2020 浙江杭州师范大学综合英语考研真题
I. Cloze(每小题 1 分,共 50 分)
Fill in each of the blanks with a function word, otherwise the first letter is given
as a clue.
Passage One: Instinct or cleverness?
We have been brought up to fear insects. We regard them as unnecessary creatures
that do more harm than good. We continually wage war (1) ______ them, for they
contaminate our food, carry diseases, or devour our crops. They sting or bite without
provocation; they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat against
our lighted windows. We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders
or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. Reading about them increases our
understanding without dispelling our fears. Knowing that the industrious ant lives
in a highly organized society does nothing to prevent us (2) ______ being filled
with revulsion when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic
lunch. No matter how much we like honey, or how much we have read about the uncanny
sense of direction which bees possess, we have a horror of being (3) s______. Most
of our fears are unreasonable, but they are impossible to erase. At the same time,
however, insects are strangely fascinating. We enjoy reading about them, especially
when we find that, like the praying mantis, they lead perfectly horrible lives. We
enjoy staring (4) ______ them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware
(we hope) (5) ______ our presence. Who has not stood in awe (6) ______ the sight
of a spider pouncing (7) ______ a fly, or a column of ants triumphantly bearing home
an enormous dead beetle?
Last summer I spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up
the trunk of my prize peach tree. The tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered
side of the house. I am especially proud (8) ______ it, not only because it has
survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces luscious
peaches. During the summer, I noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning
to wither. Clusters of tiny insects called aphides were to be found on the underside
of the leaves. They were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort
of honey (9) ______ them. I immediately embarked on an experiment which, even though
it failed to get rid of the ants, kept me fascinated (10) ______ twenty-four hours.
I bound the base of the tree with sticky tape, making (11) ______ impossible for
the ants to reach the aphides. The tape was so sticky (12) ______ they did not dare
to cross it. For a long time, I watched them scurrying around the base of the tree
(13) ______ bewilderment. I even went out at midnight with a torch and noted (14)
______ satisfaction (and surprise) that the ants were still swarming around the
sticky tape (15) ______ being able to do anything about it. I got up early next morning
hoping to find (16) ______ the ants had given up in despair. Instead, I saw that
they had discovered a new (17) r______. They were climbing (18) ______ the wall of
the house and then on to the leaves of the tree. I realized sadly that I had been
completely (19) d______ by their ingenuity. The ants had been quick to find an (20)
a______ to my thoroughly unscientific methods!
Passage Two: Cosmic Dust
We know the universe doesn’t revolve around us. But parts of it do, like household
dust. This continuously reproducing filth is comprised (1) _____ skin cells, hair,
clothing fibres, dirt from outside, dust mites, bacteria and chemicals that can stick
(2) _____ any of these items.
As a child, one of my weekly chores was dusting the house. If you had told 12-year-old
me that, at 37, I would find dusting one of the most comforting things I do at home,
I would have been very concerned about exactly how awful adulthood is. But perhaps
I might have worried less if I had also been told (3) _____ with adulthood would
come knowledge of cosmic dust, which is all over the universe and absolutely does
not revolve around us.
Space dust is part of a fascinating life cycle of structure formation in the universe:
the emergence of stars and planets, as well as their deaths. In the very early
universe, gravity caused hydrogen and helium gas to collapse into objects that often
became densely packed enough ignite nuclear hydrogen burning which leads (4) _____
star formation. The nuclear chain reactions that occur in stars produce elements
heavier (5) _____ hydrogen and helium, like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Even heavier
elements, like neon and titanium, are made in the supernova explosions that can occur
at the end (6) _____ a star’s life.
These explosions blow stardust made of these elements – most commonly silicon and
carbon – out into the universe. Some of it leads to solar system formation, producing
the extrasolar planets we are increasingly capable of observing. In the case (7)
_____ our local star, the sun, that solar system sprouted life on the third-innermost
planet, Earth.
Some of the dust helps form the next-generation stars that burn a little differently
than their forebears because some of the elements they contain are heavier.
One thing cosmic dust does have in common (8) _____ household dust is that it can
be annoying. An ongoing issue in astronomy observations is figuring out how to learn
about objects – from planets to stars – that are obscured (9) _____
cosmic dust
in what we call our line of sight, the path of light travelling from that object
(10) _____
our telescope. Light passing through cosmic dust interacts with its
particles. The dust will sometimes absorb and scatter the light, dimming the
object’s brightness, although this can also offer valuable insight (11) _____ the
size of the dust particles.
Like household dust, cosmic dust can lead (12) _____ misinterpretations of what we
are viewing. Your black television stand can end (13) _____ looking grey if you don’t
clean it. Similarly, cosmic dust can get mistaken for something else. Just five years
ago, researchers on the BICEP2 experiment revealed they had detected gravitational
waves, ripples in space-time, from the universe’s first second of existence. It
turned (14) _____ that instead they had seen (15) d_____. The mistaken announcement
occurred because they hadn’t properly subtracted dust out (16) _____ their data.
In other (17) w_____, dust can really get in the way of taking a good, clean picture.
At the same (18) t_____, studying cosmic dust is a critical part of understanding
how objects form in the cosmos. While most of the matter in the universe is probably
in the form of dark matter, most of the visible matter is in the form of interstellar
dust, not in compact objects like stars and planets. Thus, insight (19) _____
large-scale structures like galaxies requires an understanding of dust dynamics.
One galaxy we would really like to understand is ours, the Milky (20) W_____. But
we face challenges in trying to comprehend it because (21) _____ the way dust obscures
our view, so looking at other examples is (22) i________.
It is good to have neighbours. The Milky (23) W_____ is part of what is known as
the Local Group, a collection of galaxies whose largest members are our own and
Andromeda. By looking at the patterns of dust in Andromeda, we can gain exciting
insight (24) _____ our own corner of the universe. Ant Whitworth at Cardiff
University in the UK recently led a team in doing just that, using (25) d_____ from
the Herschel Space Observatory.
Herschel, named (26) _____ British astronomers and siblings Caroline and William
Herschel, was a European Space Agency telescope that specialised (27) _____
looking
at the universe in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that straddles infrared
and radio waves – exactly where space dust is most visible (28) _____
instruments. With their data, Whitworth and his team affirmed a previously noted
tension between theoretical models of interstellar dust and observations. Dust
continues to give humanity trouble, whether (29) _____ home or (30) _____ the galaxy
next door.
our
II. Translation (每小题 15 分,共 30 分)
Part A
Translate the following into Chinese.
I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight
yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely
remember the brightness of sunshine and what colour red is. It would be wonderful
to see again, but a calamity can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the
other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind.
I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply,
otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean
that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Part B
Translate the following into English.
在发展科学技术方面,我们要共同努力。实现人类的希望离不开科学,第三世界摆脱贫
困离不开科学,维护世界和平也离不开科学。发展高科技,我们还是要花点钱,该花的就要
花。
(每小题 3 分,共 15 分)
III. Paraphrasing
Rephrase the underlined parts in the following passage.
Two European branches of Indo-European language family are particularly important
to consider when looking at the history of how English developed: Germanic languages
and the Romance languages, such as French, Italian, and Spanish, (1) which have their
roots in Latin.
English is in the Germanic branch of Indo-European languages. This branch of
languages came into existence about three thousand years ago in an area around the
Elbe River in what is now Germany. (2) Around the second century BC, what had begun
as one Germanic language split off into three disparate groups. (3) One of these
groups eventually evolved to become the German language spoken today. Another group
was known as West Germanic.
In the fifteen and sixth centuries AD, West Germanic invaders called the Angles and
the Saxons came to the British Isles. They spoke two dialects of West Germanic that
were similar to one another, and (4) these dialects merged into what we today call
Old English, which was very similar to West Germanic. (5) These invaders pushed the
original Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England.
(共 55 分)
IV. Writing
Part A
following essay.(20 分)
Write an essay with about 120 words, summarizing the points made in the
Nowadays, as a consequence of the uprising of novel media such as TV and the
Internet, people tend to read fewer and fewer books, especially literatures. This
phenomenon has aroused new concerns among many because they believe that the culture
would be degraded in the long run if people continue losing interest in literature
reading.
Literature has been constituting a significant part in public reading throughout
human history, because it is believed to be intellectually inspiring and also keep
on stimulating people’s creativity. Thus, as a result of the diminishing literature
reading, the public reading level as a whole must be also undermined subsequently.
Some people are afraid that the progressing decrease in literature reading also
reflects a corruption in social culture. Since people are more attracted to spending
leisure hours on watching TV or surfing on the Internet, the traditional culture
is threatened by a losing of its sponsors. New concerns also emerge, suspecting that
the next generation of adolescents may eventually lose their taste of the romanticism
in our culture because of the absence of literature reading ability. Some people
even believe that the decline in literature reading may even result in a further
shrinkage in the number of publishes. Failing to catch the attention of enough
readers, many excellent literature writers would therefore try to avoid further
writing. In addition, not every literature story could luckily become a book on the
shelf because many publishers are far from being optimistic toward the literature
market.
However, other people think that the situation has been greatly exaggerated. In these
people’s opinion, the fact that fewer people read literature doesn’t necessarily
hurt the public reading level as a whole. As we know, some former literature readers
have converted to science and history reading, which also constitute a major part
in public reading and equally stimulate people’s imagination. Thus, the average
public reading level could be enhanced rather than weakened if many people simply
pick up books on other fields than literature. They think that the rising of new
media such as TV and the Internet functions as a blessing rather than a curse on
our social culture, since the innovation of media reflects the advancement of culture
itself and provides new forms of literature instead of books. If someone should be
blamed because of the decline in literature reading, it must be the authors
themselves. Fewer people read than before because literature books are difficult
to understand. On contrast, TV programs and movies are much more audience-friendly
and thus more readily accepted by many people.
Part B
Write an essay based on the following topic with at least 400 words. Pay
attention to the focus of your theme, development of ideas, origination of structures
and choice of dictions.
(35 分)
Some people say that there are so many sources of news and information today and
it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, so the best way to protect
ourselves is not to believe in anything. Do you agree or disagree with these people’s
opinion? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.