南林07年英語真題

南京林業大學2007年博士研究生入學考試英語試題

Part I. Reading Comprehension (60%)

Directions: In this part of the test, there are four short passages for you to read. Read each passage carefully, and then do the questions that follow. Choose the best answer A), B), C), or D) and mark the corresponding letter on your Answer Sheet I.

Passage 1
We live in southern California growing grapes, a first generation of vintners, our home adjacent to the vineyards and the winery. It’s a very pretty place, and in order to earn the money to realize our dream of making wine, we worked for many years in a business that demanded several household moves, an incredible amount of risk-taking and long absences from my husband. When it was time, we traded in our old life, cinched up our belts and began the creation of the winery.
We make small amounts of premium wine, and our lives are dictated by the rhythm of nature and the demands of the living vines. The vines start sprouting tiny green tendrils in March and April, and the baby grapes begin to form in miniature, so perfect that they can be dipped in gold to form jewelry. The grapes swell and ripen in early fall, and when their sugar content is at the right level, they are harvested carefully by hand and crushed in small lots. The wine is fermented and tended until it is ready to be bottled. The vineyards shed their leaves, the vines are pruned and made ready for the dormant months --- and the next vintage.
It sounds nice, doesn’t it? Living in the country, our days spent in the ancient routine of the vineyard, knowing that the course of our lives as vintners was choreographed long age and that if we practiced diligently, our wine would be good and we’d be successful. From the start we knew there was a price for the privilege of becoming a wine-making family, connected to the land and the caprices of nature.
We work hard at something we love, we are slow to panic over the daily emergencies, we are nimble at solving problems as they arise. Some hazards to completing a successful vintage are expected: rain just before harvesting can cause mold; electricity unexpectedly interrupted during the cold fermentation of white wine can damage it; a delayed payment from a major client when the money is needed.
There are outside influences that disrupt production and take patience, good will and perseverance. [For example] the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms regulates every facet of the wine business. A winery’s records are audited as often as two or three times a year and every label --- newly written for each year’s vintage --- must be approved. …
[But] The greatest threat to the winery, and one that almost made us lose heart, came out of a lawyer’s imagination. Out little winery was served notice that we were named in a lawsuit accusing us of endangering the public health by using lead foils on our bottles (it was the only material used until recently) “without warning consumers of a possible risk.” There it was, our winery’s name listed with the industry’s giants. …
… I must have asked a hundred times: “Who gets the money if the lawsuit is successful?” The answer was, and I never was able to assimilate it, the plaintiffs and their lawyers who filed the suit! Since the lawsuit was brought in behalf of consumers, it seemed to me that consumers must get something if it was proved that a lead foil was dangerous to them. We were told one of the two consumer claimants was an employee of the firm filing the suit!
There are attorneys who focus their careers on lawsuits like this. It is an immense danger to the small businessman. Cash reserves can be used up in the blink of an eye when in the company of lawyers. As long as it’s possible for anyone to sue anybody for anything, we are all in danger. As long as the legal profession allows members to practice law dishonorably and lawyers are congratulated for winning big money in this way, we’ll be plagued with a corruptible justice system.
1. The phrase “cinched up our belts”, in the first paragraph, suggests that the couple
A. thought creating a winery would be busy
B. wore clothing that was too big
C. strapped their belongings together and moved
D. prepared for the difficult work ahead
2. The grapes are harvested on a date that
A. may vary.
B. depends on the approval of the regulatory bureau.
C. is traditionally set.
D. is determined by availability of pickers.
3. According to the author, the life of vintners is most controlled by
A. the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
B. unexpected changes in temperature.
C. the sugar content of the grapes.
D. the tempo of the seasons.
4. The writer complains that when she questioned the lawyers she
A. never got the answer.
B. never got a simple answer.
C. could make no sense of the answer she got.
D. could not understand the answer she got.
5. The writer thinks that the legal profession
A. strives to protect consumers.
B. does a good job of policing its members.
C. is part of an incorruptible system.
D. includes rapacious attorneys.

Passage 2
There is a confused notion in the minds of many persons, which the gathering of the property of the poor into the hands of the rich does no ultimate harm, since in whosever hands it may be, it must be spent at last, and thus, they think, return to the poor again. This fallacy has been again and again exposed; but granting the plea true, the same apology may, of course, be made for black mail, or any other form of robbery. It might be (though practically it never is) as advantageous for the nation that the robber should have the spending of the money he extorts, as that the person robbed should have spent it. But this is no excuse for the theft. If I were to put a turnpike on the road where it passes my own gate, and endeavor to exact a shilling from every passenger, the public would soon do away with my gate, without listening to any pleas on my part that it was as advantageous to them, in the end, that I should spend their shillings, as that they themselves should. But if, instead of outfacing them with a turnpike, I can only persuade them to come in and buy stones, or old iron, or any other useless thing, out of my ground, I may rob them to the same extent and, moreover, be thanked as a public benefactor and promoter of commercial prosperity. And this main question for the poor of England --- for the poor of all countries --- is wholly omitted in every treatise on the subject of wealth. Even by the laborers themselves, the operation of capital is regarded only in its effect on their immediate interests, never in the far more terrific power of its appointment of the kind and the object of labor. It matters little, ultimately, how much a laborer is paid for making anything; but it matters fearfully what the thing is which he is compelled to make. If his labor is so ordered as to produce food, fresh air, and fresh water, no matter that his wages are low; the food and the fresh air and water will be at last there, and he will at last get them. But if he is paid to destroy food and fresh air, or to produce iron bars instead of them, the food and air will finally not be there, and he will not get them, to his great and final inconvenience. So that, conclusively, in politics as in household economy, the great question is, not so much what money you have in your pocket, as what you will buy with it and do with it.
6. We may infer that the author probably lived in the
A. 1960’s in the United States
B. early days of British industrialization