考研英语

2024年全国硕士研究生入学统一考试英语（一）试题

Section Ⅰ Use of English

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)

There's nothing more welcoming than a door opening for you. __1__ the need to be touched to open or close, automatic doors are essential in __2__ disabled access to buildings and helping provide general __3__ to commercial buildings.

Self-sliding doors began to emerge as a commercial product in 1960 after being invented six years __4__ by Americans Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt. They __5__ as a novelty feature, but as their use has grown their __6__ have extended within our technologically advanced world. Particularly __7__ in busy locations or during times of emergency, the doors __8__ crowd management by reducing the obstacles put in peoples’ way.

__9__ making access both in and out of buildings easier for people, the difference in the way many of these doors open helps reduce the total area __10__ by them. Automatic doors often open to the side, with the panels sliding across one another. Replacing swing doors, these __11__ smaller buildings to maximise the usable space inside without having to __12__ the way for a large, sticking-out door. There are many different types of automatic door, with each __13__ specific signals to tell them when to open. __14__ these methods differ, the main __15__ remain the same.

Each automatic door system __16__ the light, sound, weight or movement in their vicinity as a signal to open. Sensor types are chosen to __17__ the different environments they are needed in. __18__, a busy street might not __19__ a motion-sensored door, as it would constantly be opening for passers-by. A pressure-sensitive mat would be more __20__ to limit the surveyed area.

[注]题源：科普杂志《How it works》How automatic door mechanisms work (25/03/2021)

1.	[A] Through	[B] Despite	[C] Besides	[D] Without
2.	[A] revealing	[B] demanding	[C] improving	[D] tracing
3.	[A] experience	[B] convenience	[C] guidance	[D] reference
4.	[A] previously	[B] temporarily	[C] successively	[D] eventually
5.	[A] held on	[B] started out	[C] settled down	[D] went by
6.	[A] relations	[B] volumes	[C] benefits	[D] sources
7.	[A] useful	[B] simple	[C] flexible	[D] stable
8.	[A] call for	[B] yield to	[C] insist on	[D] act as
9.	[A] As well as	[B] In terms of	[C] Thanks to	[D] Rather than
10.	[A] connected	[B] shared	[C] represented	[D] occupied
11.	[A] allow	[B] expect	[C] require	[D] direct
12.	[A] adopt	[B] lead	[C] clear	[D] change
13.	[A] adapting to	[B] deriving from	[C] relying on	[D] pointing at
14.	[A] Once	[B] Since	[C] Unless	[D] Although
15.	[A] records	[B] positions	[C] principles	[D] resources
16.	[A] controls	[B] analyses	[C] produces	[D] mixes
17.	[A] decorate	[B] compare	[C] protect	[D] complement
18.	[A] In conclusion	[B] By contrast	[C] For example	[D] Above all
19.	[A] identify	[B] suit	[C] secure	[D] include
20.	[A] appropriate	[B] obvious	[C] impressive	[D] delicate

Section Ⅱ Reading Comprehension

Part A

Directions:

Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)

Text 1

Nearly 2,000 years ago, as the Romans began to pull out of Scotland, they left behind a curious treasure: 10 tons of nails, nearly a million of the things. The nail hoard was discovered in 1960 in a four-metre-deep pit covered by two metres of gravel.

Why had the Romans buried a million nails? The likely explanation is that the withdrawal was rushed, and they didn’t want the local Caledonians getting their hands on 10 tons of weapon-grade iron. The Romans buried the nails so deep that they would not be discovered for almost two millennia.

Later civilisations would value the skilled blacksmith’s labour in a nail even more than the raw material. As Roma Agrawal explains in her new delightful book Nuts and Bolts, early 17^th-century Virginians would sometimes burn down their homes if they were planning to relocate. This was an attempt to recover the valuable nails, which could be reused after sifting the ashes. The idea that one might burn down an entire house just to reclaim the nails underlines how scarce, costly and valuable the simple-seeming technology was.

The price of nails fell by 90% between the late 1700s and mid-1900s, as economist Daniel Sichel points out in a research paper. According to Sichel, although the falling price of nails was driven partly by cheaper iron and cheaper energy, most of the credit goes to nail manufacturers who simply found more efficient ways to turn steel into nails.

Nails themselves have changed over the years, but Sichel studied them because they haven’t changed much. Roman lamps and Roman chariots are very different from LED strips and sports cars, but Roman nails are still clearly nails. It would be absurd to try to track the changing price of sports cars since 1695, but to ask the same question of nails makes perfect sense.

I make no apology for being obsessed by a particular feature of everyday objects: their price. I am an economist, after all. After writing two books about the history of inventions, one thing I've learnt is that while it is the enchantingly sophisticated technologies that get all the hype, it's the cheap technologies that change the world.

The Gutenberg printing press transformed civilisation not by changing the nature of writing but by changing its cost — and it would have achieved little without a parallel collapse in the price of surfaces to write on, thanks to an often-overlooked technology called paper. Solar panels had a few niche uses until they became cheap; now they are transforming the global energy system.

[注]题源：《金融时报》（Financial Times）What the price of an ancient Roman nail tells us about value (JUNE 16 2023)

21. The Romans buried the nails probably for the sake of ___.

[A] saving them for future use

[B] keeping them from rusting

[C] letting them grow in value

[D] hiding them from the locals


22. The example of early 17th century Virginians is used to ___.

[A] highlight the thriftiness of early American colonists

[B] illustrate the high status of blacksmiths in that period

[C] contrast the attitudes of different civilisations towards nails

[D] show the preciousness of nail-making technology at that time


23. What played the major role in lowing the price of nails after the late 1700s?

[A] Increased productivity.

[B] Wider use of new energies.

[C] Fiercer market competition.

[D] Reduced cost of raw materials.


24. It can be learned from Paragraph 5 that nails ___.

[A] have undergone many technological improvements

[B] have remained basically all the same since Roman times

[C] are less studied than other everyday products

[D] are one of the world's most significant inventions


25. Which of the following best summaries the last two paragraphs?

[A] Cheap technologies bring about revolutionary change.

[B] Technological innovation is integral to economic success.

[C] Technology defines people's understanding of the world.

[D] Sophisticated technologies develop from small inventions.

Text 2

Parenting tips obtained from hunter-gatherers in Africa may be the key to bringing up more contented children, researchers have suggested. The idea is based on studies of communities such as the Kung of Botswana, where each child is cared for by many adults. Kung children as young as four will help to look after younger ones and “baby-wearing”, in which babies are carried around for in slings, is considered the norm.

According to Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cambridge University, these practices, known as alloparenting, could lead to less anxiety for children and parents.

Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, believes that there are ways to incorporate them into western life. In Germany, one scheme has paired an old people's home with a nursery. The residents help to look after the children, an arrangement akin to alloparenting. Another measure could be encouraging friendships between children in different school years, to mirror the unsupervised mixed-age playgroups in hunter-gatherer communities.

In a paper published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the researchers said that the western nuclear family was a recent invention that broke with evolutionary history and that this abrupt change was likely to have been harmful. They say that an unhelpful “intensive mothering narrative” has taken root, which suggests that mothers should use their maternal instincts to manage childcare alone. “Such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences,” they write.

By contrast, in hunter-gatherer societies alloparents can provide almost half of a child’s care. One previous study looked at the Efé people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It found that infants had an average of 14 alloparents a day by the time they were 18 weeks old, and were passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

Chaudhary said: “Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history. Such differences seem likely to create the kind of evolutionary mismatches that could be harmful to both caregivers and children. The availability of other caregivers can reduce the negative impacts of stress within the nuclear family, and the risk of maternal depression, which has knock-on effects for child wellbeing and cognitive development.” Communal living in hunter-gatherer societies can result in more than ten caregivers being available to an infant or toddler. This contrasts starkly with the nuclear family, and even more so with nursery settings in developed countries. According to Department of Education regulations, nurseries require ratios of one carer to three children aged under two, or one carer to four children aged two to three.

The researchers also say that western-style “instructive teaching” is rare in hunter-gatherer societies, where infants learn mostly through observation and imitation. From about the age of two, hunter-gatherer children spend large portions of the day in their mixed-age playgroups. The shift from this kind of environment to classrooms where pupils are asked to sit still may contribute to conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Swanepoel said. It also means that bigger children do not learn how to care for smaller ones. “In developed countries, children are busy with schooling and may have less opportunity to develop caregiving competence,” Chaudhary said. “We should at least explore the possibility that older siblings could play a greater role in supporting their parents, which might also enhance their own social development.”

[注]题源：《泰晤士报》（The Times）Hunter gatherers show us how to bring up happier children (March 08 2023)

26. According to the first two paragraph, alloparenting refers to the practice of ___.

[A] sharing child care among community members

[B] assigning babies to specific adult caregivers

[C] teaching parenting skills to older children

[D] carrying infants around by their parent


27. The scheme in Germany is mentioned to illustrate ___.

[A] an attempt to facilitate intergenerational communication

[B] an approach to integrating alloparenting into western culture

[C] the conventional parenting style in western culture

[D] the differences between western and African ways of living


28. According to Paragraph 4, the “intensive mothering narrative” ___.

[A] alleviates parenting pressures

[B] considerates family relationships

[C] results in the child-centered family

[D] departs from the course of evolution


29. What can be inffered about the nurseries in the UK？

[A] They tend to fall short of official requirements.

[B] They have difficulty finding enough caregivers.

[C] They ought to improve their carer-to-child ratio.

[D] They should try to prevent parental depression.


30. Which of the following would be the best title for the text？

[A] Instructive teaching: a dilemma for anxious parents

[B] For a happier family, learn from the hunter-gatherers

[C] Mix-aged playgroup, a better choice for lonely children

[D] Tracing the history of parenting: from Africa to Europe

Text 3

Rutkowski is a Polish digital artist who uses classical painting styles to create dreamy fantasy landscapes. He has made illustrations for games such as Sony’s Horizon Forbidden West, Ubisoft's Anno, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. And he's become a sudden hit in the new world of text-to-image AI generation.

His distinctive style is now one of the most commonly used prompts in the new open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion, which was launched late last month. The tool, along with other popular image-generation AI models, allows anyone to create impressive images based on text prompts. For example, type in “Wizard with sword and a glowing orb of magic fire fights a fierce dragon Greg Rutkowski,” and the system will produce something that looks not a million miles away from works in Rutkowski’s style.

But these open-source programs are built by scraping images from the internet, often without permission and proper attribution to artists. As a result, they are raising tricky questions about ethics and copyright. And artists like Rutkowski have had enough.

According to the website Lexica, which tracks over 10 million images and prompts generated by Stable Diffusion, Rutkowski’s name has been used as a prompt around 93,000 times. Some of the world's most famous artists, such as Michelangelo, Pablo Picasso, and Leonardo da Vinci, brought up around 2,000 prompts each or less. Rutkowski's name also features as a prompt thousands of times in the Discord of another text-to-image generator, Midjourney. Rutkowski was initially surprised but thought it might be a good way to reach new audiences. Then he tried searching for his name to see if a piece he had worked on had been published. The online search brought back work that had his name attached to it but wasn't his.

“It's been just a month. What about in a year? I probably won't be able to find my work out there because the internet will be flooded with AI art,” Rutkowski says. “That’s concerning.”

Other artists besides Rutkowski have been surprised by the apparent popularity of their work in text-to-image generators—and some are now fighting back.

Karla Ortiz, an illustrator based in San Francisco who found her work in Stable Diffusion’s data set, has been raising awareness about the issues around AI art and copyright. Artists say they risk losing income as people start using AI-generated images based on copyrighted material for commercial purposes. But it's also a lot more personal, Ortiz says, arguing that because art is so closely linked to a person, it could raise data protection and privacy problems.

“There is a coalition growing within artist industries to figure out how to tackle or mitigate this,” says Ortiz. The group is in its early days of mobilization, which could involve pushing for new policies or regulation. One suggestion is that AI models could be trained on images in the public domain, and AI companies could forge partnerships with museums and artists, Ortiz says.

[注]题源：《麻省理工科技评论》（MIT Technology Review）This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it. (September 16, 2022)

31. What can be learned about Rutkowski from the first two paragraphs?

[A] He is enthusiastic about using AI models.

[B] He is popular with the users of an AI art generator.

[C] He attracts admiration from other illustrators.

[D] He specializes in classical painting digitalization.


32. The problem with open-source AI art generators is that they ___.

[A] lack flexibility in responding to prompts

[B] produce artworks in unpredictable styles

[C] make unauthorized use of online images

[D] collect user information without consent.


33. After searching online, Rutkowski found ___.

[A] a unique way to reach audiences

[B] a new method to identify Al images

[C] AI-generated work bearing his name

[D] heated disputes regarding his copyright


34. According to Ortiz, Al companies are advised to ___.

[A] campaign for new policies or regulations

[B] offer their services to public institutions

[C] strengthen their relationships with Al users

[D] adopt a different strategy for Al model training


35. What is the text mainly about?

[A] Artists' responses to Al art generation.

[B] Al's expanded role in artistic creation.

[C] Privacy issues in the application of Al.

[D] Opposing views on AI development.

Text 4

The miracle of the Chesapeake Bay lies not in its depths, but in the complexity of its natural construction, the interaction of fresh and saline waters moved by wind, tide and current; the mix of land and water where spots are sometimes dry, sometimes wet. The shallows provide homes for hundreds of species from birds and fish to mammals and worms while storing floodwaters, filtering pollutants from water, and protecting nearby communities from potentially destructive storm surges.

All this was put at great risk late last month, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in an Idaho case that provides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency far less authority to regulate wetlands and waterways. Specifically, a 5-4 conservative majority decided that wetlands protected by the EPA under its Clean Water Act authority must have a “continuous surface connection” to bodies of water. This narrowing of the regulatory scope was a victory for builders, mining operators and other commercial interests often at odds with environmental rules. And it carries “significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States,” as even Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh observed.

In Maryland, the good news is that there are many state laws in place that provide wetlands protections. But that’s a very shortsighted view, particularly when it comes to the Chesapeake Bay. The reality is that water, and the pollutants that so often come with it, don’t respect state boundaries. The Chesapeake draws from a 64,000-square-mile watershed that extends into Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, the District of Columbia and Delaware. Will those jurisdictions extend the same protections now denied under Sackett v. EPA? Perhaps some, but all? That seems unlikely. And so we would call on President Joe Biden and Congress to restore this much-needed EPA authority under the Clean Water Act and protect the nation’s wetlands — and with them the safety of our water supply, aquatic species and recreational spaces as well as flood protections.

It is too easy, and misleading, to see such court rulings as merely standing up for the rights of land owners when the consequences can be so dire for their neighbors. And it’s a reminder that the EPA’s involvement in the Chesapeake Bay Program has long been crucial as the means to transcend the influence of deep-pocketed special interests in neighboring states. Pennsylvania farmers, to use one telling example, aren’t thinking about next year’s blue crab, oyster or rockfish harvest in Maryland when they decide whether to spread animal waste on their Lackawanna County fields, yet the runoff into nearby creeks can have enormous impact downstream.

And so we would also call on state lawmakers from Richmond to Albany to consider reviewing their own wetlands protections and see for themselves the enormous stakes involved. We can’t offer them a trip to the Chesapeake Bay model. It’s been gone since the 1980s but perhaps a visit to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County where American bald eagles fly over tidal marshes so shallow you could not paddle a boat across them but teaming with aquatic life. It’s worth the scenic drive.

[注]题源：《巴尔的摩太阳报》（The Baltimore Sun）Protecting vital U.S. wetlands must remain a federal priority | COMMENTARY (June 1, 2023)

36. The Chesapeake Bay is described in Paragraph l as ___.

[A] a valuable natural environment

[B] a controversial conservation area

[C] a place with commercial potential

[D] a headache for nearby communities


37. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Idaho case ___.

[A] reinforces water pollution control

[B] weakens the EPA's regulatory power

[C] will end conflicts among local residents

[D] may face opposition from mining operators


38. How does the author feel about future of the Chesapeake Bay?

[A] Worried.

[B] Puzzled.

[C] Relieved.

[D] Encouraged.


39. What can be inferred about the EPA's involvement in the Chesapeake Bay Program?

[A] It has restored the balance among neighboring jurisdictions.

[B] It has triggered a radical reform in commercial fisheries.

[C] It has set a fine example of respecting state authorities.

[D] It has ensured the coordination of protection efforts.


40. The author holds that the state lawmakers should ___.

[A] be cautious about the influence of landowners

[B] attach due importance to wetlands protections

[C] recognize the need to expand wildlife refuges

[D] improve the wellbeing of endangered species

Part B

Directions:

Choose the best statement from the list A-G for each numbered name (41-45). There are two extra choices which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

(41) Hannah

Simply, there are people in Nigeria who cannot travel to the Smithsonian Institution to see that part of their history and culture represented by the Benin Bronzes. These should be available to them as part of their cultural heritage and history and as a source of national pride. There is no good reason that these artifacts should be beyond the ordinary reach of the educational objectives or inspiration of the generations to which they were left. They serve no purpose in a museum in the United States or elsewhere except as curious objects. They cannot be compared to works of art produced for sale which can be passed from hand to hand and place to place by purchase.

(42) Buck

We know very exact reproductions of artwork can be and are regularly produced. Perhaps museums and governments might explore some role for the use of nearly exact reproductions as a means of resolving issues relating to returning works of art and antiquities. The context of any exhibit is more important to me than whether the object being displayed is 2,000 years old or 2 months old. In many cases the experts have a hard time agreeing on what is the real object and what is a forgery. Again, the story an exhibit is trying to tell is what matters. The monetary value of the objects on display is a distant second place in importance.

(43) Sara

When visiting the Baltimore Museum of Art, I came across a magnificent15th-century Chinese sculpture. It inspired me to learn more about the culture that it represented. Artifacts in museums have the power to inspire, and perhaps spark that need to learn and understand the nature of their creators. Having said that,I do feel that whatever artifacts find their way to public museums should, in fact, be sanctioned as having been obtained on loan, legally purchased, or obtained by treaty. Stealing artifacts from other peoples' cultures is obscene; it robs not only the physical objects, but the dignity and spirit of their creators.

(44) Victor

Ancient art that is displaced in foreign countries by all means should be returned to the original country. The foreign countries have no right to hold back returning the items. I would ask that the foreign nations and the original country discuss the terms of transfer. Yes, there is the risk that the original will not have as good security as do the foreign countries. But look at what happened to Boston's Gardner Museum theft in 1990, including the loss of Rembrandt Vermeer, Manet and other masterpiece. Nothing is absolutely safe, nowhere, and now climate change agitators are attacking publicly displayed work in European museum.

(45) Julion

To those of you in the comments section who are having strong feelings about artifacts being removed from cities in the US and Britain and returned to their countries of origin. I would ask you to consider: why do you think Americans have more of a right to easily access the Benin Bronzes than people of Nigeria? Why are people who live within a days drive of London entitled to go and see the Elgin Marbles wherever they want, but the people of Athens aren't? What intrinsic factors make the West a suitable home for these artifacts but preclude them from being preserved and displayed by their countries of origin? If your conclusion is that the West is better able to preserve these artifacts, think about why you're assuming that to be true.

A. It is clear that countries of origin have never been compensated for stolen artifacts.

B. It is a flawed line of reasoning to argue against returning artifacts to their countries of origin.

C. Museum visitor can still learn as much from artifacts copies after the originals are returned.

D. Reproductions, even if perfectly made, cannot take the place of the authentic objects.

E. The real value of artifacts can only be recognized in their countries of origin rather than anywhere else.

F. Ways to get artifacts from other countries must be decent and lawful.

G. Concern over security is no excuse for refusing to return artifacts to their countries of origin.

41. ___    42. ___    43. ___    44. ___  45. ___

Part C

Directions:

Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written neatly on ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

“Elephants never forget”—or so they say—and that piece of folklore seems to have some foundation.

The African savanna elephant, also known as the African bush elephant, is distributed across 37 African countries. They move between a variety of habitats, including forests, grasslands, woodlands, wetlands and agricultural land. (46) They sometimes travel more than sixty miles to find food or water, and are very good at working out where other elephants are - even when they are out of sight. Using tracking devices, researchers have shown that they have “remarkable spatial acuity.” When finding their way to waterholes, they headed off in exactly the right direction, on one occasion from a distance of roughly thirty miles. What is more, they almost always seem to choose the nearest waterhole. (47) The researchers are convinced that the elephants always know precisely where they are in relation to all the resources they need, and can therefore take shortcuts, as well as following familiar routes.

Although the cues used by African elephants for long-distance navigation are not yet understood smell may well play a part.

Elephants are very choosy eaters, but until recently little was known about how they selected their food. (48) One possibility was that they merely used their eyes and tried out the plants they found, but that would probably result in a lot of wasted time and energy, not least because their eyesight is actually not very good.

(49) The volatile chemicals produced by plants can be carried a long way, and they are very characteristic: Each plant or tree has its own particular odor signature. What is more, they can be detected even when they are not actually visible. New research suggests that smell is a crucial factor in guiding elephants - and probably other herbivores - to the best food resources.

The researchers first established what kinds of plant the elephants preferred either to eat or avoid when foraging freely. They then set up a “food station” experiment, in which they gave the elephants a series of choices based only on smell. (50) The experiment showed that elephants may well use smell to identify patches of trees that are good to eat, and secondly to assess the quality of the trees within each patch. Free-ranging elephants presumably also use this information to locate their preferred food.

Their well-developed hippocampal structures may enable elephants, like rats and people, to construct cognitive maps.

Section Ⅲ Writing

Part A

Read the following email from an international student and write a reply.

Dear Li Ming,

I've got a class assignment to make an oral report on an ancient Chinese scientist. I'm not sure how to prepare for it. Could you give me some advice? Thanks for your help.

Yours,

Paul

Write your letter in about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Don't sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Ming” instead. (10 points)

Part B

Write an essay based on the picture and the chart below. In your essay, you should,

1. Describe the picture and the chart briefly,

2. Interpret the implied meaning, and

3. Give your comments.

You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. (20 points)