1、考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷 32 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 The Means of Managing Staff in American CompanyWhen one of his employees phoned in sick last year, Scott McDonald, CEO of Monument Security in Sacramento
2、, California, decided to investigate. He had already informed his staff of 400 security guards and patrol drivers that he was installing Xora, a software program that tracks workers whereabouts through GPS technology on their company cell phones. A Web-based “geo-fence“ around work territories would
3、 alert the boss if workers strayed or even drove too fast. It also enabled him to route workers more efficiently. So when McDonald logged on, the program told him exactly where his worker wasand it wasnt in bed with the sniffles. “How come youre east-bound on 80 heading to Reno right now if youre si
4、ck?“ asked the boss. There was a long silencethe sound of a job ending followed by, “you got me.“Learn that truth, and learn it well: what you do at work is the bosss business. Xora is just one of the new technologies from a host of companies that have, sprung up in the past two years peddling produ
5、cts and services software, GPS, video and phone surveillance, even investigatorsthat let managers get to know you really well.“ Virtually nothing you do at work on a computer cant be monitored,“ says Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the National Work Rights Institute, which advocates workplace priva
6、cy. Nine out of 10 employers observe your electronic behavior, according to the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College. A study by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute found 76% of employers watch you surf the Web and 36 % track content, keystrokes and time spent at t
7、he keyboard.You cant really blame companies for watching our Web habits, since 45% of us admit that surfing is our favorite time waster, according to a joint survey by Salary corn and AOL. A Northeast technology company found that several employees who frequently complained of overwork spent all day
8、 on MySpace. com.Businesses argue that their snooping is justified. Not only are they trying to guard trade secrets and intellectual property, but they also must ensure that workers comply with government regulations, such as keeping medical records and credit-card numbers private. And companies are
9、 liable for allowing a hostile work environmentsay, one filled with porn-filled computer screensthat may lead to lawsuits. “People write very loosely with their e-mails, but they can unintentionally reach thousands, like posters throughout a work site,“ says Charles Spearman of diversity-management
10、consultants Tucker Spearman Sandra Davis, who commissioned the study, says that the recession of the early 1990s led to a wave of divorces among the Citys wealthy people. A third of current inquiries to lawyers by those deciding to break the knot, she claims, are linked to the credit crunch.One expl
11、anation is that the defecting spouses of high earners are getting out before the crunch reduces the potential for profitable settlements. As the City boom turns to bust, redundancies are becoming commonplace and huge bonuses a distant dream. Since recent earnings are one of the factors taken into ac
12、count in divorce settlements, it makes sense to divorce sooner rather than later. Others argue that money and the distractions it buys allow couples to avoid addressing difficulties in their relationship, which come to the fore in more financially-distressed times.For middle earners, the link betwee
13、n divorce rotes and economic conditions is less clear-cut, not least since the main marital asset is houses rather than spouses. Rising inflation and falling house prices put pressure on marriages and might thus contribute to higher divorce rates. Yet the same factors also make splitting up more com
14、plicated. Failing property prices mean that selling the family home may not provide sufficient funds for two separate homes, especially now that lenders have become much more choosy. “A flagging economy clearly leads to an increase in misery; whether or not it causes a rise in the divorce rote is a
15、debatable point,“ sums up Stephen Jenkins, director of the Institute for Social and Economic ResearchOne consequence is that more couples are living together after divorce, which raises its own problems. Godfrey Freeman, chairman of Resolution, an association of family lawyers, points out that the l
16、ower-earning partners in such couples may find it harder to claim benefits. They are usually refused help, he says, on the grounds that their mortgage paid, even if they have no cash of their own to cover everyday expenses.6 In the opening paragraph, the author introduces his topic by providing_.（A）
17、a well-known definition of divorce in the dictionary（B） a downright fact that divorce is linked to economy（C） an interesting quote of a famous person about divorce（D）a statistic survey that was conducted a long time ago7 According to Sandra Davis, recession of the early 1990s is regarded to have_.（A
18、）affected the whole society in their life style（B） caused some changes in family structures（C） encouraged more lawyers to consider divorce cases（D）resulted from the divorce trends8 By referring to the middle earners, the author intends to show that_.（A）some couples would like to spend life together
19、even if they break up（B） they are forced to consider economic situations after the divorce（C） the link between divorce and money is as evident as in the cases of rich couples（D）they are faced with different problems compared with wealthy classes 9 Which of the following is true according to the text
20、?（A）There should be some correlations between economy and family.（B） Economic depression is sure to have caused the social instability.（C） If the economy grows fast, the lower-earning partners will claim more help.（D）Economic growth depends upon the happy relationship between social members.9 Park a
21、re Popular Again Among Peoples LivesJust east of downtown Irvine, in southern California, a pastoral landscape is under construction. Little by little, a former military airport is being dismantled, to be replaced by grass, trees and a canyon 70 feet (21 meters) deep. When it is finished, Orange Cou
22、ntys Great Park will cover 1, 350 acres (550 hectares), more than one-and-a-half times as much as Central Park in New York. The biggest landscaped municipal park to be built in more than a century, it reveals much about how American attitudes to open space have changed.Urban parks are back in fashio
23、n. In Denver, an 80-acre park opened in September on the site of another disused airport. New York plans to build a huge park on top of the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island. Innumerable town squares and pocket parks have been created or beautified, even in places like Detroit. City planners, wh
24、o once viewed parks as financial drains and nests of crime, now see them as magnets for tourists and creative types.The great parks that were built in the second half of the 19th century were intended to counteract the ill effects of city living, and so are the new ones. But the perceived ills have
25、changed. Frederick Olmsted, who designed Central Park and many others, wanted to provide people with a break from their tough, dirty jobs. Ken Smith, the Great Parks architect, reckons the residents of Orange County are quite idle enough. What they need is exercise: hence the parks proposed 21 footb
26、all fields and 12 baseball fields, together with some exhausting-looking walks.Another difference is that parks are now expected to function like natural ecosystems as well as looking like them. The Great Park will use recycled water in its lake (older parks often used mains water). The runways will
27、 be dismantled and turned into roads and a memorial. In a nod to the local-food movement, the park will include land for farming. Even the car park will be situated in an orange orchard.Most striking of all is the new parks deference to history. Americas great 19th-century landscape architects saw t
28、he land as a blank slate. An entire village was pulled down to build Central Park. By contrast. Denvers park preserves a control tower, and the Great Park will convert an air-dock into a museum and retain the outline of a runway. A river diverted underground by the marines will be restored to its fo
29、rmer course. The preservation lobby is stronger these days. And besides, says Yehudi Gaffen, a partner in the Great Park project, “Southern California has so little history that we should try to keep some of it.“10 Which of the following statement is true of Orange Countys Great Park?（A）It was forme
30、rly a military airport near southern California.（B） Its a little bigger than the Central Park in New York.（C） It shows American attitudes towards nature have changed a lot.（D）It is likely to become the largest landscaped municipal park.11 According to the text, urban parks are back in fashion in tha
31、t_.（A）parks on the site of other disused places are being built（B） city planners have changed their attitudes towards urban parks（C） more huge parks are planned to be created in some cities（D）old parks are beautified in order to attract tourists12 According to Para. 3, Great Park in Orange County wa
32、s designed to_.（A）provide exhausted people with relaxation and happiness（B） offset the impact of the tough and dirty jobs they keep（C） give residents the opportunity of doing exercise（D）attract more tourists and promote the living standards13 The word “deference“ (Line 2, Para. 5) most probably mean
33、s_.（A）respect（B） reference（C） connection（D）restoration13 Is Einsteins General Theory of Relativity Perfect ?Familiar as it may seem, gravity remains a mystery to modem physics. Despite several decades of trying, scientists have failed to fit Einsteins general theory of relativity, which describes ho
34、w gravity holds big objects together, with the quantum mechanics (an extension of statistical mechanics based on quantum theory) he pioneered, which describes the tiny fundamental particles of which matter consists and the forces by which they interact. Recent discoveries have highlighted further pr
35、oblems.Many physicists are therefore entertaining the idea that Einsteins ideas about gravity must be wrong or at least incomplete. Showing exactly how and where the great man erred is the task of the scientists who gathered at the “Rethinking Gravity“ conference at the University of Arizona in Tucs
36、on this week.One way to test general relativity is to examine ever more closely the assumptions on which it rests, such as the equivalence principle: that gravity accelerates all objects at the same rate, regardless of their mass or composition. This principle was famously demonstrated by Galileo Ga
37、lilei some 400 years ago when he simultaneously dropped cannon and musket balls, and balls made of gold, silver and wood, from the Tower of Pisa. Each appeared to hit the ground at the same time.A more precise test requires a taller tower. In effect, researchers are sending balls all the way to the
38、moon and back. Tom Murphy, of the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues fire laser beams from the deserts of New Mexico at reflectors placed on the moon by American and Russian spacecraft in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They use a telescope to capture the small fraction of the l
39、ight that returns. Because the speed of light is known, they can calculate the distance between the Earth and the moon from the time taken for light to pass through it.According to general relativity, because the Earth and the moon orbit the sun, they should “fall“ towards it at the same rate, in th
40、e same way as Galileos balls fell to the ground. By repeatedly measuring the distance between them, scientists can calculate the orbits of the Earth and the moon around the sun relative to each other. If the equivalence principle were violated, the moons orbit around the Earth would not appear strai
41、ght, either towards or away from the sun. So far, Dr. Murphy told the conference, these experiments have merely confirmed the equivalence principle to one part in 10 trillion. Dr. Murphy and his colleagues hope that even more precise measurements could ultimately show general relativity to be only a
42、pproximately correct. This would usher in a hew revolution in physics.14 It is stated in Para. 1 that the theory of relativity_.（A）is more a mystery than a familiarity（B） has failed Albert Einstein for years（C） seems at odds with the quantum mechanics（D）is useful in holding big things together15 Sci
43、entists present at the “Rethinking Gravity“ conference_.（A）unanimously believe that Einsteins theory of gravity is wrong（B） have found further problems about the theory of gravity（C） question the assumptions of general gravity（D）are trying to find out the possible flaws of the gravity theory16 Galil
44、eo Galileis experiment at the Tower of Pisa around 400 years ago_.（A）was one way of testing Einsteins general theory of gravity（B） illustrated the insignificance of mass and composition of an object（C） acted as a well-known example to testify the equivalence principle（D）showed that all objects on Ea
45、rth were influenced by gravity17 Tom Murphy and his colleagues fire laser beams at reflectors on the moon with the aim to_.（A）measure the distance between the moon and the Earth（B） calculate the speed of light（C） check how long it takes light to cross it（D）prove the equivalence principle more accura
46、tely18 What can we infer from the last paragraph?（A）General relativity actually does not exist at all.（B） The calculation of the orbits shows that equivalence principle is violated.（C） More should be done to prove the correctness of general relativity.（D）A new revolution in physics has already arriv
47、ed.18 The Electromagnetic Radiation Affects Our LifeWhether mobile phones can cause cancer remains an open question. But they are also accused by some of causing pain. A growing number of people around the world claim to be “electrosensitive“ , in other words physically responsive to the electromagn
48、etic fields that surround phones and the other electronic devices that clutter the modern world. Indeed, at least one country, Sweden, has recognized such sensitivity as a disability, and will pay for the dwellings of sufferers to be screened from the worlds electronic smog.The problem is that, time
49、 and again, studies of those claiming to be electrosensitive show their ability to determine whether they are being exposed to a real electric field or a sham one is no better than chance. So, unless they are lying about their symptoms, the cause of those symptoms needs to be sought elsewhere.Michael Landgrebe and Ulrich Frick, of the University of Regensburg, in Germany, think that the “elsewhere“ in question is in the brain and, in a paper presented recently to the Royal Society
