北京大学2013年博士英语真题​

北京大学2013年博士英语真题

 来源《考博英语真题解析》，河北大学出版社

Part I: Listening Comprehension

Part II: Structure and Written Expression (15%)

Directions: For each question decide which of the four of given will most suitably complete the sentence if inserted at the place marked. Mark your choices on the ANSWER SHEET.

11. Prince Charles, the longest-waiting ____ to the throne in British history, has spoken of his “impatience” to get things done.

12. Love was in the air in a Tokyo park as normally staid Japanese husbands gathered to scream out their feelings for their wives, promising ____ and extra tight hugs.

13. The number of stay-at-home fathers reached a record high last year, new figures show, as families saw a (an) ____ in female breadwinners.

14. The market for dust masks and air purifier is ____ in Beijing because the capital has been shrouded for several days in thick fog and haze.

15. Traditional fairytales are being ditched by parents because they are too ____ for their young children, a study found.

16. It has been revealed that nearly one in five degree courses has been ____ since the tripling of tuition fees to £9,000 a year.

17. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has ____ about being a parent, stating that 13 is an appropriate age for a child's first cell phone.

18. Sales of mushrooms have hit an all-time high as Britons increasingly turn to the cheap and ____ foodstuff for their cooking.

19. “Gangnam Style”, the ____ popular song from South Korean recording artist PSY, has just become the most watched video on YouTube ever.

20. The ____ British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking once said in an interview that heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

21. Some might consider it an ugly truth that attractive people are often more successful than those ____ blessed with looks.

22. ____ they think it will come to an end through the hands of God, or a natural disaster or a political event, whatever the reason, nearly 15 percent of people worldwide think the end of the world is coming, according to a new poll.

23. The European Parliament has banned the terms “Miss.” and “Mrs.” ____ they offend female members.

24. Packed like sardines into sweaty, claustrophobic subway carriages, passengers can barely breathe, ____ move about freely.

25. Japan is one of only three counties that now hunt whales and ____ the government says it is an important cultural tradition.

Part III: Clone Test (15%)

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and decide the best choice for each numbered blank Mark your choices on the ANSWER SHEET.

Ironically, the intellectual tools currently being used by the political right to such harmful effect originated on the academic left. In the 1960s and 1970s a philosophical movement called postmodernism developed among humanities professors, [26] ____ being deposed by science, which they regarded as right-leaning. Postmodernism [27] _____ ideas from cultural anthropology and relativity theory to argue that truth is [28] ____ and subject to the assumptions and prejudices of the observer. Science is just one of many ways of knowing, they argued, neither more nor less [29] ____ than others, like those of Aborigines, Native Americans or women. [30] ____, they defined science as the way of knowing among Western white men and a tool of cultural [31] ____. This argument [32] ____ with many feminists and civil-rights activists and became widely adopted, leading to the “political correctness” justifiably [33] ____ by Rush Limbaugh and the “Mental Masturbation” lampooned by Woody Allen.

Acceptance of this relativistic worldview [34] ____ democracy and leads not to tolerance but to authoritarianism. John Locke, one of Jefferson's “trinity of three greatest men”, showed [35] ____ almost three centuries ago. Locke watched the arguing factions of Protestantism, each claiming to be the one true religion, and asked: How do we know something to be true? What is the basis of knowledge? In 1689 he [36] ____ what knowledge is and how it is grounded in observations of the physical world in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Any claim that fails this test is “but faith, or opinion, but not knowledge”. It was this idea — that the world is knowable and that objective, empirical knowledge is the most [37] ____ basis for public policy — that stood as Jefferson's foundational argument for democracy.

By falsely [38] ____ knowledge with opinion, postmodernists and anti-science conservatives alike collapse our thinking back to a pre-Enlightenment era, leaving no common basis for public policy. Public discourse is [39] ____ to endless warring opinions, none seen as more valid than another. Policy is determined by the loudest voices, reducing us to a world in which might [40] ____ right — the classic definition of authoritarianism.

Part IV: Reading Comprehension (30%)

Directions: Each of the following four passages is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each question or unfinished statement, four answers are given. Read the passages and choose the best answer to each questions. Mark your choice on the ANSWER SHEET.

Passage 1

A considerable part of Facebook's appeal stems from its miraculous fusion of distance with intimacy, or fusion of distance with the illusion of intimacy. Our online communities become engines of self-image, and self-image becomes the engine of community. The real danger with Facebook is not that it allows us to isolate ourselves, but that by mixing our appetite for isolation with our vanity, it threatens to alter the very nature of solitude. The new isolation is not of the kind that American's once idealized, the lonesomeness of the proudly nonconformist, independent-minded, solitary stoic, or that of the astronaut who blasts into new worlds. Facebook's isolation is a grind. What's truly staggering about Facebook usage is not its volume — 750 million photographs uploaded over a single weekend — but the constancy of the performance it demands. More than half its users — and one of every 13 people on Earth is a Facebook user — log on every day. Among 18- to- 34-year-olds, nearly half check Facebook minutes after waking up, and 28 percent do so before getting out of bed. The relentlessness is what is so new, so potentially transformative. Facebook never takes a break. We never take a break. Human beings have always created elaborate acts of self-presentation. But not all the time, not every morning, before we even pour a cup of coffee.

Nostalgia for the good old days of disconnection would not just be pointless, it would be hypocritical and ungrateful. But the very magic of the new machines, the efficiency and elegance with which they serve us, obscures what isn't being served: everything that matters. What Facebook has revealed about human nature — and this is not a minor revelation — is that a connection is not the same thing as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version of humanity. Solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention. But now we are left talking about who we are all the time, without ever really thinking about who we are. Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated: the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.

41. Which of the following statements regarding the power of Facebook can be inferred from the passage?

A. It creates the isolation people want.

B. It delivers a more friendly world.

C. It produces intimacy people lack in the real world.

D. It enables us to be social while avoiding the mess of human interaction.

42. Which of the following statements about the underside of Facebook is supported by the information contained in this passage?

A. It imprisons people in the business of self-presentation.

B. It causes social disintegration.

C. It makes people vainer.

D. It makes people lonelier.

43. Which of the following best states "the new isolation" mentioned by the author?

A. It is full of the spirit of adventure

B. It is the extension of individualism.

C. It has a touch of narcissism.

D. It evolves from the appetite for independence.

44. Which of the following belongs to the category of "something that matters" according to the passage?

A. Constant connection

B. Instant communication

C. Smooth sociability

D. A human bond

45. Which of the following conclusions about Facebook does the author want us to draw?

A. It creates friendship.

B. It denies us the pleasure of socializing.

C. It opens a new world for us.

D. It draws us into a paradox.