哈工大考博英语真题

General English Admission Test For Non-English Major
                   Ph.D. program
(Harbin Institute of Technology)
Part I Reading Comprehension (40 points)
  Passage 1
Questions 1----5 are bashed on the following passage.
  The planet’s last intact expanses of forest are under siege. Eight thousand years ago, forests covered more than 23 million square miles, or about 40 percent of Earth’s land surface. Today, almost half of those forests have fallen to the ax, the chain saw, the matchstick, or the bulldozer.
  A map unveiled in March by the Washington-based World Resources Institute not only shows the locations of former forests, but also assesses the condition of today’s forests worldwide. Institute researchers developed the map with the help of the World Conservation Monitoring Center, the World Wildlife Fund, and 90 forest experts at a variety of universities, government organizations, and environmental groups.
  Only one-fifth of the remaining forests are still “frontier forests,” defined as relatively undisturbed natural forests large enough to support all of their native species. Frontier forests offer a number of benefits: They generate and maintain biodiversity, protect watersheds, prevent flooding and soil erosion, and stabilize climate.
  Many large areas that have traditionally been classified as forest land don’t qualify as “frontier” because of human influences such as fire suppression and a patchwork of logging. “There’s surprisingly little intact forest left,” says research associate Dirk Bryant, the principal author of the report that accompanies the new map.
  In the report, Bryant, Daniel Nielsen, and Laura Tangley divide the world into four groups:76 countries that have lost all of their frontier forest; 11 nations that are “on the edge”; 28 countries with “not much time”; and only eight----including Canada, Russia, and Brazil-----that still have a “great opportunity” to keep most of their original forest. The United States is among the nations said to be running out of time: In the lower 48 states, says Bryant, “great opportunity” to keep most of their original forest. The United States is among the nations said to be running out of time: In the lower48 states, says Bryant, “only 1 percent of the forest that was once there as frontier forest qualifies today.”
  Logging poses the biggest single threat to remaining frontier forests. “Our results suggest that 70 percent of frontier forests under threat are threatened by logging,” says Bryant. The practice of cutting timber also creates roads that cause erosion and open the forest to hunting, mining, firewood gathering, and land clearing for farms.
  What can protect frontier forests? The researchers recommend combining preservation with sustainable land use practices such as tourism and selective timber extraction. “It’s possible to restore frontiers,” says Bryant, “but the cost and time required to do so would suggest that the smart approach is to husband the remaining frontier forest before it’s gone.”
1. What is the main idea of the passage?
  A. The present situation of frontier forest on Earth.
  B. The history of ecology.
  C. The forest map in the past.
  D. Beautiful forests in different parts of the world.
2. The word “unveiled” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to       _.
  A. evaluated   B. decorated  C. designed    D. made public
3. Frontier forests have which of the following benefits?
  A. They keep climate stable.
  B. They enhance timber industry.
  C. They provide people with unique scenery.
  D. They are of various types.
4. The phrase “on the edge” in Paragraph 5 probably means________.
  A surrounded by frontier forest
  B near frontier forest
  C about to lose their frontier forest
  D under pressure
5. According to the passage, roads created by timber-cutting make it possible for people to________.         
  A travel to other places through the short –cut
  B exploit more forest land
  C find directions easily
  D protect former forests
Passage 2
Questions 6----10 are based on the following passage.
  To get a chocolate out of a box requires a considerable amount of unpacking: the box has to be taken out of the paper bag in which it arrived the cellophane wrapper has to be torn off, the lip opened and removed; the lid opened and the paper removed; the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. But this insane amount of wrapping is not confined to luxuries: it is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in cellophane, polythene, or paper.
  The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping accounts for much of the refuse put our by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up scarce energy and resources and messing up the environment.
  Little research is being carried out on the costs of alternative types of packaging. Just how possible is it, for instance, for local authorities to salvage paper, pulp it, and recycle it as egg-boxes? Would it be cheaper to plant another forest? Paper is the material most used for packaging-----20 million paper bags are apparently used in Great Britain each day -----but very little is salvaged.
  A machine has been developed that pulps paper, and then processes it into packaging, e.g. egg-boxes and cartons. This could be easily adapted for local authority use. It would mean that people would have to separate their refuse into paper and non-paper, with a different dustbin for each. Paper is, in fact, probably the material that can be most easily recycled; and now, with massive increases in paper prices, the time has come at which collection by local authorities could be profitable.
  Recycling of this kind is already happening with milk bottles, which are returned to the dairies, and it has been estimated that if all the milk bottles necessary were made of plastic, then British dairies would be producing the equivalent of enough plastic tubing to encircle the earth every five or six days!
  The trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever growing mounds of plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufacturers who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs. It is evident that more research is needed into the recovery and reuse of various materials and into the cost of collecting and recycling containers as opposed to producing new ones. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and making things look better so more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.
6. The sentence “This insane amount of wrapping is not confined to luxuries” means that________.
A not enough wrapping is used for luxuries
B more wrapping is used for luxuries than for ordinary products
C it is not only for luxury products that too much wrapping is used
D the wrapping used for luxury products is unnecessary
7. The local authorities are_________.         
A the Town Council
B the police
C the paper manufacturers
D the most influential citizens
8 If paper is to be recycled,________.      
A more forests will have to be planted
B the use of paper bags will have to be restricted
C people will have to use different dustbins for their rubbish
D the local authorities will have to reduce the price of paper
9. British dairies are________.      
A producing enough plastic tubing to go round the world in less than a week
B giving up the use of glass bottles
C increasing the production of plastic bottles
D reusing their old glass bottles
10. The environmentalists think that________.      
A more plastic packaging should be used
B plastic is the most convenient form of packaging
C too much plastic is wasted
D shops should stop using plastic containers