1、考研英语（二）模拟试卷 28 及答案与解析一、Section I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D. (10 points) 0 Everyone complains that corporate America is【 C1】_to hire additional workers. Far【C2】_attention has been paid to the flip side of t
2、he jobless recovery: the【C3 】_improvement in American productivity.When the economy【C4】_in 2008, there was little of the fall in labor productivity that normally【C5】_a recession, and this was not just a one-off “batting average“ effect (in which average productivity rises because the worst performer
3、s are fired). Rather, it was a productivity boost that has continued【C6】_expert predictions that workers can only be【C7】_so hard for a short while.In the third quarter of 2011, American labor productivity was 2.3% higher than in the same period a year earlier. Manufacturing productivity in that quar
4、ter rose by 2. 9% compared with a year earlier. Americas productivity growth has been more【C8 】_than most other rich countriesa feat【C9】_to its flexible labor market and a culture of enterprise.Two things could keep productivity rising. First, workers are terrified of losing their jobs. This makes i
5、t easier to persuade them to put in extra hours or【C10】_new tasks. Second, tough times are forcing firms to【C11 】_every brain cell to become more efficient. Sealed Air, for example, has made numerous incremental tweaks, such as【C12】_a machine that makes absorbent pads for supermarket meat trays so t
6、hat its output increased from 400 units per hour three years ago to 550with the same number of workers.The【C13 】_of firms to invest in such enhancements has varied【 C14】_. Some would rather hoard cash or buy back their own shares【C15 】 _spend it on more efficient machinery or information technology.
7、 Yet there are【C16】_that leading industrial firms are starting to increase their capital spending, says Jeff Sprague of Vertical Research Partners, a research outfit. In particular, he has noticed firms investing in “debottlenecking“ which,【C17 】_its name suggests, means removing hold-ups in product
8、ion processes, sometimes with an additional production line.【C18 】_short, the recession has forced American firms to become more muscular. This should help them【C19】_when the good times return. It should also give them an edge【C20】_foreign rivals.1 【C1 】（A）reluctant（B） responsible（C） required（D）reso
9、lute2 【C2 】（A）much（B） less（C） fewer（D）more3 【C3 】（A）negligible（B） subtle（C） marked（D）slow4 【C4 】（A）slumped（B） stopped（C） soared（D）skyrocketed5 【C5 】（A）accompanies（B） allies（C） adheres（D）attaches6 【C6 】（A）despite（B） regardless（C） though（D）defiance7 【C7 】（A）smashed（B） crashed（C） squeezed（D）spoiled8 【C
10、8 】（A）robust（B） ferocious（C） violent（D）vital9 【C9 】（A）subscribe（B） ascribe（C） inscribe（D）describe10 【C10 】（A）upload（B） underscore（C） shoulder（D）charge11 【C11 】（A）expand（B） broaden（C） strain（D）extend12 【C12 】（A）upgrading（B） repairing（C） reusing（D）recovering13 【C13 】（A）efficiency（B） strength（C） abilit
11、y（D）willingness14 【C14 】（A）differently（B） enormously（C） completely（D）impressively15 【C15 】（A）except（B） but（C） then（D）than16 【C16 】（A）symbols（B） signs（C） marks（D）prints17 【C17 】（A）what（B） that（C） which（D）as18 【C18 】（A）In（B） By（C） On（D）Of19 【C19 】（A）maintain（B） thrive（C） survive（D）renew20 【C20 】（A）in（
12、B） above（C） beyond（D）overPart ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)20 Of all the cuts to public services, few have provoked such loud protests as proposals to close libraries. Petitions and curses have been followed by
13、legal challenges. On November 16th a judge in London ruled against plans to close 21 libraries in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Campaigners in Brent, in north-west London, have taken their fight against closures to the Court of Appeal.Local politicians are startled. Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfords
14、hire county council, which was forced by public pressure to abandon plans to close many libraries, complained that protesters seemed much less upset by cuts to social care and rubbish collection. Visits to libraries have declined by 6. 7% in the past five years, according to the Chartered Institute
15、of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).But this is to underestimate the symbolic role libraries play as a visible public good. A 2010 poll found that 69% of people had been to a library in the past year. More than 80% view libraries as “ essential“ or “ very important“.Yet savings have to be made
16、 somewhere. If library closures cause protests, cuts must be done stealthily. In the 2010-11 fiscal year libraries acquired 7. 4% fewer adult fiction books and 13. 7% fewer non-fiction books than they had the year before. An older, less appealing stock could speed the decline in library visits.Yet h
17、ard times are also forcing innovations that may help libraries in the long run. In a quiet success for David Camerons “Big Society“ , the number of volunteer librarians has risen from 12,708 to 21,642 in the past five years. That trend has its critics, especially among professional librarians. But s
18、taff account for at least half the cost of running a library. Other savings could probably be made by consolidating Englands 151 library authorities, and by making better use of technology. “London has 32 library authorities but just one police authority,“ marvels Desmond Clarke, a library campaigne
19、r.An entirely different option is to pour money into a single edifice in the hope that it will have a benign effect on the neighborhood. Englands most popular library is the Norfolk many people love lotteries. In using lotteries to motivate it is important to get the details right. Participants are
20、likely to find a lottery more enticing if they find out that they would have won. The Dutch government uses this principle very effectively. One of its state lotteries is based on postal codes. If your postal code is announced as the winner, you know that you would have won had you only bought a tic
21、ket. The idea is to play on peoples feelings of regret.Lotteries are just one way to provide positive reinforcement. Their power comes from the fact that the chance of winning the prize is overvalued. Of course you can simply pay people for doing the right thing, but if the payment is small, it coul
22、d well backfire. (If the total non-speeding-prize money had been divided up evenly among all those who drove within speed limit, I estimate that the price paid would have been about 25 cents per driver. Would anyone bother for that?)An alternative to lotteries is a trequent-flyer-type reward program
23、, where the points can be (redeemed for something fun. A free goodie can be a better inducement than cash since it offers that rarest of commodities, a guilt-free pleasure. This sort of reward system has been successfully used in England to encourage recycling. In the Royal Borough of Windsor and Ma
24、idenhead outside of London, citizens could sign up for a rewards program in which they earned points depending on the weight of the material they recycled. The points were good for discounts at merchants in the area. Recycling increased by 35 percent. The moral here is simple. If governments want to
25、 encourage good citizenship, they should try making the desired behavior more fun.31 The word exhortation in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to_.（A）persuading（B） arresting（C） suing（D）rewarding32 The Fun Theory helped to encourage safe driving by_.（A）heavily fining traffic rule violators（B）
26、 rewarding those who observe traffic rules（C） channeling part of traffic fines into incentive lotteries（D）setting up a digital supervision system33 Dutch government bases one of their lotteries on postal codes in order to_.（A）make the lottery drawing more fun（B） increases the chances of lottery winn
27、ing（C） motivate peoples initiative to be involved（D）arouse a sense of regret over misconduct34 Compared with lottery, smallprizes for every good conduct as an incentive to encourage good citizenship may work_.（A）more fairly（B） less efficiently（C） more justifiably（D）less feasibly35 Which of the follo
28、wing statements can be inferred from the passage?（A）A good understanding of human psychology can help government in policymaking.（B） Rewarding mechanism should replace punishment mechanism in public management.（C） Frequent-flyer-type reward program is proposed to overcome the defects in lottery rewa
29、rd program.（D）By making good citizenship more fun, the fun theory also makes civic behavior more utilitarian.35 Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as morally exceptional. When Google went public in 2004, the companys founders penned a letter to prospective shareholders that has become the Inter
30、net industrys version of the Magna Carta. In it, they pledged that Google was “not a conventional company“ but one focused on “making the world a better place. “Though Silicon Valleys newest billionaires may anoint themselves the saints of American capitalism, theyre beginning to resemble something
31、else entirely: robber barons. like their predecessors in railroads, steel, banking, and oil a century ago, Silicon Valleys new entrepreneurs are harnessing technology to make the world more efficient. But along the way, that process is bringing great economic and labor dislocation, as well as an une
32、qual share of the spoils.Take Apples manufacturing practices inChina. By systematically outsourcing the assembly of iPhones and other gadgets to contract manufacturers like Chinas Foxconn, Apple has reduced its overall cost of production and increased profit margins for shareholders. Thats neither u
33、nique nor necessarily evil. Its a practice regularly adopted by all kinds of industries. But establishing an arms-length commercial relationship does not absolve a company from moral responsibility for the way its chosen partners treat workers. Labor issues at Foxconn have attracted bad press for so
34、me time. It was not until that negative publicity on New York Times last year that Apple took more meaningful action, allowing the Fair Labor Association to conduct special audits of its suppliers factories in China.A bigger battle remains to be fought on the privacy front, where Silicon Valleys mis
35、demeanors are even more upsetting. Pushing the boundaries of what is generally considered acceptable, even decent, when it comes to exploiting personal information is a daily sport in the online world. Thats because a tweak here or there to the privacy settings of a social network or a tiny change t
36、o the code on a mobile application can mean a world of difference in the value of information an advertiser can access about a usually unaware user. Perhaps swayed by Silicon Valleys altruistic spin or slow to catch up with its rapid growth, Washington has, up to now, largely left the industry to re
37、gulate itself on privacy. Thats clearly not working. Hardly a day passes without some new revelation of an Internet or mobile company stepping a byte too far into the private business of its customers.The original robber barons had decent intentions when they built railroads to connect Americas emer
38、ging cities and drilled oil wells that fueled the nations growth, but their empires still needed to be regulated, reined in, and in some cases broken up by vigilant watchdogs. Lofty words and ideals are fine for motivating employees and even for spurring sales, but they can also serve as cover for m
39、otives that clash with the broader interests of consumers and society. We need more than fancy promises to ensure that the rise of the Silicon Valley engineer is good for the world.36 In the authors opinion, entrepreneurs in silicon valleys_.（A）fail to change the world substantially like their busin
40、ess predecessors（B） usually fulfill moral pursuits at price of economic gains（C） hold lofty moral ideals that separate them from earlier industry tycoons（D）are not unlike from other business organizations when it comes to profit making37 In the case ofFoxconns scandal, Apples greatest mistake lies i
41、n_.（A）outsourcing its production assembly to overseas manufactures（B） ignoring the press plea for better treatment of workers（C） failing to enforce strict supervision over its contract suppliers（D）failing to manage its branches under unified operating standards38 From Paragraph 4, we know that the I
42、T companies usually access the users private information by_.（A）hacking users computers and stealing useful information（B） requiring real personal information on social networks（C） making unnoticeable modifications to technical settings（D）inserting advertisement into websites users browse39 It is be
43、lieved by the author that the loftycorporate ideals can only be achieved_.（A）under altruistic leadership（B） in benign corporate culture（C） under concerted efforts of all employees（D）under appropriate exterior surveillance40 It can be inferred from the passage that the “ robber barons “ (Para. 2) are
44、 usually interpreted as_.（A）businessmen who have used questionable practices to amass their wealth（B） people who make fortunes by engaging in businesses like railway and steeling（C） companies who glorify themselves as morally superior to their peers（D）robbers who make fortunes without being punished
45、 by the law40 A Convincing evidence: US is losing its appeal in the eyes of multinationals B Biggest hindrance: US divided political systemC American future; stuck in the middleD Overstated statement: US overall competitiveness is decliningE Voice of experts: pessimism pervades academic world F Econ
46、omic outlook: bad but not desperateG Undisputed fact; US is losing its economic edge41. _Is America fading? America has been gripped by worries about decline before, notably in the 1970s, only to roar back. But this time it may be serious. There is Utile doubt that other countries are catching up. B
47、etween 1999 and 2009 Americas share of world exports fell in almost every industry: by 36 percentage points in aerospace, nine in information technology, eight in communications equipment and three in cars. Private-sector job growth has slowed dramatically, and come to a halt in industries that are
48、exposed to global competition. Median annual income grew by an anemic 2% between 1990 and 2010.42. _The March issue of the Harvard Business Review is devoted to “American competitiveness“. The Review reports that declinism is prevalent among HBS alumni: in a survey, 71% said that American competitiv
49、eness would decline in the coming years.43. _America is losing out in the race to attract good jobs. Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouths Tuck School of Business points out that multinational firms increased employment in America by 24% in the 1990s. But since then they have been cutting back on jobs in America. They have moved dull repetitive tasks abroad, and even some sophisticated on
