山东大学2013年考博英语真题

　　Passage 3

　　Those who welcomed the railway saw it as more than a rapid and comfortable means of passing. They actually saw it as afactor in world peace. They did not foresee that the railway would be just one more means for the rapid movement of aggressive armies. None of them foresaw that the more weare together-the more chances there are of war. Any boy or girl who is one of a large family knows that.

　　Whenever any new invention is put forward, those for it and those against it can always find medical men to approve or condemn. The anti-railway group produced doctors who said that tunnels would be most dangerous to public health: they would produce colds, catarrhs (粘膜炎) and consumptions. The deafening noise and the glare of the engine fire, would have a bad effect on the nerves. Further, being moved through the air at a high speed would do grave injury to delicate lungs. In those with high blood-pressure, the movement of the train might produce apoplexy (中风). The sudden plunging of a train into the darkness of a tunnel, and the equally sudden rush into full daylight, would cause great damage to eyesight. But the pro-railway group was of course able to produce equally famous medical men to say just the opposite. They said that the speed and swing of the train would equalize the circulation, promote digestion, tranquilize the nerves, and ensure good sleep.

　　The actual rolling-stock was anything but comfortable. If it was a test of endurance to sit for four hours outside a coach in rain, or inside in dirty air, the railway offered little more in the way of comfort. Certainly the first-class carriages had cushioned seats; but the second-class had only narrow bare boards, while the third-class had nothing at all; no seats and no roof; they were just open trucks. So that third-class passengers gained nothing from the few mode except speed. In the matter of comfort, indeed they lost; they did, on the coaches, have a seat, but now they had to stand all the way, which gave opportunities to the comic (滑稽的) press. This kind of thing: A man was seen yesterday buying a third-class ticket for the new London and Birmingham Railway. The state of his mind is being enquired into.

　　A writer in the early days of railways wrote feelingly of both second-and third-class carriages. He made the suggestion that the directors of the railways must have sent all over the world to find the hardest possible wood. Of the open third-class trucks he said that they had the peculiar property of meeting the rain from whatever quarter it came. He described them as horizontal shower-baths, from whose searching power there was no escape.

　　61. All boys and girls in large families know that

　　A) a boy and a girl usually fight when they are together

　　B) people tend to be together more than they used to be

　　C) a lot of people being together makes fights likely

　　D) Railway leads the world to peace

　　62. According to those who welcomed the railway, the railway itself should include all the following except .

　　A) the railway enables people travel fast

　　B) the railway brings comfort to people

　　C) the railway makes the world peaceful

　　D) the railway leads the world to war as well.

　　63. According to the anti-railway group, all the followings are true but .

　　A) tunnels are dangerous to public health

　　B) the noise and the glare of the engine fire may affect people's nerves

　　C) the rapid speed through the air does damage to people's lungs

　　D) to those with high blood-pressure, the rapid speed of the train causes them to die

　　64. We may safely conclude that .

　　A) the author belongs to the anti-railway group

　　B) the author belongs to the for-railway group

　　C) the author speaks highly of the railway

　　D) the author may never take train because of its potential dangers

　　65. What is the tone of this passage?

　　A)Practical B)Satirical C)Humorous D)Exaggerated

答案

　　61.C 62.D 63.D 64.A 65.C Passage

　　Passage 4

　　The Myth of College Many of you young persons out there are seriously thinking about going to college. (That is, of course, a lie. The only things you young persons think seriously about are loud music and sex. Trust me: these are closely related to college). College is basically a bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to memorize things. The two thousand hours are spread out over four years; you spend the rest of the time sleeping and trying to get dates.

　　Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:

　　Things you need to know later in life (two hours). These include how to make collect telephone calls and get beer and crepe-paper stains out of your pajamas.

　　Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours). These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on. The idea is you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay in college for the rest of your life.

　　It's very difficult to forget everything. For example, when I was in college, I had to memorize - don't ask me why - the names of the metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw.

　　Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important, like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells. After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers.

　　This means that you must not major in mathematics, physics, biology or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of the rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this.

　　68. When should the college students choose a major?

　　A. The moment they go to college

　　B. After they have been in college for nearly two years

　　C. After they have been in college for a year or so

　　D. When they become a senior

　　69. The word ―flunk‖ in the last paragraph means

　　A. float B. fail C. ridicule D. dupe

　　70. What is the beat title for the passage?

　　A. The Myth of College

　　B. What Can You Learn in College?

　　C. How to Enjoy Your College Life

　　D. The Importance of College

　　Part Ⅳ Use of Language

　　The psychology of warranties保单心理学

　　Protection racket保护之诈

　　If extended guarantees are overpriced, why are they so popular? CUSTOMERS tend to agonise over the relative merits of different models of electronic goods such as digital cameras or plasma televisions. But when they get to the till, many spend freely on something they barely think about at all: an extended warranty, which is often more profitable to the retailer than the device it covers.

　　Shoppers typically pay 10-50% of the cost of a product to insure it beyond the term covered by the manufacturer’s guarantee. 71 . Yet products rarely break within the period covered, and repairs tend to cost no more than the warranty itself. 72 l.

　　So why, asks a paper published in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, do so many consumers still buy extended warranties? The authors—Tao Chen of the University of Maryland, Ajay Kalra of Rice University and Baohong Sun of Carnegie Mellon University—examined purchase data from a big electronics retailer for over 600 households from November 2003 to October 2004. 73 .

　　If a customer is about to buy something fun (ie, a plasma television rather than a vacuum cleaner), he will be more inclined to splash out on extra insurance. This is because consumers value ―hedonic‖ items over utilitarian ones, regardless of the actual price tag. 74 . The study also found that poorer consumers are more likely to buy ―potentially unnecessary and overpriced insurance‖, because they are more worried about the expense of replacing a product if it breaks.

　　75 . But although most policies go unused, he admits that the emotional tranquillity that comes with buying a new warranty is not in itself without value, even if ―rationally, it doesn’t make sense‖.

　　A. This is especially true if the item is on sale, as finding an unexpected bargain leaves buyers feeling flush and pleased.

　　B. The terms of these deals vary (and there is often a great deal of fine print), but they usually promise to repair or replace a faulty device for between one and four years.

　　C. Only in the present century has one species man acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

　　D. Only in the present century has one species man acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

　　E. They concluded that the decision to buy a warranty had a great deal to do with a shopper’s mood.

　　F. The popularity of warranties should logically depend on the likelihood of a product’s failure, says Mr Kalra.

　　G. That makes warranties amazingly profitable: they generate over $16 billion annually for American retailers, according to Warranty Week, a trade journal

答案

　　B G E A F

　　Part Ⅴ Translation

　　1. Until such time as mankind has the sense to lower its population to the points where the planet can provide a comfortable support for all, people will have to accept more “unnatural food.”

　　2. According to a growing body of exidence, the chemicals that make up many plastics may migrate out of the material and into foods and fluids, ending up in your body.

　　3. Consider the survey evidence, which shows that while most Americans want to have both science and religion in their lives, they’ ll only go so far to preserve the former at the expense of the latter.

　　4. The bodies who play major professional sports have changed dramatically over the years, and managers have been more than willing to adjust team uniforms to fit the growing numbers of bigger, longer frames.

　　5. This will be particularly true since energy pinch will make it difficult to continue agriculture in the high-energy American fashion that makes it possible to combine few farmers with high yieds.

　　Part Ⅵ Writing

　　As the society develops, interpersonal relationships are getting more and more indifferent. Please make comment on the phenomena

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