【新航道考研英语】新航道2006年考研英语命题预测模拟试题(四)1

【shitiku.jxxyjl.com--考研】

北京新航道学校考研阅读主讲 印建坤

Section Ⅰ Use of English
Directions:
Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A,B,C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1(10 points)
ALAN "ACE" GREENBERG chose his nickname to improve his chances with girls at the University of Missouri. But it is an apt 1    of his trading skills on Wall Street. This week, as the 73-year-old   2   down  3   chairman of Bear Stearns, the investment bank where he has worked since 1949 is in  a high. It 4     an increase in post-tax profits in the second quarter of 43% on a year earlier,  5   a time when many of its Wall Street rivals have   6  . On June 26th Merrill Lynch  7   a warning that its profits in the second quarter would fall by half, far   8   of expectations. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have also reported lower profits.
Strange that this surprised.  9  Alan Greenspan\"s frenetic cuts  10  interest rates, times are good for underwriters and traders of bonds, core activities for Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers,  11   also recorded a sharp increase in profits. It has been a lousy   12   for equity underwriters and for advisers on the meagre amounts of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) this year.
Merrill, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are three of the investment banks that gained   13  during the boom in equity and M&A business, and they are now  14  the most. Of the three, Merrill is weakest in bonds. It cut  15  its fixed- income activities after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998. As it happens, both Bear Stearns and Lehman have long been criticised for their weakness in equities.
Mr Greenberg is famous for worrying about even the price of a paper-clip at Bear Stearns. This used to seem terribly   16  , but these days other Wall Street firms are  17   about costs. Lay- offs are  18   though not yet alarmingly-not least, because banks saw how Merrill Lynch lost  19  when the markets rebounded quickly after the LTCM crisis. Still, if few  20  of improvement show soon, expect real blood-letting on Wall Street.
1. A. cover  B. encapsulation  C.jacket D.shell
2. A. goes  B comes  C strides  D. steps
3.A.be  B. being  C. as  D. to be
4. A. recorded B. logged  C.chronicled  D. noted
5,A.during  B.at  C. on  D. in
6.A.  stumbled   B. slip  C.blundered  D. crept
7.A. delivered  Bdistributed  C. conveyed  D. issued
8.A. out  B. lacking  C. lack  D. short
9.A. because of  B. on account of  C.thanks to  D.due to
10.A. at   B. in  C.on  D. upon
11.A who  Bwhat  C.whom  D.which
12A. time  B.period  C.epoch  D.era
13.A. most  B.much C. a lot   D. a great deal
14.A. lost   B. losing  C. suffering  D. suffered
15.A. down  B. back  C. off  D. out
16.A. unnecessary B. unreasonable  C. unpopular  D. unfashionable
17.A obsessed  B worried C.concerned  D. bothered
18.A. decreased B.increased  C. increasing  D.decreasing
19.A. field B. ground  C. future  D. hope
20.A. signals  B.symbol  C. signs  D.symptom

Section Ⅱ Reading Comprehension
Part A
TEXT 1
"The news hit the British High Commission in Nairobi at nine-thirty on a Monday morning. Sandy Woodrow took it like a bullet, jaw rigid, chest out, smack through his divided English heart." Crikey. So that\"s how you take a bullet. Poor old Sandy. His English heart must be really divided now. This deliriously hardboiled opening sets the tone for what\"s to come. White mischief? Pshaw! White plague, more like it.
Sandy Woodrow is head of chancery at the British High Commission in Nairobi. The news that neatly subdivides his heart as the novel opens is the death of a young, beautiful and idealistic lawyer turned aid worker named Tessa Quayle. Tessa has been murdered for learning too much about the unscrupulous practices of a large pharmaceutical company operating in Africa. Her body is found at Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan. Tessa\"s husband, Justin, is also a British diplomat stationed in Nairobi. Until now Justin has been an obedient civil servant, content to toe the official line-in short, a plodder. But all that changes in the after math of his wife\"s murder. Full of righteous indignation, he resolves to get to the bottom of it, come what may.
"The Constant Gardener" has got plenty of tense moments and sudden twists and comes complete with shadowy figures lurking in the shrubbery. There is a familiar tone of gentlemanly world-weariness to it all, which should keep Mr. le Carre\"s fans happy. But the novel is also an impassioned attack on the corruption which allows Africa to be used as a sort of laboratory for the testing of new medicines. Elsewhere, Mr. le Carre has denounced the "corporate cant, hypocrisy, corruption and greed" of the pharmaceutical industry. This position is excitingly dramatized in his book, even if the abuses he rails against are not exactly breaking news.
In other respects "The Constant Gardener" is less satisfactory. Mr. le Carre can\"t seem to make up his mind whether he\"s writing a thriller or an expose. In a recent article for the New Yorker he described his creative process as "a kind of deliberately warped journalism, where nothing is quite what it is" and where any encounter may be "freely recast for its dramatic possibilities". Such is the method employed in "The Constant Gardener", whose heroine, Mr. le Carre says, was inspired by an old friend of his. One or two prominent real-life Kenyan politicians are mentioned often enough to become, in effect, "characters" in the story. And in a note at the end of the book Mr. le Carre thanks the various diplomats, doctors, pharmaceutical experts and old Africa hands who gave him advice and assistance, though in the same breath he insists that the staff of the British mission in Nairobi are no doubt all jolly good eggs who bear no resemblance whatsoever to the heartless scoundrels in his story.
There\"s nothing wrong with a bit of artistic license, of course. But Mr. le Carre\"s equivocation about the novel\"s relation to fact undermines its effectiveness as a work of social criticism, which is pretty clearly what it aspires to be. "The Constant Gardener" is a cracking thriller but a flawed exploration of a complicated set of political issues.

21．“The Constant Gardener” is a
A film
B comedy
C novel
D document

22. A thriller is not always full of
A  tense instants
B  truth-exposure
C  frightening background
D  sudden twists

23. The characters in “The Constant Gardener” are not
A  connected with the author’s friends
B  based on real-life people
C  similar to the staff of the British Mission
D  outside to the real life

24. “equivocation” means
A  clear attitude
B  effectiveness
C  ambiguous
D  determination

25. Which is the author’s attitude to Mr. Le Carre?
A disappointment
B indifference
C animadversion
D appreciation

TEXT 2 (another old article!)

AFTER over two years of relative oblivion in self-imposed exile, Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan, has jumped on to the front pages of the country\"s newspapers. She has done so, as it happens, on the basis of a report in a British newspaper. The report claims that the former government of Nawaz Sharif leaned on some judges to convict Miss Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari, for corruption in 1999. The evidence for this is said to be in the form of taped conversations between senior government officials and a judge at Miss Bhutto\"s trial. The tapes were made by a member of Pakistani intelligence who decamped to London and has now, so the story goes, been pricked by conscience.
Miss Bhutto\"s footprints seem to be all over the story. After her conviction in 1999, she claimed that she had not had a fair trial.  The Supreme Court routinely postponed hearing her petition for one reason or another. Last December, when Mr. Sharif was exiled to Saudi Arabia by the present military government of General Pervez Musharraf, Miss Bhutto sensed a political vacuum in the country and considered returning to Pakistan and taking on the generals.
The Musharraf regime said it would arrest her if she set foot in Pakistan and dug up more evidence of her corrupt activities. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear her 1999 petition on February 26th. This led pundits to speculate that the military regime, having got rid of one prime minister, was gearing up to finish off another. But the tapes have compromised the judiciary, whose credibility is already low after decades of battering by generals and politicians. The Supreme Court will be under pressure to acquit Miss Bhutto or order a lengthy retrial which would give her lawyers a chance to air her grievances.
This may be just the beginning of General Musharraf\"s troubles. Disgruntled opponents of the regime have asked the Supreme Court to strike down an "accountability" law under which hundreds of politicians and bureaucrats have been imprisoned or sidelined from politics. Lawyers\" organizations across the country have banded together to announce a national strike on February 27th, demanding an early restoration of civilian rule. And the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy--comprising supporters of Miss Bhutto and Mr. Sharif, along with several other parties--is planning a demonstration on March 23rd, Pakistan Day.
Worse, the religious parties are beginning to suspect that General Musharraf may not be too kindly disposed towards them, despite his reliance on religious militants to fuel the insurgency in Kashmir against India. The government is worried by a sectarian conflict that has claimed dozens of lives. It is embarrassed by outpourings on alleged blasphemy and immorality. Last month, bearded mobs burnt down the offices of the Frontier Post, a Peshawar newspaper that had inadvertently printed a blasphemous letter. Last week, the home minister, Moinuddin Haider, a retired general, was in Afghanistan, asking the Taliban regime not to provide sanctuary to "religious terrorists" from Pakistan. Extremists are now accusing the generals of acting at the behest of "super-Satan America". An exaggeration, surely.

26．In the 1st paragraph, Benazir Bhutto was reported in the newspaper to
A  have two years exile.
B  announce her prosecution.
C  have been treated unfairly.
D  have been convicted of corruption.

27.  The 3rd sentence of the 3rd paragraph, word “another” refers to
A  Pervez Musharraf
B  Nawaz Sharif
C  Benazir Bhutto
D  Asif Zardari

28.  It can be inferred from the text that General Musharraf
A  wanted the Supreme Court to hear Miss Bhutto’s petition earlier.
B  advised Miss Bhutto to compromise with the judiciary.
C  took over the right from Nawaz Sharif because of Nawaz’s having done wrong to Bhutto.
D  felt threatened by Bhutto.

29.  The troubles which now make Musharra uneasy do not include
A  some opponents requiring him to abolish some unreasonable laws.
B  hundreds of political prisoners fighting for their freedom.
C  Musharraf losing support from religious members.
D  some riots and his opponents’ coming strike.

30.  Extremists are rather hostile to
A  Moinuddin Haider
B  the Taliban regime
C  the United States
D  Pakistan religious terrorists
TEXT 3
THE New Year in Japan is always a time for house cleaning. This year, however, the government is giving itself a special dusting down. Japan\"s civil service is enduring its most thorough reform since the Americans occupied the country. Beneath a cloud of paper in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo\"s bureaucratic district, whole ministries are vanishing, merging with each other, or at the very least getting new names. By January 6th, when the removal vans leave, nearly $400m will have been spent shifting 33,000 bureaucrats and their files about the place. The result, say officials, will be smaller government, stronger political leadership and a bureaucracy ready to serve, not rule. Yet opinion polls suggest just one in five Japanese believes them.
The government is undeniably about to get smaller. Mergers will cut the number of ministries and agencies from 22 to 12, and one in four civil service jobs will go over the next ten years. The politicians, meanwhile, get new jobs inside each ministry that are meant to give them more say in policymaking. Most important of all are new powers for the Prime Minister, who gets a strengthened Cabinet Office, lots more staff and, in theory at least, a much bigger say in government spending.
In practice, however, not all of these changes are likely to work exactly according to plan. The Cabinet Office was supposed to se cure a measure of independence by recruiting many of its staff from outside the civil service. But Japan\"s rigid hiring practices have made this difficult. So almost all the important posts have been filled by the usual career bureaucrats.
Reforms to the bureaucracy, meanwhile, look a mixed bag at best. Having already lost its authority to regulate banks, the once-mighty Finance Ministry has ceded more ground. A new body, under the Cabinet Office, will now draft the outline of the national budget. The Finance Ministry looks a softer target than the big spending ministries, with their well-organized networks of friendly politicians. No one has explained how merging the Ministry of Posts and Telecoms, the Management and Co-ordination Agency and the Ministry of Home Affairs will make any of them more efficient.
Other changes seem to run counter to the desired direction. Under the politicians\" original plan, drawn up in 1997, the power of the public-works bureaucracy was to be weakened by splitting the Construction Ministry in two. Perversely, it has instead got bigger, merging with the Transport Ministry, the National Land Agency and the Hokkaido Development Agency to create a monster that will control nearly 800 (what?) of public works spending. Try reforming that.

31．The expression “giving itself a special dusting down” in this passage means
A a special innovation
B a complete government character-shifting
C thorough cleaning
D thorough reorganization
32. From the 2nd paragraph, we can see that
A  in fact, most people don’t believe the reforms can benefit them.
B 
C  politicians have no jobs in the ministry.
D  the Prime Minister will benefit more than others.

33. The last three paragraphs have the same air of
A  disappointment
B  denial
C  objectivity
D  skepticism

34. It can be inferred from the text that the Cabinet Office will
A  grab some power from the financial bureaucracy
B  definitely spend more government money.
C  recruit many of its staff from outside the civil service.
D  reduce the powers given to the prime minister.

35. The Japanese take a(n) ____attitude to the government reform.
A  unconfident
B  indifferent
C  negative
D  chilly

TEXT 4
IN AN essay of this historical sweep, it is always good to have something to shoot at. "The Cash Nexus" provides Niall Ferguson, a prolific Oxford historian, with not one target but several. With practiced eye, he takes aim at the claim that economics decides the course of history; that democracy brings wealth and peace; that Britain and America were undone by imperial overstretch; and that today\"s world is governed by financial markets. Each of these large claims is shot down with elegance and skill, backed up by wide erudition.
The roots of Mr. Ferguson\"s latest work can be detected in his history of the house of Rothschild (1998), though its immediate genesis, as he tells us, was in a planned history of the world\"s bond markets. Having embarked on that, however, he was diverted into a general attack on economic determinism, which constitutes this new book\"s main thread.
He sets out, promisingly enough, to explain how the demands of war and the struggle for power led 18th-century Britain to foster such institutions as a tax-gathering bureaucracy, parliamentary government, a public debt market and a central bank. The obvious contrast is with Britain\"s bigger and richer rival, France, which lacked the right institutional and financial framework to win their innumerable wars.
As Mr. Ferguson points out, for most of the century France had a smaller national debt than Britain--but, crucially, it paid three times as much in debt service, thanks partly to its long history of defaults. Britain\"s eventual triumph was not, therefore, a matter of sheer economic muscle. Bishop Berkeley\"s famous observation, that credit was "the principal advantage that England hath over France", pointed rather to a sounder institutional framework. This episode is wisely offered as a lesson for other countries, even today.
After this strong beginning, however, the book wanders off into the rising demands of the welfare state; the myth that in modern democracies economic success assures electoral success; and the corrupting influence of money on contemporary politics. There is even a foray into the role of gold, Keynes\"s "barbarous relic", to which are added some rather hurried (and mostly negative) comments about the prospects for Europe\"s economic and monetary union. The book closes with a plea for more immigration to western countries (and more defenses spending by them). There is a valiant attempt at a conclusion which gives economics and finances their due, while allowing that sex, violence and the pursuit of power often overwhelm them. By this point, the thread is as good as broken.
None of this is to deny the pleasures and rewards that will be got from "The Cash Nexus" by professional historians and general readers alike. Mr. Ferguson\"s scholarship is lightly worn, and his range of reference wide: from Carlyle (who supplied the title), through Wagner and sundry philosophers to such 19th-century novelists as Tolstoy, Trollope and Zola. Almost every chapter has its own delights. But it is hard to escape the overall conclusion that, after producing so many fine books so quickly, Mr. Ferguson might have done better to have worked out a more coherent and convincing thesis.

36．From the passage, we can learn that Niall Ferguson believes
A financial markets are the owner of the world.
B Britain and America to some extent were influenced by the imperial overstretch
C the process of history is accompanied with the economics.(?)
D democracy brings wealth and peace.

37. France paid much more in debt service than Britain because of
A  being not what it meant. (?)
B  lacking the sheer economic muscle.
C  its less perfect institutional and financial structure.
D  France’s having a higher debt service ratio.

38. Which topic is not mentioned in the passage?
A  Welfare state
B  World economic and monetary union
C  Corrupting influence on politics
D  Economic success being relative to the electoral success

39. Which of the following best defines the world “barbarous”(line 5,para 5)?
A. savage
B. polite
C. gengerous
D. cautious

40. Ferguson’s thesis is
A  exciting
B  convincing
C  satisfying
D  just passable

本文来源：https://shitiku.jxxyjl.com/kaoyan/2670.html