1、2009年北京外国语大学英语专业（基础英语）真题试卷及答案与解析 一、阅读理解 0 Please read the following passage and choose A, B, C or D to best complete the statements about them. The Perils of Efficiency This spring, disaster loomed in the global food market. Precipitous increases in the prices of staples like rice(up more than a hun
2、dred and fifty percent in a few months)and maize provoked food riots, toppled governments, and threatened the lives of tens of millions. But the bursting of the commodity bubble eased those pressures, and food prices, while still high, have come well off the astronomical levels they hit in April. Fo
3、r American, the drop in commodity prices has put a few more bucks in peoples pockets; in much of the developing world, it may have saved many from actually starving. So did the global financial crisis solve the global food crisis? Temporarily, perhaps. But the recent price drop doesnt provide any lo
4、ng-term respite from the threat food shortages or future price spikes. Nor has it reassured anyone about the health of the global agricultural system, which the crisis revealed as dangerously unstable. Four decades after the Green Revolution, and after waves of market reforms intended to transform a
5、gricultural production, were still having a hard time insuring that people simply get enough to eat, and we seen to be vulnerable to supply shocks than ever. It wasnt supposed to be this way. Over the past two decades, countries around the world have moved away from their focus on “food security“ an
6、d handed market forces a greater role in shaping agricultural policy. Before the nineteen-eighties, developing countries had so-called “agricultural marketing boards“, which would buy commodities from farmers at fixed prices(prices high enough to keep farmers farming), and then store them in strateg
7、ic reserves that could be used in the event of bad harvests or soaring import prices. But in the eighties and nineties, often as part of structural-adjustment programs imposed by the I.M.F. or the World Bank, many marketing boards were eliminated or cut back, and grain reserves, deemed inefficient a
8、nd unnecessary, were sold off. In the same way, structural-adjustment programs often did away with government investment in and subsidies to agriculturemost notably, subsidies for things like fertilizers and high-yield seeds. The logic behind these reforms was simple: the market would allocate resou
9、rces more efficiently than government, leading to greater productivity. Farmers, instead of growing subsidized maize and wheat at high cost, could concentrate on cash crops, like cashews and chocolate, and use the money they made to buy staple foods. If a country couldnt compete in the global econom
10、y, production would migrate to countries that could. It was also assumed that, once governments stepped out of the way, private investment would flood into agriculture, boosting performance. And international aid seemed a more efficient way of relieving food crises than relying on countries to maint
11、ain surpluses and food-security programs, which are wasteful and costly. This “marketization“ of agriculture has not, to be sure, been fully carried through. Subsidies are still endemic in rich countries and poor, while developing countries often place tariffs on imported food, which benefit their f
12、armers but drive up prices for consumers. And in extreme circumstance countries restrict exports, hoarding food for their own citizens. Nonetheless, we clearly have a leaner, more market-friendly agriculture system than before. It looks, in fact, a bit like global manufacturing, with low inventories
13、(wheat stocks are at their lowest since 1977), concentrated production(three countries provide ninety percent of corn exports, and five countries provide eighty percent of rice exports,)and fewer redundancies. Governments have a much smaller role, and public spending on agriculture has been cut shar
14、ply. The problem is that, while this system is undeniably more efficient, its also much more fragile. Bad weather in just a few countries can wreak havoc across the entire system. When prices spike as they did this spring, the result is food shortages and malnutrition in poorer countries, since they
15、 are far more dependent on imports and have few food reserves to draw on. And, while higher prices and market reforms were supposed to bring a boom in agricultural productivity, global crop yields actually rose less between 1990 and 2007 than they did in the previous twenty years, in part because in
16、 many developing countries private-sector agricultural investment never materialized, while the cutbacks in government spending left them with feeble infrastructures. These changes did not cause the rising prices of the past couple of years, but they have made them more damaging. The old emphasis on
17、 food security was undoubtedly costly, and often wasteful. But the redundancies it created also had tremendous value when things went wrong. And one sure thing about a system as complex as agriculture is that things will go wrong, often with devastating consequences. If the just-in-time system for p
18、roducing cars runs into a hitch and the supply of cars shrinks for a while, people can easily adapt. When the same happens with food, people go hungry or even starve. That doesnt mean that we need to embrace price controls or collective farms, and there are sensible market reforms, like doing away w
19、ith import tariffs, that would make developing-country consumers better off. But a few weeks ago Bill Clinton, no enemy of market reform, got it right when he said that we should help countries achieve “maximum agricultural self-sufficiency“. Instead of a more efficient system. We should be trying t
20、o build a more reliable one. 1 What can be learned from the first paragraph? （ A） Global financial crisis destabilized governments. （ B） Food riots resulted from skyrocketing food bills. （ C） Financial crisis worsened food crisis. （ D） Food prices surged by 150% in April. 2 The food crisis revealed
21、the global agricultural system as_. （ A） fragile （ B） unresponsive （ C） costly （ D） unbearable 3 According to the third paragraph, structural-adjustment programs_. （ A） were designed to cope with poor harvests （ B） were introduced as part of “market forces“ policies （ C） removed price controls and s
22、tate subsidies （ D） encouraged countries to focus on food security 4 The marketization of agriculture probably means_. （ A） private investment floods into agriculture （ B） market forces provide efficiency to agriculture （ C） agricultural policy works with the free market system （ D） agricultural pro
23、duction is free from government intervention 5 Which of the following is NOT a feature of the existing agricultural system? （ A） Reduced government spending. （ B） Concentrated production. （ C） Self-sufficiency. （ D） Low wheat stocks. 6 In the last paragraph, the underlined words “the redundancies“ p
24、robably refer to_. （ A） high-yield seeds （ B） grain reserves （ C） cash crops （ D） corn imports 6 Minding the Inequality Gap During the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most u
25、nequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country. Some analysts see the gulf between the rich and the rest as an incentive for strivers, or as just the way things are. Others see it as having a corrosive effect on peoples faith in the markets and democracy. Still others contend tha
26、t economic polarization is a root cause of Americas political polarization. Could, and should, something be done? Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, two Harvard economists, think yes. Their book, The Race Between Education and Technology(Harvard, $ 39.95), contain many tables, a few equations and
27、a powerfully told story about how and why the United States became the worlds richest nation namely, thanks to its schools. The authors skillfully demonstrate that for more than a century, and at a steady rate, technological breakthroughsthe mass production system, electricity, computershave been in
28、creasing the demand for ever more educated workers. And, they show, Americas school system met this demand, not with a national policy, but in grassroots fashion, as communities taxed themselves and built schools and colleges. Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace
29、, resulting, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz contend, in a sharply unequal nation. The authors allow that a decline in union membership and in the inflation-adjusted minimum wage also contributed to the shift in who partook of a growing pie. But they rule the usual suspects globalization(trade)and high immi
30、grationas significant causes of rising inequality. Amid the current calls to restrict executive compensation, their policy prescription is to have more Americans graduate from college. If only it were that easy. The authors argument is really two books in one. One offers an incisive history of Ameri
31、can education, especially the spread of the public high school and the state university system. It proves to be an uplifting tale of public commitment and open access. The authors remind us that the United States long remained “the best poor mans country“. A place where talent could rise. The other
32、story rigorously measures the impact of education on income. The authors compilation of hard data on educational attainment according to when people were born is an awesome achievement, though not always a gripping read. They show that by the 1850s, Americas school enrollment rate already “exceeded
33、that of any other nation“. And this lead held for a long time. By 1960, some 70 percent of Americans graduated from high schoolfar above the rate in any other country. College graduation rates also rose appreciably. In the marketplace, such educational attainment was extremely valuable, but it didnt
34、 produce wide economic disparity so long as more people were coming to the job market with education. The wage premiumor differential paid to people with a high school or a college educationfell between 1915 and 1950. But more recently, high school graduation rates flatlined at around 70 percent. Am
35、erican college attendance roses, though college graduation rates languished. The upshot is that while the average college graduates in 1970 earned 45 percent more than high school graduates, the differential three decades later exceeds 80 percent. “In the first half of the century,“ the authors summ
36、arize, “education raced ahead of technology, but later in the century technology raced ahead of educational gains.“ Proving that the demand for and supply of educated workers began not in the time of Bill Gates but in the era of Thomas Edison is virtuoso social science. But wasnt a slowdown in risin
37、g educational attainment unavoidable? After all, its one thing to increase the average years of schooling by leaps and bounds when most people start near zero, but quite another when national average is already high. The authors reject the idea that the United States has reached some natural limit i
38、n educational advances. Other countries are now at higher levels. What, then, is holding American youth back? The authors give a two-part answer. For one thing, the financial aid system is a maze. More important, many people with high school diplomas are not ready for college. The second problem, th
39、e authors write, is concentrated mostly in inner-city schools. Because the poor cannot easily move to better school districts, the authors allow that charter schools as well as vouchers, including those for private school, could be helpful, but more evaluation is necessary. Data on the effects of pr
40、eschool are plentiful, and point to large returns on investment, so the authors join the chorus in extolling Head Start, the federal governments largest preschool program. Providing more children with a crucial start, along with easier ways to find financial aid, are laudable national objectives. On
41、e suspects, though, that the obstacles to getting more young people into and through college have to do with knotty social and cultural issues. But assume that the authors policies would raise the national college graduation rate. Would that deeply reduce inequality? Averages can be deceptive. Most
42、of the gains of the recent flush decades have not gone to the college-educated as a whole. The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxed
43、 have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industrys share of corporate profits. It remains to be seen how a reconfigured financial industry and possible new tax policies might affect the 30-year trend toward greater inequality. In the meantime, it is nice to be reminded, in a data-rich
44、book, that greater investments in human capital once put Americans collectively on top of the world. 7 when can be learned from the book entitled The Race Between Education and Technology? （ A） The wage movements in the U.S. are dominated by swings in the demand for education-related skills. （ B） Th
45、e American educational system is what made American the richest nation in the world. （ C） Technology raced ahead of education in the first half of the 20th century. （ D） American high school graduation rates leveled off at 80 percent in 1970. 8 Which of the following is considered a significant caus
46、e of rising inequality according to Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz? （ A） High immigration rates. （ B） Increased executive compensation. （ C） Reduced union rates. （ D） Stagnate college graduation rates. 9 What does the underlined word “laudable“ mean? （ A） Reasonable. （ B） Achievable. （ C） Deser
47、ving praise. （ D） Worth trying. 10 Which of the following led to the slowdown in American educational advances in the last three decades of the 20th century? （ A） No easy access to financial aid. （ B） Overemphasis on preschool programs. （ C） A dramatic fall college enrollment rates. （ D） A rise in t
48、he number of poor school districts. 11 What does the author think of the book entitled The Race Between Education and Technology? （ A） It is a research on human capital. （ B） It is intended for economists. （ C） It is a happy fireside read. （ D） It is rich in data. 12 Which of the following is true a
49、ccording to the passage? （ A） The demand for educated workers began in the era of IT. （ B） The pace of technological change has not been steady. （ C） America is not educating its citizens the way it used to. （ D） High school graduation rates peaked in the U.S. in 1950. 二、判断题 12 Read the following passage carefully and then decide whether the statements which follow are true(T)or false(F). write T or F after the number of each answer. Generation What? Welcome to the socio-literary parlor game of “Name That Generation.“ It all began i
