装备指挥技术学院2011年博士研究生招生考博英语真题

　　Passage 2

　　Modem technology may not have improved the world all that much, but it certainly has made life noisier. Unmuffled motorcycles, blaring car alarms, and roving boom boxes come first, second, and third on my list of most obnoxious noise offenders, but everyone could come up with his own version of aural hell—if he could just find a quiet spot to ponder the matter.

　　Yet what technology has done, other technology is now starting to undo, using computer power, to zap those ear-splitting noises into silence. Previously silence-seekers had little recourse except to stay inside, close the windows, and plug their ears. Remedies like these are quaintly termed "passive" systems, because they place physical barriers against the unwanted sound. Now computer technology is producing a far more effective "active" system, which doesn't just contain, deflect, or mask the noise but annihilates it electronically.

　　The system works by countering the offending noise with -"anti-noise", a somewhat sinister-sounding term that calls to mind antimatter, black holes, and other Popular Science mindbenders but, that actually refers to something quite simple. Just as a wave on a pond is flattened when it merges with a trough that is its exact opposite (or mirror image), so can a sound wave be negated by meeting its opposite.

　　This general theory of sound cancellation has been around since the 1930s. In the fifties and sixties it made for a kind of magic trick among laboratory acousticians playing around with the first clunky mainframe computers. The advent of low-cost, high-power microprocessors has made active noise-cancellation systems a commercial possibility, and a handful of small electronics firms in the United States and abroad are bringing the first ones onto the silence market.

　　Silence buffs might be hoping that the noise-canceling apparatus will take the shape of the 44 Magnum wielded by Dirty Harry, but in fact active sound control is not quite that active. The system might more properly be described as reactive, in that it responds to sound waves already headed toward human ears. In the configuration that is usual for such systems microphones detect the noise signal and send it to the system's microprocessor, which almost instantly models it and creates its inverse for loudspeakers to fire at the original. Because the two sounds occupy the same range of frequencies and tones, the inverse sounds exactly like the noise it is meant to eliminate: the anti-noise canceling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is heard as Beethoven's Fifth. The only difference is that every positive pressure produced on the air by the orchestra is matched by a negative pressure produced by the computer, and every negative pressure is matched by a positive, thereby silencing the sound. The system is most effective as a kind of muffler, in which microphones, microprocessor, and loudspeaker are all in a unit encasing the device that produces the sound, stifling it at its source. But it can work as a headset, too, negating the sound at the last moment before it disturbs one's peace of mind.

　　41.The writer holds that ___.

　　A. modem technology has disturbed the quiet life of the people

　　B. modem technology has made people indifferent to noise pollution

　　C. modem technology has made the present world quieter than before

　　D. modem technology has failed to solve the problem of noise pollution

　　42. According to the passage, an active noise-cancellation system ___.

　　A. contains noise rather than negates it

　　B. eliminates noise rather than muffles it

　　C. deflects noise rather than baffles it

　　D. holds noise back rather than stifles it

　　43. In Paragraph 5 the word " buffs" means _____.

　　A. settlers B. enthusiasts

　　C. buyers D. manufacturers

　　44. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

　　A. In the past, people sometimes plugged their ears to fight against the offending noise.

　　B. An active noise-cancellation system follows the principle of a wave being

　　flattened by meeting its exact opposite.

　　C. The first active noise-cancellation system was made in the 1930s.

　　D. Active noise-cancellation systems are no w- available on the market.

　　45. Active noise-cancellation systems require ___.

　　A. microphones B. microprocessors

　　C. loudspeakers D. all of the above

　　Passage 3

　　The first way we can approach language is as a phenomenon of the individual person. It is concerned with describing and explaining language as a matter of human behavior. People speak and write; they also evidently read and understand what they hear. They are not born doing so; they have to acquire these skills. Not everybody seems to develop them to the same degree. People may suffer accidents or diseases, which impair their performance. Language is thus seen as part of human psychology, a particular sort of behavior, the behavior, which has as its principal, function that of communication.

　　The trouble with the term “behavior” is that it is often taken to refer only to more or less overt, and describable, physical movements and acts. Yet part of language behavior-that of understanding spoken or written language, for example-has little or no physically observable signs. It is true we can sometimes infer that understanding has taken place by the changes that take place in the other person’s behavior. When someone has been prohibited from doing something, we may infer that he has understood the prohibition by observing that thereafter he never behaves in that way. We cannot, of course, be absolutely sure that his subsequent behavior is a result of his understanding; it might be due to a loss of interest or inclination. So behavior must be taken to include unobservable activity, often only to be inferred from other observable behavior.

　　Once we admit that the study of language behavior involves describing and explaining the unobservable, the situation becomes much more complicated, because we have to postulate some set of processes, some internal mechanism, which operates when we speak and understand. We have to postulate something we can call a mind. The study of language from this point of view can then be seen as a study of the specific properties, processes and states of the mind whose outward manifestations are observable behavior; what we have to know in order to perform linguistically. This approach to language, as a phenomenon of the individual, is thus principally concerned with explaining how we acquire language, and its relation to general human cognitive systems, and with the psychological mechanisms underlying the comprehension and production of speech; much less with the problem of what language is for, that is, its function as communication, since this necessarily involves more than a single individual. 

　　46.What is the best title for this passage?

　　A. Language as Means of Communication.

　　B. Language and Psychology.

　　C. Language and the Individual.

　　D. Language as a Social Phenomenon. 

　　47.According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?

　　A. Language is often regarded as part of human psychology.

　　B. People develop language skills of different degrees as a result of different personal experiences.

　　C. Language is a special kind of psychological behavior that is born with an individual.

　　D. People learn to speak and write through imitation and training. 

　　48.What does the term “behavior” in the second paragraph especially refer to in this passage?

　　A. It refers to observable and physical movements and acts.

　　B. It refers to the part of language behavior that involves understanding or interpretation.

　　C. It refers to both the overt and the unobservable language behaviors in communicating.

　　D. It refers to acts of speaking and writing. 

　　49.What does “internal mechanism”(Line 3, Para. 3) mean?

　　A. Secret machine. B. Mental processes. C. Overt system. D. Mechanic operation. 50.What can you infer from the passage?

　　A. Its individualistic approach to language is meant to study the psychological processes of language acquisition.

　　B. The individualistic approach to language is mainly concerned with how language functions in society.

　　C. The study of language is sure to involve more than a single individual.

　　D. Psychological approach to language is concerned with the comprehension and production of speech.

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