武汉大学2016年考博英语真题及答案

武汉大学2016年考博英语真题及答案

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Part I Reading Comprehension (2 分 x20 =40 分)

Directions: In this part for the test, there will be 5 passages for you to read. Each passage is followed by 4 questions or unfinished statement, and each question or unfinished statement is followed by four choices marked A, B, C and D. You are to decide on the best choice by blackening the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

Passage One

My last flight to Rome landed at stupid o’clock in the morning so I was almost looking forward to getting a cup of hot coffee from the flight crew. Instead, I opted for holding my eyelids up with two fingers so I could find the first coffee shop in the airport. Coffee always tastes terrible on planes and there could be a simple — and disgusting — reason why.A couple of weeks ago, an assortment of airline employees spilled some of their industry’s secrets in an Ask Reddit thread, and two of them had some unpleasant things to say about the coffee-makers. A user named Muddbutt7 wrote:

“ Sometimes, the vehicle that fills the potable water for washing hands and making coffee is parked next to the vehicle that in used to dump the [toilets] and fill the blue juice for the lavatories. They’re not supposed to. Sometimes, they parked at a distance from each other, which is policy, yet the guy who is filling the water is using gloves that he hasn’t in over 2 years. ” 

While a second user named Worseto added:

“The coffee is absolutely disgusting because no one washes the container that goes out every morning. The station agents who get paid way too little don’t give a [ expletive ] about cleaning it. I certainly didn’t when I worked for AA. Also, because we weren’t given the proper supplies to clean it. We pretty much just rinsed it out and dumped coffee into it. “

After reading those sort of stomach-churning confessions, Huffington Post attempted to determine how true those statements are. Abbie Unger, a former flight attendant, told the site:

“It is true that the portable water tanks are not cleaned. But they are only filled with potable (drinkable) water, so it’s not like there is old coffee in a big container somewhere. The water doesn’t make for an excellent cup of coffee, but it’s not unsafe. ”So basically, the reason that cup of Starbucks during your Delta flight tastes worse than the cup you had at the airport is because of the water, which is a point that has been raised previously. The Environmental Protection Agency began investigating the safety of the water on airplanes in 2004, after discovering that 15%—or 1. 5 out of every 10 planes—tested positive for coliform bacteria in the drinking water.

In 2013, NBC 5 looked into whether those numbers had improved and discovered that 12% of planes had at least one positive test for coliform in what was then the EPA’s most recent survey. Although the EPA said that there had not been any cases of anyone getting sick from the water onboard a plane, insiders still say that the tanks 一 and the hoses that are used to fill them 一 can be pretty gross (“pretty gross” is a highly scientific term). In a Forbes piece called “Why Airline Crews Skip the Coffee and Tea On Board”，former US Air employee John Goglia wrote:

“Thirty years ago when I was working for US Air, we began a process to bleach the water tanks that hold the water and flush out the system. This was done on a regular basis. Yet, it was clear to anyone working on these tanks and their hoses that a lot of sediment was accumulating in the system, sediment that was akin to pond scum. Even after the tanks were bleached and flushed，some sediment always remained. “

Of course, there could be other reasons why the coffee tastes so unpleasant. Cornell University scientists believe that the loud, inescapable sound of cabin noise can affect the way we both perceive and taste foods during flight. Either way, we might just stick with coffee served at ground level from now on.

1. What attitudes did the author have towards the coffee on planes according to the passage?

A. longing B. negative C. indifferent D. melancholy

2. is basically the cause of the terrible coffee taste on planes.

A. The unwashed container that goes out every morning

B. The unchanged gloves of the crew member

C. The water used for making coffee

D. The improper supplies used to clean the container

3. According to the context, what possibly is the Chinese meaning of the word “ coliform” in Paragraph 9?

A. 大肠菌 B.幽门螺杆菌 C.沙门氏菌 D.曲状杆菌

4. Which of the following is INCORRECT according to US Air employee John Goglia?

A. There was a regular process to bleach the water tanks and flush out the system.

B. A lot of sediment was accumulating in the tanks and their hoses.

C. None of the sediment remained after cleaning.

D. Sediment was similar to pond scum.

Passage Two

Researchers have created male mice with no trace of a Y chromosome, supposedly the defining hallmark of being male. Reproductive biologist Monika Ward of University of Hawaii in Honolulu and colleagues started with mice that have only one X chromosome ( and no second sex chromosome). Normally those animals would develop as females. But when the researchers manipulated genes found on the X and another chromosome, the mice became males that could produce immature sperm. Those engineered males fathered offspring with reproductive assistance from the researchers, who injected the immature sperm into eggs, Ward and colleagues report in the Jan. 29 Science.

The experiments demonstrate that there are multiple ways to make males, says Richard Behringer, a developmental geneticist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “They’ve done it without any Y chromosome gene information,” he says “There’s not even a sniff of the Y around. ”

At first glance, the experiments would seem to suggest Y chromosomes aren’t necessary for reproduction, which hints that evolution may eventually show Y’s the door. “To me it is a paradigm of the decline and fall of the Y chromosome，” says reproductive biologist Jennifer Marshall Graves of La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. But Ward and other researchers say the Y isn’t going anywhere and that interpreting the new results as the chromosome’s death knell is wrong. Because the Y-less males needed help to reproduce,“clearly we need the Y chromosome for full natural male reproduction，” says Mary Ann Handel, a reproductive biologist at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. Ward and colleagues had previously shown that two Y chromosome genes一Sry and Eif2 s3y—are crucial for male mouse development. Sry is a master gene that turns on male developmental programming in early embryos. It turns on a gene called Sox9, which then sets off a biochemical chain reaction that leads to male development. But in the new experiments, the researchers turned on Sox9 through other means. Activating Sox9 in a genetically female embryo will cause it to develop as a male, Ward and colleagues found. But those males didn’t make sperm. “The testes were empty,” says Ward.

In order to produce sperm, mice need the Eif2s3y gene, the researchers had previously discovered. In the new experiment, the mice were missing the gene because they didn’t have Y chromosomes. So researchers substituted a similar gene from the X chromosome called Eif2s3x. Only one copy of the Y version is needed to make immature, tailless sperm, but it takes at least five copies of the X version to do the same thing. “ This indicates that the Y chromosome gene is the strong one,，’ says Ward.

Her research suggests that the Y chromosome has optimized production from genes that are necessary for making males. Making just the right dose of male development factors is how the Y protects itself from evolutionary erasure, Ward says. “ Our work does not support that the Y

chromosome will disappear. ’， Graves disagrees, Ward’s work is “a lovely example of how you can lose even a really important gene,” she says. At least two species of rodents have already jettisoned their Y chromosomes entirely. Primates, including humans, don’t have EiJSs3y genes on their Y chromosomes. The new work may help explain how primates get along without the gene, Graves suggests, and the research may “give us useful information about what happens at the end of the Y chromosome. ”

5. Which of the following is CORRECT according to the passage?

A. Mice with only one X chromosome would develop as females normally.

B. Y chromosome is definitely the hallmark of being male.

C. Those engineered male mice cannot father offspring even with reproductive assistance

D. There is only one way to make male mice from relevant experiments in the University of Hawaii.

6. Why is Eif2s3Y gene crucial for male mouse development?

A. It is a master gene that turns on male developmental programming early embryos.

B. It sets off a biochemical chain reaction that leads to male development.

C. Mice need it to produce sperm.

D. Mice need it to develop testes.

7. Which of the following is INCORRECT according to the passage?

A. At least two species of rodents have jettisoned their Y chromosomes completely.

B. Ei^s3X, a gene from the Y chromosome, is similar with EiSs3y.

C. Y chromosome has optimized production from gene necessary for making males.

D. Humans don’t have EiSs3y genes on their Y chromosomes.

8. What can be the best title for this passage?

A. Mice Can Be Male Without Y Chromosome.

B. The Artificial Reproduction of Mice.

C. The Mysterious Y Chromosome in Mice.

D. The Male and Female Mice.

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