2020年西安美术学院博士研究生入学考试英语试题.docx

186 2020年西安美术学院博士研究生入学考试英语试题 Part Reading Comprehension 　　Ⅰ．Directions: Each of the following three passages is followed by some questions. For each question four answers are given. Read the passages carefully and carefully and choose the best answere to each question. Mark your choices on the ANSWER SHEET. (10%) Passage One The 19th-Century British Aristocracy 　　The British aristocracy had always been involved in industrialization, especially in the development of mining, canals, and railways. It now shrewdly associated itself with the new wave of commercial expansion. most banks and insurance companies had a lord to add tone to the managerial board. It also shored up its fortunes by astute marriages, notably with the new aristocracy of wealth in the United States; the besk-known example was the marriage of the Duke of Marlborough to Consuelo Vanderbilt. By these means, many of the great aristocratic estates were preserved despite agricultural decline. But they were playthings as well as engines of wealth, and came to be treated as such. The aristocracy came to be known to the urban population chiefly through their representation in the popular press and magazines as men and women of leisure: racing, hunting, shooting, and fishing in the country, gambling and attending the season in London. In a population for which leisure was becoming increasingly important, this did not make the aristocracy unpopular.41. In the second sentence of this passage, “had a lord on the managerial board” means that 　　A．the banks and insurance companies would hire a lord on the board to give advice to their management． 　　B．having lords involved in the management gave the banks or companies a very good public image 　　C．lords worked for the banks and insurance companies to bring in more profits 　　D．it had become a fashion to have a lord on the managerial board of a bank or a company 　　42．The “astute marriages” in the passage refers to marriages between 　　A．British aristocracy and ri