111 年 國立臺灣大學土木系碩士班水利組（一般生）《英文（B）》

Vocabulary (20%): Choose the word that best completes the sentence.

1. The omicron ____ first identified late last month in southern Africa, has sent infections soaring to levels not seen since last winter.
   (A) variance
   (B) difference
   (C) variant
   (D) deviation

2. Just ____ everyone knows what Tetris is. It was created in 1984 by a Russian computer programmer, Alexey Pajitnov.
   (A) about
   (B) between
   (C) with
   (D) on

3. Myanmar has been in chaos since the ____ in February, with more than 1,300 people killed in a crackdown by security forces, according to a local monitoring group.
   (A) cup
   (B) coup
   (C) cap
   (D) cop

4. Flight ____ triggered by weather and coronavirus-related staffing shortages eased slightly Tuesday.
   (A) destructions
   (B) disruptions
   (C) devotion
   (D) detention

5. The ample animal bones found in the ruins prove that the people living there were ____ hunters, and there are signs of massive feasts.
   (A) distinguished
   (B) lousy
   (C) hallucinating
   (D) fascinating

6. Those experiments were a ____ stone towards two of the most important and profitable vaccines in history: the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines given to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
   (A) obstructing
   (B) moving
   (C) putting
   (D) stepping

7. Producing food generates so much greenhouse-gas pollution that at the current rate, even if nations cut all non-food ____ to zero, they still wouldn't be able to limit temperature rise to 1.5 °C, the climate target in the Paris agreement.
   (A) creations
   (B) disillusions
   (C) emissions
   (D) missions

8. Archaeologists have long suggested that the placement of human ____ in tombs during the Stone Age of northwestern Europe reflects one of the ways in which kinship was created and negotiated.
   (A) remains
   (B) returns
   (C) reimbursements
   (D) recessions

9. Sci-Hub, the popular website that offers access to millions of pirated research papers and books, is no stranger to ____ action.
   (A) fungal
   (B) conjugal
   (C) regal
   (D) legal

10. During the twentieth century, our knowledge of the past was ____ by the introduction of radiocarbon dating.
    (A) immunize
    (B) organize
    (C) demonize
    (D) revolutionized

II. Structure (20%)
11. A ____ of covid-19 cases in China prompts a citywide lockdown.
(A) cluster
(B) few
(C) team
(D) collective

12. ____ a third year of the pandemic loomed, the seven-day average of U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday.
    (A) Through
    (B) As
    (C) Since
    (D) In

13. The Charles Lieber case reveals America's scientific rivalry ____ China.
    (A) toward
    (B) in
    (C) about
    (D) with

14. Chile rewrites its constitution, ____ climate change head on.
    (A) confrontation
    (B) confronts
    (C) confronting
    (D) confronted

15. Joan Didion, who died on Thursday, at ____ of 87, from complications related to Parkinson's disease, was a model and trailblazer in many ways.
    (A) the age
    (B) an age
    (C) the year
    (D) years

16. If it ____ easy to care for elderly people with significant health, memory and behavior problems, more of us would be keeping our frail parents at home with us.
    (A) was
    (B) has been
    (C) were
    (D) is going to be

17. As allegations piled up against President Donald J. Trump with no apparent consequences, many politicians concluded that ethical behavior ____ mattered and decided to stop cooperating with congressional investigations.
    (A) no longer
    (B) of course
    (C) as with
    (D) about to

18. Putin has amassed ____ 175,000 troops and a formidable arsenal of combat hardware in the area.
    (A) down to
    (B) up to
    (C) into
    (D) onto

19. Leftist media outlets such as MSNBC spent 2020 treating COVID like it was ____ easily fixable ____ voters simply put Democrats in charge.
    (A) whether
    (B) regarding
    (C) since
    (D) if

20. Early ____, human embryos form a structure called the blastocyst.
    (A) in developing
    (B) developing
    (C) in development
    (D) development

III. Cloze Test (40%)
Choose the best answer for each missing word or phrase in the following excerpted passages.
Passage 1: Questions 21-25
The James Webb Space Telescope - humanity's biggest (21) yet in its quest to probe the Universe -- soared into space on 25 December, marking the culmination of decades of work by astronomers around the world.
(A) trap
(B) game
(C) gamble
(D) fun

But for Webb to begin a new era in astronomy, as many scientists hope it (22), hundreds of complex engineering steps will have to go off without a hitch in the coming days and weeks.
(A) will
(B) is
(C) has been
(D) had been

"Now the hard part starts," says John Grunsfeld, an astrophysicist and former astronaut and (23) of science for NASA.
(A) crown
(B) hand
(C) waist
(D) head

The US$10-billion Webb is the most complicated and expensive space observatory in history, and the (24) to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which has studied the Universe since 1990.
(A) successor
(B) inheritor
(C) heiress
(D) auditor

Following its launch, Webb will now embark on the riskiest part of its mission (25) all the parts required for its enormous mirror to peer deep into the cosmos, back towards the dawn of time.
(A) deploy
(B) deployed
(C) deploying
(D) is deployed

Passage 2: Questions 26-30
In June 2020, a new and powerful artificial intelligence (AI) began (26) technologists in Silicon Valley. Called GPT-3 and created by the research firm OpenAI in San Francisco, California, it was the latest and most powerful in a series of 'large language models': AIs that generate fluent streams of text after (27) billions of words from books, articles and websites. GPT-3 had been trained on around 200 billion words, at an estimated cost of tens of millions of dollars.
(A) dazzle
(B) dazzled
(C) to dazzle
(D) dazzling

Called GPT-3 and created by the research firm OpenAI in San Francisco, California, it was the latest and most powerful in a series of 'large language models': AIs that generate fluent streams of text after (27) billions of words from books, articles and websites. GPT-3 had been trained on around 200 billion words, at an estimated cost of tens of millions of dollars.
(A) imbibing
(B) deflecting
(C) imagining
(D) reflecting

The developers who were invited to try out GPT-3 were astonished. "I have to say I'm blown away," wrote Arram Sabeti, founder of a technology (28) who is based in Silicon Valley. "It's far more coherent than any AI language system I've ever tried. All you have to do is write a prompt and it'll add text it thinks would plausibly follow. I've gotten it to write songs, stories, press releases, guitar tabs, interviews, essays, technical manuals. It's hilarious and frightening. I feel like I've seen the future."
(A) proceed-up
(B) initiate-up
(C) begin-up
(D) start-up

OpenAI's team reported that GPT-3 was so good that people found it hard to distinguish its news stories from prose written by humans. It could also answer trivia questions, correct grammar, solve mathematics problems and even generate computer code if users told it to perform a (29) task. Other AIs could do these things, too, but only after being (30) trained for each job.
(A) charting
(B) programming
(C) stunning
(D) teasing

OpenAI's team reported that GPT-3 was so good that people found it hard to distinguish its news stories from prose written by humans. It could also answer trivia questions, correct grammar, solve mathematics problems and even generate computer code if users told it to perform a (29) task. Other AIs could do these things, too, but only after being (30) trained for each job.
(A) specifically
(B) merely
(C) synthetically
(D) generally

Passage 3: Questions 31-35
In June 2021, the story broke that Donald Trump had asked advisers and lawyers to investigate whether the Department of Justice could probe sources of (31) late-night comedy, like "Saturday Night Live," that made fun of him. The fact that Trump would (32), usually on Twitter, after he saw satire critical of him had been surprising enough. Typically, it is autocrats, not democratically elected leaders, who display such thin skin. In fact, one common trait of many US presidents (33) the capacity to launch self-deprecating jokes—a move that often undercuts any similar jokes lobbed at them. Ronald Reagan made jokes about his age. Jimmy Carter quipped after leaving the White House, "My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers." But Trump displayed none of that good-natured self-mocking.
(A) tragic
(B) satirical
(C) dramatic
(D) modernist

The fact that Trump would (32), usually on Twitter, after he saw satire critical of him had been surprising enough.
(A) die down
(B) melt down
(C) push down
(D) sow down

Typically, it is autocrats, not democratically elected leaders, who display such thin skin. In fact, one common trait of many US presidents (33) the capacity to launch self-deprecating jokes—a move that often undercuts any similar jokes lobbed at them.
(A) is going to be
(B) would be
(C) could be
(D) has been

In fact, quite the (34). Seth Meyers once reflected on working with Trump as a guest host of Saturday Night Live and wondered if Trump even had the capacity to process comedy. Whether or not Trump could "get" a joke, one thing is clear: he didn't like being the butt of one. (35)_ his 2016 campaign and after, Trump made a habit of complaining about jokes he felt were critical of him, regularly taking to Twitter to grouse after seeing a joke on late-night comedy.
(A) opposition
(B) oppose
(C) opposite
(D) opposing

Whether or not Trump could "get" a joke, one thing is clear: he didn't like being the butt of one. (35) his 2016 campaign and after, Trump made a habit of complaining about jokes he felt were critical of him, regularly taking to Twitter to grouse after seeing a joke on late-night comedy.
(A) Throughout
(B) Yet
(C) So
(D) With

Passage 4: Questions 36-40
In 1928 a (36) examiner named Harrison Martland published a famous paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was titled "Punch Drunk." It is often (37) to have introduced medical readers to an occupational disease caused by recurrent hits to the head.
(A) demonic
(B) coronary
(C) persecutory
(D) forensic

Called now chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, "punch drunk," Martland said, originated in boxing slang. In his hands, it evolved into a clinical (38).
In the history of concussion research since Martland published his classic studies, many authorities have fixated their interests on the fact that Martland was reporting a(n) (39) disease in boxers.
In fact, Martland's study was more ambitious than that. He was directing attention to the way that boxers could reveal pathologies from even mild hits to the head in anyone who (40) hit in the head, even once, but especially if the hits were repeated.
(A) said
(B) spoken
(C) argued
(D) dismissed

Called now chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, "punch drunk," Martland said, originated in boxing slang. In his hands, it evolved into a clinical (38).
In the history of concussion research since Martland published his classic studies, many authorities have fixated their interests on the fact that Martland was reporting a(n) (39) disease in boxers.
In fact, Martland's study was more ambitious than that. He was directing attention to the way that boxers could reveal pathologies from even mild hits to the head in anyone who (40) hit in the head, even once, but especially if the hits were repeated.
(A) essence
(B) tip
(C) entity
(D) substance

Called now chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, "punch drunk," Martland said, originated in boxing slang. In his hands, it evolved into a clinical (38).
In the history of concussion research since Martland published his classic studies, many authorities have fixated their interests on the fact that Martland was reporting a(n) (39) disease in boxers.
In fact, Martland's study was more ambitious than that. He was directing attention to the way that boxers could reveal pathologies from even mild hits to the head in anyone who (40) hit in the head, even once, but especially if the hits were repeated.
(A) seasonal
(B) occupational
(C) diurnal
(D) periodical

In fact, Martland's study was more ambitious than that. He was directing attention to the way that boxers could reveal pathologies from even mild hits to the head in anyone who (40) hit in the head, even once, but especially if the hits were repeated.
(A) has been
(B) would be
(C) were to be
(D) had been

IV. Reading Comprehension
Answer the following questions according to the information provided or implied in the articles. Choose the best answer to each question.
Article 1: Questions 41-45
When journalists and academics talk about the morass of hate and lies online, they tend to focus on tech platforms, rightfully so. (W) The platforms are immensely powerful, and their design can encourage radicalization and the spread of conspiracy theories, amplifying the most toxic forces in our culture.
But online garbage (whether political and scientific misinformation or racist memes) is also created because there's an audience for it. (X) Their thoughts and impulses and diatribes are grist for the algorithmic content mills. When we talk about engagement, we are talking about them. They—or rather, we—are the ones clicking. We are often the ones telling the platforms, "More of this, please."
This is a disquieting realization. (Y) As the author Richard Seymour writes in his book The Twittering Machine, if social media "confronts us with a string of calamities—addiction, depression, 'fake news,' trolls, online mobs, alt-right subcultures—it is only exploiting and magnifying problems that are already socially pervasive." He goes on, "If we've found ourselves addicted to social media, in spite or because of its frequent nastiness, then there is something in us that's waiting to be addicted."
Misery, famously, loves company and, however shallow, social media provides that in droves. It's worth asking: What if the internet so frequently feels miserable, and makes those of us posting and reacting feel miserable, because so many people are miserable in the first place? (Z) What if we all absorb that misery at scale online and, sometimes unwittingly, inflict it on one another?
41. What would be a synonym of the word "morass" in the first sentence?
(A) concept
(B) spread
(C) cave
(D) chaos

42. According to this article, which of the following statements is TRUE?
    (A) Social media are an environment to creative communicative democracy.
    (B) Social media are characteristically euphoric.
    (C) Social media answer the inner craving of each one of us.
    (D) Social media create problems that do not exist before.

43. According to this article, what do social media do?
    (A) polarization
    (B) unification
    (C) harmonization
    (D) figuration

44. In which of the position marked [W], [X], [Y], and [Z] does the following sentence best belong?
    "The internet, after all, is populated by people—billions of them."
    (A) [W]
    (B) [X]
    (C) [Y]
    (D) [Z]

45. What is the meaning of the idiom "grist ... to the mill" in the second paragraph?
    (A) irrelevant stuff
    (B) extraneous fuel
    (C) wasteful lubrication
    (D) useful material