装备指挥技术学院2014年博士研究生招生考博英语真题

　　Part III Reading Comprehension (30 point)

　　Section A (20 points, 1 point each)

　　Directions: In this part of the test, there are five short passages. Read each passage carefully, and then do the questions that follow. Choose the best answer from the four choices given and mark the corresponding letter with a single bar across the square brackets on your Answer Sheet.

　　Passage One

　　A warning has been issued by the electricity board that there may be a repetition of yesterday evening’s block-outs in the London area. Although these were not serious or prolonged, there were voltage reductions in many homes of up to an hour, and the traffic lights in Piccadilly Circus were out for twenty minutes, causing considerable traffic congestion. Some commuter services were also affected. Some passengers had to face delays of up to two hours and at Victoria Station an angry argument broke out between a station inspector and a man on his way to visit his wife in hospital, and police had to be called. Both men were arrested. Local electricity switchboards were jammed with calls from housewives demanding to know how they were expected to cook supper for their families on a cold cooker. In one street in West London, all the lights went out without warning. Shops were closed but a relief service of candles and hand torches was set up by neighbors concerned about the risk of accident to old people and children. Today local hardware shops in the area report a run on candles and paraffin lamps normally sold to campers.

　　A spokesman for the Electricity Board said they regretted the inconvenience the public had suffered, but there was no guarantee that further power cuts would not be necessary. Particularly after dark when there was an increased use of electrical appliances in the home.

　　The trouble appears to be due to a work to rule by staff at power stations in remote areas, who are insisting on increased pay for night shifts and higher travel allowances. Although the work to rule is unofficial, Union leaders are to meet members of the electricity Board early next month to discuss these demands. It is hoped that both sides will be able to reach a satisfactory agreement and that the threat of more serious industrial action will be averted.

　　36. According to the Electricity Board consumers may expect ________ .

　　A. voltage reductions in a certain area

　　B. increased voltage reduction in the London area

　　C. power cuts of more than an hour in certain areas

　　D. prolonged power cuts in many areas

　　37. Owing to the delay at Victoria Station________.

　　A. two passengers were arrested

　　B. a man was taken to hospital

　　C. evacuated the old people and children

　　D. took care to prevent accidents

　　38. When the lights in one street went out, people _________.

　　A. ran to the shops to buy candles

　　B. were involved in a series of accidents

　　C. evacuated the old people and children

　　D. took care to prevent accidents

　　39. The main cause of the power cuts seems to be _________.

　　A. a strike by all night shift workers at power stations

　　B. the worker’s refusal to travel to remote power stations

　　C. the worker’s unwillingness to work night shifts

　　D. dissatisfaction among workers over conditions of service

　　40. From the passage we understand that the present industrial unrest ________.

　　A. was initiated by Trade Union officials

　　B. has been set in motion without Trade Union approval

　　C. is to be settled by arbitration

　　D. is to be taken to government level

　　Passage Two

　　Despite the defeat of the Nazis and their allies and the setting up of the United Nations Organization in 1945, racism continues to haunt the world today. Men are denied employment, housing and educational opportunities because of their skin color; some rich countries still have racial immigration laws to keep out immigrants from poorer and hungrier lands; political leaders are imprisoned for life for demanding that all races should have the same political right; and even in the cities of the affluent Western world the Negro ghettoes burn, signaling to the world the blank despair of their inhabitants.

　　The most striking instance of racism in the world today is that of the system of Apartheid(种族隔离制度)in South Africa. Apartheid is not as some people may still imagine a serious attempt to provide equal though separate facilities for all races. It is segregation carried through by men with white skins to their own advantage and to the disadvantage of the black and colored populations.

　　Its viciousness lies not solely in the fact that different “races” must live in different areas, but far more in the fact that the areas assigned to the non-White groups are the overcrowded and eroded parts of the countryside. Inevitably those assigned to living there would face starvation unless they went as migrants and transients to seek work in the White areas. So what the theory of Apartheid means is this: that black men will work for white so long as political power lies where it does. Such a system as this is the product of conquest and of the monopoly of political power by a conquering group. The conquerors seize upon the fact of skin color in order to imply that the inequality which they have created is given by Nature, that it is the inevitable consequence of biological differences, or even that it is the will of God.

　　Such a political system could have established in many parts of the colonial world, but the process of decolonization set in train by the victory of 1945 and assisted by United Nations action succeeded in many countries in opening equal opportunities to all. Hence today we see many cases where those who govern a newly independent country are the children of peasants or of political prisoners.

　　But where White supremacy and Apartheid prevail, colored people must either accept their inferior lot or be condemned for life to an island prison. A similar future is inevitable in other countries if their present political leaders establish governments based upon inequality of political rights between races.

　　But racism and its social consequences are evident not only in the former colonial territories. They are an ever present feature of the life of advanced industrial countries. Increasingly in some at least of these countries the traditional political issues pale into insignificance beside the problem of racial inequality and men’s attempt to fight against it. Inevitably in the post 1945 world, with the advanced countries of Europe and North America undergoing a period of unparalleled economic prosperity, immigrants have come to their cities from the poorer countries, from the rural areas and from the areas where the old slave plantations were.

　　There is much evidence to suggest that this migration has not represented an uncontrolled and uncontrollable flood, for the immigrants have exercised their own immigration control by going where the jobs are.

　　Nevertheless this precisely how this immigration has been perceived in the countries concerned and they have reacted by throwing up barriers either to immigration itself or to full equality of opportunity for the immigrant in fields such as housing or employment. Such barriers may not have an explicitly racial form. They may affect all newcomers. But there can be little doubt that colored people are most affected by them and that the discrimination involved is widely thought to be based upon color and race.

　　41. The passages states that victims of racism include ________.

　　A. immigrants

　　B. people whose skin is not white

　　C. people of different color, and political leaders who fight for them; as well as would-be immigrants from poorer and hungrier countries

　　D. all those who are denied employment, housing and educational opportunities.

　　42. “The Negro ghettoes burn.” Is it possible to infer from the passage who set them on fire.

　　A. Yes, the Negroes themselves in protest against their living conditions.

　　B. Yes, racists.

　　C. Yes, the inhabitants of the ghettoes.

　　D. No, we cannot really be sure from this passage.

　　43. Apartheid is particularly wicked because _________.

　　A. different races have to live in different areas

　　B. the areas assigned to the non-white groups are not rich enough to support them

　　C. some people still imagine it is a serious attempt at equal but separate development

　　D. it is to the disadvantage of the black population

　　44. In paragraph three the writer says that the non-white populations are forced by ________.

　　A. the Whites to work for them

　　B. the law to work for the Whites

　　C. the threat of starvation to work for the Whites

　　D. claiming that “might is right”

　　45. We can infer from this passage that the writer thinks that racism _________.

　　A. is on the increase because of South Africa’s policies

　　B. is on the increase because of the growth of immigrant populations

　　C. has decreased because of the process of decolonization

　　D. continues to exist despite the defeat of the Nazis, the growth of UN and the process of decolonization

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