山东科技大学2005年招收硕士学位研究生入学考试

基础英语（含阅读与写作）试卷

Ⅰ.Explain the following terms and give each an example(20%)

1. analogy
2. oxymoron
3. metonymy
4. malapropism
5. innuendo
Ⅱ.Reading comprehension

   This section 3 passages. Please read them and give a brief answer to each of the questions given at the end of each passage.

Passage1

   It looks as if it came straight from the set of Star Wars. It has four—wheel drive and rises above rocky surfaces. It lowers and raises its nose when going up and down hills. And when it comes to a river ,it turns amphibious: two hydro jets power it along by blasting water under its body. There is room for two passengers and a driver, who sit inside a glass bubble operating electronic, aircraft－type controls . A vehicle so daring on land and water needs windscreen wipers—but doesn’t have any. Water molecules are disintegrated on the screen’s
Surface by ultrasonic sensors.

This unusual vehicle is the Racoon. It is an invention not of Hollywood but of Renault, a rather conservative French state－owned carmaker, better known for its family hatchbacks. Renault built the Racoon to explore new freedoms for designers and engineers created by advances in materials and manufacturing processes. Renault is thinking about startlingly different cars; other producers have radical new ideas for trains, boats and aeroplanes.kaoyantj
The first of the new freedom is in design. Powerful computer－aid designed(CAD) systems can replace with a click of a computer mouse hours of laborious work done on thousands of drawing boards. So new products, no matter how complicated, can be developed much faster. For the first time, Boeing will not have to build a giant replica of its new airliner, the 777, to make sure all the bits fit together. Its CAD system will take care of that.

But Renault is taking CAD further. It claims the Racoon is the world’s first vehicle to

be designed within the digitized world of virtual reality. Complex programs were used to

simulate the vehicle and the terrain that it was expected to cross. This allowed a team leb

by Patric Le Quement, Renault’s industrial－design director, to “drive” it long before a

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prototype existed.

   Renault is not alone in thinking that virtual reality will transform automotive design. In Detroit, Ford is also investigating its potential. Jack Telnac, the firm’s head of design, would like designers in different parts of the work more closely together, linked by computers. They would do more than style cars. Virtual reality will allow engineers to peer inside the working parts of a vehicle. Designers will watch bearings move, oil flow, gears mesh and hydraulics pump. As these techniques catch on, even stranger vehicles are likely to come along.

   Transforming these creations from virtual reality to actual reality will also become easier, especially with advances in materials. Firms that once bashed everything out of steel now find that new alloys or composite materials(which can be made from mixtures of plastic, resin, ceramics and metals, reinforced with fibers such as glad or carbon)are changing the rules of manufacturing. At the same time, old materials keep getting better, as their producers try to secure their place in the factory of the future. This competition is increasing the pace of development of all materials.

   One company in this field scaled composites. It was started in 1982 by Burt Rutan, an aviator who has devised many unusual aircraft. His company develops and tests prototypes that have ranged from business aircraft to air racers. It has also worked on composite sails for the America’s Cup yacht race and on General Motors’Ultralite, a 100－mile－per－gallon experimental family car built from carbon fiber.
   Again, the Racoon reflects this race between the old and the new. It uses conventional steel and what Renault describes as new “high－limit elastic steel” in its chassis. This steel is 30%lighter than the usual kind. The Racoon also has parts made from composites. Resnault plans to replace the petrol engine with a small gas turbine, which could be made from heat－resisting ceramics, and use it to run a generator that would provide power for electric motors at each wheel.
   With composites it is possible to build many different parts into a single component. Fiat, Italy’s biggest carmaker has worked out that it could reduce the number of components needed in one of its car bodies from 150 to 16 by using a composite shell rather than one made of steel. Aircraft and cars may increasingly be assembled as if they were plastic kits. 
   Again, in engine technology also make cars lighter. The Ultralite, which Scaled composites helped to design for General Motors, uses a two－stroke engine in a “power pod” at the rear of the vehicle. The engine has been developed from an East German design
and weighs 40% less than a conventional engine but produces as much power. It is expected to run cleanly enough to qualify as an ultra－low emissions vehicle under California’s tough new rules.
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1.      How does that Rcoon cross water?
2.      What is Renault most famous for?
3.      Why will Boeing not need a replica of the 777?
4.      How did Renault test all the bits fit together?
Passage2
   Some recent historians have argued that life in the British colonies in America from approximately 1763 to 1789 was marked by internal conflicts among colonists. Inheritors of some of the viewpoints of early twentieth century Progressive historian such as Beard and Becker, these recent historian have put forward arguments that deserve evaluation.
   The kind of conflict most emphasized by these historians is class conflict. Yet with the Revolutionary War dominating these years, how does one distinguish class conflict within that larger conflict? Certainly not by the side a person supported. Although many of these historians have accepted the earlier assumption that loyalists represented an upper class, new evidence indicates that Loyalists, like rebels, were drawn from all socioeconomic class.(It is nonetheless probably true that a larger percentage of the well－to－do joined the Loyalists than the rebels.)Looking at the rebel’s side, we find little evidence for the contention that lower－class rebels were in conflict with upper－class rebels. Indeed, the war effort against Britain tended to suppress class usually became Loyalists. Loyalism thus operated as a safety valve to remove socioeconomic discontent that existed among the rebels. Disputes occurred, of course, among those who remained on the rebel side, but the extraordinary social mobility of eighteenth－century American society(with the obvious exception of slaves)usually prevented such disputes from hardening along class lines. Social structure was in fact so fluid－thought recent statistics suggest a narrowing of economic opportunity as the latter half of the century progressed－that to talk about classes at all requires the use of loose economic categories such as rich, poor, and middle class, or eighteenth－century designations like “the better sort”. Despite these vague categories one should not claim unequivocally that hostility between recognizable classes cannot be legitimately observed. Outside of New York, however, there were very few instances of openly expressed class antagonism.
   Having said this, however, one must add that there is much evidence to support the further claim of recent historians that sectional conflicts were common between 1763and 1789. The “Paxton Boys” incident and the Regulator movement are representative examples of the widespread, and justified, discontent of western settlers against colonial
or state governments dominated by eastern interests. Although undertones of class conflict existed beneath such hostility, the opposition was primarily geographical. Sectional
conflict－which also existed between north and South－deserves further investigation.
   In summary, historians must be careful about the kind of conflicts they emphasize in eighteenth－century America. Yet those who stress the achievement of a general
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consensus among the colonists cannot fully understand the consensus without understanding the conflict that had to be overcome or repressed in order in order to reach it.
5.      What’s the author’s idea about the contentions made by the recent historians discussed in the passage?
6.      What is the function of loyalism during the American Revolutionary War?
7.      Comment on the social structure of eighteenth－century American society.
8.      Comment on the sectional conflicts in America between 1763 and 1789.
Passage3
   She stood before us looking very composed as she gave us good morning. Sabri cleared his throat, and picking up the great key very delicately between finger and thumb－as if it were of the utmost fragility－put it down again on the edge of the desk nearest her with the air of a conjurer making his opening dispositions.“We are speaking about your house,“he said softly, in a voice ever so faintly curdled with menace.“Do you know that all the wood is …”he suddenly shouted the last word with such force that I nearly fell off my chair,“rotten!”And picking up the key he banged it down to emphasize the point.
   The woman threw up her head with contempt and taking up the key also banged it down in her turn exclaiming:“It is not.”
   “It is.”Sabri banged the key.
   “It is not.”she banged it back.
   “It is.”A bang.
   “It is not.”A counter－bang.
   All this was certainly not on a very intellectual level, and made me rather ill at ease . I also feared that the key itself would be banged out of shape so that finally none of us world be able to get into the house. But these were the opening chords, so to speak, the preliminary statement of theme.
   The woman now took the key and help it up as if she were swearing by it.“The house is a good house,”she cried. Then she put it back on the desk. Sabri took it up thoughtfully, blew into it down and fell into an abstraction.“And suppose we wanted the house,”he said,“which we don’t, what would you ask for it?”
   “Eight hundred pound.”
   Sabri gave a long and stagy laugh, wiping away imaginary tears and repeating“Eight hundred pounds”as if it were the best joke in the world. He laughed at me and I laughed at him, a dreadful false laugh. He slapped his knee. I rolled about in my chair as if in the verge of acute gastritis. We laughed until we were exhausted. Then we grew serious again.
modified by the other aspectof his work. This last point－the relation of characters to the other aspects of the novel－will form the subject of a future enquiry. At present we are
occupied with their relation to actual life. What is the difference between people in a novel
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and people like the novelist or like you, or Queen Victoria?
2. translate the following passage into English
 
请给我一个小小的世界
    亲爱的丈夫，请给我一个小小的世界。
    当我在纸上胡乱涂写的时候，请不要在我身后窥探。我或许是在发泄心中无法诉说的一种情绪，或是在构思一首暂时还羞于见人的小诗，或是再次拿起违的彩笔色勒童年的彩虹，请你让我信笔驰骋。
    当我对着旧的照片和书信沉思、垂泪或微笑的时候，请不要打扰我。因为在你之前我有一段属于我的悲欢离合，属于我的表色的橄榄和散落的珍珠，尽管我愿意和你分享这些回忆，但我还是想有一段时间独自品尝和细数它们。
    当我和挚友小聚而你不能参加时，请不要介意。你是我最好的朋友，但你不能代替我其他的朋友，如同朋友不能代替你。像需要你一样，我需要朋友的关心，批评和鼓励。没有星星点缀而仅有月亮高悬的夜空多么清寂，请让我拥有一个星光灿烂的夜空。
    当我偶然打起行装远行的时候，请你不要牵住我的手。心尽管你是我世界的中心，却不是我整个的世界。我向往着万里云山之外的那些神奇莫测的秘密，请让我做一回“独行侠”，去探寻我的“爱丽丝仙境。”
    亲爱的丈夫，如果你能给我这样一个小小的世界，我会对你充满深深的感激。
Ⅳ. Writing(40%)
   Writing around 500 words on the topic below.
 
                               ON HAPPINESS