1、最新考研英语真题英语一阅读部分资料Text 1Habits are a funny thing.We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,”William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st cen
2、tury, even the word“habit”carries a negative implication.So it seems paradoxical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that
3、 can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits.In fact, the more new things we trythe more we step outside our comfort zonethe more inherently c
4、reative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.But dont bother trying to kill off old habits；once those ruts of procedure are worn into the brain, theyre there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately press into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old
5、 roads.“The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,”says Dawna Markova, author of The Open Mind. “But we are taught instead todecide, just as our president calls himselfthe Decider.”She adds, however, that“to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovationa
6、l thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”All of us work through problems in ways of which were unaware, she says.Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (o
7、r collaboratively) and innovatively.At the end of adolescence, however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.The current emphasis on standardized testing highlights analysis and procedu
8、re, meaning that few of us inherently use our innovative and collaborative modes of thought. “This breaks the major rule in the American belief systemthat anyone can do anything,”explains M.J. Ryan, author of the 2006 book This Year I Will.and Ms. Markovas business partner. “Thats a lie that we have
9、 perpetuated, and it fosters commonness. Knowing what youre good at and doing even more of it creates excellence.”This is where developing new habits comes in.21.In Wordsworths view,“habits”is characterized by being_.A casualB familiarC mechanicalD changeable22.Brain researchers have discovered that
10、 the formation of new habits can be_.A predictedB regulatedC tracedD guided23.The word“ruts”(Para. 4) is closest in meaning to_.A tracksB seriesC characteristicsD connections24.Dawna Markova would most probably agree that_.A ideas are born of a relaxing mindB innovativeness could be taughtC decisive
11、ness derives from fantastic ideasD curiosity activates creative minds25.Ryans comments suggest that the practice of standardized testing_.A prevents new habits form being formedB no longer emphasizes commonnessC maintains the inherent American thinking modeD complies with the American belief systemT
12、ext 2It is a wise father that knows his own child, but today a man can boost his paternal (fatherly) wisdomor at least confirm that hes the kids dad. All he needs to do is shell out $30 for a paternity testing kit (PTK) at his local drugstoreand another $120 to get the results.More than 60,000 peopl
13、e have purchased the PTKs since they first became available without prescriptions last year, according to Doug Fogg, chief operating officer of Identigene, which makes the over-the-counter kits. More than two dozen companies sell DNA tests directly to the public, ranging in price from a few hundred
14、dollars to more than $2,500.Among the most popular: paternity and kinship testing, which adopted children can use to find their biological relatives and families can use to track down kids put up for adoption. DNA testing is also the latest rage among passionate genealogistsand supports businesses t
15、hat offer to search for a familys geographic roots.Most tests require collecting cells by swabbing saliva in the mouth and sending it to the company for testing. All tests require a potential candidate with whom to compare DNA.But some observers are skeptical. “Theres a kind of false precision being
16、 hawked by people claiming they are doing ancestry testing,”says Troy Duster, a New York University sociologist. He notes that each individual has many ancestorsnumbering in the hundreds just a few centuries back. Yet most ancestry testing only considers a single lineage, either the Y chromosome inh
17、erited through men in a fathers line or mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only from mothers. This DNA can reveal genetic information about only one or two ancestors, even though, for example, just three generations back people also have six other great-grandparents or, four generations back, 1
18、4 other great-great-grandparents.Critics also argue that commercial genetic testing is only as good as the reference collections to which a sample is compared. Databases used by some companies dont rely on data collected systematically but rather lump together information from different research pro
19、jects. This means that a DNA database may have a lot of data from some regions and not others, so a persons test results may differ depending on the company that processes the results. In addition, the computer programs a company uses to estimate relationships may be patented and not subject to peer
20、 review or outside evaluation.26.In Paragraphs 1 and 2, the text shows PTKs_.A easy availabilityB flexibility in pricingC successful promotionD popularity with households27.PTK is used to_.A locate ones birth placeB promote genetic researchC identify parent-child kinshipD choose children for adoptio
21、n28.Skeptical observers believe that ancestry testing fails to_.A trace distant ancestorsB rebuild reliable bloodlinesC fully use genetic informationD achieve the claimed accuracy29.In the last paragraph, a problem commercial genetic testing faces is_.A disorganized data collectionB overlapping data
22、base buildingC excessive sample comparisonD lack of patent evaluation30.An appropriate title for the text is most likely to be_.A Fors and Againsts of DNA TestingB DNA Testing and Its ProblemsC DNA Testing Outside the LabD Lies Behind DNA TestingText 3The relationship between formal education and ec
23、onomic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economists and politicians alike. Progress in both areas is undoubtedly necessary for the social, political and intellectual development of these and all other societies；however, the conventional view that education should be one of the very
24、 highest priorities for promoting rapid economic development in poor countries is wrong. We are fortunate that it is, because building new educational systems there and putting enough people through them to improve economic performance would require two or three generations.The findings of a researc
25、h institution have consistently shown that workers in all countries can be trained on the job to achieve radically higher productivity and, as a result, radically higher standards of living.Ironically, the first evidence for this idea appeared in the United States. Not long ago, with the country ent
26、ering a recession and Japan at its pre-bubble peak, the U.S. workforce was derided as poorly educated and one of the primary causes of the poor U.S. economic performance. Japan was, and remains, the global leader in automotive-assembly productivity.Yet the research revealed that the U.S. factories o
27、f Honda, Nissan, and Toyota achieved about 95 percent of the productivity of their Japanese counterpartsa result of the training that U.S. workers received on the job.More recently, while examining housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican workers
28、 in Houston, Texas, consistently met best-practice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industrys work.What is the real relationship between education and economic development? We have to suspect that continuing economic growth promotes the development of education eve
29、n when governments dont force it. After all, thats how education got started. When our ancestors were hunters and gatherers 10,000 years ago, they didnt have time to wonder much about anything besides finding food. Only when humanity began to get its food in a more productive way was there time for
30、other things.As education improved, humanitys productivity potential increased as well. When the competitive environment pushed our ancestors to achieve that potential, they could in turn afford more education. This increasingly high level of education is probably a necessary, but not a sufficient,
31、condition for the complex political systems required by advanced economic performance.Thus poor countries might not be able to escape their poverty traps without political changes that may be possible only with broader formal education.A lack of formal education, however, doesnt constrain the ability of the developing worlds workforce to substantially improve productivity for the foreseeable future.On the contrary, constraints on improving productivity explain why education isnt developing more quickly there than it is.31.The author holds in Paragraph 1 that the impo
