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

湖南大学

These days we hear a lot of nonsense about the “great classless society”. The idea that the 20th century is the age of the common man has become one of great cliches of our time.The same old arguments are put forward in evidence. Here are some of them: Monarchy as a system of government has completely discredited. The monarchies that survive have been deprived of all political power. Inherited wealth has been savagely reduced by taxation and, in time, the great fortunes will disappear altogether. In a number of countries the victory has been complete. The people rule; the great millennium has become a political reality. But has it? Close examination doesn’t bear out the claim.It is a fallacy to suppose that all men are equal and that society will be leveled out if you provide everybody with the same educational opportunities. (It is debatable whether you can ever provide everyone with the same educational opportunities, but that is another question.) The fact is that nature dispenses brains and ability with a total disregard for the principle of equality. The old rules of the jungle, “survival of the fittest”，and “might is right “are still with us. The spread of education has destroyed the old class system and created a new one. Rewards are based on merit for “aristocracy” read “meritocracy”； in other respects society remains unaltered: the class system is rigidly maintainedGenuine ability, animal cunning, skill the knack of seizing opportunities, all brings material rewards. And what is the first thing people do when they become rich? They use their wealth to secure the best possible opportunities for their children, to give them “a good start in life”. For all the lip service we pay to the idea of equality. We do not consider this wrong in the western world. Private schools which offer unfair advantages over state schools are not banned because one of the principles in a democracy is that people should be free to choose how they will educate their children. In this way, the new meritocracy can perpetuate itself to a certain extent: an able child from a wealthy home can succeed far more rapidly than his poorer counterpart. Wealth is also used indiscriminately to further political ends. It would be almost impossible to become the leader of a democracy without massive financial backing. Money is as powerful a weapon as ever it was.In societies wholly dedicated to the principle of social equality. Privileged private education is forbidden. But even here people are rewarded according to their abilities. In fact, so great is the need for skilled workers that the least able may be neglected. Bright children are carefully and expensively trained to become future rulers. In the end, all political ideologies boil down to the same thing: class divisions persist whether you are ruled by a feudal king or an educated peasant.1.What is the main idea of this passage?2.According to the author, the same educational opportunities can’t get rid of inequality because （）.3.Who can obtain more rapid success?4.Why does the author say the new meritocracy can perpetuate itself to a certain extent? Because（） .5.According to the author, “class divisions” refers to（） .

Abraham Lincoln turns 200 this year, and he’s beginning to show his age. When his birthday arrives, on February 12, Congress will hold a special joint session in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, a wreath will be laid at the great memorial in Washington, and a webcast will link school classrooms for a "teach-in" honoring his memory.Admirable as they are, though, the events will strike many of us Lincoln fans as inadequate, even halfhearted- and another sign that our appreciation for the 16th president and his towering achievements is slipping away. And you don't have to be a Lincoln enthusiast to believe that this is something we can’t afford to lose.Compare this year’s celebration with the Lincoln centennial, in 1909, that year, Lincoln's likeness made its debut on the penny, thanks to approval from the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Communities and civic associations in every comer of the country erupted in parades, concerts, balls, lectures, and military displays. We still feel the effects today: The momentum unloosed in 1909 led to the Lincoln Memorial, opened in 1922, and the Lincoln Highway, the first paved transcontinental thoroughfare.The celebrants in 1909 had a few inspirations we lack today. Lincoln’s presidency was still a living memory for countless Americans. In 2009 we are farther in time from the end of the Second World War than they were from the Civil War; families still felt the loss of loved ones from that awfiil national trauma.But Americans in 1909 had something more: an unembarrassed appreciation for heroes and an acute sense of the way that even Long-dead historical figures press in on the present and make us who we are.One story will illustrate what I'm talking about.In 2003 a group of local citizens arranged to place a statue of Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia, former capital of the Confederacy. The idea touched off a firestorm of controversy. The Sons of Confederate Veterans held a public conference of carefully selected scholars to "reassess" the legacy of Lincoln. The verdict - no surprise - was negative: Lincoln was labeled everything from a racist totalitarian to a teller of dirty jokes.I covered the conference as a reporter, but what really unnerved me was a counter-conference of scholars to refute the earlier one. These scholars drew a picture of Lincoln that only our touchy-felly age could conjure up. The man who oversaw the most savage war in our history was described- by his admirers, remember-as “nonjudgmental.” “Unmoralistic.” “Comfortable with ambiguity”I felt the way a friend of mine felt as we later watched the unveiling of the Richmond statue in a subdued ceremony: “But he’s so small’The statue in Richmond was indeed small; like nearly every Lincoln statue put up in the past half century, it was life-size and was placed at ground level, a conscious rejection of the heroic-approachable and human, yes, but not something to look up to.The Richmond episode taught me that Americans have lost the language to explain Lincoln’s greatness even to ourselves. Earlier generations said they wanted their children to be like Lincoln: principled, kind,Compassionate, resolute. Today we want Lincoln to be like us.His helps to explain the long string of recent books in which writers have presented a Lincoln made after their own image. We've had Lincoln as humorist and Lincoln as manic-depressive, Lincoln the business sage, the conservative Lincoln and the liberal Lincoln the emancipator and the racist the stoic philosopher, the Christian. The atheist - Lincoln over easy and Lincoln scrambled.What's often missing, though, is the timeless Lincoln, the Lincoln whom all generations, our own no less than that of 1909, can lay claim to. Lucky for us, those memorializes from a century ago—and through them. Lincoln himself- have left us a hint of where to find him.The Lincoln Memorial is the most visited of our presidential monuments. Here is where we find the Lincoln who endures: in the words he left us, defining the country we've inherited. Here is the Lincoln who can be endlessly renewed and who, 200 years after his birth, retains the power to renew us.1.The author thinks that this year’s celebration is inadequate and even halfhearted because （）.2.According to the passage, what really makes the 1909 celebrations different from this year's?3.In the author's opinion the counter-conference（）4.According to the author, the image of Lincoln conceived by contemporary people（） .5.Which of the following best explains the implication of the last paragraph?

In some countries where racial prejudice is acute, violence has come to be taken for granted as a means of solving differences, that it is not even questioned. There are countries where the white man imposes his rule by brute force; there are countries where the black man protests by setting fire to cities and by looting and pillaging. Important people on both sides, who would in order respects, appear to be reasonable men, get up and calmly argue in favor of violence-as if it were a legitimate solution, like any other. What is really frightening, what really fills you with despair, is the realization that when it comes to the crunch, we have made no actual progress at all. We may wear collars and ties instead of war-paint, but our instincts remain basically unchanged. The whole of the recorded history of the human race, that tedious documentation of violence, has taught us absolutely nothing. We have still not learned that violence never solves a problem but makes it more acute. The sheer horror, the bloodshed, the suffering mean nothing. Not solution ever comes to light the morning after when we dismally contemplate the smoking ruins and wound what hit us.The truly reasonable men who know where the solutions lie are finding it harder and harder to get a hearing. They are despised, mistrusted and even persecuted by their own kind because they advocate such apparently outrageous things as law enforcement. If half the energy that goes into violent acts were put to good use, if our efforts were directed at cleaning up the slums and ghettos, at improving living -standards and providing education and employment for all, we would have gone a long way to arriving at a solution. Our strength is sapped by having to mop up the mess that violence leaves in its wake. In a well-directed effort, it would not be impossible to fulfill the ideals of a stable social programme. The benefits that can be derived from constructive solutions are everywhere apparent in the world around us. Genuine and lasting solutions are always possible, providing we work within the framework of the law.Before we can even begin to contemplate peaceful co-existence between the races, we must appreciate each other’s problems. And to do this, we must learn about them: it is a simple exercise in communication, in exchanging information. “Talk, talk, talk，”the advocate of violence say, “all you ever do is talk, and we are none the wiser.” It’s rather like the story of the famous barrister who painstakingly explained his case to the judge. After listening to a lengthy argument the judge complained that after all this talk, he was none the wiser. “Possible, my lord,” the barrister replied, “none the wiser, but surely far better informed.” Knowledge is the necessary prerequisite to wisdom: the knowledge that violence creates the evils it pretends to solve.1. What is the best title for this passage?2.Recorded history has taught us （）.3.It can be inferred that truly reasonable men（） .4.“He was none the wiser” means （）.5.According the author the best way to solve race prejudice is（） .

As the great low ebb of high tech sweeps through the world of online commerce, two kinds of sites are weathering the storm. The first group is often referred to as “clicks and mortar”，online extensions of stores like Wal-Mart or Sears. They take an existing, traditional business and extend it into the online arena. The second group provides a unique service made possible by the Internet’s special characteristics. Job sites and online auctioneer e-Bay are both good examples of the new breed of business that provides that the Internet continues to foster.Cafepress.com is one of the latter groups. It’s a website that provides users with online stores where they can sell shirts, mugs, and mouse pads customized with their own logos and/or slogans. By itself, this is a fairly useful service, and an example of how the Internet has changed the art of marketing and customer service.Cafepress.Com，however, is remarkable for another reason. Customers don’t need to talk to another human being to get their store “built” in the first place. The site lets you upload an image and choose what sort of item you’d like it to appear on. You can then choose how much to mark the item up the difference between the item’s base cost and your mark-up price is your profit.Base prices are high, but understandable when you consider what cafepress.com does for the initial investment. An eleven-ounce mug starts at $10.99. For that,cafepress.com prints the mug on a piece-by-piece basis, provides the ordering software, handles the money, packs it, and ships it for you. The mug’s purchaser pays shipping and handling costs; the store owner’s effort is limited to uploading the original image for the mug, setting the cost, and writing a brief description of the item.It seems to be catching on. “More and more companies come to us, who want to do some kind of merchandising, who want to offer a range of products to their users, but don’t want the hassles associated with it.” says Maheesh Jain, Cafepress.com’s co-founder andvice-president. “That’s where we come in—we9re one of the few companies that offer this kind of full-service solution.”But the most exciting aspect of cafepress.com is not its ability to help major corporations outsource and customize their merchandising efforts. What’s remarkable about the system is how simple it is to open a store. An average individual with an idea that could sell 50 T-shirts or mugs can’t justify traditional merchandising efforts, but with cafepress.com, users can easily bring ideas to fruition with very little time and no financial risk. Moreover, the quality of the merchandising is good; I’ve order a mug and a shirt from cafepress.com, and both were shipped relatively promptly, and arrived exactly as promised.Cafepress.com is an idea that’s easy to get excited about. It’s a small—but tangible—example of how the Internet can change the way we live.1.The expression “weathering the storm’’in the first sentence means（） .2.The first kind of site differs from the second kind of site in that（） .3.Which of the following about Cafepress.com is NOT true?4.What kinds of Customers need Cafepress.com most according to its vice-president?5.Those that have problem keeping their commodities moving. What is the most outstanding aspect about Cafepress.com according to the author?

It is often claimed that nuclear energy is something we cannot do without. We live in a consumer society where there is an enormous demand for commercial products of all kinds. Moreover, an increase in industrial production is considered to be one solution to the problem of mass unemployment. Such an increase presumes an abundant and cheap supply. Many people believe that nuclear energy provides an inexhaustible an economical source of power and that it is therefore essential for an industrially developing society. There are a number of other advantages in the use of nuclear energy. Firstly, nuclear power, except for accidents, is clean. A further advantage is that a nuclear power station can be run and maintained by relatively few technical and administrative staff. The nuclear reactor represents an enormous step in our scientific evolution and, whatever the anti-nuclear group says, it is wrong to expect a return to more primitive sources of fuel. However, opponents of nuclear energy point out that nuclear power stations bring a direct threat not only to the environment but also to civil liberties. Furthermore, it is questionable whether ultimately nuclear power is a cheap source of energy. There have, for example, been very costly accidents in America, in Britain and, of course, in Russia.The possibility of increases in the cost of uranium in addition to the cost of greater safety provisions could price nuclear power out of market. In the long run, environmentalists argue, nuclear energy wastes valuable resources and disturbs the ecology to an extent which could bring about the destruction of the human race. Thus if we wish to survive, we cannot afford nuclear energy. In spite of the case against nuclear energy outlined above, nuclear energy programmes are expanding. Such an expansion assumes a continual growth in industrial production and consumer demands. However, it is doubtful whether this growth will or can continue. Having weighed up the arguments on.Such an expansion assumes a continual growth in industrial production and consumer demands. However, it is a doubtful whether this growth will or can continue. Having weighed up the arguments on both sides, it seems there are good economic and ecological reasons for sources of energy other than nuclear power.1.The writer’s attitude toward nuclear energy is（） .2.According to the opponents of nuclear energy, which of the following is TRUE of nuclear energy?3.Some people claim that unclear energy is essential because （）.4.Which of the following statements does the writer support?5.The function of the last sentence is（） .

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