2008考研英语一真题及答案

2008 考研英语一真题及答案 Section I Use of English Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points) The idea that some groups of people may be more intelligent than others is one of those hypotheses that dare not speak its name. But Gregory Cochran is ___1___ to say it anyway. He is that ___2___ bird, a scientist who works independently ___3___ any institution. He helped popularize the idea that some diseases not ___4___ thought to have a bacterial cause were actually infections, which aroused much controversy when it was first suggested. ___5___ he, however, might tremble at the ___6___ of what he is about to do. Together with another two scientists, he is publishing a paper which not only ___7___ that one group of humanity is more intelligent than the others, but explains the process that has brought this about. The group in ___8___ are a particular people originated from central Europe. The process is natural selection. This group generally do well in IQ test, ___9___ 12-15 points above the ___10___ value of 100, and have contributed ___11___ to the intellectual and cultural life of the West, as the ___12___ of their elites, including several worldrenowned scientists, ___13___. They also suffer more often than most people from a number of nasty genetic diseases, such as breast cancer. These facts, ___14___, have previously been thought unrelated. The former has been ___15___ to social effects, such as a strong tradition of ___16___ education. The latter was seen as a (an) ___17___ of genetic isolation. Dr. Cochran suggests that the intelligence and diseases are intimately ___18___. His argument is that the unusual history of these people has ___19___ them to unique evolutionary pressures that have resulted in this ___20___ state of affairs. 1. [A] selected [B] prepared 2. [A] unique 3. [A] of 4. [A] subsequently 5. [A] Only [C] obliged [B] particular [B] with [B] So [C] special [C] in [D] pleased [D] rare [D] against [B] presently [C] previously [C] Even [D] Hence [D] lately 6. [A] thought [B] sight 7. [A] advises 8. [A] progress [B] fact [C] cost [B] suggests 9. [A] attaining calculating [D] risk [C] protests [C] need [D] objects [D] question [B] scoring [C] reaching [D] 10. [A] normal [B] common [C] mean [D] total 11.[A]unconsciously [B]disproportionately [C]indefinitely [D] unaccountably 12. [A] missions 13. [A] affirm [B] fortunes [C] interests [B] witness [C] observe 14. [A] moreover [B] therefore 15. [A] given up 16. [A] assessing [B] supervising [D] put down [C] consequence [C] woven 19. [A] limited [B] subjected [D] meanwhile [C] administering [B] origin 18. [A] linked [B] integrated [D] approve [C] however [B] got over [C] carried on 17. [A] development [D] careers [D] instrument [D] combined [C] converted 20. [A] paradoxical [B] incompatible [D] valuing [C] inevitable [D] directed [D] continuous Section II Reading Comprehension Part A Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points) Text 1 While still catching-up to men in some spheres of modern life, women appear to be way ahead in at least one undesirable category. “Women are particularly susceptible to developing depression and anxiety disorders in response to stress compared to men,” according to Dr. Yehuda, chief psychiatrist at New York’s Veteran’s Administration Hospital. Studies of both animals and humans have shown that sex hormones somehow affect the stress response, causing females under stress to produce more of the trigger chemicals than do males under the same conditions. In several of the studies, when stressed-out female rats had their ovaries (the female reproductive organs) removed, their chemical responses became equal to those of the males. Adding to a woman’s increased dose of stress chemicals, are her increased “opportunities” for stress. “It’s not necessarily that women don’t cope as well. It’s just that they have so much more to cope with,” says Dr. Yehuda. “Their capacity for tolerating stress may even be greater than men’s,” she observes, “it’s just that they’re dealing with so many more things that they become worn out from it more visibly and sooner.” Dr. Yehuda notes another difference between the sexes. “I think that the kinds of things that women are exposed to tend to be in more of a chronic or repeated nature. Men go to war and are exposed to combat stress. Men are exposed to more acts of random physical violence. The kinds of interpersonal violence that women are exposed to tend to be in domestic situations, by, unfortunately, parents or other family members, and they tend not to be oneshot deals. The wear-and-tear that comes from these longer relationships can be quite devastating.” Adeline Alvarez married at 18 and gave birth to a son, but was determined to finish college. “I struggled a lot to get the college degree. I was living in so much frustration that that was my escape, to go to school, and get ahead and do better.” Later, her marriage ended and she became a single mother. “It’s the hardest thing to take care of a teenager, have a job, pay the rent, pay the car payment, and pay the debt. I lived from paycheck to paycheck.” Not everyone experiences the kinds of severe chronic stresses Alvarez describes. But most women today are coping with a lot of obligations, with few breaks, and feeling the strain. Alvarez’s experience demonstrates the importance of finding ways to diffuse stress before it threatens your health and your ability to function. 21. Which of the following is true according to the first two paragraphs? [A] Women are biologically more vulnerable to stress. [B] Women are still suffering much stress caused by men. [C] Women are more experienced than men in coping with stress. [D] Men and women show different inclinations when faced with stress. 22. Dr. Yehuda’s research suggests that women [A] need extra doses of chemicals to handle stress. [B] have limited capacity for tolerating stress. [C] are more capable of avoiding stress. [D] are exposed to more stress. 23. According to Paragraph 4, the stress women confront tends to be [A] domestic and temporary. [B] irregular and violent. [C] durable and frequent. [D] trivial and random. 24. The sentence “I lived from paycheck to paycheck.” (Line 6, Para. 5) shows that [A] Alvarez cared about nothing but making money. [B] Alvarez’s salary barely covered her household expenses. [C] Alvarez got paychecks from different jobs. [D] Alvarez paid practically everything by check. 25. Which of the following would be the best title for the text? [A] Strain of Stress: No Way Out? [B] Responses to Stress: Gender Difference [C] Stress Analysis: What Chemicals Say [D] Gender Inequality: Women Under Stress Text 2 It used to be so straightforward. A team of researchers working together in the laboratory would submit the results of their research to a journal. A journal editor would then remove the authors’ names and affiliations from the paper and send it to their peers for review. Depending on the comments received, the editor would accept the paper for publication or decline it. Copyright rested with the journal publisher, and researchers seeking knowledge of the results would have to subscribe to the journal. No longer. The Internet – and pressure from funding agencies, who are questioning why commercial publishers are making money from governmentfunded research by restricting access to it – is making access to scientific results a reality. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has just issued a report describing the far-reaching consequences of this. The report, by John Houghton of Victoria University in Australia and Graham Vickery of the OECD, makes heavy reading for publishers who have, so far, made handsome profits. But it goes further than that. It signals a change in what has, until now, been a key element of scientific endeavor. The value of knowledge and the return on the public investment in research depends, in part, upon wide distribution and ready access. It is big business. In America, the core scientific publishing market is estimated at between $7 billion and $11 billion. The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers says that there are more than 2,000 publishers worldwide specializing in these subjects. They publish more than 1.2 million articles each year in some 16,000 journals. This is now changing. According to the OECD report, some 75% of scholarly journals are now online. Entirely new business models are emerging; three main ones were identified by the report’s authors. There is the so-called big deal, where institutional subscribers pay for access to a collection of online journal titles through site-licensing agreements. There is open-access publishing, typically supported by asking the author (or his employer) to pay for the paper to be published. Finally, there are open-access archives, where organizations such as universities or international laboratories support institutional repositories. Other models exist that are hybrids of these three, such as delayed open-access, where journals allow only subscribers to read a paper for the first six months, before making it freely available to everyone who wishes to see it. All this could change the traditional form of the peerreview process, at least for the publication of papers. 26. In the first paragraph, the author discusses