Passage 3
An invisible border divides those arguing for computers in the classroom on the behalf of students' career prospects and those arguing for computers in the classroom for broader reasons of radical educational reform. Very few writers on the subject have explored this distinction-indeed, contradiction--which goes to the heart of what is wrong with the campaign to put computers in the classroom.
An education that aims at getting a student a certain kind of job is a technical education, justified for reasons radically different from why education is universally required by law. It is not simply to raise everyone's job prospects that all children are legally required to attend school into their teens. Rather, we have a certain conception of the American citizen, a character who is incomplete if he cannot competently assess how his livelihood and happiness are affected by things outside of himself. But this was not always the case; before it was legally required for all children to attend school until a certain age, it was widely accepted that some were just not equipped by nature to pursue this kind of education. With optimism characteristic of all industrialized countries, we came to accept that everyone is fit to be educated. Computer-education advocates forsake this optimistic notion for a pessimism that betrays their otherwise cheery outlook. Banking on the confusion between educational and vocational reasons for bringing computers into schools, computer-ed advocates often emphasize the job prospects of graduates over their educational achievement.
There are some good arguments for a technical education given the right kind of student. Many European schools introduce the concept of professional training early on in order to make sure children are properly equipped for the professions they want to join. It is, however, presumptuous to insist that there will only be so many jobs for so many scientists, so many businessmen, so many accountants. Besides, this is unlikely to produce the needed number of every kind of professional in a country as large as ours and where the economy is spread over so many states and involves so many international corporations.
But, for a small group of students, professional training might be the way to go since well-developed skills, all other factors being equal , can be the difference between having a job and not. Of course, the basics of using any computer these days are very simple. It does not take a lifelong acquaintance to pick up various software programs. If one wanted to become a computer engineer, that is, of course, an entirely different story. Basic computer skills take--at the very longest-a couple of months to learn. In any case, basic computer skills are only complementary to the host of real skills that are necessary to becoming any kind of professional. It should be observed, of course, that no school, vocational or not, is helped by a confusion over its purpose.
59. The author thinks the present rush to put computers in the classroom is__
[A] far-reaching
[B] dubiously oriented
[C] self-contradictory
[D] radically reformatory
60. The belief that education is indispensable to all children__
[A] is indicative of a pessimism in disguise
[B] came into being along with the arrival of computers
[C] is deeply rooted in the minds of computer-ed advocates
[D]originated from the optimistic attitude of industrialized countries
61. It could be inferred from the passage that in the author' s country the European model of professional training is__
[A] dependent upon the starting age of candidates
[B] worth trying in various social sections
[C] of little practical value
[D] attractive to every kind of professional
62. According to the author, basic computer skills should be__
[A] included as an auxiliary course in school
[B] highlighted in acquisition of professional qualifications
[C]mastered through a life-long course
[D] equally emphasized by any school , vocational or otherwise
[第59題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第60題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第61題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第62題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A Passage 4
When a Scottish research team startled the world by revealing 3 months ago that it had cloned an adult sheep, President Clinton moved swiftly. Declaring that he was opposed to using this unusual animal husbandry technique to clone humans, he ordered that federal funds not be used for such an experiment-although no one had proposed to do so--and asked an independent panel of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro to report back to the White House in 90 days with recommendations for a national policy on human cloning. That group--the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC)-has been working feverishly to put its wisdom on paper, and at a meeting on 17 May, members agreed on a near-final draft of their recommendations.
NBAC will ask that Clinton's 90-day ban on federal funds for human cloning be extended indefinitely and possibly that it be made law. But NBAC members are planning to word the recommendation narrowly to avoid new restrictions on research that involves the cloning of human DNA or cells-routine in molecular biology. The panel has not yet reached agreement on a crucial question, however, whether to recommend legislation that would make it a crime for private funding to be used for human cloning.
In a draft preface to the recommendations, discussed at the 17 May meeting, Shapiro suggested that the panel had found a broad consensus that it would be "morally unacceptable to attempt to create a human child by adult nuclear cloning." Shapiro explained during the meeting that the moral doubt stems mainly from fears about the risk to the health of the child. The panel then informally accepted several general conclusions, although some details have not been settled.
NBAC plans to call for a continued ban on federal government funding for any attempt to clone body cell nuclei to create a child. Because current federal law already forbids the use of federal funds to create embryos ( the earliest stage of human offspring before birth) for research or to knowingly endanger an embryo' s life, NBAC will remain silent on embryo research.
NBAC members also indicated that they will appeal to privately funded researchers and clinics not to try to clone humans by body cell nuclear transfer. But they were divided on whether to go further by calling for a federal law that would impose a complete ban on human cloning. Shapiro and most members favored an appeal for such legislation, but in a phone interview, he said this issue was still "up in the air."
63. We can learn from the first paragraph that__
[A] federal funds have been used in a project to clone humans
[B] the White House responded strongly to the news of cloning
[C] NBAC was authorized to control the misuse of cloning technique
[D] the White House has got the panel's recommendations on cloning
64. The panel agreed on all of the following except that__
[A] the ban on federal funds for human cloning should be made a law
[B] the cloning of human DNA is not to be put under more control
[C] it is criminal to use private funding for human cloning
[D] it would be against ethical values to clone a human being
65. NBAC will leave the issue of embryo research undiscussed because__
[A]embryo research is just a current development of cloning
[B]the health of the child is not the main concern of embryo research
[C]an embryo' s life will not be endangered in embryo research
[D]the issue is explicitly stated and settled in the law
66. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that__
[A] some NBAC members hesitate to ban human cloning completely
[B] a law banning human cloning is to be passed in no time
[C] privately funded researchers will respond positively to NBAC's appeal
[D] the issue of human cloning will soon be settled
[第63題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第64題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第65題答案及題解頁數(shù)] D
[第66題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A Passage 5
Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments. Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple. Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall. But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and planets. What kept them in place? Why didn't they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those lager fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets.
How many men would have considered the possibility of an apple falling up into the tree? Newton did because he was not trying to predict anything. He was just wondering. His mind was ready for the unpredictable. Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research. If you don't have unpredictable things, you don't have research. Scientists tend to forget this when writing their cut and dried reports for the technical journals, but history is filled with examples of it.
In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the "scientific method" a substitute for imaginative thought. I've attended research conferences where a scientist has been asked what he thinks about the advisability of continuing a certain experiment. The scientist has frowned, looked at the graphs, and said "the data are still inconclusive." "We know that," the men from the budget office have said, "but what do you think? Is it worthwhile going on? What do you think we might expect?" The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate.
What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own writings. He has put forward unquestioned claims so consistently that he not only believes them himself, but has convinced industrial and business management that they are true. If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents. It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope. Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect , is management to be blamed for discriminating against the "odd balls among researchers in favor of more conventional thinkers who "work well with the team. "
67. The author wants to prove with the example of Isaac Newton that __
[A] inquiring minds are more important than scientific experiments
[B] science advances when fruitful researches are conducted
[C] scientists seldom forget the essential nature of research
[D] unpredictability weighs less than prediction in scientific research
68. The author asserts that scientists __
[A] shouldn't replace "scientific method" with imaginative thought
[B] shouldn't neglect to speculate on unpredictable things
[C] should write more concise reports for technical journals
[D]should be confident about their research findings
69. It seems that some young scientists__
[A] have a keen interest in prediction
[B] often speculate on the future
[C] think highly of creative thinking
[D] stick to "scientific method"
70. The author implies that the results of scientific research__
[A] may not be as profitable as they are expected
[B] can be measured in dollars and cents
[C] rely on conformity to a standard pattern
[D] are mostly underestimated by management
[第67題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A
[第68題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第69題答案及題解頁數(shù)] D
[第70題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A 2000年研究生入學考試英語閱讀理解A
Passage 1
A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight ties larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world's best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.
It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith.(Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea's LG Electronics in July.)Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market America's machine-tool industry was on the ropes. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.
All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America's industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.
How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self-doubt has yielded to blind pride." American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted," according to Richard Cavanagh, executive dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government," It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity, says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as" a golden age of business management in the United States."
51. The U.S.achieved its predominance after World War Ⅱbecause_____ .
[A] it had made painstaking efforts towards this goal
[B] its domestic market was eight times larger than before
[C] the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitors
[D] the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy
52.The loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy in the 1980s is manifested in the fact that the American_____.
[A] TV industry had withdrawn to its domestic market
[B] semiconductor industry had been taken over by foreign enterprises
[C] machine-tool industry had collapsed after suicidal actions
[D] auto industry had lost part of its domestic market
53.What can be inferred from the passage?
[A] It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pried.
[B] Intense competition may contribute to economic progress.
[C] The revival of the economy depends on international cooperation.
[D] A long history of success may pave the way for further development.
54.The author seems to believe the revival of the U.S. economy in the 1990s can be attributed to the____ .
[A] turning of the business cycle
[B] restructuring of industry
[C] improved business management
[D] success in education
[第51題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第52題答案及題解頁數(shù)] D
[第53題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第54題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A
An invisible border divides those arguing for computers in the classroom on the behalf of students' career prospects and those arguing for computers in the classroom for broader reasons of radical educational reform. Very few writers on the subject have explored this distinction-indeed, contradiction--which goes to the heart of what is wrong with the campaign to put computers in the classroom.
An education that aims at getting a student a certain kind of job is a technical education, justified for reasons radically different from why education is universally required by law. It is not simply to raise everyone's job prospects that all children are legally required to attend school into their teens. Rather, we have a certain conception of the American citizen, a character who is incomplete if he cannot competently assess how his livelihood and happiness are affected by things outside of himself. But this was not always the case; before it was legally required for all children to attend school until a certain age, it was widely accepted that some were just not equipped by nature to pursue this kind of education. With optimism characteristic of all industrialized countries, we came to accept that everyone is fit to be educated. Computer-education advocates forsake this optimistic notion for a pessimism that betrays their otherwise cheery outlook. Banking on the confusion between educational and vocational reasons for bringing computers into schools, computer-ed advocates often emphasize the job prospects of graduates over their educational achievement.
There are some good arguments for a technical education given the right kind of student. Many European schools introduce the concept of professional training early on in order to make sure children are properly equipped for the professions they want to join. It is, however, presumptuous to insist that there will only be so many jobs for so many scientists, so many businessmen, so many accountants. Besides, this is unlikely to produce the needed number of every kind of professional in a country as large as ours and where the economy is spread over so many states and involves so many international corporations.
But, for a small group of students, professional training might be the way to go since well-developed skills, all other factors being equal , can be the difference between having a job and not. Of course, the basics of using any computer these days are very simple. It does not take a lifelong acquaintance to pick up various software programs. If one wanted to become a computer engineer, that is, of course, an entirely different story. Basic computer skills take--at the very longest-a couple of months to learn. In any case, basic computer skills are only complementary to the host of real skills that are necessary to becoming any kind of professional. It should be observed, of course, that no school, vocational or not, is helped by a confusion over its purpose.
59. The author thinks the present rush to put computers in the classroom is__
[A] far-reaching
[B] dubiously oriented
[C] self-contradictory
[D] radically reformatory
60. The belief that education is indispensable to all children__
[A] is indicative of a pessimism in disguise
[B] came into being along with the arrival of computers
[C] is deeply rooted in the minds of computer-ed advocates
[D]originated from the optimistic attitude of industrialized countries
61. It could be inferred from the passage that in the author' s country the European model of professional training is__
[A] dependent upon the starting age of candidates
[B] worth trying in various social sections
[C] of little practical value
[D] attractive to every kind of professional
62. According to the author, basic computer skills should be__
[A] included as an auxiliary course in school
[B] highlighted in acquisition of professional qualifications
[C]mastered through a life-long course
[D] equally emphasized by any school , vocational or otherwise
[第59題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第60題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第61題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第62題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A Passage 4
When a Scottish research team startled the world by revealing 3 months ago that it had cloned an adult sheep, President Clinton moved swiftly. Declaring that he was opposed to using this unusual animal husbandry technique to clone humans, he ordered that federal funds not be used for such an experiment-although no one had proposed to do so--and asked an independent panel of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro to report back to the White House in 90 days with recommendations for a national policy on human cloning. That group--the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC)-has been working feverishly to put its wisdom on paper, and at a meeting on 17 May, members agreed on a near-final draft of their recommendations.
NBAC will ask that Clinton's 90-day ban on federal funds for human cloning be extended indefinitely and possibly that it be made law. But NBAC members are planning to word the recommendation narrowly to avoid new restrictions on research that involves the cloning of human DNA or cells-routine in molecular biology. The panel has not yet reached agreement on a crucial question, however, whether to recommend legislation that would make it a crime for private funding to be used for human cloning.
In a draft preface to the recommendations, discussed at the 17 May meeting, Shapiro suggested that the panel had found a broad consensus that it would be "morally unacceptable to attempt to create a human child by adult nuclear cloning." Shapiro explained during the meeting that the moral doubt stems mainly from fears about the risk to the health of the child. The panel then informally accepted several general conclusions, although some details have not been settled.
NBAC plans to call for a continued ban on federal government funding for any attempt to clone body cell nuclei to create a child. Because current federal law already forbids the use of federal funds to create embryos ( the earliest stage of human offspring before birth) for research or to knowingly endanger an embryo' s life, NBAC will remain silent on embryo research.
NBAC members also indicated that they will appeal to privately funded researchers and clinics not to try to clone humans by body cell nuclear transfer. But they were divided on whether to go further by calling for a federal law that would impose a complete ban on human cloning. Shapiro and most members favored an appeal for such legislation, but in a phone interview, he said this issue was still "up in the air."
63. We can learn from the first paragraph that__
[A] federal funds have been used in a project to clone humans
[B] the White House responded strongly to the news of cloning
[C] NBAC was authorized to control the misuse of cloning technique
[D] the White House has got the panel's recommendations on cloning
64. The panel agreed on all of the following except that__
[A] the ban on federal funds for human cloning should be made a law
[B] the cloning of human DNA is not to be put under more control
[C] it is criminal to use private funding for human cloning
[D] it would be against ethical values to clone a human being
65. NBAC will leave the issue of embryo research undiscussed because__
[A]embryo research is just a current development of cloning
[B]the health of the child is not the main concern of embryo research
[C]an embryo' s life will not be endangered in embryo research
[D]the issue is explicitly stated and settled in the law
66. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that__
[A] some NBAC members hesitate to ban human cloning completely
[B] a law banning human cloning is to be passed in no time
[C] privately funded researchers will respond positively to NBAC's appeal
[D] the issue of human cloning will soon be settled
[第63題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第64題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第65題答案及題解頁數(shù)] D
[第66題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A Passage 5
Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments. Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple. Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall. But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and planets. What kept them in place? Why didn't they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those lager fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets.
How many men would have considered the possibility of an apple falling up into the tree? Newton did because he was not trying to predict anything. He was just wondering. His mind was ready for the unpredictable. Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research. If you don't have unpredictable things, you don't have research. Scientists tend to forget this when writing their cut and dried reports for the technical journals, but history is filled with examples of it.
In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the "scientific method" a substitute for imaginative thought. I've attended research conferences where a scientist has been asked what he thinks about the advisability of continuing a certain experiment. The scientist has frowned, looked at the graphs, and said "the data are still inconclusive." "We know that," the men from the budget office have said, "but what do you think? Is it worthwhile going on? What do you think we might expect?" The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate.
What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own writings. He has put forward unquestioned claims so consistently that he not only believes them himself, but has convinced industrial and business management that they are true. If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents. It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope. Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect , is management to be blamed for discriminating against the "odd balls among researchers in favor of more conventional thinkers who "work well with the team. "
67. The author wants to prove with the example of Isaac Newton that __
[A] inquiring minds are more important than scientific experiments
[B] science advances when fruitful researches are conducted
[C] scientists seldom forget the essential nature of research
[D] unpredictability weighs less than prediction in scientific research
68. The author asserts that scientists __
[A] shouldn't replace "scientific method" with imaginative thought
[B] shouldn't neglect to speculate on unpredictable things
[C] should write more concise reports for technical journals
[D]should be confident about their research findings
69. It seems that some young scientists__
[A] have a keen interest in prediction
[B] often speculate on the future
[C] think highly of creative thinking
[D] stick to "scientific method"
70. The author implies that the results of scientific research__
[A] may not be as profitable as they are expected
[B] can be measured in dollars and cents
[C] rely on conformity to a standard pattern
[D] are mostly underestimated by management
[第67題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A
[第68題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第69題答案及題解頁數(shù)] D
[第70題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A 2000年研究生入學考試英語閱讀理解A
Passage 1
A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight ties larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world's best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.
It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith.(Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea's LG Electronics in July.)Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market America's machine-tool industry was on the ropes. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.
All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America's industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.
How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self-doubt has yielded to blind pride." American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted," according to Richard Cavanagh, executive dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government," It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity, says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as" a golden age of business management in the United States."
51. The U.S.achieved its predominance after World War Ⅱbecause_____ .
[A] it had made painstaking efforts towards this goal
[B] its domestic market was eight times larger than before
[C] the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitors
[D] the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy
52.The loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy in the 1980s is manifested in the fact that the American_____.
[A] TV industry had withdrawn to its domestic market
[B] semiconductor industry had been taken over by foreign enterprises
[C] machine-tool industry had collapsed after suicidal actions
[D] auto industry had lost part of its domestic market
53.What can be inferred from the passage?
[A] It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pried.
[B] Intense competition may contribute to economic progress.
[C] The revival of the economy depends on international cooperation.
[D] A long history of success may pave the way for further development.
54.The author seems to believe the revival of the U.S. economy in the 1990s can be attributed to the____ .
[A] turning of the business cycle
[B] restructuring of industry
[C] improved business management
[D] success in education
[第51題答案及題解頁數(shù)] C
[第52題答案及題解頁數(shù)] D
[第53題答案及題解頁數(shù)] B
[第54題答案及題解頁數(shù)] A