2021年MBA考研英语二预测题及答案

2021年MBA考研英语二预测题及答案

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

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