厦门大学博士研究生入学考试英语试题.docx

1、厦门大学博士研究生入学考试英语试题厦门大学2007博士研究生入学考试英语试题Part I Reading Comprehension(40 points)Part A(30 points)Directions: There are 3 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A,B,C and D. You should decide on t

2、he best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the centerPassage OneQuestions 15 are based on the following passage： For the longest time, I couldnt get worked up about privacy: my right to it；how its dying；how were headed for an even more wired，under

3、regulated，overinstrusive，privacy-deprived planet I should also point out that as news director for Pathfinder，Time Incs mega info mall，and a guy who makes his living on the Web, I know better than most people that were hurtling toward an even more intrusive world. Were all being watched by computers

4、 whenever we visit Websites；by the mere act of“browsing”(it sounds so passive!)weregoing public in a way that was unimaginable a decade agoI know this because Im a watcher tooWhen people come to my Website，without ever knowing their names, I can peer over their shoulders，recording what they look at,

5、 timing how long they stay on a particular page，following them around Pathfinders sprawling offerings None of this would bother me in the least，I suspect，if a few years ago，my phone, like Marleys ghost, hadnt given me a glimpse of the nightmares to comeOn Thanksgiving weekend in 1995, someone(presum

6、ably a critic of a book my wife and I had just written about computer hackers)forwarded my home telephone number to an out-of-state answering machine where unsuspecting callers trying to reach me heard a male voice identify himself as me and say some extremely rude thingsThen，with typical hacker apl

7、omb, the prankster asked people to leave their messages(which to my surprise many Callers, including my mother，did)This went on for several days until my wife and I figured out that something was wrong (“Heywhy hasnt the phone rung since Wednesday?”)and got our phone service restored It seemed funny

8、 at first，and it gave us a swell story to tell on our book tour. But the interloper who seized our telephone line continued to hit us even after the tour ended. And hit us again and again for the next six months：The phone company seemed powerless. Its security folks moved us to one unlisted number a

9、fter another half a dozen timesThey put special pin codes in placeThey put traces on the lineBut the troublemaker kept breaking through If our hacker had been truly evil and omnipotent as only fictional movie hackers are, there would probably have been even worse ways he could have threatened my pri

10、vacy. He could have sabotaged my credit ratingHe could have eavesdropped on my telephone conversations or siphoned off my e-mailHe could have called in my mortgage，discontinued my health insurance or obliterated my Social Security numberLike Sandra Bullock in the Net, I could have been a digital unt

11、ouchable, wandering the planet without a connection to the rest of humanity(Although if I didnt have to pay back school loans，it might be worth itJust a thought。) Still, I remember feeling violated at the time and as powerless as a minnow in a flash floodSomeone was invading my private space-my fami

12、lys private space-and there was nothing I or the authorities could doIt was as close to a technological epiphany as I have ever beenAnd as 1 watched my personal digital hell unfold，it struck me that our privacy-mine and yourshas already disappeared, not in one Big Brotherly blitzkrieg but in Little

13、Brotherly moments，bit by bit. Losing control of your telephone, of course, is the least of it. After allmost of us voluntarily give out our phone number and address when we allow ourselves to be listed in the White PagesMost of us go a lot further than thatWe register our whereabouts when-ever We pu

14、t a bank card in an ATM machine or drive through an E-Z Pass lane on the highwayWe submit to being photographed every day-20 times a day on average if you live or work in New York City-by surveillance camerasWe make public our interests and our purchasing habits every time we shop by mail order or v

15、isit a commercial Website.1What information do you learn about the author that establishes him as an authority on this topic?AHe has suffered a lot in losing his privacyBHe makes his living off of the WebCHe knows how to monitor his accountD. He and his wife published a book concerning computer hack

16、ers.2.Which of the following problems has the author experienced?A. Someone got information from his medical files and sent him brochures on health products he may want to buy.B.Someone used the motor-vehicle registration records on his car to find his home address.C.Someone rerouted his telephone c

17、alls to another number without his knowledge.D.Someone sent an e-mail message that destroyed the files on his computer.3.According to the passage, the hackers in the movie would conduct following thing EXCEPTA.eavesdroppingB.darnaging a Social Security numberC.threatening in a flash floodD.making a

18、person information disappear in the date base.4.The writer cited his experience to show that _A.the authorized organization could solve the problem by offering timely helpB.the interloper would be kept back sooner or laterC.the government took personal privacy bit by bitD.he would lose his privacy g

19、radually5.Because of advances in todays technology, the right to privacy could be comprormised in the following areas EXCEPT _A.purchasingB.baningC.telephone useD.recruitmentPassage TwoQuestions 610 are based on the following passage:Hello, my name is Richard and I am an ego surfer. The habit began

20、about five years ago, and now I need help. Like most journalists, I cant deny that one of my private joys is seeing my byline in print. Now the internet is allowing me to feed this vanity to an ever greater extent, and the occasional sneaky web search has grown into a full-blown obsession with how h

21、igh up Googles ranking my articles appear when I put my name into the search box. When I last looked, my best effort was a rather humiliating 47th place. You know you have a problem when you find yourself competing for ranking with a retired basketball player from the 1970s.Not that Im alone in suff

22、ering from a dysfunctional techno-habit. New technologies have revealed a whole raft of hitherto unsuspected personality problems., think crackberry, powerpointlessness or cheesepodding. Most of us are familiar with sending an e-mail to a colleague sitting a couple of feet away instead of talking to

23、 them. Some go onto the web to snoop on old friends, colleagues or even first dates. More of us than ever reveal highly personal information on blogs or My Space entries. A few will even use internet anonymity to fool others into believing they are someone else altogether. So are these web syndromes

24、 and technological tics new versions of old afflictions, or are we developing fresh mind bugs?Developing a bad habit is easier than many might think. “You can become addicted to potentially anything you do,” says Mark Griffiths, an addiction researcher at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, “beca

25、use addictions rely on constant rewards. ” Indeed, although definitions of addiction vary, there is a body of evidence that suggests drug addictions and non-drug habits share the same neural pathways. While only a hardcore few can be considered true technology addicts, an entirely unscientific surve

26、y of the web, and of New Scientist staff, has revealed how prevalent techno-addictions may have become.The web in particular has opened up a host of opportunities for overindulgence. Take Wikipedia. Updating the entries-something anyone can do-has become almost a way of life for some. There are more

27、 than 2,400 “Wikipedians”, who have edited more than 4,000 pages each. “Its clearly like crack for some people,” says Dan Closely at Cornell University in New York, who has studied how websites such as Wikipedia foster a community. To committed Wikipedians, he says, the site is more than a useful in

28、formation resource; its the embodiment of an ideology of free information for all.Then there are photolog sites like Flickr. While most of us would rather die than be caught surreptitiously browsing through someone elses photos, there need be no such qualms about the private pics people put up on th

29、ese sites. Most people using Flickr and similar sites spent time each day browsing albums owned by people they had never met. They do this for emotional kicks. Khalid and Dix suggest: flicking through someone elses wedding photos, for example, allows people to daydream about their own nuptials.E-mai

30、l is another area where things can get out of hand. While e-mail has led to a revival of the habit of penning short notes to friends and acquaintances, the ease with which we can do this means that we dont always think hard enough about where our casual comments could end up. This was the undoing of

31、 US broadcaster Keith Olbermann, who earlier this year sent a private e-mail in which he described a fellow MSNBC reporter as “dumber than a suitcase of rocks”. Unfortunately for Olbermann, the words found their way into the New York Daily News.Pam Briggs, a specialist in human-computer interaction

32、at the University of Northumbria, UK, says the lack of cues such as facial expressions or body language when communicating electronically can lead us to overcompensate in what we say. “The medium is so thin, theres little room for projecting ourselves into it,” says Briggs.“When all the social cues disappear, we feel we have to put something else into the void, which is often an overemotional or over-intimate message.”The habit of forwarding jokey e-mails or YouTube videos-think Diet Coke and Mentos fountams-can also say a lot abou