天津外国语学院
年攻读英语语言文学专业硕士学位
研究生入学考试样题 考试科目：基础英语+汉语
（考试时间180分钟 总分150分）
I. Choose the one answer that best explains the underlined word or phrase in the sentence. Write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (20points for 20 questions) The following are five sample questions.
1.You talk about it as if it were a grammar school instead of a leading university.
A. very large B. very serious C. very prestigious D. very fundamental
2.I attended the great poet’s prior lecture and was not about to miss his encore—even though I was quartered 110 miles north of the university.
A. lived
B. was separated C. was informed D. was arrested 3.At that moment Mr. Frost’s host materialized behind him to remind him of his schedule.
A. appeared
B. handed him something C. spoke D. told
4. Companies will address this situation through methods like on-site counseling and the development of special programs.
A. go to the spot B. remember C. record D. deal with
5. I got out thanks to a college scholarship and because I was a little more articulate than the average.
A. able to do addition effectively
B. able to express one’s thoughts effectively C. able to write effectively
D. able to initiate things effectively
II. Read carefully the following passage(s) and then answer the questions. (20 points for 20questions). The following is a sample passage with five sample questions.
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics—the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close. As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor.
Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with sub millimeter accuracy-far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves-goals that pose a real challenge.
“While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, “we can't yet give a robot enough ‘commonsense’ to reliably interact with a dynamic world.”Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented-and human perception far more complicated-than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant,
instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't
approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it. 1. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in . A. the use of machines to produce science fiction. B. the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry.
C. the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work. D. the elite's cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work
2. The word “gizmos\ A. programs. B. experts. C. devices. D. creatures.
3. According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can .
A. fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery. B. interact with human beings verbally. C. have a little common sense.
D. respond independently to a changing world. 4. Besides reducing human labor, robots can also .
A. make a few decisions for themselves.
B. deal with some errors with human intervention. C. improve factory environments. D. cultivate human creativity.
5. The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are .
A. expected to copy human brain in internal structure. B. able to perceive abnormalities immediately.
C. far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information. D. best used in a controlled environment.
III. Fill in each blank with an appropriate word or phrase to complete the following passage. Write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points) As a doctor who travels quite a lot, I spent a lot of time on planes listening for that dreaded “Is there a doctor on board?” announcement. I lave been called only once for a woman who had merely fainted. But the __1__ made me quite ___2__ how often this kind of thing happens. I wonder what I would do if confronted with a real midair emergency without access by a hospital staff and the usual emergency equipment. So when the New England Journal of Medicine last week published a study about in-flight medical events, I read it with __3__.
The study estimated that there are an average of thirty in-flight medical emergencies on US flights every day. Most of them are not __4__. __5__ 13% of them are serious enough to require the pilot to change course. The most common emergencies __6__ heart trouble, stroke and difficulty in breathing.
Let’s face it: plane rides are stressful. For starters, cabin pressures at high
altitude are set roughly what they would be if you lived at 5000 to 8000 feet above sea level. Most people can __7__ these pressures, but passengers with heart disease __8__ experience chest pain. Another problem is deep venous thrombosis—the so-called economic class syndrome. ___9_ happens, do not panic. Thanks to more recent
天外英语考研历年真题
