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

哈尔滨工业大学

Competition for admission to the country’s top private schools has always been tough, but this year Elisabeth realized it had reached a new level. Her wake-up call came when a man called the Dalton School in Manhattan, where Elisabeth is admissions director, and inquired about the age cutoff for their kindergarten program. After providing the information, she asked about the age of his child. The man paused for an uncomfortably long time before answering. “Well, we don’t have a child yet. We’re trying to figure out when to conceive a child so the birthday is not a problem.”Worries are spreading from Manhattan to the rest of the country. Precise current data on private schools are unavailable, but interviews with representatives of independent schools all told the same story: an oversupply of applicants, higher rejection rates. “We have people calling us for spots two years down the road,” said Marilyn of the Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. "We have grandparents calling for pregnant daughters." Public opinion polls indicate that Americans’ No. 1 concern is education. Now that the long economic boom has given parents more disposable income, many are turning to private schools, even at price tags of well over $10000 a year. “We’re getting applicants from a broader area geographically than we ever have in the past,” said Betsy of the Latin School of Chicago, which experienced a 20 percent increase in applications this year.“The problem for the applicants is that while demand has increased, supply has not.” Every year, there are a few children who do not find places, but this year, for the first time that I know of, there are a significant number without places,” said Elisabeth.So what can parents do to give their 4-year-old an edge? Schools know there is no easy way to pick a class when children are so young. Many schools give preference to children of their graduates. Some make the choice by drawing lots. But most rely on a mix of subjective and objective measures: tests that at best identify developmental maturity and cognitive potential, interviews with parents and observation of applicants in classroom settings. They also want a diverse mix. Children may end up on a waiting list simply because their birthdays fall at the wrong time of year, or because too many applicants were boys.The worst thing a parent can do is to pressure preschoolers to perform—for example, by pushing them to read or do math exercises before they’re ready. Instead, the experts say, parents should take a breath and look for alternatives. Another year in preschool may be all that’s needed.16. From this text we learn that it is ______.17. The sentence “We have people....down the road” (Paragraph 2) probably means ______.18. The text indicates that private schools are very selective because they ______.19. From the text, we can infer that author ______.20. Which of the following can serve as a Title of this text?

All societies have distinct role expectations for men and for women. In the United States, these expectations have been undergoing change for many decades. Today Americans live in a world of diverse family patterns and conflicting images of ideal life styles for men and women. The conventional norms of the first half century defined a successful woman as a wife and mother who stayed home to carry out a full array of household duties. The husband and father was expected to stay away from the home most of the day, earning enough money to pay the bills. Many adults still live by these expectations, but the traditional pattern is no longer held up as an ideal to be followed by everyone. Times have changed; there is no return to yesterday.Although the women’s movement and political controversies about such issues and the Equal Rights Amendment and sexual harassment suggest that changing sex roles is a recent issue, this is far from the case. Broad trends can be identified over the past hundred years. Women have increased their participation in the labor force from 18% in 1900 to over 50% today, and they give birth to fewer children than women did in the past. In 1910 the birth rate was 30 per 1,000 population; by the 1900s it had declined to 16 per 1,000. These two trends—increasing participation in the labor force and decreasing family size—suggest that major long-term changes have restructured the role expectations of men and women. These changes are complex. The fact that more women are joining the labor force as full-time workers does not mean that a single sex role pattern is emerging.On the contrary, we are living in a period of diverse family patterns. According to Kathleen Gerson, “the domestic woman who builds her life around children and homemaking persists, but she now coexists with a growing number of working mothers and permanently childless women.”Women today face hard choices as they make decisions about work, career, and motherhood. Despite women’s liberation, women still earn less than men in the work place and are still expected to do most of the work in the home. Women work substantially more hours each week in the home and at the workplace than men do. Women are working harder than ever, yet many do not enjoy the benefits of full equality.11. The tradition roles for men and women ______.12. Changing sex roles is not a recent issue because ______.13. The fact that more women are joining the labor force as full time workers means that ______.14. It’s stated in the last paragraph that ______.15. According to this passage, the statement which is NOT true is ______.

Researchers at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California found that a 12-minute bedside visit with a dog can help ease anxiety levels by 24 percent in heart failure patients, compared to a 10 percent drop when patients had a visit from a human volunteer, and no drop in patients who had no visit.Results of the 76-patient study were presented last week at the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions in Dallas, Texas. The study was funded by the Pet Care Trust Foundation, a non-profit organization which promotes human-animal interaction and bonding. In the study, effects of dog and volunteer visits were compared with those of volunteers only, and with patients who had no visits and remained at rest. Heart pressures were monitored and patients were asked to answer a list of anxiety assessment questions before and after the visits. Although critical pressure measures also decreased, suggesting improved cardiac function, the most marked response was seen in anxiety levels.“The first thing you notice is that the patient’s facial expression changes to a smile and the stress of the world seems to be lifted off their shoulders,” study author Kathy Cole said. Feelings of depression and helplessness are common among heart patients, Cole said, and just three nights in a hospital is enough to make some patients feel anxious and unsettled. During the visit, the furry friend is allowed to lie on the bed next to the patient with its head within two feet of the patient’s. Most patients petted the dog, while others engaged human volunteers in conversation about the dog.Dogs used in the study are specially trained animal-assisted therapy dogs that undergo a series of trainings, evaluations and certifications to qualify as therapy dogs. Dog breeds varied. Researchers used everything from Bernese mountain dogs to small schnauzers. However, a dog doesn’t have to be specially trained to have a calming effect on its human counterparts. In fact, the animal doesn’t even have to be a dog in order to help. “As long as the animal has meaning to the patient, or a relationship with the patient, it can help calm the patient,” Cole said.6. We learn from the text that heart patients benefit most from visits ______.7. The study shows that, for heart patients, ______.8. According to Cole, the change of patients’ facial expression indicates that ______.9. Cole believes that dogs are helpful to the patients if ______.10. This report focuses on ______.

Back in the early 1990s, I knew little about computers beyond what it took to get through a working day. But here’s what I did know: something huge was happening. It was stirring economies and imaginations and possibilities like nothing I had ever known. I knew the world was changing in ways that meant I shouldn’t count on old assumptions. And I knew I had dreams I still hadn’t fulfilled. But I didn’t know how to realize them until I met with my old friend, Rolly Rouse, when we happened to move into the same neighborhood.Rolly often called me with a stream of ideas. His rate of idea production per second seemed almost incredible. Soon we were on the phone with each other every day. Talking about the Internet. Talking about starting a new online company—maybe together.He was then developing a plan and he wanted me to be a part of it: we would give people wonderful, whole electronic houses on a CD-ROM and let them modify those homes to their own needs. Try out different windows and doors, different paint colors and furnishings. When they were satisfied, we would enable them to go online to make the project happen, to get the products and the financing and the professional design and construction to help to do it outright.BuildingBlocks was the name Rolly came up with for his new enterprise. Rolly took the plunge first. He simply dropped his profitable energy-consulting business to commit himself full time to BuildingBlocks. I soon joined him after I quit my well-paid job at a newspaper.Together we developed a demo to show the features of our CD-ROM, “The New American Dream Home”. Then we took it to the annual convention of the National Association of Home Builders in Boston. All the big companies were there showing off their latest products.To our delight, nearly everyone was eager to see what we were showing, including the top executives of some enormous companies. When we left, we had invitations from them to come to their offices to tell them more about BuildingBlocks.That was the start of my real lifetime dream and BuildBlocks, our company, has been prospering ever since.1. By “something huge was happening”, the writer refers to ______.2. The text shows that Rolly Rouse is ______.3. BuildingBlocks is a company that helps people to ______.4. Rolly and the writer decided to start a company together because they were both ______.5. At the Boston convention, Rolly and the writer were happy because ______.

在不久的将来，3D打印技术将走进千家万户。有了 3D打印机后，人人都可以通过数码设计制造出各种想象中的物体，或者借用不管来自世界哪个角落的某种设计。只需按一个钮，3D打印机就可以用一层层的塑料或其它材质，把你设计的物品在你眼前“打印”出来。10年前的科幻小说情节如今己经成为现实。事实上，能让我们的电脑打印纸质文档的点矩阵(dot-matrix)打印机，这是不久之前才发明出来的，而现在3D打印机又以同样的方式，使我们梦想的各种物体都能呈现在我们眼前。有了 3D打印机的魔力，人人都是制造商，唯一能限制我们的，就是我们的想象力。

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