1、考博英语（阅读理解）模拟试卷 36及答案与解析 一、 Reading Comprehension 0 In the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, scold her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesnt affect her.Priestly explains how the deep blue color of the assistants sweater desce
2、nded over the years from fashion shows to department stores and to the bargain bin in which the poor girl doubtless found her garment. This top-down conception of the fashion business couldnt be more out of date or at odds with feverish world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Clines three-year ind
3、ictment of “fast fashion“.In the last decades or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H her example, cant be knocked off. Though several fast fashion companies have made efforts to curb their impact on labor and the environment including H people will only start s
4、hopping more sustainably when they cant afford to it. 1 Priestly criticizes her assistant for her_. （ A） poor bargaining skill. （ B） insensitivity to fashion. （ C） obsession with high fashion. （ D） lack of imagination. 2 According to Cline, mass-market labels urge consumers to_. （ A） combat unnecess
5、ary waste. （ B） shut out the feverish fashion world. （ C） resist the influence of advertisements. （ D） shop for their garments more frequently. 3 The word “indictment“ (Line 3, Para.2) is closest in meaning to_. （ A） accusation. （ B） enthusiasm. （ C） indifference. （ D） tolerance. 4 Which of the foll
6、owing can be inferred from the last paragraph? （ A） Vanity has more often been found in idealists. （ B） The fast-fashion industry ignores sustainability. （ C） People are more interested in unaffordable garments. （ D） Pricing is vital to environment-friendly purchasing. 5 What is the subject of the t
7、ext? （ A） Satire on an extravagant lifestyle. （ B） Challenge to a high-fashion myth. （ C） Criticism of the fast-fashion industry. （ D） Exposure of a mass-market secret. 5 A little more than a century ago, Michael Faraday, the noted British physicist, managed to gain audience with a group of high gov
8、ernment officials, to demonstrate an electro-chemical principle, in the hope of gaining support for his work. After observing the demonstrations closely, one of the officials remarked bluntly, “Its a fascinating demonstration, young man, but just what practical application will come of this?“ “I don
9、t know,“ replied Faraday, “but I do know that 100 years from now youll be taxing them.“ From the demonstration of a principle to the marketing of products derived from that principle is often a long way, involved series of steps.The speed and effectiveness with which these steps are taken are closel
10、y related to the history of management, the art of getting things done.Just as management applies to the wonders that have evolved from Faraday and other inventors, so it applied some 4,000 years ago to the working of the great Egyptian and Mesopotamian import and export firms.to Hannibals remarkabl
11、e feat of crossing the Alps in 218 B.C.with 90,000 foot soldiers, 12,000 horsemen and a “conveyor belt“ of 40 elephants.or to the early Christian Church, with its world-shaking concepts of individual freedom and equality. These ancient innovators were deeply involved in the problems of authority, di
12、visions of labor, discipline, unity of command, clarity of direction and the other basic factors that are so meaningful to management today.But the real impetus to management as an emerging profession was the Industrial Revolution.Originating in 18-century England, it was triggered by a series of cl
13、assic inventions and new processes; among them John Kays Flying Shuttle in 1733, James Hargroves Spinning Jenny in 1770, Samuel Comptons Mule Spinner in 1779 and Edmund Cartwrights Power Loom in 1785. 6 The anecdote about Michael Faraday indicates that _. （ A） politicians tax everything （ B） people
14、are skeptical about the values of pure research （ C） government should support scientists （ D） he was rejected by his government 7 Management is defined as_. （ A） the creator of the Industrial Revolution （ B） supervising subordinates （ C） the art of getting things done （ D） an emerging profession 8
15、Management came into its own_. （ A） in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian import and export firms （ B） in Hannibals famous trip across the Alps （ C） in the development of early Christian Church （ D） in the eighteenth century 9 A problem of management NOT mentioned in this passage is_. （ A） the problem of
16、 command （ B） division of labor （ C） control by authority （ D） competition 9 By education, I mean the influence of the environment upon the individual to produce a permanent change in the habits of behavior, of thought and of attitude.It is in being thus susceptible to the environment that man diffe
17、rs from the animals, and the higher animals from the lower.The lower animals are influenced by the environment but not in the direction of changing their habits.Their instinctive responses are few and fixed by heredity.When transferred to an unnatural situation, such an animal is led astray by its i
18、nstincts.Thus the “ant-lion“ whose instinct implies it to bore into loose sand by pushing backwards with abdomen, goes backwards on a plate of glass as soon as danger threatens, and endeavors, with the utmost exertions to bore into it.It knows no other mode of flight, “or if such a lonely animal is
19、engaged upon a chain of actions and is interrupted, it either goes on vainly with the remaining actions (as useless as cultivating an unsown field) or dies in helpless inactivity“.Thus a net-making spider which digs a burrow and rims it with a bastion of gravel and bits of wood, when removed from a
20、half finished home, will not begin again, though it will continue another burrow, even one made with a pencil. Advance in the scale of evolution along such lines as these could only be made by the emergence of creatures with more and more complicated instincts.Such beings we know in the ants and spi
21、ders.But another line of advance was destined to open out a much more far-reaching possibility of which we do not see the end perhaps even in man.Habits, instead of being born ready-made (when they are called instincts and not habits at all), were left more and more to the formative influence of the
22、 environment, of which the most important factor was the parent who now cared for the young animal during a period of infancy in which vaguer instincts than those of the insects were molded to suit surroundings which might be considerably changed without harm. This means, one might at first imagine,
23、 that gradually heredity becomes less and environment more important.But this is hardly the truth and certainly not the whole truth.For although fixed automatic responses like those of the insect-like creatures are no longer inherited, although selection for purification of that sort is no longer go
24、ing on, yet selection for educability is very definitely still of importance.The ability to acquire habits can be conceivably inherited just as much as can definite responses to narrow situations.Besides, since a mechanism is now, for the first time, created by which the individual (in contradiction
25、 to the species) can be fitted to the environment, the latter becomes, in another sense, less not more important.And finally, less not the higher animals who possess the power of changing their environment by engineering feats and the like, a power possessed to some extent even by the beaver, and pr
26、eeminently by man.Environment and heredity are in no case exclusive but always-supplementary factors. 10 Which of the following is the most suitable title for the passage? （ A） The Evolution of Insects. （ B） Environment and Heredity. （ C） Education: The Influence of the Environment. （ D） The Instinc
27、ts of Animals. 11 What can be inferred from the example of the ant-lion in the first paragraph? （ A） Instincts of animals can lead to unreasonable reactions in strange situations. （ B） When it is engaged in a chain actions it cannot be interrupted. （ C） Environment and heredity are two supplementary
28、 factors in the evolution of insects. （ D） Along the lines of evolution heredity becomes less and environment more important. 12 Based on the example provided in the passage, we can tell that when a spider is removed to a new position where half of a net has been made, it will probably_. （ A） begin
29、a completely new net （ B） destroy the half-net （ C） spin the rest of the net （ D） stay away from the net 13 Which of the following is true about habits according to the passage? （ A） They are natural endowments to living creatures. （ B） They are more important than instincts to all animals. （ C） The
30、y are subject to the formative influence of the environment. （ D） They are destined to open out a much more far-reaching possibility in the evolution of human beings. 13 It is a wise father that knows his own child, but today a man can boost his paternal (fatherly) wisdom-or at least confirm that he
31、s the kids dad.All he needs to do is shell out $ 30 for paternity testing kit (PTK)at his local drugstore-and another $ 120 to get the results. More than 60,000 people have purchased the PTKs since they first become available without prescriptions last years, according to Doug Fog, chief operating o
32、fficer of Identigene, which makes the over-the-counter kits.More than two dozen companies sell DNA tests directly to the public, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to more than $ 2500. Among the most popular: paternity and kinship testing, which adopted children can use to find their biolog
33、ical relatives and latest rage a many passionate genealogists-and supports businesses that offer to search for a familys geographic roots. Most tests require collecting cells by swabbing saliva in the mouth and sending it to the company for testing.All tests require a potential candidate with whom t
34、o compare DNA. But some observers are skeptical, “There is a kind of false precision being hawked by people claiming they are doing ancestry testing,“ says Trey Duster, a New York University sociologist.He notes that each individual has many ancestors-numbering in the hundreds just a few centuries b
35、ack.Yet most ancestry testing only considers a single lineage, either the Y chromosome inherited through men in a fathers line or mitochondrial DNA, which a passed down only from mothers.This DNA can reveal genetic information about only one or two ancestors, even though, for example, just three gen
36、erations back people also have six other great-grandparents or, four generations back, 14 other great-great-grandparents. Critics also argue that commercial genetic testing is only as good as the reference collections to which a sample is compared.Databases used by some companies dont rely on data c
37、ollected systematically but rather lump together information from different research projects.This means that a DNA database may have a lot of data from some regions and not others, so a persons test results may differ depending on the company that processes the results.In addition, the computer pro
38、grams a company uses to estimate relationships may be patented and not subject to peer review or outside evaluation. 14 In paragraphs 1 and 2, the text shows PTKs_. （ A） easy availability （ B） flexibility in pricing （ C） successful promotion （ D） popularity with households 15 PTK is used to_. （ A） l
39、ocate ones birth place （ B） promote genetic research （ C） identify parent-child kinship （ D） choose children for adoption 16 Skeptical observers believe that ancestry testing fails to_. （ A） trace distant ancestors （ B） rebuild reliable bloodlines （ C） fully use genetic information （ D） achieve the
40、claimed accuracy 17 In the last paragraph, a problem commercial genetic testing faces is_. （ A） disorganized data collection （ B） overlapping database building （ C） excessive sample comparison （ D） lack of patent evaluation 18 An appropriate title for the text is most likely to be_. （ A） Fors and Ag
41、ainsts of DNA Testing （ B） DNA Testing and Its Problems （ C） DNA Testing Outside the Lab （ D） Lies behind DNA Testing 18 The truly incompetent may never know the depths of their own incompetence, a pair of social psychologists said on Thursday.“We found again and again that people who perform poorly
42、 relative to their peers tended to think that they did rather well,“ Justin Kruger, co-author of a study on the subject, said in a telephone interview. Kruger and co-author David Dunning found that when it came to a variety of skills-logical reasoning, grammar, even sense of humor-people who essenti
43、ally were inept never realized it, while those who had some ability were self-critical. “It had little to do with innate modesty,“ Kruger said, “but rather with a central paradox: Incompetents lack the basic skills to evaluate their performance realistically.Once they get those skills, they know whe
44、re they stand, even if that is at the bottom.“ “Americans and Western Europeans especially had an unrealistically sunny assessment of their own capabilities,“ Dunning said by telephone in a separate interview, “while Japanese and Koreans tended to give a reasonable assessment of their performance.In
45、 certain areas, such as athletic performance, which can be easily quantified, there is less self-delusion, the researchers said.But even in some cases in which the failure should seem obvious, the perpetrator is blithely unaware of the problem.“ This was especially true in the areas of logical reaso
46、ning, where research subjects-students at Cornell University, where the two researchers were based often rated themselves highly even when they flubbed all questions in a reasoning test. Later, when the students were instructed in logical reasoning, they scored better on a test but rate themselves l
47、ower, having learned what constituted competence in this area. Grammar was another area in which objective knowledge was helpful in determining competence, but the more subjective area of humor posed different challenges, the researchers said. Participants were asked to rate how funny certain jokes
48、were, and compare their responses with what an expert panel of comedians thought.On average, participants overestimated their sense of humor by about 16 percentage points. This might be thought of as the “above-average effect“, the notion that most Americans would rate themselves as above average, a
49、 statistical impossibility. The researchers also conducted pilot studies of doctors and gun enthusiasts.The doctors overestimated how well they had performed on a test of medical diagnoses and the gun fanciers thought they knew more than they actually did about gun safety. So who should be trusted: The person who admits incompetence or the one who shows confidence? Neither, according to Dunning. “You cant take them at their word.Youve got to take a look at their performance,“ Dunning added.
