陕西师范大学2012级免费师范教育硕士英语试题注意事项:一、本试题共10页，满分100分。

答案一律写在答题纸上，否则无效。

二、做选择题时，将所选答案书写在答题纸对应题号后的（）三、中英文尽可能做到字迹清晰、书写工整、疏密相间均匀、字体大小适当。

四、英文作文必须逐行书写不得隔行或跳行。

Part I Vocabulary and Structure (20%)Directions: There are 20 incomplete sentences in this part. For each sentence there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the ONE answer that best completes the sentence.1.My job varies between the extremely tedious and the annoyingly busy. ______ I thinkI am happier during the real busy times: no time to think about how bored I am.A. On balanceB. In additionC. FurthermoreD. Aside from2.We are all in favor of your proposal that the meeting ______.A. is called offB. should call offC. is to be called offD. be called off3.______, I walked my dear father.A. Exhausted and hungryB. Having been exhausted and hungryC. Being exhausted and hungryD. To be exhausted and hungry4.I stood still, trying to ______ a plausible excuse.A. createB. produceC. inventD. design5. A new technique ______ out, the output as a whole increased by 15 percent.A. workingB. having workedC. having been worked D to have been worked6.She thinks it‟s time we ______ free school meals.A. did forB. did withC. did withoutD. did away with7.He never regretted paying 300 Yuan for the bookcase. As a matter of fact he wouldgladly have paid ______ for it.A. as much twiceB. twice as muchC. much as twice D as twice much8.He was attending a meeting, ______ come to your birthday party then.A. unless he would haveB. or he wouldC. nevertheless he did not D or he would have9.He ______ the job ______ because it involved too much traveling.A. turned…downB. turned…awayC. turned off D turned…over10. They have made changes in their plans for a new science park as you .A. suggestedB. have suggestedC. had suggestedD. suggest11．In some areas of northwest China, intensive farming has brought about severe_____ of the land, which accounted for poor harvest in recent years.A. deforestationB. dejectionC. delectation D degeneration12．The accuracy of scientific observations and calculations is always_____ the scientist‟s time-keeping methods.A. at the mercy ofB. in accordance withC. under the guidance ofD. by means of 13．Manufacturers raised the price of this product to ______ the increased cost of material.A. write offB. offsetC. make forD. abstain from14．Among other things was the discussion to reach a_______ trade agreement between the two countries.A. reciprocalB. mergedC. marketableD. mature15．Nowadays more Chinese would like to hold their reunion dinner in posh restaurants, despite the______ costs. They find it more enjoyable and physically less demanding.A. hyperbolicB. inexorableC. exorbitantD. protean16. Christmas is a Christian holy day usually celebrated on December 25th _______thebirth of Jesus Christ.A. in accordance withB. in terms ofC. in favor ofD. in honor of17. The _________ to overthrow the revolutionary regime was unearthed and promptlysmashed.A. conspiracyB. trickC. intrigueD. plot18. In the last couple of days, a number of areas in China were hit by heavy snowfalls,powerful winds or suffocating sandstorms. The extremely bad weather has ________ the transportation system in the areas.A. constrainedB. cussedC. crippledD. chucked19. My father is researching the spread of AIDs. And he is ________ in his presentationof experiments.A. relevantB. sacredC. proteanD. meticulous20. Mr. John made a very wonderful after-dinner speech. His ________ mind, gracefulmanner and fluent words moved all the participants deeply.A. awesomeB. articulateC. agileD. arbitraryPart II Reading Comprehension (40%)Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by five questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.Passage OneWhen your parents advise you to "get an education" in order to raise your income, they tell you only half the truth. What they really mean is to get just enough education to provide manpower for your society, but not so much that you prove an embarrassment to your society.Get a high school diploma, at least. Without that, you will be occupationally dead unless your name happens to be George Bernard Shaw or Thomas Alva Edison, and you can successfully dropout in grade school.Get a college degree, if possible. With a B.A., you are on the launching pad. But now you have to start to put on the brakes. If you go for a master's degree, make sure it is an M.B.A., and is famous.Do you know, for instance, that long-haul truck drivers earn more per year than full professors? Yes, the average 1977 salary for those truckers was $24000 while the full professors managed to earn just $23030.A Ph.D. is the highest degree you can get. Except for a few specialized fields such as physics or chemistry where the degree can quickly be turned to industrial or commercial purposes, if you pursue such a degree in any other field, you will face a dim future. There are more Ph.D.s unemployed or underemployed in this country than any other part of the world.If you become a doctor of philosophy in English or history or anthropology or political science or languages or worst of all in philosophy, you run the risk of becoming overeducated for our national demands. Not for our needs, mind you, but for our demands.Thousands of Ph.D.s are selling shoes, driving cars, waiting on table, and endlessly filling out applications month after month. They may also take a job in some high school or backwater college that pays much less than the janitor earns.You can equate the level of income with the level of education only so far. Far enough, that is, to make you useful to the gross national product, but not so far that nobody can turn much of a profit on you.21. According to the writer, what the society expects of education is to turn out peoplewho _____.A. will not be a disgrace to societyB. will become loyal citizensC. can take care of themselvesD. can meet the nation's demands as a source ofmanpower22. Many Ph.D.s are out of job because _____.A. they are improperly educatedB. they are of little commercial value to their societyC. there are fewer jobs in high schoolsD. they prefer easier jobs that make more money23. The nation is only interested in people _____.A. with diplomasB. who specialize in physics and chemistryC. who are valuable to the gross national productD. both A and C24. Which of the following is not true?______A. Bernard Shaw didn't finish high schools, nor did Edison.B. One must think carefully before pursuing a master degree.C. The higher your education level, the more money you will earn.D. If you are too well-educated, you'll be overeducated for society's demands.25. The writer sees education as _____.A. a means of providing job security and financial security and a means of meeting acountry's demands for technical workersB. a way to broaden one's horizonsC. more important than finding a jobD. an opportunity that everyone should havePassage TwoIn the mid-nineteenth century, the United States had tremendous natural resources that could be exploited in order to develop heavy industry. Most of the raw materials that are valuable in the manufacture of machinery, transportation facilities, and consumer goods lay ready to be worked into wealth. Iron, coal, and oil — the basic ingredients of industrial growth — were plentiful and needed only the application of technical expertise, organizational skill, and labor.One crucial development in this movement toward industrialization was the growth of the railroads. The railway network expanded rapidly until the railroad map of the United States looked like a spider‟s web, with the steel filaments connecting all important sources of raw materials, their places of manufacture, and their centers of distribution.The railroads contributed to the industrial growth not only by connecting these major centers, but also by themselves consuming enormous amounts of fuel, iron, and coal.Many factors influenced emerging modes of production. For example, machine tools, the tools used to make goods, were steadily improved in the latter part of the nineteenth century — always with an eye to speedier production and lower unit costs. The products of the factories were rapidly absorbed by the growing cities that sheltered the workers and distributors. The increased urban population was nourished by the increased farm production that, in turn, was made more productive by the use of the new farm machinery. American agricultural production kept up with the urban demand and still had surpluses for sale to the industrial centers of Europe.The labor that ran the factories and built the railways was recruited in part from American farm areas where people were being displaced by farm machinery, in part from Asia, and in part form Europe. Europe now began to send tides of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe —most of whom were originally poor farmers but who settled in American industrial cities. The money to finance this tremendous expansion of the American economy still came from European financiers for the most part, but the Americans were approaching the day when their expansion could be financed in their own “money market”.26. What does the passage mainly discuss?A. The history of railroads in the United States.B. The major United States industrial centers.C. Factors that affected industrialization in the United States.D. The role of agriculture in the nineteenth century.27. The word “ingredients” in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to ________.A. mineralsB. productsC. methodsD. components28. According to the passage, all of the following were true of railroads in the UnitedStates in the nineteenth century EXCEPT that ________.A. they connected important industrial citiesB. they were necessary to the industrialization processC. they were expanded in a short timeD. they used relatively small quantities of natural resources29. According to the passage, what was one effect of the improvement of machine tools?A. Lower manufacturing costs.B. Better distribution of goods.C. More efficient transportation of natural resources.D. A reduction in industrial jobs.30. Which of the following is NOT true of the United States farmers in the nineteenthcentury?A. They lost some jobs because of mechanization.B. They were unable to produce sufficient food for urban areas.C. They raised their productivity by using new machinery.D. They sold food to European countries.Passage ThreeSince the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics—the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close.As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy—far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves -- goals that pose a real challenge. “While w e know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, “we can‟t yet give a robot enough …common sense‟ to reliably interact with a dynamic world.”Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain‟s roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated —than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can‟t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don‟t know quite how we do it.31. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in ________.A. the use of machines to produce science fictionB. the wide use of machines in manufacturing industryC. the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous workD. the elite‟s cunning tackl ing of dangerous and boring work32. The word “gizmos” (Line 1, Paragraph 2) most probably means________.A. programsB. expertsC. devicesD. creatures33. According to the text, what is beyond man‟s ability now is to design a robot that can________.A. fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgeryB. interact with human beings verballyC. have a little common senseD. respond independently to a changing world34 Besides reducing human labor, robots can also________.A. make a few decisions for themselvesB. deal with some errors with human interventionC. improve factory environmentsD. cultivate human creativity35. The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are________.A. expected to copy human brain in internal structureB. able to perceive abnormalities immediatelyC. far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant informationD. best used in a controlled environmentPassage FourThough it is mere 1 to 3 percent of the population, the upper class possesses at least 25 percent of the nation‟s wealth. This class has two segments: upper-upper and lower-upper. Basically, the upper-upper class is “old rich” －families that have been wealthy for several generations －an aristocracy of birth and wealth. Their names are in the Social Register, a listing of acceptable members of high society. A few are known across the nations, such as the Rockefellers, Roosevelts, and Vanderbilts. Most are not visible to the general public. They live in grand seclusion, drawing their income from the investment of their inherited wealth. In contrast, the lower-upper class is the “new rich”. Although they may be wealthier than some of the old rich, the new rich have hustled to make their money like everybody else beneath their class. Thus their prestige is generally lower than that of the old rich, who have not found it necessary to lift a finger to make their money, and who tend to look down upon the new rich.However its wealth is required, the upper class is very, very rich. They have enough money and leisure time to cultivate an interest in the arts and to collect rare books, paintings, and sculptures. They generally live in exclusive areas, belong to exclusive social club, communicate with each other, and marry their own kind －all of which keeps them so distant from the masses that they have been called the out-of-sight class. More than any other class, they tend to be conscious of being members of a class. They also command an enormous amount of power and influence here and abroad, as they hold many top government positions, run the Council on Foreign Relations, and control multinational corporations. Their actions affect the lives of millions.36 All the following statements are true EXCEPT that ______.A. the upper-upper class is of aristocratic originB. the “old rich” enjoy higher prestige than the “new rich”C. the “old rich” isolate themselves and lead a lonely lifeD. the upper class owns at least a quarter of the country‟s wealth37. According to the author, th e “old rich” get richer ______.A. through the Social RegisterB. through their reputationC. by investing their inherited wealthD. by collecting paintings and sculptures38. The reason why the “old rich” look down upon the “new rich” is that ______.A. the former are wealthier than the latterB. the latter sweat themselves to make moneyC. the “new rich” have no interest in artsD. the “old rich” are conscious of being members of the upper class39. The upper class is also called the out-of-sight class because ______.A. they keep away from the general publicB. they spend most of their time abroadC. they don‟t communicate with any peopleD. they move frequently from place to place40 We can learn from the passage that ______.A .the upper class is powerful and influentialB. the upper class collects rare books to make moneyC. the upper class holds all top government positionsD. the “old rich” makes much more money than the “new rich”Part III Writing (40%)Directions: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following drawing. In your essay, you should1)describe the drawing briefly,2)explain its intended meaning, and then3)give your comments.You should write neatly on your ANSWER SHEET. Remember to give a title to your writing.。