2001年历年考研英语真题

Part II Reading ComprehensionDirections:Each of the passages below is followed by some questions.For each questions there are four answers marked [A],[B],[C]and [D].Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each of the questions.Then mark youranswer on ANSWER SHEET 1 by blackening the corresponding letter in the brackets with a pencil.(40 points)Passage 1Specialisation can be seen as a response to the problem of an increasing accumulation of scientific knowledge.Bysplitting up the subject matter into smaller units,one man could continue to handle the information and use it as the basis forfurther research.But specialisation was only one of a series of related developments in science affecting the process ofcommunication.Another was the growing professionalisation of scientific activity.No clear-cut distinction can be drawn between professionals and amateurs in science:exceptions can be found to anyrule.Nevertheless,the word "amateur"does carry a connotation that the person concerned is not fully integrated into thescientific community and,in particular,may not fully share its values.The growth of specialisation in the nineteenth century,with its consequent requirement of a longer,more complex training,implied greater problems for amateur participation inscience.The trend was naturally most obvious in those areas of science based especially on a mathematical or laboratorytraining,and can be illustrated in terms of the development of geology in the United Kingdom.A comparison of British geological publications over the last century and a half reveals not simply an increasingemphasis on the primacy of research,but also a changing definition of what constitutes an acceptable research paper.Thus,in the nineteenth century,local geological studies represented worthwhile research in their own right;but,in the twentiethcentury,local studies have increasingly become acceptable to professionals only if they incorporate,and reflect on,the widergeological picture.Amateurs,on the other hand,have continued to pursue local studies in the old way.The overall result hasbeen to make entrance to professional geological journals harder for amateurs,a result that has been reinforced by thewidespread introduction of refereeing,first by national journals in the nineteenth century and then by several local geologicaljournals in the twentieth century.As a logical consequence of this development,separate journals have now appeared aimedmainly towards either professional or amateur readership.A rather similar process of differentiation has led to professionalgeologists coming together nationally within one or two specific societies,whereas the amateurs have tended either to remainin local societies or to come together nationally in a different way.Although the process of professionalisation and specialisation was already well under way in British geology during thenineteenth century,its full consequences were thus delayed until the twentieth century.In scien