2017年武大考博英语真题及答案

Write a composition in no less than 150 words on the topic: What Do You Think of Advanced Artificial Intelligence. Read the following words in English. You should write according to the outline given below. Write your composition on the ANSWER SHEET.

1. Google’s DeepMind Alpha Go program has beaten all the world champions of the game Go in a series of battles between man and artificial intelligence.

2. Some people fear advanced artificial intelligence because?

3. Your attitude towards advanced artificial intelligence.

为了找到实验室试验的替代实验，经济学家会密切关注由历史提供的自然实验。例如，当中东的一次战争中断了原油供应时， 油价在全球范围内狂涨。对于石油及石油产品的消费者来说，这样的一次事件会降低生活水平。对于经济决策者来说，它给他们出了一道难题，即如何做出最佳应对。但对于经济学家来说，它为研究重要自然资源对世界经济的影响提供了一次机会，且这种机会在战时的油价飞涨结束很久依然存在。因此，整本书中，我们会分析很多历史事件。这些历史事件值得研究，因为，它们让我们对旧时的经济有所了解，更重要的是，因为它们使我们能够说明和评价当今的经济理论。

(4)__________________________________

(2)__________________________________

(3)__________________________________

What does the author mean by “while the tinsel is hot (Line 2, Para. 6)?

Economics is no different. Supply, demand, elasticity, comparative advantage, consumer surplus,deadweight loss--these terms are part of the economist ’s language. In the coming chapters, youwill encounter many new terms and some familiar words that economists use in specialized ways.(1)At first, this new language may seem needlessly arcane. But, as you will see, its value lies in itsability to provide you a new and useful way of thinking about the world in which you live. 

Economists try to address their subject with a scientist ’s objectivity. They approach the studyof the economy in much the same way as a physicist approaches the study of matter and abiologist approaches the study of life: (2)They devise theories, collect data, and then analyze thesedata in an attempt to verify or refute their theories. 

To beginners, it can seem odd to claim that economics is a science. After all, economists donot work with test tubes or telescopes. (3)The essence of science, however, is the scientificmethods--the dispassionate development and testing of theories about how the world works. 

This method of inquiry is as applicable to studying a nation ’s economy as it is to studying thearth’s gravity or a species ’ evolution. (4)As Albert Einstein once put it, “The whole ofnothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking. ” (225words) 

(1)__________________________________

In a thank-you note, “The book will be my good companion when I am alone”serves as________.

According to Ms. Demeanor, showing appreciation has the benefit of ________.

Of all the people on my holiday shopping list, there was one little boy for whom buying a gift hadbecome increasingly difficult. He ’s a wonderful child, adorable and loving, and he ’s not firritable or spoiled. Though he lives across the country from me, I receive regular updates andphotos, and he likes all the things that the boys his age want to play with. Shopping for him shouldbe easy, but I find it hard to summon up any enthusiasm, because in all the years I ’ve givpresents, he never once sent me a thank-you note. 

“Sending thank-you notes is becoming a lost art, ” mourns Mary Mitchell, a syndicated columnistknown as “Ms. Demeanor”and author of six etiquette books. In her view, each generation,compared with the one before, is losing a sense of consideration for other people. “Withoutrespect, ” she says, “you have conflict. ” 

Ms. Demeanor would be proud of me: I have figured out a way to ensure that my children alwayssend thank-you notes. And such a gesture is important, says Ms. Demeanor, because “a gratefulattitude is a tremendous life skill, an efficient and inexpensive way to set ourselves apart in thework force and in our adult lives. Teach your children that the habit of manners comes frominside ― it ’s an attitude based on respecting other people. ” 

Why does NASA intend to commercialize aspects of space?

What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 5 mean?

What is the purpose of designing the inflatable space habitat?.

From beach balls, pool toys, and jump houses, inflatable technology takes a big step forward forits next frontier: space station. A new kind of tech will be aboard Space X ’s eighth supply mto the International Space Station (ISS). A compressed living module will be delivered andattached to the station where, in the void of space, it will expand into a new habitat for astronauts. 

Designed by Bigelow Aerospace, the inflatable space habitat is one area NASA is exploringfor potential deep space habitats and other advanced space missions.“The ‘Bigelow Expandable Activity Module,’ or the BEAM, is an expandable habitat thatwill be used to investigate technology and understand the potential benefits of such habitatsforhuman missions to deep space, ” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a blog post. 

The habitats could be a way to “dramatically increase ” the space available for astronautswhile also offering added protection from the dangers of space, like radiation and spacedebris, the NASA press release says. 

But how is an inflatable space station supposed to be a viable means of housing for spacetravelers? BEAMs are far more than balloon-like rooms where astronauts can take asylum.Technically, the modules don’t inflate― they expand, according to the company. Andbeyond just air, the habitats are reinforced with an internal metal structure. The outside iscomposed of multiple layers of material including things like rubber and kevlar to protectfrom any speeding debris. 

Inside SpaceX ’s Dragon spacecraft on the way to the ISS, the BEAM will be approximately 8feet in diameter. It will expand once deployed in space to offer 565 cubic feet of space forastronauts. “It’ll be the first time human beings will actually step inside this expandablehabitat in space,” former astronaut George Zamka, who has worked for Bigelow Aerospace,told USA Today. [“There won’t be this sense of it being like a balloon. ”] 

But astronauts won’t be getting inside the module for some time yet.The BEAM will beattached to the Tranquility Node and deployed. Inside the module are a series of tools thatwill help the crew of the ISS monitor different aspects of the expandable area to see how itacts in space. The crew will watch heat, radiation, orbital debris, and provide informationabout the viability of using similar modules in the future. 

The testing is scheduled to go on for a two-year time period, after which the module will bereleased and burn up in the atmosphere. NASA’s partnership with Bigelow fits Mr. Bolden ’sdesire to help grow a robust private sector industry to commercialize aspects of space ― aprocess he sees as vital if humans want to reach farther cosmic destinations. “The world oflow Earth orbit belongs to industry, ” Bolden said at a press conference in January .

What is special about the new living module on SpaceX ’s eighth mission to ISS?

How can the moon help with the understanding of the impacts that smashed the Earth?

Why was the early Earth in fact less inhospitable than often thought?

Why is the early Earth imagined to be hellish?

What can we know about Churchill through the third volume?

Asteroids and comets that repeatedly smashed into the early Earth covered the planet ’s surfacewith molten rock during its earliest days, but still may have left oases of water that could havesupported the evolution of life, scientists say. The new study reveals that during the planet ’sinfancy, the surface of the Earth was a hellish environment, but perhaps not as hellish as oftenthought, scientists added. 

Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The first 500 million years of its life are known as theHadean Eon. Although this time amounts to more than 10 percent of Earth’s history, little isknown about it, since few rocks are known that are older than 3.8 billion years old. 

For much of the Hadean, Earth and its sister worlds in the inner solar system were pummeled withan extraordinary number of cosmic impacts. “It was thought that because of these asteroids andcomets flying around colliding with Earth, conditions on early Earth may have been hellish, ” saidlead study author Simone Marchi, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute inBoulder, Colorado. This imagined hellishness gave the eon its name —Hadean comes fromHades, the lord of the underworld in Greek mythology. 

However, in the past dozen years or so, a radically different picture of the Hadean began toemerge. Analysis of minerals trapped within microscopiczircon crystals dating from this econ“suggested that there was liquid water on the surface of the Earth back then, clashing with theprevious picture that the Hadean was hellish,” Marchi said. This could explain why the evidenceof the earliest life on Earth appears during the Hadean —maybe the planet was less inhospitableduring that eon than previously thought. 

The exact timing and magnitude of the impacts that smashed Earth during the Hadean areunknown. To get an idea of the effects of this bombardment, Machi and his colleagues looked atthe moon, whose heavily cratered surface helped model the battering that its close neighbor Earthmust have experienced back then. 

“We also looked at highly siderophile elements (elements that bind tightly to iron), such as gold,delivered to Earth as a result of these early collisions, and the amounts of these elements tells usthe total mass accreted by Earth as the results of these collisions,”Marchi said. Prior researchsuggests these impacts probably contributed less than 0.5 percent of the Earth’s present-day mass.The researchers discovered that “the surface of the Earth during the Hadean was heavily affectedby very large collisions, by impactors [ ?m'p?kt?] larger than 100 kilometers (60 miles) or so —really, really big impactors, ’ Marci said. “When Earth has a collision with an object that big, thatmelts a large volume of the Earth’s crust and mantle, covering a large fraction of the surface,”Marchi added. These findings suggest that Earth ’s surface was buried over and over again by largevolumes of molten rock —enough to cover the surface of the Earth several times. This helpsexplain why so few rock survive from the Hadean, the researchers said. 

Why is little known about the Earth ’s first 500 million years?

Why did the biography once become a front page story in The New York Times?

Why does the third volume prove to be worthy?

Winston Churchill was one of the central statesmen of the 20th century and, almost 50 years afterhis death, remains a subject of enduring fascination. Part of the current interest in this venerablefigure can be attributed to two superb biographies written in the 1980s by historian WilliamManchester: “The Last Lion: Visions of Glory” and “The Last Lion: Alone.” These two booksexamined the first two-thirds of Churchill ’s life. 

Unfortunately, after completing the second volume, Manchester ’s health declined and therest of the project stalled. So great was public interest in the long-delayed final volume that itwas the subject of a front page story in The New York Times. 

Eventually, in 2003, Manchester asked his friend Paul Reid to complete the trilogy. Now,nearly a decade later, Reid has published The Last Lion, the final piece of this monumentalundertaking. Reid starts when Churchill was appointed prime minister in May 1940 andfollows him through his death in While most of this volume is appropriately devoted toWorld War II, it also includes the vast expansion of the British welfare state following thewar, the start of the Cold War and the enormous dangers it carried, and the loss of the BritishEmpire. 

Reid has written a thorough and complete analysis of these years, and it is a worthy finale tothe first two volumes. Exhaustively researched and carefully written, it draws on a full rangeof primary and secondary materials. This book will be essential reading for those whoenjoyed the first two volumes and those with a deep interest in understanding this seminalfigure and his place in history. 

Reid does a wonderful job of capturing Churchill in all his complexity. He gives Churchillgreat praise for his personal courage and inspirational leadership during the dark dayswhenBritain stood alone, but he is equally clear about Churchill ’s poor strategic judgments,such as the efforts to defend Greece andCrete, the Allied assault on Anzio, and the decisionto send the battleshipPrince of Walesand battle cruiser Repulse to theSouth ChinaSeawithout adequate air cover where they were promptly sunk by the Japanese. 

He highlights Churchill ’s naivet é in dealing with Soviet Premier Stalin in the early years ofthe war, but praises his prescience in anticipating Stalin ’s land grab in Eastern Europeat theend of the conflict. Reid also gives welcome attention to aspects of the war ― such asChurchill ’s fear that the United Statesmight decide to put its primary emphasis on defeatingJapan regardless of the “Germany first ” understanding he shared with Roosevelt that havereceived little attention in other books. 

What can be known about the two biographies of Churchill?

How can driverless cars benefit American industries?

What is true about the IT companies in Silicon Valley?

Mr Gordon is right that the second industrial revolution involved never-to-be-repeated changes.But that does not mean that driverless cars count for nothing. Messrs Erixon and Weigel are alsoright to worry about the West ’ s dismal recent record in producing new companies. But many oldfirms are not run by bureaucrats and have reinvented themselves many times over: GeneralElectric must be on at least its ninth life. And the impact of giant new firms born in the past 20years such as Uber, Google and Facebook should not be underestimated: they have all theSchumpeterian characteristics the authors admire. 

On the pessimists ’ side the strongest argument relies not on closely watching corporate andinvestor behavior. but rather on macro-level statistics on productivity. The figures from recentyears are truly dismal. Karim Foda, of the Brookings Institution, calculates that labor productivityin the rich world is growing at its slowest rate since Total factor productivity (which tries tomeasure innovation) has grown at just 0.1% in advanced economies since 2004, well below itshistorical average. 

Optimists have two retorts. The first is that there must be something wrong with the figures. Onepossibility is that they fail to count the huge consumer surplus given away free of charge on theinternet. But this is unconvincing. The official figures may well be understating the impact of theinternet revolution, just as they downplayed the impact of electricity and cars in the past, but theyare not understating it enough to explain the recent decline in productivity growth. 

The first argument on the optimists ’ side is unconvincing because the official figures________.