1、考研英语二真题 2015 年Directions:Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A，B ，C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)In our contemporary culture, the prospect of communicating withor even looking ata stranger is virtually unbearable. Everyone around us seems to agre
2、e by the way they fiddle with their phones, even without a 1 on a subway.Its a sad realityour desire to avoid interacting with other human beingsbecause theres 2 to be gained from talking to the stranger standing by you. But you wouldnt know it， 3 into your phone. This universal protection sends the
3、 4 : “Please dont approach me.”What is it that makes us feel we need to hide 5 our screens?One answer is fear, according to Jon Wortmann, executive mental coach. We fear rejection，or that our innocent social advances will be 6 as “weird.” We fear well be 7 .We fear well be disruptive.Strangers are i
4、nherently 8 to us，so we are more likely to feel 9 when communicating with them compared with our friends and acquaintances. To avoid this uneasiness, we 10 to our phones. “Phones become our security blanket,” Wortmann says. “They are our happy glasses that protect us from what we perceive is going t
5、o be more 11 .”But once we rip off the bandaid，tuck our smartphones in our pockets and look up，it doesnt 12 so bad. In one 2011 experiment，behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked commuters to do the unthinkable: Start a 13 . They had Chicago train commuters talk to their fel
6、low 14 . “When Dr. Epley and Ms. Schroeder asked other people in the same train station to 15 how they would feel after talking to a stranger, the commuters thought their 16 would be more pleasant if they sat on their own,” The New York Times summarizes. Though the participants didnt expect a positi
7、ve experience, after they 17 with the experiment, “not a single person reported having been embarrassed.”18 , these commutes were reportedly more enjoyable compared with those without communication, which makes absolute sense, 19 human beings thrive off of social connections. Its that 20 : Talking t
8、o strangers can make you feel connected.1. A. ticket B. permit C.signal D. record2. A. nothing B. little C.another D. much3. A. beaten B. guided C.plugged D. brought4. A. message B. code C.notice D. sign5. A. under B. beyond C. behind D. from6. A. misinterpreted B. misapplied C. misadjusted D. misma
9、tched7. A. fired B. judged C. replaced D. delayed8. A. unreasonable B. ungrateful C. unconventional D. unfamiliar9. A. comfortable B. anxious C. confident D. angry10. A. attend B. point C. take D. turn11. A. dangerous B. mysterious C. violent D. boring12. A. hurt B. resist C. bend D. decay13. A. lec
10、ture B. conversation C. debate D. negotiation14. A. trainees B. employees C. researchers D. passengers15. A. reveal B. choose C. predict D. design16. A. voyage B. flight C. walk D. ride17. A. went through B. did away C. caught up D. put up18. A. In turn B. In particular C.In fact D. In consequence19
11、. A. unless B. since C. if D. whereas20. A. funny B. simple C. logical D. rareSection Reading ComprehensionPart ADirections:Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by chosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)Text 1A new study suggests that c
12、ontrary to most surveys, people are actually more stressed at home than at work. Researchers measured peoples cortisol, which is a stress marker, while they were at work and while they were at home and found it higher at what is supposed to be a place of refuge.“Further contradicting conventional wi
13、sdom, we found that women as well as men have lower levels of stress at work than at home,” writes one of the researchers, Sarah Damaske. In fact women say they feel better at work. She notes. “It is men, not women, who report being happier at home than at work.” Another surprise is that the finding
14、s hold true for both those with children and without, but more so for nonparents. This is why people who work outside the home have better health.What the study doesnt measure is whether people are still doing work when they re at home, whether it is household work or work brought home from the offi
15、ce. For many men, the end of the workday is a time to kick back. For women who stay home, they never get to leave the office. And for women who work outside the home, they often are playing catch-up-with-household tasks. With the blurring of roles, and the fact that the home front lags well behind t
16、he workplace in making adjustments for working women, its not surprising that women are more stressed at home.But its not just a gender thing. At work, people pretty much know what theyre supposed to be doing: working, making money, doing the tasks they have to do in order to draw an income. The bar
17、gain is very pure. Employee puts in hours of physical or mental labor and employee draws out life-sustaining moola.On the home front, however, people have no such clarity. Rare is the household in which the division of labor is so clinically and methodically laid out. There are a lot of tasks to be
18、done, there are inadequate rewards for most of them. Your home colleaguesyour familyhave no clear rewards for their labor; they need to be talked into it, or if theyre teenagers, threatened with complete removal of all electronic devices. Plus, theyre your family. You cannot fire your family. You ne
19、ver really get to go home from home.So its not surprising that people are more stressed at home. Not only are the tasks apparently infinite, the co-workers are much harder to motivate.21. According to Paragraph 1, most previous surveys found that home_.A. was an unrealistic place for relaxation B. g
20、enerated more stress than the workplaceC. was an ideal place for stress measurement D.offered greater relaxation than the workplace22. According to Damaske, who are likely to be the happiest at home?A. Working mothers. B. Childless husbands.C. Childless wives. D. Working fathers.23. The blurring of
21、working womens roles refers to the fact that_.A. they are both bread winners and housewivesB. their home is also a place for kicking backC. there is often much housework left behindD. it is difficult for them to leave their office24. The word “moola” (Line 4, Para 4) most probably means_.A. energy B
22、. skills C. earnings D. nutrition25. The home front differs from the workplace in that_.A. home is hardly a cozier working environmentB. division of labor at home is seldom clear-cutC. household tasks are generally more motivatingD. family labor is often adequately rewardedText 2For years, studies h
23、ave found that first-generation college studentsthose who do not have a parent with a college degreelag other students on a range of education achievement factors. Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher. But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succe
24、ed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them. This has created “a paradox” in that recruiting first-generation students, but then watching many of them fail, means that higher education has “continued to reproduce and widen, rather than close” an
25、achievement gap based on social class, according to the depressing beginning of a paper forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science.But the article is actually quite optimistic, as it outlines a potential solution to this problem, suggesting that an approach (which involves a one-hour, next-to-
26、no-cost program) can close 63 percent of the achievement gap (measured by such factors as grades) between first-generation and other students.The authors of the paper are from different universities, and their findings are based on a study involving 147 students (who completed the project) at an unn
27、amed private university. First generation was defined as not having a parent with a four-year college degree. Most of the first-generation students (59.1 percent) were recipients of Pell Grants, a federal grant for undergraduates with financial need, while this was true only for 8.6 percent of the s
28、tudents with at least one parent with a four-year degree.Their thesisthat a relatively modest intervention could have a big impactwas based on the view that first-generation students may be most lacking not in potential but in practical knowledge about how to deal with the issues that face most coll
29、ege students. They cite past research by several authors to show that this is the gap that must be narrowed to close the achievement gap.Many first-generation students “struggle to navigate the middle-class culture of higher education，learn the rules of the game, and take advantage of college resour
30、ces,” they write. And this becomes more of a problem when colleges dont talk about the class advantage and disadvantages of different groups of students. “Because US colleges and universities seldom acknowledge how social class can affect students educational experience, many first-generation studen
31、ts lack insight about why they are struggling and do not understand how students like them can improve.”26. Recruiting more first-generation students has_.A. reduced their dropout rates B. narrowed the achievement gapC. missed its original purpose D. depressed college students27. The authors of the
32、research article are optimistic because_.A. the problem is solvable B. their approach is costlessC. the recruiting rate has increased D. their finding appeal to students28. The study suggests that most first-generation students_.A. study at private universities B. are from single-parent familiesC. a
33、re in need of financial support D. have failed their college29. The authors of the paper believe that first-generation students_.A. are actually indifferent to the achievement gapB. can have a potential influence on other studentsC. may lack opportunities to apply for research projectsD. are inexper
34、ienced in handling their issues at college30. We may infer from the last paragraph that_.A. universities often reject the culture of the middle-classB. students are usually to blame for their lack of resourcesC. social class greatly helps enrich educational experiencesD. colleges are partly responsi
35、ble for the problem in questionText 3Even in traditional offices, “the lingua franca of corporate America has gotten much more emotional and much more right-brained than it was 20 years ago,” said Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn. She started spinning off examples. “If you and I parachu
36、ted back to Fortune 500 companies in 1990, we would see much less frequent use of terms like journey, mission, passion. There were goals，there were strategies, there were objectives, but we didnt talk about energy; we didnt talk about passion.”Koehn pointed out that this new era of corporate vocabul
37、ary is very “team”-orientedand not by coincidence. “Lets not forget sportsin male-dominated corporate America, its still a big deal. Its not explicitly conscious; its the idea that Im a coach, and youre my team, and were in this together. There are lots and lots of CEOs in very different companies,
38、but most think of themselves as coaches and this is their team and they want to win”.These terms are also intended to infuse work with meaningand, as Khurana points out，increase allegiance to the firm. “You have the importation of terminology that historically used to be associated with non-profit o
39、rganizations and religious organizations：Terms like vision, values, passion, and purpose,” said Khurana.This new focus on personal fulfillment can help keep employees motivated amid increasingly loud debates over work-life balance The “mommy wars” of the 1990s are still going on today, prompting arg
40、uments about why women still cant have it all and books like Sheryl Sandbergs Lean In，whose title has become a buzzword in its own right. Terms like unplug, offline, life-hack，bandwidth, and capacity are all about setting boundaries between the office and the home. But if your work is your “passion,
41、” youll be more likely to devote yourself to it, even if that means going home for dinner and then working long after the kids are in bed.But this seems to be the irony of office speak: Everyone makes fun of it, but managers love it, companies depend on it, and regular people willingly absorb it. As
42、 Nunberg said, “You can get people to think its nonsense at the same time that you buy into it.” In a workplace thats fundamentally indifferent to your life and its meaning, office speak can help you figure out how you relate to your workand how your work defines who you are.31. According to Nancy K
43、oehn, office language has become_.A. more emotional B. more objective C. less strategic D. less energetic32. “team”-oriented corporate vocabulary is closely related to_.A. historical incidents B. gender difference C. sports culture D. athletic executives33. Khurana believes that the importation of t
44、erminology aims to_.A. revive historical terms B. promote company imageC. foster corporate cooperation D. strengthen employee loyalty34. It can be inferred that Lean In_.A. voices for working women B. appeals to passionate workaholicsC. triggers debates among mommies D. praises motivated employees35
45、. Which of the following statements is true about office speak?A. Managers admire it but avoid it.B. Linguists believe it to be nonsense.C. Companies find it to be fundamental.D. Regular people mock it but accept it.Text 4Many people talked of the 288,000 new jobs the Labor Department reported for J
46、ure, along with the drop in the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, as good news. And they were right. For now it appears the economy is creating jobs at a decent pace. We still have a long way to go to get back to full employment, but at least we are now finally moving forward at a faster pace.Howeve
47、r, there is another important part of the jobs picture that was largely overlooked. There was a big jump in the number of people who report voluntarily working part-time. This figure is now 830,000 (4.4 percent) above its year ago level.Before explaining the connection to the Obamacare, it is worth
48、making an important distinction. Many people who work part-time jobs actually want full-time jobs. They take part-time work because this is all they can get. An increase in involuntary part-time work is evidence of weakness in the labor market and it means that many people will be having a very hard
49、 time making ends meet.There was an increase in involuntary part-time in June, but the general direction has been down. Involuntary part-time employment is still far higher than before the recession, but it is down by 640,000 (7.9 percent) from its year ago level.We know the difference between voluntary and involuntary part-time employment because people tell us. The survey used by the Labor Department asks people if they worked less than 35 hours in the reference week. If the answer is “yes,” t
