2023年四川农业大学招收攻读博士学位研究生考试试题.doc

四川农业大学
招收攻读博士学位硕士考试试题

科目名称：
1080英语
(总分：100分)
合用专业：
各专业
考生注意：所有答案必需写在答题纸上，否则无效！本试题随同答题纸交回！
Part I Reading Comprehension (45 points )
Directions: There are 6 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A. B.C and D . You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.
Passage One
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.
As the English language has changed at a fast speed in this century, so has the use of the English language.
After the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was founded in 1927, the particular style of speech of the BBC announcers was recognized as Standard English or Received Pronunciation (RP) English. Now, most people still consider that the pronunciation and delivery of BBC announcers is the clearest and most understandable spoken English.
English has had a strong association with class and social status. However, since the Second World War there has been a considerable change of attitude towards speech snobbery, and hallmarks of class distinction such as styles of speech have been gradually discarded, especially by the younger generation.
As the need has arisen, new words have been invented or found from other languages and incorporated into English. Similarly, old words and expressions have been discarded as their usefulness has diminished or the fashions have passed. This also happens to styles and modes of speech which became fashionable at a particular time and in specific circumstances.
By the end of the 1960s it became apparent that it was not necessary to speak Standard English or even correct grammar to become popular, successful and rich. The fashionable speech of the day was no longer the prerogative of a privileged class but rather a defiant expression of class lessness.
The greatest single influence of the shaping of the English language in modern times is the American English. Over the last 25 years the English used by many people particularly by those in the media, advertising and show business, has become more and more mid-Atlantic in style, delivery and accent.
In the 1970s, fashion favoured stressless pronunciation and a language full of jargon, slang and “in” words, much of it quite incomprehensible to the outside world. What is considered modern and fashionable in Britain today is often not the kind of English taught in schools and colleges.
1. Which one of the following is NOT true?
A. The use of the English language has not changed much in this century.
B. The BBS announcers speak Standard English.
C. English has no association with class and social status now.
D. Young people all speak English in the same way.
2. What does the author imply by saying “there has been a considerable change of attitude towards speech snobbery” (Para. 3)?
A. People all speak English like BBC announcers
B. There is a great change of attitude about how English should be spoken.
C. Some people still think their way of speaking is inferior.
D. Most people don’t believe their way of speaking is inferior.
3. According to the author, there was a trend in the U. S. for the young people ____
A. to speak Standard English.
B. to speak English without class distinction
C. to speak English with class distinction
D. to speak English with grammar mistakes
4. The word “mid-Atlantic” in the passage (Para. 6) probably means _________.
A. American and European
B. American and British
C. the Atlantic Ocean
D. in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
5. It can be concluded from the passage that ________.
A. Standard English is taught in school and colleges
B. the young people are defiant because they refuse to speak standard English
C. English language is influenced by American English in the last 25 years
D. there has been a great change in the English language in this century

Passage Two
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage.
A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people.
Days after days my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once-proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is: accountability.
Accountability isn’t hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences.
Of the many values that hold civilization together – honesty, kindness, and so on – accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law – and, ultimately, no society.
My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on people’s behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment.
Fortunately there are still communities – smaller towns, usually – where schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that proclaim: “In this family certain thing are not tolerated – they simply are not done!
Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has gone. He considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you enrage him.
The main cause of this break-down is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, it’s the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didn’t teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didn’t provied a stable home.
I don’t believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything.
We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.
6. What the wise man said suggests that _______.
A. it’s unnecessary for good people to do anything in face of evil
B. it’s certain that evil will prevail if good men do nothing about it
C. it’s only natural for virtue to defeat evil
D. it’s desirable for good men to keep away from evil
7. According to the author, if a person is found guilty of a crime, _________.
A. society is to be held responsible
B. modern civilization is responsible for it
C. the criminal himself should bear the blame
D. the standards of living should be improved
8. Compared with those in small towns, people in large cities have ________.
A. less self-discipline
B. better sense of discipline
C. more mutual respect
D. less effective government
9. The writer is sorry to have noticed that ___________.
A. people in large cities tend to excuse criminals
B. people in small towns still stick to old discipline and standards
C. today’s society lacks sympathy for people in difficulty
D. people in disadvantaged circumstances are engaged in criminal activities.
10 The key point of the passage is that _________.
A. stricter discipline should be maintained in schools and families
B. more good examples should be set for people to follow
C. more restrictions should be imposed on people’s behavior
D. more people should accept the value of accountability

Passage Three
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage.
Many of the most damaging and life threatening types of weather torrential rains, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes begin quickly, strike suddenly, and disappear rapidly, destroying small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. Such event as a tornado struck the northeastern section of Edmonton, Alberta, in July 1987. Total damages from the tornado exceeded $250 million, the highest ever for any Canadian storm.
Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value in predicting short lived local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to study carefully the subtle atmospheric changes that come before these storms. In most nations, for example, weather – balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions than they do forecasting specific local events.
Until recently, the observation intensive approach needed for accurate, very short – range forecasts, or “Nowcasts,” was not feasible. The cost of equipping and operating many thousands of conventional weather stations was extremely high, and the difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from such a network were hard to overcome. Fortunately, scientific and technological advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous observation over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modern computers can quickly compile and analyze this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, Nowcasting is becoming a reality.
11. The word “exceeded” in paragraph I most probably means ______
A. added up to B. were more than
C. were about D. were less than
12. Conventional computer models of the atmosphere fails to predict such a short – lived tornado because ______________.
A. the computer is not used to forecast specific local events
B. the computers are not advanced enough to predict it
C. the weather data people collect are often wrong
D. weather conditions in some small regions are not available
13. According to the passage, the word “Nowcast” (paragraph 3) means _______________.
A. a way of collecting raw weather data
B. a forecast which can predict the weather conditions in the small area in an accurate way
C. a network to collect instant weather data
D. a more advanced system of weather observation
14. According to the passage, ___________ is the key factor to making “Nowcasts” a reality.
A. scientific and technological advances such as radar, or satellites
B. computer scientist
C. meteorologists
D. advanced computer programs
15. According to the author, the passage mainly deals with ________________.
A. a tornado in Edmonton, Alberta
B. what’s a “Nowcast”
C. the disadvantage of conventional computer models of the weather forecast
D. a breakthrough in weather forecast

Passage Four
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.
Bringing up children is a hard work, and you are often to blame for any bad behavior of your children. If so, Judith Rich Harris has good news for you. Parents, she argues, have no important long – term effects on the development of the personality of their children. Far more important are their playground friends and neighborhood. Ms. Harris takes to hitting the assumption, which has dominated developmental psychology for almost half a century.
Ms. Harris’s attack on the developmentalists’ “nature” argument looks likely to reinforce doubts that the profession was already having. If parents matter, why is it that two adopted children, reared in the same home, are no more similar in personality than two adopted children reared in separate homes? Or that a pair of identical twins, reared in the same home, are no more alike than a pair of identical twins reared in different homes?
Difficult as it is to track the precise effects of parental upbringing, it may be harder to measure the exact influence of the peer (同龄人) group in childhood and adolescence. Ms. Harris points to how children from immigrant homes soon learn not to speak at school in the way their parents speak. But acquiring a language is surely a skill, rather than a characteristic of the sort developmental psychologists hunt for. Certainly it is different from growing up tensely or relaxed, or from learning to be honest or hard – working or generous. Easy though it may be to prove that parents have little impact on those qualities, it will be hard to prove that peers have vastly more.
Moreover, mum and dad surely cannot be ditched completely. Young adults may, as Ms. Harris argues, be keen to appear like their peers. But even in those early years, parents have the power to open doors: they may initially choose the peers with whom their young associate, and pick that influential neighborhood. Moreover, most people suspect that they come to resemble their parents more in middle age, and that people’s child bearing habits may be formed partly by what their parents did. So the balance of influences is probably complicated, as most parents already suspected without being able to demonstrate it scientifically. Even if it turns out that the genes they pass on and the friends their children play with matter as much as affection, discipline and good example, parents are not completely off the hook.
16. According to Ms. Harris, ___________________.
A. parents are to blame for any bad behavior of their children
B. parents will affect greatly the children’s life in the long run
C. nature rather than nurture has a significant effect on children’s personality development
D. children’s personality is shaped by their friends and neighbors
17. Which of the following views is consistent with what the developmentalists hold?
A. Children are more influenced by their peers than by their parents.
B. Twins are quite different if they are reared in two separate families.
C. Identical twins reared in the same home are different in personality
D. Nurture has a less significant effect on children’s personality development.
18. According to Para.3, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. It is harder to track the precise effects of parental upbringing than the exact influence of the peer group in children.
B. Immigrant