2020年MPAcc考研英語二閱讀理解真題及答案解析

2020年MPAcc考研英語二閱讀理解真題及答案解析

Section II Reading Comprehension

Part A.

Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.(40 points)

Text 1

Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid. To find out if this extends to non-living beings, Loleh Quinn at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals from robotic rats.

They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat-one social and one asocial -for 5 our days.

The robots rats were quite minimalist, resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.

During the experiment, the social robot rat followed the living rats around, played with the same toys, and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape. Meanwhile, the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side.

Next, the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.

Across 18 trials each, the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one. This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being. They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviors like communal exploring and playing. This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier, and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped, says Quinn.

The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design. The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels. "We'd assumed we'd have to give its moving head and tail, facial features, and put a scene on it to make it smell like a real rat, but that wasn't necessary," says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia, who helped with the research.

The finding shows how sensitive rats arc to social cues, even when they come from basic robots. Similarly, children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings, even when they display only simple social signals. "We humans seem to be fascinated by robots, and it turns out other animals are too," says Wiles.

21.Quinn and her colleagues conducted a test to see if rats can .

[A] pickup social signals from non-living rats

[B] distinguish a friendly rat from a hostile one

[C] attain sociable traits through special training

[D] send out warning messages to their fellow

22.What did the social robot do during the experiment?

[A] It followed the social robot.

[B] It played with some toys.

[C] It set the trapped rats free.

[D] It moved around alone.

23.According to Quinn, the rats released the social robot because they

[A] tried to practice a means of escape

[B] expected it to do the same in return

[C] wanted to display their intelligence

[D] considered that an interesting game

24.James Wiles notes that rats .

[A] can remember other rat's facial features

[B] differentiate smells better than sizes

[C] respond more to cations than to looks

[D] can be scared by a plastic box on wheels

25.It can be learned from the text that rats .

[A] appear to be adaptable to new surroundings

[B] arc more socially active than other animals

[C] behave differently from children in socializing

[D] are more sensitive to social cues than expected

21——25 A D B C D

Text 2

It is true that CEO pay has gone up-top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical workers on average, and since the mid-1970s CEO pay for large publicly traded American corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500%. The typical CEO of a top American corporation now makes about S18.9 million a year.

The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay is that of limited CEO talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of America's highest-earning 1% have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global economy. It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U.S. economy.

Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many mere skills than simply being able to "run the company”, CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slip up can be significant. Then there's the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly mind-boggling plus, virtually all major American companies are beyond this major CEOs still have to do all the day-to-day work they have always done.

The common idea that high CEO pay is mainly about ripping people off doesn't explain history very well. By most measures, corporate governance has become a lot tighter and more rigorous since the 1970s. Yet it is principally during this period of stronger governance that CEO pay has been high and rising. That suggests it is in the broader corporate interest to recruit top candidates for increasingly tough jobs.

Furthermore, the highest CEO salaries are paid to outside candidates, not to the cozy insider picks, another sign that high CEO pay is not some kind of depredation at the expense of the rest of the company. And the stock market reacts positively when companies tic CEO pay to, say, stock prices, a sign that those practices build up corporate value not just for the CEO.

26. Which of the following has contributed to CEO pay rise?

[A] The growth in the number of corporations

[B] The general pay rise with a better economy

[C] Increased business opportunities for top firms

[D] Close cooperation among leading economies

27.Compared with their predecessors, today’s CEOs are required to .

[A] foster a stronger sense of teamwork

[B] finance more research and development

[C] establish closer ties with tech companies

[D] operate more globalized companies

28.CEO pay has been rising since the 1970s despite .

[A] continual internal opposition

[B] strict corporate governance

[C] conservative business strategies

[D] Repeated government warnings

29.High CEO pay can be justified by the fact that it helps

[A] confirm the status of CEOs

[B] motivate inside candidates

[C] boost the efficiency of CEOs

[D] increase corporate value

30.The most suitable title for this text would be .

[A] CEOs Are Not Overpaid

[B] CEO Pay: Past and Present

[C] CEOs' challenges of Today

[D] CEO Traits: Not Easy to Define

26——30 C D B D A

Text 3

Madrid was hailed as a public health beacon last November when it rolled out ambitious restrictions on the most polluting cars. Seven months and one election day later, a new conservative city council suspended enforcement of the clean air zone, a first step toward its possible demise.

Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida made opposition to the zone a centerpiece of his election campaign, despite its success in improving air quality. A judge has now overruled the city's decision to stop levying fines, ordering them reinstated. But with legal battles ahead, the zone's future looks uncertain at best.

Among other weaknesses, the measures cities must employ when left to tackle dirty air on their own are politically contentious, and therefore vulnerable. That's because they inevitably put the costs of cleaning the air on to individual drivers-who must pay fees or buy better vehicles-rather- than on to the car manufacturers whose cheating is the real cause of our toxic pollution.

It's not hard to imagine a similar reversal happening in London. The new ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) is likely to be a big issue in next year's mayoral election. And if Sadiq Khan wins and extends it to the North and South Circular roads in 2021 as he intends, it is sure to spark intense opposition from the far larger number of motorists who will then be affected.

It's not that measures such as London's Ulez are useless. Far from it Local officials are using the levers that are available to them to safeguard residents' health in the face of a serious threat. The zones do deliver some improvements to air quality, and the science tells us that means real health benefits -fewer heart attacks, strokes and premature births, less cancer, dementia and asthma. Fewer untimely deaths.

But mayors and councilors can only do so much about a problem that is far bigger than any one city or town.

They are acting because national governments-Britain^ and others across Europe-have failed to do so.

Restrictions that keep highly polluting cars out of certain areas -city centres,"school streets", even individual roads-are a response to the absence of a larger effort to properly enforce existing regulations and require auto companies to bring their vehicles into compliance. Wales has introduced special low speed limits to minimize pollution. We’re doing everything but insist that manufacturers clean up their cars.

31. Which of the following is true about Madrid’s clean air zone?

[A] Its effects are questionable

[B] It has been opposed by a judge

[C] It needs tougher enforcement

[D] Its fate is yet to be decided

32. Which is considered a weakness of the city-level measures to tackle dirty air?

[A] They are biased against car manufacturers.

[B] They prove impractical for city councils.

[C] They are deemed too mild for politicians.

[D] They put too much burden on individual motorists.

33. The author believes that the extension of London's Ulez will___.

[A] arouse strong resistance.

[B] ensure Khan's electoral success.

[C] improve the city's traffic.

[D] discourage car manufacturing.

34. Who does the author think should have addressed the problem?

[A] Local residents

[B] Mayors.

[C] Councilors.

[D] National governments.

35. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that auto companies .

[A] [AJ will raise low-emission car production

[B] should be forced to follow regulations

[C] will upgrade the design of their vehicles

[D] should be put under public supervision

31-35 DDADB

Text 4

Now that members of Generation Z arc graduating college this spring-the most commonly-accepted definition says this generation was born after 1995, give or take a year-the attention has been rising steadily in recent weeks. GenZs are about to hit the streets looking for work in a labor market that's tighter than it’s been in decades. And employers are planning on hiring about 17 percent more new graduates for jobs in the U S. this year than last, according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Everybody wants to know how the people who will soon inhabit those empty office cubicles will differ from those who came before them.

If "entitled" is the most common adjective, fairly or not, applied to millennials (those born between 1981 and 1995), the catchwords for Generation Z are practical and cautious. According to the career counselors and experts who study them, Generation Zs arc cl ear-eyed, economic pragmatists. Despite graduating into the best economy in the past 50 years, Gen Zs know what an economic train wreck looks like. They were impressionable kids during the crash of 2008, when many of their parents lost their jobs or their life savings or both. They aren't interested in taking any chances. The booming economy seems to have done little to assuage this underlying generational sense of anxious urgency, especially for those who have college debt. College loan balances in the U.S. now stand at a record SI.5 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.

One survey from Accenture found that 88 percent of graduating seniors this year chose their major with a job in mind. In a 2019 survey of University of Georgia students, meanwhile, the career office found the most desirable trait in a future employer was the ability to offer secure employment (followed by professional development and training, and then inspiring purpose). Job security or stability was the second most important career goal (work-life balance was number one), followed by a sense of being dedicated to a cause or to feel good about serving the greater good.

36. Generation Zs graduating college this spring .

[A] are recognized for their abilities

[B] are in favor of job offers

[C] are optimistic about the labor market

[D] are drawing growing public attention

37. Generation Zs are keenly aware .

[A] [AJ what a tough economic situation is like

[B] what their parents expect of them

[C] how they differ from past generations

[D] how valuable a counselor's advice is

38. The word "assuage"(line 9, para 2) is closet in meaning to .

[A] define

[B] relieve

[C] maintain

[D] deepen

39. It can be learned from Paragraph 3 that Generation Zs .

[A] care little about their job performance

[B] give top priority to professional training

[C] think it hard to achieve work-Life balance

[D] have a clear idea about their future job.

40. Michelsen thinks that compared with millennials, Generation ZS are ______.

[A] less realistic

[B] less adventurous

[C] more diligent

[D] more generous

參考答案36-40 CBCAB