2007北京太奇培训学校考研英语强化班授课讲义(四)

2007 –KY--4  内部资料 翻印必究

I. Use of English (Cloze)

    Business and government leaders also consider the inflation rate to be an important general indicator. Inflation is a period of increased___1___that causes rapid rises in prices. When your money buys___2___goods so that you get less for the same amount of money___3___before, inflation is the problem.  There is a general rise___4___the price of goods and services. Your money buys less. Sometimes people___5___inflation as a time when “a dollar is not worth a dollar any more.”

    Inflation is a problem for all consumers. People who live on a fixed income are___6___the most. Retired people, for instance, cannot___7___on an increase in income as prices rise. Elderly people who don’t work face serious problems in stretching their incomes to___8___their needs in time of inflation.___9___income or any fixed income usually does not rise as fast as prices. Many retired people must cut their spending to___10___rising prices. In many___11___they must stop buying some necessary items, such as food and clothing.

    Even for working people whose incomes are going up, inflation can be a problem___12___the cost of living rises, too. People who work must have even more money to___13___their standard of living. Just buying the things they need___14  more. When incomes do not keep pace with rising prices, the standard of living goes down. People may be earning the same  15___of money, but they are not living as well because they are not able to buy___16___many goods and services.

    Government units___17___information about prices in our economy and publish it as price indexes from which the rate of change can be determined. A price index___18___changes in prices using the price for a given year as the base. The base price is set___19___100, and the other prices are___20___as a percentage of the base price.  (321 words)

 1. A. demanding           B. spending            C. consuming              D. borrowing
 2. A. a few             B. more               C. fewer                  D. a little
 3. A. than               B. like               C. since                  D. as
 4. A. in                  B. for                C. at                     D. to
 5. A. render              B. depict            C. describe                D. assume
 6. A. hurt                B. undermined           C. damaged             D. spoiled
 7. A. depend             B. rest               C. rely                  D. count
 8. A. acquire             B. obtain               C. meet                   D. suit
 9. A. Government         B. Development        C. Retirement              D. Employment
10. A. put up with         B. keep up with          C. fall in with            D. get on with
11. A. occasions           B. cases                C. positions               D. situations
12. A. although            B. if                C. when                  D. because
13. A. keep up             B. keep to            C. reckon on              D. reckon with
14. A. spends              B. costs                C. consumes               D. wastes
15. A. number             B. portion              C. amount                D. sum
16. A. so                 B. too                 C. that                   D. as
17. A. accept             B. attain                C. utilize                 D. gather
18. A. measures       B. estimates              C. assesses                D. evaluates
19. A. against           B. at                C. by                    D. on
20. A. reported       B. designated            C. decided               D. publicized

II. 选择搭配题

Directions：

    The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41—45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A—E to fill in each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in Boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.  (10 points)

[A] “I just don’t know how to motivate them to do a better job. We’re in a budget crunch and I have absolutely no financial rewards at my disposal. In fact, we’ll probably have to lay some people off in the near future. It’s hard for me to make the job interesting and challenging because it isn’t — it’s boring, routine paperwork, and there isn’t much you can do about it.

[B] “Finally, I can’t say to them that their promotions will hinge on the excellence of their paperwork. First of all, they know it’s not true. If their performance is adequate, most are more likely to get promoted just by staying on the force a certain number of years than for some specific outstanding act. Second, they were trained to do the job they do out in the streets, not to fill out forms. All through their career it is the arrests and interventions that get noticed.

[C] “I’ve got a real problem with my officers. They come on the force as young, inexperienced men, and we send them out on the street, either in cars or on a beat. They seem to like the contact they have with the public, the action involved in crime prevention, and the apprehension of criminals. They also like helping people out at fires, accidents, and other emergencies．

[D] “Some people have suggested a number of things like using conviction records as a performance criterion. However, we know that’s not fair — too many other things are involved. Bad paperwork increases the chance that you lose in court, but good paperwork doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win. We tried setting up team competitions based on the excellence of the reports, but the guys caught on to that pretty quickly. No one was getting any type of reward for winning the competition, and they figured why should they labor when there was no payoff.

[E] “The problem occurs when they get back to the station. They hate to do the paperwork, and because they dislike it, the job is frequently put off or done inadequately. This lack of attention hurts us later on when we get to court. We need clear, factual reports. They must be highly detailed and unambiguous. As soon as one part of a report is shown to be inadequate or incorrect, the rest of the report is suspect. Poor reporting probably causes us to lose more cases than any other factor.

[F] “So I just don’t know what to do. I’ve been groping in the dark in a number of years. And I hope that this seminar will shed some light on this problem of mine and help me out in my future work.”

[G] A large metropolitan city government was putting on a number of seminars for administrators, managers and/or executives of various departments throughout the city. At one of these sessions the topic to be discussed was motivation -- how we can get public servants motivated to do a good job. The difficulty of a police captain became the central focus of the discussion.

Order:

课外作业（课上不讲，下次课提供答案）

Directions:

    The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 1-5, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A-E to fill in each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in Boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)

[A] These silent, zero-emission gadgets have long been used in NASA spacecraft. They represent the great hope of many environmentalists to power the first mass-produced electric car.
[B] Whether they are used to run cars and buses or to make electricity for other applications, fuel cells operate by converting hydrogen to electricity without combustion. They are akin to continuously-recharging batteries. Hydrogen and oxygen are fed into a stack of plates that create electricity, with harmless water vapor as the by-product.
[C] While batteries alone haven’t supplied the performance most drivers want, proponents believe that fuel cells, probably combined with batteries, hold the promise of performance, range and better mileage compared with today’s internal combustion engines.
[D] If they work, methanol fuel cells could be a major breakthrough in energy consumption and conservation. The brave new technology could drastically cut air pollution from auto emissions and other sources.
[E] The size and weight of fuel cells have always been problems. New fuel-cell technology promises to solve those issues.
[F] Fuel cells can use various sources of hydrogen, including a simple tank of compressed gas. But methanol, a liquid usually produced from natural gas, is a much more efficient way to store hydrogen. This is why the first wave of fuel cells in cars will likely use an indirect methanol fuel cell, in which the methanol passes through a mechanism called a “reformer”, which extracts the hydrogen.
[G] A new, lightweight fuel cell that runs on methanol may one day power your electric car. Sooner still, the new cell may fuel smaller devices such as your lap-top computer or mobile phone.

Order:

III.  English-Chinese Translation

    1) It is the business of the scientist to accumulate knowledge about the universe and all that is in it, and to find, if he is able, common factors which underlie and account for the facts that he knows. He chooses, when he can, the method of the “controlled experiment”. If he wants to find out the effect of light on growing plants, he takes many plants, as alike as possible. Some he stands in the sun, some in the shade, some in the dark, all the time keeping all other conditions (temperature, moisture, nourishment) the same. In this way, by keeping other conditions constant, and by varying the light only, the effect of light on the plants can be clearly seen.  2) This method of using “controls” can be applied to a variety of situations, and can be used to find the answers to questions as widely different as “Must moisture be present if iron is to rust?” and “Which variety of beans gives the greatest yield in one season? ”

    In the course of his inquiries the scientist may find what he thinks is one common explanation for an increasing number of facts. The explanation, if it seems consistently to fit the various facts, is called a hypothesis. If a hypothesis continues to stand the test of numerous experiments and remains unshaken, it becomes a law.

    3) The scientist is always most gratified to find that an underlying “explanation” of many phenomena suggests in its turn the possibility of proving its own accuracy or falsity by a suitably arranged critical experiment. He is also gratified when his “explanation”, if true, points to a new series of experiments designed to answer a new set of questions. For the curiosity of the scientist is never satisfied.

    The evidence as to the vastness of the universe and the complexity of its arrangements continues to grow at an amazing rate. The gap between what we know and all that can be known seems not to diminish, but rather to increase with every new   discovery. Fresh unexplored regions are forever opening out.

    4) The rapidity of the increase of scientific knowledge, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is apt to give students and teachers the impression that no sooner is a problem stated than the answer is forthcoming. A more detailed study of the history of science corrects the impression that fundamental discoveries are made with dramatic suddenness. Even in our present age no less than fifty years separate the discovery of radioactivity from the explosion of the first atomic bomb. Much of the fundamental information which now enables us to control the onset and duration of disease was known a century ago.

    5) The teacher, giving his brief accounts of scientific discovery, is liable to forget the long periods of misunderstanding, of false hypotheses and general uncertainty, which almost invariably precede the clear statement of scientific truth. (486 words)

IV. Writing Practice

Directions:

    Your are preparing for an English test and are in need of some reference books. Write a letter to the sales department of a bookstore to ask for:

    1)detailed information about the books you want,
    2)methods of payment,
    3)time and way of delivery.

Sample:

Dear Sir / Madam,

    Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Li Ming. At present I’m preparing for a national English test. Therefore, I badly need a good dictionary. 能否请您告诉我一些有关词典的情况。您的书店里现在有些什么词典？哪一本最符合我的需要？Besides, I also want to know how I will pay for it. 请您告诉我是用现金还是支票支付书款。By the way, if everything goes smoothly, when can I get the dictionary? 您用什么方式把书转给我呢？

    Thank you very much for your time. I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours faithfully,

Li Ming

作业：1. 复习本单元内容，配合“复习指导”迅速浏览其中的语法和词汇，为完形、英译汉打好基础。

    2. 做“复习指导”中相关 “完形”和“英译汉”练习。

    3. 背记本单元应用文。

赠言：有志者事竟成。(Where there is a will there is a way.)

选择搭配题参考译文 (课外练习)

    也许有一天你的电动小轿车会用一种新型的、以甲醇为燃料的轻型燃料电池作动力。 这种新电池可能不久后还可以为你的便携式电脑或移动电话等小型设备提供燃料。

    一旦投入使用，甲醇燃料电池可能是在能源消耗和能源储存方面的一个重大突破。这种引人注目的新技术能极大地减少汽车尾气和其它原因造成的空气污染。

    燃料电池无论是用来驱动小轿车和公共汽车，还是用作其它设备的电源， 工作时都不需燃料就把氢转化为电。它类似于在连续充电的电池， 氢和氧被输入一堆发电的多层板片装置， 同时排出无害的水蒸气作为副产品。

    这种低噪音、无排放物的小玩意儿早就在美国航空航天局的航天器上派上了用场。很多环保主义者对它寄予厚望， 期待它能为首批大量生产的电动小轿车提供动力。

    尽管仅靠蓄电池不能满足大多数驾驶员对车子工作性能的需要， 但倡导者们认为，燃料电池， 也许加上蓄电池，在车子性能、行驶路程、耗油量等方面有望胜过现在使用的内燃机。

    燃料电池的大小和重量一直是没有解决的问题。新的燃料电池技术可望解决这些问题。

    燃料电池能使用各种来源的氢气，包括一种简单的压缩气储罐。 但通常从天然气中产生的一种液体─—甲醇─—能跟有效地储存氢。这就是为什麽在小轿车中首批使用的很可能是一种间接的甲醇燃料电池。在该电池中， 甲醇里的氢通过一个叫做“重整器”的机械装置被提取出来。

帮助你学习记忆单词的有效方法 -- 同根词解析

lat [拉丁语词根] 带有，产生，进行
*relate [re回 + lat带 + e] vi. (to) 有关联  vt. 1.使互相关联   2.叙述，讲述
*relation n. 1. 关系，联系   2. 亲属，亲戚
*relationship n. 关系，联系
*relative a. 相对的，比较的   n. 亲属，亲戚        *relativity n. 相对论，相关性
*relevant a. 相关的
*irrelevant a. 不着边际的
*correlate [cor=con 共同 + relate关联]  vt. 使相互关联  v. (to, with) 和 … 相关
*correlation n. 相互关系，相关（性）              
*translate [trans转移 + lat产生 + e ---- 换一种语言说出来] v. 翻译
*translation n. 1. 翻译，译   2. 译文，译本
*translator n. 译者

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