考研英语第20套题Word文档下载推荐.docx

1、Text 1 07.8In Birmingham, Alabama, on Friday, a federal judge ordered a deadlocked jury to continue weighing evidence against Richard Scrushy, the former chief executive of HealthSouth, accused of orchestrating a $2.7 billion accounting fraud. But that courtroom decision, regardless of the outcome,

2、will have scant effect on a company that has avoided the downward spiral that engulfed Andersen and Enron. In the corporate scandals of the past four years, the striking fact is that the closing chapters more often have followed the script at HealthSouth and not at Andersen. The spectrum of business

3、 misconduct has included seemingly every flavor of fraud, self-dealing, improper accounting and conflict of interest. The punishments have ranged from the recent conviction of Bernard Ebbers, the former chief of WorldCom, for guiding an $11 billion fraud, to the fines paid in 2002 by a group of Wall

4、 Street firms to settle charges that stock analysts wrote rosy reports on companies to help bring in investment banking business. Yet the goal of government policy, prosecution strategy and business practice has nearly always been to rehabilitate the disobedient companies rather than liquidate them.

5、 There are exceptions. Enron proved to be a financial house of cards, as no one was willing to trade with a trader that was bankrupt. Enrons physical assets, like its national gas pipelines, were auctioned. Andersen was given a death sentencejustified or notwhen it was indicted, and its corporate au

6、diting clients fled within weeks. The Justice Departments corporate indictment of Andersen was controversial and unlikely to be replicated in other cases. Since Andersen, federal and state prosecutors have adopted the less drastic approach of targeting the responsible executives and reaching settlem

7、ents with the companies that include fines and changes in corporate behavior. “You dont want to be swinging a meat ax when a scalpel is appropriate,” said Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general. “You want to get rid of the individuals who did the wrongdoing and get the company back on an

8、 even keel.” That has been the pattern followed in pursuing misconduct at other major companies, including Tyco, WorldCom, Adelphia, Marsh & McLennan and American International Group.There have been spectacular financial failures, like the bankruptcies of WorldCom and Adelphia. But the American syst

9、em of bankruptcy allows companies to seek temporary shelter from creditors and time to recast themselves for corporate survival or later sale on better terms. In April, Time Warner and Comcast purchased Adelphia for $17.6 billion and will split up its cable television operations. And WorldCom, renam

10、ed MCI since emerging from bankruptcy, agreed last month to be sold to Verizon Communications for $8.5 billion.442 words1. The last sentence of the first paragraph means that .A more coverage is given to HealthSouth rather than Anderson and EnronB HealthSouth has won a legal victory but Anderson and

11、 Enron havent C a light punishment is given to most companies involved in the scandalsD more and more companies are punished for accounting fraud2. Which of the following best defines the word “liquidate” （line 2, paragraph 3）?A To put an end to.B To settle the affairs of.C To pay off the debts of.D

12、 To restore to good condition.3. According to the fourth paragraph, “a meat ax” is to “a scalpel” as.A “extravagant” is to “restrained” B “radical” is to “conservative”C “powerful” is to “delicate” D “ambiguous” is to “straightforward”4. WorldCom and Adelphia serve as good examples of . A the situat

13、ion of a scandal-tainted companyB the way to survive a corporate scandal C the recipe for restoring a companys fameD the efficiency of bankruptcy-law protection5. Which of the following is true according to the text?A Several Wall Street firms used improper accounting in 2002.B Enron is a company th

14、at issues its own credit cards.C Adelphias responsible executives are on trial for fraud.D WorldCom has restarted building its own business. Text 2 07.8Our frantic attempts to avoid boredom uphold a lucrative corner of the entertainment industry, while the variety of books, websites, TV programs and

15、 videos aimed at children and called “Boredom Busters” suggests that ennui has no age restriction. This is no new developmentobsessive texting is hardly on a level with watching lions rip gladiators to shreds for entertainment, and, as the British public seem to be moving on to a stage where fox-hun

16、ting is no longer seen as a justifiable, fun diversion, we must be doing something right. However, some pundits have recently pointed out that obsessive avoidance of boredom （apart from being quite dull in itselfhave you ever tried to have a decent conversation with an extreme sports enthusiast?） de

17、nies access to the certain kind of mental space which boredom brings and in doing so leaves us creatively and spiritually malnourished. In other words, boredom is becoming “a lost art form”.Steven Winn of the San Francisco Chronicle puts it in a recent article:“As more and more people seem to recogn

18、ize, the universal experience of being boredunengaged, detached, afloat in some private torpormay be far more precious, fruitful and even profound than a surface apprehension might suggest. As ordinary as grey skies and equally pervasive, boredom deserves its own sun-splashed attention and celebrati

19、on.”This is a very particular understanding of what boredom is, and perhaps this very problem of definition is what lies at the root of the supposed debate. On the one hand, boredom can be defined as a state of listlessness, a lack of interest in that which surrounds us and a general sense of ennui.

20、 Of this particular definition, Saul Steinberg wrote, “The life of the creative man is led, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.” So in this case, boredom is something we flee from in horror.Another conception of boredom is of a blank, private m

21、ental space, invaluable for relaxing and for the fermentation of creative juices. It is this type of boredom which is considered by some to be a lost art form. Informational overload from all quarters means that there can often be very little time for personal thought, reflection, or even just “zoni

22、ng out”. With a mobile that is constantly switched on and a plethora of entertainments available to distract the naked eye, it is understandable that some people find it difficult to actually get bored in that particular fidgety, introspective kind of way.427 words6The word“ennui”（Line 3, Para. 1）mo

23、st probably means.A the efforts at avoiding boredomB a lack of creativityC the absence of privacyD the feeling of having nothing to do 7Boredom is becoming “a lost art form” because people.A are deprived of deep thoughtB lost interest in old-fashioned amusementC indulge in entertainmentD have no pri

24、vate space8According to Steven Winn, which of the following is true about boredom?A It is a universal problem in human beings.B It is always feared by creative men.C It is important to recognize its significance.D It is more valuable than entertainment.9From the passage, we can infer that boredom.A

25、is only limited to childrenB was also avoided by ancient peopleC can lead to art creationD has both strong and weak points10A suitable title for the passage might be.A Life without BoredomB The Influence of Modern EntertainmentC Two Types of BoredomD The Significance of BoredomText 3 07.8Another sum

26、mer of record-breaking temperatures brought power failures, heat waves, droughts and tropical storms throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Only one place seemed to remain cool: the air-conditioned offices of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. They sat comfortable, hurling editorials of

27、stunning misdirection at their readers, continuing their irresponsible drumbeat that global warming is junk science. Now I have nothing against the Wall Street Journal. It is an excellent paper, whose science column and news reporting have accurately and carefully carried the story of global climate

28、 change. Even the corporate advertisements that surround the editorial page tell of BPs commitments to renewable energy and General Electrics commitments to environmentally sound technologies. The editorial page sits in its own defensive position, separated from the reporters and from the truth.One

29、recent editorial, “Hockey Stick Hokum” （published July 14, 2006）, epitomizes the editorial approach of recent years. The climate change “hockey stick” is a graph first published in 1998 by Michael Mann et al. that attempted to reconstruct the mean surface temperature on the planet during the period

30、A. D. 900 to the present, using multiple proxies, such as tree rings, to measure temperatures before formal instrumentation was in use. The conclusion of that study was that we are now in that intervals warmest range of temperatures, therefore adding support to the overwhelming evidence from other s

31、ources and models that man-made climate change is already well underway. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has for years railed against these scientific findings on climate change, even as the global consensus has reached nearly 100 percent of the scientific community, including the reports commissioned by the skeptical Bush White House. Thus, the hockey stick became the bte noire of the editorial page as well as of the dwindling “climate skeptic” community, and right-wing Congressional officials such as Representative Joe Barton of Texas, chairman of the House