TheUS$3-millionFundamentalPhys-考网

The US $3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this year’s award in March. And it is far from the only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs. These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science.

　What’s not to like? Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature. You cannot buy class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels. The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They could cement the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewed research. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius.

　The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others to draw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their careers in research.

　As Nature has pointed out before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes—both new and old—are distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launched this year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include. But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research—as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Nobels were, of course, themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has given them legitimacy.

　As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First, most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one. Second, it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere. It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism—that is the culture of research, after all—but it is the prize-givers’ money to do with as they please. It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.

The Fundamental Physics Prize is seen as _____.

A.a symbol of the entrepreneurs’ Wealth
B.a possible replacement of the Nobel Prizes
C.an example of bankers’ investments
D.a handsome reward for researchers

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答案： A

本题解析：

篇章理解题。第一段末尾明确提到“像基础物理科学奖一样，（这些新奖项）是由资金雄厚的互联网企业家创立的，他们想用自己的财富来吸引那些在科学上取得成就的人，由此可知它是“企业家财产的一种象征”，因此A项是最佳答案。B项的replacement（替代品）一词属于过度推断，第一段第③句虽讲到“有一批奖金丰厚的奖项加入了诺贝尔奖的阵营”，但由此无法推断基础物理学奖会取代诺贝尔奖；C项bankers（银行家）是利用bank accounts（银行账户）设置的干扰项，投资基础物理学奖的不是银行家，而是有九位数资产的internet entrepreneurs（互联网企业家），；D项“对研究者的丰厚回报”并不是人们对基础物理学奖的看法，原文说的是奖金（awards）丰厚，而选项说的是回报、报酬（reward），从文中可以看出科学家对这些奖项并不是持支持态度的。