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

西安交通大学

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868, prohibits state governments from denying citizens the “equal protection of the laws”. Although precisely what the framers of the amendment meant by this equal protection clause remains unclear, all interpreters agree that the framers’ immediate objective was to provide a constitutional warrant for the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed the citizenship of all persons born in the United States and subject to United States jurisdiction. This declaration, which was echoed in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, was designed primarily to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott V Sanford that Black people in the United States could be denied citizenship. The act was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, who argued that the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, did not provide Congress with authority to extend citizenship and equal protection the freed slaves. Although Congress promptly overrode Johnson’s veto, supporters of the act sought to ensure its constitutional foundations with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.The broad language of the amendment strongly suggests that its framers were proposing to write into the Constitution not a laundry list of specific civil rights but a principle of equal citizenship that forbids organized society from treating any individual as a member of an inferior class. Yet for the first eight decades of the amendment’s existence, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the amendment betrayed this ideal of equality. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, for example, the Court invented the “state action” limitation, which asserts that “private” decisions by owners of public accommodations and other commercial businesses to segregate their facilities are insulated from the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. After the Second World War, a judicial climate more hospitable to equal protection claims culminated in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown V. Broad of Education that racially segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.1. According to this passage, which of the following is correct?2. According to the passage, which of the following most accurately indicates the sequence of the events listed below?I. Civil Rights Act of 1866 II. Dred Scott V. SanfordIII. Fourteenth Amendment IV. Veto by President Johnson3. According to the passage, the original proponents of the Fourteenth Amendment were primarily concerned with ______.4. The author implies that the Fourteenth Amendment might not have been enacted if ______.5. The passage suggests that the principal effect of the state action limitation was to ______.

The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photography’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art, as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defense of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality; photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. In the nineteen century, photography’s association with the real world placed it in an ambivalent relation to art; late in the twentieth century, an ambivalent relation exists because of the Modernist heritage in art. That important photographers are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art, shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or not art. For example those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting.Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—in short, an art.1. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with ______.2. According to the author, the nineteenth-century defenders of photography mentioned in the passage stressed that photography was ______.3. Which of the following adjectives best describes “the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism” as the author represents it in the last sentence of the second paragraph?4. According to the passage, which of the following best explains the reaction of serious contemporary photographers to the question of whether photography is an art?5. The author introduce Abstract Expressionist painters in order to ______.

Why would any woman in her right mind choose to walk on the balls of her feet with her heels propped up by spikes? The historical answer is that high heels reflect aristocratic tastes—specifically, the tastes of the seventeenth-century French court, which first popularized them in Europe. Not only did heels keep the wearer’s feet relatively mud free, they also created a physical elevation to match the social elevation of the stylish, exaggerated the strutting gait of the noble classes, and they suggested, by their very precariousness, that their owners could afford not to worry about falling on their faces. Indeed, as Bernard Rudofsky points out, seventeenth-century wearers of high heels, men and women, frequently had to be transported in sedan chairs because they could not manage cobblestones on foot. Some “heels” in that era were actually full-soled platforms, and to walk on these things at all, one needed the constant elbow support of two servants.The helplessness associated with the raised-heel style encouraged the notion that heeled persons were above having to care for themselves. In view of this, it is not surprising that even today it is women, almost exclusively, who wear heels. High heels are the cobbler’s contribution to what I have called the pedestal ploy. They link physical incapacity with the notion of woman as a “higher being”—too high to get along on her own.Women have taken to high heels, of course, because they feel, correctly, that they increase their attractiveness to men. Part of that increased attractiveness has to do with male fantasies of female fragility. As fashion iconoclast Elizabeth Hawes puts it, “The idea is that he, in his heavy shoes, should feel stronger and more capable than she on her fragile stilts. Never mind the realities.” Another part of it may be biological. In his discussion of rump display among mammals, Dale Guthrie notes that the “lines of the buttocks, thigh, calf and ankle have a native sexual stimulation, but this can be increased with high-heeled shoes; the curves are exaggerated when the heel is lifted.” Heels also exaggerate the lateral motion of buttocks. The ultimate function of high heels, therefore, may be to fuel the male belief that women are both impotent and seductive.1. The passage is mainly about ______.2. From historical point of view, high heels ______.3. Women on high heels suggest that ______.4. The most important reason for women’s preference to high heels is that ______.5. The men’s attitudes towards women’s wearing high heels are that ______.

With the US economy slowing down, layoffs are everywhere. No industry is spared. If you end up having to start over, in addition to starting your job search, there are several things you should take care of to make your transition a smooth one.First and foremost, clear up any misunderstanding about how and why you left your last job with your ex-boss. Whether you left voluntarily, were fired or were laid off due to budget cutbacks, make sure you both have the same explanation. Agree on job titles accordingly. Also ask for a reference if you think your ex-boss will offer one and you trust that he or she will speak honestly about your performance.You should have a source of emergency cash that you can use in the interim. Don’t panic and liquidate your stocks and bonds just yet, be optimistic in your prospects while also be more frugal than usual. You should save money on not having to dry clean work clothes so often and eating less take-out lunches. Save money by not eating out at restaurants and watch videos rather than going to the movies every weekend. Mark a note of your job-hunting expenses, such as career counselor’ consulting fees and resume printing costs, and save the receipts. By next year’s tax-filing time, you could get deductions on your job-search expense (unless you left a job willingly or was a college graduate looking for your first job).Most companies terminate your medical insurance coverage as soon as you stop working for them. But it doesn’t mean you have to forgo medical coverage altogether. There is something called Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) in the United States that legally protects an ex-employee’s right to stay in the company’s health care plan. However, the company will stop paying your premiums, and you will have to pay out of your pocket the expenses. This is still a good option compared to no health insurance at all.Another important thing to take care of when you change jobs is your 401(k) account. A 401(k) is the retirement fund that most companies offer. It’s named after section 401(k) in the Internal Revenue Service’s policy documents. You put aside a percentage of your paycheck each pay period, and the money accumulated will be managed by the 401(k) fund manager your employer has hired and is invested in the stock market. You cannot withdraw money from this account until you reach this age, or you will incur penalties. When you leave a job, the money can sometimes be kept with your ex-employer for a while. It’s always a good idea to compare your new employer’s 401(k) plan with your old one. Every company offers different types of investment options, form overseas stocks to high-tech stocks and everything in between. If you don’t want to transfer the account to your new employer, you need to go to the human resources department and ask for forms that help you make the transition.Don’t forget to ask for job leads from your ex-coworker. Even if you are leaving for a job in another industry, you never know what people they happen to know that can help with your job search. Keep in touch with the friends you have make at your old job. Remember to anchor yourself to people, not institutions, and you will find that any transition is made easier.1. According to paragraph 1, in the United States, ______.2. The word “interim” most probably means ______.3. What’s the point of saving the receipts of job-searching expense?4. COBRA ensures an ex-employee stay in the health care plan ______.5. Which statement is true according to this passage?

Passage 1Many human diseases are caused by the absence or inappropriate presence of a protein. The protein could then be administered to patients in order to compensate for its absence. Today, gene therapy is the ultimate method of protein delivery, in which the delivered gene enters the body’s cells and turns them into small “factories” that produce a therapeutic protein for a specific disease over a prolonged period. As gene therapy has moved from the laboratory into the clinic, several issues have emerged as central to the development of this technology: gene identification, gene expression and gene delivery. A number of disease-related genes with direct clinical value have already been identified, and this number is growing as the field rapidly advances. Genes with broader clinical application are also being utilized to make ceils express immune activating agents locally at the disease site or to become susceptible to further drug treatment or to immune response recognition.Passage 2It is the now well-known IBM brand that formed part of the computer science revolution. IBM released the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709 computers, which were widely used during the exploration period of such devices. During the late 1950s, the computer science discipline was very much in its developmental stages, and such issues were commonplace. Time has seen significant improvements in the usability and effectiveness of computer science technology. Modern society has been a significant shift from computers being used solely by experts or professionals to more and more widespread user base. By the 1990s, computers became accepted as being the norm within everyday life. During this time data entry was a primary component of the use of computers, many preferring to streamline their business practices through the use of a computer. This also gave the additional benefit of removing the need of large amounts of documentation and file records which consumed much-needed physical space within offices.Passage 3Every organization is an emotional place. It is an emotional place because it is a human invention, serving human purposes and dependent on human beings to function. And human beings are emotional animals: subject anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness or joy, ease and unease. Recently, there have been attempts to develop the idea of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence emphasizes the impact reason can make on emotion. The claim made for this perspective is that it represents “an ability to perceive, to process, to understand, and to manage emotions in self and others.” Proponents of emotional intelligence maintain that there are distinct individual abilities and skills that relate to the explicit management of emotion. In addition, emotional intelligence develops over time and can be enhanced by training. Therefore, learning to perceive emotion in others and manage these emotions successfully is an important tool in every manager’s guide book.

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