義守大學 98 學年度博士班入學招生考試試題
學系別
生物技術與化學工程研究所 博士班 考試日期 98/5/16
考試科目
科技英文閱讀
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Question 1 (25%)
Read the following passage and write a summary in either Chinese or English. (25%)
Buildings, roads and sidewalks have developed an appetite for air pollution. Researchers
in Japan and Hong Kong are testing construction materials coated with titanium dioxide—the
stuff of white paint and toothpaste—to see how well they can fight pollution.
Better known as a pigment for whiteness, titanium dioxide can clear the air because it is
an efficient photocatalyst: it speeds the breakdown of water vapor by ultraviolet light. The
results of this reaction are hydroxyl radicals, which attack both inorganic and organic
compounds, and turn them into molecules that can be harmlessly washed away with the next
rainfall. But it wouldn't work to smear toothpaste on the sidewalk—the titanium dioxide
crystals in such applications are too large (about 20 to 250 nanometers wide). The width of
the pollution-fighting form is about seven nanometers, offering much more surface area for
photocatalysis.
In the early 1970s researchers from the University of Tokyo described titanium dioxide's
photocatalytic abilities. Since then, scientists have exploited the compound to kill bacteria on
hospital surfaces and to treat contaminated water. Fighting nitrogen oxide on the streets is the
latest twist. In Hong Kong, concrete slabs coated with titanium dioxide removed up to 90
percent of nitrogen oxides, most commonly spewed from older cars and diesel trucks and a
contributor to smog, acid rain and other environmental headaches. In taking care of the
contaminants, a coating of titanium dioxide did in minutes what the environment does in
months, says Jimmy Chai-Mei Yu, a chemist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Moreover, he adds, because titanium dioxide is a catalyst, it could last forever.
Despite its promise, the compound is no magical cure. “The big problem with titanium
dioxide is that it doesn't absorb sunlight very well,” says Carl Koval, a chemist at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. Only 3 percent of sunlight falls into the range needed for
the titanium dioxide to work, points out Adam Heller, a chemical engineer at the University
of Texas at Austin. A recent advance by Ryoji Asahi of Toyota Central R&D Laboratories in
Nagakute, Japan, boosted the efficiency to 10 percent, but, Heller notes, “it's still a small
fraction of the sunlight.”
And although titanium dioxide is relatively inexpensive, paving roads and coating
buildings with this substance could add up. “The countries with the most air pollution will
benefit the most from this technology,” Yu observes, “but unfortunately those are the
countries that won't be able to afford it.”
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義守大學 98 學年度博士班入學招生考試試題
學系別
生物技術與化學工程研究所 博士班 考試日期 98/5/16
考試科目
科技英文閱讀
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※本科可使用紙本英文字典。
Question 2 (25%)
Read this passage and describe the evolutionary stages of the development of nanotechnology
in either Chinese or English.
Today nanotechnology is still in a formative phase—not unlike the condition of computer
science in the 1960s or biotechnology in the 1980s. Yet it is maturing rapidly. Between 1997
and 2005, investment in nanotech research and development by governments around the
world soared from $432 million to about $4.1 billion, and corresponding industry investment
exceeded that of governments by 2005. By 2015, products incorporating nanotech will
contribute approximately $1 trillion to the global economy. About two million workers will
be employed in nanotech industries, and three times that many will have supporting jobs.
Descriptions of nanotech typically characterize it purely in terms of the minute size of the
physical features with which it is concerned—assemblies between the size of an atom and
about 100 molecular diameters. That depiction makes it sound as though nanotech is merely
looking to use infinitely smaller parts than conventional engineering. But at this scale,
rearranging the atoms and molecules leads to new properties. One sees a transition between
the fixed behavior of individual atoms and molecules and the adjustable behavior of
collectives. Thus, nanotechnology might better be viewed as the application of quantum
theory and other nano-specific phenomena to fundamentally control the properties and
behavior of matter.
Over the next couple of decades, nanotech will evolve through four overlapping stages of
industrial prototyping and early commercialization. The first one, which began after 2000,
involves the development of passive nanostructures: materials with steady structures and
functions, often used as parts of a product. These can be as modest as the particles of zinc
oxide in sunscreens, but they can also be reinforcing fibers in new composites or carbon
nanotube wires in ultra-miniaturized electronics.
The second stage, which began in 2005, focuses on active nanostructures that change
their size, shape, conductivity or other properties during use. New drug-delivery particles
could release therapeutic molecules in the body only after they reached their targeted diseased
tissues. Electronic components such as transistors and amplifiers with adaptive functions
could be reduced to single, complex molecules.
Starting around 2010, workers will cultivate expertise with systems of nanostructures,
directing large numbers of intricate components to specified ends. One application could
involve the guided self-assembly of nanoelectronic components into three-dimensional
circuits and whole devices. Medicine could employ such systems to improve the tissue
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義守大學 98 學年度博士班入學招生考試試題
學系別
生物技術與化學工程研究所 博士班 考試日期 98/5/16
考試科目
科技英文閱讀
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compatibility of implants, or to create scaffolds for tissue regeneration, or perhaps even to
build artificial organs.
After 2015-2020, the field will expand to include molecular nanosystems - heterogeneous
networks in which molecules and supramolecular structures serve as distinct devices. The
proteins inside cells work together this way, but whereas biological systems are water-based
and markedly temperature-sensitive, these molecular nanosystems will be able to operate in a
far wider range of environments and should be much faster. Computers and robots could be
reduced to extraordinarily small sizes. Medical applications might be as ambitious as new
types of genetic therapies and antiaging treatments. New interfaces linking people directly to
electronics could change telecommunications.
Over time, therefore, nanotechnology should benefit every industrial sector and health
care field. It should also help the environment through more efficient use of resources and
better methods of pollution control. Nanotech does, however, pose new challenges to risk
governance as well. Internationally, more needs to be done to collect the scientific
information needed to resolve the ambiguities and to install the proper regulatory oversight.
Helping the public to perceive nanotech soberly in a big picture that retains human values and
quality of life will also be essential for this powerful new discipline to live up to its
astonishing potential.
Question 3~7 (25%, 5% for each)
Read the following passage and answer the questions.
If water is left standing in an open container, the level of the water drops due to
evaporation – the change of a liquid to a gas. Some liquids, such as ether, alcohol, and
gasoline, evaporate more rapidly than water under the same conditions. Others evaporate
more slowly. Motor oil and ethylene glycol (antifreeze) evaporate so slowly that they seem
not to evaporate at all.
Some solids evaporate too. Chemists refer to this direct conversion from the solid
phase to the gas phase as sublimation. Over a long period of time, an ice cube in a freezer
may become smaller as it sublimes. Snow sublimes at temperatures below its melting point.
As a mothball sublimes, you can smell the molecules in the gas phase above it. When solid
iodine is heated, the solid sublimes, and a purple vapor forms. The molecules of these solids
pass directly from the solid to the gas phase.
Evaporation and sublimation may be explained in terms of the kinetic-molecular theory.
In a liquid, just as in a gas, the molecules move randomly-some slowly, many at intermediate
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義守大學 98 學年度博士班入學招生考試試題
學系別
生物技術與化學工程研究所 博士班 考試日期 98/5/16
考試科目
科技英文閱讀
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rates, and some very rapidly. A few rapidly moving molecules near the surface of the liquid
may posses enough kinetic energy to overcome the attraction of their neighbors and escape –
i.e., evaporate – into the gas above the liquid and become gas-phase molecules. If they are
not confined, these gases molecules diffuse, and more fast-moving molecules leave the liquid
phase and appear in the gaseous phase above the liquid as evaporation continues.
Although the molecules in a solid do not move through the solid, they do possess energy
that causes them to vibrate – some gently, many with intermediate energy, and some wildly.
A few wildly vibrating molecules on the surface of the solid may possess enough energy to
overcome the attraction of their neighbors and escape into the gas phase. In an open
container, these gaseous molecules diffuse, and more molecules leave the solid as sublimation
continues.
3. What does the author mention antifreeze in this passage?
(A) To show how some liquids change to solids
(B) To demonstrate that some liquids change do not evaporate
(C) To give a common example of a liquid that does not evaporate quickly
(D) To explain chemist’ fascination with the process of evaporation.
4. Sublimation occurs when molecules move from a
(A) gaseous phase to a liquid phase
(B) liquid phase to a solid phase
(C) liquid phase to a gaseous phase
(D) solid phase to a gaseous phase
5. What is the main idea of the third paragraph?
(A) The change from a liquid to a gaseous state occurs very slowly.
(B) Explanations of how molecules enter the gaseous state have been substantially revised
recently
(C) A breakthrough in understanding the movement of molecules is expected soon.
(D) There is an established explanation for changes from a liquid or a solid to a gaseous
state.
6. Where do evaporation and sublimation take place?
(A) Near the surface of a substance
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義守大學 98 學年度博士班入學招生考試試題
學系別
生物技術與化學工程研究所 博士班 考試日期 98/5/16
考試科目
科技英文閱讀
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(B) In the core of a molecule
(C) Wherever a solid and a liquid come in contact
(D) Throughout a substance
7. According to the passage, why do some molecules in a solid enter the gaseous phase?
(A) They are repelled by other molecules in the solid.
(B) They have enough kinetic energy to overcome the pull of neighboring molecules.
(C) They break free when the solid is cooled to a low temperature.
(D) They respond to strong attractive forces from gas molecules.
Questions 8~12 (25%, 5% for each)
Read the following passage and answer the questions
In addition to pollution by organic materials and by increased mineral nutrients, pollution
of freshwater environments can occur from a wide variety of potentially toxic materials.
These include heavy metals such as copper, zinc, mercury, and lead from industrial or mining
processes; cyanides, acids, and alkalis; and organic compounds such as organochlorine
pesticides and herbicides. Different species vary in their vulnerability to specific pollutants,
so it is hard to give a general picture of the effects of such toxic materials. The metal zinc
provides one example and has been the subject of considerable research. If a previously
unpolluted river becomes contaminated by dissolved zinc, then sensitive species such as alga
Cladophora and molluscs may vanish, and with increasing concentrations of zinc more and
more species will be eliminated. Nevertheless, waters that have been exposed to zinc for
many years usually have obvious growths of algae or other plants. Most of the species
present under such conditions have acquired resistance to zinc; this is a permanent genetic
change, because the organisms retain resistance if they are grown for a while in the absence of
the metal and then reexposed to it. The plants that can survive in the drainage waters from
cold mines often grow so densely, due to the lack of competition from other species, that it is
hard for the casual observer to realize that the waters are polluted. However, these waters
are still highly toxic to sensitive species. An increase in the amount of growth, but a
decrease in the number of species, is a widespread response to many types of pollution.
Zinc may be used to illustrate another aspect of pollution that causes difficulty for water
management.
The toxicity of zinc to many different organisms, including algae,
invertebrates, and fish, is profoundly affected by other features of the water, such as the kinds
of dissolved calcium or magnesium salts (the hardness of the water). It is therefore
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義守大學 98 學年度博士班入學招生考試試題
學系別
生物技術與化學工程研究所 博士班 考試日期 98/5/16
考試科目
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※本科可使用紙本英文字典。
impossible to state that one particular level of zinc (or of any other metal) is toxic, while all
waters containing less than this level.
8. Why does the author choose to discuss zinc as an example of toxic pollution?
(A) It effects are still unknown
(B) It is the most common toxic pollutant
(C) Its effects have been extensively studied
(D) It is easy to establish how much zinc is tolerable
9. What does the author imply about freshwater molluscs?
(A) They have become extinct.
(B) Their main source of food is the alga Cladophora.
(C) They only thrive in unpolluted environments.
(D) They gradually acquire resistance to zinc.
10. It can be inferred that plant species that are genetically resistant to zinc probably
(A) have been exposed to zinc over a long period of time
(B) grow faster in the absence of zinc
(C) require at least some exposure to unpolluted water
(D) are resistant to other toxic pollutant as well
11. According to the passage, the toxicity of zinc in fresh water varies with
(A) the level of calcium and magnesium salts in the water
(B) the depth of the water
(C) the time of year
(D) the different species living in the water
12. With which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree?
(A) Zinc is more toxic than other heavy metal pollutants.
(B) Scientists need to find more plants that are resistant to toxic pollutants.
(C) Polluted rivers gradually clean themselves.
(D) It is difficult to make generalizations about how pollutants affect particular bodies of
water.
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