fines if member governments breached the limit for three years in a row. For some time now, no one has seriously believed those restraints wo
41、uld hold. In the early hours of Tuesday November 25th, the Euros fiscal straitjacket finally came apart at the seams. The pacts fate was sealed over an extended dinner meeting of the Euro areas 12 finance ministers. They chewed over the sorry fiscal record of the Euros two largest members, France an
42、d Germany. Both governments ran deficits of more than 3% of GDP last year and will do so again this year. Both expect to breach the limit for the third time in 2004. Earlier this year the European Commission, which polices the pact, agreed to give both countries an extra year, until 2005, to bring t
43、heir deficits back into line. But it also instructed them to revisit their budget plans for 2004 and make extra cuts. France was asked to cut its underlying, cyclically adjusted deficit by a full 1% of GDP, Germany by 1. 8%. Both resisted. Under the pacts hales, the commissions prescriptions have no
44、 force until formally endorsed in a vote by the Euro areas finance ministers, known as the “Eurogroup“. And the votes were simply not there. Instead, the Eurogroup agreed on a set of proposals of its own, drawn up by the Italian finance minister, Giulio Tre-monti. France will cut its structural defi
45、cit by 1. 8% of GDP next year, Germany by 0.6%. In 2005, both will bring their deficits below 3% , economic growth permitting. Nothing will enforce or guarantee this agreement except France and Germanys word. The European Central Bank (ECB) was alarmed at this outcome, the commission was dismayed, a
46、nd the smaller Euro-area countries who opposed the deal were apoplectic: treaty law was giving way to the “Franco-German steamroller“ , as Le Figaro, a French newspaper, put it This anger will sour European politics and may spill over into negotiations on a proposed EU constitution. Having thrown th
47、eir weight around this week, France and Germany may find other smaller members more reluctant than ever to give ground in the negotiations on the document The EUs midsized countries also hope to capitalize on this ressentiment Spain opposes the draft constitution because it will give it substantiall
48、y less voting weight than it currently enjoys. It sided against France and Germany on Tuesday, and will point to their fiscal transgressions to show that the EUs big countries do not deserve the extra power the proposed constitution will give them. 14 The text is mainly about_ （ A） the enforcement o
49、f Eurogroups prescriptions. （ B） the hypocrisy of some Euros members on deficit. （ C） the Euros dilemma in solving deficit problems. （ D） the implementation of Euros monetary policies. 15 The fate of the Eurogroups prescriptions is manifested in the fact that France and Germany_ （ A） refuse to follow its instructions. （ B） side against smaller countries. （ C） readdress their budget deficits. （ D） bring their deficits back into line. 16 The expression “This outcome“ ( Paragraph 3 ) means
