考研201英語(yǔ)（一）在線題庫(kù)每日一練（二百五十八）

本文提供考研201英語(yǔ)（一）在線題庫(kù)每日一練，以下為具體內(nèi)容

1、Over the past decade, thousands of patents have been granted for what are called business methods. Amazon.com received one for its “one-click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lifting a box.Now the nation's top patent court appears completely ready to scale back on business-method patents, which have been controversial ever since they were first authorized 10 years ago. In a move that has intellectual-property lawyers abuzz, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In re Bilski, as the case is known , is “a very big deal”, says Dennis D. Crouch of the University of Missouri School of Law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the Federal Circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-called State Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging Internet companies trying to stake out exclusive rights to specific types of online transactions. Later, more established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might beat them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents, despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment firms armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal Circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court's judges, rather than a typical panel of three, and that one issue it wants to evaluate is whether it should “reconsider” its State Street Bank ruling.The Federal Circuit's action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the Supreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example, the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The judges on the Federal Circuit are “reacting to the anti-patent trend at the Supreme Court”, says Harold C. Wegner, a patent attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.1.Business-method patents have recently aroused concern because of（  ）. 2.Which of the following is true of the Bilski case?3.The word “about-face” (Line 1, Para 3) most probably means （  ）.   4.We learn from the last two paragraphs that business-method patents （  ）.   5.Which of the following would be the subject of the text?

問(wèn)題1

A、their limited value to businesses

B、their connection with asset allocation

C、the possible restriction on their granting

D、the controversy over their authorization

問(wèn)題2

A、Its ruling complies with the court decisions.

B、It involves a very big business transaction.

C、It has been dismissed by the Federal Circuit.

D、It may change the legal practices in the U.S.

問(wèn)題3

A、loss of good will

B、increase of hostility

C、change of attitude

D、enhancement of dignity

問(wèn)題4

A、are immune to legal challenges

B、are often unnecessarily issued

C、lower the esteem for patent holders

D、increase the incidence of risks

問(wèn)題5

A、A looming threat to business-method patents.

B、Protection for business-method patent holders.

C、A legal case regarding business-method patents.

D、A prevailing trend against business-method patents.

2、In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials, who are unusually informed, persuasive, or well connected. The idea is intuitively compelling, but it doesn't explain how ideas actually spread.The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible-sounding but largely untested theory called the “two-step flow of communication”: Information flows from the media to the influentials and from them to everyone else. Marketers have embraced the two-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials, those selected people will do most of the work for them. The theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpected popularity of certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. In many such cases, a cursory search for causes finds that some small group of people was wearing, promoting, or developing whatever it is before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends. In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed. In fact, they don't seem to be required at all.The researchers' argument stems from a simple observation about social influence: with the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey—whose outsize presence is primarily a function of media, not interpersonal, influence—even the most influential members of a population simply don't interact with that many others. Yet it is precisely these non-celebrity influentials who, according to the two-step-flow theory, are supposed to drive social epidemics, by influencing their friends and colleagues directly. For a social epidemic to occur, however, each person so affected, must then influence his or her own acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and so on; and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial influential. If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant, for example, the cascade of change won't propagate very far or affect many people.Building on the basic truth about interpersonal influence, the researchers studied the dynamics of social influence by conducting thousands of computer simulations of populations, manipulating a number of variables relating to people's ability to influence others and their tendency to be influenced. They found that the principal requirement for what is called “global cascades” — the widespread propagation of influence through networks—is the presence not of a few influentials but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people. 1.By citing the book The Tipping Point, the author intends to（  ）.2.The author suggests that the "two-step-flow theory" （  ）.  3.What the researchers have observed recently shows that （  ）.  4.The underlined phrase “these people” in paragraph 4 refers to the ones who （  ）.  5.What is the essential element in the dynamics of social influence?

問(wèn)題1

A、analyze the consequences of social epidemics

B、discuss influentials' function in spreading ideas

C、exemplify people's intuitive response to social epidemics

D、describe the essential characteristics of influentials

問(wèn)題2

A、serves as a solution to marketing problems

B、has helped explain certain prevalent trends

C、has won support from influentials

D、requires solid evidence for its validity

問(wèn)題3

A、the power of influence goes with social interactions

B、interpersonal links can be enhanced through the media

C、influentials have more channels to reach the public

D、most celebrities enjoy wide media attention

問(wèn)題4

A、stay outside the network of social influence

B、have little contact with the source of influence

C、are influenced and then influence others

D、are influenced by the initial influential

問(wèn)題5

A、The eagerness to be accepted.

B、The impulse to influence others.

C、The readiness to be influenced.

D、The inclination to rely on others.

3、It's no surprise that Jennifer Senior's insightful, provocative magazine cover story, “I love My Children, I Hate My Life,” is arousing much chatter—nothing gets people talking like the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling, life-enriching experience. Rather than concluding that children make parents either happy or miserable, Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition. Even though the day-to-day experience of raising kids can be soul-crushingly hard, Senior writes that “the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight.” The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the only Madonna-and-child image on newsstands this week. There are also stories about newly adoptive—and newly single—mom Sandra Bullock, as well as the usual “Jennifer Aniston is pregnant” news. Practically every week features at least one celebrity mom, or mom-to-be, smiling on the newsstands. In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation, is it any wonder that admitting you regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing? It doesn't seem quite fair, then, to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of the children. Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldn't have had kids, but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the single most important thing in the world: obviously their misery must be a direct result of the gaping baby-size holes in their lives. Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic, especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock. According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples, single parents are the least happy of all. No shock there, considering how much work it is to raise a kid without a partner to lean on; yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it, raising a kid on their “own” (read: with round-the-clock help) is a piece of cake. It's hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just because Reese and Angelina make it look so glamorous: most adults understand that a baby is not a haircut. But it's interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren't in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience, in the same way that a small part of us hoped getting “the Rachel” might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston. 1.Jennifer Senior suggests in her article that raising a child can bring （  ）.  2.We learn from Paragraph 2 that（  ）.3.It is suggested in Paragraph 3 that childless folks （  ）.  4.According to Paragraph 4, the message conveyed by celebrity magazines is （  ）.  5.Which of the following can be inferred from the last paragraph? 

問(wèn)題1

A、temporary delight

B、enjoyment in progress

C、happiness in retrospect

D、lasting reward

問(wèn)題2

A、celebrity moms are a permanent source for gossip

B、single mothers with babies deserve greater attention

C、news about pregnant celebrities is entertaining

D、having children is highly valued by the public

問(wèn)題3

A、are constantly exposed to criticism

B、are largely ignored by the media

C、fail to fulfill their social responsibilities

D、are less likely to be satisfied with their life

問(wèn)題4

A、soothing

B、ambiguous

C、compensatory

D、misleading

問(wèn)題5

A、Having children contributes little to the glamour of celebrity moms.

B、Celebrity moms have influenced our attitude towards child rearing.

C、Having children intensifies our dissatisfaction with life.

D、We sometimes neglect the happiness from child rearing.

4、Come on—Everybody's doing it. That whispered message, half invitation and half forcing, is what most of us think of when we hear the words peer pressure. It usually leads to no good—drinking, drugs and casual sex. But in her new book Join the Club, Tina Rosenberg contends that peer pressure can also be a positive force through what she calls the social cure, in which organizations and officials use the power of group dynamics to help individuals improve their lives and possibly the word. Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of example of the social cure in action: In South Carolina, a state-sponsored antismoking program called Rage Against the Haze sets out to make cigarettes uncool. In South Africa, an HIV-prevention initiative known as LoveLife recruits young people to promote safe sex among their peers. The idea seems promising, and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many pubic-health campaigns is spot-on: they fail to mobilize peer pressure for healthy habits, and they demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of psychology. "Dare to be different, please don't smoke!” pleads one billboard campaign aimed at reducing smoking among teenagers-teenagers, who desire nothing more than fitting in. Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure. But on the general effectiveness of the social cure, Rosenberg is less persuasive. Join the Club is filled with too much irrelevant detail and not enough exploration of the social and biological factors that make peer pressure so powerful. The most glaring flaw of the social cure as it's presented here is that it doesn't work very well for very long. Rage Against the Haze failed once state funding was cut. Evidence that the LoveLife program produces lasting changes is limited and mixed. There's no doubt that our peer groups exert enormous influence on our behavior. An emerging body of research shows that positive health habits—as well as negative ones—spread through networks of friends via social communication. This is a subtle form of peer pressure: we unconsciously imitate the behavior we see every day. Far less certain, however, is how successfully experts and bureaucrats can select our peer groups and steer their activities in virtuous directions. It's like the teacher who breaks up the troublemakers in the back row by pairing them with better-behaved classmates. The tactic never really works. And that's the problem with a social cure engineered from the outside: in the real world, as in school, we insist on choosing our own friends. 1.According to the first paragraph, peer pressure often emerges as（  ）.2.Rosenberg holds that public advocates should （  ）.  3.In the author's view, Rosenberg's book fails to （  ）.  4.Paragraph 5 shows that our imitation of behaviors （  ）.  5.The author suggests in the last paragraph that the effect of peer pressure is（  ）.

問(wèn)題1

A、a supplement to the social cure

B、a stimulus to group dynamics

C、an obstacle to school progress

D、a cause of undesirable behaviors

問(wèn)題2

A、recruit professional advertisers

B、learn from advertisers' experience

C、stay away from commercial advertisers

D、recognize the limitations of advertisements

問(wèn)題3

A、adequately probe social and biological factors

B、effectively evade the flaws of the social cure

C、illustrate the functions of state funding

D、produce a long-lasting social effect

問(wèn)題4

A、is harmful to our networks of friends

B、will mislead behavioral studies

C、occurs without our realizing it

D、can produce negative health habits

問(wèn)題5

A、harmful

B、desirable

C、profound

D、questionable

5、In the idealized version of how science is done, facts about the world are waiting to be observed and collected by objective researchers who use the scientific method to carry out their work. But in the everyday practice of science, discovery frequently follows an ambiguous and complicated route. We aim to be objective, but we cannot escape the context of our unique life experience. Prior knowledge and interest influence what we experience, what we think our experiences mean, and the subsequent actions we take. Opportunities for misinterpretation, error, and self-deception abound. Consequently, discovery claims should be thought of as protoscience. Similar to newly staked mining claims, they are full of potential. But it takes collective scrutiny and acceptance to transform a discovery claim into a mature discovery. This is the credibility process, through which the individual researcher's me, here, now becomes the community's anyone, anywhere, anytime. Objective knowledge is the goal, not the starting point. Once a discovery claim becomes public, the discoverer receives intellectual credit. But, unlike with mining claims, the community takes control of what happens next. Within the complex social structure of the scientific community, researchers make discoveries; editors and reviewers act as gatekeepers by controlling the publication process; other scientists use the new finding to suit their own purposes; and finally, the public (including other scientists) receives the new discovery and possibly accompanying technology. As a discovery claim works it through the community, the interaction and confrontation between shared and competing beliefs about the science and the technology involved transforms an individual's discovery claim into the community's credible discovery. Two paradoxes exist throughout this credibility process. First, scientific work tends to focus on some aspect of prevailing Knowledge that is viewed as incomplete or incorrect. Little reward accompanies duplication and confirmation of what is already known and believed. The goal is new-search, not re-search. Not surprisingly, newly published discovery claims and credible discoveries that appear to be important and convincing will always be open to challenge and potential modification or refutation by future researchers. Second, novelty itself frequently provokes disbelief. Nobel Laureate and physiologist Albert Azent-Gyorgyi once described discovery as “seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” But thinking what nobody else has thought and telling others what they have missed may not change their views. Sometimes years are required for truly novel discovery claims to be accepted and appreciated. In the end, credibility “happens” to a discovery claim—a process that corresponds to what philosopher Annette Baier has described as the commons of the mind. “We reason together, challenge, revise, and complete each other's reasoning and each other's conceptions of reason.” 1.According to the first paragraph, the process of discovery is characterized by its（  ）.2.It can be inferred from Paragraph 2 that credibility process requires （  ）.  3.Paragraph 3 shows that a discovery claim becomes credible after it （  ）.  4.Albert Szent-Gyorgyi would most likely agree that （  ）.  5.Which of the following would be the best title of the test? 

問(wèn)題1

A、uncertainty and complexity

B、misconception and deceptiveness

C、logicality and objectivity

D、systematicness and regularity

問(wèn)題2

A、strict inspection

B、shared efforts

C、individual wisdom

D、persistent innovation

問(wèn)題3

A、has attracted the attention of the general public

B、has been examined by the scientific community

C、has received recognition from editors and reviewers

D、has been frequently quoted by peer scientists

問(wèn)題4

A、scientific claims will survive challenges

B、discoveries today inspire future research

C、efforts to make discoveries are justified

D、scientific work calls for a critical mind

問(wèn)題5

A、Novelty as an Engine of Scientific Development.

B、Collective Scrutiny in Scientific Discovery.

C、Evolution of Credibility in Doing Science.

D、Challenge to Credibility at the Gate to Science.