西南大学2012考博英语真题

西南大学博士入学考试英语试题（2012）
Part I Vocabulary (10 points)
Directions: In this part there are 20 incomplete sentences. For each sentence there
are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that best completes the
following sentences. Then blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet
1. A broadcasting station will sometimes to its listeners a programme which
it has received from another station.
.
A. rely B. relay C. relate D. reside
2. The United Nations Conference on Drug Abuse, which took place earlier this year
in Vienna, was a very meeting.
A. productive B. overwhelming C. compulsory D. protective
3. A person who studies ___ learns how to express numbers approximately and
how to calculate ratios and averages.
A. static B. statistic C. statistics D. status
4. If you ______ someone, you form a fixed general idea or image of them so that
you assume that they will behave in a particular way.
A. assimilate B. simulate C. stereotype D. subordinate
5. Reading ______ the mind only with materials of knowledge, it is thinking that
makes what we read ours.
A. rectifies B. prolongs C. furnishes D. minimizes
6. Satellite communications are so up-to-date that even when _____ in the middle
of the Pacific, businessman can contact their offices as if they were next door.
A. gliding B. cruising C. piloting D. patrolling
7. Now a paper in Science argues that organic chemicals in the rock come mostly
from _______ on earth rather than bacteria on Mars.
A. configuration B. constitution C. condemnation D. contamination
8. Scientists, who are now aware of how nautiluses regulate their buoyancy, have
been able to dispel ideas about these creatures.
A. erroneous B. misdemeanors C. misgivings D. misdirection
9. History has demonstrated that countries with different social systems and
ideologies can join hands in meeting the common challenges to human _____ and
development.
A. evolution B. survival C. rivalry D. dignity
10. To avoid an oil shortage, we should advocate that more machines must _____ of
life in a short time, and this made others astonished.
（原题有误）
A. accelerate B. operate C. generate D. utilize
11. Japanese leaders aboard the U. S. battleship Missouri and signed the ____
surrender, which ended World War Two in 1945.
A. conditional B. infinite C. everlasting D. unconditional
12. It is a _____ that in such a rich country there should be so many poor people who
could hardly keep their body and soul together.
A. hypothesis B. paradox C. conflict D. dispute
13. The _____ effects of many illnesses made him a weak man and he still didn’t
want to do sports every day.
A. cumulative B. formidable C. eternal D. prospective
14. The robbers broke into the bank, _____ the clerics with revolvers and forced them to give money just as they were about to knock off.
A. shot B. frightened C. amused D. menaced
15. This pair of boots cost much less than yours for I bought them when the
department store made a _____ of the stored goods.
A. clearance B. reduction C. fortune D. deal
16. Technology has _____ the sharing information and the storage and delivery of
information, thus making more information available to more people.
A. formulated B. facilitated C. furnished D. functioned
17. Language, culture and personality may be considered _____ of each other I thought,
but they are inseparable in fact.
A. indistinctly B. separately C. irrelevantly D. independently
18. More than 85 percent of French Canada’s population speaks French as a mother
tongue and _____ to the Roman Catholic faith.
A. caters B. adheres C. ascribes D. subscribes
19. There are not many teachers who are strong _____ of traditional methods in
English teaching.
A. sponsors B. contributors C. advocates D. performers
20. The ______ of the scientific attitude is that the human mind can succeed in
understanding the universe.
A. essence B. content C. texture D. threshold
Part II Reading Comprehension (30 points)
Directions:
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
There are 6 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by
some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices
marked A, B, C and D. you should decide on the best choice and mark your answer on
the Answer Sheet.
Spread across the United States are about 500,000 doctors, cheeked by jowl, in the
big cities and thin on the ground in isolated small towns. In June 1986, the secretary
of health and human services, Dr. Otis Bowen, passed on a view of his experts: 5%-15%
of America’s 500,000 doctors should be candidates for disciplinary action, many of
them because of drug taking or alcoholism. Others give their patients poor care
because they are senile, incompetent, guilty of misconduct or out of touch with
developments in medicine.
The granting, or withdrawal, of licenses to practice is in the hands of state medical
boards, but they are overwhelmed with complaints and lack the money to handle even
a fraction of them. Recently, however, things have been changing. In 1985, 406
doctors lost their licenses (compared with 255 in 1984), nearly 500 were placed on
probation and nearly 1,000 received reprimands or had their right to practice curtailed.
The federal inspector general demanded, and won the right far the states and the
federal government, which provide health care for the elderly and for the poor under
the Medicare and Medicaid programme, to refuse payment to the doctors considered
unsatisfactory.
Yet putting these powers into practice is proving to be far from easy. Of the 35
doctors so far denied reimbursement from Medicare, almost all work in lightly
populated rural areas. On March 27th, their indignation and that of their patients were
a sympathetic hearing by the Senate Finance Committee. Rural doctors may not be as
up to date as those in the big towns, but they are often the only source of medical help
for miles around and their patients are loyal to them. Members of the review boards,
which are paid by the government, insist, however, that elderly and poor people
should not be forced to receive (and the state to pay for) inferior care. An innovation is on the horizon in Texas, the most under-doctored state in the
country (with only one doctor for every 1,100 residents). Lubbock University is
setting up a computer network that will enable country doctors to obtain medical
expertise and access to medical records in a hurry. The aim is to reduce the isolation
of the country doctors and thus, in the long run, to attract more young doctors to rural
areas.
21. The main topic of the passage is .
A. the present situation of American doctors
B. the legislation on rural medical services
C. the problems of country doctors and possible solutions
D. some factors of disqualification of country doctors
22. According to the text, disciplinary action should be taken against those who
give patients poor care because of the following reasons EXCEPT .
A. taking drugs and drinking alcohol
B. feeling remorse of their bad behavior
C. being professional unskillful
D. being sick and conservative
23. Which of the following is true about the unfit doctors?
A. 1,500 doctors were deprived of the right to practice medicine.
B. The federal government has got the right to deny reimbursement to those
unqualified doctors.
C. Almost all the doctors who fail to get payment from Medicare work in
densely populated urban areas.
D. Patients in the rural areas complain about the poor treatment their doctors
give them.
24. It can be inferred from the text that in the near future .
A. there will be more qualified doctors in rural areas
B. there will be an even more serious imbalance of the number of rural and
urban doctors
C. country doctors are competitive in breaking medical records
D. more patients will go to rural areas for medical treatment
25. The paragraph following the text would probably discuss .
A. problems of urban doctors
B. other solutions to improve the present situation
C. research in medical science
D. reduction of staff in rural hospitals
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
Bacteria are extremely small living things. While we measure our own sizes in
inches or centimeters, bacterial size is measured in microns. One micron is a
thousandth of a millimeter: a pinhead is about a millimeter across. Rod-shaped
bacteria are usually from two to four microns long, while rounded ones are generally
one micron in diameter. Thus, if you enlarged a rounded bacterium a thousand times,
it would be just about the size of a pinhead. An adult human magnified by the same
amount would be over a mile (1.6 kilometers) tall.
Even with an ordinal microscopy, you must look closely to see bacteria. Using a
magnification of 100 times, one finds that bacteria are barely visible as tiny rods or
dots. One cannot make out anything of their structure. Using special stains, one can
see that some bacteria have attached to them wavy-looking “hairs” called flagella.
Others have only one flagellum. The flagella rotate, pushing the bacteria through the
water. Many bacteria lack flagella and cannot move about by their own power, while others can glide along over surfaces by some little-understood mechanism.
From the bacterial point of view, the world is a very different place from what it is
to humans. To a bacterium, water is as thick as molasses is to us. Bacteria are so small
that they are influenced by the movements of the chemical molecules around them.
Bacteria under the microscope, even those with no flagella, often bounce about in
the water. This is because they collide with the water molecules and are pushed this
way and that. Molecules move so rapidly that within a tenth of a second the molecules
around a bacterium have all been replaced by new ones; even bacteria without flagella
are thus constantly exposed to a changing environment.
26. Which of the following is the main topic of the passage?
A. The characteristics of bacteria
B. How bacteria reproduce
C. The various functions of bacteria
D. How bacteria contribute to disease
27. Bacteria are measured in __________.
A. Inches
B. Centimeters
C. Microns
D. millimeters
28. Which of the following is the smallest?
A. A pinhead
B. A rounded bacterium
C. A microscope
D. A rod-shaped bacterium
29. According to the passage, someone who examines bacteria using only a
microscope that magnifies 100 times would see ___________.
A. tiny dots
B. small “hairs”
C. large rods
D. detailed structures
30. The relationship between a bacterium and its flagella is most nearly analogous to
which of the following?
A. A rider jumping on a horse’s back
B. A ball being hit by a bat
C. A boat powered by a motor
D. A door closed by a gust of wind.
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Although, recent years have seen substantial reductions in noxious pollutants from
individual motor vehicles, the number of such vehicles has been steadily increasing.
Consequently, more than 100 cities in the United States still have levels of carbon
monoxide, particulate matter, and ozone (generated by photochemical, reactions with
hydrocarbons from vehicle exhaust) that exceed legally established limits. There is a
growing, realization that the only effective way to achieve, further reductions in
vehicle emissions-short of a massive shift away from the private automobile-is to
replace conventional diesel fuel and gasoline with cleaner burning fuels such as
compressed natural gas liquefied petroleum gas, ethanol, or methanol.
All of these alternatives are carbon-based fuels whose molecules are smaller and
simpler than those of gasoline. These molecules burn more cleanly than gasoline, in
part because they have fewer, if and, carbon-carbon bonds, and the hydrocarbons they
do emit are less likely to generate ozone. The combustion of large molecules, which have multiple carbon-carbon bonds, involves a more complex series of reactions.
These reactions increase the probability of incomplete combustion and are more likely
to release uncombusted and photochemically active hydrocarbon compounds into the
atmosphere. On the other hand, alternative fuels do have drawbacks. Compressed
natural gas would require that vehicles have a set of heavy fuel tanks-a serious
liability in terms of performance and fuel efficiency and liquefied petroleum gas faces
fundamental limits on supply.
Ethanol and methanol, on the other hand, have important advantages over other
carbon-based alternative fuels; they have hither energy content per volume and would
require minimal changes in the existing network for distributing motor fuel. Ethanol is
commonly used as a gasoline supplement, but it is currently about twice as expensive
as methanol, the low cost of which is one of its attractive features. Methanol’s most
attractive feature , however, is that it can reduce by about 90 percent the vehicle
emissions that form ozone, the most serious urban air pollutant.
Like any alternative fuel, methanol has its critics. Yet much of the criticism is
based on the use of “gasoline clone” vehicles that do not incorporate even the simplest
design improvements that are made possible with the use of methanol. It is true, for
example, that a given volume of methanol provides only about one-half of the energy
that gasoline and diesel fuel do; other things being equal, the fuel tank would have to
be somewhat larger and heavier. However, since methanol-fueled vehicles could be
designed to be much more efficient than “gasoline clone ” vehicles fueled with
methanol, they would need comparatively less fuel. Vehicles incorporating only the
simplest of the Engine improvements that methanol makes feasible would still
contribute to an immediate lessening of urban air pollution.
31. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with __________.
A. countering a flawed argument that dismisses a possible solution to a problem.
B. reconciling contradictory points of view about the nature of a problem.
C. identifying the strengths of possible solutions to a problem.
D. discussing a problem and arguing in favor of one solution to it.
32. According to the passage, incomplete combustion is more likely to occur with
gasoline than with an alternative fuel because: __________.
A. the combustion of gasoline releases photochemically active hydrocarbons.
B. the combustion of gasoline involves an intricate series of reactions.
C. gasoline molecules have a simple molecular structure.
D. gasoline is composed of small molecules.
33. The passage suggests which of the Following about air pollution?
A. Further attempts to reduce emissions from gasoline-fueled vehicles will not
help lower urban air-pollution levels.
B. Attempts to reduce the pollutions that an individual gasoline-fueled vehicle
emits have been largely unsuccessful.
C. Few serious attempts have been made to reduce the amount of pollutants
emitted by gasoline-fueled vehicles.
D. Pollutants emitted by gasoline-fueled vehicles are not the most critical source
of urban air pollution.
34. The author describes which of the following as the most appealing feature of
methanol?
A. It is substantially less expensive than ethanol.
B. It could be provided to consumers through the existing motor fuel distribution
system.
C. It has a higher energy content than other alternative fuels. D. Its use would substantially reduce ozone levels.
35. It can be inferred that the author of the passage most likely regards the criticism
of methanol in the last paragraph as __________.
A. flawed because of the assumptions on which it is based.
B. inapplicable because of an inconsistency in the critics’ arguments.
C. misguided because of its exclusively technological focus.
D. invalid because it reflects the personal bias of the critics.
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
Tests of reaction times seemed to back up the notion that the two hemispheres
differed in their processing styles. Researchers used to believe that an image goes to
one hemisphere first, and then to the opposite side of the brain. If the nature of the
stimulus and the preference of the hemisphere match up, then the person can respond
slightly more quickly and accurately in identifying the local or global image.
Still more startling, researchers found that the same appeared to hold for the brains
of chimps and perhaps other primates. The assumption has always been that
handedness and brain asymmetry are strictly human traits --- part of the great brain
reorganization that allowed our ancestor to use tools, speak and perhaps even think
rationally. But handedness is now widely claimed for primates and even birds,
amphibians and whales. And in the past few years, some psychologists have tested
chimps and baboons and suggested their two hemispheres also differ in processing
style.
Now researchers have come to see the distinction between the two hemispheres as
a subtle one of processing style, with every mental faculty shared across the brain, and
each side contributing in a complementary, not exclusive, fashion. A smart brain
became one that simultaneously grasped both the foreground and the background of
the moment
The next problem was to work out exactly how the brain manages to produce
these two contrasting styles. Many researchers originally looked for the explanation in
a simple wiring difference within the brain. This theory held that neurons in the left
cortex might make sparse, short-range connections with their neighbors, while cells
on the other side would be more richly and widely connected The result would be that
the representation of sensations and memories would be confined lo smallish, discrete
areas in the left hemisphere, while exactly the same input to a corresponding area of
the right side would form a sprawling even impressionistic pattern of activity.
Supporters of this idea argued that these structural differences would explain why
left brain language areas are so good at precise representation of words and word
sequences while the right brain seems to supply a wider sense of context and meaning.
A striking finding from some people who suffer right-brain stokes is that they can
understand the literal meaning of sentences-their l eft brain can still decode the
words-- -but they can no longer get jokes or allusions. Asked to explain even a
common proverb, such as “a stitch in time saves nine”, they can only say it must have
something to do with sewing. An intact right brain is needed to make the more playful
connections.
36. The local or global image is more quickly and accurately identified in the brain
if _______.
A. tests of reaction times back up the notion of the two hemispheres
B. an image goes to one hemisphere first, and then to the opposite side of the
brain
C. the nature of the stimulus and the preference of the hemisphere match up
D. the person can match the image with an object 37. Handedness and brain asymmetry are strictly human traits, as is shown in
________.
A. the brains of chimps and perhaps other primates
B. the fact that the great brain reorganization allowed our ancestor to use tools
C. the fact that human beings alone can use tools, speak and think rationally
D. the two brain hemispheres of chimps and baboons
38. According to the text, a smart brain has all the following characteristics
EXCEPT _________.
A. with different processing style
B. with shared mental faculty
C. each side contributing in a complementary
D. grasping the foreground and the background of the moment
39. What is the problem of the people who suffer right-brain strokes?
A. They can hardly understand the literal meaning of sentences.
B. Their left brain can still decode the words.
C. They do not understand the common proverb “a stitch in time saves nine”.
D. They cannot grasp the meaning of jokes or allusions.
40. The best title for the text may be __________.
A. Left Brain, Right Brain
B. The Local of Global Image
C. Human Brain and Animal Brain
D. The Smart Brain
Questions 41 to 45 are based on the following passage.
（此文不全）
The Du Pont Company, the 13th largest employer in the U.S., routinely gives
pre-employment blood tests to all blacks who apply for jobs to determine who might
be a carrier of the trait for sickle-cell anemia, even though the trait is regarded as
largely harmless. Although there are other genetically transmitted blood diseases and
metabolic disorders that predominate in racial or ethnic groups, blacks are the only
ones to be identified with a disease and examined for it at Du Pont. In a three month
study of genetic screening in the American lace, the New York Times found no
other instance of an ethnic or racial group singled out in or company.
Du Pont officials emphasize that the sickle trait tests do not represent discrimination
and are only an effort to help them avoid potentially harmful exposure to certain
chemicals. Yet the officials can offer no firm evidence that the trait -- not the disease,
but only a single abnormal gene -- makes blacks more vulnerable.
Du Pont, which employs well over 100,000 workers, is in the vanguard of American
companies doing genetic screening and thus is at the center of the debate over this
area of science, debate so intense, so broad, that even medical directors from other
companies who believe possibilities of genetic screening want no part of it. At
least, not now but officials at Du a leader in the chemical industry with annual
gross sales of more than $ 10 billion, feel they have the money and the scientists to
turn the distrust into achievement. If some chemicals are highly toxic and the
workplace is less than pure, company officials reason, it is only logical to try to
determine why some workers get sicker faster and why others seem to have more
tolerance for industrial poisons. And so the company is looking beyond the skills and
loyalty of its workers to ery genetic structure.
The sickle-cell trait is not the same as sickle-cell anemia. The anemia is rare but
debilitating disorder found in fewer than 50,000 American blacks, about two-tenths of
a percent of the black population. Perhaps two million other blacks are carriers of the trait -- they are heterozygous; that ing a gene for sickle-cell
anemia from one parent. Virtually all the carriers can lead very active lives and show
no symptoms of the disease.
41. What does the author say about Du Pont?
A. It examined the blood of some blacks
B. It examined some blacks for their knowledge of blood.
C. It discovered that some blacks have blood illness.
D. It discovered the blood of some blacks containing industrial chemicals.
42. What do Du Pont officials say?
A. They are trying to protect blacks form health threats.
B. They can prove that blacks are likely to have health problems.
C. They regard the skills of workers as the most important matter.
D. They hope that other companies can follow their example.
43. What is true about genetic screening?
A. It often aims at black employees.
B. Its focus is often on sickle-cell anemia.
C. Some companies do not want to do it.
D. The US government strongly supports it.
44. The underlined word “toxic” in the third paragraph probably means _____.
A. powerful.
B. complex.
C. thick.
D. poisonous.
45. What can we learn about the carriers of sick-cell trait?
A. Their number is about 50,000.
B. They usually seem to have normal lives.
C. They include over half of the black population.
D. They do not seem to be affected by industrial chemicals.
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Teenagers are spending more money than ever. Just last year, 31.6 million teens
spent 155 billion, according to the Northbrook, Illinois-based market research group
Teenage Research Unlimited. Much of that money, of course, comes from parents.
Shocked at how much money kids spend? Maybe you haven’t cheeked the price
tags lately on some of the younger generation’s must-haves.
To some, such extravagant spending on the notoriously fickle young might seem
outrageous. Why do some parents give in?
One factor is surely the sheer power of marketing through mass media. According
to the group Adbusters, teenagers are exposed to an estimated 3,000 advertisements
each day. Combine the ads with programming itself, like the fashion-, music-，and
skin-filled shows on MTV and you’ve got a barrage of messages telling kids what they
should own if they want to fit in.
“The pressures on parents today are enormous,” says Tom Vogele, a single father
of twin 18-year-old girls in Newport Beach, Calif. “I truly believe it is harder today to
raise children without spoiling them, not because parents are less capable or lazy, but
because so many forces are working against me.”
Many working parents probably compensate by spending money on their kids,
says Timothy Marshall, an associate professor of developmental psychology at
Christopher Newport University in Virginia. For some, there is probably some guilt
involved in not spending enough time at home. But, adds Marshall, spending money
is also often more convenient in our fast-paced society than going to baseball games or other activities.
“It’s easier to say let’s go out and spend some money, in terms of finding time in a
busy schedule to spend with kids,55 Marshall said.
For many families, of course, keeping up with their children’s costly demands for
designer clothing, CDs, and concert tickets is a financial impossibility. Even for those
families who can afford such lavish spending, striking a compromise between spoiling
the kids and denying them is tricky, but possible.
Teaching kids how to budget and save is key, Marshall says. Instead of just giving
children the toys or clothing they desire, give them an allowance and show them how
they can save up for whatever they want, he says.
And don’t be afraid to just say no, Marshall adds. “We need to step up and tell
kids where the boundaries are, that is parts of our responsibility as parents,” he said.
46. In the first paragraph, “Northbrook” is most probably _______.
A. a market research company based in Illinois
B. a spokesman for the Teenage Research Unlimited
C. the base of the Teenage Research Unlimited
D. the city where the spending survey was carried out.
47. Some people find it outrageous that .
A. some parents indulge their children in extravagant spending
B. some younger generation’s must-haves could cost so much
C. some parents are ignorant about their children’s spending
D. some children disregard their notorious spending habits
48. What is the effect of marketing through mass media?
A. It fills the market with ads beyond the young’s understanding.
B. It directs not only the trend but also the ways of advertising.
C. It stuffs all kinds of ads into TV shows and radio programs.
D. It triggers young people’s desire to keep up with the trend.
49. According to Marshall, parents prefer to spend money on their children mainly
because __.
A. they can’t afford the time to stay with their children.
B. they want to make up their guilt for their children.
C. they find it more convenient than going out with the children.
D. they feel it is hard to raise children without indulging them
50. What does Marshall think parents should do with the children’s spending
habit?
A. They should refuse to pay for their lavish spending.
B. They should restrain the children’s spending within limits.
C. They should be responsible for providing for the children.
D. They should draw up a budget plan for the children.
Part III Cloze (10 points)
Directions:
It is a commonplace among moralists that you cannot get happiness by pursuing it.
This is only true if you pursue it _51_. Gamblers at Monte Carlo are pursuing money,
and most of them lose it instead, but there are other ways of pursuing money, which
often _52_. So it is with happiness. If you pursue it _53_ drink, you are forgetting the
hang-over. Epicurus pursue it by living only in congenial society and eating only dry
bread, __54_ by a little cheese on feast days. His method proved successful in his case,
but he was a valetudinarian, and most people would need something more _55_. For
most people, the pursuit of happiness, _56_ supplemented in various ways, is too
Read the following text. Choose the best word((s) for each numbered
bland and mark A, B, C, or D on Answer Sheet. abstract and theoretical to be _57_ as a personal rule of life. But I think that _58_
personal rule of life you may choose it should not, except in rare and heroic cases, be
_59_ with happiness.
There are a great many people who have all the _60_ conditions of happiness, i.e.
health and a sufficient income, and who, _61_, are profoundly unhappy. In such cases
it would seem as if the _62_ must lie with a wrong theory as to how to live. In one
sense, we may say that any theory as to how to live is wrong. We imagine ourselves
more different from the animals than we are. Animals live on _63_, and are happy as
long as external conditions are _64_. If you have a cat it w i ll enjoy life if it has food
and warmth and opportunities for an _65_ night on the tiles. Your needs are more
complex than those of your cat, but they still have their basis in instinct. In civilized
societies, especially in English-speaking societies, this is too _66_ to be forgotten.
People proposed to themselves some one paramount objective and _67_ all impulses
that do not minister to it. A business man may be so _68_ to grow rich that to this end
he _69_ health and private affections. When at last he has become rich, no _70_
remains to him except harrying other people by exhortations to imitate his noble
example.
51. A. eagerly B. reasonably C. reluctantly D.
unwisely
52. A. succeed B. enrich C. win D.
defeat
53. A. at the expense of B. by means of C. in need of D. for
fear of
54. A. compensated B. supplemented C. accompanied D.
accumulated
55. A. prosperous B. rigorous C. vigorous D.
gorgeous
56. A. even B. though C. unless D. if
57. A. extravagant B. deficient C. excessive D.
adequate
58. A. whatever B. whenever C. however D.
whosever
59. A. incomparable B. incompatible C. incapable D.
incredible
60. A. spiritual B. material C. economical D. social
61. A. nevertheless B. therefore C. otherwise D. hence
62. A. flaw B. error C. defect D. fault
63. A. intelligence B. imitation C. impulse D.
impression
64. A. vulnerable B. conceivable C. endurable D.
favorable
65. A. enthusiastic B. occasional C. indifferent D.
underlying
66. A. abrupt B. absurd C acute D. apt
67. A. hinder B. restrain C. refrain D.
abolish
68. A. anxious B. obvious C. suspicious D.
cautious
69. A. abandons B. cherishes C. sacrifices D.
reconciles 70. A. pleasure B. property C. wealth D.
opportunities
Part IV English-Chinese Translation (15 points)
Directions: Read the following passage into Chinese and write your answers on the
Answer
The railroad industry could not have grown as large as it did without steel. The
first rails were made of iron. But iron rails were not strong enough to support heavy
trains running at high speeds. Railroad executives wanted to replace them with steel
rails because steel was ten or fifteen times stronger and lasted twenty limes longer.
Before the 1870’s, however, steel was too expensive to be widely used. It was made
by a slow and expensive process of heating, stirring, and reheating iron ore.
Sheet.
Then the inventor Henry Bessemer discovered that directing a blast of air at
melted iron in a furnace would burn out the impurities that made the iron brittle. As
the air shot through the furnace, the bubbling metal would erupt in showers of sparks.
When the fire cooled, the metal had been changed, or converted, to steel. The
Bessemer converter made possible the mass production of steel. Now three to five
tons of iron could be changed into steel in a matter of minutes.
Part V Chinese-English Translation (15 points)
Directions: Translate the following short paragraphs into English and write your
translation on the
本世纪初，小麦简直就是加拿大西部的命脉。小麦收成好，经济则繁荣；小
麦歉收，经济则萧条。城市中大街小巷的人们都在关注着小麦的收成和价格，这
种心情就好像他们就是种植者一样。小麦的市场行情成了人们的热门话题。
Answer Sheet.
战争使西部粮食市场发生了许多戏剧性的变化。多年以来，农民们不信任在
粮食交易所从事的粮食投机买卖。秋季的麦价一般都较低，但是农民们等不到市
场好转。他们常常在小麦一收割后就卖掉，过后则眼睁睁看着小麦涨价，投机者
从中发财。在各种时机，农民团体曾多次要求政府对市场严加控制，但政府不想
卷入其中，直到战争期间，麦价有失控的危险时，政府才介入。由于迫切需要控
制通货膨胀和生活费用上涨，联邦政府设立了一个粮食监督委员会来处理
从1917 年至 1918 年的粮食收缴工作。
Part VI Writing (20 points)
Directions: In this part, you are required to write a composition of about 250 words
entitled “The Qualities of the Cross-Century Talents”. You must write it on the Answer
Sheet

and remember to write it in readable handwriting.

查看完整版本: [-- 西南大学2012考博英语真题 --] [-- top --]

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