2014年考研英语二命题人偏好预测试卷（十）

　  2014年考研英语二命题人偏好预测试卷（十）答案解析 

　　Section I Use of English

　　Directions:

　　Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) from each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)

　　In the late 1960’s, many people in North America turned their attention to environmental problems, and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized. Ecologists pointing __1___ that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking lot __2__.

　　Skyscrapers are also enormous ___3__ , and wasters, of electric power. In one recent year, the addition__4___17 million square feet of skyscraper office space in New York City raised the __5__ daily demand for electricity by 120,000 kilowatts—enough to__6___ the entire city of Albany, New York, for a day.

　　Glass-walled skyscraper can be especially___7__. The heat loss (or gain) through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times __8__ through a typical masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen the strain __9___heating and air-conditioning equipment, __10___ of skyscrapers have begun to use double-glazed panels of glass, and reflective glasses ___11__ with silver or gold mirror films that reduce__12___ as well as heat gain. However, ___13__ skyscrapers raise the temperature of the surrounding air and __14____ neighboring buildings.

　　Skyscrapers put severe pressure on a city’s sanitation __15____, too. If fully occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate 2. 25 million gallons of raw sewage each year—as __16____ as a city the size of Stamford, Connecticut, which has a ___17___ of more than 109,000. Skyscrapers also ___18___ with television reception, block bird flyways, and obstruct air traffic.

　　Still, people __19___ to build skyscrapers for all the reasons that they have always built them—personal ambition and the ___20___ of owners to have the largest possible amount of rentable space.

　　1. A. at B. to C. out D. towards

　　2. A. power B. capacities C. potentials D. capabilities

　　3. A. savers B. consumers C. losers D. spenders

　　4. A. of B. in C. to D. at

　　5. A. point B. top C. summit D. peak

　　6. A. distribute B. give C. supply D. donate

　　7. A. thrifty B. economic C. prosperous D. wasteful

　　8. A. that B. those C. which D. when

　　9. A. to B. between C. on D. both

　　10. A. founders B. consumers C. builders D. suppliers

　　11. A. coated B. filled C. powdered D. stained

　　12. A. brightness B. light C. glare D. gaze

　　13. A. glass-walled B. plastic-walled C. concrete-walled D. mirror-walled

　　14. A. affect B. assist C. protect D. benefit

　　15. A. decorations B. utensils C. facilities D. appliances

　　16. A. more B. much C. few D. little

　　17. A. population B. people C. mankind D. race

　　18. A. intervene B. interfere C. interrupt D. obstacle

　　19. A. stop B. pause C. continue D. terminate

　　20. A. wish B. desire C. Secret D. promise

　　Section II Reading Comprehension

　　Part A

　　Directions:

　　There are 4 passages in this part .Each of the passages is followed by 5 questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET。(40points)

　　Text 1

　　The annual review of American company board practices by Korn/Ferry, a firm of headhunters, is a useful indicator of the health of corporate governance. This year's review, published on November 12th, shows that the Sarbanes-Oxley act, passed in 2002 to try to prevent a repeat of corporate collapses such as Enron's and World Com's, has had an impact on the boardroom--albeit at an average implementation cost that Korn/Ferry estimates at $5.1m per firm.

　　Two years ago, only 41% of American firms said they regularly held meetings of directors without their chief executive present; this year the figure was 93%. But some things have been surprisingly unaffected by the backlash against corporate scandals. For example, despite a growing feeling that former chief executives should not sit on their company's board, the percentage of American firms where they do has actually edged up, from 23% in 2003 to 25% in 2004.

　　Also, disappointingly few firms have split the jobs of chairman and chief executive. Another survey of American boards published this week, by A.T. Kearney, a firm of consultants, found that in 2002 14% of the boards of S&P 500 firms had separated the roles, and a further 16% said they planned to do so. But by 2004 only 23% overall had taken the plunge. A survey earlier in the year by consultants at McKinsey found that 70% of American directors and investors supported the idea of splitting the jobs, which is standard practice in Europe.

　　Another disappointment is the slow progress in abolishing "staggered" boards--ones where only one-third of the directors are up for re-election each year, to three-year terms. Invented as a defence against takeover, such boards, according to a new Harvard Law School study by Lucian Bebchuk and Alma Cohen, are unambiguously "associated with an economically significant reduction in firm value".

　　Despite this, the percentage of S&P 500 firms with staggered boards has fallen only slightly--from 63% in 2001 to 60% in 2003, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Centre.

　　And many of those firms that have been forced by shareholders to abolish the system are doing so only slowly. Merck, a pharmaceutical company in trouble over the possible side-effects of its arthritis drug Vioxx, is allowing its directors to run their full term before introducing a system in which they are all re-elected (or otherwise) annually. Other companies' staggered boards are entrenched in their corporate charters, which cannot be amended by a shareholders' vote. Anyone who expected the scandals of 2001 to bring about rapid change in the balance of power between managers and owners was, at best, naive.

　　21. The Sarbanes-Oxley act is most probably about_________.

　　[A] corporate scandal

　　[B] corporate management

　　[C] corporate cost

　　[D] corporate governance

　　22. The word “backlash” (Line 3, Paragraph 2) most probably means_________.

　　[A] a violent force

　　[B] a strong impetus

　　[C] a firm measure

　　[D] a strong negative reaction

　　23. According to the text, separating the roles between chairman and chief executive is________.

　　[A] a common practice in American companies

　　[B] what many European companies do

　　[C] a must to keep the health of a company

　　[D] not a popular idea among American entrepreneurs

　　24. We learn from the text that a "staggered" board________.

　　[A] is adverse to the increment of firm value

　　[B] gives its board members too much power

　　[C] has been abolished by most American companies

　　[D] can be voted down by shareholders

　　25. Toward the board practice of American companies, the writer’s attitude can be said to be________.

　　[A] biased

　　[B] pessimistic

　　[C] objective

　　[D] critical

　　Text 2

　　Focus on what you do best. This age-old strategy has worked well for RealNetworks, Microsoft's main competitor in multimedia software for the Internet. Now, the smaller Seattle-based firm is trying a novel way to contain the software giant. On October 29th, it released the underlying recipe, or source-code, of its RealPlayer software and will soon do the same for its other programs--giving away a big chunk of its intellectual property.

　　This may sound like a desperate echo of 1998, when Netscape, struggling in Microsoft's chokehold, published the source-code of its web browser (an initiative that yielded few real results until this June, when the first serious new version of the open-source browser, Mozilla, was released). Yet RealNetworks is not playing defence. It is trying to encourage the creation of a common multimedia software infrastructure for every kind of file format and device, thus thwarting Microsoft's ambitions in this promising market.

　　The firm hopes that others in the industry (volunteer programmers, media firms and hardware

　　makers) will take the code, called Helix DNA, improve it and make it run on new devices, such as mobile phones and home stereos, turning RealNetworks' software into an industry standard.Clever licensing terms are supposed to ensure that this standard does not splinter and that the firm still makes money.

　　Individual developers, universities and other non-profit organisations can modify the software as they please, and even redistribute it for free, so long as they also publish the source-code for their changes. This is a sort of payment in kind, for RealNetworks is then allowed to use these contributions. Firms, on the other hand, must pay royalty fees if they distribute more than 1m copies of the code. They also have to make sure that their software works with other Helix DNA products. The software's development community already has 2,000 members. And several hardware makers back the effort. But there are risks. Afraid of piracy, media groups are suspicious of anything that might be related to hackers (although they also do not want to depend on, and pay for, technology controlled by Microsoft). The self-created competition could also hurt RealNetworks if customers decide its commercial products, which will be based on the open source-code but with extra features, are not worth paying extra for.

　　RealNetworks' move is another sign that the software industry is going hybrid. Mixing elements of proprietary software, where the source-code is tightly controlled, with open-source programs enables firms to expand a market, harvest the ideas of others and, they hope, still make money. Even Microsoft is edging this way: it recently announced that partners can now look at--but not modify or re-use--the source-code for Passport, its controversial digital-identity service.

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