1、2013 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、短文改错0 While the number of Canadians who said French was their mother tongue rose to just over 7m out of the total 33m, and those claiming they could conduct a conversation in French was up to almost 10m in 2011 compared to the 2006 census, both categories have decl
2、ined slightly as a【M1 】_proportion of the population, in Canada overall and in Quebec. Those are【M2】_able to have a conversation in both English and French in what is officially a bilingual country now number 5.8m, or 17.5% of the population, a slight rise. But a closer look of those figures shows t
3、hat it was mainly a result of【M3】_Quebeckers learning English rather the other way round. In a country【M4】_where multiculturalism is seen as a virtue, the language revelations in the census was mostly noted as a positive sign. The exception was Quebec, 【M5 】_where the Parti Quebecois government, whi
4、ch supports the eventually【M6 】_separation of the province with the rest of Canada, is preparing to【M7 】_toughen its language laws with new legislation expecting this week.【M8】_The bill proposes to eliminate loopholes in the existing law used by【M9】_parents to send their children to English-language
5、 schools, would bar students graduating from a French-language secondary school from attending an English-language college, and would extend a requirement that French would be used in the workplace to cover more businesses.【M10 】_“ French is losing ground, “ said Pauline Marois, the Quebec premier.
6、“We have to correct that situation. “ The battle continues. 1 【M1】2 【M2】3 【M3】4 【M4】5 【M5】6 【M6】7 【M7】8 【M8】9 【M9】10 【M10】二、阅读理解10 Germany has gold reserves of just under 3, 400 tons, the second-largest reserves in the world after the United States. Much of that is in the safekeeping of central bank
7、s outside Germany, especially in the U. S. One would think that with such a valuable stash, worth around 133 billion($170 billion), the German government would want to keep a close eye on its whereabouts. But now a bizarre dispute has broken out between different German institutions over how closely
8、 the reserves should be checked.Germanys federal audit office, the Bundesrechnungshof, which monitors the governments financial management, is unhappy with how the central bank, the Bundesbank, keeps tabs on its gold. According to media reports, the auditors are dissatisfied with the fact that gold
9、reserves in Frankfurt are more closely monitored than those held abroad.In Germany, spot checks are carried out to make sure that the gold bars are in the right place. But for the German gold that is stored on the Bundesbanks behalf by the U. S. Federal Reserve in New York, the Bank of England in Lo
10、ndon and the Banque de France in Paris, the German central bank relies on the assurances of its foreign counterparts, that the gold is where it should be. The three foreign central banks give the Bundesbank annual statements confirming the size of the reserves, but the Germans do not usually carry o
11、ut physical inspections of the bars.According to German media reports, the Bundesrechnungshof has now recommended in its confidential annual audit of the Bundesbank for 2011 that Germanys central bank check its foreign gold reserves with yearly spot checks. The Bundesbank has rejected the demand, ar
12、guing that central banks do not usually check each others reserves, and there are no doubts about the integrity and the reputation of these foreign depositories.Germany moved some of its gold reserves abroad during the Cold War to protect them from a possible Soviet attack. Some of the gold was move
13、d back to Frankfurt after the collapse of communism. But the Bundesbank argues that it still makes sense to store some gold in major financial centers so that it can be sold quickly if necessary. Although the Bundesbank does not provide exact details about the distribution, it has revealed that the
14、largest share of Germanys gold is held in New York, followed by Frankfurt, London and Paris.In times of uncertainty about the future of Europes common currency, gold is a hot topic, and some Germans take a dim view of the fact that much of the countrys goldwhich theoretically belongs to the peopleis
15、 held abroad. Some members of parliament have even expressed doubts as to whether the foreign gold reserves really exist. Philipp Missfelder, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union(CDU), wanted to see the gold for himself and traveled to New York in person to inspect the holdings, a
16、ccording to the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau.Peter Gauweiler, a Bundestag member with the Christian Social Union(CSU), is also skeptical about the foreign gold reserves. In recent years he has attempted to gain more information about Germanys gold through parliamentary questions. Last year, he ha
17、d an economics professor prepare an expert report on the subject, which concluded that the Bundesbank was not fulfilling its inventory regulations by failing to physically inspect the gold. Gauweiler doubts that the Bundesbank would have immediate access to all its gold if necessary, suggesting that
18、 part of the gold may have even been lent outa claim that the Bundesbank rejects.Some Germans even want to bring the gold reserves back to Germany. An initiative called “ Gold Action“ is campaigning under the slogan: “Repatriate Our Gold!“ Its petition has been signed by prominent industrialist Hans
19、-Olaf Henkel and Frank Schaffler, a parliamentarian with the business-friendly Free Democrats. The initiative alleges that there is an “acute“ danger that the German gold could be expropriated as a result of the financial and debt crisis. They argue that the German government could soon be forced to
20、 sell gold to cover the costs of the crisis.But the Bundesbank wants to leave the gold where it is. Observers point out that apart from the high cost of transporting the gold back to Frankfurt, the symbolic effect of Germany repatriating its gold reserves might unsettle the nervous financial markets
21、, who could see it as a sign of an impending collapse of the euro.11 The German Bundesbank makes sure of its gold reserves stored in the U.S. by_.（A）carrying out spot checks of the gold bars（B） requesting annual statements from foreign depositories（C） travelling to New York to inspect the holdings（D
22、）conducting confidential annual audit of the depositories12 Germany stores a large share of its gold reserves abroad because_.（A）the Bundesbank wants to safeguard the gold against the Soviets（B） the foreign banks have suspicious integrity and reputation（C） the gold can be traded instantly when there
23、 is a need to do so（D）the assurances of its foreign counterparts are so far reliable13 The Bundestag member Gauweiler suggests that_.（A）the gold may be just figures and non-existent in reality（B） the government could soon sell the gold to tackle debt crisis（C） the gold may have been already used for
24、 other purposes（D）to repatriate the gold is the central banks inventory regulation14 What will be the biggest impact of transporting the gold back to Germany?（A）Prosperity of Frankfurt.（B） Burden of transport costs.（C） Chaos of federal audits.（D）Panic in financial markets.15 What is the central idea
25、 of this passage?（A）Germany does checks on its gold reserves in foreign banks.（B） Germans worry about the safety of their gold reserves abroad.（C） Germanys gold reserves stored in the U. S. are not safe.（D）The Bundesbank failed to fulfill its inventory duties on gold.15 In the late 1960s, a televisi
26、on producer named Joan Gantz Cooney set out to start an epidemic. Her target was three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Her agent of infection was television, and the “virus“ she wanted to spread was literacy. The show would last an hour and run five days a week, and the hope was that if that hour was c
27、ontagious enough it could serve as an educational Tipping Point; giving children from disadvantaged homes a leg up once they began elementary school, spreading prolearning values from watchers to nonwatchers, infecting children and their parents, and lingering long enough to have an impact well afte
28、r the children stopped watching the show. Cooney probably wouldnt have used these concepts or described her goals in precisely this way. But what she wanted to do, in essence, was create a learning epidemic to counter the prevailing epidemics of poverty and illiteracy. She called her idea Sesame Str
29、eet.By any measure, this was an audacious idea. Television is a great way to reach lots of people, very easily and cheaply. It entertains and dazzles. But it isnt a particularly educational medium. Gerald Lesser, a Harvard University psychologist who joined with Cooney in founding Sesame Street, say
30、s that when he was first asked to join the project, back in the late 1960s, he was skeptical. “I had always been very much into fitting how you teach to what you know about the child, “ he says. “You try to find the kids strengths, so you can play to them. You try to understand the kids weaknesses,
31、so you can avoid them. Then you try and teach that individual kids profile . Television has no potential, no power to do that. “ Good teaching is interactive. It engages the child individually. It uses all the senses. It responds to the child. But a television is just a talking box. In experiments,
32、children who are asked to read a passage and are then tested on it will invariably score higher than children asked to watch a video of the same subject matter. Educational experts describe television as “low involvement. “ Television is like a strain of the common cold that can spread like lightnin
33、g through a population, but only causes a few sniffles and is gone in a day.But Cooney and Lesser and a third partnerLloyd Morrisett of the Markle Foundation in New Yorkset out to try anyway. They enlisted some of the top creative minds of the period. They borrowed techniques from television commerc
34、ials to teach children about numbers. They used the live animation of Saturday morning cartoons to teach lessons about learning the alphabet. They brought in celebrities to sing and dance and star in comedy sketches that taught children about the virtues of cooperation or about their own emotions.Se
35、same Street aimed higher and tried harder than any other childrens show had, and the extraordinary thing was that it worked. Virtually every time the shows educational value has been testedand Sesame Street has been subject to more academic scrutiny than any television show in historyit has been pro
36、ved to increase the reading and learning skills of its viewers. There are few educators and child psychologists who dont believe that the show managed to spread its infectious message well beyond the homes of those who watched the show regularly. The creators of Sesame Street accomplished something
37、extraordinary, and the story of how they did that is a marvelous illustration of a rule of the Tipping Point, the Stickiness Factor. They discovered that by making small but critical adjustments in how they presented ideas to preschoolers, they could overcome televisions weakness as a teaching tool
38、and make what they had to say memorable. Sesame Street succeeded because it learned how to make television sticky.16 Why does the author use “virus“ and “epidemic“ to describe the Sesame Street?（A）It is considered as a disease.（B） It has medical implications.（C） It hopes to spread like the flu.（D）It
39、 infects educational health.17 The term “educational Tipping Point“ in Paragraph 1 probably means _.（A）crucial point in mental growth（B） yardstick of literacy（C） stimulus to learning（D）point where change begins18 What is the purpose the Sesame Street project hopes to achieve?（A）Change the life of un
40、derprivileged children.（B） Give poor children an equal start.（C） Eliminate poverty and illiteracy.（D）Help disadvantaged homes acquire education.19 Gerald Lesser was skeptical about Sesame Street, because_.（A）the show was more recreational than educational（B） television was not an interactive or enga
41、ging medium（C） there was no involvement among the audience（D）non-watchers scored higher in the tests than watchers20 Which of the following did Cooney and her partners exclude from the production of the show?（A）Recruiting celebrities as guest stars.（B） Employing techniques of TV commercials.（C） Enli
42、vening the teaching with cartoons.（D）Involving parents for interactive purposes.三、判断题20 Read the following passage carefully and then decide whether the statements which follow are true(T)or false(F).Most serious scientists spend a good part of their waking hours amid papers and preprints, equations
43、 and equipment, conducting experiments, talking about graphs and data, arguing about ideas and theories, teaching, and writing grant proposals. But if they browse in bookstores or glance in the book review sections of journals, they cannot fail to find a fascinating phenomenon in the scientific land
44、scape; books proclaiming the extrarational implications of science are proliferating. Religion and mysticism are inching their way back into the arena of science whence(some thought)they had been gradually weeded out during the past two centuries.Right from the days of Kepler and Galileo, scientists
45、 have generally had a religious side to them: After all, except when they encounter faiths of a different shade, religions normally have only civilizing effects on the human heart. Isaac Newton believed in a personal God, explicitly calling himself His servant. Leonard Euler was deeply religious, an
46、d so were Augustin Cauchy and Michael Faraday. One author has written a 100-page volume filled with quotations from eminent scientists expressing their religious convictions. No reflecting scientist can be immune to the awe and majesty of the physical world, nor insensitive to the deep mystery under
47、lying life and consciousness, though some troy not express it in traditional ways.But the scientific worldview arrived at by collective and extensive inquiries, fortified by countless instruments and carefully-erected conceptual tools, has been in awkward contradiction to explanations of how the wor
48、ld began and behaves, or how life emerged, as reported in the holy books of human history. As a result, ever since the Copernican revolution, there have been confrontations between scientific theories and religious worldviews. In 1896, A. D. White published his erudite work, which was an embarrassin
49、gly candid exposure, instance after instance, of the dogged obstinacy of the religious establishment in upholding ancient doctrines in the face of mounting scientific evidence to the contrary.After a full century, however, the situation seems to have changed drastically. A plethora of extrapolations of science are cropping up whose goal is to reestablish prescience. Many popular books, TV specials, magazine articles, and conference papers are joyously declaring that the ancients were n
