2015年中科院考博英语真题6

考博英语责任编辑：王觅 2019-02-12

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Part B Reading Comprehension

Section A (60 minutes, 30 points)

Directions: Below each of the following passages you will find some questions or incomplete statements. Each question or statement is followed by four choices marked A, B，C，and D. Read each passage carefully, and then select the choice that best answers the question or completes the statement. Mark the letter of your choice with a single bar across the square brackets on your machine-scoring ANSWER SHEET.

Passage Five

In Second Nature，Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Gerald Edelman argues that the brain and mind are unified, but he has little patience with the claim that the brain is a computer. Fortunately for the general reader, his explanations of brain function are accessible, reinforced by concrete examples and metaphors.

Edelman suggests that thanks to the recent development of instruments capable of measuring brain structure within millimeters and brain activity within milliseconds, perceptions, thoughts, memories, willed acts, and other mind matters traditionally considered private and impenetrable to scientific scrutiny now can be correlated with brain activity. Our consciousness ( a “ first-person affair ” displaying intentionality, reflecting beliefs and desires, etc. )，our creativity, even our value systems, have a basis in brain function.

The author describes three unifying insights that correlate mind matters with brain activity. First, even distant neurons will establish meaningful connections ( circuits) if their firing patterns are synchronized. Second, experience can either strengthen or weaken synapses (neuronal connections).

Finally, there is reentry, the continued signaling from one brain region to another and back again along massively parallel nerve fibers.

Edelman concedes that neurological explanations for consciousness and other aspects of mind are not currently available, but he is confident that they will be soon. Meanwhile, he is comfortable hazarding a guess: “All of our mental life... is based on the structure and dynamics of our brain. ” Despite this optimism about the explanatory powers of neuroscience, Edelman acknowledges the pitfalls in attempting to explain all aspects of mind in neurological terms. Indeed, culture—not biology—is the primary determinant of the brain’s evolution, and has been since the emergence of language, he notes.

However, I was su ;,Ised to learn that he considers Sigmund Freud “ the key expositor of the effects of unconscious processes on behavior. ” Such a comment ignores how slightly Freud’s conception of the unconscious, with its emphasis on sexuality and aggression, resembles the cognitive unconscious studied by neuroscientists. Still, Second Nature is well worth reading. It serves as a bridge between the traditionally separate camps of “hard” science and the humanities. Readers without at least some familiarity with brain science will likely find the going difficult at certain points. Nonetheless, Edelman has achieved his goal of producing a provocative exploration of “how we come to know the world and ourselves”.

60. Gerald Edelman would most probably support the idea that the brain .

A. co-functions with the mind B. works like a computer

C. has an accessible function D. sends signals to the mind

61. It was previously felt that perceptions and other mind matters could hardly be .

A. treated as a significant issue B. studied with scientific methods

C. separated from brain activity D. handled with surgical instruments

62. Edelman firmly believes that .

A. brain signals will repeatedly go from one brain region to another.

B. experience will have an ill effect on neuronal connections

C. distant neurons will help synchronize their firing patterns

D. mind matters will be explained from a neurological perspective

63. According to Edelman, to provide a thorough explanation of human mind, neuroscience will be .