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

武汉大学

There is extraordinary exposure in the United States to the risks of injury and death from motor vehicle accidents. More than 80 percent of all households own passenger cars or light trucks and each of these is driven an average of more than 11, 000 miles each year. Almost one-half of fatally injured drivers have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0. 1 percent or higher. For the average adult, over five ounces of 80 proof spirits would have to be consumed over a short period of time to attain these levels. A third of drivers who have been drinking, but fewer than 4 percent of all drivers, demonstrate these levels. Although less than 1 percent of drivers with BACs of 0. 1 percent or more are involved in fatal crashes, the probability of their involvement is 27 times higher than for those without alcohol in their blood.There are a number of different approaches to reducing injuries in which intoxication plays a role. Based on the observation that excessive consumption correlates with the total alcohol consumption of a country’s population, it has been suggested that higher taxes on alcohol would reduce both. While the heavier drinkers would be taxed the most, anyone who drinks at all would be penalized by this approach.To make drinking and driving a criminal offense is an approach directed only at intoxicated drivers. In some states, the law empowers police to request breath tests of drivers cited for any traffic offense and elevated BAC can be the basis for arrest. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates, however, that even with increased arrests, there are about 700 violations for every arrest. At this level there is little evidence that laws serve as deterrents to drinking while intoxicated. In Britain, motor vehicle fatalities fell 25 percent immediately following implementation of the Road Safety Act in 1967. As the British increasingly recognized that they could drink and not be stopped, the effectiveness declined, although in the ensuing three years the fatality rate seldom reached that observed in the seven years prior to the Act.Whether penalties for driving with a high BAC or excessive taxation on consumption of alcoholic beverages will deter the excessive drinkers responsible for most fatalities is unclear. In part, the answer depends on the extent to which those with high BACs involved in crashes are capable of controlling their intake in response to economic or penal threat. Therapeutic programs which range from individual and group counseling and psychotherapy to chemotherapy constitute another approach, but they have not diminished the proportion of accidents in which alcohol was a factor. In the few controlled trials that have been reported, there is little evidence that rehabilitation programs for those repeatedly arrested for drunken behavior have reduced either the recidivism or crash rates. Thus far, there is no firm evidence that Alcohol Safety Action Project supported programs, in which rehabilitation measures are requested by the court, have decreased recidivism or crash involvement for clients exposed to them, although knowledge and attitudes have improved. One thing is clear, however, unless we deal with automobile and highway safety and reduce accidents in which alcoholic intoxication plays a role, many will continue to die.1.The author is primarily concerned with（） .2.It can be inferred that the 1967 Road Safety Act in Britain（） .3.The author cites the British example in order to（） .4.The author’s closing remarks can best be described as（） .

Over the past decade, American companies have tried hard to find ways to discourage senior managers from feathering their own nests at the expense of their shareholders. The three most popular reforms have been recruiting more outside directors in order to make boards more independent, linking bosses pay to various performance measures, and giving bosses share options, so that they have the same long-term interests as their shareholders.These reforms have been widely adopted by America’s larger companies, and surveys suggest that many more companies are thinking of following their lead. But have they done any good? Three papers presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston this week suggest not.Start with those independent boards. On the face of it, dismissing the boss’s friends from the board and replacing them with outsiders looks a perfect way to make senior managers more accountable. But that is not the conclusion of a study by Professor James Westphal. Instead, he found that bosses with a boardroom full of outsiders spend much of their time building alliances, doing personal favors and generally pleasing the outsiders.All too often, these seductions succeed. Mr. Westphal found that, to a remarkable degree, “independent” boards pursue strategies that are likely to favor senior managers rather than shareholders. Such companies diversify their business, increase the pay of executives and weaken the link between pay and performance.To assess the impact of performance-related pay, Mr. Westphal asked the bosses of 103 companies with sales of over $ 1 billion what measurements were used to determine their pay. The measurements varied widely, ranging from sales to earnings per share. But the researcher’s big discovery was that bosses attend to measures that affect their own incomes and ignore or play down other factors that affect a company’s overall success.In short, bosses are quick to turn every imaginable system of corporate government to their advantage一which is probably why they are the people who are put in charge of things. Here is a paradox for the management theorists: any boss who cannot beat a system designed to keep him under control is probably not worth having.1.What is the purpose of the large companies in recruiting outsiders and putting them on the board of directors?2.What does Professor James Westphal’s study suggest?3.Which of the following statements is true?4.How does the author feel about the efforts to control senior executives?

Space is a dangerous place, not only because of meteors but also because of rays from the sun and other stars. The atmosphere again acts as our protective blanket on the earth. Light gets through, and this is essential for plants to make the food which we eat. Heat, too, makes our environments tolerable and some ultraviolet rays penetrate the atmosphere. Cosmic rays of various kinds come through the air from outer space, but enormous quantities of radiation from the sync are screened off. As soon as men leave the atmosphere they are exposed to this radiation but their spacesuits or the walls of their spacecraft, if they are inside, do prevent a lot of radiation damage.Radiation is the greatest known danger to explorers in space. Doses of radiation are measured in units called “rems”. We all receive radiation here on the Earth from the sun, from cosmic rays and from radioactive minerals. The “normal” dose of radiation that we receive each year is about 100 millirems (0. 1 rem) ; it varies according to where you live, and this is a very rough estimate. Scientists have reason to think that a man can put up with far more radiation than this without being damaged; the figure of 60 rems has been agreed. The trouble is that it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage——a person may feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered until the birth of ( deformed) children or even grandchildren.Early space probes showed that radiation varies in different parts of space around the Earth. It also varies in time because, when great spurts of gas shoot out of the sun ( solar flares), they are accompanied by a lot of extra radiation. Some estimates of the amount of radiation in space, based on various measurements and calculations, are as low as 10 rems per year, others are as high as 5 rems per hour. Missions to the moon (the Apollo flights) have had to cross the Van Allen belts of high radiation and, during the outward and return journeys, the Apollo 8 crew accumulated a total dose of about 200 millirems per man. It was hoped that there would not be any large solar flares during the times of the Apollo moon walks because the walls of the LEMs (lunar excursion modules) were not thick enough to protect the men inside, though the command modules did give reasonable protection. So far, no dangerous doses of radiation have been reported, but the Gemini orbits and the Apollo missions have been quite short. We simply do not know yet how men are going to get on when they spend weeks and months outside the protection of the atmosphere, working in a space laboratory or in a base on the moon. Drugs might help to decrease the damage done by radiation, but no really effective ones have been found so far.At present, radiation seems to be the greatest physical hazard to space travelers, but it is impossible to say just how serious the hazard will turn out to be in the future.1.Scientists have fixed a safety level of （） .2.The spacemen were worried about solar flares when they were （） .3.When men spend long periods in space how will they protect themselves?4.Which of the following is true?

Auctions are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd assembled in the auction-room to make offers, or “bids”, for the various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called “knocking down” the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer bangs a small hammer on a table at which he stands. This is often set on a raised platform called a rostrum.The ancient Romans probably invented sales by auction, and the English word comes from the Latin audio, meaning “increase”. The Romans usually sold in this way the spoils taken in war; these sales were called sub hasta, meaning “under the spear”, a spear being stuck in the ground as a signal for a crowd to gather. In England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, goods were often sold “by the candle”: a short candle was lit by the auctioneer, and bids could be made while it stayed alight.Practically all goods whose qualities vary are sold by auction. Among these are coffee, hides, skins, wool, tea, cocoa, furs, spices, fruit and vegetables and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land and property, antique furniture, pictures, rare books, old china and similar works of art. The auction-rooms at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London and New York are world-famous.An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by prospective buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a “lot”, is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with Lot 1 and continue in numerical order; he may wait until he registers the fact that certain dealers are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in. The auctioneer’s services are paid for in the form of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible.1.Why is the end of the bidding called “knocking down”?2.The Romans used to sell by auction（） .3.A candle used to burn at auction sales（） .4.The auctioneer may decide to sell the “lots” out of the order because （）.

Directions: Suppose you’ve read in an essay that states: “The computer is playing an increasingly important role in education so that some scholars get the idea that there will be no need for schools someday....” Write an article entitled Will Computers Replace Schools? You should write no less than 200 words.

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