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1、考研历年英二真题阅读文 考研历年英二真题阅读文1Text 3The power and ambition of the giants of the digital economy is astonishing-Amazon has just announced the purchase of the upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods for $l3.5bn,but two years ago Facebook paid even more than that to acquire the WhatsApp messaging service, which d
2、oesnt have any physical product at all. What WhatsApp offered Facebook was an intricate and finely detailed web of its users friendships and social lives.Facebook promised the European commission then that it would not link phone numbers to Facebook identities, but it broke the promise almost as soo
3、n as the deal went through. Even without knowing what was in the messages, the knowledge of who sent them and to whom was enormously revealing and still could be. What political journalist, what party whip, would not want to know the makeup of the WhatsApp groups in which Therea Mays enemies are cur
4、rently plotting? It may be that the value of Whole Foods to Amazon is not so much the 460 shops it owns, but the records of which customers have purchased what.Competition law appears to be the only way to address these imbalances of power. But it is clumsy. For one thing, it is very slow compared t
5、o the pace of Change within the digital economy. By the time a problem has been addressed and remedied it may have vanished in the marketplace, to be replaced by new abuses of power. But there is a deeper conceptual problem, too. Competition law as presently interpreted deals with financial disadvan
6、tage to consumers and this is not obvious when the users of these services dont pay for them. The users of their Services are not their customers. That would be the people who buy advertising from them-and Facebook and Google, the two virtual giants, dominate digital advertising to the disadvantage
7、of all other media and entertainment companies.The product theyre selling is data, and we, the users, convert our lives to date for the benefit of the digital giants. Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew the produce when they feed, so Google farms us for the data that our d
8、igital lives yield. Ants keep predatory insects away from where their aphids feed; Gmail keeps the spamme out of our inboxes. It doesnt feel like a human or democratic relationship, even if both sides benefit.31. According to Paragraph 1, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for its .A digital productsB user
9、informationC physical assetsD quality service32. Linking phone numbers to Facebook identities may .A worsen political disputesB mess up customer recordsC pose a risk to Facebook usersD mislead the European commission33. According to the author, competition law .A should sever the new market powersB
10、may worsen the economic imbalanceC should not provide just one legal solutionD cannot keep pace with the changing market34. Competition law as presently interpreted can hardly protect Facebook users because .A they are not defined as customersB they are not financially reliableC the services are gen
11、erally digitalD the services are paid for by advertisers35. The ants analogy is used to illustrate .A a win-win business model between digital giantsB a typical competition pattern among digital giantsC the benefits provided for digital giants customersD the relationship between digital giants and t
12、heir users考研历年英二真题阅读文2Text3Even in traditional offices，the lingua franca of corporate America has gottenmuch more emotional and much more right-brained than it was 20 years ago， said Ha rva rd Business School professor Nancy Koehn She sta rted spinning off examples.If you and I pa rachuted back to F
13、ortune 500 companies in 1990，we would see much less frequent use of terms like Journey, mission,passion. There were goals，there were strategies，there were objectives，but we didnt talk about energy;we didnt talk about passion.Koehn pointed out that this new era of corporate vocabula ry is very team-o
14、riented-and not by coincidence.Lets not forget sDorts-in male-dominated corporate America，its still a big deal. Its not explicitly conscious;its the idea that Im a coach，and youre my team，and were in this togethec. There are lots and lots of CEOs in very different companies，but most think of themsel
15、ves as coaches and this is their team and they want to win.These terms a re also intended to infuse work with meaning-and，as Khu rana points out，increase allegiance to the firm.You have the importation of terminology that historically used to be associated with non-profit organizations and religious
16、 organizations：Terms like vision，values，passion，and purpose，saidKhuranaThis new focus on personal fulfillment can help keep employees motivated amid increasingly loud debates over work-life balance The mommy wars of the 1990s a re still going on today, prompting arguments about whywomen still cantha
17、ve it all and books like Sheryl Sandbergs Lean In，whose title has become abuzzword in its own right. Terms like unplug，offline，life-hack，bandwidth，andcapacity are all about setting boundaries between the office and the home But ifyour work is your passion, youII be more likely to devote yourself to
18、it，even ifthat means going home for dinner and then working long after the kids are in bedBut this seems to be the irony of office speak：Everyone makes fun of it，butmanage rs love it，companies depend on it，and regular people willingly absorb itAs Nunberg said，You can get people to think its nonsense
19、 at the same timethat you buy into it. In a workplace thats fundamentally indiffe rent to your lifeand its meaning office speak can help you figu re out how you relate to yourwork-and how your work defines who you are31. According to Nancy Koehn, office language has become_Amore e motionalBmore obje
20、ctiveCless energeticDless energeticEless strategic32.team-oriented corporate vocabulary is closely related to_Ahistorical incidentsBgender differenceCsports cultureDathletic executives33.Khurana believes that the importation of terminology aims to_Arevive historical termsBpromote company imageCfoste
21、r corporate cooperationDstrengthen employee loyalty34.It can be inferred that Lean In_Avoices for working womenBappeals to passionate workaholicsCtriggers dcbates among mommiesDpraises motivated employees35.Which of the following statements is true about office speak?AManagers admire it but avoid it
22、BLinguists believe it to be nonsenseCCompanies find it to be fundamentalDRegular people mock it but accept it考研历年英二真题阅读文3Text 3Scientists have found that although we are prone to snap overreactions, if we take a moment and think about how we are likely to react, we can reduce or even eliminate the n
23、egative effects of our quick, hard-wired responses.Snap decisions can be important defense mechanisms; if we are judging whether someone is dangerous, our brains and bodies are hard-wired to react very quickly, within milliseconds. But we need more time to assess other factors. To accurately tell wh
24、ether someone is sociable, studies show, we need at least a minute, preferably five. It takes a while to judge complex aspects of personality, like neuroticism or open-mindedness.But snap decisions in reaction to rapid stimuli arent exclusive to the interpersonal realm. Psychologists at the Universi
25、ty of Toronto found that viewing a fast-food logo for just a few milliseconds primes us to read 20 percent faster, even though reading has little to do with eating. We unconsciously associate fast food with speed and impatience and carry those impulses into whatever else were doing, Subjects exposed
26、 to fast-food flashes also tend to think a musical piece lasts too long.Yet we can reverse such influences. If we know we will overreact to consumer products or housing options when we see a happy face (one reason good sales representatives and real estate agents are always smiling), we can take a m
27、oment before buying. If we know female job screeners are more likely to reject attractive female applicants, we can help screeners understand their biases-or hire outside screeners.John Gottman, the marriage expert, explains that we quickly “thin slice” information reliably only after we ground such
28、 snap reactions in “thick sliced” long-term study. When Dr. Gottman really wants to assess whether a couple will stay together, he invites them to his island retreat for a muck longer evaluation; two days, not two seconds.Our ability to mute our hard-wired reactions by pausing is what differentiates
29、 us from animals: doge can think about the future only intermittently or for a few minutes. But historically we have spent about 12 percent of our days contemplating the longer term. Although technology might change the way we react, it hasnt changed our nature. We still have the imaginative capacit
30、y to rise above temptation and reverse the high-speed trend.31. The time needed in making decisions may_.A vary according to the urgency of the situationB prove the complexity of our brain reactionC depend on the importance of the assessmentD predetermine the accuracy of our judgment32. Our reaction
31、 to a fast-food logo shows that snao decisions_.A can be associativeB are not unconsciousC can be dangerousD are not impulsive33. Toreverse the negative influences of snap decisions,we should_.A trust our first impressionB do as people usually doC think before we actD ask for expert advice34. John G
32、ottman says that reliable snap reaction are based on_.A critical assessmentBthin sliced studyC sensible explanationD adequate information35. The authors attitude toward reversing the high-speed trend is_.A tolerantB uncertainC optimisticD doubtful考研历年英二真题阅读文4Text 4When the government talks about inf
33、rastructure contributing to the economy the focus is usually on roads, railways, broadband and energy. Housing is seldom mentioned.Why is that? To some extent the housing sector must shoulder the blame. We have not been good at communicating the real value that housing can contribute to economic gro
34、wth. Then there is the scale of the typical housing project. It is hard to shove for attention among multibillion-pound infrastructure project, so it is inevitable that the attention is focused elsewhere. But perhaps the most significant reason is that the issue has always been so politically charge
35、d.Nevertheless, the affordable housing situation is desperate. Waiting lists increase all the time and we are simply not building enough new homes.The comprehensive spending review offers an opportunity for the government to help rectify this. It needs to put historical prejudices to one side and ta
36、ke some steps to address our urgent housing need.There are some indications that it is preparing to do just that. The communities minister, Don Foster, has hinted that George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, may introduce more flexibility to the current cap on the amount that local authorities
37、can borrow against their housing stock debt. Evidence shows that 60,000 extra new homes could be built over the next five years if the cap were lifted, increasing GDP by 0.6%.Ministers should also look at creating greater certainty in the rental environment, which would have a significant impact on
38、the ability of registered providers to fund new developments from revenues.But it is not just down to the government. While these measures would be welcome in the short term, we must face up to the fact that the existing ?4.5bn programme of grants to fund new affordable housing, set to expire in 20X
39、X,is unlikely to be extended beyond then. The Labour party has recently announced that it will retain a large part of the coalitions spending plans if returns to power. The housing sector needs to accept that we are very unlikely to ever return to era of large-scale public grants. We need to adjust
40、to this changing climate.36. The author believes that the housing sector_A has attracted much attentionB involves certain political factorsC shoulders too much responsibilityD has lost its real value in economy37. It can be learned that affordable housing has_A increased its home supplyB offered spe
41、nding opportunitiesC suffered government biasesD disappointed the government38. According to Paragraph 5,George Osborne may_.A allow greater government debt for housingB stop local authorities from building homesC prepare to reduce housing stock debtD release a lifted GDP growth forecast39.It can be
42、 inferred that a stable rental environment would_.Alower the costs of registered providersBlessen the impact of government interferenceCcontribute to funding new developmentsDrelieve the ministers of responsibilities40.The author believes that after 20XX,the government may_.Aimplement more policies to support housingBreview the need for large-scale public grantsCrenew the affordable housing grants programmeDstop generous funding to the housing sector
