1、考研英语（阅读）模拟试卷 467 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 It is a wise father that knows his own child, but today a man can boost his paternal(fatherly)wisdomor at least confirm that he s the kid s dad. All he
2、needs to do is shell out $30 for a paternity testing kit(PTK)at his local drugstoreand another $120 to get the results.More than 60, 000 people have purchased the PTKs since they first become available without prescriptions last years, according to Doug Fogg, chief operating officer of Identigene, w
3、hich makes the over-the-counter kits. More than two dozen companies sell DNA tests Directly to the public, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to more than $2, 500.Among the most popular: paternity and kinship testing, which adopted children can use to find their biological relatives and fam
4、ilies can use to track down kids put up for adoption. DNA testing is also the latest rage among passionate genealogistsand supports businesses that offer to search for a familys geographic roots.Most tests require collecting cells by swabbing saliva in the mouth and sending it to the company for tes
5、ting. All tests require a potential candidate with whom to compare DNA.But some observers are skeptical. “There is a kind of false precision being hawked by people claiming they are doing ancestry testing,“ says Troy Duster, a New York University sociologist. He notes that each individual has many a
6、ncestorsnumbering in the hundreds just a few centuries back. Yet most ancestry testing only considers a single lineage, either the Y chromosome inherited through men in a father s line or mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only from mothers. This DNA can reveal genetic information about only on
7、e or two ancestors, even though, for example, just three generations back people also have six other great-grandparents or, four generations back, 14 other great-great-grandparents.Critics also argue that commercial genetic testing is only as good as the reference collections to which a sample is co
8、mpared. Databases used by some companies don t rely on data collected systematically but rather lump together information from different research projects. This means that a DNA database may have a lot of data from some regions and not others, so a person s test results may differ depending on the c
9、ompany that processes the results. In addition, the computer programs a company uses to estimate relationships may be patented and not subject to peer review or outside evaluation.1 In Paragraphs 1 and 2 , the text shows PTK s（A）easy availability.（B） flexibility in pricing.（C） successful promotion.（
10、D）popularity with households.2 PTK is used to（A）locate one s birth place.（B） promote genetic research.（C） identify parent-child kinship.（D）choose children for adoption.3 Skeptical observers believe that ancestry testing fails to（A）trace distant ancestors.（B） rebuild reliable bloodlines.（C） fully use
11、 genetic information.（D）achieve the claimed accuracy.4 In the last paragraph, a problem commercial genetic testing faces is（A）disorganized data collection.（B） overlapping database building.（C） excessive sample comparison.（D）lack of patent evaluation.5 An appropriate title for the text is most likely
12、 to be（A）Fors and Againsts of DNA Testing（B） DNA Testing and Its Problems（C） DNA Testing Outside the Lab（D）Lies Behind DNA Testing5 Do you remember all those years when scientists argued that smoking would kill us but the doubters insisted that we didnt know for sure? That the evidence was inconclus
13、ive, the science uncertain? That the antismoking lobby was out to destroy our way of life and the government should stay out of the way? Lots of Americans bought that nonsense, and over three decades, some 10 million smokers went to early graves.There are upsetting parallels today, as scientists in
14、one wave after another try to awaken us to the growing threat of global warming. The latest was a panel from the National Academy of Sciences, enlisted by the White House, to tell us that the Earth s atmosphere is definitely warming and that the problem is largely man-made. The clear message is that
15、 we should get moving to protect ourselves. The president of the National Academy, Bruce Alberts, added this key point in the preface to the panel s report: “Science never has all the answers. But science does provide us with the best available guide to the future, and it is critical that our nation
16、 and the world base important policies on the best judgments that science can provide concerning the future consequences of present actions.“Just as on smoking, voices now come from many quarters insisting that the science about global warming is incomplete, that it s OK to keep pouring fumes into t
17、he air until we know for sure. This is a dangerous game: by the time 100 percent of the evidence is in, it may be too late. With the risks obvious and growing, a prudent people would take out an insurance policy now.Fortunately, the White House is starting to pay attention. But its obvious that a ma
18、jority of the presidents advisers still dont take global warming seriously. Instead of a plan of action, they continue to press for more researcha classic case of “paralysis by analysis“.To serve as responsible stewards of the planet, we must press forward on deeper atmospheric and oceanic research.
19、 But research alone is inadequate. If the Administration wont take the legislative initiative, Congress should help to begin fashioning conservation measures. A bill by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, which would offer financial incentives for private industry, is a promising start.
20、 Many see that the country is getting ready to build lots of new power plants to meet our energy needs. If we are ever going to protect the atmosphere, it is crucial that those new plants be environmentally sound.6 An argument made by supporters of smoking was that（A）there was no scientific evidence
21、 of the correlation between smoking and death.（B） the number of early deaths of smokers in the past decades was insignificant.（C） people had the freedom to choose their own way of life.（D）antismoking people were usually talking nonsense.7 According to Bruce Alberts, science can serve as（A）a protecto
22、r.（B） a judge.（C） a critic.（D）a guide.8 What does the author mean by “paralysis by analysis“(Para. 4)?（A）Endless studies kill action.（B） Careful investigation reveals truth.（C） Prudent planning hinders progress.（D）Extensive research helps decision-making.9 According to the author, what should the Ad
23、ministration do about global warming?（A）Offer aid to build cleaner power plants.（B） Raise public awareness of conservation.（C） Press for further scientific research.（D）Take some legislative measures.10 The author associates the issue of global warming with that of smoking because（A）they both suffere
24、d from the government s negligence.（B） a lesson from the latter is applicable to the former.（C） the outcome of the latter aggravates the former.（D）both of them have turned from bad to worse.10 Data has a habit of spreading. It slips past military security and it can also leak from WikiLeaks. It even
25、 slipped past the bans of the Guardian and other media organisations involved in this story when a rogue copy of Der Spiegel accidentally went on sale in Basle, Switzerland. Someone bought it, realised what they had, and began scanning the pages, translating them from German to English and posting u
26、p-dates on Twitter. It would seem digital data respects no authority, be it the Pentagon, WikiLeaks or a newspaper editor.Individually, we have all already experienced the massive changes resulting from digitisation. Events or information that we once considered momentary and private are now accumul
27、ated, permanent, public. Governments hold our personal data in huge databases. It used to cost money to disclose and distribute information. In the digital age it costs money not to.But when data breaches happen to the public, politicians dont care much. Our privacy is expendable. It is no surprise
28、that the reaction to these leaks is different. What has changed the dynamic of power in a revolutionary way isnt just the scale of the databases being kept, but that individuals can upload a copy and present it to the world.To some this marks a crisis, to others an opportunity. Technology is breakin
29、g down traditional social barriers of status, class, power, wealth and geographyreplacing them with an ethos of collaboration and transparency.Leaks are not the problem; they are the symptom. They reveal a disconnect between what people want and need to know and what they actually do know. The great
30、er the secrecy, the more likely a leak. The way to move beyond leaks is to ensure a strong managing system for the public to access important information.We are at a key moment where the visionaries in the leading position of a global digital age are clashing with those who are desperate to control
31、what we know. WikiLeaks is the guerrilla front in a global movement for greater transparency and participation. It used to be that a leader controlled citizens by controlling information. Now it s harder than ever for the powerful to control what people read, see and hear. Technology gives people th
32、e ability to band together and challenge authority. The powerful have long spied on citizens as a means of control, now citizens are turning their collected eyes back upon the powerful.This is a revolution, and all revolutions create fear and uncertainty. Will we move to a New Information Enlightenm
33、ent or will the strong resistance from those who seek to maintain control no matter the cost lead us to a new totalitarianism? What happens in the next five years will define the future of democracy for the next century, so it would be well if our leaders responded to the current challenge with an e
34、ye on the future.11 The story about leak from WikiLeaks suggests that digital data is（A）getting used to leaking out.（B） immune to authority.（C） difficult to accumulate.（D）being disclosed for free.12 Politicians care much about the leak from WikiLeaks mainly because（A）it posed a threat to digitisatio
35、n.（B） it involved their own privacy.（C） it triggered the change of power.（D）it brought opportunities to them.13 The author s method to overcome leaks indicates that（A）a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.（B） it is better to guide than to block.（C） forbidden fruit is the sweetest.（D）it is bet
36、ter to be late than never.14 In a global digital age, citizens are clashing with politicians on（A）the control over information.（B） the mastery of technology.（C） the participation of political activities.（D）the supervision of media content.15 According to the last paragraph, “enlightenment“ to “total
37、itarianism“ can be described as（A）trusting informationto“fearing information“.（B） publicizing informationto“centralizing information“.（C） embracing the challenge of digitalisationto“being frightened by digitalisation“.（D）being cost-oriented during digitalisationto“being result-oriented during digita
38、lisation“.15 Lonely people, it seems, are at greater risk than the gregarious of developing illnesses associated with chronic inflammation, such as heart disease and certain cancers. A paper published last year in the Public Library of Science, Medicine, shows the effect on mortality of loneliness i
39、s comparable with that of smoking and drinking after examining the results of 148 previous studies and controlled for factors such as age and pre-existing illness.Steven Cole of the University of California, Los Angeles, thinks he may know why this is so. He told the American Association for the Adv
40、ancement of Science meeting in Washington, D.C., about his work studying the expression of genes in lonely people. Dr. Cole harvested samples of white blood cells from both lonely and gregarious people. He then analysed the activity of their genes, as measured by the production of a substance called
41、 messenger RNA. This molecule carries instructions from the genes telling a cell which proteins to make. The level of messenger RNA from most genes was the same in both types of people. There were several dozen genes, however, that were less active in the lonely, and several dozen others that were m
42、ore active. Moreover, both the less active and the more active gene types came from a small number of functional groups.Broadly speaking, the genes less active in the lonely were those involved in staving off viral infections. Those that were more active were involved in protecting against bacteria.
43、 Dr. Cole suspects this could help explain not only why the lonely are iller, but how, in evolutionary terms, this odd state of affairs has come about.The crucial bit of the puzzle is that viruses have to be caught from another infected individual and they are usually species-specific. Bacteria, in
44、contrast, often just lurk in the environment, and may thrive on many hosts. The gregarious are therefore at greater risk than the lonely of catching viruses, and Dr. Cole thus suggests that past evolution has created a mechanismwhich causes white cells to respond appropriately. Conversely, the lonel
45、y are better off ramping up their protection against bacterial infection, which is a bigger relative risk to them.What Dr. Cole seems to have revealed, then, is a mechanism by which social environment reaches inside a person s body and tweaks its genome so that it responds appropriately. It is not t
46、hat the lonely and the gregarious are genetically different from each other. Rather, their genes are regulated differently, according to how sociable an individual is. Dr. Cole thinks this regulation is part of a wider mechanism that tunes individuals to the circumstances they find themselves in.16
47、What risk may lonely people run according to the first paragraph?（A）They can have the same risk as the gregarious.（B） They may have symbols of early aging.（C） They may fall victim to chronic illnesses.（D）They may undergo more severe illnesses.17 Dr. Cole made an analysis of the activity of the genes
48、 by（A）measuring the level of messenger RNA.（B） calculating the number of more active gene types.（C） instructing the production of certain proteins.（D）comparing less active genes with more active ones.18 Broadly speaking, the genes more active in the lonely（A）helped to avoid infections resulting from
49、 viruses.（B） participated in guarding against bacteria.（C） came from a few different functional groups.（D）existed only as a small group.19 What can we know about viruses and bacteria from the fourth paragraph?（A）Viruses often remain hidden in the environment.（B） Bacteria are passed to other people by the infected individual.（C） The lonely people can catch viruses more easily.（D）Viruses pose a greater threat to the gregarious than bacteria.20 What message does Dr. Cole seem to convey by the mechanism?（A）The lonely people differ in genes from the gregarious pe
