1、考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷 125 及答案与解析Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)0 Commuter trains are often stuffy and crowded, and they frequently fail to run on time. As if that were not bad enough, Tsuyoshi Hondou, a physicist at T
2、ohoku University in Japan, published a paper in 2002 that gave commuters yet another reason to feel uncomfortable. Dr. Hondou examined mobile-phone usage in enclosed spaces such as railway carriages, buses and lifts, all of which are, in essence, metal boxes. His model predicted that a large number
3、of passengers crowded together, all blathering, sending text messages, or browsing the web on their phones, could produce levels of electromagnetic radiation that exceed international safety standards. That is because the radio waves produced by each phone are reflected off the metal walls of the ca
4、rriage, bus or lift. Enough radiation escapes to allow the phone to communicate with the network, but the rest bathes the inside of the carriage with bouncing microwaves.This sounds worrying. But maybe it isnt after all. In a paper published recently in Applied Physics Letters, Jaime Ferrer and Luca
5、s Fernandez-Seivane from the University of Oviedo in Spainalong with colleagues from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and Telefonica Moviles, a Spanish mobile operatordispute Dr. Hondous findings. They conclude that the level of radiation is safe after all.The key addition to the new research is
6、 the effect of the passengers themselves. While each phone produces radiation that bounces around the car, the passengers absorb some of it, which has the effect of reducing the overall intensity, just as the presence of an audience changes the acoustics of a concert hall, making it less reverberant
7、. Dr. Hondous model, in short, was valid only in the case of a single passenger sitting in an empty carriage with an active mobile phone on every seat.While Dr. Hondou acknowledged this in his original paper, he did not specifically calculate the effect that leaving out the other passengers would ha
8、ve on the radiation level. As a result, say the authors of the new paper, he significantly overestimated the level of electromagnetic radiation. When one is sitting on a train, Dr. Ferrer and his colleagues found, the most important sources of radiation are ones own phone, and those of ones immediat
9、e neighbours. The radiation from these sources far exceeds that from other phones or from waves bouncing around the carriage. And all these sources together produce a level of radiation within the bounds defined by the ICNIRP, the international body that regulates such matters.1 According to paragra
10、ph 1, the essential common characteristic of train carriages, buses, and lifts is that_.（A）they are all metal boxes（B） they are often stuffy and overcrowded（C） they all allow enough radiation to escape for mobile communications to take place（D）people use their mobile phones in them2 How could “level
11、s of electromagnetic radiation that exceed international safety standards“ be produced?（A）Mobile phones give off a lot of electromagnetic radiation.（B） Train carriages, buses, and lifts are not safe places to use mobile phones.（C） A lot of people could use their mobile phones in a confined space at
12、the same time.（D）Blathering produces radio waves which bounce around the interior of these places.3 Why do the Spanish researchers dispute Dr. Hondous theory?（A）Because they are funded by a mobile phone operator.（B） Because people absorb electromagnetic radiation.（C） Because electromagnetic radiatio
13、n isnt dangerous at all.（D）Because Dr. Hondou assumed that every single person was using their mobile phone at exactly the same time.4 Dr. Hondous research was not thorough enough because_.（A）he didnt have enough time to assess everything before his paper was published（B） he didnt admit that the peo
14、ple in train carriages, buses, and lifts could influence the level of electromagnetic radiation（C） he didnt investigate the effect of people on electromagnetic radiation levels（D）Japan is a crowded country where people often use mobile phones, so he only looked at that specific situation5 According
15、to the Spanish researchers, which of the following statements is true?（A）The closer you are to a mobile phone, the greater your exposure to electromagnetic radiation.（B） The closer you are to a mobile phone that is being used to send and receive signals, the greater your exposure to electromagnetic
16、radiation.（C） The amount of electromagnetic radiation reflected by metal is almost too small to be measured.（D）You shouldnt stand close to people who are using their mobile phones in train carriages, buses, and lifts.5 After taking his dog for a walk one day in the early 1940s, George de Mestral, a
17、Swiss inventor, became curious about the seeds of the burdock plant that had attached themselves to his clothes and to the dogs fur. Under a microscope, he looked closely at the hook-and-loop system that the seeds have evolved to hitchhike on passing animals and aid pollination, and he realised that
18、 the same approach could be used to join other things together. The result was Velcro: a product that was arguably more than three billion years in the making, since that is how long the natural mechanism that inspired it took to evolve.Velcro is probably the most famous and certainly the most succe
19、ssful example of biological mimicry, or “biomimetics“. In fields from robotics to materials science, technologists are increasingly borrowing ideas from nature, and with good reason: natures designs have, by definition, stood the test of time, so it would be foolish to ignore them. Yet transplanting
20、 natural designs into man-made technologies is still a hit-or-miss affair.Engineers depend on biologists to discover interesting mechanisms for them to exploit, says Julian Vincent, the director of the Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies at the University of Bath in England. So he and his
21、 colleagues have been working on a scheme to enable engineers to bypass the biologists and tap into natures ingenuity directly, via a database of “biological patents“. The idea is that this database will let anyone search through a wide range of biological mechanisms and properties to find natural s
22、olutions to technological problems.Surely human intellect, and the deliberate application of design knowledge, can devise better mechanisms than the mindless, random process of evolution. Far from it. Over billions of years of trial and error, nature has devised effective solutions to all sorts of c
23、omplicated real-world problems. Take the slippery task of controlling a submersible vehicle, for example. Using propellers, it is incredibly difficult to make refined movements. But Nekton Research, a company based in Durham, North Carolina, has developed a robot fish called Madeleine that manoeuvre
24、s using fins instead.In some cases, engineers can spend decades inventing and perfecting a new technology, only to discover that nature beat them to it. The Venus flower basket, for example, a kind of deep-sea sponge, has spiny skeletal outgrowths that are remarkably similar, both in appearance and
25、optical properties, to commercial optical fibres, notes Joanna Aizenberg, a researcher at Lucent Technologys Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. And sometimes the systems found in nature can make even the most advanced technologies look primitive by comparison, she says.6 Velcro is a product that_.（A）a
26、ttaches itself through humans and animals（B） is a completely natural mechanism made from seeds（C） joins things together using the hook-and-loop system（D）uses the hook-and-loop system to attach itself on humans and animals7 The word “biomimetics“(line 2, para. 2)might mean “_“.（A）the study of natural
27、 design（B） the study of man-made technologies（C） the study of nature（D）the study of biological mutations8 Julian Vincent and his colleagues have set up a database of “biological patents“ so that（A）biologists can access natures ingenuity（B） anyone can access natures ingenuity（C） natural problems can
28、be solved with technological solutions（D）anyone can patent biological mechanisms9 We can infer from the last two paragraphs that_.（A）evolution is a mindless, random process（B） sometimes, natures systems are more advanced than modern technology（C） engineers who invent new technology always discover t
29、hat nature has been there first（D）real-world problems can be solved by using design knowledge10 The best title for this text might be_.（A）Human Intellect and Design Knowledge（B） The Discovery of Velcro（C） Engineers Depend on Biologists（D）Technology That Imitates Nature10 Corey Gottlieb was having a
30、lousy day. The CEO of New York Citys Targeted Media Partners was in San Francisco last month to install 200 flat-panel TV screensworth about $3,000 each into the local Luxor cab fleet. But in tests, Gottlieb discovered that the metal mounts that support the screens were knocking customers on the kne
31、e as they climbed into the taxis. So he had to redesign the system, delaying the project at least a week. It was a slight setback for a venture aimed at delivering news, restaurant info and video ads at riders, but ultimately it didnt deflate Gottliebs optimism. “The beauty of this is we can reach p
32、eople when theyre out of their homes, moneys in their pockets and stores are still open.“Not to mention the fact that the passengers are also captive. You can turn off the TV; you cant very well get out of a moving cab. Ventures like Gottliebs are making some accepted notions about advertising in th
33、e digital age seem pretty naive. Considering how the Web lets consumers customize news, entertainment and communications, some prognosticators have suggested that new technologies would give them control over intrusive commercials. Thanks to TiVo and the Internet, we were finally going to be masters
34、 of our living rooms, able to zip past the ads and watch only what we wanted, whenever we wanted.Perhaps its no surprise, but the advertising industry is striking back, pushing its message into environments where theres no such thing as the fast-forward button: elevators, cabs, bars, fitness clubs a
35、nd fast-food restaurants. A billboard-only business backwater for decades, the industry known as outdoor advertising is now blossoming; its conferences are jampacked and revenues were up 6 percent last year, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. “Its the last mass medium,“ say
36、s OAAA president Nancy Fletcher. “With the changes taking place in the media landscape, outdooradvertisingis just about the only way advertisers can predict and deliver a mega audience.“There are examples of this growth everywhere. Gottliebs company and a few rivals have recently struck agreements t
37、o put TV screens in cabs in Boston, Chicago and Las Vegas, along with San Francisco. Then there are elevators, once a setting suitable only for staring at the floor in awkward silence. A division of newspaper giant Gannett whose name tells you how it views elevator riders Captivate Networkshas put T
38、V screens in more than 500 elevators in the last few years, mostly in the East. But theyre now furiously moving westward. So, soon youll be able to stare up at adsin awkward silence.11 What does Gottlieb mean when he says, “The beauty of this is we can reach people when theyre out of their homes, mo
39、neys in their pockets and stores are still open“?（A）Customers are being influenced to spend money in shops.（B） Cabdrivers are rushing to buy his flat-panel TV screens.（C） Cabdrivers are watching his TVs.（D）Customers no longer knock their knees as they get into the taxis.12 The second paragraph sugge
40、sts that_.（A）passengers can have control over intrusive adverts（B） passengers can customize the TV（C） passengers can watch what they want, when they want（D）passengers cannot get rid of intrusive commercials13 The author implies that outdoor advertising declined in the past because_.（A）it ignored som
41、e injury claims which were no longer supported by law（B） it relied solely on billboards（C） its conferences were not well attended（D）its revenues were falling14 From its name, how does Captivate Networks view its customers?（A）They have captured them mostly in the East.（B） They are good at networking.
42、（C） They are captive audiences.（D）They will soon be captured from the West.15 Which of the following is true according to the text?（A）Elevators are silent places.（B） Billboards are the last mass medium.（C） It is impossible to predict mega audiences.（D）Some prognosticators seem pretty naive.15 When G
43、eorge Stephenson built a railway from Liverpool to Manchester in the 1820s, it cost 45% more than budget and was subject to several delays as it made its way across the treacherous Chat Moss bog. In the intervening 180 years the management of large-scale projects seems to have improved but little. A
44、t the end of May the reconstruction of Wembley Stadium, the hallowed home of English soccer, was threatened when Multiplex, the Australian developer of the site, admitted that it faced mounting losses on the 750m($1.4 billion)project.Greg Balestrero, the head of PMI, says that for years project mana
45、gement was largely ignored. But that is now changing. A recent PMI survey found that three out of four European companies employ project managers. When Compaq, a computer maker, was taken over by Hewlett Packard in 2002, it had some 1,400 on its payroll. Three years ago the board of Siemens launched
46、 a worldwide initiative to improve its project management. The German electronics group had worked out that half its turnover came from project-like work, and it calculated that if it could complete all of these projects on time and to budget, it would add 3 billion($3.7 billion)to its bottom line o
47、ver three years. A key element of the scheme was the introduction of project managers to the companys sales teams to try and temper their more extravagant promises, a move that requires a careful balance between reining them in and killing the deal.Some companies have gone so far as to become more l
48、ike project co-ordinators than producers of goods or services. The “business-as-usual“ bits of their operations have been outsourced, leaving them free to design and orchestrate new ideas. Nike, for instance, does not make shoes any more; it manages footwear projects. Coca-Cola, which hands most of
49、the bottling and marketing of its drinks to others, is little more than a collection of projects, run by people it calls “orchestrators“. Germanys BMW treats each new car “platform“, which is the basis of new vehicle ranges, as a separate project. For all these firms, project management has become an important competitive tool. Some of them call it a core competence.Good project management can certainly make a difference. BPs fortunes were transformed when it converted its exploration division, BP
