大学生英语竞赛A类阅读理解专项强化真题试卷7

Each time I hear someone say, “Do the math,“ I grit my teeth. The phrase reinforces how little awareness there is about the breadth and scope of the subject. Imagine, if you will, using “ Do the lit“ as an exhortation to spell correctly. 【R1】______Ideas that inform our existence, that permeate our universe and beyond, that can surprise and enthrall. Perhaps the most intriguing if there is the way infinity is harnessed to deal with the infinite range of decimal numbers—a wonder product offered by mathematics to satisfy any measurement needed, down to an arbitrary number of digits. [*] 【R2】______One can develop a fairly good understanding of the power and elegance of calculus, say, without actually being a-ble to use it to solve scientific or engineering problems. Think of it this way: you can appreciate art without acquiring the ability to paint, or enjoy a symphony without being able to read music. Math also deserves to be enjoyed for its own sake. 【R3】______So what math idea can be appreciated without calculation or formulas? One candidate is the origin of numbers. Think of it as a magic trick: harnessing emptiness to create the number zero, then demonstrating how from any whole number, one can create its successor. One from zero, two from one, three from two—a chain reaction of numbers erupts into existence. I still remember when I first experienced this Big Bang of numbers. The walls of my Bombay classroom seemed to blow away, as nascent cardinal numbers streaked through space. 【R4】______I can almost imagine a yoga instructor asking a class to mediate on what would happen if the number of sides kept increasing indefinitely. Eventually, the sides shrink so much that the kinks start flattering out and the perimeter begins to appear curved. And then you see it: what will emerge is a circle, while at the same time the polygon can never actually become one. The realization is exhilarating—it lights up pleasure centres in your brain. This underlying concept of a limit is one upon which all of calculus is built. 【R5】______For instance, enjoying the eye candy of fractal images—those black, amoeba like splotches surrounded by brands of psychedelic colors—hardly qualifies as making a math connection. But suppose you knew that such an image depicts a mathematical rule that plucks every point from its spot and moves it. Imagine this rule applied over and over again, so that every point hops from location to location. The “amoeba“ comprises those well-behaved points that remain hopping around within this black region, while the colored points are more adventurous, loping off toward infinity. Not only does the picture acquire more richness and meaning with this knowledge, it suddenly churns with drama, with activity. Would you be intrigued enough to find out more—for instance, what the different shades of color signified? Would the Big Bang example make you wonder where negative numbers came from? Could the thrill of recognizing the circle as a limit of polygons lure you into visualizing the sphere as a stack of its circular cross sections, as Archimedes did over 2, 000 year ago? Questions 61 to 65 Choose from the sentences A-G the one which best fits each gap of 61-65. There are two extra sentences, which you do not need to use. A. As a mathematician, I can attest that my field is about ideas above anything else. B. Perhaps just as significant, priority can decide who reaps the financial benefits of a new discovery. C. The more deeply you engage with such ideas, the more rewarding the experience is. D. For a more contemplative example, gaze at a sequence of regular polygons: a hexagon, an octagon, a decagon, and so on. E. Sadly, few avenues exist in our society to expose us to mathematical beauty. F. Despite what most people suppose, many profound mathematical ideas don’t require advanced skills to appreciate. G. As a scientist, I have seen many erroneous “discoveries“—including one of my own—greeted with substantial publicity.

On October 2nd, Ashoka Mukpo left his father a voice mail from Monrovia, saying he had “unwelcome but not unexpected news. “ Mukpo, an American freelance camera-man for NBC News, had tested positive for Ebola virus. Mukpo’s father, Mitchell Levy, a pulmonologist who heads critical care at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, immediately helped arrange his son’s transfer to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, one of the four specialized Ebola centres in the United States. The big question then was how to treat the patient. The medical team, which included Levy, planned to intensively monitor Mukpo and give him intravenous replacement of fluids and electrolytes, antibiotics to combat also had three unproven treatments available. TKM-Ebola, which inhibits viral RNA, has worked beautifully in monkeys, the best animal model. Kent Brantly, a missionary doctor in Liberia who developed Ebola and recovered, offered to donate plasma removed from his blood, which contained antibodies that might help. And there was brincidofovir, a drug being developed for other viral infections that has been shown to stop Ebola virus in test tubes. The most famous drug candidate, ZMapp, was not available at the time. After careful consideration, Mukpo and his doctors opted to use the serum—a proven intervention with other viruses—and brincidofovir, which has a substantial safety record. But they decided to forgo TKM-Ebola, despite its promise, because of worries that it could trigger overproduction of cytokines, a dangerous inflammatory response also caused by the Ebola virus, and scant data from human trials. “I was not quite on my deathbed and didn’t need to take any huge risks,“ Mukpo says. His doctor father had reached a similar conclusion. “I didn’t have a high degree of confidence that brincidofovir was going to work, but I was loath to try an investigational agent with no data,“ Levy says. Mukpo survived, but no one has any idea whether the experimental treatments helped him, did nothing, or even slowed his recovery. The same is true for Brandy and 17 other Ebola patients who received experimental interventions in the United States and Europe.(One other Ebola patient was treated in Germany without any experimental interventions.)Many, like Mukpo, were given several treatments at the same time, making it hard to unravel the impact of anyone of them. The fact that they were taken care of in modern, well-staffed hospitals may also help explain why 75 % have survived. “Probably the best we can say is that the experimental treatments are not killing anyone,“ says Michael Kurllla, who heads the Office of Biodefense Research Resources and Translational Research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases(NIAID)in Roekville, Maryland. Now, that’s about to change. As early as next month, researchers will begin trials in West Africa to find a solid answer to the key question: Do the treatments work? Carried out in makeshift e-mergency hospitals by researchers wearing full protective gear in the middle of a deadly epidemic, these will be some of the most unusual drug trials ever done. And they also raise major ethical and practical questions, some of which were intensely debated at a World Health Organization(WHO)meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 11th and 12th. Perhaps the most important one: Is it right to do randomized controlled trials(RCTs), in which some people don’t get the novel intervention ? Doctors without Borders(MSF), which has led the medical response to the outbreak, says no—not with a disease as deadly as Ebola. Instead, on November 13th MSF said it will take part in three trials that will use an alternative design in which everyone who enrolls receives the untested treatment. But others argue that such setups may not give clear answers and squander a precious scientific opportunity. It’s an uncomfortable and complex debate held under extreme time pressure. “ Everyone has stepped outside of their comfort zone in a big way,“ says Peter Horby of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who is leading one of the upcoming trials and attended the WHO meeting. Questions 66 to 70 Answer the following questions with the information given in the passage.

China will speed up legislation covering activities in space to make better use of the nation’s assets and boost space-related industries, according to senior officials. “ As China puts more and more assets into space, conflicts involving our increasing number of activities, limited resources and space debris have become noticeable,“ Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the China National Space Administration, told reporters on the sidelines of an international workshop on space law that opened in Beijing on Monday. Officials and experts from more than 30 nations and international organizations are taking part in the four-day event, which was hosted by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization and the administration. “ The safety of our assets in space depends largely on the enforcement of international space law and our domestic law that governs space activities,“ Tian said, adding that the laws also play an important role in managing and fostering space-related industries, which have been enjoying rapid growth in China. “The market for space-related technologies, data and intellectual property is expanding very fast and has a promising future, so now is the right time for us to make and implement a space law to regulate the market,“ Tian said. Currently, China is the only space power in the world with no space law. By contrast, more than 30 countries, including the United States, Russia and France, have long had a comprehensive legal framework to guide space exploration. Those countries’ space-related industries have benefited greatly from the enforcement of their respective space laws, experts say. China has established a set of regulations to govern its space activities, ranging from the launching of spacecraft and registration of space objects to measures to mitigate and reduce space debris, said Xu Dazhe, director of the Chinese administration. He pledged to cooperate closely with lawmakers to accelerate the introduction of a comprehensive space law, which has been included in the national legislative agenda. The proposed space law is set to regulate the planning of space activities, to control the use of resources and technology transfers, to guarantee the sustainable development of China’s space exploration and to promote international cooperation in space-related fields, Tian said. Hu Hao, a senior expert with China’s lunar exploration program, said that space law is one of the pillars of the country’s “ soft power“ , and the government should draw up and publish the law as soon as possible. “Furthermore, compared with the past—where space activities only involved government departments—an increasing number of institutes and business entities have now been active in the field, with the rapid expansion of a space-related market that requires a foundation of law on which to restructure the current management system,“ he said. Bao Weimin, a space technology researcher and political adviser to the government, said China’s space activities are administered by a number of government bodies and industry organizations , and a body of law should establish an integrated management mechanism and make their responsibilities clear. Questions 71 to 75 Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank. Senior officials announced that China will promote【E1】______in space to exploit the nation’s assets and escalate space-related industries. Officials and experts from more than 30 nations and international organizations are taking part in the four-day event, which was hosted by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization and the administration. They agree that the【E2】______of international space law in space will strengthen space assets safety and have positive effect on managing and fostering space-related industries which are growing fast in China. Currently, more than 30 countries, including the United States, Russia and France, except China, have built a【E3】______to guide space exploration. China has established a set of regulations to govern its space activities, including the launching of spacecraft and registration______of space objects: and measures to【E4】______space debries. The proposed space law is set to regulate the planning of space activities, to control the use of resources and technology transfers, to【E5】______ China’s space exploration and to promote international cooperation in space-related fields.

Shopping malls are symbols of suburban life in the United States. The idea for this most American of architectural landmarks, however, came from a European immigrant, Victor Gruen. [*] Victor Gruen grew up in Vienna, Austria, studying architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, the same school that had previously turned down a fledging artist named Adolf Hitler. At night, Gruen performed theatre in smoke-filled cafes around the city. When Hitler’s Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, Gruen decided to emigrate. One of his theatre friends—posing as an officer in a Nazi uniform—drove Gruen and his wife to the airport. They took the first plane they could catch to Zurich, Switzerland, made their way to England, and then obtained passage on a ship bound for New York. They landed in the United States, as Gruen later remembered, “ with an architect’s degree, eight dollars, and no English. “ One day, Gruen went for a walk in midtown Manhattan and ran into an old friend from Vienna who wanted to open a leather-goods boutique on Fifth Avenue. Gruen agreed to design it, and the result was a revolutionary storefront, with a kind of mini-arcade in the entranceway: six exquisite glass cases, spotlights, and faux marble, with green corrugated glass on the ceiling. It was a “ customer trap“. This was a brand-new idea in American retail design, particularly on Fifth Avenue, where all the storefronts were facing the street. The critics raved. Gruen designed Ciro’s on Fifth Avenue, Steckler’s on Broadway, Paris Decorators on the Bronx Concourse, and eleven branches of the California clothing chain Grayson’s. In the early 1950s, he designed an outdoor shopping centre called Northland, outside Detroit, Michigan. It covered one hundred and sixty-three acres and had nearly ten thousand parking spaces. This was little more than a decade and a half since he had stepped off the boat. When Gruen watched the bulldozers break ground, he turned to his partner and said. “We’ve got a lot of nerve. “ Gruen’s most famous creation was his next project, in the town of Edina, just outside Minneapolis , Minnesota. It was called Southdale Mall. Until then, most shopping centres had been what architects like to call “ extroverted,“ meaning that store windows and entrances faced both the parking area and the interior pedestrian walkways. Southdale was “introverted“—the exterior walls were blank, and all the activity was focused on the inside. Suburban shopping centres had always been in the open, with stores connected by outdoor passageways. Gruen had the radical ideas of putting the whole complex under one roof, with air-conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter. Work on Southdale began in 1954. It cost twenty million dollars and took two years to construct. It had seventy-two stores and two anchor department stores, Donaldson’s on one end and Dayton’s on the other. Almost every other major shopping centre was on a single level, which made for long walks. Gruen’s approach was to put stores on two levels, connected by escalators and fed by two tiered parking. In the middle, he put a kind of town square: a “garden court“ under skylight, with a fishpond, enormous sculpted trees, a twenty-one-foot cage filled with brightly colored birds, balconies with hanging plants, and a cafe. The result was a sensation. Journalists from all of the country’s top publications came for Southdale’s opening. “The Splashiest Centre in the U. S. ,“ wrote one magazine. “A pleasure dome with parking,“ cheered another. One journalist announced that overnight Southdale had become an integral “ part of the American Way. “ It simulated a magnetic urban downtown area in the middle of suburbia: the variety, the individuality, the lights, the color, and the crowds. This downtown essence was enhanced by all kinds of things that ought to be there if downtown areas weren’t so noisy and dirty and chaotic, such as sidewalk cafes, art, islands of planting, and pretty paving. Other shopping centres, however pleasant, seemed provincial in contrast with the real thing, the city’s downtown. In Minneapolis, however, it was the downtown that appeared small and provincial in contrast to Southdale’s metropolitan characters. One person who wasn’t dazzled by Gruen’s concept was the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “What is this, a railroad station or a bus station?“ he asked, when he came for a tour of Southdale. “You’ve got a garden court that has all the evils of the village street and none of its charm. “ No one listened to Frank Lloyd Wright. When it came to malls, it was only Victor Gruen’s vision that mattered. Questions 56 to 60 Mark each statement as either true(T)or false(F)according to the passage.

Read the following passage. Choose from the sentences A—G the one which best fits each gap of 61—65. There are two extra sentences which you do not need to use. For many of us, our days are spent glued to our computers by day, our smartphones by night. 【R1】______But, our reliance on technology is also harming our sight, experts have warned. So widespread is the problem, that 65 percent of Americans now suffer “digital eye strain“ , they said. Symptoms include dry, irritated eyes, blurred vision, eye fatigue, headaches and neck and back pain, according to a report from The Vision Council. Furthermore, 90 percent of patients fail to talk to their opticians about the extent of their digital use. 【R2】______The report reveals that digital eye strain encompasses the physical discomfort felt after two or more hours in front of a digital screen. It is commonly associated with close to mid-range distance of digital screens, including desktop and laptop computers, smartphones, tablets and e-readers. [*] 【R3】______Eight out of every 10 people suffering the affliction use two or more devices simultaneously, the report found. Furthermore, 96 percent of people with digital eye strain spend at least two hours a day on their devices. 【R4】______Prolonged periods of technology use may exacerbate symptoms of the eye strain. The proximity of the screen, the frequency and duration of use and the degree of exposure to high-energy visible or blue light emitted by video screens were also determined to play a role. Mike Daley, CEO of The Vision Council, a trade organization for the optical industry, said: “When using technology, many people think suffering with digital eye strain is unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to be. The optical industry has responded to the shift in digital habits and has developed lens technology to protect eyes from blue light, glare and other environmental stressors. “ 【R5】______They are constructed specifically for the mid-distance range at which users typically view a digital screen. These glasses can be purchased without a prescription. They are customized to reduce blurriness and pixilation, decrease brightness, block blue light and minimize glare while working in front of one or more screens. The group wants doctors to start talking to their patients about whether they should get these computer glasses. Additionally, the report encourages doctors to educate patients about the impact of their daily electronic use. Through education and the monitoring of digital eye strain symptoms, eye care providers may be able to better reduce symptoms in the future. Questions 61 to 65 A. The report determined that a combination of factors fosters the onset of digital eye strain. B. Providers should educate patients about ways to prevent the problem and inform them about eyewear options to limit the impact of devices. C. The Digital Eye Strain Report 2015 analyzed data from a VisionWatch survey of more than 10, 000 adults. D. Two-thirds of adults suffer digital eye strain: staring at devices “for more than 2 hours a day triggers headaches and back pain“. E. These lens are commonly referred to as computer glasses. F. Glare and reflections produced by a computer screen are also undesirable for our vision. G. Increasingly sedentary lifestyles are wreaking havoc on our health, promoting obesity, and increasing the risk of heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases.