1、湖北省考博英语模拟试卷 2及答案与解析 一、 Reading Comprehension 0 Of all the recommendations made by Tom Winsor in his review of police pay and recruitment this week, it was not the introduction of an academic qualification, nor the direct entry of senior officers, nor even a pay cut for new recruits that drew most vi
2、olent anger. No, it was the proposal that all officers should have to take an annual fitness test, with the threat of three failures and youre out. Anyone fortunate enough to encounter a police officer, or two, actually on the beat will be aware that some of them look more like a “before“ advertisem
3、ent for Weight Watchers than an “after“ one to the point where you wonder they could even think of giving chase, should the need arise. Bear in mind, too, that those in patrol cars or behind desks are unlikely to be much healthier. Indeed, the Winsor review found that more than half of male officers
4、 were overweight. So an annual fitness test seems reasonable enough. Not, however, to the Police Federation, which identified any number of reasons why such checks would be impracticable, unfair and generally undesirable. But no one is proposing that police be required to train to Olympic standards,
5、 just that they should be physically up to the job. Its not the proposed checks that are worrying, but the fact that many officers need them. 1 Which of the following is NOT included in Tom Winsors recommendations in his review of police pay and recruitment? （ A） Fitness requirements by Olympic stan
6、dards. （ B） Introduction of an academic qualification. （ C） Direct entry of senior officers. （ D） A pay cut for new recruits. 2 Towards the proposed annual fitness test, the attitude of the Police Federation is_. （ A） dismal （ B） welcome （ C） resistance （ D） indifference 3 According to the passage,
7、the proposed annual fitness test seems to be （ A） impracticable （ B） reasonable （ C） unfair （ D） undesirable 4 What is the major topic being discussed in this passage? （ A） The overweight problem in the police. （ B） The training standards for fitness. （ C） Tom Winsors recommendations. （ D） Public ch
8、ase for advertising. 4 In the privacy of our minds, we all talk to ourselves an inner monologue that seem rather pointless. As one scientific paper on self-talk asks:“What can we tell ourselves that we already dont know?“ But as that study and others go on to show, the act of giving ourselves mental
9、 messages can help us learn and perform at our best. Researchers have identified the most effective forms of self-talk. Self-talk isnt just motivational messages like “You can do it!“ or “almost there, “ although this internal cheering section can give us confidence. A review of more than two dozen
10、studies, published last year in the journal Perspective of Psychological Science , found that theres another kind of mental message that is even more useful, called“instructional self-talk. “ This is the kind of running commentary we engage in when were carrying out a difficult task, especially one
11、that is unfamiliar to us. Think about when you were first learning to drive. Your self-talk might have gone something like this: “Foot on the gas pedal, hands on the wheel, slow down for the curve here, now put your blinker on“ Over time, of course, giving yourself instructions becomes unnecessary b
12、ut while youre learning, it does three important things. First, it enhances our attention, focusing us on the important elements of the task and screening out distractions. Second, it helps us regulate our effort and make decisions about what to do, how to do it, and when. And third, self-talk allow
13、s us to control our cognitive and emotional reactions, steadying us so we stay on task. In a recent study of students learning to throw darts in a gym class, Athanasios Kolovelonis and his colleagues at the University of Thessaly in Greece found that self-talk is most effective when incorporated int
14、o a cycle of thought and action. First comes forethought, when you set a goal for yourself and make a plan for how to get there. Thats followed by performance, when you enact the plan to the best of your ability. Last comes self-reflection, when you carefully evaluate what youve done and adjust your
15、 plan for the next time. Self-talk can play a key part in this cycle. During the forethought phase, consider carefully what youll say to yourself. You can even write out a script. Repeat these self-instructions during the performance phase. With practice, you may find that your self-instructions bec
16、ome abbreviated: research has found that these so-called “cue words“ can become powerful signals. In a study of elite sprinters, for example, the runners spoke certain words to themselves at certain times: “push“ during the acceleration phase of the sprint, “heel“ during the maximum-speed phase, and
17、 “claw“ during the endurance phase. When they used these cue words, the athletes ran faster. After the action is over, consider how you might change your self-talk to improve your performance next time so that moment it matters, the right words are ringing in your ears. 5 More than just giving confi
18、dence, self-talk is recently found to_. （ A） arouse emotions （ B） ease ones worries （ C） render instructions （ D） accelerate ones movement 6 According to Athanasios Kolovelonis and his colleagues, self-talk is most effective when_. （ A） one constantly hears cue words ringing in his ears （ B） one is
19、carrying out a difficult sports activity （ C） it has been practiced for a long period of time （ D） it is used along with careful thought and action 7 The word “abbreviated“ in paragraph 5 means_. （ A） lengthened （ B） widened （ C） deepened （ D） shortened 8 The purpose of this passage is to illustrate
20、_. （ A） the use of self-talk in sportsmens athletic performance （ B） the three phases of self-talk:forethought, performance and reflection （ C） different messages of self-talk conveyed in their different forms （ D） the role of self-talk in increasing concentration and improving performance 8 The lea
21、rning paradox is at the heart of “productive failure, “ a phenomenon identified by Manu Kapur, a researcher at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education of Singapore. Kapur points out that while the model adopted by many teachers and employers when introducing others to new kn
22、owledge providing lots of structure and guidance early on, until the students or workers show that they can do it on their own makes intuitive sense, it may not be the best way to promote learning. Rather, its better to let the neophytes wrestle with the material on their own for a while, refraining
23、 from giving them any assistance at the start. In a paper published earlier this year in The Journal of the Learning Sciences , Kapur and a co-author, Katerine Bielaczyc, applied the principle of productive failure to mathematical problem solving in three schools in Singapore. With one group of stud
24、ents, the teacher provided strong “scaffolding“ instructional support and feedback. With the teachers help, these pupils were able to find the answers to their set of problems. Meanwhile, a second group was directed to solve the same problems by collaborating with one another, absent any prompts fro
25、m their instructor. These students werent able to complete the problems correctly. But in the course of trying to do so, they generated a lot of ideas about the nature of the problems and about what potential solutions would look like. And when the two groups were tested on what theyd learned, the s
26、econd group “significantly outperformed“ the first. The apparent struggles of the floundering group have what Kapur calls a “hidden efficacy“: they lead people to understand the deep structure of problems, not simply their correct solutions. When these students encounter a new problem of the same ty
27、pe on a test, theyre able to transfer the knowledge theyve gathered more effectively than those who were the passive recipients of someone elses expertise. In the real world, problems rarely come neatly packaged, so being able to discern their deep structure is a key. But, Kapur notes, none of us li
28、ke to fail, no matter how often Silicon Valley entrepreneurs praise the salutary effects of an idea that flops or a start-up that crashes and burns. So, he says, we need to “design for productive failure“ by building it into the learning process. Kapur has identified three conditions that promote th
29、is kind of beneficial struggle. First, choose problems to work on that “challenge hut do not frustrate.“ Second, provide learners with opportunities to explain and elaborate on what theyre doing. Third, give learners the chance to compare and contrast good and bad solutions to the problems. And to t
30、hose students and workers who protest this tough-love teaching style: youll thank me later. 9 As the learning paradox has it, the more you struggle and even fail while youre trying to obtain new information, （ A） the more likely you are to recall and apply that information （ B） the better solutions
31、you will seek to complete the problems （ C） the less likely you are to refrain from giving people assistance （ D） the worse situation you will leave yourself in the real world 10 The word “neophytes“ in paragraph 2 means （ A） teachers （ B） employers （ C） entrepreneurs （ D） beginners 11 The experimen
32、t carried out in Singapore was designed to （ A） help improve maths scores of the students in three schools （ B） prove the importance of the teachers support and feedback （ C） test the efficacy of the principle of productive failure （ D） demonstrate the apparent struggles in problem solving 12 Which
33、of the following ways of learning does Manu Kapur seem to encourage? （ A） Taking advantage of someone elses established expertise. （ B） Adopting models of introducing others to new knowledge. （ C） Making use of the teachers instructional support and feedback. （ D） Exploring the nature of problems an
34、d solutions on ones own. 12 Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range
35、of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age. This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism throug
36、h much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a childs academic and intellectual development. They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilinguals b
37、rain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isnt so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, gi
38、ving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles. Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were ask
39、ed to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle. In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squa
40、res in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task. The c
41、ollective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brains so-called executive function a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These proce
42、sses include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind like remembering a sequence of directions while driving. Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cogniti
43、on? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that
44、 explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page. The key difference between bilinguals
45、 and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language, “ says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompea Fabra in Spain. “It
46、 requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving. “ In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but t
47、hey also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it. 13 Which of the following best characterizes the researchers view of a second language through much of the 20th century? （ A） Distorted. （ B） Negative. （ C） Cynical. （ D）
48、Paradoxical. 14 The method for obtaining the new finding about learning a second language is based on a_. （ A） placement test （ B） psychological experiment （ C） logical reasoning （ D） literature review 15 In recent years, bilingualism has been found to （ A） have improved the brains command system （
49、B） help people communicate with each other （ C） contribute to ones dementia in old age （ D） have suppressed one language system 16 What does the key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals lie in? （ A） How one can learn a second language from driving. （ B） When one should keep up with changes around him. （ C） Whether one has improved ability to check the whole situation. （ D） Whom one will have to compare himself with in evaluating a task. 16 Even by David Camerons standards, it was a swift U-turn.
