2020年全国硕士研究生招生考试英语二预测题（卷一）

2020年全国硕士研究生招生考试英语（二）全真模拟卷

Section I Use of English

Directions :

Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

Research into the likelihood that a job will be impacted by digitisation has largely focused on the “automatability" of the role and the subsequent economic, regional and political implications of this. What this research doesn't 1____ is something more important for the millions of taxi drivers and retail workers across the globe: their_ 2 of being able to transition to another job that(for now)isn't automatable.

Recent research suggests that the 3____ to this may be that the skills that enable workers to move up the ladder to more_ 4 roles within their current areas might be less important than broader skills that will enable workers to transition across 5____.

In July, Amazon announced that it would spend $ 700m retraining around 30% of its 300,000US 6____ While 7____,it will be interesting to see the outcome.In the UK, the National Retraining Scheme has largely been 8____ by employers, meaning that those on zero-hours contracts and part- time workers- -often low-skilled-will 9____。Governance will be a crucial element of 10____ that such schemes focus on individuals and life-long learning,11____ upskilling workers into roles that will soon also face automation.

According to a 2017 McKinsey report,“growing awareness of the scale of the task ahead has yet to 12____ into action.Public 13____ on labour force training and support has fallen steadily for years in most member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.”This impacts not only the low-skilled and 14____ compensated.Goldman Sachs once had 500 people on its equities trading desk; it now has three.

The global impact of automation is also put into relief by research demonstrating that,between 1988 and 2015, income 15_____increased throughout the world, particularly in the west. Elsewhere, billions of people do not have the essentials of life as 16____ by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Globalisation has brought enormous benefits to the world,17____ it has taught us that complacency towards the impacts of change can 18____ social unrest and political instability.We need to ask ourselves, what does prosperity look like in the 2lst century? 19_____ climate change, automation is arguably tech's biggest challenge. As with globalisation, governments and employers-and us workers 20____ its potential consequences at our own risk.

1.[A] put into practice  [B] take into account  [C] do away with [D] kee away from

2.[A] pssibility [B] expectation [C] talent [D] advantage

3.[A] damage  [B] answer  [C] barrier  [D]tendency

4.[A] feasible  [B] rational  [C] independent[D] sophisticated

5.[A] countries  [B] classes  [C] sectors[D] cultures

6.[A] sellers  [B] customers  [C] partners[D] workforce

7.[A] admirable  [B] strategic  [C] moderate  [D] harmful

8.[A] cut[B]led  [C] delayed  [D] pursued

9.[A] catch on[B] show off  [C] miss out  [D] give in

10.[A] ensuring  [B] predicting  [C] describing  [D] realizing

11.[A] apart from  [B] regardless of  [C] rather than  [D] such as

12.[A] introduce  [B] develop，[C] translate  [D] separate

13.[A] opinion  [B] impression  [C] judgment  [D] spending

14.[A] normally  [B] poorly  [C] widely  [D] falsely

15.[A] misuse[B] disorder  [C] immobility [D] inequality

16.[A] gathered  [B]defined  [C] produced  [D] managed

17.[A] but  [B] so  [C] or  [D] for

18.[A] stand for  [B] come across  [C] interfere with [D] lead to

19.[A] Through  [B] Alongside  [C] Beyond  [D] Against .

20.[A] propose  [B] exclude  [C]spread  [D] ignore

Section II Reading Comprehension

Part A

Directions:

Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B,Cor D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)

Text 1

A decade ago, in suitably ironic fashion, Amazon reached into customers’ electronic shelves and deleted copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four which it had sold to them. Now another Big Tech firm is gearing up for a spate of digital text destruction. When Microsoft closes its ebook store later this month, every novel, biography, self-help guide and history book it sold will cease to work.

These stories of vanishing books reveal the unpleasant reality behind the convenience of online purchases. In the information age, consumers are often renters with limited control of digital products, even if these have apparently been “sold” to them. The case of the Microsoft store also demonstrates how systems for protecting copyright can penalise customers who have made legal purchases.

Microsoft is offering full refunds, plus $25 for users who have annotated their copies. Reimbursementscannot remove the feeling that retailers have been duplicitousin branding. They may point to small print showing they have loaned out books, but in many cases they have deliberately advertised them as being “sold” to users. Customers would be scandalisedif employees of a bricks-and-mortarstore pulled physical books from their nightstand on similar grounds.

The Microsoft case also shows how anti-piracy measures are not ready to deal with the closure of services. Digital Rights Management stops the copying of electronic content such as books, and music, and checks if they have been legally purchased. Microsoft’s decision to shut down its ebook DRM servers means that verification cannot take place. While there are ways to circumvent DRM, they remain illegal for most purposes in the US and EU. Given the speed at which tech companies and services rise and fall, the risk of DRM-induced disappearances will only grow.

A future in which retailers move to selling customers online products rather than in effect leasing them out — or one in which publishers drop DRM measures — is unlikely. Yet there are steps which can be taken to avoid repeating the errors of Microsoft and Amazon. Customers should be clearly presented with the truth about their ownership of products. Amazon, Microsoft and Apple all offer explicit digital rentals alongside “purchases”. They should clarify that the difference between those two categories is far smaller than their names might suggest. It is not enough to hide that fact in the small print, so that it is discovered only when content is yanked away.

Anti-privacy systems should also be future-proofed. Tech services and products are routinely killed off if they fail to meet expectations. Sellers should ensure that customers can migrate products they have paid for in those cases. To fail to do so will simply incentivise more illegal downloads.

Microsoft and Amazon’s motives have been apolitical. Yet their ability to destroy texts with ease and without consent remains slightly terrifying. The firefighters of Fahrenheit 451 and censors of Nineteen Eighty-Four look like rank amateurs in comparison. The revival of the physical bookshop and its paper-based products is no bad thing in that light. A book in hand could well be worth two on an ereader.21. In the opening paragraph, the author introduces the topic by

[A] unfolding a phenomenon

[B] raising an argument

[C] drawing an analogy

[D] making a contrast

22. The Microsoft case reveals the truth that

[A] customers tend not to make full use of what they buy

[B] online stores cannot ensure the quality of their products

[C] people are more attached to physical books than ebooks

[D] customers don't have true ownership of digital products

23. The word“duplicitous" (Line 2, Para. 3) is closest in meaning to

[A] cautious

[B] dishonest

[C] unanimous

[D] aggressive

24. We can learn from Paragraph 4 that DRM

[A] will quicken the innovation of tech companies

[B] was not designed to handle services' closure

[C] is often criticized by tech companies

[D] is effective in protecting ebooks from piracy

25. To avoid Microsoft's error, the author suggests that tech companies

[A] stop offering services for digital purchases

[B] ask publishers to abandon DRM measures

[C] enable legally purchased content to be migrated before closed

[D] try to compensate affected consumers with physical products

Text2

For the first time in history, the Earth has more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five. In another two decades the ratio will be two-to-one, according to a recent analysis by Torsten Sløk of Deutsche Bank. 

Ageing slows growth in several ways. One is that there are fewer new workers to boost output. Workforces in some 40 countries are already shrinking because of demographic change. As the number of elderly people increases, governments may neglect growth-boosting public investment in education and infrastructure in favour of spending on pensions and health care. People in work, required to support ever more pensioners, must pay higher taxes. But the biggest hit to growth comes from weakening productivity. A study published in 2016, for example, examined economic performance across American states. It found that a rise of 10% in the share of a state’s population that is over 60 cuts the growth rate of output per person by roughly half a percentage point, with two-thirds of that decline due to weaker growth in productivity.

Why are older economies less productive? The answer is not, as one might suppose, that older workers are. Though some capabilities，notably physical ones, deteriorate with age, the overall effect is not dramatic.Companies can tweak employees' roles as they get older in order to make best use of the advantages of age,such as extensive experience and professional connections. 

Furthermore,if weak productivity growth was caused by older workers producing less, pay patterns should reflect that. Wages would tend to rise at  the beginning of a career and fall towards its end. But that is not what usually happens. Rather, according to a recent paper by Moody' s Analytics, wages are lower for everyone in companies with lots of older workers.It is not older workers' falling productivity that seems to hold back the economy,but their influence on those around them.

How this influence makes itself felt is unclear. But the authors suggest that companies with more older workers might be less eager to embrace new technologies.That might be because they are reluctant to make investments that would require employees to be retrained,given the shorter period over which they could hope to make a return on that training for those near the end of their careers.

If the evidence suggested that ageing economies struggled primarily because of slow-growing labour forces and fast- growing pension costs, it would make sense to focus policy efforts on keeping people in work longer. But if, as seems to be the case, reluctance to embrace new technologies is a bigger issue, other goals should take priority- in particular,boosting competition. In America, increasing industrial concentration and persistently high profits are spurring renewed interest in antitrust rules. The benefits of breaking up powerful firms and increasing competition might be even bigger than thought,if conservative old firms are thereby spurred to make better use of newer technologies.

26. According to Paragraph 2, ageing slows growth by diminishing_______.

[A] economic returns on education investment

[ B] governments' tax revenues

[C] motivation in the workplace

[D] the growth rate of output per person

27. Which of the following is true about older workers?_______.

[A] Their productivity falls due to physical decline.

[B] Their wages drop towards the end of their careers.

[C] They may block career opprtunities for young workers.

[D]They may drag down the wages of their colleagues.

28. It can be learned from paragraph 4 that companies with more older workers_______.

[A] invest less in new technologies

[B] spend more on retraining employees

[C] focus more on short term profits

[D] have a harder time learning new skills

29. The author suggests that ageing economies should_______.

[A] keep elderly people in the workforce longer

[B] make new technologies affordable to all firms

[C] increase competition among companies

[D] promote industrial concentration persistently

30. The author examines the issue of population ageing by_______.

[A] predicting its development trend

[B] correcting public opinions on it

[C] justifying the concerns about it

[D] presenting opportunities brought by it

Text 3

Human-induced climate change is a moral wrong. It involves one group of humans harming others. People of this generation harming those in future generations. People in the developed world harming those in the developing world. Each of us is emitting carbon that is harming those caught in climate driven superstorms, floods, droughts and conflicts. And there's the greatest moral wrong of all- the mass extinction event we have triggered that harms all life on Earth.

Yet until recently, climate change has not been argued as a moral issue. Rather, it has been presented as a technocratic problem, a cost-benefit problem, where the costs of action must be weighed against the benefits of avoiding disaster. The debates have been around taxes, jobs, growth and technologies. While such debates are important- there are better and worse ways to tackle the climate crisis- the effect has been decades of inaction, denial and delay. When something is a moral wrong,particularly a deep, systemic moral wrong,we don't wait around debating the optimum path or policy; we stop it.

Looking back in history, the climate movement can draw inspiration from another effort to right a deep moral wrong: the slavery abolition movement.Those who fought against slavery did not agonise over the costs and benefits.Their goal was morally righteous and powerfully clear: abolish slavery, make it llgal. It is time to do this for climate change: to make human carbon pollution illegal in every country in the world. It is time for a“carbon abolition" movement.

Getting every country in the world to enact carbon abolition laws seems a distant dream today. However, what set the cascade of change going was the development of abolition as a mass social movement. History tells us that mass social movements such as civil rights have always used moral arguments to change politics.I can think of no mass movement that was sparked by a cost-benefit analysis.

To catch fire this campaign needs a clear, simple demand, a rallying cry that everyone can share.“Stop climate change”is too vague and abstract,while the mixture of narrower demands“Build more solar"," Eat less meat”is too confusing. These are all crucial issues,but many people are unsure of what to make of it all.Instead, by clearly showing the immorality of carbon pollution, we can activate people's moral emotions and then focus those emotions on a specific action:making it illegal.

We have a starting point: Britain recently joined the Nordic countries, France, New Zealand, the US state of California and 19 cities around the world in adopting net zero targets.The next step is to shift these soft targets into hard carbon abolition laws.

31. Climate change has long been argued as ______.

[A] an inevitable natural disaster

[B] a most important moral issue

[C] an unforgivable human mistake

[D] a matter of costs and benefits

32. The author criticizes climate debates for ______.

[A] ignoring the benefits of climate change

[B] underestimating the costs of climate campaigns

[C] delaying the actions on climate change

[D] forming a wrong policy to tackle the crisis

33. The author's idea of a“carbon abolition”movement is inspired by ______.

[A] the efforts of climate activists

[B] the practices of civil rights leaders

[C] the fight against slavery

[D] a cost-benefit analysis

34. The slogan for ilgalizing human carbon pollution needs to be ______.

[A] calm and though-provoking

[B] simple and concrete

[C] detailed and science based

[D] passionate and radical

35. To ilgalize human carbon pollution around the world, we need to______.

[A] prove carbon pollution is the primary cause of climate change

[B] trigger widespread social movements with moral arguments

[C] change the minds of leaders through cost-benefit analysis

[D] force major carbon emitters to set carbon-reduction targets

Text 4

The rise of data analytics has made journalists and their editors confident that they know what people want.And for good reason: with a large share of news consumed on the Internet,media platforms know exactly which stories readers open,how much they read before getting bored,what they share with their friends,and the type of content that attracts them to sign up for a subscription.

Such data indicate,for example, that audiences are interested in extraordinary investigative journalism,diet and personal-finance advice, and essays about relationships and family.They prefer stories with a personal angle rather than reports on ongoing conflicts in the Middle East or city hall coverage.And they are drawn to sensational stories under“clickbait" headlines.

But if newsrooms were really giving audiences what they wanted,it seems unlikely that almost one-third of respondents in the Digital News Report,the world's largest ongoing survey of online news consumption, would report that they regularly avoid news altogether.But they did,and that figure is up three percentage points from two years ago.The most common explanation for avoiding the news media, given by 58% of those who do, is that following it has a negative effect on their mood.Many respondents also cited a sense of powerlessness.

If people are to be motivated to confront challenges that are shaping their lives,they should not be made to feel powerless.This is where so-called solutions journalism comes in.By balancing information about what needs changing with true stories about positive change,news organizations can fulfill their responsibility both to inform and to spur progress.

Reconnecting with audiences will also require media organizations to broaden their perspectives.In much of the West, it is largely white, male, middle-class journalists who decide what to cover and how. This limits news media's ability to represent diverse societies fairly and accurately.

At the same time, news media need to do a better job of contextualizing and otherwise explaining the news.While 62% of Digital News Report respondents feel that media keep them apprised of events,only half believe news outlets are doing enough to help them understand what is happening. At a time when nearly one-third of people think that there is simply too much news being reported, the solution seems clear: do less, better.

This means listening to readers, not just studying the data analytics. It means balancing good news with bad news, and offering clarifying information when needed.It also means representing diverse perspectives. Media organizations that do not make these changes will continue to lose trust and relevance.That is hardly a sound strategy for convincing consumers that their work is worth paying for.

36. Data analysis shows that readers prefer_____.

[A] news shared by their friends

[B] sensational news stories

[C] reports on local policies

[D] reports on ongoing conlicts

37. The survey from Digital News Report indicates that_____.

[A] news agencies were publishing fake data

[B] people's general interest in news is on the rise

[C] more than half of people avoid news media

[D] many people avoid reading negative news

38. Which of the following is true about solutions journalism?_____.

[A] It appeals to the public to help the powerless people.

00 [B] It emphasizes the gap between problems and solutions.

[C] It encourages readers to be positive about challenges.

[D] It reveals the society's dark side that needs changing.

39. According to paragraph 5, newsrooms in the west_____.

[A] lack racial and gender diversity

[B] are slow in deciding what to cover

[C] avoid reporting the lives of the poor

[D] are in shortage of journalists

40. To reconnect with audience, news organizations should_____.

[A] study big data analytics

[B] make news easily understood

[C] offer more news reports

[D] lower subscription prices

Part B

Directions:

Read the following text and match each of the numbered items in the left column to its corresponding information in the right column.There are two extra choices in the right column.Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.(10 points)

Suits you sir? Maybe it doesn't any more. Sales of formal tailoring have taken a fresh dive as chinos and trainers replace suits and ties in the office.In a presentation to City analysts,Marks & Spencer,the UK's biggest menswear retailer,said it was cutting back its formalwear ranges and the space devoted to selling suits, pointing to a market-wide 7% fall in suit sales.

“It's a generational trend,"says Chloe Collins,an analyst at GlobalData.“Offices tend to have more relaxed attire and in general men have got more options.They want to be more fashionable and have the opportunity to update their look which you can do more with casual wear."

She says younger men are more interested in fashion and more confident about choosing outfits,so less reliant on the safe uniform of a suit for work or occasions. Retailers such as Asos and other young fashion stores are also helping men put together more interesting formalwear outfits.

Tighter budgets are also putting a squeeze on the suit.“Consumers want to get more usage out of their clothes,"says Glen Tooke,consumer insight director at Kantar.He says men might buy a blazer, some smart shirts and a pair of tailored trousers and then combine them with jeans or knitwear to give a variety of looks suitable for both home and office.“You no longer need two wardrobes," Tooke adds.

“There are things it's still deemed you need to wear a suit for,but those events are becoming fewer and farther between," says Tooke.But Eric Musgrave,author of Sharp Suits:a celebration of men's tailoring says the suit still has a place-as signified by the all-prevailing presence of suits in politics and when world leaders meet. "The suit is still a signal you are respectable and powerful. It is the uniform of people who run the world."

Thanks to wannabe world leaders, and many others who want to look smart, the UK suit market is still worth nearly 400m a year while sales of smart shirts and trousers are still on the rise.

Brian Brick, chief executive of Moss Bros, says the chain's suit sales are up this year despite the overall fall in the market, with younger people still paying top dollar for a special suit for a special occasion.It's the everyday suit that is in decline.When they do buy for a big day,Brick says they are being more adventurous looking for tweed or other interesting fabrics or a light coloured suit for a wedding.

Teo van den Broeke,style and grooming director of menswear magazine British GQ,thinks suits are far from dead- - -and might even be about to make a comeback, pointing to the menswear catwalks at Balenciaga and Gucci and the fashion choices of young actors such as Timothee Chalamet and influential older men such as David Beckham.“There is something to be said for a man in tailoring. It is much better on a date or a job interview than a track suit.No man over 18 looks good in that at any time.

Section III Translation

46. Directions :

Translate the following text into Chinese.Write your translation on the ANSWER SHEET.(15 points)

From comic books and radio programs to TV shows and social media,the world has always been full of things that distract us. Most of us blame them as the reason we can't get anything done.

Yet our distraction is usually driven by our desire to escape discomfort,including boredom，fear and anxiety.When you indulge yourself in TV series rather than doing your work,watching TV is your way of avoiding an activity you find tedious.The secret to staying focused at times like this is not to turn off your TV- you'll just find another distraction- but to change your perspective on the task itself.

Instead of running away from our pain or using rewards like prizes and treats to help motivate us, the idea is to pay such close attention that you find new challenges you didn't see before.Those new challenges provide the novelty to engage our attention and maintain focus when we are tempted by distraction.

Section IV Writing

Part A

47.Directions:

Your university plans to ban students from using cellphones in class. Students will be asked to put their cellphones into a storage box before class. Suppose you are an assistant at the Office of Teaching Affairs of your university.Write a letter to all the students in your university to

1) inform them of the plan, and

2) ask them for suggestions.

You should write about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET.

Do not sign your name at the end of the letter. Use “Office of Teaching Affairs" instead.(10 points)

Part B

48. Directions:

Write an essay based on the chart below. In your writing, you should

1) interpret the chart,and

2) give your comments.

You should write about 150 words on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)