考查逻辑思维能力的测试。考生被要求在极短的时间内对大量无序信息加以处理,并在形形色色的干扰信息中直接准确地找到正确的信息点。
中国的考研英语正向着GRE的考查方式靠近,只是在难度上略有不及。另一方面,与早期考研英语和大学英语四、六级考试相比,现在的考研英语更强调各选项间的迷惑性和相似性。在早期英语考试中,考生读懂了文章基本就能做对题。但现在,许多人明明觉得文章看明白了,却总是做错题,不得分;更感觉到经常在辛辛苦苦排除掉两个选项后,没有办法在剩下的两个选项中做出选择。这些考生还没有从早期英语考试的思路中走出来,仍然以为四个选项中必有三个明显错误。其实,考研命题组早已更换了考查策略,正确选项与错误选项不再是黑白分明,只是有一些“fine shade”(细微的区别)。
试着用新思路做考研题,请看下面这篇文章,并在三分钟之内把第41题做出来。
2003年Passage 1
Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who built the Office of Strategic Services in the World War and later laid the roots for the CIA was fascinated with information. Donovan believed in using whatever tools came to hand in the “great game” of espionage—spying as a “profession.” These days the Net, which has already re-made such everyday pastimes as buying books and sending mail, is reshaping Donovan’s vocation as well.
The latest revolution isn’t simply a matter of gentlemen reading other gentlemen’s e-mail. That kind of electronic spying has been going on for decades. In the past three or four years, the World Wide Web has given birth to a whole industry of point-and-click spying. The spooks call it “open-source intelligence,” and as the Net grows, it is becoming increasingly influential. In 1995 the CIA held a contest to see who could compile the most data about Burundi. The winner, by a large margin, was a tiny Virginia company called Open Source Solutions, whose clear advantage was its mastery of the electronic world.
Among the firms making the biggest splash in this new world is Straitford, Inc., a private intelligence-analysis firm based in Austin, Texas. Straitford makes money by selling the results of spying covering nations from Chile to Russia to corporations like energy-services firm McDermott International. Many of its predictions are available online at www.straitford.com.
Straitford president George Friedman says he sees the online world as a kind of mutually reinforcing tool for both information collection and distribution, a spymaster’s dream. Last week his firm was busy vacuuming up data bits from the far corners of the world and predicting a crisis in Ukraine. “As soon as that report runs, we’ll suddenly get 500 new Internet sign-ups from Ukraine,” says Friedman, a former political science professor. “And we’ll hear back from some of them.” Open-source spying does have its risks, of course, since it can be difficult to tell good information from bad. That’s where Straitford earns its keep.
Friedman relies on a lean staff of 20 in Austin. Several of his staff members have military-intelligence backgrounds. He sees the firm’s outsider status as the key to its success. Straitford’s briefs don’t sound like the usual Washington back-and-forthing, whereby agencies avoid dramatic declarations on the chance they might be wrong. Straitford, says Friedman, takes pride in its independent voice。
41. The emergence of the Net has ________.
[A] received support from fans like Donovan
[B] remolded the intelligence services
[C] restored many common pastimes
[D] revived spying as a profession
在快速看完全文后,你大概头昏眼花,满脑子都是数字和专有名词吧?甚至在看到题干中的“Net”后,一时间也没反应过来到哪里去找相关信息。这是正常反应,因为你刚刚阅读的并非一篇普通文章,而是命题组精心改写、加入大量无关信息,专为考研研制的。文中的各种数字和人名、地名、机构名称等共出现了近30 处。命题组加入这么多干扰信息就是为了考查你看文章时是否头脑清楚,是否牢牢抓住了文章的主线。现在,我们把这篇文章再看一遍(阴影部分不用看),并在 30秒内做出题目。
Wild Bill Donovan ……The American spymaster …… Net, …… is reshaping Donovan’s vocation as well.
……
41. The emergence of the Net has ________.
[A] receiv