英语科技文选自考2008年7月真题及答案解析

My Opinion on Self-employment

    Stone tools found on an Eritrean fossil reef in eastern Africa suggest that early humans lived in coastal environments as far back as 125,000 years ago. Professor Mario Gagnon of anthropology studied tools discovered by an international team on a fossil reef terrace near the village of Abdur on Eritrea’s Red Sea coast. Radiometric dating of the tools shows they are roughly 10,000 years older than the estimated age of tools found in South Africa-up until now the oldest known coastal site in Africa containing fossil remains of early human implements. “The stone tools from Abdur signal a new, widespread adaptive strategy in early human behavior which spread from one end of Africa to the other between 115,000 and 125,000 years ago,” Gagnon says.

    The geographic origin of modern humans is the subject of an intense, on-going debate among anthropologists. These Eritrean tools may help in solving the mystery. The discovery of these implements in a fossil reef-humanity’s “first oyster bar”is unusual, Gagnon says, “The tool-bearing reef has a rich population of marine organisms such as clams, scallops, snails and oysters and the tools were used to harvest and eat these mollusks and crustaceans.”

It is clear that the findings of Dr. Arpad Pusztai __________.

According to the passage, the goal of college education should be to develop instudents the ability to __________.

What can be said about what happened to Arpad Pusztai?

                                                              (B)

       The scientific establishment is playing a key role in research and development of genetic engineering biotechnology and in actively defending the industry under the banner of “sound science” and “scientific progress”. Scientific advice to the government is heavily biased in favor of the industry. Lord Sainsbury, current Minister for Science, was formerly chairman of the Sainsbury family’s supermarket chain, closely involved with the development of GE foods. Another prominent scientist, Derek Burke, advisor to the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology and formerly chairman of the Advisory Committee on Novel Food Products, was a key participant in the UK Government’s Technology Foresight exercise, and in a follow-up group that determined the pro-biotech funding policy of the BBSRC. Derek Burke is an outspoken and staunch defender of the industry. The public are being informed uncritically by scientists like Burke and others, consciously or unconsciously serving commercial interests, and legitimate concerns about safety are caricatured as irrational fear arising out of ignorance.

        The credibility of science and scientists has been steadily diminishing over the years as science has become more and more absorbed into the commercial sector. Science education at every level is being subverted to corporate aims: its chief purpose is to provide skilled but uncritical workers for industry. The UK Government has even run a competition for science students on how to commercially exploit scientific research. There has been no major open debate on genetic engineering within academic institutions, that has been organized by the academic staff. With very few exceptions, students are not encouraged to ask questions about the ethics or the hazards of genetic engineering on either side of the Atlantic.

        Scientific evidence of actual and potential hazards, which has been steadily building up over the past ten years, is being ignored and dismissed. More seriously, independent scientists reporting findings damaging to the industry are gagged and victimized. Within the UK, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, senior scientist of the publicly-funded Rowett Institute, and his collaborators were awarded a 1.6 million pound grant to carry out systematic safety testing of GE food. They found that the GE potato lines tested were toxic to young rats, and Pusztai informed the public in a brief interview which was part of a TV documentary. A few days later, he was removed from his job, denied access to his data, and forbidden to speak on the subject.

      The suppression of scientific findings is nothing new; it has been happening more and more within the past decade. Since the 1970s, scientific fraud has been increasing, as has the proportion of peer-reviewed scientific papers retracted. We have moved far away form the traditional ideals of science as science loses innocence and independence.

What is the author’s attitude toward the role the scientific establishment is playing?

What can be inferred from the first paragraph?

What probably remains unchanged as the ape infant grows?

All of the following could account for bipedality EXCEPT _______.

Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

The prediction process is aided by the fact that the artificial is generally simpler than the natural. The role of a bowling ball down an alley, for instance, is easier to predict than the motion of an irregular stone tumbling down a rough hillside. It is likely that the artificial will increasingly save us from the unpredictable. It may be easier to move gradually toward a completely enclosed earth whose climate could be artificially controlled than to learn to predict the natural weather.

                                                               (A)

        The transition from apes to humans may have been partially triggered by the need to stand on two legs, in order to safely carry heavier babies. This theory of species evolution presented by Lia Amaral from the University of S?o Paulo in Brazil has just been published.

        For safety, all nonhuman primates carry their young clinging to their fur from birth, and species survival depends on it. The carrying pattern changes as the infant grows. Newborns are carried clinging to their mother’s stomach, often with additional support. Months later, infants are carried over the adult body usually on the mother’s back, and this carrying pattern lasts for years in apes. However, this necessity to carry infants safely imposes limits on the weight of the infants.

       Through a detailed mechanical analysis of how different types of apes-gibbons, orangutans and gorillas-carry their young, looking at the properties of ape hair, infant grip, adult hair density and carrying position, Amaral demonstrates a relationship between infant weight, hair friction and body angle which ensures ape infants are carried safely.

According to Amaral, what is responsible for safe ape infant carrying?

true　 to called contain exclusively animals  live diet  fit eat

      A carnivore is an animal that eats a diet consisting mainly of meat, whether it comes from(21)animals or dead ones (scavenging). Some(22)are considered carnivores even if their diets (23)very little meat (e.g., predatory arthropods such as spiders or mantids that may rarely consume small vertebrate prey). Animals that subsist on a (24) consisting only of meat are referred to as obligate carnivores. The word also refers (25) the mammals of the Order Carnivora, many (but not all) of which(26) the first definition. Bears are an example of members of Carnivora that are not (27) carnivores. Carnivores that (28)insects primarily or exclusively are (29) insectivores, while those that eat fish primarily or(30)are called piscivores.

cater for

analytical

draw on

do justice to sth./sb.

arbitrary

31、她要做的事太多，因此没有好好上课。

32、他没有跟别人商量就随意决定关闭这个剧场。

33、一种化学分析方法被用来鉴定这种物质。

34、我希望新建的实验中心能适应你们的特殊要求。

35、作者运用自己的想象力和经验写成了这部巨著。

Kate _________ new ideas when she went to college.

Mary said she was tired of journalists’ digging and _________ her private life.

A0620-00 was discovered in 1975, when it emitted _________ light and X rays.

There’s _________ opinion on this question.

Everyone on the team _________ winning the game last Saturday.

_________, photographs are recorded images of the intensity of ordinary, incoherent light.

Pollution _________ these sites and the movement of diseases across ecosystemshave turned some environments off aquaculture.

He should do well at college; _________, he is a very smart boy.

The law was passed by the town council in_________ complaints from localresidents.

            after all                    expose to

            contribute to             a spectrum of

            in relation to             response to

            run for                     emanate from

             in comparison          a shower of

             delve into                 shake up (with)

More people than ever before are _________ the city council.

The whole world today is so much _________ the word “biotechnology” that it has become a strong belief that this is “the field” which will give solution to our “any” problem.

The money he had been ordered to pay was minimal _________ his salary.

nourished 营养不良的

rhythm 有节奏地

play 相互作用

scan 扫描仪

diversify 变化;不同之处

consciously 意识

variant 不变量

guarantee 保证人