1、考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷 183 及答案与解析Part B (10 points) 0 When the worlds leaders met at the Millennium Summit five years ago, they agreed on a set of goals aimed at cutting global poverty in half by 2015. More importantly, they also set targets for the environment.【C1】 _The phase-out of ozone depleting substance
2、s through the Montreal Protocol, for instance, shows what can be done when the international community works together. Thanks to the protocol, it is estimated that up to 20 million cases of skin cancer, and 130 million eye cataracts, will be avoided.This kind of success should encourage us. But now
3、we need to match our action with the scale of the challenge. Our world is not only unbalanced, but endangered.【C2】 _The environmental challenge is even more stark in developing countries, where five billion of the earths six billion people live. In these nations, the environment is linked directly t
4、o human developmentand to poverty.【C3】 _On current trends, the millennium targets for the environment will not be met. What needs to be done? As a starting point, we must recognize the fundamental imbalance in the global environmental equation. Richer countries do much of the environmental damage.【C
5、4】 _Rich countries larger contribution to environmental damage means that they must shoulder greater responsibility for fixing the problem. That means changing the way they produce and consume energyreducing subsidies, ensuring appropriate pricing, and adequately taxing environmentally damaging prod
6、ucts.Aid for the environment averaged about $2 billion per yearfar short of what the international community, first at the Rio Summit in 1992 and then at the Johannesburg Summit ten years later, said was needed. In terms of global priorities, this figure compares with the $900 billion that the world
7、 currently commits to military expenditures each year.【C5】 _If that growth is not achieved in an environmentally sustainable way, its effects on poverty and human well-being will be disastrous. It will be too late 25 years from now to make the right choices. For the sake of our children and our chil
8、drens children, we must act now.AAccounting for only 15% of the worlds population, they cause 50% of global carbon dioxide emissionswith all their implications for climate change. But the poorer countries pay much of the “costs“losing up to 8% of their GDP per year due to environmental degradation,
9、as well as suffering devastating effects on health and human welfare.BThe European Union(EU)is at the forefront of international efforts to combat climate change and has played a key role in the development of environment addressing the issue.CDeforestation is increasing, with almost 100 million hec
10、tares lost in the last decade alonemuch of it due to millions of poor farmers in Africa and Latin America being forced to cut down trees because they have no other access to land or energy sources.DWhile developing countries are obviously responsible for identifying and responding to environmental i
11、ssues that arise within their borders, it is necessary for rich countries to support poor countries in environmental protection efforts.EWe need to invest more in the environment development. If the war on environmental degradation is to be won, we need a major turnaround. Another two billion people
12、 will be added to global population over the next 25 yearsthe vast majority in poorer nationswith huge demands for energy and economic growth.FMore than a billion people in developing countries lack access to clean water; more than two billion have no access to basic sanitation. Five to six million
13、people, mostly children, die every year due to waterborne diseases, such as diarrhea, and air pollution.GThey understood its centrality to long-term economic growth, human development and the stability of the planet. The problem is that today, ten years shy of when the goals are to be met, progress
14、on the environment is alarmingly slow. So much more is possible.1 【C1 】2 【C2 】3 【C3 】4 【C4 】5 【C5 】5 A bomb has landed on the world. Two prestigious doctors Panayiotis Zavos and Severino Antinori claim they are ready to embark on the greatest human experiment of our age. They say they will attempt t
15、o clone a human being before the year is out. Most people think the objections to this are ethicalhuman cloning would create many moral dilemmas.There is another question that few ever ask: is the science actually ready yet for cloning healthy humans? The latest research has led many scientists to b
16、elieve that Zavos and Antinoris plans to clone the first human could end in tragedy.For decades, cloning remained within the realms of science fiction. The idea that instead of combining a sperm and an egg, a new human could be made from a single cell taken from an adult, seemed completely absurd.【C
17、1】 _But even Dollys creator, Professor Ian Wilmut, is concerned that beneath the veneer of success lies a disturbing reality. Most cloning attempts on animals so far have resulted in failed implantation or abnormal foetuses.【C2】 _Years of painstaking work are only now revealing some vital clues to w
18、hat is going wrong. Scientists have uncovered new evidence, suggesting that the process of cloning itself causes subtle errors in the way genes function. These random errors may be like a time bomb inside every clone, causing some of the strangeoften fatalproblems.【C3】 _Dr. Zavos claims that these p
19、roblems are the result of the still unsophisticated methods being used by animal researchers.【C4】 _Now though, it seems that some IVF procedures themselves are being investigated for possible harmful effects on the long-term health of children. Professor Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsbur
20、gh reveals evidence of these risks, which could be magnified in cloning.【C5】 _However, there are would-be human cloners who are determined to clone a human baby. If they proceed, they may be courting tragedy, some insiders observe.ATheres no reason to think cloned human babies would fare any better.
21、 According to embryologist Dr. Susan Avery, death might be the best outcome for many human clones. If they survived, they would suffer from catastrophic illnesses that modern medicine is powerless to prevent or cure.BAs things stand, most reproductive specialists believe that the danger to any human
22、 born by cloning is enormous.CHuman cloning has been condemned by some of its most articulate opponents as the ultimate embodiment of the sexual revolution, separating sex from the creations of babies and treating gender and sexuality as socially constructed.DThe people who support human cloning spe
23、ak of the plight of infertile couples; the grief of someone who has lost a child whose biological “rebirth“ might offer comfort; the prospect of using cloning to generate donors for tissues and organs; the possibility of creating genetically enhanced clones with a particular talent or a resistance t
24、o some dread disease.EUsing advanced in vitro fertilization(IVF “test tube baby“)techniques; he claims that he will strive to make human cloning safer than natural reproduction.FOf the animals born alive, some soon die of catastrophic organ failure. Others appear to be healthy for weeks or even mont
25、hs, then die suddenly, sometimes from bizarre new illnesses which do not occur in nature.GBut that all changed in February 1997, when the Roslin Institute introduced the world to Dolly the sheepthe first animal cloned from an adult. Ever since Dolly, scientists have been continuing to experiment wit
26、h cloning animals. So far, they have succeeded in cloning sheep, cattle, pigs, goats and mice, fuelling the belief that humans could be next.6 【C1 】7 【C2 】8 【C3 】9 【C4 】10 【C5 】10 Until recently most scientists thought they knew what killed off the dinosaurs. A 10km-wide meteorite had smashed into t
27、he Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, causing worldwide forest fires, tsunamis several kilometers high, and an “impact winter“in which dust blocked out the sun for months or years. It was thought that the dinosaurs were blasted, roasted and frozen to death, in that order.But now a small but vociferous(mar
28、ked by noisy and vehement outcry)group of scientists believes there is increasing evidence that this “impact“ theory could be wrong. That suggestion has generated one of the bitterest scientific rows of recent times. 【C1】 _For supporters of the impact theory, the KT boundary layers contained two cru
29、cial clues. In 1979 scientists discovered that there were high concentrations of a rare element called iridium(铱), which they thought could only have come from an asteroid.【C2】 _On the basis of the spherules and a range of other evidence, Dr. Alan Hildebrand concluded that the impact must have happe
30、ned in the Yucatan peninsula, at the site of a crater(A bowl-shaped depression at the mouth of a volcano)known as Chicxulub. Chemical analysis later confirmed that the spherules had indeed come from rocks within the crater.【C3】 _But a group of scientists led by Prof. Gerta Keller and Prof. Wolfgang
31、Stinnesbeck begged to differ. They uncovered a series of geological clues which suggest the truth may be far more complicated. In short, that the crater in the Yucatan is too old to have killed off the dinosaurs.They concentrated on a series of rock formations in Mexico where the iridium layer was s
32、eparated from the spherule layer by many metres of sandstone.【C4】 _But Kellers team found evidencesuch as ancient worm burrowsthat suggested that the deposition of the sandstone had been interrupted many times. They deduced that there was a gap of some 300, 000 years between the deposition of the sp
33、herules(from the Chicxulub crater)and the iridium(from an asteroid). Therefore there must have been two impacts.【C5】 _Kellers views provoked a lively scientific row. Although still in the minority, Kellers work does now attract some support. The cause of the dinosaurs decease is still up in the air.
34、AThe impact theory was beautifully simple and appealing. Much of its evidence was drawn from a thin layer of rock known as the “KT boundary“. This layer is 65 million years old(which is around the time when the dinosaurs disappeared)and is found around the world exposed in cliffs and mines.BThat opi
35、nion sparked a massive row, as the supporters of the impact theory such as Prof. Jan Smit of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, rubbished Kellers ideas. Smit argued that the sandstone had been deposited by massive tsunami waves caused by the asteroid, and so did not undermine the idea of a single impact
36、.CThe impact theory seemed to provide the complete answer. In many locations around the world, the iridium layer(evidence of an asteroid impact)sits right on top of the spherule layer(evidence that the impact was at Chicxulub). So Hildebrand and other supporters of the impact theory argued that ther
37、e was one massive impact 65 million years ago, and that it was at Chicxulub. This, they concluded, must have finished off the dinosaurs by a variety of mechanisms.DMoreover,right underneath the iridium was a layer of “spherules“, tiny balls of rock, which seemed to have been condensed from rock whic
38、h had been vaporized by a massive impact.EThe Chicxulub impact, they said, was too old to have finished off the dinosaurs, and there must have been another impact somewhere else which was to blame. That crater has not yet been found.FDinosaurs are reptiles that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem fo
39、r most of their 165-million year existence. They became extinct 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period, and are known from fossilized bones, feces, trackways, gastroliths, and in a few cases impressions of skin and internal organs.GBefore the late 1970s, there were any number of di
40、fferent theories to explain the mass extinction, with no real consensus. One theory put it that mammals had eaten all the dinosaurs eggs.11 【C1 】12 【C2 】13 【C3 】14 【C4 】15 【C5 】15 We are all seeing rather less of the sun. Scientists looking at five decades of sunlight measurements have reached the d
41、isturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the earths surface has been gradually falling. Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought. The effect was first spotted by Gerry Stanhill, an English scie
42、ntist working in Israel. Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation. “There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me, “ he says. 【C1 】_ Gerry called the phenomenon global dimming, bu
43、t his research, published in 2001, met with a skeptical response from other scientists. 【C2】_ Dimming appears to be caused by air pollution. Burning coal, oil and wood, whether in cars, power stations or cooking fires, produces not only invisible carbon dioxide but also tiny airborne particles of so
44、ot(浮在空中的烟尘), ash, sulphur compounds and other pollutants. 【C3 】_ Scientists are now worried that dimming, by shielding the oceans from the full power of the sun, may be disrupting the pattern of the worlds rainfall. There are suggestions that dimming was behind the droughts in sub-Saharan Africa. Th
45、ere are disturbing hints the same thing may be happening today in Asia. 【C4】_ They know how much extra energy is being trapped in the earths atmosphere by the extra carbon dioxide(CO2)we have placed there. What has been surprising is that this extra energy has so far resulted in a temperature rise o
46、f just 0. 6C. 【C5】_ If so, then this is bad news. Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10C by 2100 in France, could be on the cards, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable. That is bound to
47、 happen unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases. AIt was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, which climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming. BB
48、ut perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect. CIntrigued,he searched out records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked. The sunlight fell by 10% over the USA
49、, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. DAs it turns out, peoples activity causes not only global warming but also “global dimming“. It is connected with air pollution as a result of which the sunlight is reflected back to the outer space and massive settled clouds get formed. EGlobal dimming is a daytime effect. At night the suns radiation is com
