2015考研英语阅读真题入口

　　Part B

　　Directions:

　　In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1.(10 points)

　　The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields in the world, working both inside and outside academia. According to the World Social Science Report 2010, the number of social-science students worldwide has swollen by about 11% every year since 2000.

　　Yet this enormous resource in not contributing enough to today’s global challenges including climate change, security, sustainable development and health.(41)______Humanity has the necessary agro-technological tools to eradicate hunger , from genetically engineered crops to artificial fertilizers . Here, too, the problems are social: the organization and distribution of food, wealth and prosperity.

　　(42)____This is a shame—the community should be grasping the opportunity to raise its influence in the real world. To paraphrase the great social scientist Joseph Schumpeter: there is no radical innovation without creative destruction.

　　Today ,the social sciences are largely focused on disciplinary problems and internal scholarly debates, rather than on topics with external impact.

　　Analyses reveal that the number of papers including the keywords “environmental changed” or “climate change” have increased rapidly since 2004,(43)____

　　When social scientists do tackle practical issues ,their scope is often local: Belgium is interested mainly in the effects of poverty on Belgium for example .And whether the community’s work contributes much to an overall accumulation of knowledge is doubtful.

　　The problem is not necessarily the amount of available funding (44)____this is an adequate amount so long as it is aimed in the right direction. Social scientists who complain about a lack of funding should not expect more in today’s economic climate.

　　The trick is to direct these funds better. The European union   Framework funding programs have long had a category specifically targeted at social scientists. This year, it was proposed that system be changed: Horizon 2020,a new program to be enacted in 2014,would not have such a category ,This has resulted in protests from social scientists. But the intention is not to neglect social science ; rather ,the complete opposite.(45)____That should create more collaborative endeavors and help to develop projects aimed directly at solving global problems.

　　[A] It could be that we are evolving two communities of social

　　scientists: one that is discipline-oriented and publishing in highly

　　specialized journals, and one that is problem-oriented and publishing

　　elsewhere, such as policy briefs.

　　[B] However, the numbers are still small: in 2010,about 1,600 of the

　　100,000 social-sciences papers published globally included one of these

　　Keywords.

　　[C] the idea is to force social to integrate their work with other categories, including health and demographic change food security, marine research and the bio-economy, clear, efficient energy; and inclusive, innovative and secure societies.

　　[D] the solution is to change the mindset of the academic community, and what it considers to be its main goal. Global challenges and social innovation ought to receive much more attention from scientists, especially the young ones.

　　[E] These issues all have root causes in human behavior. All require behavioral change and social innovations, as well as technological development. Stemming climate change, for example, is as much about changing consumption patterns and promoting tax acceptance as it is about developing clean energy.

　　[F] Despite these factors , many social scientists seem reluctant to tackle such problems . And in Europe , some are up in arms over a proposal to drop a specific funding category for social-science research and to integrate it within cross-cutting topics of sustainable development .

　　[G] During the late 1990s , national spending on social sciences and the humanities as a percentage of all research and development funds-including government, higher education, non-profit and corporate -varied from around 4% to 25%; in most European nations , it is about 15%.

　　Part C

　　Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)

　　It is speculated that gardens arise from a basic need in the individuals who made them: the need for creative expression. There is no doubt that gardens evidence an impossible urge to create, express, fashion, and beautify and that self-expression is a basic human urge; (46) Yet when one looks at the photographs of the garden created by the homeless, it strikes one that , for all their diversity of styles, these gardens speak of various other fundamental urges, beyond that of decoration and creative expression.

　　One of these urges had to do with creating a state of peace in the midst of turbulence, a “still point of the turning world,” to borrow a phrase from T. S. Eliot. (47)A sacred place of peace, however crude it may be, is a distinctly human need, as opposed to shelter, which is a distinctly animal need. This distinction is so much so that where the latter is lacking, as it is for these unlikely gardens, the former becomes all the more urgent. Composure is a state of mind made possible by the structuring of one’s relation to one’s environment. (48) The gardens of the homeless which are in effect homeless gardens introduce from into an urban environment where it either didn’t exist or was not discernible as such. In so doing they give composure to a segment of the inarticulate environment in which they take their stand.

　　Another urge or need that these gardens appear to respond to, or to arise from is so intrinsic that we are barely ever conscious of its abiding claims on us. When we are deprived of green, of plants, of trees, (49) most of us give into a demoralization of spirit which we usually blame on some psychological conditions, until one day we find ourselves in garden and feel the expression vanish as if by magic. In most of the homeless gardens of New York City the actual cultivation of plants is unfeasible, yet even so the compositions often seem to represent attempts to call arrangement of materials, an institution of colors, small pool of water, and a frequent presence of petals or leaves as well as of stuffed animals. On display here are various fantasy elements whose reference, at some basic level, seems to be the natural world. (50)It is this implicit or explicit reference to nature that fully justifies the use of word garden though in a “liberated” sense, to describe these synthetic constructions. In them we can see basophilic- a yearning for contact with nonhuman life-assuming uncanny representational forms.

　　46. yet when one looks at the photographs of the gardens created by the homeless, it strikes one that, for all their diversity of styles, these gardens speak of various other fundamental urges beyond that of decoration and creative expression.

　　47. A sacred place of peace, however, crude it may be, is a distinctly human need, as opposed to shelter which is a distinctly animal need.

　　48. The gardens of the homeless which are in effect homeless garden introduce from in to an urban environment where it either didn’t exist or was not discernible as such

　　49 . Most of us give in to a demoralization of spirit which we usually blame on some psychological conditions until one day we find ourselves in a garden and feel the oppression vanish as if by magic

　　50. It is this implicit or explicit reference to nature that fully justifies the use of the word garden, though in a “liberated” sense, to describe these synthetic constructions.

　　Section II Reading Comprehension

　　Part A

　　Text 1

　　21.【答案】(insensitivity to fashion)

　　【解析】事实细节题。根据题干，首先定位到首段。由文章第一句后半句“…scolds her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesn’t affect her.”意思是：“……批评她没有魅力的助理，因为助理认为高级时尚对她的生活影响不大”。可知criticize是对scolds的同义替换，B项中的“insensitivity to fashion”是“imagining that high fashion doesn’t affect her.”的同义替换。所以B项为正确答案。

　　A项在文中并未提及，属于无中生有。C项和D项是对文章第一句的曲解。

　　22.【答案】(shop for their garments more frequently)

　　【解析】事实细节题。根据题干，首先定位到第二段。由倒数第二句“these labels encourage style-conscious consumers to see clothes as disposable, ……, and to renew their wardrobe every few weeks.”意思是“这些商标(畅销商标)促使有时尚意识的消费者将服装看成是用完就可以丢弃的，……，并且每周更新他们的衣橱。”D选项“shop for their garments more frequently”的意思是“更加频繁地购买服装”，正好是“renew their wardrobe every few weeks”的同义替换。

　　A，B，C项均属于无中生有项。

　　23.【答案】(accusation)

　　【解析】词义题。题干中需要猜测词义的单词出现在第二段的第一句“……the feverish world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Cline’s three-year indictment of ‘fast fashion’”。再结合选项可知，“indictment”是Elizabeth Cline对“快时尚”的一种态度。因此，解答此题的关键在于联系上下文语境，找到Elizabeth Cline对“快时尚”的态度。由第二段最后一句“By offering on-trend items at dirt-cheap prices, Cline argues, these brands have hijacked fashion cycles, shaking an industry long accustomed to a seasonal pace.”，意思是“Cline说，通过以特别低的价格销售潮流物品，这些品牌破坏了潮流周期，动摇了这个长久以来习惯于季节周期的产业”。由“hijack”和“shaking”可知，Cline对“快时尚”应该是持否定态度的，所以选项A“accusation (谴责)”是正确选项。

　　24.【答案】(pricing is vital to environmental-friendly purchasing)

　　【解析】推理判断题。根据题干，可定位到最后一段。解题关键在于“Vanity is a constant; people will only start shopping more sustainably when they can’t afford not to”，意思是“每个人都很虚荣，这很常见。但消费者付不起太多东西的时候，他们才会以更加可持续的方式去购物。”这句的关键词是“afford”和“shop more sustainably”，对应于D项中的“pricing”和“environmental-friendly purchasing”。A项对于本段的曲解。B项说的是“忽视环境的可持续发展”，与文中“several fast-fashion companies have made efforts to curb their impact on labor and the environment…”(一些时尚服饰公司已经做出努力减少对劳动力和环境)意思相悖。C项文中未提及。

　　25.【答案】(criticism of the fast-fashion industry)

　　【解析】主旨大意题。此题考查对全文主旨大意的准确归纳。从整个文章脉络来看，文章的第一段用事例引入，第二段讲到文章的主题“快时尚”，并指出它破坏了时尚周期，动摇了时尚产业。第三四段指出“快时尚”这种变革的弊端，比如：给自然资源造成压力、使用大量有害的化学物质、浪费现象。最后两段提到针对“快时尚”的不良影响，可以采取的解决办法。由此可知，C项统领全文，为正确答案。

　　A, B,D项都不是文章所论述的中心主题。

　　Text 2

　　26.【答案】(lower their operational costs)

　　【解析】事实细节题。根据题干，首先定位到首段。这段的大意是广告经费的一半都浪费掉了，但是通过“behavioral ads”可以追踪购买者的搜索习惯和评价，使得广告更有针对性，从而降低预算成本，也就是“this fraction can be much reduced”。 A、B和C选项文中并未提及，属于无中生有。

　　27.【答案】(internet browser developers)

　　【解析】词义句意题。the industry在语篇中是指代前面的出现内容，而前面出现的Microsoft Internet Explorer，Apple’s Safair 和Google’s Chrome都是D选项中中的“Internet browser developers”。 B和C选项文中并未提及，属于无中生有。A选项并非本段中谈论的核心。

　　28.【答案】(will not benefit consumers)

　　【解析】推理判断题。解题关键在于“… consumers will be worse off if the industry cannot collect information about their preferences”，也就是说，当浏览器开发者不能收集消费者网上购物倾向时，消费并不能从中受益。B、C和D选项文中并未提及，属于无中生有。

　　29.【答案】(DNT may not serve its intended purpose)

　　【解析】推理判断题。根据题干，可以定位到第六段。解题关键在于理解本段的行文逻辑，即“unable to tell whether…or whether, some may ignore…”。也就是说“由于不能辨别有些主体是真正反对行为广告，也不能辨别它们支持微软的做法，有些人甚至忽视DNT，继续先前的做法。”可此可见，B项符合题意。A、C和D选项内容在本段中均没有提及。

　　30.【答案】(skepticism)

　　【解析】观点态度题。根据题干，可以定位到文章最后一段倒数第二句，Brendon Lynch的博客中评论道：“我们认为消费者应该有更大的自主权(或掌控权)”。解题关键在于最后一句“Could it be really that simple?”，从中可明显看出作者的怀疑态度。A项是“理解”，B项是“赞成”，D选项是“纵容”的意思。