2018年上海交通大学博士入学考试英语回忆版附答案.doc

2018年上海交通大学博士入学考试英语（回忆版：附阅读答案）其大作文题目为：大学是硬件重要还是有名学者重要？作文涉及内容为：Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Universities should spend more money in improving facilities (e.g. libraries and computer labs) than hiring famous teachers.作文字数要求为：300字左右。passage 6Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical expansion， it sorted out people and land uses， and it accelerated the inherent instability of urban life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land for residential expansion， the omnibuses， horse railways， commuter trains， and electric trolleys pulled settled regions outward two to four times more distant form city centers than they were in the premodern era. In 1850， for example， the borders of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old business district; by the turn of the century the radius extended ten miles. Now those who could afford it could live far removed from the old city center and still commute there for work， shopping， and entertainment. The new accessibility of land around the periphery of almost every major city sparked an explosion of real estate development and fueled what we now know as urban sprawl. Between 1890 and 1920， for example， some 250，000 new residential lots were recorded within the borders of Chicago， most of them located in outlying areas. Over the same period， another 550，000 were plotted outside the city limits but within the metropolitan area. Anxious to take advantage of the possibilities of commuting， real estate developers added 800，000 potential building sites to the Chicago region in just thirty years lots that could have housed five to six million people.Of course， many were never occupied; there was always a huge surplus of subdivided， but vacant， land around Chicago and other cities. These excesses underscore a feature of residential expansion related to the growth of mass transportation： urban sprawl was essentially unplanned. It was carried out by thousands of small investors who paid little heed to coordinated land use or to future land users. Those who purchased and prepared land for residential purposes， particularly land near or outside city borders where transit lines and middle-class inhabitants were anticipated， did so to create demand as much as to respond to it. Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real estate subdivision there proceeded much faster than population growth.1. With which of the following subjects is the passage mainly concerned? A Types of mass transportation. B Instability of urban life. C How supply and demand determine land use. D The effect of mass transportation on urban expansion.2. Why does the author mention both Boston and Chicago? A To demonstrate positive and negative effects of growth. B To exemplify cities with and without mass transportation. C To show mass transportation changed many cities. D To contrast their rate of growth.3. According to the passage， what was one disadvantage of residential expansion? A It was expensive. B It happened too slowly. C It was unplanned.D It created a demand for public transportation.4. The author mentions Chicago in the second paragraph as an example of a city， A that is large. B that is used as a model for land development. C where the development of land exceeded population growth. D with an excellent mass transportation system.Passage 5 Antarctica and EnvironmentAntarctica has actually become a kind of space station - a unique observation post for detecting important changes in the worlds environment. Remote from major sources of pollution and the complex geological and ecological systems that prevail elsewhere， Antarctica makes possible scientific measurements that are often sharper and easier to interpret than those made in other parts of the world.Growing numbers of scientists therefore see Antarctica as a distant-early-warning sensor， where potentially dangerous global trends may be spotted before they show up to the north. One promising field of investigation is glaciology. Scholars from the United States， Switzerland， and France are pursuing seven separate but related projects that reflect their concern for the health of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet - a concern they believe the world at large should share.The Transantarctic Mountain， some of them more than 14，000 feet high， divide the continent into two very different regions. The part of the continent to the “east” of the mountains is a high plateau covered by an ice sheet nearly two miles thick. “West” of the mountain， the half of the continent south of the Americas is also covered by an ice sheet， but there the ice rests on rock that is mostly well below sea level. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet disappeared， the western part of the continent would be reduced to a sparse cluster of island.While ice and snow are obviously central to many environmental experiments， others focus on the mysterious “dry valley” of Antarctica， valleys that contain little ice or snow even in the depths of winter. Slashed through the mountains of southern Victoria Land， these valleys once held enormous glaciers that descended 9，000 feet from the polar plateau to the Ross Sea. Now the glaciers are gone， perhaps a casualty of the global warming trend during the 10，000 years since the ice age. Even the snow that falls in the dry valleys is blasted out by vicious winds that roars down from the polar plateau to the sea. Left bare are spectacular gorges， rippled fields of sand dunes， clusters of boulders sculptured into fantastic shapes by 100-mile-an-hour winds， and an aura of extraterrestrial desolation.Despite the unearthly aspect of the dry valleys， some scientists believe they may carry a message of hope of the verdant parts of the earth. Some scientists believe that in some cases the dry valleys may soak up pollutants faster than pollutants enter them.1. What is the best title for this passage?A Antarctica and environmental Problems.B Antarctica： Earths Early-Warning station.C Antarctica： a Unique Observation Post.D Antarctica： a Mysterious Place.2. What would the result be if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet disappeared?A The western part of the continent would be disappeared.B The western part of the continent would be reduced.C The western part of the continent would become scattered Islands.D The western part of the continent would be reduced to a cluster of Islands.3. Why are the Dry Valleys left bare?A Vicious wind blasts the snow away.B It rarely snows.C Because of the global warming trend and fierce wind.D Sand dunes.4. Which of the following is true?A The “Dry Valleys” have nothing left inside.B The “Dry Valleys” never held glaciers.C The “Dry Valleys” may carry a message of hope for the verdant.D The “Dry Valleys” are useless to scientists.5.the meaning of an aura of extraterrestrial desolation 我记得有一个选项中含有bleak这个单词，答案应该是这个应译为：与地球格格不入的一种荒凉隔绝的气氛或与世隔绝的一种荒凉气氛。Passage 4Nothing succeeds in business books like the study of success. The current business-book boom was launched in 1982 by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman with “In Search of Excellence”. It has been kept going ever since by a succession of gurus and would-be gurus who promise to distil the essence of excellence into three (or five or seven) simple rules.“The Three Rules” is a self-conscious contribution to this type; it even includes a bibliography of “success studies”. Messrs Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed work for a consultancy, Deloitte, that is determined to turn itself into more of a thought-leader and less a corporate repairman. They employ all the tricks of the success genre. They insist that their conclusions are “measurable and actionable”-guide to behavior rather than analysis for its own sake. Success authors usually serve up vivid stories about how exceptional business-people stamped their personalities on a company or rescued it from a life-threatening crisis. Messrs Raynor and Ahmed are happier chewing the numbers: they provide detailed appendices on “calculating the elements of advantage” and “detailed analysis”.The authors spent five years studying the behaviour of their 344 “exceptional companies”, only to come up at first with nothing. Every hunch(直觉) led to a blind alley and every hypothesis to a dead end. It was only when they shifted their attention from how companies behave to how they think that they began to make sense of their voluminous material.Management is all about making difficult tradeoffs in conditions that are always uncertain and ever-changing. But exceptional companies approach these trade-offs with two simple rules in mind, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. First: better before cheaper. Companies are more likely to succeed in the long run if they compete on quality or performance than on price. Second: revenue before cost. Companies have more to gain in the long run from driving up revenue than by driving down costs.Most success studies suffer from two faults. There is “the halo (光环) effect”, whereby good performance leads commentators to attribute all manner of virtues to anything and everything the company does. These virtues then suddenly become vices when the company fails. Messrs Raynor and Ahmed work hard to avoid these mistakes by studying large bodies of data over several decades. But they end up embracing a different error: stating the obvious. Most businesspeople will not be surprised to learn that it is better to find a profitable niche (缝隙市场) and focus on boosting your revenues than to compete on price and cut your way to success. The difficult question is how to find that profitable niche and protect it. There, The Three Rules is less useful.1.What kind of business books are most likely to sell well?A)Books on excellence.C) Books on business rules.B)Guides to management. D) Analyses of market trends.2.What does the author imply about books on success so far?A They help businessmen on way or another.B They are written by well-recognised experts.C They more or less fall into the same stereotype.D They are based on analyses of corporate leaders.3.How does The Three Rules different from other success books according to the passage?AIt focuses on the behavior of exceptional businessmen.B It bases its detailed analysis on large amount of data.这一题我看答案不统一，我自己选了这个答案C It offers practicable advice to businessmen.D It draws conclusion from vivid examples.4.What does the passage say contributes to the success of exceptional companies?A Focus on quality and revenue.B Management and sales promotion.C Lower production costs and competitive prices.D Emphasis on after-sale service and maintenance.5. What is the authors comment on The Three Rules?A It can help to locate profitable niches.B) It has little to offer to businesspeople. 这一题答案也不统一，有的答案是DC) It is noted for its detailed data analysis.D) It fails to identify the keys to success.passage 2“Deep reading” as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Webis an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would jeopardize the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the preservation of a critical part of our culture：the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to understand them.Recent research in cognitive science and psychology has demonstrated that deep readingslow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexityis a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the built-in limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A books lack of hyperlinks (超链接), for example, frees the reader from making decisionsShould I click on this link or not? allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative.That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and figures of speech: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy (认同).None of this is likely to happen when were browsing through a website. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacities they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging and less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” to whom it is so familiar. Last month, for example, Britains National Literacy Trust released the results of a study of 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly two times less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.56. What does the author say about “deep reading”?A) It serves as a complement to online reading.B) It should be preserved before it is too late.C) It is mainly suitable for reading literature.D) It is an indispensable part of education.57. Why does the author advocate the reading of literature?A) It helps promote readers intellectual and emotional growth.B) It enables readers to appreciate the complexity of language.C) It helps readers build up immersive reading habits.D) It is quickly becoming an endangered practice.58. In what way does printed-page reading differ from online reading?A) It ensures the readers cognitive growth.B) It enables the reader to be fully engaged.C) It activates a different region of the brain.D) It helps the reader learn rhetorical devices.59. What do the studies show about online reading?A) It gradually impairs ones eyesight.B) It keeps arousing readerscuriosity. C) It provides up-to-date information.D) It renders reading less enjoyable.60. What do we learn from the study released by Britains National Literacy Trust?A) Onscreen readers may be less competent readers.B) Those who do reading in print are less informed.C) Young people find reading onscreen more enjoyable.D) It is now easier to find a favorite book online to read.Passage Over the years, biologists have suggested two main pathways by which sexual selection may have shaped the evolution of male birdsong. In the first, male competition and intrasexual selection produce relatively short, simple songs used mainly in territorial behavior. In the second, female choice and intersexual selection produce longer, more complicated songs used mainly in mate attraction; like such visual ornamentation as the peacocks tail, elaborate vocal characteristics increase the males chances of being chosen as a mate, and he thus enjoys more reproductive success than his less ostentatious rivals. The two pathways are not mutually exclusive, and we can expect to find examples that reflect their interaction. Teasing them apart has been an important challenge to evolutionary biologists.Early research confirmed the role of intrasexual selection. In a variety of experiments in the field, males responded aggressively to recorded songs by exhibiting territorial behavior near the speakers. The breakthrough for research into intersexual selection came in the development of a new technique for investigating female response in the laboratory. When female cowbirds raised in isolation in sound-proof chambers were exposed to recordings of male song, they responded by exhibiting mating behavior. By quantifying the responses, researchers were able to determine what particular features of the song were most important. In further experiments on song sparrows, researchers found that when exposed to a single song type repeated several times or to a repertoire of different song types, females responded more to the latter. The beauty of the experimental design is that it effectively rules out confounding variables; acoustic isolation assures that the female can respond only to the song structure itself.If intersexual selection operates as theorized, males with more complicated songs should not only attract females more readily but should also enjoy greater reproductive success. At first, however, researchers doing fieldwork with song sparrows found no correlation between larger repertoires and early mating, which has been shown to be one indicator of reproductive success; further, common measures of male quality used to predict reproductive success, such as weight, size, age, and territory, also failed to correlate with song complexity.The confirmation researchers had been seeking was finally achieved in studies involving two varieties of warblers. Unlike the song sparrow, which repeats one of its several song types in bouts before switching to another, the warbler continuously composes much longer and more variable songs without repetition. For the first time, researchers found a significant correlation between repertoire size and early mating, and they discover