06年考研英語真題及答案(3)

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06年考研英語真題及答案(3)

　　Text 2

06年考研英語真題及答案(3)

　　Stratford-on-Avon, as we all know, has only one industry—William Shakespeare—but there are two distinctly separate and increasingly hostile branches. There is the Royal Shakespeare Company (ASC), which presents superb productions of the plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on the Avon. And there are the townsfolk who largely live off the tourists who come, not to see the plays, but to look at Anne Hathaway#39;s Cottage, Shakespeare#39;s birthplace and the other sights.

　　The worthy residents of Stratford doubt that the theatre adds a penny to their revenue. They frankly dislike the RSC#39;s actors, them with their long hair and beards and sandals and noisiness. It#39;s all deliciously ironic when you consider that Shakespeare, who earns their living, was himself an actor (with a beard) and did his share of noise-making.

　　The tourist streams are not entirely separate. The sightseers who come by bus- and often take in Warwick Castle and Blenheim Palace on the side—don#39;t usually see the plays, and some of them are even surprised to find a theatre in Stratford. However, the playgoers do manage a little sight-seeing along with their playgoing. It is the playgoers, the ESC contends, who bring in much of the town#39;s revenue because they spend the night (some of them four or five nights) pouring cash into the hotels and restaurants. The sightseers can take in everything and get out of town by nightfall.

　　The townsfolk don#39;t see it this way and local council does not contribute directly to the subsidy of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford cries poor traditionally. Nevertheless every hotel in town seems to be adding a new wing or cocktail lounge. Hilton is building its own hotel there, which you may be sure will be decorated with Hamlet Hamburger Bars, the Lear Lounge, the Banquo Banqueting Room, and so forth, and will be very expensive.

　　Anyway, the townsfolk can#39;t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. (The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1,431 seats were 94 percent occupied all year long and this year they#39;ll do better.) The reason, of course, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low.

　　It would be a shame to raise prices too much because it would drive away the young people who are Stratford#39;s most attractive clientele. They come entirely for the plays, not the sights. They all seem to look alike (though they come from all over)——lean, pointed, dedicated faces, wearing jeans and sandals, eating their buns and bedding down for the night on the flagstones outside the theatre to buy the 20 seats and 80 standing—room tickets held for the sleepers and sold to them when the box office opens at 10:30 a.m.

　　Text 3

　　When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals. They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.

　　That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.

　　Dr Worm acknowledges that the figures are conservative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today#39;s vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now.

　　Dr Myers and Dr Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline". The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

　　31. The extinction of large prehistoric animals is noted to suggest that

　　A. large animal were vulnerable to the changing environment.

　　B. small species survived as large animals disappeared.

　　C. large sea animals may face the same threat today.

　　D. Slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones

　　32. We can infer from Dr Myers and Dr. Worm#39;s paper that

　　A. the stock of large predators in some old fisheries has reduced by 90%.

　　B. there are only half as many fisheries as there were 15 years ago.

　　C. the catch sizes in new fisheries are only 20% of the original amount.

　　D. the number of larger predators dropped faster in new fisheries than in the old.

　　33. By saying these figures are conservative (Line 1, paragraph 3), Dr Worm means that

　　A. fishing technology has improved rapidly