2015年考研英语一()

2015年考研英语一,2015年全国硕士研究生招生考试

英语(一)试题

Section Ⅰ Use of English

Directions:

Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

Though not biologically related, friends are as “related” as fourth cousins, sharing about 1% of genes. That is 1 a study published from the University of California and Yale University in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has 2 .

The study is a genome-wide analysis conducted 3 1, 932 unique subjects which 4 pairs of unrelated friends and unrelated strangers. The same people were used in both 5 .

While 1% may seem 6 , it is not so to a geneticist. As James Fowler, professor of medical genetics at UC San Diego, says, “Most people do not even 7 their fourth cousins but somehow manage to select as friends the people who 8 our kin.”

The study 9 found that the genes for smell were something shared in friends but not genes for immunity. Why this similarity exists in smell genes is difficult to explain, for now. 10 , as the team suggests, it draws us to similar environments but there is more 11 it. There could be many mechanisms working together that 12 us in choosing genetically similar friends 13 “functional kinship” of being friends with 14 !

One of the remarkable findings of the study was that the similar genes seem to be evolving 15 than other genes. Studying this could help 16 why human evolution picked pace in the last 30, 000 years, with social environment being a major 17 factor.

The findings do not simply explain people’s 18 to befriend those of similar 19 backgrounds, say the researchers. Though all the subjects were drawn from a population of European extraction, care was taken to 20 that all subjects, friends and strangers were taken from the same population.

1. [A] what [B] how [C] why [D] when

2. [A] defended [B] concluded [C] withdrawn [D] advised

3. [A] for [B] with [C] by [D] on

4. [A] separated [B] sought [C] compared [D] connected

5. [A] tests [B] objects [C] samples [D] examples

6. [A] insignificant [B] unexpected [C] unreliable [D] incredible

7. [A] visit [B] miss [C] know [D] seek

8. [A] surpass [B] influence [C] favor [D] resemble

9. [A] again [B] also [C] instead [D] thus

10. [A] Meanwhile [B] Furthermore [C] Likewise [D] Perhaps

11. [A] about [B] to [C] from [D] like

12. [A] limit [B] observe [C] confuse [D] drive

13. [A] according to [B] rather than [C] regardless of [D] along with

14. [A] chances [B] responses [C] benefits [D] missions

15. [A] faster [B] slower [C] later [D] earlier

16. [A] forecast [B] remember [C] express [D] understand

17. [A] unpredictable [B] contributory [C] controllable [D] disruptive

18. [A] tendency [B] decision [C] arrangement [D] endeavor

19. [A] political [B] religious [C] ethnic [D] economic

20. [A] see [B] show [C] prove [D] tell

【译文】

DNA of Friendship: Study Finds We are Genetically Linked to Our Friends(编者加)

DNA友谊:研究发现我们在基因上和我们的朋友有着千丝万缕的联系

尽管没有生物学上的联系,但朋友却“亲”如第四代表亲,与我们有着大约1%的相同基因。这是加利福尼亚大学和耶鲁大学在《美国国家科学院院刊》上联合发表的研究得出的结论。

这项研究对1932个独特实验对象进行了全组基因分析,将成对的没有血缘关系的朋友和成对的没有血缘关系的陌生人进行了比较。这两组抽样使用了相同的实验对象。

尽管这1%看起来似乎无关紧要,但是遗传学家可不这么认为。正如加州大学圣地亚哥分校的遗传医学教授詹姆斯·福勒所说:“大多数人甚至不认识他们的第四代表亲,但却不知怎么的选择那些与自己的亲戚相似的人做朋友。”

研究也发现嗅觉基因是朋友间共有的,但免疫基因却不是。目前,为什么在嗅觉基因方面存在相似性还很难解释,也许,正如这个研究团队表明的,这种基因能把我们吸引到相似的环境,但事情没那么简单。可能有很多机制共同作用,从而驱使我们选择基因相似的朋友,而不是选择因利益瓜葛而结成的“实用亲密关系”。

这项研究的重大发现之一是朋友间的相似的基因似乎比其他基因进化得更快。这样的研究有助于理解为什么在过去3万年间人类进化得以加速,社会环境是一个主要的促进因素。

研究者说,这些发现不是简单地证实人们有和种族背景相似的人交朋友的倾向。尽管所有的实验对象都拥有欧洲血统,研究者们仍然悉心确保所有的实验对象,不管是朋友还是陌生人,都来自于同一族群。

Section Ⅱ Reading ComprehensionPart A

Directions:

Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)

Text 1

King Juan Carlos of Spain once insisted “kings don’t abdicate, they die in their sleep.” But embarrassing scandals and the popularity of the republican left in the recent Euro-elections have forced him to eat his words and stand down. So, does the Spanish crisis suggest that monarchy is seeing its last days? Does that mean the writing is on the wall for all European royals, with their magnificent uniforms and majestic lifestyles?

The Spanish case provides arguments both for and against monarchy. When public opinion is particularly polarised, as it was following the end of the Franco regime, monarchs can rise above “mere” politics and “embody” a spirit of national unity.

It is this apparent transcendence of politics that explains, monarchs continuing popularity as heads of state. And so, the Middle East excepted, Europe is the most monarch-infested region in the world, with 10 kingdoms (not counting Vatican City and Andorra). But unlike their absolutist counterparts in the Gulf and Asia, most royal families have survived because they allow voters to avoid the difficult search for a non-controversial but respected public figure.

Even so, kings and queens undoubtedly have a downside. Symbolic of national unity as they claim to be, their very history—and sometimes the way they behave today—embodies outdated and indefensible privileges and inequalities. At a time when Thomes Piketty and other economists are warning of rising inequality and the increasing power of inherited wealth, it is bizarre that wealthy aristocratic families should still be the symbolic heart of modern democratic states.

The most successful monarchies strive to abandon or hide their old aristocratic ways. Prince and princesses have day-jobs and ride bicycles, not horses (or helicopters). Even so, these are wealthy families who party with the international 1%, and media intrusiveness makes it increasingly difficult to maintain the right image.

While Europe’s monarchies will no doubt be smart enough to survive for some time to come, it is the British royals who have most to fear from the Spanish example.

It is only the Queen who has preserved the monarchy’s reputation with her rather ordinary (if well-heeled) granny style. The danger will come with Charles, who has both an expensive taste of lifestyle and a pretty hierarchical view of the world. He has failed to understand that monarchies have largely survived because they provide a service—as non-controversial and non-political heads of state. Charles ought to know that as English history shows, it is kings, not republicans, who are the monarchy’s worst enemies.

21. According to the first two paragraphs, King Juan Carl of spain

[A] used to enjoy high public support.

[B] was unpopular among European royals.

[C] ended his reign in embarrassment.

[D] eased his relationship with his rivals.

22. Monarchs are kept as heads of state in Europe mostly

[A] owing to their undoubted and respectable status.

[B] to achieve a balance between tradition and reality.

[C] to give voters more public figures to look up to.

[D] due to their everlasting political embodiment.

23. Which of the following is shown to be odd, according to Paragraph 4?

[A] Aristocrats’ excessive reliance on inherited wealth.

[B] The simple lifestyle of the aristocratic families.

[C] The role of the nobility in modern democracies.

[D] The nobility’s adherence to their privileges.

24. The British royals “have most to fear” because Charles

[A] takes a tough line on political issues.

[B] fails to change his lifestyle as advised.

[C] takes republicans as his potential allies.

[D] fails to adapt himself to his future role.

25. Which of the following is the best title of the text?

[A] Carlos, Glory and Disgrace Combined

[B] Carlos, a Lesson for All European Monarchs

[C] Charles, Slow to React to the Coming Threats

[D] Charles, Anxious to Succeed to the Throne

【译文】

Is the Writing on the Wall for All European Royals?(编者加)

所有的欧洲皇室注定要失败吗?

西班牙国王胡安·卡洛斯曾坚持认为“国王不退位,他们在睡梦中去世”。但令人尴尬的丑闻和左翼共和党在最近的欧洲选举中的大受欢迎迫使他自食其言,退下王位。那么,西班牙危机是表明君主制就要被终结了呢?对于所有欧洲王室而言,这是否意味着华丽制服和高贵生活方式,都将面临着消亡的厄运?

西班牙的情况为支持和反对君主专制的观点都提供了论据。当公众舆论严重两极分化时,正如佛朗哥执政末期那样,君主们就能超越“纯粹的”政治概念,转而“代表”国家统一的精神。

正是这种明显超越政治的存在解释了君主作为国家元首为什么持续受欢迎。因此,除了中东,欧洲是世界上产生君主最多的地方,欧洲有10个王国(不包含梵蒂冈城和安道尔在内)。但是不像海湾地区和亚洲那些绝对专制的君主,大多数欧洲王室都存活下来,因为他们让选民不用费力就可以找到一个不受争议而备受尊重的公众人物。

即便如此,国王和王后仍有其不利的一面。尽管他们宣称自己象征着国家统一,但是正是他们以往的历史以及今日的某些行为方式体现了已经过时的、站不住脚的特权和不公平。有段时间托马斯·品克以及其他经济学家一直在向人们警示日益加剧的不平等以及不断增大的世袭财富权力,但很怪异的是这些富有的贵族家庭竟然仍是现代民主国家的象征性核心。

最成功的君主努力放弃或隐藏他们原有的贵族生活方式。王子和公主白天工作、骑自行车,不是骑马(或坐直升机)。即便如此,这些是富裕家庭,他们只与国际排名前1%的富人聚会,媒体的侵扰使他们保持正面形象越来越难。

欧洲的君主无疑会足够聪明地争取到一些时日,而从西班牙事件中最能感受到恐惧的当属英国王室了。

只有女王以她非常普通的(是否颇为考究的)奶奶风格保持了君主制的声誉。危险来自查尔斯,他热衷于奢华的生活方式并拥有等级分明的世界观。他不明白,君主制很大程度上幸存下来是因为他们提供了一项服务——做一名无争议的、非政治的国家领导人。查尔斯应该知道正如英国的历史表明的那样,国王才是君主制最大的敌人,而非共和党人。

Text 2

Just how much does the Constitution protect your digital data? The Supreme Court will now consider whether police can search the contents of a mobile phone without a warrant if the phone is on or around a person during an arrest.

California has asked the justices to refrain from a sweeping ruling, particularly one that upsets the old assumption that authorities may search through the possessions of suspects at the time of their arrest. It is hard, the state argues, for judges to assess the implications of new and rapidly changing technologies.

The court would be recklessly modest if it followed California’s advice. Enough of the implications are discernable, even obvious, so that the justice can and should provide updated guidelines to police, lawyers and defendants.

They should start by discarding California’s lame argument that exploring the contents of a smartphone—a vast storehouse of digital information—is similar to, say, going through a suspect’s purse. The court has ruled that police don’t violate the Fourth Amendment when they go through the wallet or pocketbook of an arrestee without a warrant. But exploring one’s smartphone is more like entering his or her home. A smartphone may contain an arrestee’s reading history, financial history, medical history and comprehensive records of recent correspondence. The development of “cloud computing”, meanwhile, has made that exploration so much the easier.

Americans should take steps to protect their digital privacy. But keeping sensitive information on these devices is increasingly a requirement of normal life. Citizens still have a right to expect private documents to remain private and protected by the Constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable searches.

As so often is the case, stating that principle doesn’t ease the challenge of line-drawing. In many cases, it would not be overly burdensome for authorities to obtain a warrant to search through phone contents. They could still invalidate Fourth Amendment protections when facing severe, urgent circumstances, and they could take reasonable measures to ensure that phone data are not erased or altered while waiting for a warrant. The court, though, may want to allow room for police to cite situations where they are entitled to more freedom.

But the justices should not swallow California’s argument whole. New, disruptive technology sometimes demands novel applications of the Constitution’s protections. Orin Kerr, a law professor, compares the explosion and accessibility of digital information in the 21st century with the establishment of automobile use as a virtual necessity of life in the 20th: The justices had to specify novel rules for the new personal domain of the passenger car then; they must sort out how the Fourth Amendment applies to digital information now.

26. The Supreme court will work out whether, during an arrest, it is legitimate to

[A] search for suspects’ mobile phones without a warrant.

[B] check suspects’ phone contents without being authorized.

[C] prevent suspects from deleting their phone contents.

[D] prohibit suspects from using their mobile phones.

27. The author’s attitude toward California’s argument is one of

[A] tolerance. [B] indifference.

[C] disapproval. [D] cautiousness.

28. The author believes that exploring one’s phone contents is comparable to

[A] getting into one’s residence. [B] handing one’s historical records.

[C] scanning one’s correspondences. [D] going through one’s wallet.

29. In Paragraphs 5 and 6, the author shows his concern that

[A] principles are hard to be clearly expressed.

[B] the court is giving police less room for action.

[C] phones are used to store sensitive information.

[D] citizens’ privacy is not effectively protected.

30. Orin Kerr’s comparison is quoted to indicate that

[A] the Constitution should be implemented flexibly.

[B] new technology requires reinterpretation of the Constitution.

[C] California’s argument violates principles of the Constitution.

[D] principles of the Constitution should never be altered.

【译文】

Supreme Court Should Begin Laying Out Privacy Protections for Smartphones(编者加)

最高法院应开始制定针对智能手机的隐私保护政策

宪法能在多大程度上保护你的数字资料?最高法院将考虑,在没有得到批准令的前提下,警方能否检查被捕人员所携带的手机内容。

加利福尼亚州要求法官避免做出以偏概全的裁决,尤其是那个可能颠覆先前假设的裁决,这个假设是当局可以在抓捕疑犯时搜查其随身物品。州政府认为,法官很难评估迅速变化的新技术的影响。

如果遵循加利福尼亚州的建议,最高法院真是“谦虚”得不计后果。其背后所隐含的意义有目共睹,甚至可谓明显,因此,法官们能够并且应当向警方、律师和被告人提供更新的指导性意见。

首先,他们应该摒弃加利福尼亚蹩脚的观点,即认为查看智能手机的内容——一个巨大的数字信息库——类似于检查嫌疑犯的钱包。法院裁定,警察在没有搜查证的情况下搜查抓捕对象的钱包或皮夹并不违反第四修正案。但翻查个人的智能手机更像是侵入他或她的家。智能手机可能包含一个被捕者的阅读记录、财务记录、病史和全面的近期通信记录。与此同时,“云计算”的发展使得这种搜查更加容易。

美国人应该采取措施来保护他们的数字隐私。但在这些设备上存储敏感信息是日益增长的正常生活需求。公民仍然有权利期望私人文件保密,并且受到宪法“禁止无理搜查”条款的保护。

通常,陈述这一原则并没有减轻界限划定的挑战。在许多情况下,获取搜查证调查手机内容对当局来说不是难事。当面临紧急情况时,他们可能仍然会不受第四修正案的约束,可以采取合理措施确保在等待搜查证时手机的数据不被删除或改变。然而,法院可能希望给予警察空间,让它们列举自己的处境,在这些情况下,他们有权享有更多的自由。

但是法官不应该完全接纳加利福尼亚的观点。新的、颠覆性的技术有时需要对宪法保护条例进行创新性应用。身为法学教授的奥林·克尔将21世纪数字信息的爆炸式增长和易获取性与20世纪汽车作为一种实际生活必需品地位的确立进行类比:那时法官不得不对小客车上新的个人领域制定新的规则;现在他们也必须解决第四修正案如何去适用数字信息的问题。

Text 3

The journal Science is adding an extra round of statistical checks to its peer-review process, editor-in-chief Marcia McNutt announced today. The policy follows similar efforts from other journals, after widespread concern that basic mistakes in data analysis are contributing to the irreproducibility of many published research findings.

“Readers must have confidence in the conclusions published in our journal, ” writes McNutt in an editorial. Working with the American Statistical Association, the journal has appointed seven experts to a statistics board of reviewing editors (SBoRE). Manuscript will be flagged up for additional scrutiny by the journal’s internal editors, or by its existing Board of Reviewing Editors or by outside peer reviewers. The SBoRE panel will then find external statisticians to review these manuscripts.

Asked whether any particular papers had impelled the change, McNutt said: “The creation of the ‘statistics board’ was motivated by concerns broadly with the application of statistics and data analysis in scientific research and is part of Science’s overall drive to increase reproducibility in the research we publish.”

Giovanni Parmigiani, a biostatistician at the Harvard School of Public Health, a member of the SBoRE group, says he expects the board to “play primarily an advisory role.” He agreed to join because he “found the foresight behind the establishment of the SBoRE to be novel, unique and likely to have a lasting impact. This impact will not only be through the publications in Science itself, but hopefully through a larger group of publishing places that may want to model their approach after Science.”

John Ioannidis, a physician who studies research methodology, says that the policy is “a most welcome step forward” and “long overdue.” “Most journals are weak in statistical review, and this damages the quality of what they publish. I think that for the majority of scientific papers nowadays, statistical review is more essential than expert review, ” he says. But he noted that biomedical journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet pay strong attention to statistical review.

Professional scientists are expected to know how to analyze data, but statistical errors are alarmingly common in published research, according to David Vaux, a cell biologist. Researchers should improve their standards, he wrote in 2012, but journals should also take a tougher line, “engaging reviewers who are statistically literate and editors who can verify the process”. Vaux says that Science’s idea to pass some papers to statisticians “has some merit, but a weakness is that it relies on the board of reviewing editors to identify ‘the papers that need scrutiny’ in the first place.”

31. It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that

[A] Science intends to simplify its peer-review process.

[B] journals are strengthening their statistical checks.

[C] few journals are blamed for mistakes in data analysis.

[D] lack of data analysis is common in research projects.

32. The phrase “flagged up” (Para. 2)is the closest in meaning to

[A] found. [B] revised.

[C] marked. [D] stored.

33. Giovanni Parmigiani believes that the establishment of the SBoRE may

[A] pose a threat to all its peers.

[B] meet with strong opposition.

[C] increase Science’s circulation.

[D] set an example for other journals.

34. David Vaux holds that what Science is doing now

[A] adds to researchers’ workload.

[B] diminishes the role of reviewers.

[C] has room for further improvement.

[D] is to fail in the foreseeable future.

35. Which of the following is the best title of the text?

[A] Science Joins Push to Screen Statistics in Papers

[B] Professional Statisticians Deserve More Respect

[C] Data Analysis Finds Its Way onto Editor’s Desks

[D] Statisticians Are Coming Back with Science

【译文】

Science Joins Push to Screen Statistics in Papers(编者加)

《科学》加入推进论文统计数据审核行动中

《科学》杂志主编玛西亚·麦纳特今天宣布,《科学》正在将它的同行评议过程增加另外一轮统计数据检查。人们普遍担心在数据分析上的基本错误正在导致许多发表的研究成果无法复现,所以该策略效仿其他报刊的类似努力。

“读者必须对刊登在我们期刊杂志上的结论抱有信心,”麦纳特在一篇社论中写道。与美国统计协会合作,《科学》已经任命七位专家到一个审核编辑统计委员会。由于额外的审核,手稿将被《科学》的内部编辑、现有的审核编辑董事会或是同行审核者之外的人标记。之后,审核编辑统计委员会小组将找外部统计人员审核这些手稿。

当被问到是否有一些特定的论文带动了这种变化,麦纳特说:“创立‘统计委员会’是由于人们广泛关注在科学研究中统计和数据分析的应用,还是《科学》为提升其发表研究的可复制性做出全面努力的一部分。”

哈佛大学公共卫生学院的生物统计学家乔凡尼·帕玛强尼是审核编辑统计委员会小组的一员,他说他希望董事会“主要扮演的是一个顾问的角色”。他之所以同意加入审核编辑统计委员会是因为他“发现其成立背后所体现的远见是新颖的、独特的,而且可能会产生持久的影响。这不仅会通过《科学》本身的出版物来影响,也有望影响到更多的可能想要模仿《科学》做法的出版机构。”

约翰·艾奥尼迪是一位钻研研究方法论的内科医生,他说该策略是“最受欢迎的进步”,而且是“早就该实行的”。“大多数报刊不擅长统计审核,这有损它们出版物的质量。我认为现在对于大多数科学类的论文,统计审核比专家审核更重要,”他说。不过他指出,生物医学期刊如《内科医学年鉴》《美国医学协会杂志》和《柳叶刀》等强烈关注统计审核。

根据细胞生物学家大卫·沃克斯的观点,专业科学家期望知道如何分析数据,但是统计错误在已发表的研究中惊人地常见。他在2012年写道,研究者应该提高他们的水准,但报刊也应该采取更强硬的路线,“聘用具备统计知识的审核者和能够核查评审过程的编辑”。沃克斯说,《科学》把一些论文交给统计学家的这一想法“有一些优点,但缺点是它依赖于审核编辑董事会来首先识别‘需要审核的论文’。”

Text 4

Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the “unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions”. Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should be profit and the market. But “it’s us, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit”.

Driving her point home, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous goals for capitalism and freedom.” This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.

As the hacking trial concludes—finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the same charge—the wider issue of dearth of integrity still stands. Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5, 500 people. This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking. Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.

In many respects, the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.

In today’s world, it has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organisations that they run. Perhaps we should not be so surprised. For a generation, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit. The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealth generation, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.

The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instruction—nor received traceable, recorded answers.

36. According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by

[A] the consequences of the current sorting mechanism.

[B] companies’ financial loss due to immoral practices.

[C] governmental ineffectiveness on moral issues.

[D] the wide misuse of integrity among institutions.

37. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that

[A] Glenn Mulcaire may deny phone hacking as a crime.

[B] more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking.

[C] Andy Coulson should be held innocent of the charge.

[D] phone hacking will be accepted on certain occasions.

38. The author believes that Rebekah Brooks’s defence

[A] revealed a cunning personality.

[B] centered on trivial issues.

[C] was hardly convincing.

[D] was part of a conspiracy.

39. The author holds that the current collective doctrine shows

[A] generally distorted values. [B] unfair wealth distribution.

[C] a marginalized lifestyle. [D] a rigid moral code.

40. Which of the following is suggested in the last paragraph?

[A] The quality of writing is of primary importance.

[B] Common humanity is central to news reporting.

[C] Moral awareness matters in editing a newspaper.

[D] Journalists need stricter industrial regulations.

【译文】

As the Hacking Trial Proves, We Lack Moral Purpose in Public Life(编者加)

正如黑客审判所证明的:在公共生活中我们缺乏道德目的

两年前,鲁伯特·默多克的女儿伊丽莎白谈道“我们很多机构都缺乏诚信,这是令人担忧的”。她说诚信已经崩溃,因为人们普遍认为社会中的唯一“分类机制”应该是利润和市场。但“这是我们人类、是我们这样的人创造了我们想要的社会,而不是利润”。

为把观点讲清楚,她继续说道:“政府、媒体或企业中缺少目的和道德语言可能成为资本主义和自由最危险的目标之一,这种现象越来越明显。”她认为,同样的道德目的的缺失正在伤害着像新闻国际这样的公司,使它更可能像过去一样因大范围非法窃听电话而迷失方向。

尽管窃听案审判结束了——判决《世界新闻》前任编辑安迪·库尔森因阴谋窃听电话而有罪,而受到相同指控的他的前任丽贝卡·布鲁克斯无罪——但是关于诚信丧失的更为广泛的问题仍在继续。据了解,记者们已经窃听多达5,500人的电话。正如2001年《世界新闻》雇用的窃听电话的关键人物格伦·穆尔凯尔所承认的那样,这种窃听是行业性的。其他人在等待审判,这个故事还在展开。

在很多方面,丧失道德目的不仅体现在如此普遍的电话窃听这一事实上,也体现在案件审判所依据的法律条款上。其中一个令人震惊的发现就是丽贝卡·布鲁克斯竟不知道她的新闻编辑部里发生的事情,她竟然不会去询问相关细节,实际上她从来不会去了解这些新闻报道的来源。她成功辩护的关键就是她对此一无所知。

在当今世界,薪酬颇丰的高管对他们经营的公司所发生的事情概不负责,这已经变成了常态。或许我们不应该如此惊讶。对于一代人,这一集体信条已经是:社会的分类机制应该是利润。重要的词语是效率、灵活性、股东价值、商业友好、财富创造、销售、影响力,在报纸方面则是发行量。被退化到边缘的词语是公正、公平、宽容、行动的恰当性和责任。

编辑《世界新闻》的目的不是为了促进读者的理解,也不是为了在所写的内容中追求公平或者违背任何共同的人性,而是为了追求发行量和影响力而破坏人们的生活。布鲁克斯女士可能会也可能不会怀疑她的记者们是如何获得那些故事的,但她没有询问,没有下达指令——也没有收到可追溯的、有记录的答案。

Part B

Directions:

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

How does your reading proceed? Clearly you try to comprehend, in the sense of identifying meanings for individual words and working out relationships between them, drawing on your implicit knowledge of English grammar. (41) You begin to infer a context for the text, for instance, by making decisions about what kind of speech event is involved.:Who is making the utterance, to whom, when and where.

The ways of reading indicated here are without doubt kinds of comprehension. But they show comprehension to consist not just of passive assimilation but of active engagement in inference and problem-solving. You infer information you feel the writer has invited you to grasp by presenting you with specific evidence and clues. (42)

Conceived in this way, comprehension will not follow exactly the same track for each reader. What is in question is not the retrieval of an absolute, fixed or “true” meaning that can be read off and checked for accuracy, or some timeless relation of the text to the world. (43)

Such background material inevitably reflects who we are. (44) This doesn’t, however, make interpretation merely relative or even pointless. Precisely because readers from different historical periods, places and social experiences produce different but overlapping readings of the same words on the page—including for texts that engage with fundamental human concerns—debates about texts can play an important role in social discussion of beliefs and values.

How we read a given text also depends to some extent on our particular interest in reading it. (45) Such dimensions of reading suggest—as others introduced later in the book will also do—that we bring an implicit (often unacknowledged) agenda to any act of reading. It doesn’t then necessarily follow that one kind of reading is fuller, more advanced or more worthwhile than another. Ideally, different kinds of reading inform each other, and act as useful reference points for and counterbalances to one another. Together, they make up the reading component of your overall literacy, or relationship to your surrounding textual environment.

[A] Are we studying that text and trying to respond in a way that fulfils the requirement of a given course? Reading it simply for pleasure? Skimming it for information? Ways of reading on a train or in bed are likely to differ considerably from reading in a seminar room.

[B] Factors such as the place and period in which we are reading, our gender, ethnicity, age and social class will encourage us towards certain interpretations but at the same time obscure or even close off others.

[C] If you are unfamiliar with words or idioms, you guess at their meaning, using clues presented in the context. On the assumption that they will become relevant later, you make a mental note of discourse entities as well as possible links between them.

[D] In effect, you try to reconstruct the likely meanings or effects that any given sentence, image or reference might have had: These might be the ones the author intended.

[E] You make further inferences, for instance, about how the text may be significant to you, or about its validity—inferences that form the basis of a personal response for which the author will inevitably be far less responsible.

[F] In plays, novels and narrative poems, characters speak as constructs created by the author, not necessarily as mouthpieces for the author’s own thoughts.

[G] Rather, we ascribe meanings to texts on the basis of interaction between what we might call textual and contextual material: between kinds of organization or patterning we perceive in a text’s formal structures (so especially its language structures) and various kinds of background, social knowledge, belief and attitude that we bring to the text.

【译文】

Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature(编者加)

读书方式:提高英国文学专业学生的阅读技巧

你是如何进行阅读的?显然,在确定单个单词含义并弄清单词之间关系的基础上,你会利用英语语法的隐性知识。[C]如果你对单词或习语不够熟悉,你会利用语境呈现的线索猜测它们的含义。假设这些语篇实体在后文中可能会产生关联,阅读时就要将它们以及它们可能存在的关联都记忆下来。你开始推断文章的语境,例如判断涉及什么样的言语事件,谁在主导话语、在对谁讲话、时间以及地点分别是什么。

这里指出的阅读方法无疑是理解类型的。但是这些方法表明理解不仅包括被动吸收,还包括主动推断及解决问题。推理那些你认为作者通过提供给你的具体证据和线索呈现出来的希望你去理解的信息。[E]你会做出进一步推断,例如关于文章如何对你有意义,或者关于它的有效性——这些推理是构成读者自身反应的基础,作者必然不用对此反应负什么责任。

用这种方法思考,每位读者都会有不同的理解轨迹。问题不是对一个检验无误的、完全固定的或“真正的”含义的再现,也不是寻求文章与世界的某种永恒的关系。[G]相反,以我们称之为文本和语境材料之间的相互关系为基础,获得文本含义:我们从文本形式结构(尤其是它的语言结构)中洞悉的组织架构或行文模式与“我们带入文本的各种背景、社会知识、信仰以及态度”之间(的相互作用)。

这样的背景材料不可避免地反映出读者的个人特质。[B]诸如我们阅读时所在的时间及空间、我们的性别种族划分、年龄及社会地位等因素会鼓励我们朝向特定的解释,但同时也隐藏甚至隔绝了其他解读方式。但是,这并不会使解读仅仅具有相对性,甚至是毫无意义。恰恰由于读者来自不同的社会时期、不同的地域以及有着不同的社会经历,会对一页中的相同单词产生不同但交叠的阅读——包括带有基础人文关怀的文章——关于文章的辩论才能在信仰及价值的社会讨论中发挥重要作用。

我们如何阅读一篇既定的文章,在某种程度上取决于我们对于阅读它的特定兴趣。[A]我们是在学习某一文本并试图通过某种方式进行回应,以完成一门指定课程的要求吗?阅读它只是简单为了乐趣吗?或是为了获取信息而快速浏览?在火车上及躺在床上的阅读方式可能与在研讨室里阅读有着极大的不同。这种阅读的维度表明——以及其他将要在后文介绍的阅读层面也表明——任何阅读行为都会伴随隐性(经常是未被注意到的)动机。没有必要认同有一种阅读方式比另一种阅读方式更完美、更高级或更有价值。理想状态下,不同种类的阅读相互贯通,彼此之间互为有用的参照点,相互平衡。通过相互作用,他们共同组成了你的整体素养的阅读要素,或构成了读者周围文本环境的关联。

Part C

Directions:

Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

Within the span of a hundred years, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a tide of emigration—one of the great folk wanderings of history—swept from Europe to America. (46) This movement, driven by powerful and diverse motivations, built a nation out of a wilderness and, by its nature, shaped the character and destiny of an uncharted continent.

(47) The United States is the product of two principal forces—the immigration of European peoples with their varied ideas, customs, and national characteristics and the impact of a new country which modified these traits. Of necessity, colonial America was a projection of Europe. Across the Atlantic came successive groups of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Scots, Irishmen, Dutchmen, Swedes, and many others who attempted to transplant their habits and traditions to the new world. (48) But the force of geographic conditions peculiar to America, the interplay of the varied national groups upon one another, and the sheer difficulty of maintaining old-world ways in a raw, new continent caused significant changes. These changes were gradual and at first scarcely visible. But the result was a new social pattern which, although it resembled European society in many ways, had a character that was distinctly American.

(49) The first shiploads of immigrants bound for the territory which is now the United States crossed the Atlantic more than a hundred years after the 15th-and-16th-century explorations of North America. In the meantime, thriving Spanish colonies had been established in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. These travelers to North America came in small, unmercifully overcrowded craft. During their six- to twelve-week voyage, they survived on barely enough food allotted to them. Many of the ships were lost in storms, many passengers died of disease, and infants rarely survived the journey. Sometimes storms blew the vessels far off their course, and often calm brought unbearably delay.

To the anxious travelers the sight of the American shore brought almost inexpressible relief. Said one recorder of events, “The air at twelve leagues’ distance smelt as sweet as a new-blown garden.” The colonists’ first glimpse of the new land was a sight of dense woods. (50) The virgin forest with its richness and variety of trees was a real treasure-house which extended from Maine all the way down to Georgia. Here was abundant fuel and lumber. Here was the raw material of houses and furniture, ships and potash, dyes and naval stores.

【译文】

The Colonial Period(编者加)

殖民地时期

在17世纪到18世纪早期的一百年的时间跨度里,一次移民潮——历史上大规模的民间迁徙之一——从欧洲横扫至美洲。(46)在各种强大动机的推动下,这场迁移从荒野中造就了一个民族,并循其本质塑造了一片全新大陆的特点,决定了它的命运。

(47)合众国是两股主要力量作用的产物,一是具有不同思想、风俗和民族特点的欧洲各民族的迁入,二是一个新国家因改变了这些特征而产生的影响。不可避免地,被殖民的美洲成为欧洲的映射。连续不断的英格兰人、法国人、德国人、苏格兰人、爱尔兰人、荷兰人、瑞典人以及许多其他民族的人横跨大西洋来到美洲,试图把自己的习惯和传统带到这片新世界。(48)但美洲特有地理条件的作用,不同族群间的相互影响,加上在一片蛮荒新大陆上维持旧大陆方式的巨大困难,所有这一切引起了意义深远的变化。这些变化是平缓的,而且起初几乎是看不见的。但其结果是一种新的社会模式,尽管它在许多方面与欧洲社会相似,却有一种专属美洲的特性。

(49)在十五、十六世纪的北美大陆探险过去一百多年后,首批满载移民驶向今天合众国这片疆土的船只横穿过了大西洋。与此同时,西班牙在墨西哥、西印度群岛和南美洲建立了新兴殖民地。前往北美的那些人是乘着极其拥挤的小船儿到来的。在6~12周的航行中,他们靠着分给他们的微乎其微的食物幸存了下来。许多船在暴风雨中失踪,许多乘客死于疾病,婴儿能活下来的更是微乎其微。有时,暴风雨将船只吹离航线,而风平浪静又会带来难以忍受的长久性耽搁。

对于焦虑的航行者来说,看到美洲的海岸会给他们带来无法表达的轻松。一位事件记录员说:“约百里之外的空气闻起来跟新盛开的花园一样芬芳”。首先映入殖民者眼帘的是一片茂密的森林。(50)郁郁葱葱、树种繁多的原始森林是一座从缅因一直向南绵延到佐治亚的天然宝库。这里有丰富的燃料和木材。这里有建造房子、家具、船只,生产钾碱、染料和松脂的原材料。

Section III WritingPart A

51.Directions:

You are going to hold a club reading session. Write an email of about 100 words recommending a book to the club members.

You should state reasons for your recommendation.

You should write neatly on the ANWSER SHEET.

Do not sign you own name at the end of the letter, use “Li Ming ” instead.

Do not write the address. (10 points)

Part B

52.Directions:

Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following picture. In you writing, you should

1) describe the picture briefly,

2) interpret its intended meaning, and

3) give your comments.

You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.(20 points)

2015年考研英语一()