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

中国社会科学院

Directions: Please summarize this article in English in about 200 words.The way that we place value on art in the Western world is distinctly odd. It is, for the most part, a luxury or a commodity more or less isolated from other aspects of society. We evoke sentiments of the psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when discussing the role of art: we live in a society where our basic needs are met, and therefore can indulge in the frivolous activity of art-making. There are exceptions, of course, such as political and religious art. But it’s rare to see art that is intrinsically woven into, and ultimately shapes, the very fabric of society. Was art always destined to be something that came only after we had satisfied our basic subsistence needs? Human evolution suggests not.Art-making is one of the oldest human behaviors—it seems to have its origins hundreds of thousands of years ago. Two of the earliest art forms in the archaeological record are impossibly old: the Tan-Tan figurine and the Berekhat Ram figurine date to around 500,000 to 300,000, and 250,000 years ago, respectively. We want to believe that art is unique to our species, a behavior that set us apart, but without asking why it held so much value to the very earliest human societies.Cave art remains fixed in place, undisturbed, in exquisite time capsules of human behavior. Ice Age, or Upper Palaeolithic, societies might hold some of the answers about why we create art. Artistic behaviors seem to have flourished during the Upper Palaeolithic, giving birth to something like a renaissance of art production; for many years this period was referred to as a “cultural explosion” or “revolution”. These Ice Age artists produced a huge number of diverse artefacts and paintings during this period. But the most intriguing category among all of this is cave art.Found most famously in France and Spain at sites such as Lascaux, cave art has also been discovered at a wide range of different places, from the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina and the Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave in Borneo to the caves of Creswell Crags in Britain. Cave art is a breathtaking example of the extent of creativity during the Upper Palaeolithic; not only are we perplexed by the artists’ desire to venture deep underground to make this art (sometimes up to 2 km in from the cave mouth), but we are fortunate enough to be able to see it as it was intended to be viewed, often in superb condition. Unlike beads or figurines, cave art remains fixed in place, undisturbed, in exquisite time capsules of human behavior.To explore the importance of art to these most ancient of human societies, we need to delve into some of these time capsules and immerse ourselves in the Upper Palaeolithic world. Lascaux cave, France, c17,000 years ago. This is the most famous cave-art site in the world; the vibrant polychrome images of this art are plastered over coffee table books on human evolution, and hundreds of thousands of people visit the third iteration of the Lascaux reconstruction each year. The popularity of this cave isn’t surprising. The vast composition of highly detailed animal depictions inspires awe and fascination for anyone fortunate enough to enter the cave. The almost “rhythmic sequence” behind the placement of each animal offers a sense of narrative, one that is long forgotten in deep time. Although the art is situated underground, the visually imposing depictions were intended to be viewed by a sizeable audience. More than 100 lamps were found within the cave, made from stone with a depression to hold animal fat and a wick, akin to modern candles; these might have been used as installation lighting, spotlighting the art within the darkness of the cave. The diffuse, flickering light cast by the flames would have created an immersive experience for our Palaeolithic audience. Dancing light and shadows brought the art to life, evoking a sense of movement and dynamism—the closest thing to Ice Age cinema.It wasn’t the final form that was of importance, but the process of making it that held meaning. The “Panel of Hands” best characterizes this within El Castillo. The implicit presence of generations of hands that were placed on the cave wall are captured and preserved in a red ochre pigment, which was blown from the mouths of our distant ancestors. These hand-stencils tangibly connect us to Upper Palaeolithic people; we can reach out across the ages and almost touch our hands with theirs. This probably evoked a similar sense of connection in the Upper Palaeolithic. The hand-stencils within the cave are old, dating to at least 37,000 years ago. The multiple generations of people who traversed and explored this cave since would have similarly cast their eyes on these hands. They might not have recognized the deep age of the hand-stencils, but would have understood that they represented the implicit presence of people who had been in the cave before them, as they would have understood tracks of the animals they hunted. They might even have felt moved to produce their own hand-stencils, adding to a long tradition of intimate connection; some hand-stencils in this cave date to around 25,000 years ago, created 12,000 years after the oldest hand-stencils in this cave.Art becomes a cultural memory of vital information passed from generation to generation. There is also an element of play, adventure and exploration embedded within the making of the art at this site. Finger flutings, made by running fingers through the soft clay “moon milk” surface of cave walls, are found in Rouffignac cave and appear to have been predominately made by children and adolescents, giving us glimpses of intimate and very familiar human behavior. One example appears to have been made by a child no older than five years, but it’s at a height that suggests the child was held at the hip of an adult so that it could join in with the making of these flutings. In this instance, the art made appears to have served no greater purpose than the tactile interaction of running fingers across a wall and the joy of seeing this action leave a mark behind. It’s a distinctly human behavior, one that we can all vividly picture, appreciating the enjoyment it would have involved: the quiet exploration of the cave beforehand, suddenly broken by the sound of children squealing with laughter as they run their fingers across the wall, with adults cautiously supervising and occasionally, but perhaps reluctantly, helping the youngest to reach higher.Although the themes embodied within these time capsules of human behavior—storytelling, connection, play—might seem superficially trivial, they were crucial to the function of society and to survival within the harsh, unforgiving environment of the last Ice Age. The depictions of animals are deliberately accurate in their representation of certain features and behavior. The animals aren’t depicted as static, but in different positions of alertness or responsiveness, which would have been essential knowledge for a Palaeolithic hunter. People relied on this information about animals for hunting. Knowledge about animal behaviors and migration is much easier to pass on when woven into the narrative of a story brought to life with artistic representations; the art becomes a cultural memory of vital information passed from generation to generation.

Directions: In the following article, some words are have been moved. Please fill in each blank with only one word to complete the article according to the context.In 1966, over 300 children and staff from a Melbourne school reportedly witnessed multiple UFOs silently flying through the sky _1_ landing in a nearby field. It is the largest mass UFO sighting in Australia, yet hardly anything was reported on it at the time. Over the years, there have been differing reports about the details of what happened on April 6 at Westall High School, such as people claiming there _2_ three saucer-like objects, while some thought there was just one.In the 52 years since, there has been wide speculation _3_ what people saw, with some believing it was an alien encounter and others pointing the finger at the government testing new technology. Throughout all the years of speculation, _4_, one particularly interesting piece of audio has been greatly overlooked.An American physicist known for his research into UFOs, Dr. James E. McDonald, conducted an interview with a science teacher from the Westall school, Andrew Greenwood, who witnessed the event. He then recorded himself describing their meeting and the creepy details Mr. Greenwood gave about his experience. “Greenwood told me the UFO was first brought to his attention by a hysterical child who ran _5_ his classroom and told him there’s a flying saucer outside,” Dr. McDonald said.“He thought this child had become deranged or something so he didn’t take any _6_, but when the child insisted that this object was in the sky he decided to go out and have a look for himself.” When he went outside, he noticed a group of children looking toward the northeast area of the school grounds and _7_ he approached them he claims he saw a UFO hovering close to the powerline.Mr. Greenwood described it as a round, silver object about the size of a car _8_ a metal rod sticking up in the air. According to Dr. McDonald, the teacher then told him five planes came and surrounded the object as more people began gathering to watch the scene before them. “He called it the most amazing flying he _9_ ever seen in his life,” Dr. McDonald said. “The planes were doing everything possible to approach the object” and he said “how they all avoided collision he will never know.”“Every time they got too close to the object it would slowly accelerate, then rapidly accelerate and then move away from them and stop. Then they would take off after it again and the same thing would happen.”This game of cat and mouse reportedly went on for about 20 minutes and by this time Mr. Greenwood said 350 children and staff were watching on. Suddenly the UFO shot away and vanished within seconds and it was at this point the headmaster came out and ordered everyone to go back to class.Over the years there were reports that the government tried to _10_ up the incident and stop witnesses from talking, but Mr. Greenwood claimed it was the headmaster who first tried to squash discussion of the incident.

Motion pictures and television are audio-visual mediums and so of course engage both our visual and aural senses. The meaning and emotion of a piece is commonly thought to come from the image and that the sound at best just duplicates the meanings from the image. For example, Aaron Copland has said that a composer can do no more than “make potent through music the film’s dramatic and emotional value.”Sound does however perform much more important, intricate and complex functions then commonly accepted. Sound combines with moving pictures in various ways to create meaning but is diverse and has numerous other uses. This essay will show ways that sound enhances and creates meaning in combination with moving image as well as showing some of the many other possible functions of sound use combined with this mediumThe sound track is produced separately from the image and includes three ingredients: Dialogue/voice, sound effects and music. The three elements of the sound track can work together and independently to create meaning and to produce different effects.Music combines with, adds to and enhances moving image in many ways. It can heighten and refine emotion as well as meaning. Music, through tone and instrument selection can create the mood of a piece and of and towards its characters. Music is commonly used to give a sense of continuity and unity to a production and to possible sequels.Music can give a sense of time and place as well as to help create the ambience or feel to a piece. Another function of music is to create, replicate and increase or decrease the sense of rhythm to and of a piece. Music can act as a precursor to events in a story and also to direct the audience to a particular part/s of the image.Finally music can work independently and in combination with sound effects to give a sense of genre, time and setting.One way music combines with moving images to create meaning is through leitmotifs. A character, group of characters or action has a motif that explains who the good guys or bad guys are or that a specific type of situation or action is about to unfold. In Star Wars the rebels have a powerful, uplifting victorious sounding leitmotif that combines with the clothing worn by the rebels and other parts of the misen-scen to inform the audience these are the good people and the people we should be supporting. In Indiana Jones the motif of Jones indicates he is going to save the day and in The Good The Bad and The Ugly the films motif, through repetition of being played as the same type of action unfolds, goes on to indicates a shoot-out is about to happen.The tone of music can be used to create meaning and generate mood in a scene or in a production as a whole. In The Empire Strikes Back the rebels attempt to flee from the empire. During this sequence Darth Vader’s and the rebels leitmotif is heard. Vader’s motif is played at an increased tempo and higher pitch to normal. The function of this change is to show the imminent danger of the empire and Vader’s likely success in capturing the rebels. The rebels leitmotif is played but does not contain the opening and perhaps most identifiable phase. The tone is slightly deeper, the pace slightly slower and is mixed up in and slightly drown out by other sound effects. The function of this use of sound is to put the outcome of the situation in doubt and make the rebels attempt at escaping unlikely. When the rebels do escape the distinctive opening to their motif is played at normal pitch and tempo and without the distraction of other sounds. This functions to signal their success but also the finality of the scene. The leitmotifs and the tone of the motifs are used to guide the spectator through narrative change.Sound effects have a few main functions. Sound effects simulate reality, create illusions and help to create mood and ambience. Sound effects are made up of synchronous and asynchronous sounds. Synchronous sounds are the sounds that match the image and the function is to contribute to the realism, to create atmosphere and even to create and refine meaning. For obvious reason the guns and glass used in productions are not real and so the sounds they make are not real either. Adding sound effects for these things during editing give the actions a sense of realism.Sound effects can create illusions in different ways. Crowd Walla can be used to give the pretence of many people being present in a scene when in reality there may only be two or three people. The cost, time and additional problems of employing extras can be avoided.Sound effects are commonly used to create ambience and the sense of time in history and setting. If you have a scene set in a churchyard the sound effects may include church bells chiming and birds singing for example. The sound effects used will create the atmosphere appropriate to the setting and narrative. In a film where a cowboy is sat by a fire an owl may hoot. This could be used to show the loneliness and isolation of the character. The image without the sound shows a man sat by a warm fire and not much else.Asynchronous sound effects, those that do not match a visible source can produce an appropriate nuance as well as to aid the sense of realism. A police siren wailing while a couple argue highlights the severity of the situation whilst also adding to the realism of the situation and setting.Sound effects can inform the audience of off-screen movements or situations. This is commonly used in horror films and thrillers to inform the audience to impending danger and to build up tension.A very important function of music and the other parts of the sound score is to provide a sense of continuity to individual scenes, in bridging one scene to the next and the continuity of the production as a whole.Without sound the cut of shots is more noticeable and when there is a montage of shots in particular the audience would become very aware of the cuts and the scene would not flow. Music, and sound in general, make the cut from one shot to next seamless.Often the sound score overlaps from one scene to the next and again this is to make the change seamless and let the production flow.

Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special one, indeed. A machine that has done all this and more now exists in nearly every business in the U.S. and one out of every two households. This incredible invention is the computer. The electronic computer has been around for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been around for 2000 years. However, only in the last 40 years has it changed the American society. From the first wooden abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly every aspect of people’s lives for the better.The very earliest existence of the modern day computer’s ancestor is the abacus. These date back to almost 2000 years ago. It is simply a wooden rack holding parallel wires on which beads are strung. When these beads are moved along the wire according to “programming” rules that the user must memorize, all ordinary arithmetic operations can be performed. The next innovation in computers took place in 1694 when Blaise Pascal invented the first digital calculating machine. It could only add numbers and they had to be entered by turning dials. It was designed to help Pascal’s father who was a tax collector.In the early 1800’s, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage designed an automatic calculation machine. It was steam powered and could store up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Built in to his machine were operations that included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need. It was programmed by—and stored data on—cards with holes punched in them, appropriately called “punch-cards”. His inventions were failures for the most part because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of demand for such a device.After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers. However, between 1850 and 1900 there were great advances in mathematics and physics that began to rekindle the interest. Many of these new advances involved complex calculations and formulas that were very time consuming for human calculation. The first major use for a computer in the U.S. was during the 1890 census. Two men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers, developed a new punched-card system that could automatically read information on cards without human intervention. Since the population of the U.S. was increasing so fast, the computer was an essential tool in tabulating the totals.These advantages were noted by commercial industries and soon led to the development of improved punch-card business-machine systems by International Business Machines (IBM), Remington-Rand, Burroughs, and other corporations. By modern standards the punched-card machines were slow, typically processing from 50 to 250 cards per minute, with each card holding up to 80 digits. At the time, however, punched cards were an enormous step forward; they provided a means of input, output, and memory storage on a massive scale. For more than 50 years following their first use, punched-card machines did the bulk of the world's business computing and a good portion of the computing work in science.By the late 1930s punched-card machine techniques had become so well established and reliable that Howard Hathaway Aiken, in collaboration with engineers at IBM, undertook construction of a large automatic digital computer based on standard IBM electromechanical parts. Aiken’s machine, called the Harvard Mark I, handled 23-digit numbers and could perform all four arithmetic operations. Also, it had special built-in programs to handle logarithms and trigonometric functions. The Mark I was controlled from prepunched paper tape. Output was by cardpunch and electric typewriter. It was slow, requiring 3 to 5 seconds for a multiplication, but it was fully automatic and could complete long computations without human intervention.The outbreak of World War II produced a desperate need for computing capability, especially for the military. New weapons systems were produced which needed trajectory tables and other essential data. In 1942, John P. Eckert, John W. Mauchley, and their associates at the University of Pennsylvania decided to build a high-speed electronic computer to do the job. This machine became known as ENIAC, for “Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator”. It could multiply two numbers at the rate of 300 products per second, by finding the value of each product from a multiplication table stored in its memory. ENIAC was thus about 1,000 times faster than the previous generation of computers.ENIAC used 18,000 standard vacuum tubes, occupied 1800 square feet of floor space, and used about 180,000 watts of electricity. It used punched-card input and output. The ENIAC was very difficult to program because one had to essentially re-wire it to perform whatever task he wanted the computer to do. It was, however, efficient in handling the particular programs for which it had been designed. ENIAC is generally accepted as the first successful high-speed electronic digital computer and was used in many applications from 1946 to 1955.Mathematician John von Neumann was very interested in the ENIAC. In 1945 he undertook a theoretical study of computation that demonstrated that a computer could have a very simple and yet be able to execute any kind of computation effectively by means of proper programmed control without the need for any changes in hardware. Von Neumann came up with incredible ideas for methods of building and organizing practical, fast computers. These ideas, which came to be referred to as the stored-program technique, became fundamental for future generations of high-speed digital computers and were universally adopted (Hall, 73). The first wave of modern programmed electronic computers to take advantage of these improvements appeared in 1947.

The world’s energy industry is about to be transformed. But energy insecurity is here to stay.Energy and commodities lie at the dark heart of Vladimir Putin’s regime and the threat it poses to the world. Four trillion dollars of oil and gas exports over the two decades of his rule have paid for the tanks, guns and Grad missiles now killing Ukrainians. Natural-resource earnings have entrenched a rent-seeking elite that has created an offshore archipelago of yachts, nightclubs and Caribbean front companies, stifled representative politics and indulged Mr. Putin’s megalomaniacal fantasies.As Russia supplies 10%-25% of the world’s oil, gas and coal exports, many countries, especially in Europe, are vulnerable to coercion by it. For them, the war in Ukraine has been a shock that adds urgency to the creation of an energy system which depends more on sun, wind and nuclear reactors than on derricks and rigs. Yet don’t fool yourself that this new era will allow an easy escape from the curse of energy crises and autocrats.Weeks of chaos in energy markets are beginning to hurt consumers. Petrol prices in Los Angeles are over $6 a gallon for the first time. As sanctions on Russia bite, traders predict, Europe will run short of diesel. Germany is preparing to ration natural gas next winter, in case Russia cuts off supplies. In Asia, oil importers are bracing for a balance-of-payments hit. In a tight market, shocks are hard to absorb. Oil spiked at $122 per barrel this week after a pipeline from Central Asia to the Black Sea suffered storm damage and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked Saudi energy facilities.The immediate reaction of governments everywhere has been to scramble to find more fossil fuels, however polluting to the environment or painful to their pride. With Western encouragement, Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil firm, is raising investment to $40bn-50bn a year. At one point, the Biden administration buttered up Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator, perhaps to get more oil from a state which in 2005 supplied 4% of the world’s crude.The long-term question being asked by many is: how fast can they abandon fossil fuels altogether? The energy strategy announced this month by the EU envisages independence from Russia by 2030—in part by finding new sources of gas, but also by doubling down on renewables. As the folly of relying on Russia becomes clear, nuclear power is back in fashion. France plans to construct six new plants and is aiming for “total energy independence”. On March 21st Britain said it would build a new generation of reactors at “warp speed”. A redesigned energy system that will belch out less carbon also promises an escape from the 20th century’s great game of relying on energy from despots.Yet although geopolitics will hasten the climate-driven energy transition, they will not make it risk-free. The transition will disrupt some economies and cause new dependence on others. To gauge this we have simulated spending on a basket of ten natural resources, including oil and coal, and the metals used in power generation and the electrification of industry and transport. As the world decarbonises, spending on this basket will fall from 5.8% of GDP to 3.4% by 2040. Yet in our simulation over half of that will still go to autocracies, including new electro-states that provide green metals such as copper and lithium. The top ten countries will have a market share of over 75% in all our minerals, which means production will be dangerously concentrated.Two problems therefore stand out. First, the geopolitics of shrinking the oil industry are fraught. As Western firms withdraw for environmental reasons and in response to high costs, the market share of OPEC plus Russia will rise from 45% to 57% by 2040, giving them more clout. Higher-cost producers such as Angola and Azerbaijan face a shock as they are squeezed out. The world map will be peppered with distressed ex-petrostates.Second, the emerging electro-states face their own battle with the resource curse. Spending on green metals will surge amid a two-decade-long build-out of electric infrastructure. The windfall may be worth over $1trn a year by 2040. Some beneficiaries, such as Australia, are well-equipped to deal with this. More fragile states, including Congo, Guinea and Mongolia, are not. Mountains of cash distort economies and feed grievances. Mining was a source of discord in recent elections in Chile and Peru. Global mining firms are nervous that their property rights will be buried. A resulting lack of investment has sent the price of a basket of green metals up by 64% in the past year.As with all commodities, soaring prices will eventually trigger a market response. Tight supply gives firms a huge incentive to step up recycling and to innovate. New kinds of small-scale nuclear reactors are emerging. Tesla, which uses minerals to make electric cars, is developing new battery designs. It has also struck a supply deal with New Caledonia, a Pacific territory of 277,000 people you will hear more about because it has a tenth of the world’s nickel reserves. This month Barrick, a Canadian firm, took a deep breath and agreed to develop a $10bn copper mine in Pakistan.Yet even as markets respond, governments must also redouble their efforts. Because self-sufficiency is rarely an option, diversification is the goal. That means new partnerships. On March 20th Germany began talks with Qatar for gas. The invigoration of the rich world’s nuclear industry is key, not least because it frees everyone else from relying on Chinese and Russian technology. Governments must catalyze mining investment. Firms should not be free to blow up sacred caves or endanger workers, but the transition requires more mining projects in high-risk countries at a cost to the local ecology. Governance rules in wealthy countries need to acknowledge the trade-off. Finally, rich-world governments should help electro-states prepare by, for example, helping design model contracts for a fair split of revenues and establishing sovereign-wealth funds to save the bounty.Building a cleaner and safer energy system is an epic, risky and daunting task. But whenever resolve flags, ask yourself: would you rather rely on Mr. Putin’s Russia?

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