1、2014 年考研英语阅读真题Text 1 In order to “change lives for the better” and reduce “dependency,” George Osbome,Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced the “upfront work search” scheme. Only if the jobless arrive at the job centre with a register for online job search, and start looking for work will they be
2、eligible for benefit-and then they should report weekly rather than fortnightly. What could be more reasonable?为了“让生活变得更美好”以及减少“依赖” ，英国财政大臣乔治奥斯本引入了“求职预付金”计划。只有当失业者带着简历到就业中心，注册在线求职并开始找工作，才有资格获得补助金然后他们应该每周而非每两周报告一次。有什么比这更合理呢？ More apparent reasonableness followed. There will now be a seven-day wait fo
3、r the jobseekers allowance. “Those first few days should be spent looking for work, not looking to sign on.” he claimed. “Were doing these things because we know they help people say off benefits and help those on benefits get into work faster” Help? Really? On first hearing, this was the socially c
4、oncerned chancellor, trying to change lives for the better, complete with “reforms” to an obviously indulgent system that demands too little effort from the newly unemployed to find work, and subsides laziness. What motivated him, we were to understand, was his zeal for “fundamental fairness”-protec
5、ting the taxpayer, controlling spending and ensuring that only the most deserving claimants received their benefits. 更加明显的合理性如下。现在领取求职者补贴要等待七天。 “这前几天应该用来找工作，而不是办理失业登记（以获得救济金） 。 ”他说， “我们这样做是因为我们知道，这样会帮助人们摆脱补助并让依赖补助的人尽快就业。 ”帮助？真的吗？乍一听，这是位关心社会的大臣，他努力改善人们的生活，包括对一个明显放纵的体系的“改革” ，这个体系不要求新失业者付出多少努力去找工作，为其懒惰
6、埋单。我们将会知道，激励他的是他对“基本的公正”的热诚保护纳税人，控制花费以及确保只有最值得帮助的申请者才能得到补助金。Losing a job is hurting: you dont skip down to the job centre with a song in your heart, delighted at the prospect of doubling your income from the generous state. It is financially terrifying psychologically embarrassing and you know that
7、support is minimal and extraordinarily hard to get. You are now not wanted; you support is minimal and extraordinarily hard to get. You are now not wanted; you are now excluded from the work environment that offers purpose and structure in your life. Worse, the crucial income to feed yourself and yo
8、ur family and pay the bills has disappeared. Ask anyone newly unemployed what they want and the answer is always: a job. 失业是痛苦的：你不会内心歌唱并跳跃着到就业中心去，为从这个慷慨国度得到加倍收入的前景而欣喜。在经济上它令人生畏，在心理感到难堪，并且你还知道那种扶持的微薄和非常难以得到。现在没人需要你；你现在被排除在工作环境之外，那里会给予你人生的目标和体制。更糟糕的是，失去了用以养家糊口和支付账单的至关重要的收入。问任何新失业者他们想要什么，答案永远是：一份工作。But
9、 in Osborne land, your first instinct is to fall into dependency- permanent dependency if you can get it-supported by a state only too ready to indulge your falsehood. It is as though 20 years of ever- tougher reforms of the job search and benefit administration system never happened. The principle
10、of British welfare is no longer that you can insure yourself against the risk of unemployment and receive unconditional payments if the disaster happens. Even the very phrase jobseekers allowanceinvented in 1996- is about redefining the unemployed as a “jobseeker” who had no mandatory right to a ben
11、efit he or she has earned through making national insurance contributions. Instead, the claimant receives a time-limited “allowance,” conditional on actively seeking a job; no entitlement and no insurance, at 71.70 a week, one of the least generous in the EU.但是在奥斯本之国，你的第一反应就是坠入依赖永远的依赖，如果你能得到的话它由一个非常
12、乐意放任你弄虚作假的国家所支持。好像这二十年一直严厉的求职和补助金管理系统的改革从未发生过。英国福利的原则不再是如果发生灾难，你能为自己投保失业险和得到无条件赔付。甚至正是“求职者补贴”这个词语，在将失业者重新定义为“求职者” ，他人通过缴纳国民保险金可享有补助，而求职者则没有这个基本权利。作为替代，申请者得到的是一周 71.70 英镑的限时“补贴” ，条件是积极地找工作：没有津贴也没有保险，在欧盟这也是最小气之一了。Text 2 All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility than the members of any othe
13、r profession-with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America. Dur-ing the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of
14、 money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare. There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal educatio
15、n. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves todays average law-school graduate with $100,000 of debt on top of undergra
16、duate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work fearsomely hard. Reform-ing the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to imple-ment them. One idea
17、 is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a stern enough test for a would-be lawy-er, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra
18、 training could cut their debt mountain by a third. The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressu
19、re for change from within the profession, but oppo-nents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically. In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs an
20、d improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow. 在全世界，律师比任何其他职业的
21、人都更招憎恨新闻业可能是个例外。但是没有多少地方能比美国更让客户有更多的理由抱怨。 在经济危机之前的十年间，美国法律服务费用的增长速度是通货膨胀的两倍。最好的律师赚得盆满钵满，吸引着更多的学生争相进入法学院。但是大部分法学毕业生从未获得一份大律所的工作。他们中的许多人转而成为那种妨害行为诉讼的提交者，这使得侵权制度成了一场昂贵的噩梦。 这里面有很多原因。其一是法律教育的费用过高。在美国大部分州只有一条成为律师的途径；在某个无关的专业读四年取得本科学位，然后在美国律师协会授权的 200 所法学院之一读三年取得法律学位，并为准备律师资格考试花费不菲。这给现在这些普通的法学院毕业生留下在本科债务之外
22、 10 万美元的债务。法学院债务意味着他们不得不拼命地努力工作。 改革这一体系会对律师和他们的客户都有所帮助。明智的想法已经存在了好长时间，但是管理该职业的州级机构对实施它们太保守了。一个想法是准许人们读本科学位时学习法律。另外一个是，让学生在法学院只读两年之后就参加律师资格考试。如果这一考试对于一名准律师来说确实是足够严格的测试，那么就应该准许那些有能力提早参加的学生们参加。不需要额外培训的学生就可以削减他们债务大山的三分之一。 费用如此之高的另外一个原因是该行业限制性的同业公会式的所有权结构。除哥伦比亚特区外，非律师人员不得持有律所的任何股份。这使得费用居高不下而创新脚步缓慢。在行业内部存
23、在要求变革的压力，但是监管部门中的反对变革者坚称，将局外人排除在律所之外，可以让律师与赚钱的压力隔离而合乎职业道德标准地为客户服务。 实际上，准许非律师人员参股，通过鼓励律所采用新技术和聘请职业经理人来致力于提高律所效率，可以降低成本并改善对顾客的服务。毕竟，其它国家如澳大利亚和英国都已开始使其法律行业自由化。美国应该效仿。Text 3 The US$3-million Fundamental physics prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polya-kov said when he accepted this
24、years award in March. And it is far from the only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accou
25、nts of Internet entrepreneurs. These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science. Whats not to like? Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature. You cannot bu
26、y class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels. The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They could cement
27、the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewed research. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius. The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others to draw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their care
28、ers in research. As Nature has pointed out before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizesboth new and oldare distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launched this year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include. But the Nobel Foundations limi
29、t of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collabora-tive nature of modern researchas will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Nobels were, of course, the
30、mselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has given them legitimacy. As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First, most researchers would accept such a prize if they wer
31、e offered one. Second, it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere, It is fair to criticize and ques-tion the mechanismthat is the culture of research, after allbut it is the prize-givers money to do with as they please. It is wise to take such gif
32、ts with gratitude and grace.300 万美元的基础物理学奖的确是一个有趣的尝试，正如亚历山大帕里雅科夫三月份领取今年奖项时所言。而且该类奖项远非仅此一例。按照自然杂志新闻特写栏目一篇文章所讨论的，近年来一系列奖金丰厚的研究奖项已经加入诺贝尔奖的行列。许多奖项（如基础物理学奖）来自于互联网企业家的资助，其银行账户是电话号码数量级的。 据称，这些慈善家在各自从事的领域已经获得成功，想用自己的财富去让那些有科学成就的人士受到关注。 这有什么让人不喜欢的呢？据新闻特写栏目中援引一小部分科学家所言，非常之多。古语云，有钱买不到社会地位，这些暴富的企业家并不能为他们的奖金买来诺贝
33、尔奖的声望。科学家称，新设奖项是那些幕后人自抬身价的一种举动。它们会扭曲基于成就并由同行评议引导的研究体系。它们会巩固同行评议研究的现状。它们并不资助同行评议研究。它们延续了孤独天才的神话。 正如自然杂志以前已经指出的那样，对于科学奖项新设的和原有的如何分配，存在某些忧虑是合理的。今年推出的“生命科学突破奖” ，对生命科学的范畴所持观点并不具代表性。但是诺贝尔基金会对每一奖项只能由三名仍在世者获得的限制，由于现代科学研究的协作特性而早已不再适宜这将由当论及确认希格斯波色子的发现时，对于谁可忽略而引起不可避免的争论这一情况来证实。当然，诺贝尔奖本身就是由一位富豪个人设立的，他决定了用自己的金钱去
34、做他想要做的事。赋予诺贝尔奖合理性的是时间，而非设立的初衷。 有些科学家常常会抱怨新的奖项，有两件事却是显而易见。第一，如果被授予这样的奖项，大部分研究人员会接受它。第二，金钱和 关注度投向科学而不是其它地方，这无疑是好事。批评和质疑这种机制是公平合理的毕竟这是做研究的文化但它是奖金提供者按 照自己的意愿处置的金钱。以感谢的心情和优雅的风度接受这样的礼物是明智的。Text 4 “The Heart of the Matter,” the just-released report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), deser
35、ves praise for affirming the importance of the humanities and social sciences to the prosperity and security of liberal democracy in America. Regrettably, however, the reports failure to address the true nature of the crisis facing liberal education may cause more harm than good. In 2010, leading co
36、ngressional Democrats and Republicans sent letters to the AAAS asking that it identi-fy actions that could be taken by “federal, state and local governments, universities, foundations, educa-tors, individual benefactors and others“ to “maintain national excellence in humanities and social scientif-i
37、c scholarship and education.“In response, the American Academy formed the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. Among the commissions 51 members are top-tier-university presi-dents, scholars,lawyers, judges, and business executives, as well as prominent figures from diplomacy, filmmaking
38、, music and journalism. The goals identified in the report are generally admirable. Because representative government presuppos-es an informed citizenry, the report supports full literacy; stresses the study of history and government, particularly American history and American government; and encour
39、ages the use of new digit-al technologies. To encourage innovation and competition, the report calls for increased investment in research, the crafting of coherent curricula that improve students ability to solve problems and communicate effectively in the 21st century, increased funding for teacher
40、s and the encouragement of scholars to bring their learning to bear on the great challenges of the day. The report also advo-cates greater study of foreign languages, international affairs and the expansion of study abroad programs. Unfortunate-ly, despite 2 years in the making, “The Heart of the Ma
41、tter“ never gets to the heart of the matter: the illiberal nature of liberal education at our leading colleges and universities. The commission ig-nores that for several decades Americas colleges and universities have produced graduates who dont know the content and character of liberal education an
42、d are thus deprived of its benefits. Sadly, the spirit of inquiry once at home on campus has been replaced by the use of the humanities and social sciences as vehicles for publicizing “progressive,“ or left-liberal propaganda. Today, professors routinely treat the progressive interpretation of histo
43、ry and progressive public policy as the proper subject of study while portraying conservative or classical liberal ideassuch as free markets or self-reliance as falling outside the boundaries of routine, and sometimes legitimate, intellectual investigation. The AAAS displays great enthu-siasm for li
44、beral education. Yet its report may well set back reform by obscuring the depth and breadth of the challenge that Congress asked it to illuminate.美国艺术与科学院刚发布的报告问题的核心 ，因肯定了人文和社会科学对美国自由民主的繁荣和安全的重要性而值得赞扬。然而，遗憾的是该报告没有论及通才教育所面临危机的真正本质，这可能造成弊大于利的结果。 2010 年，首要的国会民主党人和共和党人致函美国艺术与科学院，要求其确定可由“联邦、州和地方政府、大学、基金会
45、、教育工作者、个人捐助者和其他人”采取的措施，以“保持国家在人文和社会科学学术和教育方面的优势” 。作为回应，美国艺术与科学院成立了人文和社会科学委员会。该委员会 51 名成员中有顶级大学的校长、学者、律师、法官和公司执行总裁，也有来自外交、电影、音乐和新闻界的杰出人物。 这份报告中确立的目标大体上是值得称赞的。因为代议制政府的前提是公民知情，该报告支持全面的文化素养；强调学习历史和政治，特别是美国历史和美国政治；以及鼓励使用新的数字技术。为了鼓励创新和竞争，报告呼吁增加研究投资，对紧密结合的课程要精益求精 （它们会提高学生在 21 世纪有效地解决问题和交流沟通的能力） ，增加对教师的资助和鼓
46、励学者转化所学知识以面对当今的巨大挑战。报告还主张加强对外语、国际事务的学习和扩展留学计划。 不幸的是，尽管撰写报告用了两年半的时间， 问题的核心却从未触及到问题的核心：我们一流院校的通才教育本质上是狭隘的。委员会忽视了几十年来美国各院校输送的毕业生不明白通才教育的内容和特点，因而丧失了它的益处。令人痛心的是，国内校园内曾有的探索精神，已经被利用人文和社会科学作为宣扬“进步的”或左翼民主的宣传工具所代替。 如今，教授们通常将进步的历史观和公共政策视为正统的学习科目，而将保守的或古典自由主义的观点例如：自由市场和自力更生描述为逾越了常规、合理事物和理性调研的界限。2013 年考研英语阅读真题Te
47、xt 1 In the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, scold her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesnt affect her. Priestly explains how the deep blue color of the assistants sweater descended over the years from fashion shows to dep
48、artment stores and to the bargain bin in which the poor girl doubtless found her garment. This top-down conception of the fashion business couldnt be more out of date or at odds with feverish world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Clines three-year indictment of “fast fashion”. In the last decade
49、s or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H her example cant be knocked off. Though several fast-fashion companies have made efforts to curb their impact on labor and the environ-mentincluding H people will only start shopping more sustainably when they cant afford not to. Text 1 在 2006 年电影版的时尚女魔头中，梅丽尔斯特里普扮演的米兰达普雷斯丽责备她其貌不扬的女助手，因为她认为高端时尚并不能影响到自己。普雷斯丽说明了她助手的深蓝色毛衣如何在数年间从时尚秀场降到百货商店，又沦为便宜货。毫无疑问，这个贫穷的女孩肯定就是从便宜货里淘的衣服。 这种自上而下的时尚商业观早已过时了， 也和伊丽莎白克莱因在过度穿着中描写的狂热世界不一致。 过度穿着
