武汉大学真题2007年 (总分100, 考试时间90分钟)
Part Ⅰ Reading Comprehension
Directions: There are 4 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. You should decide on the best choice and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening the corresponding letter in the brackets.
What is so special about intuitive talent? Extensive research on brain skills indicates that those who score as highly intuitively on such test instruments as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tend to be the most innovative in strategic planning and decisionmaking. They tend to be more insightful and better at finding new ways of doing things. In business, they are the people who can sense whether a new product idea will \in the marketplace. They are the people who will generate ingenious new solutions to old problems that may have festered for years. These are the executives that all organizations would love to find.
But, surprisingly, organizations often thwart, block, or drive out this talent--the very talent they require for their future survival! At the very least, most organizations lack well- established human-capital programs designed to search for and consciously use their employees' intuitive talent in the strategic-planning process. As a result, this talent is either not used, suppressed, or lost altogether.
Typically, highly intuitive managers work in an organizational climate that is the opposite of that which would enable them to flourish and to readily use their skills for strategic decisionmaking. This climate can be characterized as follows: New ideas are not readily encouraged. Higher managers choose others who think much as they do for support staff. Unconventional approaches to problemsolving encounter enormous resistance. Before long, the intuitive executive begins to emotionally withdraw, slowly but surely reducing his or her input and often leaving the organization altogether.
To achieve higher productivity in the strategic-planning and decisionmaking process, clearly what is needed is an organizational climate in which intuitive brain skills and styles can flourish and be integrated with more-traditional management techniques. The organization's leadership must have a special sensitivity to the value of intuitive input in strategic decisionmaking and understand how to create an environment in which the use of intuition will grow, integrating it into the mainstream of the organization's strategic-planning process.
1. Which of the following does NOT describe intuitive talents? A They are innovative in strategic planning.
B They are good at finding new approaches to old problems.
C They are the executives that all organizations would love to find. D They are fully utilized.
2. Highly intuitive managers typically work in a climate that ______. A enables them to flourish B discourages new ideas
C achieves higher productivity D both A and C
3. An executive might leave the organization because ______. A he is hurt B he is fired
C his intuitive talent is not used D he earns too little
4. An organization's leadership should do all of the following EXCEPT ______. A separating intuitive styles from traditional management techniques B learning how to use creative thinking
C learning how to use problemsolving skills D none of the above
The geology of the Earth's surface is dominated by the particular properties of water. Present on Earth in solid, liquid, and gaseous states, water is exceptionally reactive. It dissolves, transports, and precipitates many chemical compounds and is constantly modifying the face of the Earth.
Evaporated from the oceans, water vapor forms clouds, some of which are transported by wind over the continents. Condensation from the clouds provides the essential agent of continental erosion: rain. Precipitated onto the ground, the water trickles down to form brooks, streams, and rivers, constituting what is called the hydrographic network. This immense polarized network channels the water toward a single receptacle: an ocean. Gravity dominates this entire step in the cycle because water tends to minimize its potential energy by running from high altitudes toward the reference point that is sea level.
The rate at which a molecule of water passes through the cycle is not random but is a measure of the relative size of the various reservoirs. If we define residence time as the average time for a water molecule to pass through one of the three reservoirs--atmosphere, continent, and ocean--we see that the times are very different. A water molecule stays, on an average, eleven days in the atmosphere, one hundred years on a continent and forty thousand years in the ocean. This last figure shows the importance of the ocean as the principal reservoir of the hydrosphere but also the rapidity of water transport on the continents.
A vast chemical separation process takes places during the flow of water over the continents. Soluble ions such as calcium, sodium, potassium, and some magnesium are dissolved and transported. Insoluble ions such as aluminum, iron, and silicon stay where they are and form the thin, fertile skin of soil on which vegetation can grow. Sometimes soils are destroyed and transported mechanically during flooding. The erosion of the continents thus results from two closely linked and interdependent processes, chemical erosion and mechanical erosion. Their respective interactions and efficiency depend on different factors.
5. According to the passage, clouds are primarily formed by water ______. A precipitating onto the ground
B changing from a solid to a liquid state C evaporating from the oceans D being carried by wind
6. The passage suggests that the purpose of the \A determine the size of molecules of water B prevent soil erosion caused by flooding
C move water from the Earth's surface to the oceans D regulate the rate of water flow from streams and rivers
7. What determines the rate at which a molecule of water moves through the cycle, as discussed in the third paragraph? A The potential energy contained in water.
B The effects of atmospheric pressure on chemical compounds. C The amounts of rainfall that fall on the continents. D The relative size of the water storage areas.
8. All of the following are examples of soluble ions EXCEPT ______.
A magnesium B iron
C potassium D calcium
People in the United States in the nineteenth century were haunted by the prospect that unprecedented change in the nation's economy would bring social chaos. In the years following 1820, after several decades of relative stability, the economy entered a period of sustained and extremely rapid growth that continued to the end of the nineteenth century. Accompanying that growth was a structural change that featured increasing economic diversification and a gradual shift in the nation's labor force from agriculture to manufacturing and other nonagricultural pursuits.
Although the birth rate continued to decline from its high level of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the population roughly doubled every generation during the rest of the nineteenth century. As the population grew, its makeup also changed. Massive waves of immigration brought new ethnic groups into the country. Geographic and social mobility-- downward as well as upward--touched almost everyone. Local studies indicate that nearly three-quitters of the population--in the North and South, in the emerging cities of the Northeast, and in the restless rural counties of the West--changed their residence of the Northeast, and in the restless rural counties of the West--changed their residence each decade. As a consequence, historian David Donald has written, \atomization affected every segment of society,\and it seemed to many people that \
Rapid industrialization and increased geographic mobility in the nineteenth century had special implications for women because these changes tended to magnify social distinctions. As the roles men and women played in society became more rigidly defined, so did the roles they played in the home. In the context of extreme competitiveness and dizzying social change, the household lost many of its earlier functions and the home came to serve as a haven of tranquility and order. As the size of families decreased, the roles of husband and wife became more clearly differentiated than ever before. In the middle class especially, men participated in the productive economy while women ruled the home and served as the custodians of civility and culture. The intimacy of marriage that was common in earlier periods was rent, and a gulf that at times seemed unbridgeable was created between husbands and wives.
9. What does the passage mainly discuss?
A The economic development of the United States in the eighteenth century.
B Ways in which economic development led to social changes in the United States. C Population growth in the western United States.
D The increasing availability of industrial jobs for women in the United States.
10. According to the passage, the economy of the United States between 1820 and 1900 was ______. A expanding B in sharp decline C stagnate D disorganized
11. According to the passage, as the nineteenth century progressed, the people of the United States ______. A emigrated to other countries
B often settled in the West
C tended to change the place in which they lived D had a higher rate of birth than ever before
12. Which of the following best describes the society about which David Donald wrote? A A highly conservative society that was resistant to new ideas. B A society that was, undergoing fundamental change.
C A society that had been gradually changing since the early 1700's
D A nomadic society that was starting permanent settlements.
Standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, gazing across this giant wound in the Earth's surface, a visitor might assume that the canyon had been caused by some ancient convulsion.
In fact the events that produced the canyon, far from being sudden and cataclysmic, simply add up to the slow and orderly process of erosion.
Many millions of years ago the Colorado Plateau in the Grand Canyon area contained 10, 000 more feet of rock than it does today and was relatively level. The additional material consisted of some 14-layered formations of rock. In the Grand Canyon region these layers were largely worn away over the course of millions of years.
Approximately 65 million years ago the plateau's flat surface in the Grand Canyon area bulged upward from internal pressure; geologists refer to this bulging action as upwarping; it was followed by a general elevation of the whole Colorado Plateau, a process that is still going on. As the plateau gradually rose, shallow rivers that meandered across it began to run more swiftly and cut more definite courses. One of these rivers, located east of the upwarp, was the ancestor of the Colorado. Another river system called the Hualapai, flowing west of the upwarp, extended itself eastward by cutting back into the upwarp; it eventually connected with the ancient Colorado and captured its waters. The new river then began to carve out the 277- mile-long trench that eventually became the Grand Canyon. Geologists estimate that this initial cutting action began no earlier than 10 million years go.
Since then, the canyon forming has been cumulative. To the corrosive force of the river itself have been added other factors. Heat and cold, rain and snow, along with the varying resistance of the rocks, increase the opportunities for erosion. The canyon walls crumble; the river acquires a cutting tool, tons of debris, rainfall running off the high plateau creates feeder streams that carve side canyons. Pushing slowly backward into the plateau, the side canyons expose new rocks, and the pattern of erosion continues.
13. What does the passage mainly discuss?
A Patterns of erosion in different mountain ranges. B Forces that made the Grand Canyon.
C The increasing pollution of the Colorado River.
D The sudden appearance of the Grand Canyon.
14. According to the passage, the first phenomenon to contribute to the formation of the Grand Canyon was ______. A a series of volcanic eruptions
B the collapse of rock formations in the Colorado Plateau
C a succession of floods from the Hualapai River and what is now the Colorado River D the Earth's internal pressure lifting the Colorado Plateau region
15. Which of the following conclusions about the Grand Canyon can be drawn from the passage? A Its contours are constantly changing.
B It contains approximately 14 million tons of rock. C Its eruptions have increased in recent years. D It is being eroded by toxic waste and pollutants.
16. The passage would most likely be found in a textbook on which of the following subjects? A Astronomy.
B Botany. C Geology. D Chemistry.
The political crisis in Ukraine, where opposition protesters are burning campfires and setting up tents in the center of Kiev, is presenting a test for Russia, which gambled heavily on its neighbor's presidential election.
A defeat of the pro-Moscow candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, would humiliate the Kremlin one year after another former Soviet Republic, Georgia, slipped from its influence, according to observers and political analysts.
The Ukrainian upheaval echoes what happened in Georgia, where protests over vote rigging led to the resignation of a Moscow-linked President and a landslide victory of a young, Western-educated and Western-oriented leader.
For Moscow, the stakes are even higher in Ukraine. Unlike Georgia, Ukraine shares close ethnic and linguistic ties with Russia; Kiev, Ukraine's capital, is the cradle of the Russian culture and the ancient capital of the first Russian state.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to forge a closer union between three Slavic nations Russia, Ukraine, and tiny, authoritarian Belarns and Ukraine is key to the plan, Russian businesses have major interests in Ukraine, which borders Russia to the west. The Russian military also wants to have Ukraine as an ally over which it can hold sway, not as a potential NATO participant, the analysts said.
As other former republics turned away from Russia, Moscow \the feeling that Ukraine is its closest ally, with a symbolic significance,\said Marsha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center. \has given itself a goal of getting a controllable Ukraine. I'm afraid it won't happen.\
Putin quickly congratulated Yanukovych following Sunday's vote, which pitted the prime minister against opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. But Western observers reported voting fraud, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians rallied in protest. \lasts, .it will become a potential source of problems for Russia's relations with the West,\Alexander Pikayev, an independent politica! analyst in Moscow \\ The Kremlin had come out early and strongly for Yanukovych before the election. Putin traveled twice to Ukraine, ahead of each round of voting. To support the official purpose of his first visit, attending anniversary celebrations of Ukraine's liberation from the Nazis in World War Ⅱ, the festivities were rescheduled for 10 days earlier than the actual date.
Since the vote, the Kremlin's propaganda machine has been in full swing. Russia's Channel One television, controlled by the Kremlin like all other major networks accused the Ukrainian opposition of breaking the law by declaring Yushehenko the rightfully elected President.
In his prime-time show, television commentator Mikhail Leontyev compared the Ukrainian opposition to Middle Eastern militants. \only hurt ordinary people.
Russian television also aired reports on the anniversary of Georgia's \steeped in misery and poverty a year after the fall of the old government. Russian independent newspapers, however, which reach only a fraction of the TV audience, wrote about a different Georgia the same day telling how happy Georgians had decorated shop windows and restaurants with roses to celebrate.
Many Russians view Ukraine's powerful opposition as a kind of force that has disappeared in Russia under the increasingly authoritarian Putin administration.
Russia has not had a seriously contested presidential election since 1996, when Boris Yeltsin narrowly defeated a Communist challenger. The political opposition here is fractured and marginalized, ousted from parliament in last year's balloting closely directed by the Kremlin.
Russian optimists hope a defeat of Yanukovyeh would force the Kremlin to reconsider its attempts to control political life in other former Soviet republics. Pessimists fear that his loss would only prompt the Kremlin to tighten its rule.
\stakes are high,\Lipman said. \a question of whether Russia's neighbor will be a Ukraine ruled not through democratic institutes but through administrative means, or a Ukraine that will embrace democracy.\
武汉大学考博英语真题2007年
