博士英语阅读理解.doc

1.Drunken-driving sometimes called Americas socially accepted form of murder - has become a national epidemic. Every hour of every day about three Americans on average are killed by drunken drivers, adding up to an incredible 250,000 over the past decade. A drunken driver is usually defined as one with a 0.10 blood alcohol contentor roughly three beers, glasses of wine or shots of whisky drunk within two hours. Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American macho image and judges were lenient in most courts, but the drunken slaughter has recently caused so many well-publicized tragedies, especially involving young children, that public opinion is no longer so tolerant. Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, reversing a trend in the 1960s to reduce it to 18. After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed by 18-20-year-old drivers more than doubled, so the state recently upped it back to 21. Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect unless accompanied by educational programmes to help young people to develop responsible attitudes about drinking and teach them to resist peer pressure to drink. Tough new laws have led to increased arrests and tests and in many areas already, to a marked decline in fatalities. Some states are also penalizing bars for serving customers too many drinks. A tavern in Massachusetts was fined for serving six or more double brandies to a customer who was obviously intoxicated and later drove off the road, killing a nine-year-old boy. As the fatalities continue to occur daily in every state, some Americans are even beginning to speak well of the 13 years national prohibition of alcohol that began in 1919, which President Hoover called the noble experiment. They forget that legal prohibition didnt stop drinking, but encouraged political corruption and organized crime. As with the booming drug trade generally, there is no easy solution.1. Drunken driving has become a major problem in America because _. A) most Americans are heavy drinkers B) Americans are now less shocked by road accidentsC) accidents attract so much publicity D) drinking is a socially accepted habit in America2. Why has public opinion regarding drunken driving changed? A) Detailed statistics are now available. B) The news media have highlighted the problem.C) Judges are giving more severe sentences. D) Drivers are more conscious of their image.3. Statistics issued in New Jersey suggested that _. A) many drivers were not of legal age B) young drivers were often bad driversC) the level of drinking increased in the 1960s D) the legal drinking age should be raised4. Laws recently introduced in some states have _. A) reduced the number of convictions B) resulted in fewer serious accidentsC) prevented bars from serving drunken customers D) specified the amount drivers can drink5. Why is the problem of drinking and driving difficult to solve? A) Alcohol is easily obtained. B) Drinking is linked to organized crime.C) Legal prohibition has already failed. D) Legislation alone is not sufficient.2Los Angeles-Bill Joy is not a Luddite. He is not afraid of new technology. As founder and chief scientist of the Silicon Valley Company, he has been on the vanguard of the hight tech revolution for 20 years. But recently Joy took a glimpse into the future and it scared him to death. What he saw was a world in which humans have been effectively supplanted by machines; a world in which superpowerful computers with at least some attributes of human intelligence manage to replicate themselves and develop their own autonomy and people become superfluous and risk becoming extinct. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But what we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human will be incapable of making them intellifently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People wont be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them would amount to suicide. Previously, Joy had dismissed such scenarios as sci-fi fantasy, but then he listened to friends who were experts in robotics and realized that this brave new world was much closer than any of us might imagine - as close as 30 years away. The further that Joy dug into the cutting edge of research in the new technologies - robotics, genetic engineering and Nan technology - the more horrified he became. Not only did he see scenarios in which robots would like to take on a life of their own and exterminate the human race, but also he began to see ways in which other staples of sci-fi horror might come to pass. Specifically, robots, engineered organism, and Nan bots share a dangerous amplifying factor: they can self-replicate. A bomb is blown only once - but one robot can become many, and quickly get out of control. I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals. We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Joy concludes. Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I dont believe so, but we arent trying yet, and the last chance to assert control - the fail-safe point - is rapidly approaching. 1. According to the passage, the word Luddite(in paragraph 1, line 1) means? A) the name of a place where science is underdeveloped. B) the name of a country.C) the name of an organization which aims to advocate developing the new technology.D) the name of a party which protest at developing science.2. From the passage, we know that it is that scared Bill Joy to death? A) robots have been practically running the world.B) humans are actually at the mercy of the machines.C) humans are facing a fatal situation that the machines are out of control gradually and the machines will overwhelm the whole world. star.D) humans will be exiled from the earth by the machines and they have to explore another fixed 3. What does the sentence I dont believe so, but we arent trying yet.(in the last paragraph, line 5) indicate? A) It is high time for us to give an end to the new technologies.B) We should cease to explore the perilous Nan technology.C) Humans have to devote themselves to save the whole world by containing and wrecking the machines. handle it skillfully.D) It is right time for humans to dominate the high developing technology effectively and 4. Bill Joy realized the situation that _. A) the day when the world controlled by the machines is just round the cornerB) the human world is on the edge of an exceeding dangerC) the machines in the future will be as perilous as the mass destructionD) humans are now on their wits end5. Which of the following can best describe the authors attitude towards the future relationship between humans and machines? A) Optimistic. B) Pessimistic. C) Confident. D) Indifferent.3The study of philosophies should make our own ideas flexible. We are all of us apt to take certain general ideas for granted, and call them common sense. We should learn that other people have held quite different ideas, and that our own have started as very original guesses of philosophers. A scientist is apt to think that all the problems of philosophy will ultimately be solved by science. I think this is true for a great many of the questions on which philosophers still argue. For example, Plato thought that when we saw something, one ray of light came to it from the sun, and another from our eyes and that seeing was something like feeling with a stick. We now know that the light comes from the sun, and is reflected into our eyes. We dont know in much detail how the changes in our eyes give rise to sensation. But there is every reason to think that as we learn more about the physiology of the brain, we shall do so, and that the great philosophical problems about knowledge are going to be pretty fully cleared up. But if our descendants know the answers to these questions and others that perplex us today, there will still be one field of which they do not know, namely the future. However exact our science, we cannot know it as we know the past. Philosophy may be described as argument about things of which we are ignorant. And where science gives us a hope of knowledge it is often reasonable to suspend judgment. That is one reason why Marx and Engels quite rightly wrote to many philosophical problems that interested their contemporaries. But we have got to prepare for the future, and we cannot do so rationally without some philosophy. Some people say we have only got to do the duties revealed in the past and laid down by religion, and god will look after the future. Other say that the world is a machine and the course of future events is certain, whatever efforts we may make, Marxists say that the future depends on ourselves, even though we are part of the historical process. This philosophical view certainly does inspire people to very great achiements. Whether it is true or not, it is powerful guide to action. We need a philosophy, then, to help us to tackle the future. Agnosticism easily becomes an excuse for laziness and conservation. Whether we adopt Marxism or any other philosophy, we cannot understand it without knowing something of how it developed. That is why knowledge of the history of philosophy is important to Marxism, even during the present critical days. 1. What is the main idea of this passage? A) The main idea of this passage is the argument whether philosophy will ultimately be solved by science or not.B) The importance of learning philosophies, especially the history of philosophy.C) The difference between philosophy and science.D) A discuss about how to set a proper attitude towards future.2. The example of what Plato thought in the passage shows that _. A) the development of science really can solve a great many of the problems on which philosophers still argueB) Plato knew nothing about PhysicsC) the scientists have achieved a lot in terms of light theoryD) different people have different ways of perception3. What field can our descendants know? A) The origin of human beings. B) Some questions that perplex us today.C) Many philosophical problems which Marx and Engels wrote rather little. D) The future.4. How many kinds of ideas are there about the future? A) Two. B) Three. C) Four. D) Five.5. What are the functions of studying philosophies mentioned in the passage? A) The study of philosophies would make our own ideas flexible.B) The study of philosophies would help prepare us for the future and guide our actions.C) The study of philosophies would enable us to understand how things develop as to better tackle the future. D) All of the above.4The mental health movement in the United States began with a period of considerable englightenment. Dorothea Dix was shocked to find the mentally ill in jails and almshouses and crusaded for the establishment of asylums in which people could receive humane care in hospital-like environments and treatment which might help restore them to sanity. By the mid 1800s, 20 states had established asylums, but during the late 1800s and early 1900s, in the face of economic depression, legislatures were unable to appropriate sufficient funds for decent care. Asylums became overcrowded and prison like. Additionally, patients were more resistant to treatment than the pioneers in the mental health field had anticipated, and security and restraint were needed to protect patients and others. Mental institutions became frightening and depressing places in which the rights of patients were all but forgotten. These conditions continued until after World War II. At that time, new treatments were discovered for some major mental illnesses theretofore considered untreatable (pencillin for syphilis of the brain and insulin treatment for schizophrenia and depressions), and a succession of books, motion pictures, and newspaper exposes called attention to the plight of the mentally ill. Improvements were made and Dr. David Vails Humane Practices Program is a beacon for today. But changes were slow in coming until the early 1960s. At that time, the Civil Rights movement led lawyers to investigate Americas prisons, which were disproportionately populated by blacks, and they in turn followed prisoners into the only institutions that were worse than the prisons - the hospitals for the criminally insane. The prisons were filled with with angry young men who, encouraged by legal support, were quick to demand their rights. The hospitals for the criminally insane, by contrast, were populated with people who were considered crazy and who were often kept obediently in their place through the use of severe bodily restraints and large doses of major tranquilizers. The young cadre of public interest lawyers liked their role in the mental hospitals. The lawyers found a population that was both passive and easy to champion. These were, after all, people who, unlike criminals, had done nothing wrong. And in many states, they were being kept in horrendous institutions, an injustice, which once exposed, was bound to shock the public and, particularly, the judicial conscience. Patients rights groups successfully encouraged reform by lobbying in state legislatures. Judicial intervention have had some definite positive effect, but there is growing awareness that courts cannot provide the standards and the review mechanisms that assure good patient care. The details of providing day-to-day care simply cannot be mandated by a court, so it is time to take from the courts the responsibility for delivery of mental health care and assurance of patient rights and return it to the state mental health administrators to whom the mandate was originally given. Though it is a difficult task, administrators must undertake to write rules and standards and to provide the training and surveillance to assure that treatment is given and patient rights are respected. 1. The main purpose of the passage is to _. A) provide an historical perspective on problems of mental health careB) increase public awareness of the plight of the mentally illC) shock the reader with vivid descriptions of asylumsD) describe the invention of new treatments for mental illness2. The authors attitude toward people who are patients in state institutions can best be described as _. A) inflexible and insensitive B) detached and neutralC) understanding and sympathetic D) enthusiastic and supportive3. It can be inferred from the passage that, had the Civil Rights movement nor prompted an investigation of prison conditions _. A) states would never have established asylums for the mentally illB) new treatments for major mental illness would have likely remained untestedC) the Civil Rights movement in America would have been politically ineffectiveD) conditions in mental hospitals might have escaped judicial scrutiny4. The tone of the final paragraph can best be described as _. A) overly emotional B) cleverly deceptive C) cautiously optimistic D) fiercely independent5. According to the passage, mental hospital conditions were radically changed because of -A) as groups of young angry men in the 1900s B) active young lawyers in the 1960sC) innocent insane patients protest D) powerful court interventions5What will it mean to know the complete human genome. Eric Lander of MITs Whitehead Insititute compares it to the discovery of the periodic table of the elements in the last 1800s. Genomics is now providing biologys periodic table. says Lander. Scientists will know that every phenomenon must be expalinable in terms of this meansly list which will in on a single CD-ROM. Already researchers are extracting DNA from patients, attaching fluorescent molecules and sprinkling the sample on a glass chip whose surface is speckled with 10,000 known genes. A laser reads the fluorescence, which indicates which of the known genes on the chip are in the mystery sample from the patient. In only the last few months such gene-expression monitoring has diagnosed a muscle tumor in a boy thought to have leukemia, and distinguished between two kinds of cancer that require very different chemotherapy. But decoding the book of life poses daunting moral dilemmas. With knowledge of our genetic code will come the power to re-engineer the human species. Biologists will be able to use the genome as a parts list much as customers scour a list of china to replace broken plates and may well let prospective parents choose their unborn childs traits. Scientists have solid leads on genes for different temperaments, body builds, statures and cognitive abilities. And if anyone still believes that pa