1、考研英语(阅读)模拟试卷 191 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 If youre like most people, youre way too smart for advertising. You flip right past newspaper ads and never click on ads online. That, at least, is what
2、 we tell ourselves. But what we tell ourselves is nonsense. Advertising works, which is why, even in hard economic times, Madison Avenue is a $34 billion-a-year business. And if Martin Lindstrom, author of the best seller Buyology anda marketing consultant, is correct, trying to tune this stuff out
3、is about to get a whole lot harder.Lindstrom is a practitioner of neuro-marketing research, in which consumers are exposed to ads while hooked up to machines that monitor brain activity, pupil dilation, sweat responses and flickers in facial muscles, all of which are markers of emotion. According to
4、 his studies, 83% of all forms of advertising principally engage only one of our senses: sight. Hearing, however, can be just as powerful, though advertisers have taken only limited advantage of it. Historically, ads have relied on jingles and slogans to catch our ear, largely ignoring everyday soun
5、ds. Weave this stuff into an ad campaign, and we may be powerless to resist it.To figure out what most appeals to our ear, Lindstrom wired up his volunteers, then played them recordings of dozens of familiar sounds, from McDonalds ubiquitous “Im Lovin It“ jingle to birds chirping and cigarettes bein
6、g lit. The sound that blew the doors off all the restboth in terms of interest and positive feelingswas a baby giggling. The other high-ranking sounds, such as the hum of a vibrating cell phone, an ATM dispensing cash, and etc, were less primal but still powerful.In all of these cases, it didnt take
7、 a Mad Man to invent the sounds, infuse them with meaning and then play them over and over until the subjects internalized them. Rather, the sounds already had meaning and thus triggered a cascade of reactions: hunger, thirst, happy anticipation.“Cultural messages that get into your nervous system a
8、re very common and make you behave certain ways,“ says neuroscientist Read Montague of Baylor College of Medicine. Advertisers who fail to understand that pay a price. Lindstrom admits to being mystified by TV ads that give viewers close-up food-porn shots of meat on a grill but accompany that with
9、generic jangly guitar music. One of his earlier brain studies showed that numerous regions, jump into action when such discordance occurs, trying to make sense of it. TV advertisers arent the only ones who may start putting sound to greater use, retailers are also catching on. Lindstrom is consultin
10、g with clients about employing a similar strategy in European supermarkets.1 According to Paragraph 1, advertising(A)is mainly seen in newspapers or online.(B) has little effect on most people.(C) is affected by economic situation.(D)has an impact hard to ignore.2 Lindstroms studies imply that(A)onl
11、y sight is needed for understanding advertising.(B) advertisers regard hearing as powerful as sight.(C) jingles and slogans can be very powerful in advertising.(D)combining sight with hearing can make ads more powerful.3 Which of the following sounds is the most powerful?(A)McDonalds “Im Lovin It it
12、“ jingle.(B) The sound of blowing open a door.(C) The giggling sound of a baby.(D)The hum of a vibrating cell phone.4 To take advantage of sounds in advertising, its best to(A)invent meaningful sounds.(B) use sounds already with associations.(C) bestow sounds with meaning.(D)play them repeatedly to
13、gain meaning.5 The last paragraph indicates the meaning of a sound originates from(A)cultural influences.(B) advertisers reinforcement.(C) our nervous system.(D)the sound itself.5 Men are generally better than women on tests of spatial ability, such as mentally rotating an object through three dimen
14、sions or finding their way around in a new environment. But a new study suggests that under some circumstances a womans way of navigating is probably more efficient.Luis Pacheco-Cobos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues discovered this by following mushroom gatherers f
15、rom a village in the state of Tlaxcala for two rainy seasons. Two researchers, each fitted with GPS navigation devices and heart-rate monitors, followed different gatherers on different days. They recorded the weight of the mushrooms each gatherer collected and where they visited. The GPS data allow
16、ed a map to be made of the routes taken and the heart-rate measurements provided an estimate of the amount of energy expended during their travels.The results, to be published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, show that the men and women collected on average about the same weight of mushrooms. But t
17、he men travelled farther, climbed higher and used a lot more energy70% morethan the women. The men did not move any faster, but they searched for spots with lots of mushrooms. The women made many more stops, apparently satisfied with, or perhaps better at finding, patches of fewer mushrooms.Previous
18、 work has shown that men tend to navigate by creating mental maps of a territory and then imagining their position on the maps. Women are more likely to remember their routes using landmarks. The study lends support to the idea that male and female navigational skills were honed differently by evolu
19、tion for different tasks Modemday hunter-gatherers divide labor, so that men tend to do more hunting and women more gathering. It seems likely that early humans did much the same thing.The theory is that the male strategy is the most useful for hunting prey; chasing an antelope, say, would mean runn
20、ing a long way over a winding route. But having killed his prey, the hunter would want to make a beeline for home rather than retrace his steps exactly. Women, by contrast, would be better off remembering landmarks and retracing the paths to the most productive patches of plants.The research suggest
21、s that in certain circumstances women are better at navigating than men, which might lend some comfort to a man desperately searching for an item in a supermarket while his exasperated wife methodically moves around the aisles filling the shopping trolley. He is simply not cut out for the job, evolu
22、tionarily speaking.6 The word “navigating“ (line 4, Paragraph 1) most probably means(A)voyaging.(B) guiding.(C) piloting.(D)maneuvering.7 GPS navigation devices and heart-rate monitors were chosen for the research most probably because they can(A)reflect the routes and the amount of used energy.(B)
23、record the overall weight of the mushrooms gathered.(C) estimate the time and energy consumed during travels.(D)provide the gatherers with different maps of routes.8 The result of the experiment indicated that women gatherers(A)knew how to regain energy.(B) were good at remembering landmarks.(C) wer
24、e easily content.(D)travelled more efficiently.9 By referring to evolution, the author intends to show that(A)men and women are different in spatial conception and ability.(B) males are born with the hunters mentality and females the gatherers.(C) different ways of navigation can date back to the an
25、cient times.(D)early humans have decided the division of labor for men and women.10 We can infer from the supermarket scene depicted in the last paragraph that man(A)is always impatient when shopping with his wife.(B) may not be the right type for finding items.(C) may be suitable to do this routine
26、 job.(D)is sometimes unable to navigate correctly.10 In hindsight one of the worst things about Americas subprime housing bust is how predictable it was. Subprime borrowers were by definition people of limited means with poor credit histories. Yet economists who have looked at the pattern of payment
27、s on subprime mortgages point out that even when house prices topped out and then began to fall, not all subprime borrowersdefaulted. Only a minority of borrowers abruptly ceased to make payments, as someone choosing to default would.More typically, payments went from being regular to being erratic:
28、 borrowers fell behind, then became current again, only to fall behind once more. Those patterns are indicative of people trying, but struggling, to keep up with their payments. A trio of economists set out to find out what differentiated those borrowers who did not keep up with their payments from
29、the rest Their answer, according to a new working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, is simple: numeracy.The economists tracked down a large number of subprime borrowers in New England on whom they already had detailed information, including the terms of their mortgages and their repaym
30、ent histories. These borrowers were then subjected to a series of questions that required simple calculations about percentages and interest rates.Even accounting for a host of differences between peopleincluding attitudes to risk, income levels and credit scoresthose who fell behind on their mortga
31、ges were noticeably less numerate than those who kept up with their payments in the same overall circumstances. The least numerate fell behind about 25% of the time. For those who did best on the test, the number of payments they missed was almost 12%. A fifth of the least numerate group had been in
32、 foreclosure (the creditor taking possession of a property because the money has not been repaid), but only 7% of those who were more numerically adept had.Surprisingly, the least numerate were not making loan choices that differed much from their peers. They were about as likely to have a fixed-rat
33、e mortgage as the more numerically able. They did not borrow a larger share of their income. And loans were about the same fraction of the houses value.Stephan Meier, one of the studys authors, reckons that the innumerate may be worse at managing their daily finances, leaving them with little room f
34、or manoeuvre when things get difficult. Those better at sums might, for instance, have put a bit more aside in more plentiful times. Normally, such differences might not matter much. But in bleaker circumstances, a small pot of savings may be all that stands between homeownership and foreclosure.11
35、When house prices drop, most subprime borrowers would(A)stop making payments immediately.(B) fail to meet the financial obligation.(C) struggle to meet the deadline of the payment.(D)choose to delay the payment.12 The typical pattern of payment shows that(A)subprime housing bust is not foreseeable f
36、or some of the borrowers.(B) with great efforts people finally manage to pay their loans regularly.(C) numeracy accounts for the difference between defaulters and the rest borrowers.(D)the borrowers cannot ensure that all payments are on time.13 We can infer from the New England research that(A)peop
37、les attitude toward risks was a great factor affecting the pattern of payment.(B) those who were poor at calculating were likely to fall behind on their mortgages.(C) those who were numerically adept tended to make wiser loan choices.(D)peoples ability with numbers decided whether they could pay the
38、ir loans on time.14 Stephan Meier holds that the innumerate(A)are not informed to prepare for a bleak future.(B) are confident about their earning power.(C) tend to live beyond their means.(D)do not take precautions before it is too late.15 Which of the following is the best title for the text?(A)Nu
39、meracy might explain(B) Save early, save wisely(C) How to handle the crisis?(D)The erratic pattern of payment15 Partly due to a historical development marked by worldwide colonialism, urbanization, and globalization, in the course of this century humankind is likely to experience its most extreme cu
40、ltural loss. As K David Harrison notes in When Languages Die, “The last speakers of probably half of the worlds languages are alive today.“ Their children or grandchildren are pressured to speak only the dominant language of their community or country. Under one estimate, more than 50% of the 6,900
41、or so languages identified nowadays are expected to become extinct in a matter of a few decades.The precise criteria for what counts as a distinct language are controversialespecially those regarding closely related linguistic systems, which are often inaccurately referred to as dialects of the same
42、 language. The problem is complicated by the insufficiency of studies about the grammar of many of the worlds endangered languages. In addition, from a cognitive standpoint any two groups of individuals whose languages are mutually intelligible may in fact have distinct mental grammars.As a cognitiv
43、e system, a language shows dynamic properties that cannot exist independently of its speakers. This is the sense in which the Anatolian languages and Dalmatian are extinct Therefore, language preservation depends on the maintenance of the native-speaking human groups. Unfortunately, the most acceler
44、ated loss of distinct languages takes place where economic development is rapid, worsening the breakdown of minority communities that speak different languages. In this perspective, a language often begins to die long before the passing of the last speaker New generations may start using it only for
45、 limited purposes, increasingly shifting to the communitys dominant language. In this process, knowledge of the dying language erodes both at the individual level and at the community level.Linguistic diversity itself may be the worst loss at stake, because it may be the most promising and precise s
46、ource of evidence for the range of variation allowed in the organization of the human cognitive system. For instance, Harrison discusses many strategies for manipulating quantities across languages, often endangered ones. The rapid loss of linguistic diversity substantially hinders comparative inves
47、tigation about the multiple ways in which a single cognitive domain can be organized.Linguists are well aware that their efforts alone cannot prevent this loss. Community involvement, especially with government support, has proven essential in slowing or even reversing language loss in different cas
48、es (e.g., Basque and Irish). Crucially, endangered languages must be acquired by new generations of speakers. Here the biological metaphor adopted by Harrison applies appropriately-documentation of dead languages is akin to a fossil record, providing only partial clues about complex cognitive system
49、s.16 According to the first paragraph, language loss(A)is caused partly by colonialism, urbanization and globalization.(B) is the most extreme cultural loss people experiences.(C) is expected to occur in a few centuries.(D)occurs in less than half of the worlds 6,900 languages.17 One of the difficulties in differentiating one language from another is that(A)one language may have many dialects.(B) grammar study on some languages is not enough.(C) they are dialects of the same languages.(D)grammars reflected by languages are different.18 The start of langua