哈工大考博英语真题及答案 下载本文

D. Explain the effects of increased rates of evaporation on levels of precipitation. 13. It can be inferred from the passage that an environmental signal found in

geological material would no be useful to paleoclimatologists if it . A. had to be interpreted by modern chemical means

B. reflected a change in climate rather than a long-term climatic condition C. was incorporated into a material as the material was forming D. also reflected subsequent environmental changes.

14. According to the passage the material used to determine past climatic conditions

must be widespread for which of the following reasons?

Ⅰ .Paleoclimatologists need to make comparisons between periods of geological history. Ⅱ. Paleoclimatologists need to compare materials that have supported a wide variety of

vegetation

Ⅲ. Paleoclimatologists need to make comparisons with data collected in other regions.

A. I only B. Ⅱ only

C. I and Ⅱ only D. I and Ⅲ only

15. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the study of past

climates in arid and semiarid regions?

A. It is sometimes more difficult to determine past climatic conditions in arid and

semiarid regions than in temperate regions

B. Although in the past more research has been done on temperate regions,

paleoclimatologists have recently turned their attention to arid and semiarid regions.

C. Although more information about past climates can be gathered in arid and

semiarid than in temperate regions, dating this information is more difficult. D. It is difficult to study the climatic history of arid and semiarid regions because

their climates have tended to vary more than those of temperate regions. Passage Three Questions 16-22 are based on the following passage:

While there is no blueprint for transforming a largely government-controlled economy into a free one, the experience of the United Kingdom since 1979 clearly shows one approach that works: privatization, in which state-owned industries are sold to private companies. By 1979, the total borrowings and losses of state-owned industries were running at about £3 billion a year. By selling many of these industries, the government has decreased these borrowings and losses, gained over £34 billion from the sales, and now receives tax revenues from the newly privatized companies. Along with a dramatically improved overall economy, the government has been able to repay 12.5 percent of the net national debt over a two-year period.

In fact privatization has not only rescued individual industries and a whole economy headed for disaster, but has also raised the level of performance in every area. At British Airways and British Gas, for example, productivity per employee has risen by 20 percent. At associated British Ports. labor disruptions common in the 1970’s and early 1980’s have now virtually disappeared. At British Telecom, there is no longer a

waiting list—as there always was before privatization—to have a telephone installed.

Part of this improved productivity has come about because the employees of privatized industries were given the opportunity to buy shares in their own companies. They responded enthusiastically to the offer of shares; at British Aerospace 89 percent of the eligible work force bought shares; at Associated British Ports 90 percent; and at British Telecom 92 percent. When people have a personal stake in something, they think about it, care about it, work to make it prosper. At the National Freight Consortium, the new employee-owners grew so concerned about their company’s profits that during wage negotiations they actually pressed their union to lower its wage demands. Some economists have suggested that giving away free shares would provide a needed acceleration of the privatization process. Yet they miss Thomas Paine’s point that ―what we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly‖ In order for the far-ranging benefits of individual ownership to be achieved by owners, companies, and countries, employees and other individuals must make their own decisions to buy, and they must commit some of their own resources to the choice.

16. According to the passage all of the following were benefits of privatizing state

owned industries in the United Kingdom EXCEPT A. Privatized industries paid taxes to the government

B. The government gained revenue from selling state-owned industries C. The government repaid some of its national debt

D. Profits from industries that were still state-owned increased

17. According to the passage, which of the following resulted in increased productivity

in companies that have been privatized?

A. A large number of employees chose to purchase shares in their companies. B. Free shares were widely distributed to individual shareholders. C. The government ceased to regulate major industries. D. Unions conducted wage negotiations fro employees.

18. It can be inferred from the passage that the author considers labor disruptions to be

A. an inevitable problem in a weak national economy B. a positive sign of employee concern about a company

C. a predictor of employee reactions to a company’s offer to sell shares to them D. a deterrence to high performance levels in an industry.

19. The passage supports which of the following statements about employees buying

shares in their won companies?

A. At three different companies, approximately nine out ten of the workers were eligible to buy shares in their companies.

B. Approximately 90%of the eligible workers at three different companies chose to buy shares in their companies.

C. The opportunity to buy shares was discouraged by at least some labor unions. D. Companies that demonstrated the highest productivity were the first to allow their employees the opportunity to buy shares.

20. Which of the following statements is most consistent with the principle described in L25-26?

A. A democratic government that decides it is inappropriate to own a particular

industry has in no way abdicated its responsibilities as guardian of the public interest.

B. The ideal way for a government to protect employee interests is to force

companies to maintain their share of a competitive market without government subsidies.

C. The failure to harness the power of self-interest is an important reason that

state-owned industries perform poorly

D. Governments that want to implement privatization programs must try to

eliminate all resistance to the free-market system.

21. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the privatization

process in the United Kingdom?

A. It depends to a potentially dangerous degree on individual ownership of shares. B. It conforms in its most general outlines to Thomas Paine’s prescription for

business ownership.

C. It was originally conceived to include some giving away of free shares. D. It is taking place more slowly than some economists suggest is necessary. 22. The quotation in L32-33 is most probably used to . A. counter a position that the author of the passage believes is incorrect. B. State a solution to a problem described in the previous sentence.

C. Show how opponents of the viewpoint of the author of the passage have

supported their arguments.

D. point out a paradox contained in a controversial viewpoint. Passage Four

Questions 23-30 are based on the following passage:

Historians of women’s labor in the United States at first largely disregarded the story of female service workers—women earning wages in occupations such as salesclerk, domestic servant, and office secretary. These historians focused instead on factory work, primarily because it seemed so different from traditional, unpaid ―women’s work ‖in the home, and because the underlying economic forces of industrialism were presumed to be gender-blind and hence emancipation in effect. Unfortunately, emancipation has been less profound than expected, for not even industrial wage labor has escaped continued sex segregation in the workplace.

To explain this unfinished revolution in the status of women, historians have recently begun to emphasize the way a prevailing definition of femininity often determines the kinds of work allocated to women, even when such allocation is inappropriate to new conditions. For instance, early textile-mill entrepreneurs, in justifying women’s employment in wage labor, made much of the assumption that women were by nature skillful at detailed tasks and patient in carrying out repetitive chores; the mill owners thus imported into the new industrial order hoary stereotypes associated with the homemaking activities they presumed to have been the purview of women. Because women accepted the more unattractive new industrial tasks more readily than did men, such jobs came to be regarded as female jobs. And employers, who assumed that women’s ―real‖ aspirations were for

marriage and family life, declined to pay women wages commensurate with those of men. Thus many lower-skilled, lower-paid, less secure jobs came to be perceived as ―female.‖

More remarkable than the origin has been the persistence of such sex segregation in twentieth-century industry. Once an occupation came to be perceived as ―female‖, employers showed surprisingly little interest in changing that perception, even when higher profits beckoned. And despite the urgent need of the United States during the Second World War to mobilize its human resources fully, job segregation by sex characterized even he most important war industries. Moreover, once the war ended, employers quickly returned to men most of the ―male‖ jobs that women had been permitted to master.

23. According to the passage, job segregation by sex in the United States was. A. greatly diminlated by labor mobilization during the Second World War.

B. perpetuated by those textile-mill owners who argued in favor of women’s

employment in wage labor

C. one means by which women achieved greater job security

D. reluctantly challenged by employers except when the economic advantages

were obvious

24. According to the passage, historians of women’s labor focused on factory work

as a more promising area of research than service-sector work because factory work

A. involved the payment of higher wages B. required skill in detailed tasks

C. was assumed to be less characterized by sex segregation D. was more readily accepted by women than by men

25. It can be inferred from the passage the early historians of women’s labor in the

United States paid little attention to women’s employment in the service sector of the economy because

A. fewer women found employment in the service sector than in factory work B. the wages paid to workers in the service sector were much more short-term

than in factory work

C. women’s employment in the service sector tended to be much more

short-term than in factory work

D. employment in the service sector seemed to have much in common with the

unpaid work associated with homemaking

26. The passage supports which of the following statements about the early mill

owners mentioned in the second paragraph?

A. They hoped that by creating relatively unattractive ―female‖ jobs they

would discourage women from losing interest in marriage and family life. B. They sought to increase the size of the available labor force as a means to

keep men’s wages low.

C. They argued that women were inherently suited to do well in particular

kinds of factory work

D. They felt guilty about disturbing the traditional division of labor in family.