中国地质大学（北京）考博英语真题,考博英语试题

CHINA UNIVERSITY OF GEOSCIENCES
PhD Entrance Examination in English
18 April 2009

LISTEN TO THIS!
Good morning! You are about to take this English test for people who wish to enter one of the doctoral programs at this university.
The test may be rather different from any exam you’ve taken in the past. The first part is a timed listening exercise. The other sections test you knowledge of grammar, elementrary writing skills and basic vocabulary, plus your reading ability.
You can have as much as you like for the last three parts of the test—within reason, of course.
The test has four sections. The answers for parts 1, 2 and 3 (in other words, every part except 4) should be marked on your answer sheet. The answers for part 4 should be written directly on the pages for that part of the exam.
Make sure you READ AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS for the each part of the test!
The use of dctionaries (printed or electronic) is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN.
The results of this exam will enable us to compare your preparation in English with that of the other candidates. The “Passing” grade is relative; in other words, it will depend on the scores for the whole body of test-takers. Just relax please, and do as well as you can.
We shall now begin. Turn the page to part 1. Good luck!
PART 1
Imagine that you are on a train to Shanghai. In the seats in front of you there are two foreigners, and you can hear their conversation. One of them is telling the other about his job. He says what he does, not what he is or what field (profession or occupation) he is in.
On your paper you see a list of the names of people in 60 different occupations or professions. As you listen, decide what the speaker is. Then find the correct word on the list and wite the number beside it in the proper blank on your answer sheet.
For instance, suppose you hear this: (Speaker P) “Well, I don’t enjoy lecturing very much, espacially to younger students, but I do love my research. I’d be so happy if I could spend every day in the lab with my graduate students and postdocs. However, that’s just one of the way university departments operate.” You decide that the speaker must be a professor, so you find “a professor” on your list. You see that the number beside it is 61; you then write the number 61 in the blank beside P on your answer sheet.
By the way, in reality there is no P and no 61, and “a professor” is not one of the choices on your list. This is just a theoretical exmaple. You will now have three minutes to read the list.
[SILENCE]
All right, now let’s begin!
The following is a list of 60 different occupations or professions:
1 an account 会计
2 an actor
3 an airline pilot 民航飞行员
4 an architect 建筑师
5 an astronomer 天文学家
6 a biologist 生物学家
7 a chef 厨师
8 a civil engineer 土木工程师
9 a concert pianist 高级钢琴演奏师
10 a construction worker
11 a corporate executive 企业执行总裁
12 a dentist 牙医
13 a dietician 营养师
14 a diplomat 外交官
15 an electrician 电工
16 a fashion designer 时装设计师
17 a film critic 电影评论家
18 a film director 电影导演
19 a flight attendant 飞机乘务员
20 a florist 花店老板
21 a geologist
22 a geophysicist
23 a graphic designer 图形设计师
24 a hairdresser 发型设计师
25 a hardware engineer 硬件工程师
26 a hotel manager
27 a journalist
28 a judge
29 a lab technician
30 a lawyer
31 a librarian
32 a mathematician
33 a mechanic 机修工（技工）
34 a mechanical engineer
35 a military officer
36 a novelist 小说家
37 a nurse
38 a paleontologist 古生物学家
39 a press photographer 新闻摄影师
40 a plumber 管道维修工
41 a poet 诗人
42 a police detective 侦探
43 a police patrolman 普通警察
44 a pop singer 流行歌手
45 a postman
46 a private businessman 个体商人
47 a private detective 私人侦探
48 a psychiatrist 心理医生
49 a psychologist 心理学家
50 a publisher 出版商
51 a radio announcer 电台播音员
52 a schoolteacher (primary)
53 a schoolteacher (secondary)
54 a software engineer
55 a store clerk/ shop assistant
56 a surgeon 外科医生
57 a tax official 税务员
58 a travel agent 旅行代理商
59 a university student
60 a vet 宠物医生
PART 2
Each question in this part consists of one or more sentences in which four words or phrases are underlined. The four underlined parts are marked A, B, C, or D. Decide which one of the four parts is not good english. Then write the letter found under that part in the proper space on your answer sheet.
If the four underlined parts are all good English and there is no error in the sentence, then write E in the space on your answer sheet. REMEMBER! You always have FIVE possible choices: A, B, C, D or E (= no error).
1. By last summer, professor Korsakov and I had visited our main field site for five times, so we were already thoroughly familiar with its topography.
A. By last summer
B. had visited
C. for five times
D. were already thoroughly familiar with its topography
2. Our research group has been seeking a suitable academic partner in US for some time now. So far we have hand no luck, but we intend to keep looking.
A. has been seeking
B. academic partner in US
C. for some time now
D. intend to keep looking
3. I know that you are very busy with your research, but I nevertheless hope that you would edit the English in this scientific paper, publication of which may have a considerable impact on my career.
A. are very busy with
B. would edit
C. publication of which
D. a considerable impact on
4. The Ming Tombs, which together constitute one of the most impressive ensembles of traditional architecture in North China, are within an hour’s drive of the campus and can easily be reached by bus or car.
A. The Ming Tombs
B. constitute one of the most impressive ensembles of
C. in North China
D. within an hour’s drive of
5. They have had a good deal of trouble with their experiments, but I strongly believe that if they deal with each problem as it arises, they will eventually success.
A. have had a good deal
B. trouble with their experiments
C. deal with each problem as it arises
D. will eventually success
6. Yesterday I showed the visitors around the campus and took them shopping. Today I help one of them to find a new battery for his digital camera, which is of quite an unusual design.
A. showed
B. took them shopping
C. help one
D. of quite an unusual design
7. I wish that I can attend the drilling technology conference in Edinburgh, but I am afraid it is out of the question unless there is a major change in my research schedule for early July.
A. can
B. afraid it is
C. out of the question
D. schedule for early July
8. The thesis that Prof. Schultz advances in his article is certainly of great interest, but he will have to provide more evidences if he is to persuade other scientists of its validity.
A. advances in his article
B. is certainly of great interest
C. more evidences
D. of its validity
9. Can you explain me how to get to Pennsylvania Station from the airport? I will have no more than 90 minutes to get there for the last train to Princeton.
A. explain me
B. from the airport
C. no more
D. than 90 minutes
10. I am quite pleased with the new device in our chemistry lab. It requires little maintenance, yet it yields extremely precise measurements and, best of all, is very easy to be used.
A. am quite pleased with
B. requires little maintenance
C. it yields
D. very easy to be used
11. We are conducting a long-term study of employment trends in towns in southern Hebei, which are located on railways; they will be compared with similar towns in other provinces.
A. in southern Hebei
B. which
C. are located on railways
D. compared with similar towns
12. The psychologists are using questionnaires and interviews to find out whether the frequency of serious psychological problems among adolescents in the greater Shanghai area is, as many observers suspect, rising sharply.
A. to find out whether
B. the frequency
C. in the greater Shanghai area is
D. observers suspect
13. Yesterday she had lunch with her new math professor, who gave her some good advices on how to deal with the problems in her research.
A. had lunch
B. good advices on
C. how to deal
D. the problems in her research
14. Following a grueling three-hours exam and two hour-long interviews, he was offered the post of technical officer in the Chinese embassy in Trukey.
A. three-hours exam
B. two hour-long interviews
C. of technical officer
D. in Trukey
15. When ambitious Chinese parents hear that a certain children has done very well in a competition or received an outstanding mark in a special exam, they will very often demand their own children to achieve similar results.
A. a certain children
B. has done very well in
C. they will very often
D. their own children to achieve
PART 3
Read the two articles below carefully and completely. ( The paragraphs are numbered to help you find items.) Then answer the questions that follow. In each case write the letter of the correct answer on your answer sheet.
You are not allowed to use dictionary. However, we have provided a short list of difficult words with their definitions to help you read the texts. Check this vocabulary list before you begin the articles.
VOCABULARY
To appraise X: to judge the value of X
An asset: something that is owned—and can be sold to pay off a debt
A bauble: a consumer item of little importance, except as a costly indicator of wealth
To burrow: to dig underground
Congestion: crowdedness
A coupon: a piece of paper issued by retailers, which consumers can submit (or “redeem”) for a lower price on a specific item
To be of the essence: to be of very great importance; not to be wasted
An exhortation: spoken or written encouragement to do something
A gadget: a consumer device, interesting but of little importance for life
A license plate: (US) one of the signs bearing numbers ( and sometimes letters) on the front and back of a car
To offset X: to compensate for X
To outrace X/A: to go faster than X/A
A recession: a period in which the economy shrinks
Sprawling: extending widely, with few limits on expansion
A subway: [US, from “subterranean railway”] what the British call the underground [from “underground”]; sometimes also known as a metro or tube (UK)
To tighten one’s purse strings: to start spending money much less freely.
ARTICLE A
[1] Guangdong engineer Chan Shaozhang is in the race of his life. After four decades of false starts, the 67-year-old Mr. Chan is supervising an army of workers operating 60 giant tunneling machines beneath this metropolis in southeastern China. They are building one of the world’s largest and most advanced subway systems. The question is whether the burrowing machines can outrace China’s growing love affair with the automobile—car sales have soared ninefold since 2000. Or are a hundred Los Angeleses destined to bloom?
[2] And even as Mr. Chan labors to bind Guangzhou together with an underground web of steel, the city is spreading out rapidly above ground, like a drop of ink on a paper towel. The Guangzhou Metro is just part of a much broader surge in mass transit construction across China. At least 15 cities are building subway lines and a dozen more are planning them. The pace of construction will only accelerate now that Beijing is pushing local and provincial governments to step up their infrastructure spending to offset lost revenue from slumping exports. “Nobody is building like they are,” said Shomik Mehndiratta, a World Bank specialist in urban transport. “The center of construction is really China.”
[3] Western mass-transit experts applaud China for investing billions in systems that will put less stress on the environment and on cities. But they warn that other Chinese policies, like allowing real estate developers to build sprawling new suburbs, undermine the benefits of the mass transit boom. “They wind up better than if they did nothing, but it costs them a fortune,” said Lee Schipper, a specialist at Stanford in urban transport. Mr. Chan defended Guangzhou’s combination of cars and subways, saying that the city built a subway line to a new Toyota assembly plant to help employees and suppliers reach it.
[4] Subways have been most competitive in cities like New York that have high prices for parking, and tolls for bridges and tunnels, discouraging car use. Few Chinese cities have been willing to do that, other than Shanghai, which charges a fee of several thousand dollars for each license plate. The cost and physical limitations of subways have discouraged most cities from building new ones. For instance, only Tokyo has a subway system that carries more people than its buses. The buses are cheaper and able to serve far more streets but move more slowly, pollute more and contribute to traffic congestion.
[5] China has reason to worry. It surpassed the United States in total vehicle sales for the first time in January, although the United States remained slightly ahead in car sales. But in February, China overtook the United States in both, in part because the global downturn has hurt auto sales much more in the United States than in China.
[6] Guangzhou, a city of 12 million people that is also the fastest-growing center of auto manufacturing in China, shows both the promise and obstacles of China’s subway boom. Mr. Chan helped set up Guangzhou’s subway planning office in 1965, when he was straight out of college. Digging started the next year. But the miners gave up after less than 3 meters when they hit granite. Mao then personally sent China’s finest mining and underground construction experts to oversee the digging. But further excavation efforts failed in 1970, 1971, 1974 and 1979. During and immediately after the Cultural Revolution, ideological attitudes, poverty and nationalism forced a reliance on inadequate Chinese equipment.
[7] In 1989, when preparations began for successful excavations, city leaders thought it would be enough to have two subway lines, totaling 32 kilometers, in an X shape bisecting a tightly packed downtown. “At that point, it was still mostly bicycles and people walking,” Mr. Chan said. Then, “in the 21st century, the Guangzhou economy really took off.” Today, Guangzhou has 114 km of subway lines, most of them opened in the last three years, and yet large areas of the ever-expanding city are still distant from the nearest subway stop. The city plans to open an additional 113 km by the end of next year—and an underground tram system and a high-speed commuter rail system. A long-term plan calls for at least 800 km of subway and light-rail routes, and there are discussions on expanding beyond that.
[8] China now produces much of the equipment to build modern subways, but the country’s infrastructure stimulus spending is drawing in imports as well. Most of the tunneling machines here were made by Herrenknecht of Germany. I.B.M. announced on Wednesday that it had signed a consulting contract for computer tracking of Guangzhou Metro’s nearly $3 billion in assets, including convenience stores in subway stations and lighting systems.
[9] The digging in Guangzhou proceeds around the clock, every day. Men like Wang Jiangka, a profusely perspiring engineer in charge of one of the steamy tunnels, endure high temperatures at the mine face, where workers put in five 12-hour shifts a week. “If they don’t want to do overtime, we get other workers,” Mr. Wang said, standing in a red hard hat next to a Herrenknecht tunneling machine that chewed through the rock more than a 2-km walk from the nearest daylight.
[10] Inexpensive labor—less than $400 a month—and the economies of scale created by completing 32 km of subway lines a year have driven costs steadily down. Mr. Chan said that it cost about $60 million a kilometer to build a subway line in Guangzhou, including land acquisition costs for ventilation shafts and station entrances. By contrast, New York City officials hope to build 2.7 km of the long-delayed Second Avenue line in eight years at a cost of $3.9 billion, or $1.4 billion per kilometers. The city expects to use a single tunneling machine.
[11] Owners of land needed for subway construction in Guangzhou have few rights compared with those in New York. Here, Mr. Chan said, a property surveyor appraises a building and “whatever he says, that’s it.” But, Mr. Chan added, “because China is now more democratic, if they don’t want to move, then you have to take more time.”
[12] And time is of the essence. Guangzhou is growing rapidly outward, and the lure of cars is hard to resist. Chen Hao Tian, a 43-year-old economic planner for the Guangzhou municipal government who worries about the need for mass transit, used to spend half an hour riding a free bus for government employees to and from work. Then he acquired a silver-gray Honda Accord from the local Honda assembly plant and found he could make the trip in 10 minutes—and run errands along the way for his wife and 13-year-old daughter, and listen to his favorite music. “On my salary, the maintenance costs are a pressure,” he said. “But it gives me great pleasure and the feeling of a higher standard of living.” And few subway rides do that, even for those who build them.
1 In paragraph 1, the author mentions Los Angeles
A. to suggest that the city would be a valuable model for Guangzhou
B. to suggest what many Chinese cities should aim for as they modernize their transportation systems
C. to criticize Guangzhou for failing to limit growth in the number of cars on its roads
D. as an example of a sprawling modern city dominated by automobiles
2 The article suggests that the Chinese governmet’s efforts to counter the impact of the global recession
A. will lead to fewer cars and more subways in chinese cities
B. will speed up the construction of subway systems in cities across the country
C. are unlikely to compensate adequately for the decline in China’s exports
D. are giving rise to conflicts between proponents of mass transit and real-estate developers
3 Prof. Schipper at Stanford thinks that China’s policies on the development of real estate and mass transit systems
A. reveal a healthy balance between competing interests
B. seem to amount to “two steps forward, one step backward”
C. will lead to grave financial difficulties for the country if they are not changed
D. deserve the applause that they receive from other Western observers, but not the criticism
4 The cost of building subways in China is still low because
A. wages for Chinese workers are very low by international standards
B. Chinese firms now manufacture the huge machines use to dig tunnels
C. of low wages and the efficiencies gained from building so many kilometers of subway in such a short time
D. of all the factors mentioned A, B, and C
5 The author of the article believes China is right to build subway systems with such speed because
A. otherwise increasing numbers of middle-class Chinese will orgnize their lives around cars
B. Chinese citizens are now acquiring more rights to resist takeover of their land and houses by subway builders
C. wages for construction workers will soon begin to rise again as the world economy emerges from recessio
D. car-owning residents of new suburbs will oppose the extension of subway lines to their neighborhoods
ARTICLE B
[1] “WANT IT!” screamed the words plastered on the walls, counters and shopping bags in the flagship emporium of Saks, a big American retailer, on Fifth Avenue in New York. The same exhortation was written in huge letters on a giant red and white ball that revolved slowly in the middle of the main sales floor. Saks’s spring marketing campaign, which came to an end on April 1st, made its unashamed appeal to greed in effort drum up sales in a dreadful market. But the exclamation mark in its “Want It!” tagline should perhaps have been a question mark instead.
[2] Asked whether they want more stuff, consumers in rich countries have responded with an emphatic “No”. The breathtaking speed with which retail sales have plummeted in both America and Europe has caught retailers and manufacturers by surprise. In response, companies have tried desperately to prop up revenues using a variety of promotions, advertising and other marketing ploys, often in vain.
[3] But as they battle with these immediate problems, marketers are also pondering what longer-term changes in consumer behaviour have been triggered by the recession. It is tempting to conclude that, once economies recover, customers will start spending again as they did before. Yet there are good reasons to think that what promises to be the worst downturn since the Depression will spark profound shifts in shoppers’ psychology.
[4] The biggest changes will take place in America and parts of Europe, where housing and stockmarket bubbles have imploded and unemployment has soared. As well as seeing their incomes fall as employers cut wages and jobs, households have also seen the value of their homes and retirement savings shrink dramatically. Although the threat to wages will fade as growth picks up, the damage done to housing and other assets will linger.
[5] This has already led to a swift tightening of purse strings by shoppers and a wave of discounting by companies. Inmar, an American firm that processes discount coupons, says that redemptions in America were 17% higher in the first quarter of 2009 than in the same period last year, as consumers hunted for bargains. Many companies have launched lower-priced products in order to avoid losing customers as they trade down. Danone, a French food group, has created a line of low-cost yogurts in Europe, called “EUROco Packs”, that come in smaller tubs and fewer flavours than its standard products.
[6] The trend towards thrift will not disappear when the economy picks up. For one thing, those banks left standing after the bust will be far more parsimonious with consumer credit. For another, many people will still be intent on rebuilding their nest-eggs, which is reflected in sharply rising rates of saving. Sociologists also detect a distinct change in people’s behaviour. Until the downturn, folk had come to assume that “affluence” was the norm, even if they had to go deeply into debt to pay for gadgets and baubles. Now many people no longer seem consumed by the desire to consume; instead, they are planning to live within their means, and there has been a marked loss of interest in luxury goods
[7] So for years to come, many more households will be firmly focused on saving, splashing out only occasionally on a large, important item. Some firms are already trying to capitalise on this new mood. Sears, another American retailer, recently revived a savings plan it used many years ago, known as the “Layaway programme”, under which a consumer can make a down payment on an item that is then held for him for a fixed period while he saves the rest of the cash needed to buy it.
[8] A second shift in consumer psychology has been prompted by fallout from the global banking crisis and the angry response to the news of huge bonuses paid by firms rescued with public money; by a wave of financial scandals, such as the Madoff affair in America; and by multibillion-dollar rescues of carmakers in many countries. All this seems to be lowering trust in business more generally. A recently completed global survey of consumer sentiment involving 15,000 consumers show that over half of respondents from America and Europe say the crisis has intensified their distrust of big business.
[9] Past downturns have also stoked anti-business feeling, which dissipated as growth returned. But the sheer scale of the failings that have come to light recently mean that suspicion and wariness will not vanish so easily this time around. In response, firms will need to be even more transparent in their dealings with customers, who will punish them severely if they fail to keep their promises.
[10] Both the shift towards greater thrift and greater scepticism about brands will influence other consumer trends, too. Interest in things such as green products and healthy foods will continue to grow in a post-crisis world, but customers will be less willing to pay a premium for them, and will demand more value for money when they do.
[11] The downturn will also accelerate the use of social media, such as blogs and social-networking sites, by consumers looking for intelligence on firms and their products. As trust in brands is eroded, people will place more value on recommendations from friends. Social media make it harder for brands to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes, but they also offer canny companies a powerful new channel through which to promote their wares and test new products and pricing strategies.
6 In paragraph 3, the word “tempting” implies that a certain conclusion is
A. highly desirable
B. attractively reasonable
C. probably prudent but not definitely so
D. of doubtful wisdom
7 The name that Danone is giving to its new line of yogurt seems designed to
A. emphasize the absence of harmful chemicals in the product
B. suggest that the person buying it will save money and avoid damaging the environment
C. remind cutomers of the consistent quality of the product (one tub of yogurt “echoes” another)
D. makes the product sound both cheap and mysteriously attractive
8 Sears is probably reviving its layaway program as a sales tactic
A. in order to associate buying and saving in the minds of thrifty consumers
B. so as to encourage thrifty consumers to buy occasional large items rather than many smaller items
C. to overcome recession-stricken consumers’ mistrust of big retailers such as Sears and Saks
D. so as to encourage thrifty behavior among its customers, who should be tightening their purse strings
9 In paragraph 8, the word “dissipated” most nearly means
A. quickly vanished
B. assumed new forms that were hard to detect
C. became more widespread
D. gradually lost intensity
10 According to the article, blogs and social-networking websites
A. will make it almost impossible for retailers to market luxury goods during the recession
B. provide a new way for skillful retailers to market their products
C. will limit retailers’ ability to attract new customers by offering lower prices
D. are a major cause of the lack of confidence many Westerner consumers now feel for formerly popular brands
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