试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

宁波大学

Have you ever wondered what our future is like? Practically all people (1) a desire to predict their future (2). Most people seem inclined to (3) this task using causal reasoning. First we (4) recognize that future circumstances are (5) caused or conditioned by present ones. We learn that getting an education will (6) how much money we earn later and that swimming beyond the reef may bring an unhappy (7) with a shark. Second, people also learn that such (8) of cause and effect are probabilistic in nature. That is, the effects occur more often when the causes occur than when the causes are (9), but not always. Thus, students learn that studying hard (10) good grades in most instances, but not every time. Science makes these concepts of causality and probability more (11) and provides techniques for dealing (12) then more accurately than does causal human inquiry. In looking at ordinary human inquiry, we need to (13) between prediction and understanding. Often, even if we don’t understand why, we are willing to act (14) the basis of a demonstrated predictive ability. Whatever the primitive drives (15) motivate human beings, satisfying them depends heavily on the ability to (16) future circumstances. The attempt to predict is often played in a (17) of knowledge and understanding. If you can understand why certain regular patterns (18), you can predict better than if you simply observe those patterns. Thus, human inquiry aims (19) answering both “what” and “why” question, and we pursue these (20) by observing and figuring out.

Directions: Carefully read the following passage and write a short composition of about 250 to 300 words. You should write the composition on the ANSWER SHEET. Note that your score will be awarded mainly on the base of content, logic, style and language. (30 points)The world today sees a cultural tourism booming. It is the subset of tourism concerned with a country or region’s culture, specifically the lifestyle of the people in those geographical areas, the history of those people, their cart, architecture, religion(s), and other elements that helped shape their way of life. There is a general perception that cultural tourism is “good” tourism that attracts high spending visitors and does little damage 10 the environment or local culture while contributing a great deal to the economy and support of culture. Other commentators, however, have suggested that cultural tourism may do more harm than good, allowing the cultural tourist to penetrate sensitive cultural environments as the advance guard of the mass tourist.IS CULTURAL TOURISM AN ANGEL IN DISGUISE OR NOT? An argumentative is expected to support your viewpoint.

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)Cloning and Financial CrisisRecently, a nearly decade old paper on the economic effects of human cloning by a French economics professor has been getting some attention. (46) The paper argues that rather than an army of low-level cloned workers or fighters as is predicted in Huxley’s Brave New World or Star Wars, cloning will lead to more and more higher skilled workers. That’s because the returns of cloning people who can make a lot of money will be higher than cloning average Joes. And when it comes to cloning, we’re in it for the money, just like everything else. What’s more, it will probably be only the rich who will be able to afford to clone themselves at the start.The result, at least at first, will be a rapid rise in our already disturbing levels of income inequality. Clones will earn more and more money, and those of us who reproduce the old fashion way will likely have poorer and poorer offspring. (47) Recently, Barbara Kiviat wrote two essays on how income inequality was a major contributor to the financial crisis. So you do the math. If cloning leads to income inequality and income inequality leads to financial crises, then we’ve got a problem. Here’s why:(48) One of the knocks on financial reform is that it is regulation through the rear view mirror. Lawmakers focus on stopping what caused the most recent financial crisis. So after the tech bubble, new rules were put into place to stop Wall Street from using analysts to push worthless stocks. The way Wall Street did IPOs came under scrutiny. And a whole set of rules were put in place to try to stop accounting frauds like Enron.(49) We all know now that none of those reforms did little to stop the latest financial crisis, which was driven not by stocks, but by housing prices, lax lending and unsound risk taking by Wall Street. So now we are putting reforms in place to reign in risky behavior at banks, and to regulate the derivatives that facilitate big hidden financial bets and add consumer protections that will eliminate the ability to make bad loans in the first place.All good things. None of that though addresses the obvious real thing we should all be concerned about when it comes to financial crises: Human Cloning. (50) The paper, which was written by Gilles Saint-Paul, a professor at the Toulouse School of Economics in France, has a surprising amount of math for a topic such as human cloning, which to the best of my knowledge doesn’t yet exist. And it has some out there ideas, like the guess that surrogate mothers might soon have salaries that match Wall Street. If cloned babies have higher expected income levels, then people will pay more for them to be made. So birthing a clone equals cha-ching.

Directions: In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-F to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There is one extra choice, which does not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)Ways to Fight Rising Food PricesFood, clothing and shelter generally top the list of basic human needs. While shopping at a discount store instead of the mall generally takes care of the clothing issue, and living in a small apartment instead of a McMansion can address your housing situation, rising world food prices can lead to some significant challenges in the food department. Everything from rising transportation costs to the development of biofuels pushes up the cost of food and put a pinch on consumers’ wallets. (41)Dining out is expensive. (42) Even good coffee is cheaper to make if you do it yourself. Fast food is excluded from the category, as high-calorie, low-quality food can be a bargain price, but the impact on your long-term health overrides the benefit of short-term savings.If you stumble around the grocery store and fill your cart with everything that catches your eye, chances are you will spend a lot more money than you needed to. (43) Plan your meals for the week ahead, and make careful note of what you need to buy in order to prepare those meals. Once the list is made, purchase only the items on the list, and avoid impulse buys.Grocery stores are designed to make you go through a maze to get to the most basic items in the hope that you will make a few impulse buys along the way. (44) Because most necessities and basic cooking items are found along the outside perimeter of the store, start there and work your way around the perimeter and step into the maze to grab any leftover items on your list.Our fast-paced society encourages convenience, and grocery stores have capitalized on this trend. Ready-made meals are easy to buy, but they come with a premium price tag. Instead of putting that rotisserie chicken and macaroni salad in your cart, buy the ingredients and prepare the meal yourself. The same concept applies to frozen entrees, baked goods and any other foods that have been prepared in some way for added convenience.(45) Pay attention to the prices and pick up the family-size package if the per-unit cost is lower and you have a place to store it. Shopping at big-box bulk retailers like Sam’s Club and Costco can also save on your bill if you shop there frequently enough to cover the cost of membership, but pay careful attention to your spending habits. The big boxes are often no bargain compared with sales prices and coupon savings at other stores. In addition, they may encourage you to buy more than you need, driving up your grocery bill.A. Just about any nutritious meal that you buy in a formal restaurant can be made at home for a fraction of the price.B. If you keep to your planned list, you won’t be tempted when you get forced down the junk food aisle to get at the milk.C. To minimize your cash outlay, prepare a shopping list before you leave home.D. While the need to eat isn’t something you can avoid, there are some steps you can take to keep the costs in check.E. Stores often place the most expensive items at eye-level.F. In addition, bulk buying can save you a significant amount of money.

What will it mean to know the complete human genome? Eric Lander of MIT’s Whitehead Institute compares it to the discovery of the periodic table of the elements in the last 1800s. “Genomics is now providing biology’s periodic table.” says Lander. “Scientists will know that every phenomenon must be explainable in terms of this list” which will be on a single CD-ROM. Already researchers are extracting DNA from patients, attaching fluorescent molecules and sprinkling the sample on a glass chip whose surface is speckled with 10,000 known genes. A laser reads the fluorescence, which indicates which of the known genes on the chip are in the mystery sample from the patient. In only the last few months such “gene-expression monitoring” has diagnosed a muscle tumor in a boy thought to have leukemia, and distinguished between two kinds of cancer that require very different chemotherapy.But decoding the book of life poses daunting moral dilemmas. With knowledge of our genetic code will come the power to re-engineer the human species. Biologists will be able to use the genome as a parts list much as customers scour a list of china to replace broken plates and may well let prospective parents choose their unborn child’s traits. Scientists have solid leads on genes for different temperaments, body builds, statures and cognitive abilities. And if anyone still believes that parents will recoil at praying God, and leave their baby’s fate in the hands of nature, recall that couples have already created a frenzied market in eggs from Ivy League women.Beyond the profound ethical issues are practical concerns. The easier it is to change ourselves and our children, the less society may tolerate those who do not; warns Lori Andrews of Kent College of Law. If genetic tests in uterus predict mental dullness, obesity, short stature or other undesirable traits of the moment, will society disparage children whose parents let them be born with those traits? Already, Andrews finds, some nurses and doctors blame parents for bringing into the world a child whose birth defect was diagnosable before delivery; how long will it be before the same condemnation applies to cosmetic imperfections? An even greater concern is that well intentioned choices by millions of individual parents-to-be could add up to unforeseen consequences for all of humankind. It just so happens that some disease genes also confer resistance to disease: carrying a gene for sickle cell anemia, for instance, brings resistance to malaria. Are we smart enough, and wise enough, to know how knocking out “bad” genes will affect our evolution as a species?36. The main similarity between the biology’s periodic table and the periodic table of the elements is ______.37. In the second paragraph, “the book of life” refers to ______.38. We can infer that some couples are eager to get eggs from Ivy League women because ______.39. It can be learned from the passage that ______.40. The author’s attitude towards knowing the complete human genome can be described as ______.

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