武漢大學2018年考博英語真題如下：

Part I Reading Comprehension (40%)

Directions: In this part for the test, there will be 5 passages for you to read. Each passage is followed by 4 questions or unfinished statement, and each question or unfinished statement is followed by four choices marked A, B, C and D. You are to decide on the best choice by blackening the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

Passage 1

How best to solve the pollution problems of a city sunk so deep within sulfurous clouds that it was described as hell on earth? Simply answered: Relocate all urban smoke-creating industry and encircle the metropolis of London with sweetly scented flowers and elegant hedges.

In fact, as Christine L. Corton, a Cambridge scholar, reveals in her new book, London Fog, this fragrant anti-smoke scheme was the brainchild of John Evelyn, the 17th-century diarist. King Charles II was said to be much pleased with Evelyn’s idea, and a bill against the smoky nuisance was duly drafted. Then nothing was done. Nobody at the time, and nobody right up to the middle of the 20th-century, was willing to put public health above business interests.

And yet it’s a surprise to discover how beloved a feature of London life these multicolored fogs became. A painter, Claude Monet, fleeing besieged Paris in 1870, fell in love with London’s vaporous, mutating clouds. He looked upon the familiar mist as his reliable collaborator. Visitors from abroad may have delighted in the fog, but homegrown artists lit candles and vainly scrubbed the grime from their gloom-filled studio windows. “Give us light!” Frederic Leighton pleaded to the guests at a Lord Mayor’s banquet in 1882, begging them to have pity on the poor painter.

The more serious side of Corton’s book documents how business has taken precedence over humanity where London’s history of pollution is concerned. A prevailing westerly wind meant that those dwelling to the east were always at most risk. Those who could afford it lived elsewhere. The east was abandoned to the underclass. Lord Palmerston spoke up for choking East Enders in the 1850s, pointing a finger at the interests of the furnace owners. A bill was passed, but there was little change. Eventually, another connection was established: between London’s perpetual veil of smog and its citizens’ cozily smoldering grates. Sadly, popular World War I songs didn’t do much to encourage the adoption of smokeless fuel.

It wasn’t until what came to be known as the “Great Killer Fog” of 1952 that the casualty rate became impossible to ignore and the British press finally took up the cause. It was left to a Member of Parliament to steer the Clean Air Act into law in 1956. Within a few years, even as the war against pollution was still in its infancy, the dreaded fog began to fade.

1. Which of the following can be inferred from Paragraph 2?

A. The fragrant anti-smoke scheme was put forward by John Evelyn’s child.

B. King Charles II was not so much contented with John Evelyn’s proposal at the very beginning.

C. The process of drafting the bill against the smoky nuisance was relatively slow.

D. It wasn’t until 1950s that someone willingly put public health above commercial interests.

2. The word “grime” (Para. 3) is closest in meaning to ______.

A. fog

B. dirt

C. frost

D. paint

3. Which would be most heavily affected by London’s pollution according to Carton’s book?

A. Rich dwellers in the east.

B. The underclass in the west.

C. East London’s slum dwellers.

D. Servants of furnace owners.

4. The author mainly shows in the last paragraph that ______.

A. “Great Killer Fog” resulted in huge mortality for Britain

B. the British press was also playing a major role in the process

C. it was a long way for the Clean Air Act to be passed

D. reducing the air pollution worked though in the primary stage

Passage 2

Amid the nationwide furor over the Senate draft health-care bill, a public-health victory has gone mostly unnoticed. According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the estimated number of middle and high school students who are tobacco users dropped from 4.7 million in 2015 to 3.9 million in 2016. This was largely driven by a reduction in the number of teenagers using e-cigarettes, which are less harmful than regular cigarettes but still contain nicotine. The downturn is a success for advocates and officials who have worked to curb teen tobacco use — but it should not be heralded as the end of the road.

Teenage smoking has long been one of the most serious public health issues. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and 9 in 10 American smokers had their first taste of tobacco before the age of 18, although policies to curb teen smoking showed signs of success for a time, youth tobacco rates remained stagnant between 2011 and 2015. During this period, the use of e-cigarettes among high school students increased by a staggering 900 percent.

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