2009年同濟大學考博英語真題

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PartⅠ Vocabulary (10%)

（略）

Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (50%)

Passage One

The University in Transformation, edited by Australian futurists Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley, presents some 20 highly varied outlooks on tomorrow’s universities by writers representing both Western and non-Western perspectives. Their essays raise a broad range of issues, questioning nearly every key assumption we have about higher education today.

The most widely discussed alternative to the traditional campus is the Internet University—a voluntary community to scholars and teachers physically scattered throughout a country or around the world but all linked in cyberspace. A computerized university could have many advantages, such as easy scheduling, efficient delivery of lectures to thousands or even millions of students at once, and ready access for students everywhere to the resources of all the world’s great libraries.

Yet the Internet University poses dangers, too. For example, a line of franchised courseware，produced by a few superstar teachers，marketed under the brand name of a famous institution, and heavily advertised, might eventually come to dominate the global education market, warns sociology professor Peter Manicas of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Besides enforcing a rigidly standardized curriculum, such a “college education in a box” could undersell the offerings of many traditional brick and mortar institutions, effectively driving them out of business and throwing thousands of career academics out of work, note Australian communications professors David Rooney and Greg Hearn.

On the other hand, while global connectivity seems highly likely to play some significant role in future higher education，that does not mean greater uniformity in course content—or other dangers will necessarily follow. Counter-movements are also at work.

Many in academia, including scholars contributing to this volume, are questioning the fundamental mission of university education. What if, for instance, instead of receiving primarily technical training and building their individual careers, university students and professors could focus their learning and research efforts on existing problems in their local communities and the world? Feminist scholar Ivana Milojevic dares to dream what a university might become “if we believed that child-care workers and teachers in early childhood education should be one of the highest (rather than lowest) paid professionals?”

Co-editor Jennifer Gidley shows how tomorrow’s university faculty, instead of giving lectures and conducting independent research, may take on three new roles. Some would act as brokers, assembling customized degree-credit programmes for individual students by mixing and matching the best course offerings available from institutions all around the world. A second group, mentors, would function much like today’s faculty advisers, but are likely to be working with many more students outside their own academic specialty. This would require them to constantly be learning from their students as well as instructing them.

A third new role for faculty, and in Gidley’ s view the most challenging and rewarding of all, would be as meaning-makers: charismatic sages and practitioners leading groups of students colleagues in collaborative efforts to find spiritual as well as rational and technological solutions to specific real-world problems.

Moreover, there seems little reason to suppose that any one form of university must necessarily drive out all other options. Students may be “enrolled” in courses offered at virtual campuses on the Internet, between—or even during—sessions at a real world problem focused institution.

As co-editor Sohail Inayatullah points out in his introduction, no future is inevitable, and the very act of imagining and thinking through alternative possibilities can directly affect how thoughtfully, creatively and urgently even a dominant technology is adapted and applied. Even in academia, the future belongs to those who care enough to work their visions into practical, sustainable realities.

21. When the book reviewer discusses the Internet University, ________.

A. he is in favour of it           B. his view is balanced

C. he is slightly critical of it        D. he is strongly critical of it

22. Which of the following is NOT seen as a potential danger of the Internet University?

A. Internet-based courses may be less costly than traditional ones.

B. Teachers in traditional institutions may lose their jobs.

C. Internet-based courseware may lack variety in course content.

D. The Internet University may produce teachers with a lot of publicity.

23. According to the review，what is the fundamental mission of traditional university education?

A. Knowledge learning and career building.

B. Learning how to solve existing social problems.

C. Researching into solutions to current world problems.

D. Combining research efforts of teachers and students in learning.

24. Judging from the three new roles envisioned for tomorrow’s university faculty, university teachers _________.

A. are required to conduct more independent research

B. are required to offer more courses to their students

C. are supposed to assume more demanding duties

D. are supposed to supervise more students in their specialty

25. Which category of writing does the review belong to?

A. Narration.     B. Description.      C. Persuasion.    D. Exposition.

Passage Two

Campaigning on the Indian frontier is an experience by itself. Neither the landscape nor the people find their counterparts in any other portion of the globe. Valley walls rise steeply five or six thousand feet on every side. The columns crawl through a maze of giant corridors down which fierce snow-fed torrents foam under skies of brass. Amid these scenes of savage brilliancy there dwells a race whose qualities seem to harmonize with their environment. Except at harvest time，when self-preservation requires a temporary truce, the Pathan tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian. Every large house is a real feudal fortress made, it is true, only of sunbaked clay，but with battlements, turrets, loopholes，drawbridges, etc. Every village has its defence. Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan，its feud. The numerous tribes and combinations of tribes all have their accounts to settle with one another. Nothing is ever forgotten, and very few debts are left unpaid. For the purposes of social life, in addition to the convention about harvest-time, a most elaborate code of honour has been established and is on the whole faithfully observed. A man who knew it and observed it faultlessly might pass unarmed from one end of the frontier to another. The slightest technical slip would, however，be fatal. The life of the Pathan is thus full of interest; and his valleys, nourished alike by endless sunshine and abundant water, are fertile enough to yield with little labour the modest material requirements of a sparse population.

Into this happy world the nineteenth century brought two new facts: the rifle and the British Government. The first was an enormous luxury and blessing; the second, an unmitigated nuisance. The convenience of the rifle was nowhere more appreciated than in the Indian highlands. A weapon which would kill with accuracy at fifteen hundred yards opened a whole new vista of delights to every family or clan which could acquire it. One could actually remain in one’s own house and fire at one’s neighbour nearly a mile away. One could lie in wait on some high crag，and at hitherto unheard of ranges hit a horseman far below. Even villages could fire at each other without the trouble of going far from home. Fabulous prices were therefore offered for these glorious products of science. Riflethieves scoured all India to reinforce the efforts of the honest smuggler. A steady flow of the coveted weapons spread its genial influence throughout the frontier, and the respect which the Pathan tribesmen entertained for Christian civilization was vastly enhanced.

The action of the British Government on the other hand was entirely unsatisfactory. The great organizing，advancing, absorbing power to the southward seemed to be little better than a monstrous spoil-sport. If the Pathan made forays into the plains, not only were they driven back (which after all was no more than fair)，but a whole series of subsequent interferences took place, followed at intervals by expeditions which toiled laboriously through the valleys, scolding the tribesmen and exacting fines for any damage which they had done. No one would have minded these expeditions if they had simply come, had a fight and then gone away again. In many cases this was their practice under what was called the“butcher and bolt policy” to which the Government of India long adhered. But towards the end of the nineteenth century these intruders began to make roads through many of the valleys, and in particular the great road to Chitral. They sought to ensure the safety of these roads by threats, by forts and by subsidies. There was no objection to the last method so far as it went. But the whole of this tendency to road-making was regarded by the Pathans with profound distaste. All along the road people were expected to keep quiet, not to shoot one another, and above all not to shoot at travellers along the road. It was too much to ask, and a whole series of quarrels took their origin from this source.

26. The word debts in “very few debts are left unpaid” in the first paragraph means _______.

A. loans         B. accounts        C. killings    D. bargains

27. Which of the following is NOT one of the geographical facts about the Indian frontier?

A. Melting snows.            B. Large population.

C. Steep hillsides.            D. Fertile valleys.

28. According to the passage, the Pathans welcomed _________.

A. the introduction of the rifle        B. the spread of British rule

C. the extension of luxuries        D. the spread of trade

29. Building roads by the British __________.

A. put an end to a whole series of quarrels

B. prevented the Pathans from carrying on feuds

C. lessened the subsidies paid to the Pathans

D. gave the Pathans a much quieter life

30. A suitable title for the passage would be ________.

A. Campaigning on the Indian Frontier

B. Why the Pathans Resented the British Rule

C. The Popularity of Rifles among the Pathans

D. The Pathans at War

Passage Three

Ever since its discovery, Pluto has never really fitted in. After the pale and glowing giant Neptune, it is little more than a cosmic dust mite, swept through the farthest reaches of the solar system on a planet wildly tilted relative to the rest of the planets. It is smaller than Neptune’s largest moon, and the arc of its orbit is so oval that it occasionally crosses its massive blue neighbor’s path.

For years, it has been seen as our solar system’s oddest planet. Yesterday，however, scientists released perhaps the most convincing evidence yet that Pluto, in fact, is not a planet at all. For the first time, astronomers have peered into a belt of rocks beyond Pluto unknown until 10 years ago—and found a world that rivals Pluto in size. The scientists posit that larger rocks must be out there，perhaps even larger than Pluto, meaning Pluto is more likely the king of this distant realm of space detritus than the tiniest of the nine planets.

When discovered in 1930，“Pluto at that point was the only thing (that far) out there, so there was nothing else to call it but a planet,” says Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “Now it just doesn’t fit.” In one sense, the question of Pluto’ s planetary status is arcane, the province of pocket-protected scientists and sun-deprived pen pushers determined to decide some official designation for a ball of dust and ice 3 billion miles away.

Yet it is also unquestionably something more. From science fair dioramas to government funding, planets hold a special place in the public imagination, and how Pluto is eventually seen—by kids and Congress alike—could shape what future generations learn about this mysterious outpost on the edge of the solar system. The debate has split the astronomical community for decades. Even before the distant band of rocks known as the Kuiper Belt was found, Pluto’s unusual behavior made it suspicious.

Elsewhere, the solar system fit into near families: the rocky inner planets，the asteroid belt, the huge and gaseous outer planets. Pluto, though, was peculiar. With the discovery of the Kuiper Belt—countless bits of rock and ice left unused when the wheel of the solar system first formed—Pluto suddenly seemed to have cousins. Yet until yesterday, it held to its planetary distinction because it was far larger than anything located there.

The rub now is Quaoar (pronounced KWAH-oar), 1 billion miles beyond Pluto and roughly half as large. Named after the creation force of the tribe that originally inhabited the Los Angeles basin, Quaoar forecasts problems for the erstwhile ninth planet, says discoverer Dr. Brown: “The case is going to get a lot harder to defend the day somebody finds something larger than Pluto,”

To some, the problem is not with Pluto, but the definition of “planet.” In short，there is none. To the Greeks, who coined the term, it meant “wanderer,” describing the way that the planets moved across the night sky differently from the stars behind them. Today, with our more nuanced understanding of the universe, the word no longer has much scientific meaning.

New York’s Hayden Planetarium caused a commotion two years ago by supposedly demoting Pluto, lumping it with the Kuiper Belt objects in its huge mobile of the solar system. In reality, however, the planetarium was making a much broader statement, says Nell Degrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist there. The textbooks of the future should focus more on families of like objects than “planets.” The discovery of Quaoar strengthens this idea: “Everyone needs to rethink the structure of our solar system,” he says. “We’ve just stopped counting planets. ’’

Still, many are loath to part with the planet Pluto. They note that Pluto, in fact, is distinct from many Kuiper Belt objects. It has a thin atmosphere, for one. It reflects a great deal of light, while most Kuiper Belt objects are very dark. And unlike all but a handful of known Kuiper Belt objects，it has a moon. “Maybe Pluto，then, should be representative of a new class of planets,” says Mark Sykes, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “It’s the first example, and we are just beginning to find this category.”

31. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. Rocks larger than Pluto have been found in the Kuiper Belt.

B. The Kuiper Belt did not exist when Pluto was first discovered.

C. The astronomers are divided with regard to the status of Pluto.

D. There is almost no difference between Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects.

32. From when was Pluto seriously questioned about its planetary status?

A. As early as 1930.

B. More than a decade ago.

C. When the Kuiper Belt was discovered.

D. When Quaoar was discovered.

33. The sentence “In short，there is none.” (Para. 7) can be paraphrased as which of the following?

A. There is no problem with Pluto’s planetary status.

B. There is not much difference between Pluto and other planets.

C. There is yet no scientific definition of the term “planet.”

D. There is no clear distinction between planets and stars.

34. Which of the following does not support the statement that Pluto is our “solar System’s oddest planet”?

A. It is farthest from the sun.     B. It is unusually small.

C. Its orbit is too oval.         D. It mainly consists of dust and ice.

35. The word “commotion” in the expression “New York’s Hayden Planetarium caused a commotion two years ago” (Para. 8) can be replaced by ________.

A. exchange of opinions        B. thorough investigation

C. wild imagination           D. agitated confusion

Passage Four

The 100 Aker Wood may look like a dark, forbidding place these days for Michael D. Eisner. That’s where Winnie the Pooh，Piglet，and Eeyore live, and the cartoon characters—which represent at least $ 1 billion a year in revenues for Eisner’s Walt Disney Co. —are in full revolt. A 12-years-old lawsuit, sealed in a Los Angeles court until January, has come to light, and a series of court rulings threaten the media giant with hundreds of millions in overdue license payments and possibly the loss of one of its most lucrative properties.

How large a hit Disney will take is still in dispute. Disney is appealing two rulings, including one alleging that company executives knowingly destroyed important papers related to its licensing deals. The Pooh affair may seem minor at a time when Eisner is under attack for Disney’s chronically weak stock price and ABC’s anemic ratings, but the Disney chairman hardly needs more jostling from a Silly Old Bear. What’s more, the impact could be significant. After acknowledging to the Securities Exchange Commission on Aug. 9 that “damages could total as much as several hundred million dollars” or the loss of the licensing agreement, Disney was hit with new shareholder lawsuits.

Disney wants to keep its grip on that bear and his honey jar. Pooh is Disney’s single largest property, says Martin Brockstein executive editor of The Licensing Letter.  That adds up to about $ 100 million in operating earnings from royalties on Pooh T-shirts, backpacks, and other merchandise? Figures Gerard Klauer Matheson & Co. analyst Jeffrey Logsdon. Last year, Disney paid $ 352 million to one pair of heirs of Winnie-the-Pooh author A. A. Milne. But the family of Stephen A. Slesinger, a New York literary agent who bought the U. S. rights in 1930，says Disney owes them $ 200 million on licenses for T-shirts and other merchandise and has cut them entirely out of the lucrative videocassette and DVD arena. Headed by Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, an 80-year-old widow who travels with a Winnie-the-Pooh bear everywhere, the family contends it is owed close to $ 1 billion, say its lawyers. Disney, which says it pays the Slesingers $ 12 million a year, insists the $ 1 billion figure is a publicity stunt. “The 1930 contract says they get royalties on merchandise alone, not all exploitation,” says Disney attorney Daniel J. Petrocelli.

The Slesingers also charge that Disney lost documents related to merchandise sales and destroyed others that extended the accord to DVDs and videotapes. On June 18，Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ernest M. Hiroshige rejected the audit by a forensic accountant he thought unduly favored Disney and found that Disney “misused the discovery process” by hiding the fact that it destroyed documents that might have expanded the licensing agreement to tapes and DVDs.

Absent those documents—which include the papers of the late Disney Consumer Products chief Vincent Jefferds—the case may hinge on the “mommy memo.” That memo, written in 1983 by Slesinger daughter Patricia to her mother, Shirley, describes a meeting with Jefferds at the Beverly Hills Hotel at which Jefferds allegedly told Patricia “that videos and all these new things were covered and to shut up about it,” according to court documents. Because Disney destroyed Jefferds’ letters, Judge Hiroshige ruled that Disney is barred from “introducing evidence disputing” the family’s contention that they were entitled to royalties on videocassettes. Disney is appealing the ruling.

Settlement seems unlikely among the parties. One obstacle: the still-simmering animosity toward Slesinger lawyer Bertram Fields, who won a $ 250 million settlement for former Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg in a hyper-charged 1999 case. This time, the character may be soft and fuzzy, but the payout could be bigger. For Eisner, Pooh is becoming one Very Big Bother.

36. The expression “in full revolt” in the sentence “That’s where Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore live, and the cartoon characters..., are in full revolt. ” (Para. 1) implies that ________.

A. the cartoon characters are no longer popular

B. Disney is seriously involved in lawsuits

C. they show the sign of defeat of Disney in lawsuits

D. the cartoon characters no longer play positive roles

37. The word “anemic” in the expression “Eisner is under attack for.., ABC’s anemic ratings” (Para. 2) can be paraphrased as ________.

A. flexible      B. changing   C. steady   D. declining

38. The sentence “Disney wants to keep its grip on that bear and his honey jar. ’’ (Para. 3) can best be explained as which of the following?

A. Disney wants to take back the bear so as to make more honey.

B. Disney wants to take control of its cartoon characters.

C. Disney wants to keep the most profitable property Winnie the Pooh.

D. Disney wants to win the 12-year-old lawsuit.

39. Why does the author say that Disney’s case may “hinge on the ‘mommy memo’ ”？

A. Because Disney has been barred from introducing further evidence.

B. Because the documents related to Disney’s merchandise sales cannot be found.

C. Because this might be the only document revealing Disney’s original attitude.

D. Because Slesinger daughter faithfully recorded Jefferds’ words.

40. Which of the following CANNOT be concluded from the passage?

A. Disney has introduced convincing evidence to defend itself.

B. Disney has destroyed some important papers on purpose.

C. Disney has lost in the 1999 case with Jeffrey Katzenberg.

D. The stock price of Disney has been going down for a period of time.

Passage Five

Behaviors that we do not understand often become nearly invisible—even when, in retrospect ,we see how truly strange they are.

When I was a psychiatric resident, we had a faculty member who was famous for his messy office: stacks of papers and old journals covered every chair and table as well as much of the floor. One day, as I walked past the open office door with one of my supervisors, he murmured mildly, “Odd duck.” And that was as far as anyone seemed to reflect on this peculiar state of affairs within an institution staffed by psychiatrists. Eventually, the faculty member had to be given another office in which to see patients.

Not surprisingly, the psychiatric diagnostic manual does not list “messy room” in the index. But it does mention a tantalizing symptom: inability “to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value,” It comes under the diagnosis obsessive-compulsive personality disorder，an obscure cousin of the more famous obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I was barely aware of the diagnosis. Every era has mental disorders that for cultural or scientific reasons become popular. In Freud’s day it was hysteria. Currently, depression has moved to center stage. But other ailments go relatively ignored, and this disorder was one.

It came with a list of additional symptoms that appeared to be peculiar; anxiety about spending money, excessive devotion to work to the exclusion of leisure activities, rigidity about following rules, perfectionism in doing tasks—at times to the point of interfering with finishing them.

In moderation, the symptoms seemed to fit right in with our workaholic culture—perhaps explaining the low profile of the diagnosis. Relentless work orientation and perfectionism may even be assets in rule-and detail-oriented professions like accounting or law.

But when the symptoms are too intense or pervasive, they become crippling. Beneath the seemingly adaptive behaviors lies a central disability. People with this diagnosis have enormous difficulty making decisions. They lack the internal sense of completion that most of us experience at the end of a choice or a task, eyen one as simple as throwing something out or making a purchase. In obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, this feeling occurs only after endless deliberation and revision, if at all.

The need to come up with the “correct” answer, the best purchase or the perfect proposal leads to excess rumination over each decision. It can even lead to complete paralysis. For such people, rules of all kinds are a godsend—they represent pre-made decisions. Open-ended assignments, like writing papers, are nightmares.

For such a patient or for a psychiatrist，understanding a cluster of diagnostic symptoms can be a revelation. The picture leaps out from the previously disorganized background. But undoubtedly, at times we can become too reductionistic, seeing patterns where none exist: sometimes a messy room is just a messy room.

41. Which of the following best describes people’s attitude towards the faculty member?

A. They disliked him, and that’s why he got his separate room to see patients.

B. They thought he is a little strange, but didn’t pay much attention to his behavior.

C. They were interested in his behavior, as they were all psychiatrists.

D. They thought he had some mental retardness.

42. The popular mental disorder of current time, according to the author, is ______.

A. hysteria                B. depression

C. messiness                D. obsessive-compulsive disorder

43. The reason why symptoms of the “obsessive-compulsive disorder” go unnoticed is that _________.

A. they are highly thought of in according to law

B. some of the mild symptoms fit in with a workaholic culture

C. they have a low profile

D. they take a long time to become intense or pervasive

44. Rules are godsend to persons with the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder because ____________.

A. they do not involve decision making

B. they are open-ended assignments

C. they lead to complete paralysis

D. they are made by other

45. From the last paragraph we can see that the author’s view is that _________.

A. a messy room is just a messy room

B. a messy room is an indication of the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

C. psychiatrists should pay attention to a messy room

D. psychiatrists should see patterns of seemingly disorganized behaviors, but shouldn’t be too reductionistic

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