简答题

课程名称:考研英语

题目:    It is speculated that gardens arise from a basic human need in the individuals who made them: the need for creative expression. There is no doubt that gardens evidence an irrepressible urge to create, express, fashion, and beautify and that self-expression is a basic human urge; (46) 【yet when one looks at the photographs of the gardens created by the homeless, it strikes one that, for all their diversity of styles, these gardens speak of various other fundamental urges, beyond that of decoration and creative expression.】    One of these urges had to do with creating a state of peace in the midst of turbulence, a “still point of the turning world,” to borrow a phrase from T. S. Eliot. (47)【 A sacred place of peace, however crude it may be, is a distinctly human need, as opposed to shelter, which is a distinctly animal need.】 This distinction is so much so that where the latter is lacking, as it is for these unlikely gardeners, the former becomes all the more urgent. Composure is a state of mind made possible by the structuring of one’s relation to one’s environment. (48) 【The gardens of the homeless, which are in effect homeless gardens, introduce form into an urban environment where it either didn’t exist or was not discernible as such.】 In so doing they give composure to a segment of the inarticulate environment in which they take their stand.    Another urge or need that these gardens appear to respond to, or to arise from, is so intrinsic that we are barely ever conscious of its abiding claims on us. When we are deprived of green, of plants, of trees, (49) 【most of us give in to a demoralization of spirit which we usually blame on some psychological conditions, until one day we find ourselves in garden and feel the oppression vanish as if by magic.】 In most of the homeless gardens of New York City the actual cultivation of plants is unfeasible, yet even so the compositions often seem to represent attempts to call forth the spirit of plant and animal life, if only symbolically, through a clumplike arrangement of materials, an introduction of colors, small pools of water, and a frequent presence of petals or leaves as well as of stuffed animals. On display here are various fantasy elements whose reference, at some basic level, seems to be the natural world. (50) 【It is this implicit or explicit reference to nature that fully justifies the use of word “garden” though in a “liberated” sense, to describe these synthetic constructions.】 In them we can see biophilia—a yearning for contact with nonhuman life—assuming uncanny representational forms.

简答题

课程名称:考研英语

题目:    The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields in the world, working both inside and outside academia. According to the World Social Science Report 2010, the number of social-science students worldwide has swollen by about 11% every year since 2000.    Yet this enormous resource in not contributing enough to today’s global challenges, including climate change, security, sustainable development and health. (41)________________ Humanity has the necessary agro-technological tools to eradicate hunger, from genetically engineered crops to artificial fertilizers. Here, too, the problems are social: the organization and distribution of food, wealth and prosperity.   (42) ________________ This is a shame—the community should be grasping the opportunity to raise its influence in the real world. To paraphrase the great social scientist Joseph Schumpeter: there is no radical innovation without creative destruction.    Today, the social sciences are largely focused on disciplinary problems and internal scholarly debates, rather than on topics with external impact. Analyses reveal that the number of papers including the keywords “environmental change” or “climate change” have increased rapidly since 2004. (43) ________________    When social scientists do tackle practical issues, their scope is often local: Belgium is interested mainly in the effects of poverty on Belgium, for example. And whether the community’s work contributes much to an overall accumulation of knowledge is doubtful.    The problem is not necessarily the amount of available funding. (44) ________________ This is an adequate amount so long as it is aimed in the right direction. Social scientists who complain about a lack of funding should not expect more in today’s economic climate.    The trick is to direct these funds better. The European Union Framework funding programs have long had a category specifically targeted at social scientists. This year, it was proposed that the system be changed: Horizon 2020, a new program to be enacted in 2014, would not have such a category. This has resulted in protests from social scientists. But the intention is not to neglect social science; rather, the complete opposite. (45) ________________ That should create more collaborative endeavors and help to develop projects aimed directly at solving global problems.【A】It could be that we are evolving two communities of social scientists: one that is discipline-oriented and publishing in highly specialized journals, and one that is problem-oriented and publishing elsewhere, such as policy briefs.【B】However, the numbers are still small: in 2010, about 1,600 of the 100,000 social-sciences papers published globally included one of these keywords.【C】The idea is to force social scientists to integrate their work with other categories, including health and demographic change; food security; marine research and the bio-economy; clear, efficient energy; and inclusive, innovative and secure societies.【D】The solution is to change the mindset of the academic community, and what it considers to be its main goal. Global challenges and social innovation ought to receive much more attention from scientists, especially the young ones.【E】These issues all have root causes in human behavior: all require behavioral change and social innovations, as well as technological development. Stemming climate change, for example, is as much about changing consumption patterns and promoting tax acceptance as it is about developing clean energy.【F】Despite these factors, many social scientists seem reluctant to tackle such problems. And in Europe, some are up in arms over a proposal to drop a specific funding category for social-science research and to integrate it within cross-cutting topics of sustainable development.【G】During the late 1990s, national spending on social sciences and the humanities as a percentage of all research and development funds—including government, higher education, non-profit and corporate—varied from around 4% to 25%; in most European nations, it is about 15%.