2009考研英语长篇连载：阅读理解A命题思路透析（6-13更新）

1997年Passage 1

It was 3:45 in the morning when the vote was finally taken. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia’s Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die. The measure passed by the convincing vote of 15 to 10. Almost immediately word flashed on the Internet and was picked up, half a world away, by John Hofsess, executive director of the Right to Die Society of Canada. He sent it on via the group’s on line service, Death NET. Says Hofsess: “We posted bulletins all day long, because of course this isn’t just something that happened in Australia. It’s world history.”

The full import may take a while to sink in. The NT Rights of the Terminally III law has left physicians and citizens alike trying to deal with its moral and practical implications. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right to life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back. In Australia — where an aging population, life extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their part — other states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia. In the US and Canada, where the right to die movement is gathering strength, observers are waiting for the dominoes to start falling.

Under the new Northern Territory law, an adult patient can request death — probably by a deadly injection or pill — to put an end to suffering. The patient must be diagnosed as terminally ill by two doctors. After a “cooling off” period of seven days, the patient can sign a certificate of request. After 48 hours the wish for death can be met. For Lloyd Nickson, a 54 year old Darwin resident suffering from lung cancer, the NT Rights of Terminally III law means he can get on with living without the haunting fear of his suffering: a terrifying death from his breathing condition. “I’m not afraid of dying from a spiritual point of view, but what I was afraid of was how I’d go, because I’ve watched people die in the hospital fighting for oxygen and clawing at their masks,” he says.

54. The author’s attitude towards euthanasia seems to be that of _____.

[A] opposition

[B] suspicion

[C] approval

[D] indifference

[答案] C

[解题思路]

从全文总体看来，作者虽然一直没有直接表示自己的态度，但三段中他引用的例子，如第一段中“John Hofsess”的话和最后一段中“Lloyd Nickson”的例子都是赞成安乐死的。第二段中虽然指出存在反对的声音，但该段中间作者“But the tide is unlikely to turn back”（但是安乐死这一潮流已无法逆转）一句话笔锋一转，指出这种潮流已经不可逆转，因此可见作者自己也是持支持态度的，正确答案为C。

[题目译文]

54. The author’s attitude towards euthanasia seems to be that of _____.

[A] opposition

[B] suspicion

[C] approval

[D] indifference

作者对于安乐死的态度看起来是 。

[A]反对

[B]怀疑

[C]赞成

[D]漠不关心

1997年Passage 5

Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as “steering the economy to a soft landing” or “a touch on the brakes”, makes it sound like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth. The link between interest rates and inflation is uncertain. And there are long, variable lags before policy changes have any effect on the economy. Hence the analogy that likens the conduct of monetary policy to driving a car with a blackened windscreen, a cracked rear view mirror and a faulty steering wheel.

Given all these disadvantages, central bankers seem to have had much to boast about of late. Average inflation in the big seven industrial economies fell to a mere 2.3% last year, close to its lowest level in 30 years, before rising slightly to 2.5% this July. This is a long way below the double digit rates which many countries experienced in the 1970s and early 1980s.

It is also less than most forecasters had predicted. In late 1994 the panel of economists which The Economist polls each month said that America’s inflation rate would average 3.5% in 1995. In fact, it fell to 2.6% in August, and expected to average only about 3% for the year as a whole. In Britain and Japan inflation is running half a percentage point below the rate predicted at the end of last year. This is no flash in the pan; over the past couple of years, inflation has been consistently lower than expected in Britain and America.

Economists have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America’s, have little productive slack. America’s capacity utilization, for example, his historically high levels earlier this year, and its jobless rate (5.6% in August) has fallen bellow most estimates of the natural rate of unemployment — the rate below which inflation has taken off in the past.

Why has inflation proved so mild? The most thrilling explanation is, unfortunately, a little defective. Some economists argue that powerful structural changes in the world have up ended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation.

70. The passage shows that the author is _____ the present situation.

[A]critical of

[B]puzzled by

[C]disappointed at

[D]amazed at

[答案] D

[解题思路]

从总体上看来，本文主要讨论的是经济现象中新的现象、变化和趋势。文中第一段第二、三句中指出“Nothing could be further from the truth. The link between interest rates and inflation is uncertain”（而事实并非如此。利率和通货膨胀之间的关系并不是确定的），第三段第一句话指出“It is also less than most forecasters had predicted”（这样的通胀率也低于许多预测家预测的数字），第四段第一句话指出“Economists have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States”（尤其让经济学家感到惊讶的是，英美两国的通胀率带来了良性的结果），而最后一段总结到“powerful structural changes in the world have up ended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation”（世界经济结构强有力的变化已经打破了那个以经济增长和通货膨胀的原有关联为基础的旧有经济模式）。从这些语句中都可以判断作者也是以非常惊奇的语气来进行描述的，因此正确答案为D。

[题目译文]

70. The passage shows that the author is _____ the present situation.

[A]critical of

[B]puzzled by

[C]disappointed at

[D]amazed at

文章显示了作者对目前形势的态度是 。

[A]批评

[B]困惑

[C]失望

[D]惊奇

1998年Passage 3

Science has long had an uneasy relationship with other aspects of culture. Think of Gallileo’s 17th century trial for his rebelling belief before the Catholic Church or poet William Blake’s harsh remarks against the mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton. The schism between science and the humanities has, if anything, deepened in this century.

Until recently, the scientific community was so powerful that it could afford to ignore its critics - but no longer. As funding for science has declined, scientists have attacked “antiscience” in several books, notably Higher Superstition, by Paul R.Gross, a biologist at the University of Verginia, and Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers University; and The Demon Haunted World, by Car Sagan of Cornell University.

Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as “The Flight from Science and Reason,” held in New York City in 1995, and “Science in the Age of (Mis)information,” which assembled last June near Buffalo.

Antiscience clearly means different things to different people. Gross and Levitt find fault primarily with sociologists, philosophers and other academics who have questioned science’s objectivity. Sagan is more concerned with those who believe in ghosts, creationism and other phenomena that contradict the scientific worldview.

A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the antiscience tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research.

Few would dispute that the term applies to the Unabomber, those manifesto, published in 1995, scorns science and longs for return to a pretechnological utopia. But surely that does not mean environmentalists concerned about uncontrolled industrial growth are antiscience, as an essay in US News & World Report last May seemed to suggest.

The environmentalists, inevitably, respond to such critics. The true enemies of science, argues Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, a pioneer of environmental studies, are those who question the evidence supporting global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and other consequences of industrial growth.

Indeed, some observers fear that the antiscience epithet is in danger of becoming meaningless. “The term ‘antiscience’ can lump together too many, quite different things,” notes Harvard University philosopher Gerald Holton in his 1993 work Science and Anti Science. “They have in common only one thing that they tend to annoy or threaten those who regard themselves as more enlightened”

62. The author’s attitude toward the issue of “science vs. antiscience” is _____ .

[A] impartial

[B] subjective

[C] biased

[D] puzzling

[答案] A

[解题思路]

本文讨论的主要论题就是关于科学与文化在各个方面上的关系问题，其中举了很多互相矛盾的例子，之后又提出了antiscience这个问题，为读者提供了大量的信息。但是显然文章中并没有表示作者感情态度的词语出现，作者最后也没有做出明确的结论，说明他的态度是客观的，没有偏见的。

[题目译文]

62. The author’s attitude toward the issue of “science vs. antiscience” is _____ .

[A] impartial

[B] subjective

[C] biased

[D] puzzling

作者对于“科学与反科学对立”这个问题的态度是 。

[A]公正的

[B]主观的

[C]有偏见的

[D]令人困惑的

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