单选题 Directions: In this section you will read several passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. You are to choose ONE best answer, A. B. C. or D. to each question.
The momentum towards open publishing looks unstoppable but more still needs to be done to make science truly accessible, says Stephen Curry. If you would like to read the latest research from my lab, be my guest. Our report on a protein from a mouse version of the winter vomiting virus has just been published in the journal PLoS One and is available online for free—to anyone.
Contrast that with my first paper, published in 1990, which you could only have read if you had access to a university library with an expensive subscription to the journal Biochemistry. Back in 1990—before the world wide web—that was how scientific publishing was done. Today it is being transformed by open access publishers like the Public Library of Science. Rather than being funded by journal subscriptions, these publishers charge authors or their institutions the cost of publication and make their papers available for free online.
Many scientists are passionate supporters of open access and want to see the old model swept away. They have launched a protest movement dubbed the Academic Spring and organised a high-profile boycott of journals published by Elsevier. And the tide appears to be turning in their favour. This week the Finch Report, commissioned by the U.K. government, recommended that research papers—especially those funded by the taxpayer—should be made freely available to anyone who wants to read them.
Advocates of open access claim it has major advantages over the subscription model that has been around since academic journals were invented in the 17th century. They argue that science operates more effectively when findings can be accessed freely and immediately by scientists around the world. Better yet, it allows new results to be data-mined using powerful web-crawling technology that might spot connections between data—insights that no individual would be likely to make. But if open access is so clearly superior, why has it not swept all before it? The model has been around for a decade but about nine-tenths of the approximately 2 million research papers that appear every year are still published behind a paywall.
Part of the reason is scientists' reluctance to abandon traditional journals and the established ranking among them. Not all journals are equal—they are graded by impact factor, which reflects the average number of times that the papers they publish are cited by others. Nature's impact factor is 36, one of the highest going, whereas Biochemistry's is around 3.2. Biochemistry is well regarded—many journals have lower factors—but a paper in Nature is still a much greater prize. Unfortunately, it is prized for the wrong reasons. Impact factors apply to journals as a whole, not individual papers or their authors.
Despite this, scientists are still judged on publications in high-impact journals; funding and promotion often depend on it. Consequently few are willing to risk bucking the trend. This has allowed several publishers to resist calls to abandon the subscription model.
Another reason for the slowness of the revolution is concern about quality. Unlike many traditional journals, PLoS One does not assess the significance of research during peer review; it simply publishes all papers judged to be technically sound. However, this concern proved unfounded. PLoS One now publishes more papers than any other life science journal and has an impact factor of 4.4.
The world of scientific publishing is slowly changing and the hegemony of established journals is being challenged. Shaken by the competition, more of them are offering variants of open access. At the high end of the market, Nature is about to face competition from eLife, an open access journal to be launched later this year.
Adding to the momentum, U.K. government research councils are increasingly insisting that the research they pay for be published in open access journals. The European Union is poised to do the same for the science it funds. In the U.S., a bill now before Congress would require all large federal funders to make papers freely available no later than six months after publication.
单选题 What is the main idea of this passage?
  • A. Many scientists are supporters of open publishing.
  • B. Open publishing is not so superior as it seems, because it omits peer review.
  • C. More needs to be done to accelerate the process of open publishing.
  • D. Scientists' dependence upon traditional journals and concern about quality slowed the development of open publishing.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 对文章主旨大意的归纳能力。文章着重比较了新旧两种出版模式的运营特点，并分析了开放式出版至今仍未在出版份额上取得优势的原因。从文章对两方面原因的分析及结尾处所提及的各国政府的态度可知，开放式出版的发展乃至日后的胜出，需要多方面不懈的努力方可实现。这一主旨从开篇第一段也可窥见一斑。选项A，B，D均从文章细处着眼，并非文章主旨。
单选题 Which of the following best paraphrases the sentence "about nine-tenths of the approximately 2 million research papers that appear every year are still published behind a paywall" (para. 4)?
  • A. The overwhelming majority of research papers that appear every year are published with funds.
  • B. About nine-tenths of the authors of research papers published every year are paid by the publishers.
  • C. About nine-tenths of the authors of research papers published every year are charged by the publishers.
  • D. About nine-tenths of research papers published every year are not available to readers without payment.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 根据上下文正确理解句子的能力，具体内容在第四段。作者自开篇就试图通过自己的切身经历和部分科学家对开放式出版的支持，说明开放式出版所具有的巨大优势。但尽管如此，开放式出版仍然不得不面对其出版份额偏低的窘境。要充分理解这个句子，对behind a paywall的理解是关键。paywall可直译为“付费墙，付费区”，即网站上用于拦截详细信息、诱导读者付费的页面，在文中泛指迫使读者付费的关卡。在此基础上不难理解，此句意在强调现实中需要付费阅读的文献比例之高。选项A，B未能领会behind a paywall的意思，选项C弄错了设置paywall所针对的收费对象。
单选题 Which of the following statements about "impact factor" is NOT true according to the article?
  • A. Impact factor makes journals unequal in terms of academic significance.
  • B. Impact factor reflects the average number of times that papers in a journal are cited.
  • C. The higher the impact factor is, the greater impact a journal has.
  • D. Papers in high-impact journals are cited more than those in low-impact journals.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解。此题适用排除法。文章在分析开放式出版所占份额偏低的原因时，提到了impact factor这一概念，并进一步解释，影响因子“反映的是期刊所载文献被他人引用的平均次数”，再根据第五段最后一句可进一步确认，影响因子的概念适用于整本期刊，而非其中的某篇文章，据此可知选项B正确。根据该段第二句中Not all journals are equal，选项A正确。根据对影响因子概念的理解，可判断选项C正确。只有选项D符合题意，为正确答案。
单选题 In writing the article, the author demonstrates a(n) ______ attitude towards open publishing.
  • A. supportive
  • B. critical
  • C. indifferent
  • D. ironic
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解及对作者态度的推断。在文中，作者现身说法，以自己近期发表学术成果的实例，同其在1990年发表第一篇论文时的情况作对比，试图说明开放式出版带给广大读者的便利和实惠。在分析开放式出版的发展现状时，作者一方面指出了科学家对期刊影响因子排名的误解和过分执著，另一方面指出，对开放式出版质量的担忧是没有依据的。综合以上信息可知，作者对开放式出版持支持态度，应选A。
单选题 It can be learned from the passage that open publishing ______.
  • A. is changing the world of scientific publishing rapidly
  • B. is challenging the traditional subscription model
  • C. is unable to develop since the publishers do not get any subscription
  • D. is-supported by most countries
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解。各选项所涉及的内容及依据主要集中在文章最后两段。由倒数第二段首句可知选项A错误，同时判定选项B正确。根据open publishing的发展势头以及第二段中的介绍，可知选项C错误。最后一段提及了英国、美国及欧盟对此种出版模式的支持，但D项夸大了其受支持的范围。