2022年北京外国语大学考博英语真题

2022年北京外国语大学考博英语真题

Passage 1

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage:

There are two essentials for staging a Winter Olympics—snow and rice. Old Man Winter can be fickle, however, and mild temperatures and a lack of snow have threatened to detail the Winter Games multiple times, particularly before the advent of climate-controlled arenas and artificial snow.

Weather challenges at the Winter Olympics have a history nearly as old as the sporting spectacle itself. On Valentine’s Day in 1928, a freak blast of summer-like heat that could have melted a box of chocolates—let alone snow—stuck. St. Moritz, Switzerland, and wreaked havoc with the second Winter Games.

Temperatures hovered near the freezing mark when the 50-kilometer cross-country skiing race started at 8 a.m., but within an hour, a hot wind known as the föhn blew down from the Alps. The strong southerlies sent temperatures soaring to 77 Fahrenheit degrees in the sun. The föhn, which had never arrived that early in winter, turned the cross country event into a slushy slog and one of the slowest races in skiing history. Conditions compelled more than one-quarter of the skiers to quit and Sweden’s Per Erik Hedlund won in a time more than an hour slower than that of the 1924 gold medalist.

The 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, had its own weather issues. Locals believed a heavy snowfall in early November 1931 to be a good omen. It turned out to be a tease. The winter delivered an unprecedented lack of snow in December and January, and temperatures even topped 50 degrees on some days. For the first time in its 137-year history, the New York state weather bureau reported that the Hudson River had not frozen over.

The Winter Olympics returned to the United States in 1960 after Squaw Valley, California, representatives snowed the International Olympic Committee with the false claim that 35 feet of snow fell in the remote Sierra Nevada outpost every winter. With just weeks to go before the start of the Games, however, the winter had believed California sun, but no snow.

Walt Disney, who served as pageantry chairman of the 1960 Winter Olympics and opening ceremony producer, was among the organizers concerned that Squaw Valley was anything but snow white. After hiring 10 native Paiutes to perform a ceremonial snow dance, clouds appeared—but brought only rain.

Disney next turned to meteorologist Irving Krick, who began his weather career providing long-range predictions to movie studios setting location schedules before joining the team of forecasters who advised Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower to delay D-Day from the target date of June 5, 1944.

Krick boasted that not only could he forecast the weather, but he could change it as well by seeding clouds with silver iodine. When clouds appeared around Squaw Valley less than six weeks before the start of the Games, Krick fired up 20 cloud-seeding generators. Whether it was coincidence or not, days later three feet of snow fell on Squaw Valley with seven feet in the mountains.

Snow remained a concern on the morning of the opening ceremony—but this time due to too much of it. Squaw Valley awoke to a raging Sierra Nevada blizzard that snarled traffic and delayed the arrival of Vice President Richard Nixon to open the Games. The near zero visibility meant that Americans tuning in to the live broadcast would see nothing of Disneyland’s production.

In a scene that could have been ripped from a Disney fairy tale, however, the snow stopped and the sun broke through just as the fine holder for Greece entered the Olympic stadium to lead the parade of athletes. As soon as the ceremony ended, the snow resumed. The press dubbed the fortuitous timing the “Miracle of Squaw Valley”.

1. In Paragraph 1, which is one of the threats facing a Winter Olympics?

A. Lack of snow.

B. Loss of arenas.

C. Artificial snow.

D. Fickle multiplicity.

2. What do we learn about the föhn?

A. It blew the northern wind down from the Alps.

B. It prepared Valentine’s chocolates for sportsman.

C. It forced three quarters of the cross-country skiers to quit.

D. It made temperature rise sharply within an hour of a gaming day.

3. Which of the following statements is true about the 1932 Winter Olympics in New York?

A. There was a heavy snowfall at its opening.

B. The winter delivered much sun in 1931.

C. The Hudson River did not freeze over in the winter of 1932.

D. The temperature was consistently over 50 degrees.

4. In Paragraph 5, “snowed” most nearly means ________.

A. fooled

B. repelled

C. amazed

D. allured

5. Which of the following statements is true about Irving Krick?

A. He fired up 6 cloud-seeding generators.

B. He was featured in movies as a meteorologist.

C. He joined the team of forecasters to advise the delay of D-Day.

D. He accompanied Vice President Richard Nixon to open the Games.

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