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2012 考研真题单词（英语二）
（例句来自于考研英语二真题）
说明：1. (pl.)代表复数形式。2.考研词汇的意思大部分比较抽象，建议结合短语例句理解
记忆。

完形填空
Millions of Americans and foreigners
see G. I. Joe as a mindless war toy, the
mindless adj symbol of American military adventur-
ism（军事冒险主义）, but that's not
how it used to be.
To the men and women who served in
liberate V
World War I and the people they liber-
ated, the G. I. was the common man
foxhole n grown into hero, the poor farm kid torn
away from his home, the guy who bore
all the burdens of battle, who slept in
cold foxholes, who went without the ne-
shelter n cessities of food and shelter, who stuck
it out（坚持到底，忍受下去） and
drove back the Nazi reign of murder（纯
粹的杀戮统治）.
volunteer n This was not a volunteer soldier, not
someone well paid, but an average guy,
fierce adj up against the best trained, best
equipped, fiercest, most brutal enemies
brutal adj seen in centuries.

G. I. is just a military abbreviation

abbreviation n
meaning Government Issue, and it was
on all of the articles handed out to sol-
article n
diers.
Joe had a distinguished career fighting
career n
German, Japanese, and Korean troops.
He appears as a character or a collection
personality n
of American personalities in the 1945
movie The Story of G.I. Joe, based on
correspondent n the last days of war correspondent Ernie
Pyle.
Some of the soldiers Pyle interviewed
portray v
portrayed themselves in the film.
Pyle was famous for covering the hu-
cover v
man side of the war, writing about the

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dirt-snow-and-mud soldiers, not how

capture v many miles were gained or what
towns were captured or liberated.
His reports paralleled the “Willie” car-
cartoon n toons of famed Stars and Stripes artist
Bill Maulden.
Both men emphasized the dirt and ex-
exhaustion n
haustion of war, the fragments of civili-
zation that the soldiers shared with each
civilization n other and the civilians: coffee, tobacco,
whiskey, shelter, sleep.

阅读理解 Text1
Homework has never been terribly pop-
ular with students and even many par-
scorn v
ents, but in recent years it has been par-
ticularly scorned.
School districts across the country, most
revise v
recently Los Angeles Unified, are revis-
ing their thinking on this educational
ritual n
ritual.
Unfortunately, L.A. Unified ha as pro-
inflexible□
超
adj
duced an inflexible policy which man-
dates that with the exception of some
advanced courses, homework may no
mandate□
超
v longer count for more than 10% of a stu-
dent's academic grade.
address v
This rule is meant to address the diffi-
culty that students from impoverished
impoverished□
超
adj
or chaotic homes might have in com-
pleting their homework.
chaotic□
超
adj
But the policy is unclear and contradic-
contradictory adj
tory.
But if the district is essentially giving a
essentially adv
pass to students who do not do their
homework because of complicated fam-
pass n
ily lives, it is going riskily close to the
implication that standards need to be
implication n lowered for poor children.

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But with homework counting for no

more than 10% of their grades, students
skip v can easily skip half their homework and
see very little difference on their report
cards(成绩单).

empower v
Yet rather than empowering teachers to
find what works best for their students,
flat adj
the policy imposes a flat, across- the-
across-the- board rule.
adj
board
At the same time, the policy addresses
thorny adj none of the truly thorny questions about
homework.
conversely adv Conversely ， if homework matters, it
should account for a significant portion
portion n of the grade.

The homework rules should be put on

hold(搁置，暂缓实施) while the school
hearing n board, which is responsible for setting
educational policy, looks into the matter
and conducts public hearings.

阅读理解 Text2
Pretty in pink: adult women do not re-
member being so obsessed with the col-
pervasive adj our，yet it is pervasive in our young
girls' lives.
intrinsically adv It is not that pink is intrinsically bad, but
it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow and,
celebrate v though it may celebrate girlhood in one
way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses
fuse v girls' identity to appearance.

Looking around, I despaired at the sin-

singular adj gular lack of imagination about girls'
lives and interests.
Girls’ attraction to pink may seem un-
encode v
avoidable, somehow encoded in their
DNA，but according to Jo Paoletti, an
associate adj associate professor of American Stud-
ies, it is not.

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When nursery colours were introduced,

nursery n
pink was actually considered the more
masculine colour, a pastel version of
pastel adj red, which was associated with strength.
It was not until the mid-1980s, when
amplifying age and sex differences be-
came a dominant children's marketing
strategy, that pink fully came into its
amplify v
own, when it began to seem inherently
attractive to girls, part of what defined
them as female, at least for the first few
critical years.
I had not realised how profoundly mar-
keting trends dictated our perception of
dictate v what is natural to kids, including our
core beliefs about their psychological
development.
toddler n Take the toddler.
Turns out, according to Daniel Cook,
a historian of childhood consumerism,
consumerism n
it was popularised as a marketing trick
by clothing manufacturers in the 1930s.
Trade publications counselled depart-
ment stores that, in order to increase
counsel v sales, they should create a “third step-
ping stone” between infant wear and
older kids' clothes.
Splitting kids, or adults, into ever-tinier
split v categories has proved a sure-fire way to
boost profits.
And one of the easiest ways to segment
segment v
a market is to magnify gender differ-
ences-or invent them where they did not
magnify v previously exist.

阅读理解 Text3

patent n Companies had won patents for isolated

DNA for decades - by 2005 some 20%
isolate v of human genes were patented.

violently adv Executives were violently agitated

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agitated adj
The Biotechnology Industry Organisa-
tion(BIO),a trade group, assured mem-
preliminary adj bers that this was just a “preliminary
step” in a longer battle.
overturn v A federal appeals court overturned the
prior decision，ruling that Myriad Ge-
prior adj netics could indeed hold patents to two
genes that help forecast a woman's risk
rule v of breast cancer.

blessing n The chief executive of Myriad, a com-

pany in Utah, said the ruling was a
alike adv blessing to firms and patients alike.

But as companies continue their at-

personalised adj tempts at personalised medicine, the
courts will remain rather busy.
suppress v
Gene patents suppress innovation rather
than reward it.
reward v
And patents' monopolies restrict access
monopoly n
to genetic tests such as Myriad's.
In October the Department of Justice
file v
filed a brief in the Myriad case, arguing
that an isolated DNA molecule “is no
less a product of nature... than are cotton
molecule n fibres that have been separated from
cotton seeds.”
genome n For example, it is unclear whether the
sequencing of a whole genome violates
violate v the patents of individual genes within it.

advance v As the industry advances, however,

other suits may have an even greater im-
suit n pact.

Companies are unlikely to file many

more patents for human DNA mole-
domain n
cules - most are already patented or in
the public domain.

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Firms are now studying how genes in-

interact v
teract, looking for correlations that
might be used to determine the causes
correlation n of disease or predict a drug's efficacy.

convention n
The BIO recently held a convention
session n
which included sessions to coach law-
yers on the shifting landscape for pa-
shifting adj tents.

landscape n

packed adj Each meeting was packed.

阅读理解 Text4
Before it ends, it will likely change the
course n life course and character of a generation
of young adults.
And ultimately, it is likely to reshape
reshape v our politics, our culture, and the charac-
ter of our society for years.
No one tries harder than the jobless to
lining n find silver linings in this national eco-
nomic disaster.
Many said that unemployment, while
materialistic adj
extremely painful, had improved them
in some ways: they had become less
prudent adj materialistic and more financially pru-
dent.
In limited respects, perhaps the reces-
respect n
sion will leave society better off.
At the very least, it has awoken us from
fever n
our national fever dream of easy riches
and bigger houses, and put a necessary
reckless adj end to an era of reckless personal spend-
ing.
In The Moral Consequences of Eco-
lengthy adj
nomic Growth, the economic historian
Benjamin Friedman argues that both in-
stagnation n side and outside the U.S.，lengthy peri-
ods of economic stagnation or decline
mean-spirited adj have almost always left society more

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mean-spirited and less inclusive, and

inclusive adj have usually stopped or reversed the ad-
vance of rights and freedoms.
Anti-immigrant sentiment typically in-
sentiment n creases, as does conflict between races
and classes.
Income inequality usually falls during a
shrink v recession, but it has not shrunk in this
one.
Indeed, this period of economic weak-
ness may reinforce class divides, and
reinforce v
decrease opportunities to cross them -
especially for young people.
The research of Till Von Wachter, the
graduate v
economist in Columbia University, sug-
gests that not all people graduating into
dim v a recession see their life chances
dimmed……
In the Internet age, it is particularly easy
resentment n to see the resentment that has always
been hidden within American society.
discern v More difficult, in the moment, is dis-
cerning precisely how these lean times
lean adj are affecting society's character.

In many respects, the U.S. was more so-

cially tolerant entering this recession
poll n than at any time in its history, and a va-
riety of national polls on social conflict
since then have shown mixed results.
.

新题型
“Universal history, the history of what
accomplish v
man has accomplished in this world, is
at bottom the History of the Great Men
sage n who have worked here,” wrote the Vic-
torian sage Thomas Carlyle.
This could be no more than a passing
craze n
literary craze, but it also points to a
broader truth about how we now ap-
proach the past: less concerned with
approach v learning from our forefathers and more
interested in feeling their pain.

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empathy n
Today, we want empathy, not inspira-
tion.
inspiration n
From the earliest days of the Renais-
sance（文艺复兴时期），the writing of
exemplary adj
history meant recounting the exemplary
lives of great men.
In 1337, Petrarch began work on his
rambling writing De Viris Illustribus-
rambling adj
On Famous Men, highlighting the virtus
(or virtue) of classical heroes.
champion v
In The Prince, he championed cunning,
ruthlessness, and boldness, rather than
cunning n
virtue, mercy and justice, as the skills of
successful leaders.
ruthlessness n
The Romantics commemorated the
leading painters and authors of their
commemorate v day, stressing the uniqueness of the
artist's personal experience rather than
public glory.
By contrast, the Victorian author Sam-
uel Smiles wrote Self-Help as a cata-
catalogue n
logue of the worthy lives of engineers,
industrialists and explorers.
“The valuable examples which they
furnish v
furnish of the power of self-help, of pa-
tient purpose, resolute working and
resolute adj steadfast integrity, issuing in the for-
mation of truly noble and manly charac-
ter, exhibit,” wrote Smiles, “what it is
steadfast adj in the power of each to accomplish for
himself”.
His biographies of James Watt, Richard
Arkwright and Josiah Wedgwood were
beacon n
held up as beacons to guide the working
man through his difficult life.
This was all a bit bourgeois for Thomas
Carlyle, who focused his biographies on
bourgeois adj the truly heroic lives of Martin Luther,
Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bona-
parte.

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These epochal figures represented lives

hard to imitate, but to be acknowledged
epochal adj
as possessing higher authority than
mere mortals.
Not everyone was convinced by such
bombast n
bombast .
“The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class struggles,”
hitherto adv
wrote Marx and Engels in The Com-
munist Manifesto.
For them, history did nothing, it pos-
immense adj
sessed no immense wealth nor waged
battles:“ It is man, real, living man who
wage v does all that.”
In place of Thomas Carlyle, Britain nur-
nurture v tured Christopher Hill, EP Thompson
and Eric Hobsbawm.
Whole new realms of understanding -
unpick v
from gender to race to cultural studies
-were opened up as scholars unpicked
multiplicity n the multiplicity of lost societies.

downstairs n And it transformed public history too:

downstairs became just as fascinating as
upstairs n upstairs.

翻译
When people in developing countries
migration n
worry about migration, they are usually
concerned at the prospect of their best
prospect n
and brightest departure to Silicon Valley
or to hospitals and universities in the de-
departure n veloped world.
These are the kind of workers that coun-
tries like Britain, Canada and Australia
privilege v
try to attract by using immigration rules
that privilege college graduates.
Lots of studies have found that well-ed-
emigrate v ucated people from developing coun-
tries are particularly likely to emigrate.

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They fear that it hurts their economies,

depriving them of much-needed skilled
workers who could have taught at their
deprive v
universities, worked in their hospitals
and come up with clever new products
for their factories to make.

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