厦门大学2003年阅读及英美文学、语言学考研真题

　　2015年硕士研究生招生考试有很多变化，具体可归纳为考试时间将提前一周、全国各省份分区划复试线、专业突出者允许破格复试三个变化。对于广大考研学习来说，提前进入考前冲刺模式。但不管招生政策如何变化，考研真题仍然是同学们考研复习的必备资料。以下是厦门大学2003年阅读及英美文学、语言学考研真题。

　　厦门大学2003年阅读及英美文学、语言学考研真题

　Part One Reading Comprehension70 points

　　Passage 1

　　The place of the child in society has varied forthousands of years and has been affected bydifferent cultures and religions. In ancient timesunwanted children were occasionally abandoned,put to death, exploited, or offered for religioussacrifices, and in any event a large percentage ofthem didn’t survive their physically hazardousexistence to achieve maturity.

　　In Western civilization within the last few hundred years, there have been many changes inattitude toward the young. In agricultural Europe, and later with the beginning of the IndustrialRevolution, the children of the poor worked long hours for little or no pay, and there was nopublic concern for their safety or welfare. Punishment could be brutal and severe, andsometimes religious passions were expressed violently with a view toward saving the child'ssoul.

　　By the eighteenth century the harsh, deterministic, doctrinaire methods began to show somechange. Society slowly accorded children a role of more importance. Books were writtenexpressly for them and gradually laws were passed for their protection.

　　In the past few decades parents have become more attentive to the needs of their children.Better health care is available and education is no longer reserved for a limited few. With somany now able to go to college, many educators feel that we have too many students and toofew competent scholars. Some say the pendulum in child rearing has swung so far towardpermissiveness that many children are growing up alienated from society and with no respectfor law or parental authority.

　　The tendency today is for teachers and parents to emphasize individual responsibility and tostress that educational goals for students should be tailored to their chosen vocations ratherthan provide a generalized higher education.

　　1. What does the article say about children?

　　A. They have always been the hope of mankind.

　　B. In certain periods of history no one cared about them.

　　C. In the mid-eighteenth century western attitudes toward children began to change.

　　D. There were laws barring child labor during the industrial revolution.

　　2. What does the article say about children in ancient times?

　　A. They were often cruelly beaten.

　　B. At times they were used as sacrificial offerings.

　　C. People who didn't want children usually murdered them.

　　D. Though they were abused or neglected by their parents, children survived to adulthood withlittle difficulty.

　　3. What changes have occurred in the past few decades with regard to the child's place insociety?

　　A. Child raising has become more permissive.

　　B. Public health care has improved so much that children now need no particular health care.

　　C. Children are becoming more intelligent.

　　D. Children are becoming more respectful toward their parents.

　　4. What is the present trend in child discipline and education?

　　A. Giving as many young people as possible a popular generalized college education.

　　B. Creating more regimentation of the individual.

　　C. Teaching children to conform to rigorous rules.

　　D. Emphasizing individual responsibility.

　　Passage 2

　　Many experimental cars have been designed as one-of-a-kind models to be shown privately orpresented in auto shows, but never produced for actual sale. One purpose of such cars is totest consumer reaction to the various features shown. They are also the results of inspired aswell as innovative ideas developed in the automaker’s workshops. One experimental car, theFirebird by General Motors, had a single stick control system eliminating the conventionalsteering wheel, brake pedal and accelerator. Moving the stick to right steered the car in thosedirections. Pushing forward accelerated the car and pulling back applied the brakes. The controlstick was in the center of the front compartment and either the driver or the passenger couldoperate it.

　　5. In this paragraph what is meant by an experimental car?

　　A) A display car that customers can have made to order

　　B) One that the company will produce in volume the following year

　　C) A car to suit the tastes of the very wealthy.

　　D) A car to test public reaction to new features.

　　6. What was said about the Firebird put out by General Motors?

　　A) It immediately proved to be immensely popular.

　　B) It was a car that could be maneuvered with the use of fewer knobs and pedals thanconventional cars.

　　C) It was a new system that was practically foolproof.

　　D) It gave the driver a sense of security.

　　7. What do the manufacturers accomplish by making experimental cars?

　　A) They can test out new design ideas conceived in the engineering department.

　　B) They are used to deceive their competitors about the direction of their future designs.

　　C) They are displayed to show people how bizarre in design they may become.

　　D) They serve to occupy the spare time of design engineers during slack seasons.

　　Passage 3

　　One-room schools are part of the United States, and the mention of them makes people feel avague longing for "the way things were." One-room schools are an endangered species,however. For more than a hundred years one-room schools have been systematically shutdown and their students sent away to centralized schools. As recently as 1930 there were149,000 one-room schools in the United States. By 1970 there were 1,800. Today, of thenearly 800 remaining one-room schools, more than 350 are in Nebraska. The rest are scatteredthrough a few other states that have on their road maps wide-spaces between towns.

　　Now that there are hardly any left, educators are beginning to think that maybe there issomething yet to be learned form one-room schools, something that served the pioneers thatmight serve as well today. Progressive educators have come up with progressive-soundingnames like "peer-group teaching" and "multi-age grouping" for educational procedures thatoccur naturally in the one-room schools. In one-room schools, the children teach each otherbecause the teacher is busy part of the Time teaching someone else. A fourth grader can workat a fifth-grade level in math and a third-grade level in English without the stigma associatedwith being left back or the pressures of being skipped ahead. A youngster with a learningdisability can find his or her own level without being separated from the other pupils. In largerurban and suburban schools today, this is called "mainstreaming". A few hours is a small schoolthat has only one classroom and it becomes clear why so many parents feel that one of theadvantages of living in Nebraska in their children have to go to a one-room school.

　　8. What is the author’s main purpose in the passage?

　　A) To discuss present-day education in the United States.

　　B) To mention some advantages of one-room schools.

　　C) To persuade states to close down one-room schools.

　　D) To summarize the history of education in the United States.

　　9. The author implies that many educators and parents today feel that one-room schools

　　A) are too small

　　B) put pressure on teachers

　　C) are too far apart

　　D) provide a good education

　　10. According to the passage, why are one-room schools in danger of disappearing?

　　A) They all exist in one state.

　　B) There is no fourth-grade level in any of them.

　　C) There is a trend towards centralization.

　　D) They skip too many children ahead.

　　11. According to the passage, about how many one-room schools are there in the UnitedStates today?

　　A) 149,000

　　B) 1,800?

　　C) 800

　　D) 350?

　　12. In the second paragraph, what is mentioned as a major characteristic of the one-roomschool system?

　　A) It causes many children to be left back.

　　B) It must work in conjunction with an urban school.

　　C) It does not allow teachers to do any individual teaching.

　　D) It does not limited to one grade level at a time.

　　13. The attitude of the author toward one-room school is one of

　　A) humor

　　B) indifference

　　C) commendation

　　D) anger

　　Passage 4

　　In the past, evolutionary biologists contemplating the absence of wheels in nature agreed thatthe explanation was not undesirability; wheels would be good for animals, just as they are forus. Animals were prevented from evolving wheels, the biologists reasoned, by the followingdilemma: Living cells in an animal’s body are connected to the heart by blood vessels, and tothe brain by nerves. Because a rotating joint is essential to a wheel, a wheel made of livingcells would twist its artery, vein, and nerve connections at the first revolution, making livingwheels impracticable.

　　However, there is a flaw in the argument that the evolution of wheeled animals was thwartedby the insoluble joint problem. The theory fails to explain why animals have not evolvedwheels of dead tissue with no need for arteries and nerves. Countless animals, including us,bear external structures without blood supply or nerves – for example, our hair andfingernails, or the scales, claws, and horns of other animals. Why have rats not evolved bonywheels, similar to roller skates? Paws might be more useful than wheels in some situations, butcat’s claws are retractable; why not retractable wheels? We thus arrive at the serious biologicalparadox flippantly termed the RRR dilemma: nature’s failure to produce rats with retractableroller skates.

　　14. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

　　(A) Evolutionary Biology: New Research Methods

　　(B) How Do Living Joints Function?

　　(C) Wheels for Animals: A Biological Possibility?

　　(D) The Evolutionary History of The Wheel

　　15. The passage discusses the evolution of animals in terms of their ______

　　(A) genetic structures(B) reproductive cycles (C) anatomy (D) behavior

　　16. The structural material of the wheels discussed in the passage in would be similar to that of______

　　(A) nerves(B) joints (C) arteries and veins (D) scales and horns

　　17. The concept of retractable roller skates, mentioned in the last sentence, would be bestexplained as ______

　　(A) an evolutionary variation of claws

　　(B) a complex structure of living tissue

　　(C) an example of human intervention in natural development

　　(D) a new discovery by evolutionists

　　Passage 5

　　When the persuading and the planning for the western railroads had finally been completed, thereally challenging task remained: the dangerous, sweaty, backbreaking, brawling business ofactually building the lines. The men who took it on comprised the most cosmopolitan work crewin American history. They included Civil War veterans and freed slaves, Irish and Germanimmigrants, Mormons and atheists, Shoshonis, Paiutes, Washos, and Chinese.

　　At the peak of their labors, the work crews laid two to five miles of track a day. The men filledravines, ran spidery trestles across rivers and valleys, and punched holes through mountains.And they did all these jobs largely by their own muscle power.

　　Flatcars carried rails to within half a mile of the railhead; there the iron was loaded onto carts.An eyewitness described the procedure: “A light car, drawn by a single horse, gallops up tothe front with its load rails. Two menseize the end of a rail and start forward, the rest of thegang taking holding by twos until it is clear of the car. They come forward at a run. At the wordof command, the rail is dropped in its place, right side up. Less than thirty seconds to a rail foreach gang, and so four rails to down to the minute.”

　　18. Which of the following is the most suitable title for the passage?

　　(A)An Eyewitness Report

　　(B)A Difficult Task

　　(C) The Hiring Of a Construction Crew

　　(D)The Railroad And The Civil War

　　19. According to the passage, in addition to laying railroad track, the work crew did which ofthe following?

　　(A)Climbed over mountain peaks.

　　(B)Planned railroads.

　　(C) Caught horses

　　(D)Made tunnels.

　　20. In second paragraph, the word “they” refers to ______

　　(A) men

　　(B) valleys

　　(C) mountains

　　(D) jobs

　　21. Which of the following phrases could be substituted for the phrased “clear of” (in the thirdparagraph) without changing the meaning of the sentence?

　　(A) put through

　　(B) visible to

　　(C) away from

　　(D) open to