中国艺术研究院考博英语真题,考博英语试题

中国艺术研究院2008年博士入学英语考试题

Part I Vocabulary (10 points)
Directions: In this section there are 10 sentences with one word or phrase underlined and 10 incomplete sentences. For each sentence there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the ONE that best completes the sentence and then mark the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening it with a pencil.
Example: [A] [B] [■] [D]
1. They arrived at some political agreements that facilitated troop withdrawals.
A. established    B. maximized    C. guaranteed    D. promoted
2. The psychologist cited several instances of insubordinate behavior.
A. neglected    B. worried    C. mentioned    D. reduced
3. When faced with doubts from some advisers on the attempted invasion, the president ignored them.
A. failed to notice    B. put up with    C. stood up for    D. refused to consider
4. He was a zealous supporter of our plan and cleaned up the hall for the Christmas party.
A. enthusiastic    B. concerted    C. gigantic    D. dedicated
5. They are bound to fail if they continue at the risk of all these dangers.
A. are unnecessary    B. are certain    C. are simple    D. are alternative
6. Adverse circumstances compelled him to close his business.
A. unfamiliar    B. local    C. unfavorable    D. good
7. People of diverse backgrounds now fly to distant places for pleasure, business or education.
A. different    B. distinctive    C. divorced    D. separate
8. The salesman approached the house cautiously when he saw the vicious dog at the door.
A. cautious    B. deliberate    C. nervous    D. malicious
9. It is believed that the recent findings are also applicable to other areas of design engineering.
A. practical    B. relevant    C. convenient    D. comparable
10. The enterprise introduced an incentive bonus for high productivity.
A. motive    B. initiative    C. encouragement    D. entertainment
11. He ______ in court that he had seen the prisoner run out of the bank after it had been robbed.
A. justified    B. witnessed    C. testified    D. identified
12. You may never experience an earthquake or a volcanic eruption in your life, but you will ______ changes in the land.
A. adapt    B. adopt    C. witness    D. define
13. It is understood that the filming of Legends is almost complete and the film is not ______ to be delayed.
A. easy    B. available    C. possible    D. likely
14. The author of the book has shown his remarkably keen ______ into human nature.
A. intellect    B. insight    C. perception    D. understanding
15. The Government has therefore agreed to pay authorities extra sums to ______ for their financial losses.
A. make up    B. turn up    C. fill in    D. lean on
16. With the constant change of the conditions, the outcome is not always ______.
A. favorable    B. predictable    C. dependable    D. reasonable
17. You will get to the church more quickly if you take this ______ across the fields.
A. track    B. passage    C. method    D. journey
18. A landing on Mars is within the ______ of current physical theory.
A. scheme    B. scope    C. scrap    D. scale
19. When products made in factories ______, they are thrown away as garbage.
A. come to an end    B. are put to use    C. are used up    D. wear out
20. It was with great delight that I read in your February ______ the letter to the Editor written by Prof. Johnson.
A. copy    B. issue    C. magazine    D. printing
Part II Cloze (10 points)
Directions: For each numbered blank in the following passage, there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the best ONE and then mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening it with a pencil.
Example: [A] [B] [■] [D]
Niagara is an Indian word which means “roaring water”. Indeed, the roar of the falling water of Niagara can be heard __21__ a distance of 25 kms. Imagine __22__ of water flowing over a cliff 90 feet high and you will get an idea of that terrible noise. And __23__ tremendous power the Niagara River has! It moves big rocks about and throws them into the boiling water below. __24__ ago an old ship without single person on board was put in mid-stream. It sailed down the river __25__ a toy boat with great speed. Having reached the fall, the ship dropped into the boiling water, never __26__ again. There were some people who wanted to become famous __27__ swimming across the most dangerous part of the Niagara River. One of them was Captain Webb who said that he would try to swim cross the Niagara, which __28__ crowds of people. On the evening of July 21st, 1893, Captain Webb came up to the river and __29__ a plunge. His having jumped into the water __30__ many people with horror. Soon, he appeared in the middle of the river. A loud shout went up from the crowd, but a moment later there was __31__ silence. The man had disappeared under the water. Thousands of eyes __32__ on the river, but the man was drowned. In 1902, a certain Miss Taylor decided to go over the falls in a barrel. There were different kinds of pillows inside the barrel to prevent her from __33__. Having examined the barrel carefully, Miss Taylor got in. The barrel was closed and then __34__ into the water. Having reached the falls, it overturned and was shot down by the terrible __35__ of the water. When the barrel was finally caught and opened, Miss Taylor came out alive __36__ with a frightened look in her eyes. Once a crowd of visitors saw a rope __37__ over from one bank of the river to the other. Then they saw a man __38__ the rope. The man was an actor, Blondin __39__. He managed to cross Niagara Falls on a tight rope. The people on the bank were surprised at his __40__ it so well.
21. A. within    B. inside    C. at    D. on
22. A. much    B. a great number    C. mass    D. a mass
23. A. how much    B. what    C. so    D. how
24. A. Sometimes    B. Many times    C. Much time    D. Some time
25. A. as    B. as if    C. like    D. likely
26. A. to appear    B. appearing    C. appeared    D. appear
27. A. for    B. by    C. through    D. from
28. A. attracted    B. drew    C. caused    D. pulled
29. A. gave    B. made    C. did    D. took
30. A. filling    B. full of    C. filled    D. was filled
31. A. dead    B. dying    C. died    D. death
32. A. being stopped    B. were fixing    C. were fixed    D. fixed
33. A. being hurt    B. having hurt    C. hurting    D. hurt
34. A. being throw    B. throwing    C. thrown    D. threw
35. A. power    B. strength    C. force    D. capacity
36. A. therefore    B. however    C. so    D. but
37. A. being put    B. put    C. having put    D. putting
38. A. step across    B. step out onto    C. step along    D. step on
39. A. in name    B. under the name of    C. by name    D. to the name of
40. A. done    B. having done    C. having been done    D. being done
Part III Reading Comprehension (40 points)
Directions: In this part there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best ONE and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening it with a pencil.
Example: [A] [B] [■] [D]
Passage 1
Presidents come and go, but for more than half a century, the queen has always been the queen. So it was perhaps no surprise that Washington went a little gaga on Monday, as Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, began an official two-day visit to the capital.
Across the Atlantic, Helen Mirren, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Elizabeth in “The Queen,” shocked the British conscience over the weekend by turning down an invitation to dine at Buckingham Palace. But on this side of the ocean, Her Majesty was making Americans go weak in the knees.
The White House was decorated to perfection for an exclusive white-tie dinner on Monday evening, with President Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush, playing host to the royal couple and 130 other A-list guests. But the morning was reserved for the masses — or, at least, the masses with the kind of connections that warrant an invitation to the formal arrival ceremony on the South Lawn.
It was a day for pomp and circumstance — a military color guard, a fife and drum band in white wigs, red jackets and tricornered hats — punctuated by a presidential slip of the tongue that lightened the moment during Mr. Bush’s welcoming remarks. Mr. Bush reminded the 81-year-old queen that she had already dined with 10 American presidents.
“You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 — ” he went on, stopping to correct himself before 1776 could slip out. The crowd erupted in laughter, and the president and the queen turned to each other for a long, silent gaze. Then, Mr. Bush turned back to the crowd with an explanation. “She gave me a look,” he said, “that only a mother could give a child.”
Mr. Bush had been the recipient of such a look once before in the queen’s presence — from his own mother, back in 1991, when the first President and Mrs. Bush played host to their own state dinner for the queen. By several different accounts, including Mr. Bush’s own, Barbara Bush told the queen that she had seated her son far away from Her Majesty, for fear he might make a wisecrack.
Then, to his mother’s horror, he did, telling the queen that he was his family’s black sheep and asking, “Who’s yours?” The queen, apparently not amused, replied tartly, “None of your business.”
If the queen was not amused on Monday, she did not show it. “I’m sure she accepted it for what it was — a slip of the tongue,” said her press secretary, Penny Russell-Smith.
41. It may be inferred from the passage that ______.
A. U.S. presidents like to come and go    B. the queen has always been in power    C. the queen was much esteemed by U.S. people    D. Queen Elizabeth II began an official visit to the capital
42. Helen Mirren shocked the British conscience because she ______.
A. refused to dine at Buckingham Palace with the Queen    B. won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Elizabeth    C. sailed cross the Atlantic alone    D. Her Majesty was making Americans go weak in the knees
43. What happened at Mr. Bush’s welcoming remarks?
A. He made a serious mistake.    B. He made a slip of the tongue.    C. He played joke with the Queen.    D. He made a laugh stalk himself.
44. We may infer from the context that the bicentennial of American nation celebration is held in ______.
A. 1776    B. 1876    C. 1976    D. 1991
45. We may infer from the context that “black sheep” (Line 2, Para. 7) probably means ______.
A. a sheep of black color    B. a very strange person    C. a valuable member of the family    D. a worthless member of a respectable group
Passage 2
After a 37-year advertising career at Young & Rubicam, Peter A. Georgescu is finding time to promote a few causes that are dear to him.
Mr. Georgescu, 66, who once managed well-known campaigns like the “Softer Side of Sears,” retired as chairman and chief executive of Young & Rubicam in 2000, but he says he is now in “the most wonderful chapter of my life.”
It is an apt metaphor because his book, The Source of Success (Jossey-Bass, $27.95) is being published this month. The book aims to explain what Mr. Georgescu views as the two major challenges facing America: economic competition from the emerging economies of China and India and a need to foster more creativity within American companies.
“The only way this nation can compete with those that produce high-quality products at a lower price is by generating ideas that build a special relationship with consumers,” he said. “Everyone has buildings and technology; those are commodities. The only leverageable asset in the future will be creativity.”
Any profit from his book will go to a charity (慈善；施舍) called Better Chance, which finds bright children in some of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and helps them to attend outstanding high schools, including private prep schools like the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
Mr. Georgescu, an Exeter alumnus, received a bachelor’s degree (学士学位) in political science (政治学) from Princeton and an M.B.A. from Stanford before starting at Young & Rubicam in 1963.
He said he counted himself lucky to have gained admission to Exeter in 1954, when he arrived in the United States at the age of 15 from his native Romania after spending seven years in a Communist labor camp.
“I had been cleaning sewers, and I spoke little English, but someone gave me a chance,” he said. “I want to do that for other young people who are disadvantaged.”
He also volunteers as a board member (董事会成员) of the New York Philharmonic. In the business world, he holds the title of chairman emeritus of Young & Rubicam and serves as a director for several companies.
He and his wife, Barbara, live in Manhattan and have a son and three granddaughters. He rises at 6 a.m. most days to run five miles, partly along the East River.
“That’s how I torture myself,” he said.
46. From the first 3 paragraphs we know that Mr. Georgescu is ______.
A. an author    B. an advertiser    C. the author of the “Softer Side of Sears”    D. chairman and chief executive of Young & Rubicam
47. What are Mr. Georgescu views about the major challenges facing America?
A. China and India and    B. Competition and creativity.    C. Competition from the emerging economies.    D. A need to foster more creativity within American companies.
48. According to Mr. Georgescu, the future of economic competition lies in ______.
A. good ideas    B. consumers    C. commodities    D. creativity
49. We may infer from the context that “Exeter” (Line 1, Para. 6) is the name of ______.
A. a high school    B. a charity    C. a small town    D. a refugee shelter
50. The best title for the passage may be ______.
A. A Manager’s 37-year Advertising Career    B. The Source of Success    C. Two Major Challenges Facing America    D. A Grateful Student Returns the Favor
Passage 3
It is hard to get any agreement on the precise meaning of the term ‘social class’. In everyday life, people tend to have a different approach to those they consider their equals from that which they assume with people they consider higher or lower than themselves in the social scale. The criteria we use to place a new acquaintance, however, are a complex mixture of factors. Dress, way of speaking, area of residence in a given city or province, education and manners all play a part.
In the eighteenth-century one of the first modern economists, Adam Smith, thought that the ‘whole annual produce of the land and labor of every country’ provided revenue to ‘three different orders of people: Those who live by rent, those who live by wages, those who live by profit’. Each successive stage of the industrial revolution, however, made the social structure more complicated.
Many intermediate groups grew up during the nineteenth-century between the upper middle class and the working class. There were small-scale industrialists as well as large ones, small shopkeepers and tradesmen, officials and salaried employees, skilled and unskilled workers, and professional men such as doctors and teachers. Farmers and peasants continued in all countries as independent groups.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the possession of wealth inevitably affected a person’s social position. Intelligent industrialists with initiative made fortunes by their wits which lifted them into an economic group far higher than their working-class parents. But they lacked the social training of the upper class, who despised them as the ‘new rich’.
They often sent their sons and daughters to special schools to acquire social training. Here their children mixed with the children of the upper classes were accepted by them, and very often found marriage partners from among them. In the same way, a thrifty, hard-working labourer, though not clever enough himself, might save for his son enough to pay for an extended secondary school education in the hope that he would move into a ‘white-collar’ occupation, carrying with it a higher salary and move up in the social scale.
In the twentieth century the increased taxation of higher incomes, the growth of the social services, and the wider development of educational opportunity have considerably altered the social outlook. The upper classes no longer are the sole, or even the main possessors of wealth, power and education, though inherited social position still carries considerable prestige.
Many people today are hostile towards class distinctions and privileges and hope to achieve a classless society. The trouble is that as one inequality is removed, another tends to take its place, and the best that has as far been attempted is a society in which distinctions are elastic and in which every member has fair opportunities for making the best of his abilities.
51. How do we place people in society in relation to ourselves, according to the text?
A. Mainly by their way of speaking.    B. According to the place where they were born.    C. According to a complex mixture of factors.    D. By regarding them inferior to ourselves.
52. Adam Smith’s social make-up was invalidated by ______.
A. the growing-up of upper middle class    B. the successive stages of the industrial revolution    C. the influence of the working class    D. the inheritance of social positions
53. Which class do small shopkeepers and tradesmen belong to?
A. working class    B. middle class    C. upper class    D. upper middle class
54. Which of the following statements does NOT truly describe the new rich?
A. They sent their children to special schools to receive education.    B. They were lack of social training of the aristocracy    C. They were often men of initiative and intelligence    D. They did not allow their children to marry the upper class
55. What happened to the class differences in the twentieth century?
A. They have been partly smoothed out.    B. They increased taxation of higher incomes.    C. They have made the social services grow.    D. They widely enhanced the education development
Passage 4
The co-operative spirit that is present in such pack-hunters as wolves is largely absent from the world of the primate. Competitiveness and dominance is the order of this day.
Competition in the social hierarchy is, of course, present in both groups, but it is less tempered by co-operative action in the case of monkeys and apes. Complicated, coordinated maneuvers are also unnecessary: sequences of feeding action do not need to be strung together in such a complex way. The primate can live much more from minute to minute, from hand to mouth.
Because the primate’s food supply is all around it for the taking, there is little need to cover great distances. Groups of wild gorillas, the largest of the living primates, have been carefully studied and their movements traced, so that we now know that they travel on average about a third of a mile a day. Sometimes they move only a few hundred feet. Carnivores, by contrast, must frequently travel many miles on a single hunting trip. In some instances they have been known to travel over fifty miles on a hunting journey, taking several days before returning to their home base. This act of returning to a fixed home base is typical of the carnivores, but is far less common amongst the monkeys and apes. True, a group of primates will live in a reasonably clearly defined home range, but at night it will probably bed down wherever it happens to have ended up in its day’s meanderings. It will get to know the general region in which it lives because it is always wandering back and forth across it, but is will tend to use the whole area in a much more haphazard way. Also, the interaction between one troop and the next will be less defensive and less aggressive than is the case with carnivores. A territory is, by definition, a defended area, and primates are not therefore, typically, territorial animals.
A small point, but one that is relevant here, is that carnivores have fleas but primates do not. Monkeys and apes are plagued by lice and certain other external parasites, but, contrary to popular opinion, they are completely flealess, for one very good reason. To understand this, it is necessary to examine the life-cycle of the flea. This insect lays its eggs, not on the body of its host, but amongst the detritus of its victims sleeping quarters. The eggs take three days to hatch into small, crawling maggots. These larvae do not feed on blood, but on the waste matter that has accumulated in the dirt of the den or lair. After two weeks they spin a cocoon and pupate. They remain in this dormant condition for approximately two weeks before emerging as adults, ready to hop on to a suitable host body. So for at least the first month of its life a flea is cut off from its host species. It is clear from this why a nomadic mammal, such as a monkey or ape, is not troubled by fleas. Even if a few stray fleas do happen to hop on to one and mate successfully, their eggs will be left behind as the primate group moves on, and when the pupae hatch there will be no host ‘at home’ to continue the relationship.
56. The writer says of the social life of monkeys and apes that they ______.
A. are not allowed by their social code to dominate other individuals before they have competed with each other    B. compete during the day, but turn to a co-operative pattern when darkness falls    C. have to be on constant watch against other species that might drive them away    D. live in a very competitive society
57. According to the writer, gorillas ______.
A. prefer to stay near their home    B. move from place to place within a limited area    C. are followed when they travel by other animals    D. move around looking for food according to a fairly regular pattern
58. The writer says that primates show little hostility ______.
A. towards soldiers and other human beings    B. except towards animals such as lions, leopards, tigers or wild cats    C. unless their own particular area is invaded    D. towards other groups of the same species of monkey or ape
59. Monkeys and apes are not troubled by fleas because ______.
A. the fleas, when fully developed, are not normally where the primates are    B. they do not mind the fleas    C. the harmful type of flea rarely gets onto them    D. the fleas relationship with them is important biologically
60. It can be inferred from the passage that the co-operative spirit present in such pack-hunters as wolves is largely absent from the world of the primates because ______.
A. wolves are more defensive and aggressive than primates    B. primates are more friendly than wolves    C. it is not so difficult for primates to obtain food as for wolves    D. pirates are not territorial animals
Part IV Translation (25 points)
Section A: (15 points)
Directions: Translate the following passage into Chinese. Write your translation on the ANSWER SHEET.
Standing in the right spot in this gigantic city and hills draped with apartment complexes can remind you of Hong Kong, the density of habitation will recall Tokyo and the river-spanning brawn, replete with an immense new structure over the Yangtze that echoes the Brooklyn Bridge, might recall New York.
Everywhere one looks here, there are new expressways, new bridges and towering new housing complexes rising, so many in fact that it is the occasional glimpse of something old, rather than the sight of anything new, that takes one’s breath away.
China has built megacities before, of course. The country’s rich east abounds with them, strung along the coast from Tianjin in the north to Shenzhen in the far south like so many pearls. But the swift rise of Chongqing represents a new departure: a major push by Beijing to spread the fruits of China’s economic boom to the country’s vast interior, home to three Chinese in four.
One after another, the big cities of the interior have eagerly entered the race to urbanize, with many openly brandishing the objective of becoming a “world city” within a few years. But whether judged by its size, its ambition or the scale of transformation, Chongqing, with its 12 million people, remains in a class by itself.
Section B: (10 points)
Directions: Translate the following passage into English. Write your translation on the ANSWER SHEET.
一九七八年，我们党召开具有重大历史意义的十一届三中全会，开启了改革开放历史新时期。从那时以来，中国共产党人和中国人民以一往无前的进取精神和波澜壮阔的创新实践，谱写了中华民族自强不息、顽强奋进新的壮丽史诗，中国人民的面貌、社会主义中国的面貌、中国共产党的面貌发生了历史性变化。改革开放是党在新的时代条件下带领人民进行的新的伟大革命，目的就是要解放和发展社会生产力，实现国家现代化，让中国人民富裕起来，振兴伟大的中华民族。
Part V Writing (15%)
Directions: In this part, you are to write a composition in English based on the following information.
随着近年高校招生规模的扩大，大学毕业生、研究生面临越来越大的就业压力；另一方面，随着社会对高层次人才需求的加大，考硕、考博的人数连续多年持续增长。
就业与读研哪种选择更明智？请结合你的亲身经历谈谈自己的见解。
Write your composition on the ANSWER SHEET with no less than 200 words.
中国艺术研究院2008年博士入学英语考试题作文参考答案
To find a Job or to go to a graduate school?
As the universities enlarge their enrollments, more and more graduates rush to the job market, which causes a serious competition among the college graduates.
In order to avoid the employment pressure, many students make a clever choice — go to a graduate school. Thus, they can postpone the employment and get a good job with their master’s degree in future.
As for me, I think people should make their choice according to their own situation. If one needs a job badly to support his family, then go find a job. If your major in college is concerned with practice rather than academic research, it is wise to get a job, because getting a higher education is meaningless to your future career.
I myself went to work immediately after my graduation. However, I gradually found that my college education couldn’t meet both my personal and professional needs. Then I went to the graduate school where I polished my academic study, got a better professional training and improved my research ability greatly, which benefit me to conduct my present job in many ways.
This is my advice to college graduates: make your decision according to your need and desire.