1、第 1 页 共 13 页北京外国语大学2011 年硕士研究生入学考试英语基础测试（技能） （样题）Part I GRAMMAR (30 Points)A、Correct ErrorsThe passage contains ten errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of one error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong w
2、ord, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a and write the word which you believe is missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.For an unnecessary word, cross the unnece
3、ssary word with a slash and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line. The elderly who finds great rewards and satisfactions (1)_In their later lives are a small minority in this country. But theyDo exist. They are the “aged elite”. It is most striking about these (2)_People is their
4、 capacity for growth. When Arthur Robinson was Eighty, someone told him that he was plying piano better than (3)_Ever. “I think so,” he agreed. “Now I take chances I never took Before. I was used to be so much more careful. No wrong notes. (4)_Not too bold ideas. Now I let go and enjoy myself and to
5、 be with (5)_Everything besides the music.” Another reason for the success ofThe aged elite are the traits they formed earlier in their lives. A (6)_Sixty-eight-year old woman, three times married and widowed,Says,” Its not just what you do when youre past sixty-five. Its whatYou did all your life w
6、hich matters. If you have lived a full life, (7)_Developed your mind, you will be able to use it past sixty-five.Along frankness comes humor. A sense of humor is an (8)_aid people use to cope with tension. “Humor,” says Dr. Barren, “also leads you to join with other people. There are two ways to Dea
7、l with stress. We either reach out or withdraw. The reachers (9)_seek out other people to share their problems instead of pulling away.” Growing, active, humorous, sharing these are all qualitieswhich describe the aged elite. (10)_第 2 页 共 13 页Part II READING COMPREHENSION (60 points)A. Multiple Choi
8、cePlease read the following passages and choose A, B, C or D to best complete the statements about them.The Perils of EfficiencyThis spring, disaster loomed in the global food market. Precipitous increases in the prices of staples like rice (up more than a hundred and fifty per cent in a few months)
9、 and maize provoked food riots, toppled governments, and threatened the lives of tens of millions. But the bursting of the commodity bubble eased those pressures, and food prices, while still high, have come well off the astronomical levels they hit in April. For Americans, the drop in commodity pri
10、ces has put a few more bucks in peoples pockets; in much of the developing world, it may have saved many from actually starving. So did the global financial crisis solve the global food crisis?Temporarily, perhaps. But the recent price drop doesnt provide any long-term respite from the threat of foo
11、d shortages or future price spikes. Nor has it reassured anyone about the health of the global agricultural system, which the crisis revealed as dangerously unstable. Four decades after the Green Revolution, and after waves of market reforms intended to transform agricultural production, were still
12、having a hard time insuring that people simply get enough to eat, and we seem to be more vulnerable to supply shocks than ever. It wasnt supposed to be this way. Over the past two decades, countries around the world have moved away from their focus on “food security” and handed market forces a great
13、er role in shaping agricultural policy. Before the nineteen-eighties, developing countries had so-called “agricultural marketing boards,” which would buy commodities from farmers at fixed prices (prices high enough to keep farmers farming), and then store them in strategic reserves that could be use
14、d in the event of bad harvests or soaring import prices. But in the eighties and nineties, often as part of structural-adjustment programs imposed by the I.M.F. or the World Bank, many marketing boards were eliminated or cut back, and grain reserves, deemed inefficient and unnecessary, were sold off
15、. In the same way, structural-adjustment programs often did away with government investment in and subsidies to agriculturemost notably, subsidies for things like fertilizers and high-yield seeds. The logic behind these reforms was simple: the market would allocate resources more efficiently than go
16、vernment, leading to greater productivity. Farmers, instead of growing subsidized maize and wheat at high cost, could concentrate on cash crops, like cashews and chocolate, and use the money they made to buy staple foods. If a country couldnt compete in the global economy, production would migrate t
17、o countries that could. It was also assumed that, once governments stepped out of the way, private investment would flood into agriculture, boosting performance. And 第 3 页 共 13 页international aid seemed a more efficient way of relieving food crises than relying on countries to maintain surpluses and
18、 food-security programs, which are wasteful and costly.This “marketization” of agriculture has not, to be sure, been fully carried through. Subsidies are still endemic in rich countries and poor, while developing countries often place tariffs on imported food, which benefit their farmers but drive u
19、p prices for consumers. And in extreme circumstances countries restrict exports, hoarding food for their own citizens. Nonetheless, we clearly have a leaner, more market-friendly agricultural system than before. It looks, in fact, a bit like global manufacturing, with low inventories (wheat stocks a
20、re at their lowest since 1977), concentrated production (three countries provide ninety per cent of corn exports, and five countries provide eighty per cent of rice exports), and fewer redundancies. Governments have a much smaller role, and public spending on agriculture has been cut sharply.The pro
21、blem is that, while this system is undeniably more efficient, its also much more fragile. Bad weather in just a few countries can wreak havoc across the entire system. When prices spike as they did this spring (for reasons that now seem not entirely obvious), the result is food shortages and malnutr
22、ition in poorer countries, since they are far more dependent on imports and have few food reserves to draw on. And, while higher prices and market reforms were supposed to bring a boom in agricultural productivity, global crop yields actually rose less between 1990 and 2007 than they did in the prev
23、ious twenty years, in part because in many developing countries private-sector agricultural investment never materialized, while the cutbacks in government spending left them with feeble infrastructures.These changes did not cause the rising prices of the past couple of years, but they have made the
24、m more damaging. The old emphasis on food security was undoubtedly costly, and often wasteful. But the redundancies it created also had tremendous value when things went wrong. And one sure thing about a system as complex as agriculture is that things will go wrong, often with devastating consequenc
25、es. If the just-in-time system for producing cars runs into a hitch and the supply of cars shrinks for a while, people can easily adapt. When the same happens with food, people go hungry or even starve. That doesnt mean that we need to embrace price controls or collective farms, and there are sensib
26、le market reforms, like doing away with import tariffs, that would make developing-country consumers better off. But a few weeks ago Bill Clinton, no enemy of market reform, got it right when he said that we should help countries achieve “maximum agricultural self-sufficiency.” Instead of a more eff
27、icient system, we should be trying to build a more reliable one. (1) What can be learned from the first paragraph?A Global financial crisis destablized governments.B Food riots resulted from skyrockeing food bills. C Financial crisis worsens food crisis.D Food prices surged by 150% in April.第 4 页 共
28、13 页(2) The food crisis revealed the global agricultural system as .A fragileB unresponsiveC costlyD unbearable(3) According to the third paragraph, structural-adjustment programs . A intended to cope with poor harvestsB were introduced as part of “market forces” policiesC removed price controls and
29、 state subsidiesD encouraged countries to focus on food security(4) The marketization of agriculture probably means .A private investment floods into agriculture B market forces provide efficiency in agricultureC agricultural policy works with the free market systemD agricultural production is free
30、from government intervention(5) Which of the following is NOT a feature of the existing agricutural system?A Reduced government spending.B Concentrated production.C Self-sufficiency.D Low wheat stocks.(6) In the last paragraph, the underlined part “the redundancies” probably refer to .A High-yield s
31、eedsB Grain reservesC Cash cropsD Corn importsMinding the Inequality GapDuring the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-
32、income country.Some analysts see the gulf between the rich and the rest as an incentive for strivers, or as just the way things are. Others see it as having a corrosive effect on peoples faith in the markets and democracy. Still others contend that economic polarization is a root cause of Americas p
33、olitical polarization. Could, and should, something be done?第 5 页 共 13 页Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, two Harvard economists, think yes. Their book, The Race Between Education and Technology (Harvard, $39.95), contains many tables, a few equations and a powerfully told story about how and why
34、 the United States became the worlds richest nation namely, thanks to its schools.The authors skillfully demonstrate that for more than a century, and at a steady rate, technological breakthroughs the mass production system, electricity, computers have been increasing the demand for ever more educat
35、ed workers. And, they show, Americas school system met this demand, not with a national policy, but in grassroots fashion, as communities taxed themselves and built schools and colleges.Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace, resulting, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz cont
36、end, in a sharply unequal nation. The authors allow that a decline in union membership and in the inflation-adjusted minimum wage also contributed to the shift in who partook of a growing pie. But they rule out the usual suspects globalization (trade) and high immigration as significant causes of ri
37、sing inequality. Amid the current calls to restrict executive compensation, their policy prescription is to have more Americans graduate from college.If only it were that easy.The authors argument is really two books in one. One offers an incisive history of American education, especially the spread
38、 of the public high school and the state university system. It proves to be an uplifting tale of public commitment and open access. The authors remind us that the United States long remained “the best poor mans country.” A place where talent could rise.The other story rigorously measures the impact
39、of education on income. The authors compilation of hard data on educational attainment according to when people were born is an awesome achievement, though not always a gripping read.They show that by the 1850s, Americas school enrollment rate already “exceeded that of any other nation.” And this le
40、ad held for a long time. By 1960, some 70 percent of Americans graduated from high school far above the rate in any other country. College graduation rates also rose appreciably.In the marketplace, such educational attainment was extremely valuable, but it didnt produce wide economic disparity so lo
41、ng as more people were coming to the job market with education. The wage premium or differential paid to people with a high school or a college education fell between 1915 and 1950.But more recently, high school graduation rates flatlined at around 70 percent. American college attendance rose, thoug
42、h college graduation rates languished. The 第 6 页 共 13 页upshot is that while the average college graduate in 1970 earned 45 percent more than high school graduates, the differential three decades later exceeds 80 percent.“In the first half of the century,” the authors summarize, “education raced ahea
43、d of technology, but later in the century technology raced ahead of educational gains.” Proving that the demand for and supply of educated workers began not in the time of Bill Gates but in the era of Thomas Edison is virtuoso social science. But wasnt a slowdown in rising educational attainment una
44、voidable? After all, its one thing to increase the average years of schooling by leaps and bounds when most people start near zero, but quite another when the national average is already high. The authors reject the idea that the United States has reached some natural limit in educational advances.
45、Other countries are now at higher levels. What, then, is holding American youth back? The authors give a two-part answer. For one thing, the financial aid system is a maze. More important, many people with high school diplomas are not ready for college. The second problem, the authors write, is conc
46、entrated mostly in inner-city schools. Because the poor cannot easily move to better school districts, the authors allow that charter schools as well as vouchers, including those for private schools, could be helpful, but more evaluation is necessary. Data on the effects of preschool are plentiful,
47、and point to large returns on investment, so the authors join the chorus in extolling Head Start, the federal governments largest preschool program. Providing more children with a crucial start, along with easier ways to find financial aid, are laudable national objectives. One suspects, though, tha
48、t the obstacles to getting more young people into and through college have to do with knotty social and cultural issues.But assume that the authors policies would raise the national college graduation rate. Would that deeply reduce inequality?Averages can be deceptive. Most of the gains of the recen
49、t flush decades have not gone to the college-educated as a whole. The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industrys share of corporate
