1991 年全国硕士研究生入学统一考试英语试题年全国硕士研究生入学统一考试英语试题 Passage 1 A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people. Day after day my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is: accountability.Accountability isnt hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences. Of the many values that hold civilization togetherhonesty, kindness, and so on accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no lawand, ultimately, no society. My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on peoples behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment. Fortunately there are still communitiessmaller towns, usuallywhere schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that proclaim: “In this family certain things are not toleratedthey simply are not done! ” Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has none. He considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you enrage him.The main cause of this break-down is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, its the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didnt teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didnt provide a stable home.I dont believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything. We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.16. What the wise man said suggests that_.17. According to the author, if a person is found guilty of a crime,_.A its unnecessary for good people to do anything in face of evilA society is to be held responsibleB its certain that evil will prevail if good men do nothing about itB modern civilization is responsible for itC its only natural for virtue to defeat evilC the criminal himself should bear the blameD its desirable for good men to keep away from evilD the standards of living should be improved18. Compared with those in small towns, people in large cities have_.19. The writer is sorry to have noticed that_.A less self-disciplineA people in large cities tend to excuse criminalsB better sense of disciplineB people in small towns still stick to old discipline and standardsC more mutual respectC todays society lacks sympathy for people in difficultyD less effective governmentD people in disadvantaged circumstances are engaged in criminal activities20. The key point of the passage is that_.A stricter discipline should be maintained in schools and familiesB more good examples should be set for people to followC more restrictions should be imposed on peoples behaviorD more people should accept the value of accountabilityPassage 2 The period of adolescence, i. e., the period between childhood and adulthood, may be long or short, depending on social expectations and on societys definition as to what constitutes maturity and adulthood. In primitive societies adolescence is frequently a relatively short period of time, while in industrial societies with patterns of prolonged education coupled with laws against child labor, the period of adolescence is much longer and may include most of the second decade of ones life. Furthermore, the length of the adolescent period and the definition of adulthood status may change in a given society as social and economic conditions change. Examples of this type of change are the disappearance of the frontier in the latter part of the nineteenth century in the United States, and more universally, the industrialization of an agricultural society. In modern society, ceremonies for adolescence have lost their formal recognition and symbolic significance and there no longer is agreement as to what constitutes initiation ceremonies. Social ones have been replaced by a sequence of steps that lead to increased recognition and social status. For example, grade school graduation, high school graduation and college grad