上海交通大学2013年考博英语阅读及答案

第一篇
There are desert plants which survive the dry season in the form of inactive seeds. There are also desert insects which survive as inactive larvae (幼虫). In addition, difficult as it is to believe, there are desert fish which can survive through years of drought (干旱) in the form of inactive eggs. These are the shrimps (小虾) that live in the Mojave Desert, an intensely dry region in the south-west of the United States where shade temperatures of over 50C are often recorded.
The eggs of the Mojave shrimps are the size and have the appearance of grains of sand. When sufficient spring rain falls to form a lake, once every two to five years, these eggs hatch (孵化). Then the water is soon filled with millions of tiny shrimps about a millimetre long which feed on tiny plant and animal organisms which also grow in the temporary desert lake. Within a week, the shrimps grow from their original 1 millimetre to a length of about 1.5 centimetres.
Throughout the time that the shrimps are rapidly maturing, the water in the lake equally rapidly evaporates. Therefore, for the shrimps it is a race against time. By the twelfth day, however, when they are about 3 centimetre long, hundreds of tiny eggs form on the underbodies of the females. Usually by this time, all that remains of the lake is a large, muddy patch of wet soil. On the thirteenth day and the next, during the final hours of their brief lives, the shrimps lay their eggs in the mud. Then, having ensured that their species will survive, the shrimps die as the last of the water evaporates.
If sufficient rain falls the next year to form another lake, the eggs hatch, and once again the shrimps pass rapidly through their cycle of growth, adulthood, egg-laying, and death. Some years there is insufficient rain to form a lake: in this case, the eggs will remain dormant for another years, or even longer if necessary. Very, very occasionally, perhaps twice in a hundred years, sufficient rain falls to form a deep lake that lasts a month or more. In this case, the species passes through two cycles of growth, egg-laying, and death. Thus, on such occasions, the species multiplies considerably, which further ensures its survival.
1.Which of the following is the MOST distinctive feature of Mojave shrimps?
A) Their lives are brief.
B) They feed on plant and animal organisms.
C) Their eggs can survive years of dought.
D) They lay their eggs in the mud.
2.By saying "for the shrimps it is a race against time "(Para.3,Line 2)the author means_____.
A) they have to swim fast to avoid danger in the rapidly evaporating lake
B) they have to swim fast to catch the animal organisms on which they survive
C) they have to multiply as many as possible within thirteen days
D) they have to complete their life cycle within a short span of time permitted by the environment
3.The passage mainly deals with_____.
A) the life span of the Mojave shrimps
B) the survival of desert shrimps
C) the importance of water to life
D) life in the Mojave Desert
4.The word "dormant"(Para.4,Line 3)most probably means______.
A) inactive
B) strong
C) alert
D) soft
5.It may be inferred from the passage that______.
A) appearance and size are most important for life to survive in the desert
B) a species must be able to multiply quickly in order to survive
C) for some species one life cycle in a year is enough to survive the desert drought
D) some species develop a unique life pattern to survive in extremely harsh conditions

答案： 1.C 2.D 3.B 4.A 5.D

camera

2013-03-17 14:19

The Welsh language has always been the ultimate marker of Welsh identity, but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go the way of Manx. once widely spoken on the isle of Man but now extinct. Government financing and central planning, however, have helped reverse the decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in both Welsh and English, and schoolchildren are required to learn both languages. Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe’s regional languages, spoken by more than a half-million of the country’s three million people.
The revival of the language, particularly among young people, is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this small, proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the opening of the National Assembly, the first parliament to be convened here since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and wealth, England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of legislative powers from Westminster, implemented by Tony Blair, was designed to give the other members of the club- Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales-a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the very idea of the union.
The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution. Whereas the Scots voted overwhelmingly for a parliament, the vote for a Welsh assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than 25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide how money from Westminster or the European Union is spent. It cannot, unlike its counterpart in Edinburgh, enact laws. But now that it is here, the Welsh are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more powers. Its importance as figurehead will grow with the opening in 2003, of a new debating chamber, one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff from a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style waterfront city. Meanwhile a grant of nearly two million dollars from the European Union will tackle poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe- only Spain, Portugal, and Greece have a lower standard of living.
Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories about great Welsh men and women, boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, the movie star, and Bryn Terfel, the opera singer. Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And Wales now boasts a national airline. Awyr Cymru. Cymru, which means “land of compatriots,” is the Welsh name for Wales. The red dragon, the nation’s symbol since the time of King Arthur, is everywhere- on T-shirts, rugby jerseys and even cell phone covers.
“Until very recent times most Welsh people had this feeling of being second-class citizens,” said Dyfan Jones, an 18-year-old student. It was a warm summer night, and I was sitting on the grass with a group of young people in Llanelli, an industrial town in the south, outside the rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod, Wales’s annual cultural festival. The disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new Welsh bands.
“There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of confidence,” Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his Welshness as in his membership in the English-speaking, global youth culture and the new federal Europe, Dyfan, like the rest of his generation, is growing up with a sense of possibility unimaginable ten years ago. “We used to think. We can’t do anything, we’re only Welsh. Now I think that’s changing.”
11. According to the passage, devolution was mainly meant to

A. maintain the present status among the nations.
B. reduce legislative powers of England.
C. create a better state of equality among the nations. √
D. grant more say to all the nations in the union.
2. The word “centrifugal” in the second paragraph means
A. separatist.√
B. conventional.
C. feudal.
D. political
3. Wales is different from Scotland in all the following aspects EXCEPT

A. people’s desire for devolution.
B. locals’ turnout for the voting.
C. powers of the legislative body.
D. status of the national language.√
4. Which of the following is NOT cited as an example of the resurgence of Welsh national identity
A. Welsh has witnessed a revival as a national language.
B. Poverty-relief funds have come from the European Union.√
C. A Welsh national airline is currently in operation.
D. The national symbol has become a familiar sight.
5. According to Dyfan Jones what has changed is
A. people’s mentality. √
B. pop culture.
C. town’s appearance.
D. possibilities for the people.

第三篇

Barbed wire, first patented in the United States in 1867, played an important part in the development of American farming, as it enabled the settlers to make effective fencing to enclose their land and keep cattle away from their crops. This had a considerable effect on cattle ranching, since the herds no longer had unrestricted use of the plans for grazing, and the fencing led to conflict between the farmers and the cattle ranchers.
Before barbed wire camesintosgeneral use, fencing was often made from serrated wire, which was unsatisfactory because it broke easily when under strain, and could snap in cold weather due to contraction. The first practical machine for producing barbed wire was invented in 1874 by an Illinois farmer, and between then and the end of the century about 400 types of barbed wire were devised, of which only about a dozen were ever put to practical use.
Modern barbed wire is made from mild steel high-tensile steel, or aluminum. Mild steel and aluminum barbed wire have two strands twisted together to form a cable which is stronger than single-strand wire and less affected by temperature changes. Single-strand wire, round or oval, is made from high-tensile steel with the barbs crimped or welded on. The steel wires used are galvanized - coated with zinc to make them rustproof. The two wires that make up the line wire or cable are fed separatelysintosa machine at one end. They leave it at the other end twisted-together and barbed. The wire to make the barbs is fedsintosthe machine from the sides and cut to length by knives that cut diagonally through the wire to produce a sharp point. This process continues automatically, and the finished barbed wire is wound onto reels, usually made of wire in length of 400 meters or in weights of up to 50 kilograms.
A variation of barbed wire is also used for military purposes. It is formedsintoslong conies or entanglements called concertina wire.

1.What is the main topic of the passage?
(A) Cattle ranching in the United States.
(B) A type of fencing
(C) Industrial uses of wire
(D) A controversy over land use

2.What is the benefit of using two-stranded barbed wire?

(A) Improved rust-resistance

(B) Increased strength

(C) More rapid attachment of barbs

(D) Easier installation.

3.According to the author, the steel wires used to make barbed wire are specially processed to

(A) protect them against rust

(B) make them more flexible

(C) prevent contraction in cold weather

(D) straighten them.

4.The word“fed" in line 20 is closest in meaning to

(A) put

(B) eaten

(C) bitten

(D) nourished

5.What is the author's purpose in the third paragraph?

(A) To explain the importance of the wire.

(B) To outline the difficulty of making the wire

(C) To describe how the wire is made

(D) To suggest several different uses of the wire.

第4篇 Without regular supplies of some hormones our capacity to behave would be seriously impaired; without others we would soon die. Tiny amounts of some hormones can modify moods and actions, our inclination to eat or drink, our aggressiveness or submissiveness, and our reproductive and parental behavior. And hormones do more than influence adult behavior; early in life they help to determine the development of bodily form and may even determine an individual’s behavioral capacities. Later in life the changing outputs of some endocrine glands and the body’s changing sensitivity to some hormones are essential aspects of the phenomena of aging.

　　Communication within the body and the consequent integration of behavior were considered the exclusive province of the nervous system up to the beginning of the present century. The emergence of endocrinology as a separate discipline can probably be traced to the experiments of Bayliss and Starling on the hormone secretion. This substance is secreted from cells in the intestinal walls when food enters the stomach; it travels through the bloodstream and stimulates the pancreas to liberate pancreatic juice, which aids in digestion. By showing that special cells secret chemical agents that are conveyed by the bloodstream and regulate distant target organs or tissues. Bayliss and starling demonstrated that chemical integration could occur without participation of the nervous system.

　　The term “hormone” was first used with reference to secretion. Starling derived the term from the Greek hormone, meaning “to excite or set in motion. The term “endocrine” was introduced shortly thereafter “Endocrine” is used to refer to glands that secret products into the bloodstream. The term “endocrine” contrasts with “exocrine”, which is applied to glands that secret their products though ducts to the site of action. Examples of exocrine glands are the tear glands, the sweat glands, and the pancreas, which secrets pancreatic juice through a duct into the intestine. Exocrine glands are also called duct glands, while endocrine glands are called ductless.

　　1. What is the author’s main purpose in the passage?

　　A. To explain the specific functions of various hormones.

　　B. To provide general information about hormones.

　　C. To explain how the term “hormone” evolved.

　　D. To report on experiments in endocrinology.

　　2. The passage supports which of the following conclusions?

　　A. The human body requires large amounts of most hormones.

　　B. Synthetic hormones can replace a person’s natural supply of hormones if necessary.

　　C. The quantity of hormones produced and their effects on the body are related to a person’s age.

　　D. The short child of tall parents very likely had a hormone deficiency early in life.

　　3. It can be inferred from the passage that before the Bayliss and Starling experiments, most people believed that chemical integration occurred only___.

　　A. during sleep.

　　B. in the endocrine glands.

　　C. under control of the nervous system.

　　D. during strenuous exercise.

　　4. The word “liberate” could best be replaced by which of the following?

　　A. Emancipate

　　B. Discharge

　　C. Surrender

　　D. Save

　　5. According to the passage another term for exocrine glands is___.

　　A. duct glands

　　B. endocrine glands

　　C. ductless glands

　　D. intestinal glands.

inana

2013-03-17 22:00

2013年上海交通大学考博英语（阅读理解）

一

There are desert plants which survive the dry season in the form of inactive seeds. There are also desert insects which survive as inactive larvae (幼虫). In addition, difficult as it is to believe, there are desert fish which can survive through years of drought (干旱) in the form of inactive eggs. These are the shrimps (小虾) that live in the Mojave Desert, an intensely dry region in the south-west of the United States where shade temperatures of over 50C are often recorded.
The eggs of the Mojave shrimps are the size and have the appearance of grains of sand. When sufficient spring rain falls to form a lake, once every two to five years, these eggs hatch (孵化). Then the water is soon filled with millions of tiny shrimps about a millimeter long which feed on tiny plant and animal organisms which also grow in the temporary desert lake. Within a week, the shrimps grow from their original 1 millimeter to a length of about 1.5 centimeters.
Throughout the time that the shrimps are rapidly maturing, the water in the lake equally rapidly evaporates. Therefore, for the shrimps it is a race against time. By the twelfth day, however, when they are about 3 centimeters long, hundreds of tiny eggs form on the underbodies of the females. Usually by this time, all that remains of the lake is a large, muddy patch of wet soil. On the thirteenth day and the next, during the final hours of their brief lives, the shrimps lay their eggs in the mud. Then, having ensured that their species will survive, the shrimps die as the last of the water evaporates.
If sufficient rain falls the next year to form another lake, the eggs hatch, and once again the shrimps pass rapidly through their cycle of growth, adulthood, egg-laying, and death. Some years there is insufficient rain to form a lake: in this case, the eggs will remain dormant for another years, or even longer if necessary. Very, very occasionally, perhaps twice in a hundred years, sufficient rain falls to form a deep lake that lasts a month or more. In this case, the species passes through two cycles of growth, egg-laying, and death. Thus, on such occasions, the species multiplies considerably, which further ensures its survival.
1. Which of the following is the MOST distinctive feature of Mojave shrimps?
A) Their lives are brief.
B) They feed on plant and animal organisms.
C) Their eggs can survive years of dought.
D) They lay their eggs in the mud.
2. By saying "for the shrimps it is a race against time "(Para.3,Line 2)the author means_____.
A) they have to swim fast to avoid danger in the rapidly evaporating lake
B) they have to swim fast to catch the animal organisms on which they survive
C) they have to multiply as many as possible within thirteen days
D) they have to complete their life cycle within a short span of time permitted by the environment
3.The passage mainly deals with_____.
A) the life span of the Mojave shrimps
B) the survival of desert shrimps
C) the importance of water to life
D) life in the Mojave Desert
4.The word "dormant"(Para.4,Line 3)most probably means______.
A) inactive
B) strong
C) alert
D) soft
5.It may be inferred from the passage that______.
A) appearance and size are most important for life to survive in the desert
B) a species must be able to multiply quickly in order to survive
C) for some species one life cycle in a year is enough to survive the desert drought
D) some species develop a unique life pattern to survive in extremely harsh conditions

二

The Welsh language has always been the ultimate marker of Welsh identity, but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go the way of Manx. once widely spoken on the isle of Man but now extinct. Government financing and central planning, however, have helped reverse the decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in both Welsh and English, and schoolchildren are required to learn both languages. Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe’s regional languages, spoken by more than a half-million of the country’s three million people.
The revival of the language, particularly among young people, is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this small, proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the opening of the National Assembly, the first parliament to be convened here since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and wealth, England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of legislative powers from Westminster, implemented by Tony Blair, was designed to give the other members of the club- Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales-a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the very idea of the union.
The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution. Whereas the Scots voted overwhelmingly for a parliament, the vote for a Welsh assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than 25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide how money from Westminster or the European Union is spent. It cannot, unlike its counterpart in Edinburgh, enact laws. But now that it is here, the Welsh are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more powers. Its importance as figurehead will grow with the opening in 2003, of a new debating chamber, one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff from a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style waterfront city. Meanwhile a grant of nearly two million dollars from the European Union will tackle poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe- only Spain, Portugal, and Greece have a lower standard of living.
Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories about great Welsh men and women, boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, the movie star, and Bryn Terfel, the opera singer. Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And Wales now boasts a national airline. Awyr Cymru. Cymru, which means “land of compatriots,” is the Welsh name for Wales. The red dragon, the nation’s symbol since the time of King Arthur, is everywhere- on T-shirts, rugby jerseys and even cell phone covers.
“Until very recent times most Welsh people had this feeling of being second-class citizens,” said Dyfan Jones, an 18-year-old student. It was a warm summer night, and I was sitting on the grass with a group of young people in Llanelli, an industrial town in the south, outside the rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod, Wales’s annual cultural festival. The disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new Welsh bands.
“There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of confidence,” Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his Welshness as in his membership in the English-speaking, global youth culture and the new federal Europe, Dyfan, like the rest of his generation, is growing up with a sense of possibility unimaginable ten years ago. “We used to think. We can’t do anything, we’re only Welsh. Now I think that’s changing.”
1. According to the passage, devolution was mainly meant to
A. maintain the present status among the nations.
B. reduce legislative powers of England.
C. create a better state of equality among the nations.
D. grant more say to all the nations in the union.
2. The word “centrifugal” in the second paragraph means
A. separatist.
B. conventional.
C. feudal.
D. political
3. Wales is different from Scotland in all the following aspects EXCEPT
A. people’s desire for devolution.
B. locals’ turnout for the voting.
C. powers of the legislative body.
D. status of the national language.
4. Which of the following is NOT cited as an example of the resurgence of Welsh national identity
A. Welsh has witnessed a revival as a national language.
B. Poverty-relief funds have come from the European Union.√
C. A Welsh national airline is currently in operation.
D. The national symbol has become a familiar sight.
5. According to Dyfan Jones what has changed is
A. people’s mentality.

B. pop culture.
C. town’s appearance.
D. possibilities for the people.

三
Barbed wire, first patented in the United States in 1867, played an important part in the development of American farming, as it enabled the settlers to make effective fencing to enclose their land and keep cattle away from their crops. This had a considerable effect on cattle ranching, since the herds no longer had unrestricted use of the plans for grazing, and the fencing led to conflict between the farmers and the cattle ranchers.
Before barbed wire camesintosgeneral use, fencing was often made from serrated wire, which was unsatisfactory because it broke easily when under strain, and could snap in cold weather due to contraction. The first practical machine for producing barbed wire was invented in 1874 by an Illinois farmer, and between then and the end of the century about 400 types of barbed wire were devised, of which only about a dozen were ever put to practical use.
Modern barbed wire is made from mild steel high-tensile steel, or aluminum. Mild steel and aluminum barbed wire have two strands twisted together to form a cable which is stronger than single-strand wire and less affected by temperature changes. Single-strand wire, round or oval, is made from high-tensile steel with the barbs crimped or welded on. The steel wires used are galvanized - coated with zinc to make them rustproof. The two wires that make up the line wire or cable are fed separatelysintosa machine at one end. They leave it at the other end twisted-together and barbed. The wire to make the barbs is fedsintosthe machine from the sides and cut to length by knives that cut diagonally through the wire to produce a sharp point. This process continues automatically, and the finished barbed wire is wound onto reels, usually made of wire in length of 400 meters or in weights of up to 50 kilograms.
A variation of barbed wire is also used for military purposes. It is formedsintoslong conies or entanglements called concertina wire.

1.What is the main topic of the passage?
(A) Cattle ranching in the United States.
(B) A type of fencing
(C) Industrial uses of wire
(D) A controversy over land use

2.What is the benefit of using two-stranded barbed wire?
(A) Improved rust-resistance
(B) Increased strength
(C) More rapid attachment of barbs
(D) Easier installation.

3.According to the author, the steel wires used to make barbed wire are specially processed to
(A) protect them against rust
(B) make them more flexible
(C) prevent contraction in cold weather
(D) straighten them.

4.The word“fed" in line 20 is closest in meaning to
(A) put
(B) eaten
(C) bitten
(D) nourished

5.What is the author's purpose in the third paragraph?
(A) To explain the importance of the wire.
(B) To outline the difficulty of making the wire
(C) To describe how the wire is made
(D) To suggest several different uses of the wire.

四

Without regular supplies of some hormones our capacity to behave would be seriously impaired; without others we would soon die. Tiny amounts of some hormones can modify moods and actions, our inclination to eat or drink, our aggressiveness or submissiveness, and our reproductive and parental behavior. And hormones do more than influence adult behavior; early in life they help to determine the development of bodily form and may even determine an individual’s behavioral capacities. Later in life the changing outputs of some endocrine glands and the body’s changing sensitivity to some hormones are essential aspects of the phenomena of aging.
　Communication within the body and the consequent integration of behavior were considered the exclusive province of the nervous system up to the beginning of the present century. The emergence of endocrinology as a separate discipline can probably be traced to the experiments of Bayliss and Starling on the hormone secretion. This substance is secreted from cells in the intestinal walls when food enters the stomach; it travels through the bloodstream and stimulates the pancreas to liberate pancreatic juice, which aids in digestion. By showing that special cells secret chemical agents that are conveyed by the bloodstream and regulate distant target organs or tissues. Bayliss and starling demonstrated that chemical integration could occur without participation of the nervous system.
　The term “hormone” was first used with reference to secretion. Starling derived the term from the Greek hormone, meaning “to excite or set in motion. The term “endocrine” was introduced shortly thereafter “Endocrine” is used to refer to glands that secret products into the bloodstream. The term “endocrine” contrasts with “exocrine”, which is applied to glands that secret their products though ducts to the site of action. Examples of exocrine glands are the tear glands, the sweat glands, and the pancreas, which secrets pancreatic juice through a duct into the intestine. Exocrine glands are also called duct glands, while endocrine glands are called ductless.

1. What is the author’s main purpose in the passage?
A. To explain the specific functions of various hormones.
B. To provide general information about hormones.
C. To explain how the term “hormone” evolved.
D. To report on experiments in endocrinology.
2. The passage supports which of the following conclusions?
A. The human body requires large amounts of most hormones.
B. Synthetic hormones can replace a person’s natural supply of hormones if necessary.
C. The quantity of hormones produced and their effects on the body are related to a person’s age.
D. The short child of tall parents very likely had a hormone deficiency early in life.
3. It can be inferred from the passage that before the Bayliss and Starling experiments, most people believed that chemical integration occurred only___.
A. during sleep.
B. in the endocrine glands.
C. under control of the nervous system.
D. during strenuous exercise.
4. The word “liberate” could best be replaced by which of the following?
A. Emancipate
B. Discharge
C. Surrender
D. Save
5. According to the passage another term for exocrine glands is___.
A. duct glands
B. endocrine glands
C. ductless glands
D. intestinal glands.

五

Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metal-smiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes fromthe Romany word for "man". But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies.

In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behavior in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery it wasn’t until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families.

But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent’s largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own -unlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. "Romanestan" said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, "is where my two feet stand."

1. Gypsies are united only when they
A are engaged in traditional crafts. B. call themselves Roma.

C. live under a clan system. D. face external threats.

2. In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all the following EXCEPT
A. the Egyptians. B the state. C. the church. D. the Nazis.

3. According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of
A. language. B. culture. C. identity. D. custom.

4.
5.

六

It is a curious paradox that we think of the physical sciences as "hard", the social sciences as "soft," and the biological sciences as somewhere in between. This is interpreted to mean that our knowledge of physical system is more certain than our knowledge of biological systems, and these in turn are more certain than our knowledge of social systems. In terms of our capacity of sample the relevant universes, however, and the probability that our images of these universes are at least approximately correct, one suspects that a reverse order is more reasonable. We are able to sample earth's social systems with some degree of confidence that we have a reasonable sample of the total universe being investigated. Our knowledge of social systems, therefore, while it is in many ways extremely inaccurate, is not likely to be seriously overturned by new discoveries. Even the folk knowledge in social systems on which ordinary life is based in earning, spending, organizing, marrying, taking part in political activities, fighting and so on, is not very dissimilar from the more sophisticated images of the social system derived form the social sciences, even though it is built upon the very imperfect samples of personal experience.
In contrast, our image of the astronomical universe, or even if earth's geological history, ca easily be subject to revolutionary changes as new data come in and new theories are worked out. If we define the "security" of our image of various parts of the total system as the probability of their suffering significant changes, then we would reverse the order for hardness and as the most secure, the physical sciences as the least secure, and again the biological sciences as somewhere in between. Our image of the astronomical universe is the least secure of all simply because we observe such a fantastically small sample of it and its record-keeping is trivial records of biological systems. Records of the astronomical universe, despite the fact that we learnt things as they were long age, are limited in the extreme.

Even in regard to such a close neighbor as the moon, which we have actually visited, theories about its origin and history are extremely different, contradictory, and hard to choose among. Our knowledge of physical evolution is incomplete and insecure.

1.The word "paradox" (Line 1, Para. 1) means "_____".
A.implication

B.contradiction
C.interpretation

D.confusion

2.Accroding to the author, we should reverse our classification of the physical sciences as "hard" and the social sciences as "soft" because _______.
A.a reverse ordering will help promote the development of the physical sciences
B.our knowledge of physical systems is more reliable than that of social systems
C.our understanding of the social systems is approximately correct
D.we are better able to investigate social phenomena than physical phenomena

3.The author believes that our knowledge of social systems is more secure than that of physical systems because______.

A.it is not based on personal experience来源：www.******.com
B.new discoveries are less likely to occur in social sciences
C.it is based on a fairly representative quantity of data
D.the records of social systems are more reliable

4.The chances of the physical sciences being subject to great changes are the biggest because _____.

A.contradictory theories keep emerging all the time
B.new information is constantly coming in
C.the direction of their development is difficult to predict
D.our knowledge of the physical world is inaccurate

5.We know less about the astronomical universe than we don about any social system because ______.
A.theories of its origin and history are varied
B.our knowledge of it is highly insecure
C.only a very small sample of it has been observed
D.few scientists are involved in the study of astronomy

woaimm129	2013-03-18 00:25
你好，感谢细心的收集真题，辛苦了！ HeagT(rN' 能不能把最后三篇的答案公布下，谢谢！

woaimm129	2013-03-18 15:06
楼主辛苦了，能不能把答案公布下，谢谢！

阿宝哈	2013-07-02 10:13
辛苦了，有后三篇的答案吗？

vivig	2014-01-07 22:53

hcccool	2017-11-19 18:43
楼主辛苦了，期待答案

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