西北大学2011年博士英语真题

西北大学2011年博士英语真题

Part I: Structure and Vocabulary (20%)

Directions: Beneath each of the following sentences, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that best completes the sentence. Mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening the corresponding letter.

1. ____ more than 65,000 described species of protozoa, of which more than half are fossils.

2. Though ____ in her personal life, Edna St. Vincent Millay was nonetheless ____ about her work, usually producing several pages of complicated rhyme in a day.

3. Although Tom was aware that it would be ____ to display annoyance publicly at the sales conference, he could not ____ his irritation with the client’s unreasonable demands.

4. Uncertainty differs from risk in that ____ basis for estimating the probability of each potential condition occurring.

5. Noting that few employees showed any ____ for complying with the corporation’s new safety regulations, Peterson was forced to conclude that acceptance of the regulations would be ____, at best.

6. The average level of United States prices grew very little from 1953 until the mid-1960’s when ____.

7. One theory about intelligence sees ____ as the logical structure underlying thinking and insists that since animals are mute, they must be ____ as well.

8. Even though the folktales Perroult collected and retold were not solely French in origin, his versions of them were so decidedly French in style that later anthologizes of French folktales have never ____ them.

9. Author Sraah Jewett established her literary reputation with Deep Haven, a collection of sketches ____.

10. In the late 1860’s, taxes were changed in the southern US to require payment form plantation owners     just ____ from landless individuals.

11. School started on a cold ____ day in February.

12. Because of the economic crisis, industrial output in the region remained ____.

13. The basic premise behind all agricultural production is ____ available the riches of the soil for human consumption.

14. Nancy’s gone to work but her car’s still there. She ____ by bus.

15. Unlike other creatures, who are shaped largely by their ____ environment, human beings are products of a culture accumulated over centuries, yet one that is constantly being ____ by massive infusions of new information from everywhere.

16. A mineral is any ____ solid that has a definite chemical composition and a distinctive internal crystal structure.

17. Paradoxically, England’s colonization of North America was ____ by its success: the increasing prosperity of the colonies diminished their dependence upon, and hence their loyalty home country.

18. All tropical storms develop over water that is warm enough to supply appreciable quantities of vapor to the air, ____ the areas to watch for the development of tropical storms.

19. The flowers from lack of water ____.

20. The ability to communicate ideas and instructions was ____ for the incredible development of the frontal brain lobe in human being.

Part II: Reading Comprehension (20%)

Directions: Each of the texts below is followed by some questions. For each question there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Make the best choice for each question, and make you choice on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening the corresponding letter.

Passage 1

Printmaking is the generic term for a number of processes, of which and engraving are two prime examples. Prints are made by pressing a sheet of paper (or other material) against an image bearing surface to which ink has been applied. When the paper is removed, the image adds to it, but in reverse.

The woodcut had been used in China from the fifth century A. D. for applying patterns to textiles. The process was not introduced into Europe until the fourteenth century, first for textiles, decoration and then for printing on paper. Woodcuts are created by a relief process. First, the artist take a block of wood, which has been sawed parallel to the grain, covers it with a white ground and then draws the image in ink. The background is carved away, leaving the design area slightly raised. The woodblock is inked, and the ink adheres to the raised image. It is then transferred to damp paper either by hand or with a printing press.

Engraving, which grew out of the goldsmith’s art, originated in Germany and northern Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. It is an intaglio process (from Italian intagliare, “to carve”). The image is incised into a highly polished metal plate, usually copper, with a cutting instrument, or burin. The artist inks the plate and wipes it clean so that some ink remains in the incised grooves. An impression is made on damp paper in a printing press, with sufficient pressure being applied so that the paper picks up the ink.

Both woodcut and engraving have distinctive characteristics. Engraving lends itself to subtle modeling and shading through the use of fine lines. Hatching and cross-hatching determine the degree of light and shade in a print. Woodcuts tend to be more linear, with sharper contrasts between light and dark. Printmaking is well suited to the production of multiple images. A set of multiples is called an edition. Both methods can yield several hundred good-quality prints before the original block or plate begins to show signs of wear. Mass production of prints in the sixteenth century made images available, at a lower cost, to a much broader public than before.

21. What does the text mainly discuss?

A. The origins of textile decoration.

B. The characteristics of good-quality prints.

C. Two types of printmaking.

D. Types of paper used in printmaking.

22. The author’s purposes in Paragraph 2 is to describe ________.

A. the woodcuts found in China in the fifth century

B. the use of woodcuts in the textile industry

C. the process involved in creating a woodcut

D. the introduction of woodcuts to Europe

23. According to the text, all of the following are true about engraving EXCEPT that it ________.

A. developed from the art of the goldsmiths

B. requires that the paper be cut with a burin

C. originated in the fifteenth century

D. involves carving into a metal plate

24. According to the text, what do woodcut and engraving have in common?

A. Their designs arc slightly raised.

B. They achieve contrast through hatching and cross-hatching.

C. They were first used in Europe.

D. They allow multiple copies to be produced from one original.

25. According to the author, what made it possible for members of the general public to own prints in the sixteenth century?

A. Prints could be made at low cost.

B. The quality of paper and ink had improved.

C. Many people became involved in the printmaking industry

D. Decreased demand for prints kept prices affordable.

26. According to the text, all of the following are true about prints EXCEPT that they ________.

A. can be reproduced on materials other than paper

B. arc created from a reversed image

C. show variations between light and dark shades

D. require a printing press

Passage 2

Now elsewhere in the world, Iceland may be spoken of, somewhat breathlessly, as Western Europe’s last pristine wilderness. But the environmental awareness that is sweeping the world had bypassed the majority of Icelanders. Certainly they were connected to their land, the way one is complicatedly connected to, or encumbered by, family one can’t do anything about. But the truth is once you’re off the beaten paths of the low-lying coastal areas where everyone lives, the roads are few, and they’re all bad, so Iceland’s natural wonders have been out of reach and unknown even to its own inhabitants. For them the land has always just been there, something that had to be dealt with and, if possible, exploited the mind-set, being one of land as commodity rather than land as well, and priceless art on the scale of the Mona Lisa.

When the opportunity arose in 2003 for the national power company to enter into a 40-year contract with the American aluminum company Alcoa to supply hydroelectric power for a new smelter, those who had been dreaming of something like this for decades jumped at it and never looked back. Iceland may at the moment be one of the world’s richest countries, with a 99 percent literacy rate and long life expectancy. But the project’s advocates, some of them getting on in years, were more emotionally attuned to the country’s century upon century of want, hardship, and colonial servitude to Denmark which officially had ended only in 1944 and whose psychological imprint remained relatively fresh. For the longest time, life here had meant little more than a sod hut, dark all winter, cold, no hope, children dying left and right, earthquakes, plagues, starvation, volcanoes erupting that destroying all vegetation and livestock, all spirit — a world revolving almost entirely around the welfare of one’s sheep and, later on how good the cod catch was. In the outlying regions, it still largely does.

Ostensibly, the Alcoa project was intended to save one of these dying regions-the remote and sparsely populated east — where the way of life had steadily declined to a point of desperation and gloom. After fishing quotas were imposed in the early 1980s to protect fish stocks, many individual boat owners sold their allotments or gave them away, fishing rights ended up mostly in the hands of a few companies, and small fishermen were virtually wiped out. Technological advances drained away even more jobs previously done by human hands, and the people were seeing everything they had worked for all their lives turn up worthless and their children move away. With the old way of life doomed, aluminum projects like this one had come to be perceived, wisely or not, as a last chance, “Smelter or Death.”

The contract with Alcoa would infuse the region with foreign capital, an estimated 400 jobs, and spin-off service industries. It also was a way for Iceland to develop expertise that potentially could be sold to the rest of the world; diversify an economy historically dependent on fish; and, in an appealing display of Icelandic can-do verve, perhaps even protect all of Iceland, once and for all, form the unpredictability of life itself.

“We have to live,” Halldor & Acute Sgrimssion said in his sad, sonorous voice. Halldor, a former prime minister and longtime member of parliament from the region, was a driving force behind the project. “We have a right to live.”

27. According to the text, most Icelanders view land as something of ________.

28. What is Iceland's old-aged advocates' feeling toward the Alcoa project?

A. Iceland is wealthy enough to reject the project.

B. The project would lower life expectancy.

C. The project would cause environmental problems.

D. The project symbolizes an end to the colonial legacies.  

29. The disappearance of the old way of life was due to all the following EXCEPT ________.

30. The 4^th paragraph in the text ________.

A. sums up the main points of the passage

B. starts to discuss an entirely new point

C. elaborates on the last part of the 3^rd paragraph

D. continues to depict the bleak economic situation

Passage 3

Museum is a slippery word. It first meant (in Greek) anything consecrated to the Muses: a hill, a shrine, a garden, a festival or even a textbook. Both Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum had a mouseion, a Muses’ shrine. Although the Greeks already collected detached works of art, many temples — notably that of Hera at Olympia (before which the Olympic flame is still lit) — had collections of objects, some of which were works of art by well-known masters, while paintings and sculptures in the Alexandrian Museum were incidental to its main purpose.

The Romans also collected and exhibited art from disbanded temples, as well as mineral specimens, exotic plants, animals; and they plundered sculptures and paintings (mostly Greek) for exhibition. Meanwhile, the Greek word had slipped into Latin by transliteration (though not to signify picture galleries, which were called pinacothecae) and museum still more or less meant “Muses’ shrine.”

The inspirational collections of precious and semi-precious objects were kept in larger churches and monasteries — which focused on the gold-enshrined, bejeweled relics of saints and martyrs. Princes, and later merchants, had similar collections, which became the deposits of natural curiosities: large lumps of amber or coral, irregular pearls, unicorn horns, ostrich eggs, fissile bones and so on. They also included coins and game — often antique engraved ones — as well as, increasingly, paintings and sculptures. As they multiplied and expanded, to supplement them, the skill of the fakers grew increasingly refined.

At the same time, visitors could admire the very grandest paintings and sculptures in the churches, palaces and castles: they were not “collected” either, but “site-specific”, and were considered an integral part both of the fabric of the buildings and of the way of life which went on inside them and most of the buildings were public ones. However, during the revival of antiquity in the fifteenth century, fragments of antique sculpture were given higher status than the work of any contemporary, so that displays of antiquities would inspire artists to imitation, or even better, to emulation; and so could be considered Muses’ shrines in the former sense. The Medici garden near San Marco in Florence, the Belvedere and the Capitol in Rome were the most famous of such earls “inspirational” collections. Soon they multiplied, and gradually, exemplary “modem” works were also added to such galleries.

In the seventeenth century, scientific and prestige collecting became so widespread that three or four collectors independently published directories to museums all over the known world. But it was the institution was perceived, the fury against royal and church monuments prompted antiquarians to shelter them in asylum-galleries, of which the Musee des Monuments Francais was the most famous. Then, in the first hall of the nineteenth century, museum funding took off, allied to the rise of new wealth, London acquired the National Gallery and the British Museum, the Louvre was organized, the Museum-Insel was begun in Berlin, and the Munich galleries were built In Vienna, the huge Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches Museums took over much of the imperial treasure. Meanwhile, the decline of craftsmanship (and of public taste with it) inspired the creation of “improving” collections. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London was the most famous, as well as perhaps the largest of them.

31. The sentence “Museum is a slippery word” in the first paragraph means that _______.

A. the meaning of the word didn’t change until after 15^th century

B. the meaning of the word had changed over the years

C. the Greeks held different concepts from the Romans

D. princes and merchants added paintings to their collections

32. The idea that museum could mean a mountain or an object originates from ________.

33. “... the skill of the fakers grew increasingly refined?” in Paragraph three means that ________.

34. Paintings and sculptures on display in churches in the 15^th century were ________.

35. Modern museum came into existence in order to ________.

A. protect royal and church treasures

B. improve existing collections

C. stimulate public interest       

D. raise more funds

Passage 4

Cultural rules determine every aspect of food consumption. Who eats together defines social units. For example, in some societies, the nuclear family is the unit that regularly eats together, The anthropologist Mary Douglas has pointed out that, for the English, the kind of meal and the kind of food that is served relate to the kinds of social links between people who are eating together. She distinguishes between regular meals, Sunday meals when relatives may come, and cocktail parties for acquaintances. The food served symbolizes the occasion and reflects who is present. For example, only snacks are served at a cocktail party. It would be inappropriate to serve a steak or hamburgers. The distinctions among cocktails, regular meals, and special dinners mark the social boundaries between those guests who are invited for drinks, those who are invited to dinner, and those who come to a family meal. In this example, the type of food symbolizes the category of guest and with whom it is eaten.

In some New Guinea societies, the nuclear family is not the unit that eats together, the men take their meals in a men’s house, separately from their wives and children. Women prepare and eat their food in their own houses and take the husband’s portion to the men’s house. The women eat with their children in their own houses. This pattern is also widespread among Near Eastern societies.

Eating is a metaphor that is sometimes used to signify marriage. In many New Guinea societies, like that of the Lesu on the island of New Ireland in the Pacific and that of the Trobriand Islanders, marriage is symbolized by the couple’s eating together for the first time. Eating symbolizes their new status as a married couple. In U. S. society, it is just the reverse. A couple may go out to dinner on a first date.

Other cultural rules have to do with taboos against eating certain things. In some societies, members of a clan, a type of kin (family) group, are not allowed to eat the animal or bird that is their totemic ancestor. Since they believe themselves to be descended from that ancestor, it would be like eating that ancestor or eating themselves.

There is also an association between food prohibitions and rank, which is found in us most extreme form in the caste system A caste system consists of ranked groups, each with a different economic specialization. In India, there is an association between caste and the idea of pollution. Members of highly ranked groups can be polluted by coming into contact with the bodily secretions, particularly saliva, of individuals of lower-ranked castes. Because of the fear of pollution, Brahmans and other high-ranked individuals will not share food with, not eat from the same plate as, not even accept food from an individual from a low-ranking caste.

36. According to the passage, the English make clear distinctions between ________.

37. According to the passage, who will NOT eat together?

A. The English

B. Americans on their first date

C. Men and women in Near Eastern societies

D. Newly-weds on the island of New Ireland

38. According to the passage, eating together indicates all the following EXCEPT ________.

39. The last paragraph suggests that in India ________ decides how people eat.

40. Which of the following can best serve as the topic of the passage?

A. Different Kinds of Food in the World

B. Relations between Food and Social Units

C. Symbolic Meanings of Food Consumption

D. Culture and Manners of Eating

Part III: Text Management (10%)

[1]Read the text, which describes the experience of a company that has made big changes in its office procedures.

[2]Choose the best sentence following the text to fill each of the gaps.

[3]For each gap 41-46, write one letter (A-H) on your ANSWER SHEET.

[4]Do not use any letter more than once.

[5]There is an example at the beginning.

Beyond Paperwork

The Danish electronics manufacturer, Oticon, is a leader in the move towards the paperless office. In their cafeteria a huge glass pipe runs from ceiling to floor. When the mail comes in, it is immediately scanned into the computer, shredded, and thrown down the tube to the general cheers of the employees [40]. Having all mail and memos available only as computer tiles to be read on the screen makes it easy to dispense with large physical storage spaces for people who work at desks. [41]

Changing over to the paperless office required a rapid increase in computer literacy, but rather than set up a corporate training programme they turned the problem over to employees. Eight months before the system was installed, they offered each employee a powerful personal computer for use at home in exchange for training themselves to use it. [42]

The big change was not the move from paper memos to computer messages. Oticon realized that the more radical transformation is from written to verbal communication. [43] Thai adds up a large number of face-to-face exchanges, a big improvement over memos and the occasional multi-hour sit-down consultation typical of the old culture. People do not send each other memos, they talk, As the CEO puts it, “We have jumped through the memo wall and gone right to action.”

On the eighth of August 1991, the company left their old wood-paneled offices, [44] since then they have cut in half the “time to market” on new products. The following year, sales and profits grew more than ever before. [45] In fact, despite a downsizing of 15 percent employee satisfaction is hitting record highs.

Oticon has created an organizational pattern that supports great freedom of action for individuals and terms. They have tied it together with a minimum hierarchy. The first clear results to show up were in the greater efficiencies generated by the fact that less time needed to be spent on management activities. [46] They also have some investment in the success of the project they choose, Oticon has succeeded in breaking the mould and taking a lead in non-bureaucratic organizational design.

A. This saving was possible because when people have real choice in the nature of their jobs, they commit themselves to being responsible for their areas of choice.

B. They were headed for a new building and a new era in communication.

C. Instead, they have large private areas on their hard disks for their correspondence

D. In spite of this, the physical office layout at Oticon is one of its most charming features.

E. Over 90 percent accepted, and they organized a club to help one another learn.

F. To facilitate this, the on-site coffee bars have now become the venue for about twenty meetings a day, averaging ten minutes and 2.7 participants each.

G. So, are people happy with the change?

H. Only about ten documents a day, items like legal contracts, escape this treatment.

The answer of [40] is D.