学位英语

第三篇 Calculating Crime

When you think about math, you probably don't think about breaking the law, solving mysteries or finding criminals. But a mathematician in Maryland does, and he has come up with mathematical tools to help police find criminals.

People who solve crimes look for patterns that might reveal （揭示） the identity of the criminal. It's long been believed, for example, that criminals will break the law closer to where they live, simply because it's easier to get around in their own neighborhood. If police see a pattern of robberies in a certain area, they may look for a suspect who lives near the crime scenes. So, the farther away from the area a crime takes place, the less likely it is that the same criminal did it.

But Mike O'Leary, a mathematician at Towson University in Maryland, says that this kind of approach may be too simple. He says that police may get better clues to the location of an offender's home base by combining these patterns with a city's layout and historical crime records.

The records of past crimes contain geographical information and can reveal easy targets - that is, the kind of stores that might be less difficult to rob. Because these stores are along roads, the locations of past crimes contain information about where major streets and intersections (十字路口) are. O'Leary is writing a new computer program that will quickly provide this kind of information for a given city. His program also includes information about the people who live in the city, and information about how a criminal's patterns change with age. (It's been shown, for example, that the younger the criminal, the closer to home the crime.)

Other computer programmers have worked on similar software, but O'Leary's uses more math. The mathematician plans to make his computer program available, free of charge, to police departments around the country.

The program is just one way to use math to fight crime. O'Leary says that criminology - the study of crime and criminals - contains a lot of good math problems. "I feel like I'm in a gold mine and I'm the only one who knows what gold looks like," he says. "It's a lot of fun."

41 Which of the following statements about math is true?

A It is too difficult for the police to use in finding criminals.

B Few people associate it with finding criminals.

C Some criminals make use of it when committing crimes.

D it has long been employed in solving crimes.

42 People tend to think there is a relationship between

A the time of a crime and the age of the criminal.

B the type of a crime and the identity of the criminal.

C the pattern of a crime and the equipment of the criminal.

D the location of a crime and the residence of the criminal.

43 O'Leary includes all the following information in writing his program EXCEPT

A the records of past crimes.

B the locations of police bureaus.

C the people living in the city.

D the change of a criminal's patterns with age.

44 O'Leary's program is different from other similar software in that

A it is inexpensive.

B it uses more math.

C it is more user-friendly.

D it is available all over the world.

45 It can be inferred from the last paragraph that O'Leary

A will develop programs for other governmental departments.

B is going to use math in looking for gold.

C thinks it's interesting to learn math.

D will further use math in studying crimes and criminals.

41 B 文章第一段显示很少有人用数学来破案，但一个数学家做到了。选项 B 符合文章的本意。

42 D 文章第二段提到 "很长时间以来，人们认为罪犯会在离他居住地近的地方作案"，可 以得知人们倾向于认为案件发生地与罪犯的居住地有联系。选项 D 符合文章本意。

43 B 文章第三段最后一句话提到 Mike O'Leary 的程序中包括对过去违法的记录;文章第四段提到他的程序中还包括居住在这个城市的人民和不同年龄罪犯的犯罪模式的信息。 文章并没有提及他的程序还包括警察局的位置。选择 B。

44 B 文章第六段第一句话提到 Mike O'Leary 的程序与其他软件的不同之处在于他更多地使用了数学。答案 B 符合文章本意。

45 D 从文章最后一段话的第二句话 "O'Leary says that criminology 一the study of crime and criminals -contains a lot of good math problems" 可以看出 Mike O'Leary认为犯罪学里包 含着很多好的数学问题。并且本段最后一句话也可以看出这位数学家对这种研究犯罪学的方式非常热衷。选择 D。

（责任编辑：vstara）

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