1、2016 年四川大学翻译硕士英语真题试卷及答案与解析一、Vocabulary1 First editions of certain popular books cannot be obtained for love or money.（A）at any place（B） at any price（C） in any language（D）in any country2 The firemen acted quickly because lives were at stake.（A）in danger（B） in despair（C） out of condition（D）out of dang
2、er3 A beautiful woman attended to me in that store yesterday.（A）waited on（B） talked to（C） spoke to（D）stayed with4 Below 600 feet ocean waters range from dimly lit to completely dark.（A）inadequately（B） hardly（C） faintly（D）sufficiently5 Many of novelist Carson McCullers characters are isolated, disapp
3、ointed people.（A）solitary（B） gloomy（C） feeble（D）frugal6 When she was invited to the party, she readily accepted.（A）willingly（B） suddenly（C） firmly（D）quickly7 Nerve signals may travel through nerve or muscle fibers at speeds as high as two hundred miles per hour.（A）velocities（B） impulses（C） ratios（D）
4、atrocities8 All living organisms, regardless of their unique identity, have certain biological, chemical, and physical characteristics in common.（A）as a result of（B） considering（C） on purpose（D）whatever9 Fluoride deters tooth decay by reducing the growth of bacteria that destroy tooth enamel.（A）faci
5、litates（B） overwhelms（C） inhibits（D）loosens10 The drinking water is contaminated with impurities.（A）blackened（B） polluted（C） darkened（D）mixed11 _is to arrange them in groups or sequences according to a plan.（A）Things classified（B） In classifying things（C） As classification of things（D）To classify th
6、ings12 Billie Holidays reputation as a great jazz-blues singer rests on her ability _emotional depth to her songs.（A）be giving（B） are given（C） being given（D）to give13 Before _of synthetic dye, yarns were often colored by dyes obtained from natural vegetable and mineral matter.（A）introducing（B） intro
7、duction（C） the introduction（D）introducing that14 _, the constitution of the Cherokee Nation provided for a chief executive, a senate, and a house of representatives.（A）In 1827 they drafted（B） The draft in 1827（C） In 1827 was drafted（D）Drafted in 182715 Native to the western United States, mariposa l
8、ilies have narrow _like large blades of grass.（A）shape of leaves（B） leaves shape them（C） leaf shaped（D）leaves shaped16 Some laws formalize long accepted customs, while others impose norms _previously mandated by the populace.（A）not（B） are not（C） while do not（D）and they do not17 _of the seven contine
9、nts were placed in the Pacific Ocean, there would still be room left for another continent the size of Asia.（A）Each（B） If each（C） Were each（D）Since each18 Anthropology is a science _anthropologists use a rigorous set of methods and techniques to document observations that can be checked by others.（A
10、）in that（B） that in（C） that（D）in19 David always had a bedtime story at 7 oclock_.（A）flat（B） sharp（C） right（D）just20 The activities of the international marketing researcher are frequently much broader than_.（A）the domestic marketer has（B） the domestic marketer does（C） those of the domestic marketer（
11、D）that which has the domestic marketer二、Reading Comprehension20 Major companies are already in pursuit of commercial applications of the new biology. They dream of placing enzymes in the automobile to monitor exhaust and send data on pollution to a microprocessor that will then adjust the engine. Th
12、ey speak of what the New York Times calls “metal-hungry microbes that might be used to mine valuable trace metals from ocean water.“ They have already demanded and won the right to patent new life forms.Nervous critics, including many scientists, worry that there is corporate, national, internationa
13、l, and inter-scientific rivalry in the entire biotechnological field. They create images not of oil spills, but of “microbe spills“ that could spread disease and destroy entire populations. The creation and accidental release of extremely poisonous microbes, however, is only one cause for alarm. Com
14、pletely rational and respectable scientists are talking about possibilities that stagger the imagination.Should we breed people with cow-like stomachs so they can digest grass and hay, thereby relieving the food problem by modifying us to eat lower down on the food chain? Should we biologically alte
15、r workers to fit the job requirement, for example, creating pilots with faster reaction times or assembly-line workers designed to do our monotonous work for us? Should we attempt to eliminate “inferior“ people and breed a “super-race“? (Hitler tried this, but without the genetic weaponry that may s
16、oon issue from our laboratories.) Should we produce soldiers to do our fighting? Should we use genetic forecasting to pre-eliminate “unfit“ babies? Should we grow reserve organs for ourselves, each of us having, as it were, a “savings bank“ full of spare kidney, livers, or hands?Wild as these notion
17、s may sound, everyone has its advocates (and opposers) in the scientific community as well as its striking commercial applications. As two critics of genetic engineering, Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard, state in their book Who Should Play God? “Broad scale genetic engineering will probably be introduc
18、ed to America much the same way as assembly lines, automobiles, vaccines, computers and all the other technologies. As each new genetic advance becomes commercially practical, a new consumer need will be exploited and a market for the new technology will be created.“21 According to the passage, the
19、exhaust from a car engine could probably be checked by_.（A）using metal-hungry microbes（B） making use of enzymes（C） adjusting the engine（D）patenting new life forms22 According to the passage, which of the following would worry the critics the most?（A）The unanticipated explosion of population.（B） The
20、creation of biological solar cells.（C） The accidental spill of oil.（D）The unexpected release of destructive microbes.23 Which of the following notions is NOT mentioned?（A）Developing a “savings bank“ of ones organs.（B） Breeding soldiers for a war.（C） Producing people with cow-like stomachs.（D）Using g
21、enetic forecasting to cure diseases.24 According to the passage, Hitler attempted to_.（A）change the pilots biologically to win the war（B） develop genetic farming for food supply（C） kill the people he thought of as inferior（D）encourage the development of genetic weapons for the war25 What does Jeremy
22、 Rifkin and Ted Howards statement imply?（A）The commercial applications of genetic engineering are inevitable.（B） America will depend on other countries for biological progress.（C） Americans are proud of their computers, automobiles and genetic technologies.（D）The potential application of each new ge
23、netic advance should be controlled.25 In the early 1950s, historians who studied preindustrial Europe (which we may define here as Europe in the period from roughly 1300 to 1800) began, for the first time in large numbers, to investigate more of the preindustrial European population than the 2 or 3
24、percent who comprised the political and social elite: the kings, generals, judges, nobles, bishops, and local magnates who had hitherto usually filled history books. One difficulty, however, was that few of the remaining 97 percent recorded their thoughts or had them chronicled by contemporaries. Fa
25、ced with this situation, many historians based their investigations on the only records that seemed to exist: birth, marriage, and death records. As a result, much of the early work on the nonelite was aridly statistical in nature; reducing the vast majority of the population to a set of numbers was
26、 hardly more enlightening than ignoring them altogether. Historians still did not know what these people thought or felt.One way out of this dilemma was to turn to the records of legal courts, for here the voices of the nonelite can most often be heard, as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. Thes
27、e documents have acted as “a point of entry into the mental world of the poor.“ Historians such as Le Roy Ladurie have used the documents to extract case histories, which have illuminated the attitudes of different social groups (these attitudes include, but are not confined to, attitudes toward cri
28、me and the law) and have revealed how the authorities administered justice. It has been societies that have had a developed police system and practiced Roman law, with its written depositions, whose court records have yielded the most data to historians. In Anglo-Saxon countries hardly any of these
29、benefits obtain, but it has still been possible to glean information from the study of legal documents.The extraction of case histories is not, however, the only use to which court records may be put. Historians who study preindustrial Europe have used the records to establish a series of categories
30、 of crime and to quantify indictments that were issued over a given number of years. This use of the records does yield some information about the nonelite, but this information gives us little insight into the mental lives of the nonelite. We also know that the number of indictments in preindustria
31、l Europe bears little relation to the number of actual criminal acts, and we strongly suspect that the relationship has varied widely over time. In addition, aggregate population estimates are very shaky, which makes it difficult for historians to compare rates of crime per thousand in one decade of
32、 the preindustrial period with rates in another decade. Given these inadequacies, it is clear why the case history use of court records is to be preferred.26 The author suggests that, before the early 1950s, most historians who studied preindustrial Europe did which of the following?（A）Failed to mak
33、e distinctions among members of the preindustrial European political and social elite.（B） Used investigatory methods that were almost exclusively statistical in nature.（C） Inaccurately estimated the influence of the preindustrial European political and social elite.（D）Confined their work to a narrow
34、 range of the preindustrial European population.27 According to the passage, the case histories extracted by historians have_.（A）scarcely illuminated the attitudes of the political and social elite（B） indicated the manner in which those in power apportioned justice（C） focused almost entirely on the
35、thoughts and feelings of different social groups toward crime and the law（D）been considered the first kind of historical writing that utilized the records of legal courts28 It can be inferred from the passage that much of the early work by historians on the European nonelite of the preindustrial per
36、iod might have been more illuminating if these historians had_.（A）used different methods of statistical analysis to investigate the nonelite（B） been more successful in identifying the attitudes of civil authorities, especially those who administered justice, toward the nonelite（C） been able to draw
37、on more accounts, written by contemporaries of the nonelite, that described what this nonelite thought（D）relied more heavily on the personal records left by members of the European political and social elite who lived during the period in question29 According to the passage, which of the following i
38、s true of indictments for crime in Europe in the preindustrial period?（A）They have, in terms of their numbers, remained relatively constant over time.（B） They give the historian important information about the mental lives of those indicted.（C） They are not a particularly accurate indication of the
39、extent of actual criminal activity.（D）Their importance to historians of the nonelite has been generally overestimated.30 The passage would be most likely to appear as part of_.（A）a book review summarizing the achievements of historians of the European aristocracy（B） an essay describing trends in the
40、 practice of writing history（C） a textbook on the application of statistical methods- in the social sciences（D）a report to the historical profession on the work of early-twentieth-century historians30 On Cloning a Human BeingIt is now theoretically possible to recreate an identical creature from any
41、 animal or plant, from the DNA contained in the nucleus of any somatic cell. A single plant root-tip cell can be teased and seduced into conceiving a perfect copy of the whole plant; a frogs intestinal epithelial cell possesses the complete instructions needed for a new, same frog. If the technology
42、 were further advanced, you could do this with a human being, and there are now startled predictions all over the place that this will in fact be done, someday, in order to provide a version of immortality for carefully selected, especially valuable people.The cloning of humans is on most of the lis
43、ts of things to worry about from Science, along with behavior control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry, and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.Cloning is the most dismaying of prospects, mandating as it does the elimination of sex with only a metaphoric elimination o
44、f death as compensation. It is almost no comfort to know that ones cloned, identical surrogate lives on, especially when the living will very likely involve edging ones real, now aging self off to side, sooner or later. It is hard to imagine anything like filial affection or respect for a single, un
45、mated nucleus; harder still to think of ones new, self-generated self as anything but an absolute, desolate orphan. Not to mention the complex interpersonal relationship involved in raising ones self from infancy, teaching the language, enforcing discipline, instilling good manners, and the like. Ho
46、w would you feel if you became an incorrigible juvenile delinquent by proxy, at the age of fifty-five?The public questions are obvious. Who is to be selected, and on what qualifications? How to handle the risks of misused technology, such as self-determined cloning by the rich and powerful but socia
47、lly objectionable, or the cloning by governments of dumb, docile masses for the worlds work? What will be the effect on all the uncloned rest of us human sameness? After all, weve accustomed ourselves through hundreds of millennia to the continual exhilaration of uniqueness; each of us is totally di
48、fferent, in a fundamental sense, from all the other four billion. Selfness is an essential fact of life. The thought of human non-selfness, precise sameness, is terrifying, when you think about it.Well, dont think about it, because it isnt a probable possibility, not even as a long shot for the dist
49、ant future, in my opinion. I agree that you might clone some people who would look amazingly like their parental cell donors, but the odds are that theyd be almost as different as you or me, and certainly more different than any of todays identical twins.The time required for the experiment is only one of the problems, but a formidable one. Suppose you wanted to clone a prominent, spectacularly successful diplomat, to look after the Middle East problems of the distant future. Youd have to catch
