上海交通大学2013年博士英语真题

上海交通大学2013年博士英语真题

Part I: Reading Comprehension

Passage 1

There are desert plants which survive the dry season in the form of inactive seeds. There are also desert insects which survive as inactive larvae (high). In addition, difficult as it is to believe, there are desert fish which can survive through years of drought in the form of inactive eggs. These are the shrimps that live in the Mojave Desert, an intensely dry region in the south-west of the United States where shade temperatures of over 50 are open recorded.

The eggs of the Mojave shrimps are the size and have the appearance of grains of sand. When sufficient spring rain falls to form a lake, once every two to five years, these eggs hatch. Then the water is soon filled with millions of tiny shrimps about a millimeter long which feed on tiny plant and animal organisms which also grow in the temporary desert lake. Within a week, the shrimps grow from their original 1 millimeter to a length of about 1.5 centimeters.

Throughout the time that the shrimps are rapidly maturing, the water in the lake equally rapidly evaporates. Therefore, for the shrimps it is a race against time. By the twelfth day, however, when they are about 3 centimeters long, hundreds of tiny eggs form on the underbodies of the females. Usually by this time, all that remains of the lake is a large, muddy patch of wet soil. On the thirteenth day and the next, during the final hours of their brief lives, the shrimps lay their eggs in the mud. Then, having ensured that their species will survive, the shrimps die as the last of the water evaporates.

If sufficient rain falls the next year to form another lake, the eggs hatch, and once again the shrimps pass rapidly through their cycle of growth, adulthood, egg-laying, and death. Some years is insufficient rain to form a lake: in this case, the eggs will remain dormant for another year, or even longer if necessary. Very, very occasionally, perhaps twice in a hundred years, sufficient rain falls to form a deep lake that lasts a month or more. In this case, the species passes through two cycles of growth, egg-laying, and death. Thus, on such occasions, the species multiplies considerably, which further ensures its survival.

1. Which of the following is the MOST distinctive feature of Mojave shrimps?

A. Their lives are brief.

B. They feed on plant and animal organisms.

C. Their eggs can survive years of drought.

D. They lay their eggs in the mud.

2. By saying "for the shrimps it is a race against time" (Para. 3) the author means ________.

A. they have to swim fast to avoid danger in the rapidly evaporating licks

B. they have to swim fast to catch the animal organisms on which they survive.

C. they have to multiply as many as possible within thirteen days.

D. they have to complete their life cycle within a short span of time permitted by the environment.

3. The passage mainly deals with ________.

A. the life span of Mojave shrimps

B. the survival of desert shrimps

C. the importance of water to life

D. life in the Mojave Desert

4. The word "dormant" (Para. 4) most probably means ________.

5. It may be inferred from the passage that ________.

A. appearance and size are most important for life to survive in the desert.

B. a species must be able to multiply quickly in order to survive.

C. for some species one life cycle in a year is enough to survive the desert drought.

D. some species develop a unique life pattern to survive in extremely harsh conditions.

Passage 2

The Welsh language has always been the ultimate marker of Welsh identity, but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go the way of Manx. — Once widely spoken on the isle of Man but not extinct. Government financing and central planning, however, have helped reverse the decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in both Welsh and English, and schoolchildren are required to learn both languages, Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe's regional languages, spoken by more than a half-million of the country's three million people.

The revival of the language, particularly among young people, is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this small, proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the opening of the National Assembly, the first parliament to be convened here since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and wealth, England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of legislative powers from Westminster, implemented by Tony Blair, was designed to give the other members of the club — Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales — a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the very idea of the union.

The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution. Whereas the Scots voted overwhelmingly for a parliament, the vote for a Welsh assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than 25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide how money from Westminster or the European Union is spent. It cannot, unlike its counterpart in Edinburgh, enact laws. But now that it is here, the Welsh are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more powers. Its importance as figurehead will grow with the opening in 2003, of a new debating chamber, one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff from a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style waterfront city. Meanwhile a grant of nearly two million dollars from the European Union will tackle poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe- only Spain, Portugal, and Greece have a lower standard of living.

Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories about great Welsh men and women, boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, the movie star, and Bryn Terfel, the opera singer. Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And Wales now boasts a national airline, Awyr Cymru. Cymru, weans "land of compatriots" is the Welsh name for Wales. The red dragon, the nation's symbol since the time of King Arthur, is everywhere on T-shirts, rugby Jerseys and even cell phone covers.

"Until very recent times most Welsh people had this feeling of being second-class citizens," said Dyfan Jonos, an 18-year old student. It was a warm summer night, and I was siding on the grass with a group of young people in Llanelli, an industrial town in the south, outside rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod, Wales's annual cultural festive disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new Welsh bands.

"There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of confidence," Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his membership in the English-speaking, global youth culture and a new federal Europe, Dyfan, like the rest of his generation, is growing up with a sense of possibility unimaginable ten years ago. "We used to think. We can't do fig, we're only Welsh. Now I think that's changing."

6. According to the Passage, devolution was mainly means to ________.

A. maintain the present status among the nations

B. reduce legislative powers of England

C. create a better state of equality among the nations

D. grant more say to all the nations in the union

7. The word "centrifugal" in the second paragraph means ________.

8. Wales is different from Scotland in all the following aspects EXCEPT ________.

A. people' desire for devolution

B. locals' turnout for the voting

C. powers of the legislative body

D. status of the national language

9. Which of the following is NOT cited as an example of the resurgence of Welsh national identity.

A. Welsh has witnessed a revival as a national language.

B. Poverty-relief funds have come from the European Union.

C. A Welsh national airline is currently in operation.

D. The national symbol has become a familiar sight.

10. According to Dyfan Jones what has changed is ________.

A. people's mentality

B. pop culture

C. town's appearance

D. possibilities for the people

Passage 3

Barbed wire, first patented in the United Sees in 1867, played an important part in the development of American farming, as it enabled them make elective fencing to enclose their land and keep cattle away from their crops. This had a considerable effect on cattle ranching, since the herds no longer had unrestricted use of the plans for grazing, and the fencing led to conflict between the farmers and the cattle ranchers.

Before barbed wire came into general use, fencing was open made from serrated wire, which was unsatisfactory because it broke easily when under strain, and could snap in cold weather due to contraction. The first practical machine for producing barbed wire was invented in 1874 by Illinois farmer and between then and the end of the century about 400 types of barbed wire were devised, of which only about a dozen were ever put to practice.

Modern barbed wire is made from mild steel high-tensile steel, or aluminum. Mild steel and aluminum barbed wire have two strands twisted together to form a cable which is stronger than single-strand wire and less affected by temperature changes. Single-strand, round or oval, is made from high-tensile steel with the barbs crimped or welded on. The steel wires used are galvanized — coated with zinc to make them rustproof. The two wires that make up the line wire or cable are fed separately into a machine at one end. They leave it at the other end twisted-together and barbed. The wire co-make the barbs is fed into the machine from the sides and cut to length by knives that cut diagonally through the wire to produce a sharp point. This process continues automatically and the finished barbed wire is wound onto reels, usually made of wire in length of 400 meters or in weights of up to 50 kilograms.

A variation of barbed wire is also used for military purposes. It is formed into long coils or entanglements called concertina wire.

11. What is the main topic of the passage?

A. Cattle ranching in the United States

B. A type of fencing

C. Industrial uses of wire

D. A controversy over land use

12. What is the benefit of using two-stranded barbed wire? 

A. Improved rust-resistance

B. Increased strength

C. More rapid attachment of barbs

D. Easier installation

13. According to the author, the steel wires used to make barbed wire are specially processed to ________.

A. protect them against rust

B. make them more flexible

C. prevent contraction in cold weather

D. straighten them

14. The word "fed" in line 20 is closest in meaning to ________.

15. What is the author's purpose in the third paragraph?

A. To explain the importance of the wire

B. To outline the difficulty of making the wire

C. To describe how the wire is made

D. To suggest several different uses of the wire

Passage 4

Without regular supplied of some hormones our capacity to behave would be gloriously impaired; without others we would soon die. Tiny amounts of some hormones can modify moods and actions, our inclination to eat or drink, our aggressiveness of submissiveness and our reproductive and parental behavior. And hormones do more than influence adult behavior; early in life they help to determine the development of bodily form and may even determine an individual's behavioral capacities. Later in life the changing outputs of some endocrine glands and the body's changing sensitivity to some hormones are essential aspects of the phenomena of aging.

Communication within the body and the consequent integration of behavior were considered the exclusive province of the nervous system up to the beginning of the present century. The emergence of endocrinology as a separate discipline can probably be traced to the experiments of Bayliss and Starling on the hormone secretion. This substance is secreted from cells in the intestinal walls when food enters the stomach; it travels through the bloodstream and stimulates the pancreas to liberate pancreatic juice, which aids in digestion. By showing that special cells secret chemical agents that are conveyed by the bloodstream and regulate distant target organs or tissues. Bayliss and starling demonstrated that chemical integration could occur without participation of the nervous system.

The term "hormone" was first used with reference to secretion. Starling derived the term from the Greek hormone, meaning "to excite or set in motion. The term "endocrine" was introduced shortly thereafter. "Endocrine" is used to refer to glands that secret products into the bloodstream. The term "endocrine" contrasts with "exocrine", which is applied to glands that secret their products though ducts to the site of action. Examples of exocrine glands are the tear glands, the sweat glands, and the pancreas, which secrets pancreatic juice through a duct into the intestine. Exocrine glands are aim called duct glands, while endocrine glands are called ductless.

16. What is the author's main purpose in the passage?

A. To explain the specific functions of various hormones

B. To provide general information about hormones

C. To explain how the term "hormone" evolved

D. To report on experiments in endocrinology

17. The passage supports which of the following conclusions?

A. The human body requires large amounts of most hormones.

B. Synthetic hormones can replace a person's natural supply of hormones if necessary.

C. The quantity of hormones produced and sects on the body are related to a person's age.   

D. The short child of tall parents very had a hormone deficiency early in life.   

18. It can be inferred from the passage that before the Bayliss and Starling experiments, most people believed that chemical integration occurred only ________.

A. during sleep

B. in the endocrine glands

C. under control of the nervous system

D. during strenuous exercise

19. The word "liberate" could best be replaced by which of the following?

20. According to the passage another term for exocrine gland is ________.

Passage 5

Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14ch century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metalsmiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Romany word for "man". But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies, and I have cried to reflect the common usage of the people themselves.

In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly with the church seeing heresy in their fortunetelling and the state seeing anti-social behavior in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery — it wasn't until the mi-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust, which the Gypsies call porraimos — the great devouring. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families practice in Switzerland until 1973.

But the Gypsies have confounded prediction of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group, and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent's largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the America and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own — unlike the Jews to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. "Romanestan," said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, "is where my two feet stand."

21. Gypsies are united only when they ________.

A. are engaged in traditional cram

B. call themselves Roma

C. live under a clan system

D. face external threats

22. In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all the following EXCEPT ________.

23. According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of ________.

Passage 6

It is a curious paradox that we think of the physical science as "hard", the social sciences as "soft", and the biological sciences as somewhere in between. This is interpreted to mean that our knowledge of physical system is more certain than our knowledge of biological systems, and these in turn are more certain than our knowledge of social systems. In terms of our capacity of sample the relevant universes, however, and the probability that our image of these universes are at least approximately correct, one suspects that a reverse order is more reasonable. We are able to sample earth's social systems with some degree of confidence that we have a reasonable sample of the total universe being investigated. Our knowledge of social systems, therefore, while it is in many ways extremely inaccurate, is not likely to be seriously overturned by new discoveries. Even the folk knowledge in social systems on which ordinary life is based in earning, spending, organizing, marrying, taking part in political activities,, and so on, is not very dissimilar from the more sophisticated image of the social system derived from the social sciences, even though it is built upon the very imperfect samples of personal experience.

In contrast, our image of the astronomical universe, or even if earth's geological history, can easily be subject to revolutionary changes as new data come in and new theories are worked out. If we define the "security" of our image of various parts of the total system as the probability of their suffering significant changes, then we would reverse the order for hardness and as the most secure, the physical sciences as the least secure, and again the biological sciences as somewhere in between. Our image of the astronomical universe is the least secure of all simply because we observe such a fantastically small sample of it and its record-keeping is trivial records of biological systems. Records of the astronomical universe, despite the fact that we learnt things as they were long age, are limited in the extreme.

Even in regard to such a close neighbor as the moon, which we have actually visited, theories about its origin and history are extremely different, contradictory, and hard to choose among. Our knowledge of physical evolution is incomplete and insecure.

26. The word "paradox" (Para. 1) means ________.

27. According to the author, we should reverse our classification of the physical sciences as "hard" and the social sciences as "soft" because ________.

A. a reverse ordering will help promote the development of the physical sciences

B. our knowledge of physical systems is more reliable than that of social systems

C. our understanding of the social systems is approximately correct

D. we are better able to investigate social phenomena than physical phenomena

28. The author believes that our knowledge of social systems is more secure than that of physical systems because ________.

A. it is not based on personal experience

B. new discoveries are less likely to occur in social sciences

C. it is based on a fairly representative quantity of data

D. the records of social systems are more reliable

29. The chances of the physical sciences being subject to great changes are the biggest because ________.

A. contradictory theories keep emerging all the time

B. new information is constantly coming in

C. the direction of their development is Chill to predict

D. our knowledge of the physical world is inaccurate

30. We know less about the astronomical universe than we do about any social system because ________.

A. theories of its origin and history are varied

B. our knowledge of it is highly insecure

C. only a very small sample of it has been observed

D. few scientists involved in the study of astronomy

Part II: Cloze Test

Section I

A glass of milk can contain a cocktail of up to 20 painkillers, antibiotics and growth hormones, scientists have shown. Using a highly sensitive test, they found a host of chemicals used to treat illnesses in animals and people in samples of cow, goat and human breast milk. The doses of drugs were far too small to have an eject on anyone drinking them, but the results highlight how man-made chemicals are now found throughout the food chain. The highest quantifies of medicines were found in cow's milk. Researchers believe some of the drugs and growth promoters were given to the cattle, or got into milk through cattle feed or contamination on the farm. The Spanish-Moroccan team analyzed 20 samples of cow's milk bought in Spain and Morocco, along with samples of goat and breast milk. Their breakdown, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, revealed that cow's milk contained traces of anti-inflammatory drugs niflumic acid, mefienamie acid and ketoprofen — commonly used as painkillers in animals and people. It also contained the hormone 17-beta-estradiol, a form of the sex hormone estrogen. The hormone was detected at three millionths of a gram in every kilogram of milk, while the highest dose of niflumic acid was less than one millionth of a gram per kilogram of milk.

However, the scientists, led by Dr Evaristo Ballesteros, from the University of Jaen in Spain, say their technique could be used to check the safety of other types of food.

Dr Ballcsteros said: 'We believe the new methodology will help to provide more effective way of determining the presence of these kinds of contaminants in milk or other products. 'Food quality control laboratories could use this new tool to detect these drugs before they enter the food chain. This would raise consumers' awareness and give them the knowledge that food is... harmless, pure, genuine, beneficial to health and free of toxic residues,' he added.

The test also found niflumic acid in goat's milk, while breast milk contained traces of painkillers ibuprofen and naproxen, along with the antibiotic triclosan and some hormones.

The researchers say their new 30-minute test is the sensitive of its kind. If the findings are true for Spanish and Moroccan milk, they could equally be true for milk produced in Britain and northern Europe, Last year Portsmouth University scientists found that fish were being contaminated with the antidepressant Prozac. The drug enters rivers from the sewer system tinkers with the brain chemistry of fish, the researchers claimed. Previous studies have shown that caffeine is released indoor waterways after surviving the sewage treatment process. The hormones from the contraceptive pill and HRT have begun blamed for feminizing fish, leading to male fish producing eggs. The efforts of antibiotics, blood pressure drugs and cholesterol-lowering drugs on wild life are also being studied around the world.

Section II

All planets with an atmosphere exhibit weather patterns. But what about weather in space? Are we shielded from its ejects, and if so, should we care? We should if we go outside our protective atmosphere. Solar flares release streams of energetic particles that disturb radio communications. But even more serious is the fact that prolonged human exposure to intense solar radiation can lead to serious heal problems — equivalent of getting too many X-rays in a year. The best defense against a solar storm is a thick lead wall. However, this is hardly practicable.

Ordinarily, we do not think of the sun ashaving an atmosphere, so how can it harbor weathers? In fact, it does have an atmosphere and so do other stars. Not a breathable atmosphere like Earth's, but one mostly made of layers of hydrogen. On the sun there is fusion at the core and convection further out. On the surface, it makes a photosphere that emits the yellow light that gives the sun its bright glow. The sun is also surrounded by a corona, a crown visible during solar eclipses. The flares can lead to the release of a large hot gas could from the corona. Coronal mass ejections as these clouds are called, affect Earth in much the same way as flares.

Every so often solar activity increases and the sun covers itself with dark spots. These sunspots were found to develop and wane in eleven-year cycles. The spots are caused by regions of densely packed magnetic fields which magnetically "freeze" matter. This causes it to cool, making it less luminous and creating a dark spot. Solar flares occur near sun spots because magnetic field lines there, twist and meet sporadically, releasing energy. On Earth, aside from the radio disturbances, the flares produce beautiful auroras that are visible at high altitudes. So, Earth is not surrounded by empty, inert space, but by debris from comets and asteroids, and by particles emitted from the sun. The interaction of these different components makes up what is called space weather.

Part III: Writing

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