英语专业八级考试试题及答案(6)
专业英语八级考题试卷及答案
专业英语八级考题试卷及答案PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION (40 MIN)In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheetSECTION A TALKQuestions I to 5 refer to the talk in this section. At the end of the talk you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.Now listen to the talk.1. Which of the following statements about offices is NOT true according to the talk?A. Offices throughout the world are basically alike.B. There are primarily two kinds of office layout.C. Office surroundings used to depend on company size.D. Office atmosphere influences workers' performance.2. We can infer from the talk that harmonious work relations may have a direct impact on yourA. promotion.B. colleagues.C. management.D. union.3. Supposing you were working in a small firm, which of the following would you do when you had some grievances?A. Request a formal special meeting with the boss.B. Draft a formal agenda for a special meeting.C. Contact a consultative committee first.D. Ask to see the boss for a talk immediately.4. According to the talk, the union plays the following roles EXCEPTA. mediation.B. arbitration.C. negotiation.D. representation.5. Which topic is NOT covered in the talk?A. Role of the union.B. Work relations.C. Company structure.D. Office layout.SECTION B INTERVIEWQuestions 6 to 10 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 15seconds to answer each of the following five questions.Now listen to the interview.6. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT about David's personal background?A. He had excellent academic records at school and university.B. He was once on a PHD programme at Yale University.C. He received professional training in acting.D. He came from a single-parent family.7. David is inclined to believe inA. aliens.B. UFOs.C. the TV character.D. government conspiracies.8. David thinks he is fit for the TV role because of hisA. professional training.B. personality.C. life experience.D. appearance.9. From the interview, we know that at present David feelsA. a sense of frustration.B. haunted by the unknown thingsC. confident but moody.D. successful yet unsatisfied.10. How does David feel about the divorce of his parents?A. He feels a sense of anger.B. He has a sense of sadness.C. It helped him grow up.D. It left no effect on him.SECTION C NEWS BROADCASTQuestion 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15seconds to answer the question.Now listen to the news.11. What is the main idea of the news item?A. US concern over th6 forthcoming peace talks.B. Peace efforts by the Palestinian Authority.C. Recommendations by the Mitchell Commission.D. Bomb attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.Question 12 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the question.Now listen to the news.12. Some voters will waste their ballots becauseA. they like neither candidate.B. they are all ill-informed.C. the candidates do not differ much.D. they do not want to vote twice.Questions 13 to 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given15 seconds to answer each of the questions.Now listen to the news.13. According to the UN Human Development Report, which is the best place for women in the world?A. Canada.B. The US.C. Australia.D. Scandinavia.14. _______ is in the 12th place in overall ranking.A. BritainB. FranceC. FinlandD. Switzerland15. According to the UN report, the least developed country isA. Ethiopia.B. Mali.C. Sierra Leon.D. Central African Republic.SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLINGIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a 15-minute gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the mini-lecture. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.PART II PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)Proofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET TWO as instructed.PART III READING COMPREHENSIOS (40MIN)SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet~TEXT AHostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metal-smiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Romany word for “man”. But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies.In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery it wasn't until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent timesthe Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families.But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent's largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own -unlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. “Romanestan” said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, "is where my two feet stand."16. Gypsies are united only when theyA are engaged in traditional crafts.B. call themselves Roma.C. live under a clan system.D. face external threats.17. In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all the followingEXCEPTA. the Egyptians.B the state.C. the church.D. the Nazis.18. According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts ofA．language.B. culture.C. identity.D. custom.TEXT ＢI was just a boy when my father brought me to Harlem for the first time, almost 50 years ago. We stayed at the Hotel Theresa, a grand brick structure at 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. Once, in the hotel restaurant, my father pointed out Joe Louis. He even got Mr. Brown, the hotel manager, to introduce me to him, a bit paunchy but still the champ as far as I was concerned.Much has changed since then. Business and real estate are booming. Some say a new renaissance is under way. Others decry what they see as outside forces running roughshod over the old Harlem.New York meant Harlem to me, and as a young man I visited it whenever I could. But many of my old haunts are gone. The Theresa shut down in 1966. National chains thatonce ignored Harlem now anticipate yuppie money and want pieces of this prime Manhattan real estate. So here I am on a hot August afternoon, sitting in a Starbucks that two years ago opened a block away from the Theresa, snatching at memories between sips of high-priced coffee. I am about to open up a piece of the old Harlem- the New York Amsterdam News—when a tourist asking directions to Sylvia's, a prominent Harlem restaurant, penetrates my daydreaming. He's carrying a book: Touring Historic Harlem.History. I miss Mr. Michaux's bookstore, his House of Common Sense, which was across from the Theresa. He had a big billboard out front with brown and black faces painted on it that said in large letters: "World History Book Outlet on 2,000,000,000 Africans and Nonwhite Peoples." An ugly state office building has swallowed that space.I miss speaker like Carlos Cooks, who was always on the southwest comer of 125th and Seventh, urging listeners to support Africa. Harlem's powerful political electricity seems unplugged-although the sweets are still energized, especially by West African immigrants.Hardworking southern newcomers formed the bulk of the community back in the 1920s and'30s, when Harlem renaissance artists, writers, and intellectuals gave it a glitter and renown that made it the capital of black America. From Harlem, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Zora Neal Hurston, and others helped power America's cultural influence around the world.By the 1970s and '80s drugs and crime had ravaged parts of the community. And the life expectancy for men in Harlem was less than that of men in Bangladesh. Harlem had become a symbol of the dangers of inner-city life.Now, you want to shout “Lookin’good!”at this place that has been neglected for so long. Crowds push into Harlem USA, a new shopping centre on 125th, where a Disney store shares space with HMV Records, the New York Sports Club, and a nine-screen Magic Johnson theatre complex. Nearby, a Rite Aid drugstore also opened. Maybe part of the reason Harlem seems to be undergoing a rebirth is that it is finally getting what most people take for granted.Harlem is also part of an “empowerment zone”—a federal designation aimed at fostering economic growth that will bring over half a billion in federal, state, and local dollars. Just the shells of once elegant old brownstones now can cost several hundred thousand dollars. Rents are skyrocketing. An improved economy, tougher law enforcement, and community efforts against drugs have contributed toa 60 percent drop in crime since 1993.19. At the beginning the author seems to indicate that HarlemA. has remained unchanged all these years.B. has undergone drastic changes.C. has become the capital of Black America.D. has remained a symbol of dangers of inner-city life.20. When the author recalls Harlem in the old days, he has a feeling ofA. indifference.B, discomfort.C. delight.D. nostalgia.21. Harlem was called the capital of Black America in the 1920s and '30s mainly because of itsA. art and culture.B. immigrant population.C. political enthusiasm.'D. distinctive architecture.22. From the passage we can infer that, generally speaking, the authorA. has strong reservations about the changes.B. has slight reservations about the changes,C. welcomes the changes in Harlem.D. is completely opposed to the changes.TEXT CThe senior partner, Oliver Lambert, studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. And he was hungry; with his background, he had to be. He was married, and that was mandatory. The firm had never hired an unmarried lawyer, and it frowned heavily on divorce, as well as womanizing and drinking. Drug testing was in the contract. He had a degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam the first time he took it and wanted to be a tax lawyer, which of course was a requirement with a tax firm. He was white, and the firm had never hired a black. They managed this by being secretive and clubbish and never soliciting job applications. Other firms solicited, and hired blacks. This firm recruited, and remained lily white. Plus, the firm was in Memphis, and the top blacks wanted New York or Washington or Chicago. McDeere was a male, and there were no women in the firm. That mistake had been made in the mid-seventies when they recruited the number one grad from Harvard, who happened to be a she and a wizard at taxation. She lasted four turbulent years and was killed in a car wreck.He looked good, on paper. He was their top choice. In fact, for this year there were no other prospects. The list was very short. It was McDeere, or no one.The managing partner, Royce McKnight, studied a dossier labeled "Mitchell Y. McDeere-Harvard." An inch thick with small print and a few photographs; it had been prepared by some ex-CIA agents in a private intelligence outfit in Bethesda. They were clients of the firm and each year did the investigating for no fee. It was easy work, they said, checking out unsuspecting law students. They learned, for instance, that he preferred to leave the Northeast, that he was holding three job offers, two in New York and one in Chicago, and that the highest offer was $76,000 and the lowest was $68,000. He was in demand. He had been given the opportunity to cheat on a securities exam during his second year. He declined, and made the highest grade in the class. Two months ago he had been offered cocaine at a law school party. He said no and left when everyone began snorting. He drank an occasional beer, but drinking was expensive and he had no money. He owed close to $23,000 in student loans. He was hungry.Royce McKnight flipped through the dossier and smiled. McDeere was their man. Lamar Quin was thirty-two and not yet a partner. He had been brought along to look young and act young and project a youthful image for Bendini, Lambert & Locke, which in fact was a young firm, since most of the partners retired in their late forties or early fifties with money to bum. He would make partner in this firm. With a six-figure income guaranteed for the rest of his life, Lamar could enjoy the twelve-hundred-dollar tailored suits that hung so comfortably from his tall, athletic frame. He strolled nonchalantly across the thousand-dollar-a-day suite and poured another cup of decaf. He checked his watch. He glanced at the two partners sitting at the small conference table near the windows.Precisely at two-thirty someone knocked on the door. Lamar looked at the parmers, who slid the resume and dossier into an open briefcase. All three reached for their jackets. Immar buttoned his top button and opened the door.23. Which of the following is NOT the firm’s recruitment requirement?A. Marriage.B. Background.C. Relevant degree.D. Male.24. The details of the private investigation show that the firmA. was interested in his family background.B. intended to check out his other job offers.C. wanted to know something about his preference.D. was interested in any personal detail of the man.25. According to the passage, the main reason Lama Quin was there at the interview was thatA. his image could help impress McDereer.B. he would soon become a partner himself.C. he was good at interviewing applicants.D. his background was similar to MeDereer's.26. We get the impression from the passage that in job recruitment the firm was NOTA. selective.B. secretive.C. perfunctory.D. racially biased.TEXT KFirst read the questions.39. When did Moore receive his first commission?A. In 1948.B. In 1946.C. In 1931.D. In 1928.40. Where did Moore win his first international prize?A. In London.B. In Venice.C. In New York.D. In Hamburg.Now go through TEXT K quickly to answer questions 39 and 40.Henry Moore, the seventh of eight children of Raymond Spencer Moore and his wife Mary, was born in Yorkshire on 30 July 1898. After graduating from secondary school, Moore taught for a short while. Then the First World War began and he enlisted in the army at the age of eighteen. After the war he applied for and received an ex-serviceman's grant to attend Leeds School of Art. At the end of his second year he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London.In 1928 Moore met Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the college, whom he married a year later. The couple then moved into a house which consisted of a small ground-floor studio with an equally small flat above. This remained their London home for ten years.Throughout the 1920's Moore was involved in the art life of London. His first commission, received in 1928, was to produce a sculpture relief for the newly opened headquarters of London Transport. His first one-man exhibition opened at the Warren Gallery in 1928; it was followed by a show at the Leicester Galleries in 1931 and his first sale to a gallery abroad- the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. His success continued.In 1946 Moore had his first foreign retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modem Art, New York. In 1948 he won the International Sculpture Prize at the 24th Venice Biennale, the first of countless international accolades acquired in succeeding years. At the same time sales of Moore's work around the world increased, as did the demand for his exhibitions. By the end of 1970's the number of exhibitions had grown to an average of forty a year, ranging from the very small to major international retrospectives taking years of detailed planning and preparation. The main themes in Moore's work included the mother and child, the earliest work created in 1922, and the reclining figure dating from 1926. At the end of the 1960's came stringed figures based on mathematical models observed in the Science Museum, and the first helmet head, a subject that later developed into the internal-external theme- variously interpreted as a hard form coveting a soft, like a mother protecting her child or a foetus inside a womb.A few years before his death in 1986 Moore gave the estate at Perry Green with its studios, houses and cottages to the Trustees of the Henry Moore Foundation to promote sculpture and the fine arts within the cultural life of the country and in particular the works of Henry Moore.ANSWER SHEET ONEPART I LISTENING COMPREHENSIONSECTION D NOTE-TAKING & GAPFILING (15 MIN)Fill in each of the gaps with ONE word You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.Marslow's Hierarchy of NeedsAbraham Maslow has developed a famous theory of human needs, which can be arranged In order of importance.Physiological needs: the most (1)______________ones for survival.They include such needs as food, water, etc. And there is usually one way to satisfy these needs.(2)______________needs: needs for a) physicalsecurity;b)(3)_______________security.The former means no illness or injury, while the latter is concerned with freedom from (4)______________, misfortunes, etc. These needs can be met through a variety of means, e.g. job security, (5)______________________plans, and safe working conditions.Social needs: human requirements for a) love and affection;b) a sense of belonging.There are two ways to satisfy these needs: a) formation of relationships at workplace;b) formation of relationships outside workplace.Esteem needs: a) self-esteem, i.e. one's sense of achievement;b) esteem of others, i.e. others' respect as a result of one's (6__________.These needs can be fulfilled by achievement, promotion, honours, etc.Self-realization needs: need to realize one'spotential.Ways to realize these needs are individually (7)______________________ Features of the hierarchy of needs:a) Social, esteem and self-realization needs are exclusively(8)______________ needs.b) Needs are satisfied in a fixed order from the bottom up.c) (9)_____________for needs comes from the lowest un-met level.d) Different levels of needs may (10)_______________when they come into play. ANSWER SHEET TWOTEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS [2003]-GRADE EIGIHT-PART II PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)The passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved You should proof, read the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank pro-vided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a "^" sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line. For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a slash "/" and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.EXAMPLEWhen ^ art museum wants a new exhibit, it never buys things in finished form and hangs them on the wall. When a natural history museum wants an exhibition, it must often build it.Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwarperiod were more eager than ever to establish families. They quicklybrought down the age at marriage for both men and women and broughtthe birth rate to a twentieth century height after more than a hundred (1)__ years of a steady decline, producing the “baby boom.”These young (2)__adults established a trend of early marriage and relatively largefamilies that Went for more than two decades and caused a major (3)__but temporary reversal of long-term demographic patterns. Fromthe 1940S through the early 1960s, Americans married at a high rate (4)__and at a younger age than their Europe counterparts.(5)__Less noted but equally more significant, the men and women on who (6)__formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced the (7)__divorce rate after a postwar peak; their marriages remained intact toa greater extent than did that of couples who married in earlier as well (8)__ as later decades. Since the United States maintained its dubious (9)__ distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world, thetemporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in (10)__ Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role of breadwinner and homemaker was not abandoned.TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (2003)-GRADE EIGHT-PAPER TWOTIME LIMIT: 120 MINPART IV TRANSLATION (60 MIN)SECTION A CHINESE TO ENGLISHTranslate the following text into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.得病以前，我受父母宠爱，在家中横行霸道，一旦隔离，拘禁在花园山坡上一幢小房子里，我顿觉打入冷宫，十分郁郁不得志起来。
专业英语[八级]2021年考试真题与答案解析
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专业英语八级·2021年考试真题与答案解析PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSIONSECTION A MINI-LECTUREIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for note-taking.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.Now listen to the mini-lecture. When it is over, you will be given THREE minutes to check your work.SECTION B INTERVIEWIn this section you will hear ONE interview. The interview will be divided into TWO parts. At the end of each part, five questions will be asked about what was said. Both the interview and the questions will be spoken ONCE ONLY. After each question there will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of A, B, C and D, and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the questions.Now, listen to the Part One of the interview. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1. A. Maggie’s university life.B. Her mom’s life at Harvard.C. Maggie’s view on studying with Mom.D. Maggie’s opinion on her mom’s major.2. A. They take exams in the same weeks.B. They have similar lecture notes.C. They apply for the same internship.D. They follow the same fashion.3. A. Having roommates.B. Practicing court trails.C. Studying together.D. Taking notes by hand.4. A. Protection.B. Imagination.C. Excitement.D. Encouragement.5. A. Thinking of ways to comfort Mom.B. Occasional interference from Mom.C. Ultimately calls when Maggie is busy.D. Frequent check on Maggie’s grades.Now, listen to the Part Two of the interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6. A. Because parents need to be ready for new jobs.B. Because parents love to return to college.C. Because kids require their parents to do so.D. Because kids find it hard to adapt to college life.7. A. Real estate agent.B. Financier.C. Lawyer.D. Teacher.8. A. Delighted.B. Excited.C. Bored.D. Frustrated.9. A. How to make a cake.B. How to make omelets.C. To accept what is taught.D. To plan a future career.10.A. Unsuccessful.B. Gradual.C. Frustrating.D. Passionate.SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONSIn this section there are three passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.PASSAGE ONE(1)There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes（滑水板）over cataracts of foam. On weekends Mr. Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long pastmidnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with scrubbing-brushes and hammer and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.(2)Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York – every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.(3)At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre（冷盘）, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials（加香甜酒）so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.(4)By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived – no thin five-piece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.(5)The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now theorchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.(6)The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath – already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.(7)Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the Folies. The party has begun.(8)I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.(9)I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer – the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night. He had seen me several times and had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it – signed Jay Gatsby in a majestic hand.(10)Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know – though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.(11)As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table – the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.PART II READING COMPREHENSION11.It can be inferred form Para. 1 that Mr. Gatsby ______ through the summer.A.entertained guests from everywhere every weekendB.invited his guests to ride in his Rolls-Royce at weekendsC.liked to show off by letting guests ride in his vehiclesD.indulged himself in parties with people from everywhere12.In Para.4, the word “permeate” probably means ______.A.perishB.pushC.penetrateD.perpetrate13.It can be inferred form Para. 8 that ______.A.guests need to know Gatsby in order to attend his partiesB.people somehow ended up in Gatsby’s house as guestsC.Gatsby usually held garden parties for invited guestsD.guests behaved themselves in a rather formal manner14.According to Para. 10, the author felt ______ at Gatsby’s party.A.dizzyB.dreadfulC.furiousD.awkward15.What can be concluded from Para.11 about Gatsby?A.He was not expected to be present at the parties.B.He was busy receiving and entertaining guests.C.He was usually out of the house at the weekend.D.He was unwilling to meet some of the guests.PASSAGE TWO(1)The Term “CYBERSPACE”was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, “Neuromancer”, whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators” and “a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.”(2)His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient（有先见之明的）. Cyberspace has become shorthand for the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web totap into humanity’s collective store of knowledge every day.(3)But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks. Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit- and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company, and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit.(4) The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America’s National Security Agency (NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America’s president, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats “pose one of the gravest national-security dangers” the country is facing.(5)Securing cyberspace is hard because the architecture of the internet was designed to promote connectivity, not security. Its founders focused on getting it to work and did not worry much about threats because the network was affiliated with America’s military. As hackers turned up, layers of security, from antivirus programs to firewalls, were added to try to keep them at bay. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that last year organizations around the globe spent $67 billion on information security.(6)On the whole, these defenses have worked reasonably well. For all the talk about the risk of a “cyber 9/11”, the internet has proved remarkably resilient. Hundreds of millions of people turn on their computers every day and bank online, shop at virtualstores, swap gossip and photos with their friends on social networks and send all kinds of sensitive data over the web without ill effect. Companies and governments are shifting ever more services online.(7)But the task is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion – a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria.(8)To add to the worries, there is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. One precedent is the destruction in 2010 of centrifuges（离心机）at a nuclear facility in Iran by a computer program known as Stuxnet.(9)But such events are rare. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and trade secrets. For example, smarter, better-organized hackers are making life tougher for the cyber-defenders, but the report will argue that even so a number of things can be done to keep everyone safer than they are now.(10)One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. All too often breaches are caused by simple blunders, such as failing to separate systems containing sensitive data from those that do not need access to them. Companies also need to get better at anticipating where attacks may be coming from and at adapting their defences swiftly in response to new threats. Technology can help, as can industry initiatives that allow firms to share intelligence about risks with each other.(11)There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. One idea is to encourage internet-service providers, or the companies that manage internet connections, to shoulder more responsibility for identifying and helping to clean up computers infected with malicious software. Another is to find ways to ensure that software developers produce code with fewer flaws in it so that hackers have fewer security holes to exploit.(12)An additional reason for getting tech companies to give a higher priority to security is that cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computers that connect them to the web and make them more useful. Dubbed “the internet of things”, this is already making it possible, for example, to control home appliances using smartphone apps and to monitor medical devices remotely.(13)But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.16.Cyberspace is described by William Gibson as ______.A.a function only legitimate computer operators haveB.a representation of data from the human systemC.an important element stored in the human systemD.an illusion held by the common computer users17.Which of the following statements BEST summarizes the meaning of the first four paragraphs?A.Cyberspace has more benefits than defects.B.Cyberspace is like a double-edged sword.C.Cyberspace symbolizes technological advance.D.Cyberspace still remains a sci-fi notion.18.According to Para. 5, the designing principles of the internet and cyberspace security are ______.A.controversialplimentaryC.contradictoryD.congruent19.What could be the most appropriate title for the passage?A.Cyber Crime and Its Prevention.B.The Origin of Cyber Crime.C.How to Deal with Cyber Crime.D.The Definition of Cyber Crime.PASSAGE THREE(1)You should treat skeptically the loud cries now coming from colleges and universities that the last bastion of excellence in American education is being gutted by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is, higher education is not a bastion of excellence. It is shot through with waste, lax academic standards and mediocre teaching and scholarship.(2)True, the economic pressures – from the Ivy League to state systems – are intense. Last year, nearly two-thirds of schools had to make midyear spending cuts to stay within their budgets. It is also true (as university presidents and deans argue) that relieving those pressures merely by raising tuitions and cutting courses will make matters worse. Students will pay more and get less. The university presidents and deans want to be spared from further government budget cuts. Their case is weak. (3)Higher education is a bloated enterprise. Too many professors do too littleteaching to too many ill-prepared students. Costs can be cut and quality improved without reducing the number of graduates. Many colleges and universities should shrink. Some should go out of business. Consider:●Except for elite schools, admissions standards are low. About 70 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges and universities attend their first-choice schools. Roughly 20 percent go to their second choices. Most schools have eagerly boosted enrollments to maximize revenues (tuition and state subsidies).●Dropout rates are high. Half or more of freshmen don’t get degrees. A recent study of PhD programs at 10 major universities also found high dropout rates for doctoral candidates.●The attrition among undergraduates is particularly surprising because college standards have apparently fallen. One study of seven top schools found widespread grade inflation. In 1963, half of the students in introductory philosophy courses got a B – or worse. By 1986, only 21 percent did. If elite schools have relaxed standards, the practice is almost surely widespread.●Faculty teaching loads have fallen steadily since the 1960s. In major universities, senior faculty members often do less than two hours a day of teaching. Professors are “socialized to publish, teach graduate students and spend as little time teaching (undergraduates) as possible,”concludes James Fairweather of Penn State University in a new study. Faculty pay consistently rises as undergraduate teaching loads drop.●Universities have encouraged an almost mindless explosion of graduate degrees. Since 1960, the number of masters’ degrees awarded annually has risen more than fourfold to 337,000. Between 1965 and 1989, the annual number of MBAs (masters in business administration) jumped from 7,600 to 73,100.(4)Even so, our system has strengths. It boasts many top-notch schools and allows almost anyone to go to college. But mediocrity is pervasive. We push as manyfreshmen as possible through the door, regardless of qualifications. Because bachelors’degrees are so common, we create more graduate degrees of dubious worth. Does anyone believe the MBA explosion has improved management?(5)You won’t hear much about this from college deans or university presidents. They created this mess and are its biggest beneficiaries. Large enrollments support large faculties. More graduate students liberate tenured faculty from undergraduate teaching to concentrate on writing and research: the source of status. Richard Huber, a former college dean, writes knowingly in a new book (“How Professors Play the Cat Guarding the Cream: Why We’re Paying More and Getting Less in Higher Education”): Presidents, deans and trustees ... call for more recognition of good teaching with prizes and salary incentives.(6)The reality is closer to the experience of Harvard University’s distinguished paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould: “To be perfectly honest, though lip service is given to teaching, I have never seriously heard teaching considered in any meeting for promotion... Writing is the currency of prestige and promotion.”(7)About four-fifths of all students attend state-subsidized systems, from community colleges to prestige universities. How governors and state legislatures deal with their budget pressures will be decisive. Private schools will, for better or worse, be influenced by state actions. The states need to do three things.(8)First, create genuine entrance requirements. Today’s low standards tell high school students: You don’t have to work hard to go to college. States should change the message by raising tuitions sharply and coupling the increase with generous scholarships based on merit and income. To get scholarships, students would have to pass meaningful entrance exams. Ideally, the scholarships should be available for use at in-state private schools. All schools would then compete for students on the basis of academic quality and costs. Today’s system of generaltuition subsidies provides aid to well-to-do families that don’t need it or to unqualified students who don’t deserve it.(8)Next, states should raise faculty teaching loads, mainly at four-year schools. (Teaching loads at community colleges are already high.) This would cut costs and reemphasize the primacy of teaching at most schools. What we need are teachers who know their fields and can communicate enthusiasm to students. Not all professors can be path-breaking scholars. The excessive emphasis on scholarship generates many unread books and mediocre articles in academic journals. “You can’t do more of one (research) without less of the other (teaching),”says Fairweather. “People are working hard – it’s just where they’re working.”(10)Finally, states should reduce or eliminate the least useful graduate programs. Journalism (now dubbed “communications”), business and education are prime candidates. A lot of what they teach can – and should – be learned on the job. If colleges and universities did a better job of teaching undergraduates, there would be less need for graduate degrees.(11)Our colleges and universities need to provide a better education to deserving students. This may mean smaller enrollments, but given today’s attrition rates, the number of graduates need not drop. Higher education could become a bastion of excellence, if we would only try.20.It can be concluded from Para.3 that the author was ______ towards the education.A.indifferentB.neutralC.positiveD.negative21.The following are current problems facing all American universities EXCEPT ______.A.high dropout ratesB.low admission standardsC.low undergraduate teaching loadsD.explosion of graduate degrees22.In order to ensure teaching quality, the author suggests that the states do all the following EXCEPT ______.A.set entrance requirementsB.raise faculty teaching loadsC.increase undergraduate programsD.reduce useless graduate programs23.“Prime candidates” in Para. 10 is used as ________.A.euphemismB.metaphorC.analogyD.personification24.What is the author’s main argument in the passage?A.American education can remain excellent by ensuring state budget.B.Professors should teach more undergraduates than postgraduates.C.Academic standard are the main means to ensure educational quality.D.American education can remain excellent only by raising teaching quality.SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONSIn this section there are eight short answer questions based on the passages in Section A. Answer each question in NO more than 10 words in the space provided on ANSWER SHEET TWO.PASSAGE ONE25.From the description of the party preparation, what words can you see to depict Gatby’s party?26.How do you summarize the party scene in Para. 6?PASSAGE TWO27.What do the cases of Target, Adobe and eBay in Para. 3 show?28.Why does the author say the task is becoming harder in Para. 7?29.What is the conclusion of the whole passage?PASSAGE THREE30.What does the author mean by saying “Their case is weak” in Para. 2?31.What does “grade inflation” in Para. 3 mean?32.What does the author mean when he quotes Richard Huber in Para. 5?PART III LANGUAGE USAGEThe passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proof-read the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong word,underline the wrong word and write the correct one in theblank provided at the end of the line.For a missing word,mark the position of the missing word with a “∧”sign andwrite the word you believe to be missing in the blankprovided at the end of the line.For an unnecessary word,cross the unnecessary word with a slash “/” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.ExampleWhen∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) anit never buys things in finished form and hangs (2) neverthem on the wall. When a natural history museumwants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibitProofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET THREE as instructed.PART IV TRANSLATIONTranslate the underlined part of the following text from Chinese into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.流逝，表现了南国人对时间最早的感觉。
英语专业八级考试模拟试题集
英语专业八级考试模拟试题集一、单选题1、The old man should be treated with____.A.kindB.kindnessC.kindlyD.kinder答案：B2、By local doctors and nurses,we hope more people.A.train,helpB.training,helpingC.training,to helpD.train,helping答案：C3、I don’t have as______money as before,but my life is more______.A.many,usefulB.more,niceC.most,goodD.much,meaningful答案：D4、I hope you will spend as much time as you can______your English.A.to practiceB.practiceC.practicingD.on practice答案：C5、It’s necessary______us all to______.A.for,keeping learningB.to,keeping learningC.of,keep to learnD.for,keep learning答案：D6、All we want to do______to find enough water______the horses.A.are,toB.is,forC.be,asD.is,to give答案：B7、The car is______expensive______he can’t buy it.A.too,toB.so,thatC.such,thatD.enough,that答案：B8、How I______I could live on the moon.A.thinkB.hopeC.wantD.wish答案：D9、I’ve never been out of China_______.What about you?A.alreadyB.overC.beforeD.just答案：C10、Mrs.White has______that she is not able to get a job.A.so little educationB.such little educationC.so a little educationD.such a little education答案：A二、阅读理解短文一Whenever you see an old film,even one made as little as ten years before,you can’t help being struck by the appearance of the women taking part.Their hair styles and make-up look dated;their skirts look either too long or too short;their general appearance is,in fact,slightly ludicrous.The men taking part,on the other hand,are clearly recognizable.There is nothing about their appearance to suggest that they belong to an entirely different age.This illusion is created entirely by changing fashions.问题What is the main reason for the difference in appearance between men and women in old films?答案：The main reason is the changing fashions.短文二The gorilla is something of a paradox in the African scene.For a hundred years or more he has been killed,captured,and imprisoned in zoos.His bones have been mounted in natural history museums everywhere,and he has always exerted a strong fascination upon scientists and romantics alike.Yet the fact is we know very little about gorillas.No really satisfactory photograph has ever been taken of one in a wild state.问题What is the paradox about gorillas mentioned in the passage?答案：The paradox is that despite being studied for over a hundred years, we still know very little about gorillas.三、完形填空Read the following passage and fill in the blanks with the most suitable options.The company has been__________for its innovative products.Despite the challenges,she remained__________throughout the project.Blank1:A)recognized B)criticized C)ignored D)forgotten答案：ABlank2:A)optimistic B)indifferent C)skeptical D)pessimistic答案：A四、翻译中文句子翻译成英文随着经济的发展，人们对生活质量的要求越来越高。
专业英语八级考题试卷及答案
专业英语八级考题试卷及答案Section A Mini-lectureSection B InterviewIn this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheet.Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.1. Which of the following statements is TRUE about Miss Green’s university days?A. She felt bored.B. She felt lonely.C. She cherished them.D. The subject was easy.2. Which of the following is NOT part of her job with the Department of Employment?A. Doing surveys at workplace.B. Analyzing survey results.C. Designing questionnaires.D. Taking a psychology course.3. According to Miss Green, the main difference between the Department ofEmployment and the advertising agency lies inA. the nature of work.B. office decoration.C. office location.D. work procedures.4. Why did Miss green want to leave the advertising agency?A. She felt unhappy inside the company.B. She felt work there too demanding.C. She was denied promotion in the company.D. She longed for new opportunities.5. How did Miss Green react to a heavier workload in the new job?A. She was willing and ready.B. She sounded mildly eager.C. She a bit surprised.D. She sounded very reluctant.SECTION C NEWS BROADCASTIn this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheet.Questions 6 and 7 based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions. Now listen to the news.6. The man stole the aircraft mainly because he wanted toA. destroy the European Central Bank.B. have an interview with a TV station.C. circle skyscrapers in downtown Frankfurt.D. remember the death of a US astronaut.7. Which of the following statements about the man is TRUE?A. He was a 31-year-old student from Frankfurt.B. He was piloting a two-seat helicopter he had stolen.C. He had talked to air traffic controllers by radio.D. He threatened to land on the European Central Bank.Question 8 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.8. The news is mainly about the city government’s plan toA. expand and improve the existing subway system.B. build underground malls and parking lots.C. prevent further land subsidence.D. promote advanced technology.Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions. Now listen to the news.9. According to the news, what makes this credit card different from conventional ones isA. that it can hear the owner's voice.B. that it can remember a password.C. that it can identify the owner's voice.D. that it can remember the owner's PIN.10. The newly developed credit card is said to said to have all the following EXCEPTA. switch.B. battery.C. speaker.D. built-in chip.【阅读理解】In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions.Read the passages and then mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet.TEXT AThe University in transformation, edited by Australian futurists Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley, presents some 20 highly varied outlooks on tomorrow’s universities by writers representing both Western and mon-Western perspectives. Their essays raise a broad range of issues, questioning nearly every key assumption we have about higher education today.The most widely discussed alternative to the traditional campus is the Internet University – a voluntary community to scholars/teachers physically scattered throughout a country or around the world but all linked in cyberspace. A computerized university could have many advantages, such as easy scheduling, efficient delivery of lectures to thousands or even millions of students at once, and ready access for students everywhere to the resources of all the world’s great libraries.Yet the Internet University poses dangers, too. For example, a line of franchised courseware, produced by a few superstar teachers, marketed under the brand name of a famous institution, and heavily advertised, might eventually come to dominate the global education market, warns sociology professor Peter Manicas of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Besides enforcing a rigidly standardized curriculum, such a “college education in a box” could undersell the offerings of many traditional brick and mortar institutions, effectively driving then out of business and throwing thousands of career academics out of work, note Australian communications professors David Rooney and Greg Hearn.On the other hand, while global connectivity seems highly likely to play some significant role in future higher education, that does not mean greater uniformity in course content –or other dangers –will necessarily follow. Counter-movements are also at work.Many in academia, including scholars contributing to this volume, are questioning the fundamental mission of university education. What if, for instance, instead of receiving primarily technical training and building their individual careers, university students and professors could focus their learning and research efforts on existing problems in their local communities and the world? Feminist scholar Ivana Milojevic dares to dream what a university might become “if we believedthat child-care workers and teachers in early childhood education should be one of the highest (rather than lowest) paid professionals?”Co-editor Jennifer Gidley shows how tomorrow’s university faculty, instead of giving lectures and conducting independent research, may take on three new roles. Some would act as brokers, assembling customized degree-credit programmes for individual students by mixing and matching the best course offerings available from institutions all around the world. A second group, mentors, would function much like today’s faculty advisers, but are likely to be working with many more students outside their own academic specialty. This would require them to constantly be learning from their students as well as instructing them.A third new role for faculty, and in Gidley’s view the most challenging and rewarding of all, would be as meaning-makers: charismatic sages and practitioners leading groups of students/colleagues in collaborative efforts to find spiritual as well as rational and technological solutions to specific real-world problems.Moreover, there seems little reason to suppose that any one form of university must necessarily drive out all other options. Students may be “enrolled” in courses offered at virtual campuses on the Internet, between –or even during – sessions at a real-world problem-focused institution.As co-editor Sohail Inayatullah points out in his introduction, no future is inevitable, and the very act of imagining and thinking through alternative possibilities can directly affect how thoughtfully, creatively and urgently even a dominant technology is adapted and applied. Even in academia, the future belongs to those who care enough to work their visions into practical, sustainable realities.11. When the book reviewer discusses the Internet University,A. he is in favour of it.B. his view is balanced.C. he is slightly critical of it.D. he is strongly critical of it.12. Which of the following is NOT seen as a potential danger of the Internet University?A. Internet-based courses may be less costly than traditional ones.B. Teachers in traditional institutions may lose their jobs.C. internet-based courseware may lack variety in course content.D. The Internet University may produce teachers with a lot of publicity.13. According to the review, what is the fundamental mission of traditional university education?A. Knowledge learning and career building.B. Learning how to solve existing social problems.C. Researching into solutions to current world problems.D. Combining research efforts of teachers and students in learning.14. Judging from the Three new roles envisioned for tomorrow's university faculty, university teachersA. are required to conduct more independent research.B. are required to offer more course to their students.C. are supposed to assume more demanding duties.D. are supposed to supervise more students in their specialty.15. Which category of writing does the review belong to?A. Narration.B. DescriptionC. persuasionD. Exposition.TEXT BEvery street had a story, every building a memory, Those blessed with wonderful childhoods can drive the streets of their hometowns and happily roll back the years. The rest are pulled home by duty and leave as soon as possible. After Ray Atlee had been in Clanton (his hometown) for fifteen minutes he was anxious to get out.The town had changed, but then it hadn't. On the highways leading in, the cheap metal buildings and mobile homes were gathering as tightly as possible next to the roads for maximum visibility. This town had no zoning whatsoever. A landowner could build anything wiih no permit no inspection, no notice to adjoining landowners. nothing. Only hog farms and nuclear reactors required approvals and paperwork. The result was a slash-and-build clutter that got uglier by the year.But in the older sections, nearer the square, the town had not changed at all The long shaded streets were as clean and neat as when Kay roamed them on his bike. Most of the houses were still owned by people he knew, or if those folks had passed on the new owners kept the lawns clipped and the shutters painted. Only a few were being neglected. A handful had been abandoned.This deep in Bible country, it was still an unwritten rule in the town that little was done on Sundays except go to church, sit on porches, visit neighbours, rest and relax the way God intended.It was cloudy, quite cool for May, and as he toured his old turf, killing time until the appointed hour for the family meeting, he tried to dwell on the good memories from Clanton. There was Dizzy Dean Park where he had played little League for the Pirates, and (here was the public pool he'd swum in every summer except 1969 when the city closed it rather than admit black children. There were the churches - Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian - facing each other at the intersection of Second and Elm like wary sentries, their steeples competing for height. They were empty now, hut in an hour or so the more faithful would gather for evening services.The square was as lifeless as the streets leading to it. With eight thousand people, Clanton was just large enough to have attracted the discount stores that had wiped out so many small towns. But here the people had been faithful to their downtown merchants, and there wasn’t s single empty or boarded-up building around the square – no small miracle. The retail shops were mixed in with the banks and law offices and cafes, all closed for the Sabbath.He inched through the cemetery and surveyed the Atlee section in the old part, where the tombstones were grander. Some of his ancestors had built monuments for their dead. Ray had always assumed that the family money he’d never seen must have been buried in those graves. He parked and walked to his mother’s grave, somethinghe hadn’t done in years. She was buried among the Atlees, at the far edge of the family plot because she had barely belonged.Soon, in less than an hour, he would be sitting in his father’s study, sipping bad instant tea and receiving instructions on exactly how his father would be laid to rest. Many orders were about to be give, many decrees and directions, because his father(who used to be a judge) was a great man and cared deeply about how he was to be remembered.Moving again, Ray passed the water tower he’d climbed twice, the second time with the police waiting below. He grimaced at his old high school, a place he’d never visited since he’d left it. Behind it was the football field where his brother Forrest had romped over opponents and almost became famous before getting bounced off the team.It was twenty minutes before five, Sunday, May 7. Time for the family meeting.16. From the first paragraph, we get the impression thatA. Ray cherished his childhood memories.B. Ray had something urgent to take care of.C. Ray may not have a happy childhood.D. Ray cannot remember his childhood days.17. Which of the following adjectives does NOT describe Ray’s hometown?A. Lifeless.B. Religious.C. Traditional.D. Quiet.18. Form the passage we can infer that the relationship between Ray and his parents wasA. close.B. remote.C. tense.D. impossible to tell.19. It can be inferred from the passage that Ray’s father was all EXCEPTA. considerate.B. punctual.C. thrifty.D. dominant.Text CCampaigning on the Indian frontier is an experience by itself.Neither the landscape nor the people find their counterparts in any other portion of the globe.Valley walls rise steeply five or six thousand feet on every side.The columns crawl through a maze of giant corridors down which fierce snow-fed torrents foam under skies of brass.Amid these scenes of savage brilliancy there dwells a race whose qualities seem to harmonize with their environment.Except at harvest?time,when self-preservation requires a temporary truce,the Pathan tribes are always engaged in private or public war.Every man is a warrior,a politician and a theologian.Every large house is a real feudal fortress made,it is true,only of sun-baked clay,butwith battlements,turrets,loopholes,drawbridges,plete.Every village has its defence.Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan,its feud.The numerous tribes and combinations of tribes all have their accounts to settle with one another.Nothing is ever forgotten,and very few debts are left unpaid.For the purposes of social life,in addition to the convention about harvest-time, a most elaborate code of honour has been established and is on the whole faithfully observed.A man who knew it and observed it faultlessly might pass unarmed from one end of the frontier to another.The slightest technical slip would,however,be fatal.The life of the Pathan is thus full of interest; and his valleys,nourished alike by endless sunshine and abundant water,are fertile enough to yield with little labour the modest material requirements of a sparse population.Into this happy world the nineteenth century brought two new facts:the rifle and the British Government.The first was an enormous luxury and blessing; the second,an unmitigated nuisance.The convenience of the rifle was nowhere more appreciated than in the Indian highlands.A weapon which would kill with accuracy at fifteen hundred yards opened a whole new vista of delights to every family or clan which could acquire it.One could actually remain in one’s own house and fire at one’s neighbour nearly a mile away.One could lie in wait on some high crag,and at hitherto unheard of ranges hit a horseman far below.Even villages could fire at each other without the trouble of going far from home.Fabulous prices were therefore offered for these glorious products of science.Rifle-thieves scoured all India to reinforce the efforts of the honest smuggler.A steady flow of the coveted weapons spread its genial influence throughout the frontier,and the respect which the Pathan tribesmen entertained for Christian civilization was vastly enhanced.The action of the British Government on the other hand was entirely unsatisfactory.The great organizing,advancing,absorbing power to the southward seemed to be little better than a monstrous spoil-sport.If the Pathan made forays into the plains,not only were they driven back (which after all was no more than fair),but a whole series of subsequent interferences took place,followed at intervals by expeditions which toiled laboriously through the valleys,scolding the tribesmen and exacting fines for any damage which they had done.No one would have minded these expeditions if they had simply come,had a fight and then gone away again.In many cases this was their practice under what was called the “butcher and bolt policy” to which the Government of India long adhered.But towards the end of the nineteenth century these intruders began to make roads through many of the valleys,and in particular the great road to Chitral.They sought to ensure the safety of these roads by threats,by forts and by subsidies.There was no objection to the last method so far as it went.But the whole of this tendency to road-making was regarded by the Pathans with profound distaste.All along the road people were expected to keep quiet,not to shoot one another,and above all not to shoot at travellers along the road.It was too much to ask,and a whole series of quarrels took their origin from this source.20. The word debts in“very few debts are left unpaid”in the first paragraph meansA loans.B accounts.C killings.D bargains.21. Which of the following is NOT one of the geographical facts about the Indian frontier?A Melting snows.B Large population.C Steep hillsides.D Fertile valleys.22. According to the passage,the Pathans welcomedA the introduction of the rifle.B the spread of British rule.C the extension of luxuries.D the spread of trade.23. Building roads by the BritishA put an end to a whole series of quarrels.B prevented the Pathans from carrying on feuds.C lessened the subsidies paid to the Pathans.D gave the Pathans a much quieter life.24. A suitable title for the passage would beA Campaigning on the Indian Frontier.B Why the Pathans Resented the British Rule.C The Popularity of Rifles among the Pathans.D The Pathans at War.Text D“Museum”is a slippery word. It first meant (in Greek) anything consecrated to the Muses:a hill,a shrine,a garden,a festival or even a textbook.Both Platos Academy and Aristotles Lyceum had a mouseion, a muses shrine.Although the Greeks already collected detached works of art,many temples—notably that of Hera at Olympia (before which the Olympic flame is still lit)—had collections of objects,some of which were works of art by well known masters,while paintings and sculptures in the Alexandrian Museum were incidental to its main purpose.The Romans also collected and exhibited art from disbanded temples,as well as mineral specimens,exotic plants,animals; and they plundered sculptures and paintings (mostly Greek) for exhibition.Meanwhile,the Greek word had slipped into Latin by transliteration (though not to signify picture galleries,which were called pinacothecae) and museum still more or less meant“Muses- shrine”.The inspirational collections of precious and semi-precious objects were kept in larger churches and monasteries—which focused on the gold-enshrined,bejewelled relics of saints and martyrs.Princes,and later merchants,had similar collections,which became the deposits of natural curiosities:large lumps of amber or coral,irregular pearls,unicorn horns,ostrich eggs,fossil bones and so on.They also included coins and gems—often antique engraved ones—as wellas,increasingly,paintings and sculptures.As they multiplied and expanded,to supplement them,the skill of the fakers grew increasingly refined.At the same time,visitors could admire the very grandest paintings and sculptures in the churches,palaces and castles; they were not“collected”either,but “site-specific”,and were considered an integral part both of the fabric of the buildings and of the way of life which went on inside them—and most of the buildings were public ones.However,during the revival of antiquity in the fifteenth century,fragments of antique sculpture were given higher status than the work of any contemporary,so that displays of antiquities would inspire artists to imitation,or even better,to emulation; and so could be considered Muses- shrines in the former sense.The Medici garden near San Marco in Florence,the Belvedere and the Capitol in Rome were the most famous of such early“inspirational”collections.Soon they multiplied,and,gradually,exemplary “modern”works were also added to such galleries.In the seventeenth century,scientific and prestige collecting became so widespread that three or four collectors independently published directories to museums all over the known world.But it was the age of revolutions and industry which produced the next sharp shift in the way the institution was perceived:the fury against royal and church monuments prompted antiquarians to shelter them in asylum-galleries,of which the Musee des Monuments Francais was the most famous.Then,in the first half of the nineteenth century,museum funding took off,allied to the rise of new wealth:London acquired the National Gallery and the British Museum,the Louvre was organized,the Museum-Insel was begun in Berlin,and the Munich galleries were built.In Vienna,the huge Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches Museums took over much of the imperial treasure.Meanwhile,the decline of craftsmanship (and of public taste with it) inspired the creation of “improving”collections.The Victoria and Albert Museum in London was the most famous,as well as perhaps the largest of them.25. The sentence“Museum is a slippery word”in the first paragraph means thatA the meaning of the word didn’t change until after the 15th century.B the meaning of the word had changed over the years.C the Greeks held different concepts from the Romans.D princes and merchants added paintings to their collections.26. The idea that museum could mean a mountain or an object originates fromA the Romans.B Florence.C Olympia.D Greek.27. “...the skill of the fakers grew increasingly refined” in the third paragraph means thatA there was a great demand for fakers.B fakers grew rapidly in number.C fakers became more skillful.D fakers became more polite.28. Paintings and sculptures on display in churches in the 15th century wereA collected from elsewhere.B made part of the buildings.C donated by people.D bought by churches.29. Modern museums came into existence in order toA protect royal and church treasures.B improve existing collections.C stimulate public interest.D raise more funds.30. Which is the main idea of the passage?A Collection and collectors.B The evolution of museums.C Modern museums and their functionsD The birth of museums.【人文知识】There are ten multiple-choice questions in this section.Choose the best answers to each question.Mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet.31.The Presidents during the American Civil War wasA. Andrew JacksonB. Abraham LincolnC. Thomas JeffersonD. George Washington32.The capital of New Zealand isA.ChristchurchB.AucklandC.WellingtonD.Hamilton33.Who were the natives of Austrilia before the arrival of the British settlers?A.The AboriginesB.The MaoriC.The IndiansD.The Eskimos34.The Prime Minister in Britain is head ofA.the Shadow CabinetB.the ParliamentC.the OppositionD.the Cabinet35.Which of the following writers is a poet of the 20th century?A.T.S.EliotwrenceC.Theodore DreiserD.James Joyce36.The novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is written byA.Scott FitzgeraldB.William FaulknerC.Eugene O'NeilD.Ernest Hemingway37._____ is defined as an expression of human emotion which is condensed into fourteen linesA.Free verseB.SonnetC.OdeD.Epigram38.What essentially distinguishes semantics and pragmatics is the notion ofA.referenceB.meaningC.antonymyD.context39.The words"kid,child,offspring" are examples ofA.dialectal synonymsB.stylistic synonymsC.emotive synonymsD.collocational synonyms40.The distinction between parole and langue was made byA.HalliayB.ChomskyC.BloomfieldD.Saussure【改错】We use language primarily as a means of communication withother human beings. Each of us shares with the community in which welive a store of words and meanings as well as agreeing conventions as ___1 to the way in which words should be arranged to convey a particular ___2 message: the English speaker has iii his disposal at vocabulary and a ___3 set of grammatical rules which enables him to communicate his ___4thoughts and feelings, ill a variety of styles, to the other English ___5 speakers. His vocabulary, in particular, both that which he uses active- [y and that which he recognises, increases ill size as he growsold as a result of education and experience. ___6But, whether the language store is relatively small or large, the system remains no more, than a psychological reality for tike inpidual, unlesshe has a means of expressing it in terms able to be seen by another ___7 member of his linguistic community; he bas to give tile system aconcrete transmission form. We take it for granted rice’ two most ___8common forms of transmission-by means of sounds produced by ourvocal organs (speech) or by visual signs (writing). And these are ___9among most striking of human achievements. _____10【中译英】中国民族自古以来从不把人看作高于一切，在哲学文艺方面的表现都反映出人在自然界中与万物占着一个比例较为恰当的地位，而非绝对统治万物的主宰。
专业8级试题及答案
专业8级试题及答案一、听力理解（共20分）1. 根据所听内容，选择正确的答案。
A. The man is going to the bank.B. The man is going to the post office.C. The man is going to the supermarket.[听力材料：Man: I need to go to the post office to mail this package.]答案：B2. 根据对话内容，判断下列说法是否正确。
A. The woman has already finished her homework.B. The woman is going to do her homework after dinner.C. The woman is doing her homework right now.[听力材料：Woman: I will do my homework after dinner.] 答案：B[听力材料略，共10题]二、阅读理解（共30分）1. 阅读下列短文，回答后面的问题。
[短文内容略]问题：(1) What is the main idea of the passage?(2) According to the passage, why did the author decide totravel to the countryside?答案：(1) The main idea of the passage is to describe theauthor's experience and reflections on a trip to the countryside.(2) The author decided to travel to the countryside because they were seeking a change of scenery and a chance to relax.[短文内容及问题略，共3篇文章]三、词汇与语法（共20分）1. 根据句子的语境，选择最合适的词语填空。
专业英语八级真题1998年+附答案详解
TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (1998)—GRADE EIGHTPAPER ONEPART ⅠLISTENING COMPREHENSION (40 MIN. )In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything once only. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow.SECTION A TALKQuestions 1 to 5 refer to the talk in this section. At the end of the talk you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the talk.1. According to the talk, compulsive gambling and alcoholic addiction share similarities becauseA. no actual figure of addicts has been reported.B. no scientific studies have yielded effective solutions.C. both affect all sectors of society.D. both cause serious mental health problems.2. The development of the gambling compulsion can be described as beingA. gradual.B. slow.C. periodic.D. radical.3. G. A. mentioned in the talk is believed to be a(n)A. anonymous group.B. charity organization.C. gamblers' club.D. treatment centre.4. At the end of the talk, the speaker's attitude towards the cure of gambling addiction isA. unclear.B. uncertain.C. optimistic.D. pessimistic.5. Throughout the talk, the speaker examines the issue of gambling in a ____________ way.A. balancedB. biasedC. detachedD. lengthySECTION B INTERVIEWQuestions 6 to 10 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.6. What strikes the woman most about the male robber is hisA. clothes.B. age.C. physique.D. appearance.7. The most detailed information about the woman robber is herA. manners.B. talkativeness.C. height.D. jewelry.8. The interviewee is believed to be a bankA. receptionist.B. manager.C. customer.D. cashier.9. Which of the following about the two robbers is NOT true?A. Both were wearing dark sweaters.B. Neither was wearing glasses.C. Both were about the same age.D. One of them was marked by a scar.10. After the incident the interviewee soundedA. calm and quiet.B. nervous and numb.C. timid and confused.D. shocked and angry.SECTION C NEWS BROADCASTQuestions 11 and 12 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 30 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.11. According to the news, the enormous food shortage in Iraq has the most damaging effect on itsA. national economy.B. adult population.C. young children.D. national currency.12. The WFP is appealing to donor nations toA. double last year's food-aid.B. raise $ 122 million for Iraqi people.C. provide each Iraqi family with $ 26 a month.D. help Iraq's 12 million population.Question 13 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.13. As a result of the agreement, the two countries' arsenals are to beA. upgraded in reliability and safety.B. reduced in size and number.C. dismantled partly later this year.D. maintained in their present conditions.Questions 14 and 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 30 seconds to answer the two questions. Now listen to the news.14. We can infer from the news that ____________ of teenagers under survey in 1993 were drug users.A. 28%B. 22%C. 25%D. 21%15. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?A. Parents are asked to join in the anti-drug efforts.B. The use of both cocaine and LSD are on the increase.C. Teenagers hold a different view of drugs today.D. Marijuana is as powerful as it used to be.SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLINGIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture once only. While listening to the lecture, take notes on the important points. Y our notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a 15-minute gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET after the mini-lecture. Use the blank paper for note-taking.ANSWER SHEETThe Rise of RPHistorical reasonsReceived pronunciation was originally associated with a (1) spoken in the region between central England and London, including Oxford and Cambridge.Its survival was due to its use by the (2) in the 14th century and by university students in the (3) Ages.Its rise in importance resulted from its application in government and official documents.The prestige of its (4) pattern of pronunciation came about with its use in (5) schools in the 19th century.As a result, its (6) is accepted by television and the radio, the professions and teaching English as a foreign language. Three characteristics of RP1)its speakers don't regard themselves as connected with any geographical region;2) RP is largely used in England;3) RP is a "class" accent, associated with (7) social classes.Its present statusDecline in the prestige of RP is the result of a) loss of monopoly of education by the privileged; b) (8) of high education in the post-war period.However, it still retains its eminence among certain professional people.There is a rise in the status of all (9) accents.We are moving towards the (10) position: general acceptance of all regional accents and absence of a class accent that transcends all regions.PART ⅡPROOFREADING AND ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN. )Proofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET as instructed.The following passage contains TEN errors. Each line contains a maximum of one error. In each case, only oneword is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it.When a human infant is born into any community in any part of theworld it has two things in common with any infant, provided neither of them (1) ________have been damaged in any way either before or during birth. Firstly, and (2) ________most obviously, new born children are completely helpless. Apart from apowerful capacity to pay attention to their helplessness by using sound, there (3) ________is nothing the new born child can do to ensure his own survival. Withoutcare from some other human being or beings, be it mother, grandmother, orhuman group, a child is very unlikely to survive. This helplessness of humaninfants is in marked contrast with the capacity of many new born animals toget on their feet within minutes of birth and run with herd within a few (4) ________hours. Although young animals are certainly in risk ,sometimes for weeks (5) ________or even months after birth, compared with the human infant they very quicklygrow the capacity to fend for them. (6) ________It is during this very long period in which the human infant is totallydependent on the others that it reveals the second feature which it shares (7) ________with all other undamaged human infants, a capacity to learn language. Forthis reason, biologists now suggest that language be "species specific" to the (8) ________human race, that is to say, they consider the human infant to be genetic (9) ________programmed in such way that it can acquire language. (10) ________This suggestion implies that just as human beings are designed to seethree-dimentionally and in colour, and just as they are designed to standupright rather than to move on all fours, so they are designed to learn anduse language as part of their normal developments as well-formedhuman beings.PART ⅢREADING COMPREHENSION (40 MIN. )SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN. )In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple choice questions. Read the passages and then answer the questions.TEXT AOn Society1 Low self-esteem pops up regularly in academic reports as an explanation for all sorts of violence, from hate crimes and street crimes to terrorism. But despite the popularity of the explanation, not much evidence backs it up. In a recent issue of Psychological Review, three researchers examine this literature at length and conclude that a much stronger link connects high self-esteem to violence. "It is difficult to maintain belief in the low self-esteem view after seeing that the more violent groups are generally the ones with higher self-esteem," write Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University and Laura Smart and Joseph Boden of the University of Virginia.2 The conventional view is that people without self-esteem try to gain it by hurting others. The researchers find that violence is much more often the work of people with unrealistically high self-esteem attacking others who challenge their self-image. Under this umbrella come bullies, rapists, racists, psychopaths and members of street gangs and organized crime.3 The study concludes, "Certain forms of high self-esteem seem to increase one's proneness to violence. An uncritical endorsement of the cultural value of self-esteem may therefore be counterproductive and even dangerous... The societal pursuit of high self- esteem for everyone may literally end up doing considerable harm. "4 As for prison programs intended to make violent convicts feel better about themselves, "perhaps it would bebetter to try instilling modesty and humility," the researchers write.5 In an interview with the Boston Globe, Baumeister said he believes the "self'- promoting establishment is starting to crumble. "What would work better for the country is to forget about self-esteem and concentrate on self-control,' he said.6 In the schools, this would mean turning away from psychic boosterism and emphasizing self-esteem as a by-product of real achievement, not as an end in itself. The self-esteem movement, still entrenched in schools of education, is deeply implicated in the dumbing down of our schools, and in the spurious equality behind the idea that it is a terrible psychic blow if one student does any better or any worse than another. Let's hope it is indeed crumbling.16. The researchers find that there are stronger connections betweenA. low self-esteem and violence.B. low self-cotrol and violence.C. high self-image and violence.D. high self-control and violence.17. The researchers would most probably agree with the following EXCEPTA. self-esteem should be promoted and encouraged.B. schools should change their concept of self-esteem.C. the traditional view is beginning to lose ground.D. prisons should change their present practice.TEXT B1 Social change is more likely to occur in heterogeneous societies than in homogeneous ones, simply because there are more diverse points of view available in the former. There are more ideas, more conflicts of interest, and more groups and organizations of different persuasions. In addition, there is usually a greater worldly interest and tolerance in heterogeneous societies. All these factors tend to promote social change by opening more areas of life to decision rather than subjecting them to authority. In a quite homogeneous society, there are fewer occasions for people to perceive the need or the opportunity for change, because everything seems to be the same and, if not satisfactory, at least customary and undisputed.2 Within a society, social change is also likely to occur more frequently and more readily (1) in the material aspects of the culture than in the non-material, for example, in technology rather than in values; (2) in what has been learned later in life rather than what was learned early; (3) in the less basic, less emotional, or less sacred aspects of society than in their opposites, like religion or a system of prestige; (4) in the simple elements rather than in the complex ones; (5) in form rather than in substance; and (6) in elements congenial to the culture rather than in strange elements.3 Furthermore, social change is easier if it is gradual. For example, it comes more readily in human relations on a continuous scale rather than one with sharp dichotomies. This is one reason why change has not come more quickly to Black Americans as compared to other American minorities, because of the sharp difference in appearance between them and their white counterparts.18. According to the passage, the main difference between a homogeneous society and a heterogeneous one lies inA. the number of opportunities offered.B. the nature of conflicts of interest.C. the awareness of the need for change.D. the role of social organizations.19. The author would most probably agree that changes are more likely to be successful inA. production methods.B. ideological concepts.C. religious beliefs.D. social behaviour.TEXT C1 One argument used to support the idea that employment will continue to be the dominant form of work, and that employment will eventually become available for all who want it, is that working time will continue to fall.People in jobs will work fewer hours in the day, fewer days in the week, fewer weeks in the year, and fewer years in a lifetime, than they do now. This will mean that more jobs will be available for more people. This, it is said, is the way we should set about restoring full employment.2 There is no doubt that something of this kind will happen. The shorter working week, longer holidays, earlier retirement, job-sharing — these and other ways of reducing the amount of time people spend on their jobs — are certainly likely to spread. A mix of parttime paid work and part-time unpaid work is likely to become a much more common work pattern than today, and a flexi-life pattern of work — involving paid employment at certain stages of life, but not at others — will become widespread. But it is surely unrealistic to assume that this will make it possible to restore full employment as the dominant form of work.3 In the first place, so long as employment remains the overwhelmingly important form of work and source of income for most people, it is very difficult to see how reductions in employees' working time can take place on a scale sufficiently large and at a pace sufficiently fast to make it possible to share out the available paid employment to everyone who wants it. Such negotiations as there have recently been, for example in Britain and Germany, about the possibility of introducing a 35-hour working week, have highlighted some of the difficulties. But, secondly, if changes of this kind were to take place at a pace and on a scale sufficient to make it possible to share employment among all who wanted it, the resulting situation — in which most people would not be working in their jobs for more than two or three short days a week —could hardly continue to be one in which employment was still regarded as the only truly valid form of work. There would be so many people spending so much of their time on other activities, including other forms of useful work, that the primacy of employment would be bound to be called into question, at least to some extent.20. The author uses the negotiations in Britain and Germany as an example toA. support reductions in employees' working time.B. indicate employees are unwilling to share jobs.C. prove the possibility of sharing paid employment.D. how that employment will lose its dominance.21. At the end of the passage the author seems to imply that as a result of shorter working timeA. employment may not retain its usual importance.B. employment may not be regarded as valid work.C. people can be engaged in far less unpaid work.D. people can be engaged in far more unpaid work.22. The author's attitude towards future full employment is generallyA. supportive.B. wavering.C. skeptical.D. unclear.TEXT D1 During the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, advertising was a relatively straightforward means of announcement and communication and was used mainly to promote novelties and fringe products. But when factory production got into full swing and new products, e. g. processed foods, came onto the market, national advertising campaigns and brandnaming of products became necessary. Before large-scale factory production, the typical manufacturing unit had been small and adaptable and the task of distributing and selling goods had largely been undertaken by wholesalers. The small non-specialized factory which did not rely on massive investment in machinery had been flexible enough to adapt its production according to changes in public demands.2 But the economic depression which lasted from 1873 to 1894 marked a turning point between the old method of industrial organization and distribution and the new. From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the 1870s, production had steadily expanded and there had been a corresponding growth in retail outlets. But the depression brought on a crisis of over-production and under-consumption — manufactured goods piled up unsold and prices and profits fell. Towards the end of the century many of the small industrial firms realized that theywould be in a better position to weather economic depressions and slumps if they combined with other small businesses and widened the range of goods they produced so that all their eggs were not in one basket. They also realized that they would have to take steps to ensure that once their goods had been produced there was a market for them. This period ushered in the first phase of what economists now call "monopoly capitalism", which, roughly speaking, refers to the control of the market by a small number of giant, conglomerate enterprises. Whereas previously competitive trading had been conducted by small rival firms, after the depression the larger manufacturing units and combines relied more and more on mass advertising to promote their new range of products.3 A good example of the changes that occurred in manufacture and distribution at the turn of the century can be found in the soap trade. From about the 1850s the market had been flooded with anonymous bars of soap, produced by hundreds of small manufacturers and distributed by wholesalers and door-to-door sellers. Competition grew steadily throughout the latter half of the century and eventually the leading companies embarked on more aggressive selling methods in order to take customers away from their rivals. For instance, the future Lord Leverhulme decided to "brand" his soap by selling it in distinctive packages in order to facilitate recognition and encourage customer loyalty.4 Lord Leverhulme was one of the first industrialists to realize that advertisements should contain "logical and considered" arguments as well as eye-catching and witty slogans. Many advertisers followed his lead and started to include "reason-why" copy in their ads. For example, one contemporary Pears soap ad went into great detail about how the product could enhance marital bliss by cutting down the time the wife had to spend with her arms in a bowl of frothy suds. And an ad for Cadbury's cocoa not only proclaimed its purity but also detailed other benefits. "for the infant it is a delight and a supports for the young girl, a source of healthy vigour; for the young Miss in her teens a valuable aid to development..." and so on. As the writer E. S. Turner rightly points out, the advertising of this period had reached the "stage of persuasion as distinct from proclamation". Indeed advertise or bust seemed to be the rule of the day as bigger and more expensive campaigns were mounted and smaller firms who did not, or could not, advertise, were squeezed or bought out by the larger companies.23. An example of a product which might well have been advertised during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution isA. a cooking utensil.B. new child's toy.C. tinned fruit.D. household soap.24. One of the more aggressive selling methods in the soap trade by the leading companies was toA. buy out small firms.B. take over distribution.C. resort to product designing.D. keep contact with their customers.25. In addition to distinctive packaging, contemporary products should alsoA. draw customers' attention to their benefits.B. make customers aware of their attractiveness.C. display details of the main ingredients.D. focus on proclamation and promotion.TEXT EPardon me: how are your manners?1 The decline of civility and good manners may be worrying people more than crime, according to Gentility Recalled, edited by Digby Anderson, which laments the breakdown of traditional codes that once regulated social conduct. It criticizes the fact that "manners" are scorned as repressive and outdated.2 The result, according to Mr. Anderson — director of the Social Affairs Unit, an independent think-tank —is a society characterized by rudeness, loutish behavior on the streets, jostling in crowds, impolite shop assistants and bad-tempered drivers.3 Mr. Anderson says the cumulative effect of these —apparently trivial, but often offensive- is to makeeveryday life uneasy, unpredictable and unpleasant. As they are encountered far more often than crime, they can cause more anxiety than crime.4 When people lament the disintegration of law and order, he argues, what they generally mean is order, as manifested by courteous forms of social contact. Meanwhile, attempts to re-establish restraint and self-control through "politically correct" rules are artificial.5 The book has contributions from 12 academics in disciplines ranging from medicine to sociology and charts what it calls the "coarsening" of Britain. Old-fashioned terms such as "gentleman" and "lady" have lost all meaningful resonance and need to be re-evaluated, it says. Rachel Trickett, honorary fellow and former principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford, says that the notion of a "lady" protects women rather than demeaning them.6 Feminism and demands for equality have blurred the distinctions between the sexes, creating situations where men are able to dominate women because of their more aggressive and forceful natures, she says, "Women, without some code of deference or respect, become increasingly victims."7 Caroline Moore, the first woman fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, points out that "gentleman" is now used only with irony or derision.8 "The popular view of a gentleman is poised somewhere between the imbecile parasite and the villainous one: between Woosteresque chinless wonders, and those heartless capitalist toffs who are... the stock-in-trade of television."9 She argues that the concept is neither class-bound nor rigid conventions of gentlemanly behavior enable a man to act naturally as an individual within shared assumptions while taking his place in society.10 "Politeness is no constraint, precisely because the manners.., are no 'code' but a language, rich, flexible, restrained and infinitely subtle."11 For Anthony O'Hear, professor of philosophy at the University of Bradford, manners are closely associated with the different forms of behavior appropriate to age and status. They curb both the impetuosity of youth and the bitterness of old age.12 Egalitarianism, he says, has led to people failing to act their age. "We have vice- chancellors with earrings, aristocrats as hippies... the trendy vicar on his motorbike."13 Dr. Athena Leoussi, sociology lecturer at Reading University, bemoans the deliberate neglect by people of their sartorial appearance.14 Dress, she says, is the outward expression of attitudes and aspirations. The ubiquitousness of jeans "displays a utilitarian attitude" that has "led to the cultural impoverishment of everyday life".15 Dr. Leoussi says that while clothes used to be seen as a means of concealing taboo forces of sexuality and violence, certain fashions — such as leather jackets — have the opposite effect.16 Dr. Bruce Charlton, a lecturer in public health medicine in Newcastle upon Tyne, takes issue with the excessive informality of relations between professionals such as doctors and bank managers, and their clients. He says this has eroded the distance and respect necessary in such relationships. For Tristam Engelhardt, professor of medicine in Houston, Texas, says manners are bound to morals.17 "Manners express a particular set of values," he says, "Good manners interpret and transform social reality. They provide social orientation."26. According to the passage, the decline of good manners is more worrying becauseA. it leads to more crime in society.B. people view manners as old-fashioned.C. rudeness on the street cannot be stemmed out.D. it can seriously affect our daily life.27. Rachel Trickett seems to indicate the term "lady"A. has acquired a different meaning.B. is too old-fashioned to use.C. is preferred by feminists.D. victimizes women in society.28. According to Caroline Moore, the media has projected a __________ image of the gentleman.A. humorousB. favorableC. negativeD. traditional29. In Anthony O' Hear's view, a well mannered personA. acts rashly when he is young.B. tends to be bad-tempered in old age.C. behaves with a sense of appropriacy.D. attaches importance to his status.30. Dr. Bruce Charlton would probably prefer to see a more fomal relationshipA. among doctors.B. among managers.C. between doctors and managers.D. between doctors and patients.SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING (10 MIN. )In this section there are seven passages followed by ten multiple-choice questions. Skim or scan them as required and then answer the questions.TEXT FFirst read the following question.31. The President of Association of American railroads wrote the letter toA. complain about public ignorance of its efforts to improve the service.B. criticize U. S. News for not reporting its efforts to improve the safety record.C. inform the public of what it has achieved over the past decade.D. thank U. S. News for informing the public of its efforts to reduce accident rate.Now go through TEXT F quickly and answer question 31.December 20th 199_ Dear Editor,The American railroad industry's commitment to safety is demonstrated by a steadily declining accident rate over the past decade. The accident rate per million train miles has been reduced by 55 percent since 1981 and 21 percent since 1990. In 11 of the past 16 years, the rail passenger fatality rate was lower than or the same as the airline rate. In addition, rail employees had half the number of lost workday injuries per 100 full-time employees as did airline workers.Nowhere does U. S. News mention that America's railroads have spent more than US $ 90 billion just since 1990 to maintain and improve tracks and equipment. Nowhere do you mention that railroads —on their own initiative and at their own expense —developed and installed a new type of wheel that is much less likely to fracture and cause accidents. Nowhere do you mention how railroads are now testing a new type of electronically assisted brake that can reduce stopping distance by 40 percent. Nowhere do you explain that more than 90 percent of rail-related fatalities involve highway-rail grade crossing accidents or trespassers—accidents over which railroads have almost no control. "Facts are stubborn things", wrote John Adams more than 200 years ago. Stubborn, that is, unless you choose to ignore them. That is what U. S. News has chosen to do.Edwin L. HarperPresident and Chief Executive OfficerAssociation of American Railroads TEXT GFirst read the following question.32. The author of the passage is ___________ Johannesburg.A. concerned aboutB. critical ofC. nostalgic aboutD. hopeful aboutNow go through TEXT G quickly and answer question 32.For a city purported to be dying, Johannesburg looks pretty lively on a Saturday morning. Fleets of minivans deliver black shoppers from Sweto to the teeming sidewalks downtown, where Zairian hawkers peddle everything from kiwis to toaster-ovens. Mozambican barbers shear locks under colored plastic tents. The Carlton Center mall buzzes with chatter in English, French, Zulu and Tswana. At the fast-food Africa Hut,。
2023年英语专八考试真题及答案
QUESTION BOOKLETTEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (2023)-GRADE EIGHT-TIME LIMIT: 150 MIN PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION [25 MIN] SECTION A MINI-LECTUREIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for note-taking.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.Now listen to the mini-lecture. When it is over, you will be given THREE minutes to checkyour work.SECTION B INTERVIEWIn this section you will hear ONE interview. The interview will be divided into TWO parts. At the end of each part, five questions will be asked about what was said. Both the interview and the questions will be spoken ONCE ONLY. After each question there will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of A, B, C and D, and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the questions.Now, listen to the Part One of the interview. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1. A. Maggie’s university life.2. B. Her mom’s life at Harvard.3. C. Maggie’s view on studying with Mom.4. D. Maggie’s opinion on her mom’s major.5. A. They take exams in the same weeks.6. B. They have similar lecture notes.7. C. They apply for the same internship.8. D. They follow the same fashion.9.10. A. Having roommates.11. B. Practicing court trails.12. C. Studying together.13. D. Taking notes by hand.14.15. A. Protection.16. B. Imagination.17. C. Excitement.18. D. Encouragement.19.20. A. Thinking of ways to comfort Mom.21. B. Occasional interference from Mom.22. C. Ultimately calls when Maggie is busy.23. D. Frequent check on Maggie’s grades.Now, listen to the Part Two of the interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.24. A. Because parents need to be ready for new jobs.25. B. Because parents love to return to college.26. C. Because kids require their parents to do so.27. D. Because kids find it hard to adapt to college life.28.29. A. Real estate agent.30. B. Financier.31. C. Lawyer.32. D. Teacher.33.34. A. Delighted.35. B. Excited.36. C. Bored.37. D. Frustrated.38. A. How to make a cake.39. B. How to make omelets.40. C. To accept what is taught.41. D. To plan a future career.42.43. A. Unsuccessful.44. B. Gradual.45. C. Frustrating.46. D. Passionate.PART II READING COMPREHENSION [45 MIN] SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONSIn this section there are three passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. PASSAGE ONE(1)There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes（滑水板）over cataracts of foam. On weekends Mr. Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with scrubbing-brushes and hammer and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.(2)Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York –every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.(3)At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre（冷盘）, spiced baked hams crowdedagainst salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials（加香甜酒）so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.(4)By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived– no thin five-piece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.(5)The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.(6)The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath –already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.(7)Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the Folies. The party has begun.(8)I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was itsown ticket of admission.(9)I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer –the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night. He had seen me several times and had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it – signed Jay Gatsby in a majestic hand.(10)Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know –though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.(11)As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table – the onlyplace in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.47.It can be inferred form Para. 1 that Mr. Gatsby ______ through the summer.A.entertained guests from everywhere every weekendB.invited his guests to ride in his Rolls-Royce at weekendsC.liked to show off by letting guests ride in his vehiclesD.indulged himself in parties with people from everywhereE.48.In Para.4, the word “permeate” probably means ______.A.perishB.pushC.penetrateD.perpetrateE.49.It can be inferred form Para. 8 that ______.A.guests need to know Gatsby in order to attend his partiesB.people somehow ended up in Gatsby’s house as guestsC.Gatsby usually held garden parties for invited guestsD.guests behaved themselves in a rather formal mannerE.50.According to Para. 10, the author felt ______ at Gatsby’s party.A.dizzyB.dreadfulC.furiousD.awkward51.What can be concluded from Para.11 about Gatsby?A.He was not expected to be present at the parties.B.He was busy receiving and entertaining guests.C.He was usually out of the house at the weekend.D.He was unwilling to meet some of the guests.PASSAGE TWO(1)The Term “CYBERSPACE” was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. Hefirst used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, “Neuromancer”, whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as “a consensua l hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators” and “a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.”(2)His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient（有先见之明旳）. Cyberspace has become shorthand for the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity’s collective store of knowledge every day.(3)But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks. Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit- and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company,and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit.(4) The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America’s National Security Agency (NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America’s president, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats “pose one of the gravest national-security da ngers” the country is facing.(5)Securing cyberspace is hard because the architecture of the internet was designed to promote connectivity, not security. Its founders focused on getting it to work and did not worry much about threats because the network wa s affiliated with America’s military. As hackers turned up, layers of security, from antivirus programs to firewalls, were added to try to keep them at bay. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that last year organizations around the globe spent $67 billion on information security.(6)On the whole, these defenses have worked reasonably well. For all the talk about the risk of a “cyber 9/11”, the internet has proved remarkably resilient. Hundreds of millions of peopleturn on their computers every day and bank online, shop at virtual stores, swap gossip and photos with their friends on social networks and send all kinds of sensitive data over the web without ill effect. Companies and governments are shifting ever more services online.(7)But the task is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion – a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria.(8)To add to the worries, there is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. One precedent is the destruction in 2023 of centrifuges （离心机）at a nuclear facility in Iran by a computer program known as Stuxnet.(9)But such events are rare. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and tradesecrets. For example, smarter, better-organized hackers are making life tougher for the cyber-defenders, but the report will argue that even so a number of things can be done to keep everyone safer than they are now.(10)One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. All too often breaches are caused by simple blunders, such as failing to separate systems containing sensitive data from those that do not need access to them. Companies also need to get better at anticipating where attacks may be coming from and at adapting their defences swiftly in response to new threats. Technology can help, as can industry initiatives that allow firms to share intelligence about risks with each other.(11)There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. One idea is to encourage internet-service providers, or the companies that manage internet connections, to shoulder more responsibility for identifying and helping to clean up computers infected with malicious software. Another is to find ways to ensure that software developers produce code with fewer flaws in it so that hackers have fewer security holes to exploit.(12)An additional reason for getting tech companies to give a higher priority to security isthat cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computer s that connect them to the web and make them more useful. Dubbed “the internet of things”, this is already making it possible, for example, to control home appliances using smartphone apps and to monitor medical devices remotely.(13)But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.52.Cyberspace is described by William Gibson as ______.A. a function only legitimate computer operators haveB. a representation of data from the human systemC.an important element stored in the human systemD.an illusion held by the common computer usersE.53.Which of the following statements BEST summarizes the meaning of the first fourparagraphs?A.Cyberspace has more benefits than defects.B.Cyberspace is like a double-edged sword.C.Cyberspace symbolizes technological advance.D.Cyberspace still remains a sci-fi notion.E.54.According to Para. 5, the designing principles of the internet and cyberspace security are______.A.controversialplimentaryC.contradictoryD.congruentE.55.What could be the most appropriate title for the passage?A.Cyber Crime and Its Prevention.B.The Origin of Cyber Crime.C.How to Deal with Cyber Crime.D.The Definition of Cyber Crime.PASSAGE THREE(1)You should treat skeptically the loud cries now coming from colleges and universities that the last bastion of excellence in American education is being gutted by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is, higher education is not a bastion of excellence. It is shot through with waste, lax academic standards and mediocre teaching and scholarship.(2)True, the economic pressures – from the Ivy League to state systems – are intense. Last year, nearly two-thirds of schools had to make midyear spending cuts to stay within their budgets. It is also true (as university presidents and deans argue) that relieving those pressures merely by raising tuitions and cutting courses will make matters worse. Students will pay more and get less. The university presidents and deans want to be spared from further government budget cuts. Their case is weak.(3)Higher education is a bloated enterprise. Too many professors do too little teaching to too many ill-prepared students. Costs can be cut and quality improved without reducing thenumber of graduates. Many colleges and universities should shrink. Some should go out of business. Consider:●Except for elite schools, admissions standards are low. About 70 percent of freshmen atfour-year colleges and universities attend their first-choice schools. Roughly 20 percent go to their second choices. Most schools have eagerly boosted enrollments to maximize revenues (tuition and state subsidies).●Dropout rates are high. Half or more of freshmen don’t get degrees. A recent study ofPhD programs at 10 major universities also found high dropout rates for doctoral candidates.●The attrition among undergraduates is particularly surprising because college standardshave apparently fallen. One study of seven top schools found widespread grade inflation.In 1963, half of the students in introductory philosophy courses got a B – or worse. By 1986, only 21 percent did. If elite schools have relaxed standards, the practice is almost surely widespread.●Faculty teaching loads have fallen steadily since the 1960s. In major universities, seniorfaculty members often do less than two hours a day of teaching. Professors are“socialized to publish, teach graduate students and spend as little time teaching (undergraduates) as possible,” concludes James Fairweather of Penn State University in a new study. Faculty pay consistently rises as undergraduate teaching loads drop.Universities have encouraged an almost mindless explosion of graduate degrees. Since 1960, the number of masters’ degrees awarded annually has risen more than fourfold to 337,000. Between 1965 and 1989, the annual number of MBAs (masters in business administration) jumped from 7,600 to 73,100.(4)Even so, our system has strengths. It boasts many top-notch schools and allows almost anyone to go to college. But mediocrity is pervasive. We push as many freshmen as possible through the door, regardless of qualifications. Because bachelors’ degrees are so common, we create more graduate degrees of dubious worth. Does anyone believe the MBA explosion has improved management?(5)You won’t hear much about this from college deans or university presidents. They created this mess and are its biggest beneficiaries. Large enrollments support large faculties. More graduate students liberate tenured faculty from undergraduate teaching to concentrate on writing and research: the source of status. Richard Huber, a former college dean, writesknowingly in a new book (“How Professors Play the Cat Guarding the Cream: Why We’re Paying More and Getting Less in Higher Education”): Presidents, deans and trustees ... call for more recognition of good teaching with prizes and salary incentives.(6)The reality is closer to the experience of Harvard University’s distinguished pal eontologist Stephen Jay Gould: “To be perfectly honest, though lip service is given to teaching, I have never seriously heard teaching considered in any meeting for promotion... Writing is the currency of prestige and promotion.”(7)About four-fifths of all students attend state-subsidized systems, from community colleges to prestige universities. How governors and state legislatures deal with their budget pressures will be decisive. Private schools will, for better or worse, be influenced by state actions. The states need to do three things.(8)First, create genuine entrance requirements. Today’s low standards tell high school students: You don’t have to work hard to go to college. States should change the message by raising tuitions sharply and coupling the increase with generous scholarships based on merit and income. To get scholarships, students would have to pass meaningful entrance exams. Ideally, the scholarships should be available for use at in-state private schools. All schools would thencompete for students on the basis of academic quality and costs. Today’s system of general tuition subsidies provides aid to well-to-do families that don’t need it or to unqualified students who don’t deserve it.(8)Next, states should raise faculty teaching loads, mainly at four-year schools. (Teaching loads at community colleges are already high.) This would cut costs and reemphasize the primacy of teaching at most schools. What we need are teachers who know their fields and can communicate enthusiasm to students. Not all professors can be path-breaking scholars. The excessive emphasis on scholarship generates many unread books and mediocre articles in academic journals. “You can’t do more of one (research) without less of the other (teaching),”says Fairweather. “People are working hard – it’s just where they’re working.”(10)Finally, states should reduce or eliminate the least useful graduate programs. Journalism (now dubbed “communications”), business and education are prime candidates. A lot of what they teach can – and should – be learned on the job. If colleges and universities did a better job of teaching undergraduates, there would be less need for graduate degrees.(11)Our colleges and universities need to provide a better education to deserving students. This may mean smaller enrollments, but given today’s attrition rates, the number of graduatesneed not drop. Higher education could become a bastion of excellence, if we would only try.56.It can be concluded from Para.3 that the author was ______ towards the education.A.indifferentB.neutralC.positiveD.negativeE.57.The following are current problems facing all American universities EXCEPT ______.A.high dropout ratesB.low admission standardsC.low undergraduate teaching loadsD.explosion of graduate degreesE.58.In order to ensure teaching quality, the author suggests that the states do all the followingEXCEPT ______.A.set entrance requirementsB.raise faculty teaching loadsC.increase undergraduate programsD.reduce useless graduate programsE.59.“Prime candidates” in Para. 10 is used as ________.A.euphemismB.metaphorC.analogyD.personificationE.60.What is the author’s main argument in the passage?A.American education can remain excellent by ensuring state budget.B.Professors should teach more undergraduates than postgraduates.C.Academic standard are the main means to ensure educational quality.D.American education can remain excellent only by raising teaching quality.SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONSIn this section there are eight short answer questions based on the passages in Section A. Answer each question in NO more than 10 words in the space provided on ANSWER SHEET TWO. PASSAGE ONE61.From the description of the party preparation, what words can you see to depict Gatby’sparty?62.How do you summarize the party scene in Para. 6?PASSAGE TWO63.What do the cases of Target, Adobe and eBay in Para. 3 show?64.Why does the author say the task is becoming harder in Para. 7?65.What is the conclusion of the whole passage?PASSAGE THREE66.What does the author mean by saying “Their case is weak” in Para. 2?67.What does “grade inflation” in Para. 3 mean?68.What does the author mean when he quotes Richard Huber in Para. 5?PART III LANGUAGE USAGE [15 MIN] The passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. Y ou should proof-read the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blankprovided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign and write theword you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end ofthe line.For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a slash “/” and put the word in theblank provided at the end of the line.ExampleWhen∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) anit never buys things in finished form and hangs (2) neverthem on the wall. When a natural history museumwants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibitProofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET THREE as instructed.PART IV TRANSLATION [20 MIN] Translate the underlined part of the following text from Chinese into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.流逝，体现了南国人对时间最早旳感觉。
1996年英语专业八级考试真题及答案
TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (1996)-GRADE EIGHT-PAPER ONETIME LIMIT: 95 MIN PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION [40 MIN.]In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your answer sheet.SECTION B INTERVIEWQuestions 6 to 10 are based on an interview with an architect. At the end of the interview you will be given 13 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.6. The interviewee's first job was with ______ .A. a newspaperB. the governmentC. a construction firmD. a private company7. The interviewee is not self-employed mainly because _____ .A.his wife likes him to work for a firmB.he prefers working for the governmentC.self-employed work is very demandingD.self-employed work is sometimes insecure8. To study architecture in a university one must ______ .A. be interested in artsB. study pure science firstC. get good exam resultsD. be good at drawing9. On the subject of drawing, the interviewee says that _____ .A.technically speaking artists draw very wellB.an artist's drawing differs little from an architect'sC.precision is a vital skill for the architectD.architects must be natural artists10. The interviewee says that the job of an architect is ________ .A. more theoretical than practicalB. to produce sturdy, well-designed buildingsC. more practical than theoreticalD. to produce attractive, interesting buildingsSECTION C NEWS BROADCASTQuestions 11 to 12 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 30 seconds to answer the two questions. Now listen to the news.11. The man was convicted for _______ .A. dishonestyB. manslaughterC. murderD. having a gun12. Which of the following is TRUE?A.Mark Eastwood had a license for a revolver.B.Mark Eastwood loved to go to noisy parties.C.Mark Eastwood smashed the windows of a house.D.Mark Eastwood had a record.Questions 13 to 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 45 seconds to answer the three questions. Now listen to the news.13. How many missing American servicemen have been positively confirmed dead in Vietnamso far?A. 67.B. 280.C. 84.D.1, 648.14 According to the search operation commander, the recovery of the missing Americansis slowed down becauseA.the weather conditions are unfavorableB.the necessary documents are unavailableC.the sites are inaccessibleD.some local people are greedy15. According to the news, Vietnam may be willing to help American mainly because of.A.its changed policy towards AmericaB.recent international pressureC.its desire to have the US trade embargo liftedD.the impending visit by a senior US military officerSECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLINGIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the lecture, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a 15-minute gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the mini-lecture. Use the blank paper for note-taking. Fill in each of the gaps with one word. You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.PART II PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION [15 MIN]Proofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET TWO as instructed.PART III READING COMPREHENSION [40 MIN]SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION [30 min]In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your Coloured Answer Sheet.TEXT ASTAYING HEALTHY ON HOLIDAYDo people who choose to go on exotic, far-flung holidays deserve free healthy advice before they travel? And even if they pay, who ensures that they get good, up-to-date information? Who, for that matter, should collect that information in the first place? For a variety of reasons, travel medicine in Britain is a responsibility nobody wants. As a result, many travelers go abroad ill prepared to avoid serious disease.Why is travel medicine so unloved? Partly there's an identity problem. Because it takes an interest in anything that impinges on the health of travelers, this emerging medical specialism invariably cuts across the traditional disciplines. It delves into everything from seasickness, jet lag and the hazards of camels to malaria and plague. But travel medicine has a more serious obstacle to overcome. Travel clinics are meant to tell people how to avoid ending up dead orin a tropical diseases hospital when they come home. But it is notoriously difficult to get anybody pay out money for keeping people healthy.Travel medicine has also been colonized by commercial interests - - the vast majority of travel clinics in Britain are run by airlines or travel companies. And while travel concerns are happy to sell profitable injections, they may be less keen to spread bad news about travelers' diarrhea in Turkey, or to take the time to spell out preventive measures travelers could take. “The NHS finds it difficult to define travelers' health," says Ron Behrens, the only NHS consultant in travel and tropical medicine and director of the travel clinic of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. "Should it come within the NHS or should it be paid for? It's a grey area, and opinion is split. No one seems to have any responsibility for defining its role," he says.To compound its low status in the medical hierarchy, travel medicine has to rely on statistics that are patchy at best. In most cases we just don't know how many Britons contract diseases when abroad. And even if a disease is linked to travel there is rarely any information about where those afflicted went, what they ate, how they behaved, or which vaccinations they had. This shortage of hard facts and figures makes it difficult to give detailed advice to people, information that might even save their lives.A recent leader in the British Medical Journal argued: "Travel medicine will emerge as a credible discipline only if the risks encountered by travelers and the relative benefits of public health interventions are well defined in terms of their relative occurrence, distribution and control. " Exactly how much money is wasted by poor travel advice? The real figure is anybody's guess, but it could easily run into millions. Behrens gives one example. Britain spends more than £1 million each year just on cholera vaccines that often don't work and so give people a false sense of security: "Information on the prevention and treatment of all forms of diarrhea would be a better priority", he says.16. Travel medicine in Britain is ______ .A.not something anyone wants to runB.the responsibility of the governmentC.administered by private doctorsD.handled adequately by travel agents17. The main interest of travel companies dealing with travel medicine is to.A. prevent people from falling illB. make money out of itC. give advice on specific countriesD. get the government to pay for it18. In Behren's opinion the question of who should run travel medicine _____ .A. is for the government to decideB. should be left to specialist hospitalsC. can be left to travel companiesD. has no clear and simple answer19. People will only think better of travel medicine if _____ .A.it is given more resources by the governmentB.more accurate information on its value is availableC.the government takes over responsibility from the NHSD.travelers pay more attention to the advice they getTEXTBTHE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF SOCIAL PSYCHOIXJGY While the roots of social psychology lie in the intellectual soil of the whole western tradition, its present flowering is recognized to be characteristically an American phenomenon. One reason for the striking upsurge of social psychology in the United States lies in the pragmatic tradition of this country. National emergencies and conditions of social disruption provide special incentive to invent new techniques, and to strike out boldly for solutions to practical social problems. Social psychology began to flourish soon after the First World War. This event, followed by the great depression of the 1930s, by the rise of Hitler, the genocide of Jews, race riots, the Second World War and the atomic threat, stimulated all branches of social science. A special challenge fell to social psychology. The question was asked: How is it possible to preserve the values of freedom and individual rights under condition of mounting social strain and regimentation? Can science help provide an answer? This challenging question led to a burst of creative effort that added much to our understanding of the phenomena of leadership, public opinion, rumor, propaganda, prejudice, attitude change, morale, communication, decision-making, race relations, and conflicts of war.Reviewing the decade that followed World War II , Cartwright [1961] speaks of the "excitement and optimism" of American social psychologists, and notes "the tremendous increase in the total number of people calling themselves social psychologists." Most of these, we may add, show little awareness of the history of their field.Practical and humanitarian motives have always played an important part in the development of social psychology, not only in American but in other lands as well. Yet there have been discordant and dissenting voices. In the opinion of Herbert Spencer in England, of Ludwig Gumplowicz in Austria, and of William Graham Sumner in the United States, it is both futile and dangerous for man to attempt to steer or to speed social change. Socialevolution, they argued, requires time and obeys laws beyond the control of man. The only practical service of social science is to warn man not to interfere with the course of nature (or society). But these authors are in minority. Most social psychologists share with Comte an optimistic view of man's chances to better his way of life. Has he not already improved his health via biological sciences? Why should he not better his social relationship via social science? For the past century this optimistic outlook has persisted in the face of slender accomplishment to date. Human relations seem stubbornly set. Wars have not been abolished, labor troubles have not abated, and racial tensions are still with us. Give us time and give us money for research, the optimists say.20. Social psychology developed in the USA ______ .A.because its roots are intellectually western in originB.as a direct response to the great depressionC.to meet the threat of Adolf Hitler and his policy of mass genocideD.because of its pragmatic traditions for dealing with social problem21. According to the author, social psychology should help him to .A. preserve individual rightsB. become healthierC. be aware of historyD. improve material welfare22. Who believed that man can influence social change for the good of society?A. Cartwright.B. Spencer.C. Sumner.D. Comte.TEXTCGOD AND MY FATHERI thought of God as a strangely emotional being. He was powerful; he was forgiving yet obdurate, full of warmth and affection. Both his wrath and affection were fitful, they came and they went, and I couldn't count on either to continue: although they both always did. In short God was much such a being as my father himself.What was the relation between them, 1 wondered — these two puzzling deities?My father's ideas of religion seemed straightforward and simple. He had noticed when he was a boy that there were buildings called churches; he had accepted them as a natural part ofthe surroundings in which he had been born. He would never have invented such things himself. Nevertheless they were here. As he grew up he regarded them as unquestioningly as he did banks. They were substantial old structures; they were respectable, decent, and venerable. They were frequented by the right sort of people. Well, that was enough.On the other hand he never allowed churches — or banks — to dictate to him. He gave each the respect that was due to it from his point of view; but he also expected from each of them the respect he felt due to him.As to creeds, he knew nothing about them, and cared nothing either; yet he seemed to know which sect he belonged with. It had to be a sect with the minimum of nonsense about it; no total immersion, no exhorters. no holy confession. He would have been a Unitarian, naturally, if he'd lived in Boston. Since he was a respectable New Yorker; he belonged in the Episcopal Church.As to living a spiritual life, he never tackled that problem. Some men who accept spiritual beliefs try to live up to them daily: other men who reject such beliefs, try sometimes to smash them. My father would have disagreed with both kinds entirely. He took a more distant attitude. It disgusted him where atheists attacked religion: he thought they were vulgar. But he also objected to having religion make demands upon him he felt that religion was too vulgar, when it tried to stir up men's feelings. It had its own proper field of activity, and it was all right there, of course; but there was one place religion should leave alone, and that was a man's soul. He especially loathed any talk of walking hand in hand with his Savior. And if he had ever found the Holy Ghost trying to soften his heart, he would have regarded its behavior as distinctly uncalled for; even ungentlemanly.23. The writer says his father's idea of religion seemed straightforward and simple becausehis father ____________ .A.had been born in natural surroundings banks and churchesB.never really thought of God as having a real existenceC.regarded religion as acceptable as long as it did not interfereD.regarded religion as a way that he could live a spiritual life24. The writer's father would probably agree with the statement thatA.both spiritualists and atheists are vulgarB.being aware of different creeds is importantC.religion should expect heart and soul devotionD.churches like banks are not to be trustedTEXT DETIQUETTEIn sixteenth-century Italy and eighteenth-century France, waning prosperity and increasing social unrest led the ruling families to try to preserve their superiority by withdrawing from the lower and middle classes behind barriers of etiquette. In a prosperous community, on the other hand, polite society soon absorbs the newly rich, and in England there has never been any shortage of books on etiquette for teaching them the manners appropriate to their new way of life.Every code of etiquette has contained three elements; basic moral duties; practical rules which promote efficiency; and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say. women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzania, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England, until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social file as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as possible; before the handkerchief came into common use. etiquette suggested that after spiting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.Extremely refined behavior, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women asthe social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behavior in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth-century Provence, in France.Provence had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds, though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.In Renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behavior of fashionable society had little influence on the daily life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief,certainly not a sword, to his name.Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of harming or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest.25. One characteristic of the rich classes of declining society is their tendency to ____ .A. take in the recently wealthyB. retreat within themselvesC. produce publications on mannersD. change the laws of etiquette26. Which of the following is NOT an element of the code of etiquette?A.Respect for age.B.Formal compliments.C.Proper introductions at social functions.D.Eating with a fork rather than fingers.27. According to the writer which of the following is part of chivalry? A knight should______ .A. inspire his lady to perform valiant deedsB. perform deeds which would inspire romantic songsC. express his love for his lady from a distanceD. regard his lady as strong and independent28. Etiquette as an art of gracious living is quoted as a feature of which country?A. Egypt.B. 18th century France.C. Renaissance Italy.D. England.TEXTECONFLICT AND COMPETITIONThe question of whether war is inevitable is one which has concerned many of the world's great writers. Before considering the question, it will be useful to introduce some related concepts. Conflict, defined as opposition among social entities directed against one another, is distinguished from competition, defined as opposition among social entities independently striving for something which is in inadequate supply. Competitors may not be aware of one another, while the parties to a conflict are. Conflict and competition are bothcategories of op/x>sition, which has been defined as a process by which social entities function in the disservice of one another. Opposition is thus contrasted with cooperation , the process by which social entities function in the service of one another. These definitions are necessary because it is important to emphasize that competition between individuals or groups is inevitable in a world of limited resources, but conflict is not. Conflict, nevertheless, is very likely to occur, and is probably an essential and desirable element of human societies.Many authors have argued for the inevitability of war from the premise that in the struggle for existence among animal species, only the fittest survive. In general, however, this struggle in nature is competition, not conflict. Social animals, such as monkeys and cattle, fight to win or maintain leadership of the group. The struggle for existence occurs not in fights, but in the competition for limited feeding areas and for the occupancy of areas free from meat-eating animals. Those who fail in this competition starve to death or become victims to other species. The struggle for existence does not resemble human war, but rather the competition of individuals for jobs, markets and materials. The essence of the struggle is the competition for the necessities of life that are insufficient to satisfy all.Among nations there is competition in developing resources, trades, skills, and a satisfactory way of life. The successful nations grow and prosper; the unsuccessful decline. While it is true that this competition may induce efforts to expand territory at the expense of others, and thus lead to conflict, it cannot be said that war-like conflict among other nations is inevitable, although competition is.29. According to the author which of the following is inevitable?A. War.B. Conflict.C. Competition.D. Cooperation.30. In the animal kingdom the struggle for existenceA.is evidence of the inevitability of conflict among the fittestB.arises from a need to live in groupsC.is evidence of the need to compete for scarce resourcesD.arises from a natural desire to fightANSWER SHEET ONETEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (1996)- GRADE EIGHT -PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSIONSECTION D NOTE-TAKING & GAP-FILLING [15 MIN.]Fill in each of the gaps with ONE word. You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is grammatically and semantically acceptable.A problem related to the competition for land use is whether cropsshould be used to produce food or fuel. (1) areas will be examined in this respect. Firstly, the problem should be viewed in its (2) perspective. When oil prices rose sharply in the 1970s, countries had to look for alternatives to solve the resulting crisis.In developing countries, one of the possible answers to it is to produce alcohol from (3) material. This has led to a lot of research in this area particularly in the use of(4) . The use of this material resulted from two economic reasons: a (5) in its price and low(6) costs.There are other starchy plants that can be used to produce alcohol, like the sweet (7) or the cassava plant in tropical regions, and (8) and sugar beet in non-tropical regions. The problem with these plants is that they are also the people's staple food in many poor countries.Therefore, farmers there are faced with a choice: crops for food or for fuel. And farmers naturally go for what is more (9) . As a result, the problems involved are economic in nature, rather than technological. This is my second area under consideration. Finally, there have already been practical applications of using alcohol for fuel. Basically, they come in two forms of use: pure alcohol as is the case in (10) , and a combination of alcohol and gasoline known as gasohol in Germany. (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)ANSWER SHEET TWOTEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (1996)- GRADE EIGHT -PART II PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION [15 MIN.]The following passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blankprovided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a "∧" sign and write theword you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of theline.For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a slash "/"and put the word in the blankprovided at the end of the line.ExampleWhen ∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) anit never buys things in finished form and hangs them on the wall. (2) neverWhen a natural history museum wants an exhibition, it must (3) exhibitoften build it.The second most important constituent of the biosphere is liquid water. This can only exist in a very narrow range of temperatures, since water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C . This is only a tiny range compared with the low temperatures of some other planets and the hot interior of the earth, let the temperatures (1) of the sun.As we know, life would only be possible on the face of a (2) planet had temperatures somewhere within this range. (3) The earth's supply of water probably remains quite fairly (4) constant in quantity. A certain number of hydrogen atoms, which are one of the main constituents of water, are lost by escaping from the atmosphere to out space, but they are probably just (5) about replaced by new water rising away from the depths of the (6) earth during volcanic action. The total quantity of water is not known, and it is about enough to cover the surface of the globe (7) to a depth of about two and three-quarter kms. Most of it -97% - is in the form of the salt waters of the oceans. The rest is fresh, but three quarter of this is in the form of ice at the Poles (8) and on mountains, and cannot be used by living systems when (9) melted. Of the remaining fraction, which is somewhat fewer than (10) 1% of the whole, there is 10—20 times as much stored as underground water as is actually on the surface. There is also aminor, but extremely important, fraction of the water supplywhich is present as water vapor in the atmosphere. (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (1996)-GRADE EIGHT-PAPER TWOTIME LIMIT: 120 MIN.PART IV TRANSLATION [60 MIN]SECTION A CHINESE TO ENGLISHTranslate the following underlined text into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.近期报纸，对国外名片和请柬的议论颇多，于是想起客居巴黎时经常见到的法国人手中的名片和请柬，随笔记下来，似乎不无借鉴之处。
2016年专业英语八级考试真题及答案
2016年专业英语八级考试真题及答案PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSIONSECTION A MINI-LECTUREIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for note-taking.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.Now listen to the mini-lecture. When it is over, you will be given THREE minutes to check your work.SECTION B INTERVIEWIn this section you will hear ONE interview. The interview will be divided into TWO parts. At the end of each part, five questions will be asked about what was said. Both the interview and the questions will be spoken ONCE ONLY. After each question there will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of A, B, C and D, and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO. You have THIRTY seconds to preview the questions.Now, listen to the Part One of the interview. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1. A. Maggie’s university life.B. Her mom’s life at Harvard.C. Maggie’s view on studying with Mom.D. Maggie’s opinion on her mom’s major.2. A. They take exams in the same weeks.B. They have similar lecture notes.C. They apply for the same internship.D. They follow the same fashion.3. A. Having roommates.B. Practicing court trails.C. Studying together.D. Taking notes by hand.4. A. Protection.B. Imagination.C. Excitement.D. Encouragement.5. A. Thinking of ways to comfort Mom.B. Occasional interference from Mom.C. Ultimately calls when Maggie is busy.D. Frequent check on Maggie’s grades.Now, listen to the Part Two of the interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6. A. Because parents need to be ready for new jobs.B. Because parents love to return to college.C. Because kids require their parents to do so.D. Because kids find it hard to adapt to college life.7. A. Real estate agent.B. Financier.C. Lawyer.D. Teacher.8. A. Delighted.B. Excited.C. Bored.D. Frustrated.9. A. How to make a cake.B. How to make omelets.C. To accept what is taught.D. To plan a future career.10.A. Unsuccessful.B. Gradual.C. Frustrating.D. Passionate.SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONSIn this section there are three passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.PASSAGE ONE(1)There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests divingfrom the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes（滑水板）over cataracts of foam. On weekends Mr. Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with scrubbing-brushes and hammer and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.(2)Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York – every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.(3)At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre（冷盘）, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials（加香甜酒）so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.(4)By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived – no thin five-piece affair buta whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.(5)The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.(6)The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath – already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.(7)Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythmobligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the Folies. The party has begun.(8)I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.(9)I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer – the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night. He had seen me several times and had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it – signed Jay Gatsby ina majestic hand.(10)Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know – though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train.I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.(11)As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table – the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.PART II READING COMPREHENSION11.It can be inferred form Para. 1 that Mr. Gatsby ______ through the summer.A.entertained guests from everywhere every weekendB.invited his guests to ride in his Rolls-Royce at weekendsC.liked to show off by letting guests ride in his vehiclesD.indulged himself in parties with people from everywhere12.In Para.4, the word “permeate” probably means ______.A.perishB.pushC.penetrateD.perpetrate13.It can be inferred form Para. 8 that ______.A.guests need to know Gatsby in order to attend his partiesB.people somehow ended up in Gatsby’s house as guestsC.Gatsby usually held garden parties for invited guestsD.guests behaved themselves in a rather formal manner14.According to Para. 10, the author felt ______ at Gatsby’s party.A.dizzyB.dreadfulC.furiousD.awkward15.What can be concluded from Para.11 about Gatsby?A.He was not expected to be present at the parties.B.He was busy receiving and entertaining guests.C.He was usually out of the house at the weekend.D.He was unwilling to meet some of the guests.PASSAGE TWO(1)The Term “CYBERSPACE” was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, “Neuromancer”, whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators”and “a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.”(2)His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient（有先见之明的）. Cyberspace has become shorthand for the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity’s collective store of knowledge every day.(3)But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks. Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit- and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company, and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit.(4) The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America’s National Security Agency (NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America’s president, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats “pose one of the gravest national-security dangers” the country is facing.(5)Securing cyberspace is hard because the architecture of the internet was designed to promote connectivity, not security. Its founders focused on getting it to work and did not worry much about threats because the network was affiliated with America’s military. As hackers turned up, layers of security, from antivirus programs to firewalls, were added to try to keep them at bay. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that last year organizations around the globe spent $67 billion on information security.(6)On the whole, these defenses have worked reasonably well. For all the talk about the risk of a “cyber 9/11”, the internet has proved remarkably resilient. Hundreds of millions of people turn on their computers every day and bank online, shop at virtual stores, swap gossip and photos with their friends on social networks and send all kinds of sensitive data over the web without ill effect. Companies and governments are shifting ever more services online.(7)But the task is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion – a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria.(8)To add to the worries, there is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. One precedent is the destruction in 2010 of centrifuges（离心机）at a nuclear facility in Iran by a computer program known as Stuxnet.(9)But such events are rare. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and trade secrets. For example, smarter, better-organized hackers are making life tougher for the cyber-defenders, but the report will argue that even so a number of things can be done to keep everyone safer than they are now.(10)One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. All too often breaches are caused by simple blunders, such as failing to separate systems containing sensitive data from those that do not need access to them. Companies also need to get better at anticipating where attacks may be coming from and at adapting their defences swiftly in response to new threats. Technology can help, as can industry initiatives that allow firms to share intelligence about riskswith each other.(11)There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. One idea is to encourage internet-service providers, or the companies that manage internet connections, to shoulder more responsibility for identifying and helping to clean up computers infected with malicious software. Another is to find ways to ensure that software developers produce code with fewer flaws in it so that hackers have fewer security holes to exploit.(12)An additional reason for getting tech companies to give a higher priority to security is that cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computers that connect them to the web and make them more useful. Dubbed “the internet of things”, this is already making it possible, for example, to control home appliances using smartphone apps and to monitor medical devices remotely.(13)But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.16.Cyberspace is described by William Gibson as ______.A. a function only legitimate computer operators haveB. a representation of data from the human systemC.an important element stored in the human systemD.an illusion held by the common computer users17.Which of the following statements BEST summarizes the meaning of the first fourparagraphs?A.Cyberspace has more benefits than defects.B.Cyberspace is like a double-edged sword.C.Cyberspace symbolizes technological advance.D.Cyberspace still remains a sci-fi notion.18.According to Para. 5, the designing principles of the internet and cyberspacesecurity are ______.A.controversialplimentaryC.contradictoryD.congruent19.What could be the most appropriate title for the passage?A.Cyber Crime and Its Prevention.B.The Origin of Cyber Crime.C.How to Deal with Cyber Crime.D.The Definition of Cyber Crime.PASSAGE THREE(1)You should treat skeptically the loud cries now coming from colleges and universities that the last bastion of excellence in American education is being gutted by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is, higher education is not a bastion of excellence. It is shot through with waste, lax academic standards and mediocre teaching and scholarship.(2)True, the economic pressures – from the Ivy League to state systems – are intense. Last year, nearly two-thirds of schools had to make midyear spending cuts to stay within their budgets. It is also true (as university presidents and deans argue) that relieving those pressures merely by raising tuitions and cutting courses will make matters worse. Students will pay more and get less. The university presidents and deans want to be spared from further government budget cuts. Their case is weak.(3)Higher education is a bloated enterprise. Too many professors do too little teaching to too many ill-prepared students. Costs can be cut and quality improved without reducing the number of graduates. Many colleges and universities should shrink. Some should go out of business. Consider:●Except for elite schools, admissions standards are low. About 70 percent offreshmen at four-year colleges and universities attend their first-choice schools. Roughly 20 percent go to their second choices. Most schools have eagerly boosted enrollments to maximize revenues (tuition and statesubsidies).●Dropout rates are high. Half or more of freshmen don’t get degrees. A recentstudy of PhD programs at 10 major universities also found high dropout rates for doctoral candidates.●The attrition among undergraduates is particularly surprising becausecollege standards have apparently fallen. One study of seven top schools found widespread grade inflation. In 1963, half of the students in introductory philosophy courses got a B – or worse. By 1986, only 21 percent did. If elite schools have relaxed standards, the practice is almost surely widespread.●Faculty teaching loads have fallen steadily since the 1960s. In majoruniversities, senior faculty members often do less than two hours a day of teaching. Professors are “socialized to publish, teach graduate students and spend as little time teaching (undergraduates) as possible,” concludes James Fairweather of Penn State University in a new study. Faculty payconsistently rises as undergraduate teaching loads drop.Universities have encouraged an almost mindless explosion of graduate degrees.Since 1960, the number of masters’ degrees awarded annually has risen more than fourfold to 337,000. Between 1965 and 1989, the annual number of MBAs (masters in business administration) jumped from 7,600 to 73,100.(4)Even so, our system has strengths. It boasts many top-notch schools and allows almost anyone to go to college. But mediocrity is pervasive. We push as many freshmen as possible through the door, regardless of qualifications. Because bachelors’degrees are so common, we create more graduate degrees of dubious worth. Does anyone believe the MBA explosion has improved management?(5)You won’t hear much about this from college deans or university presidents. They created this mess and are its biggest beneficiaries. Large enrollments support large faculties. More graduate students liberate tenured faculty from undergraduate teaching to concentrate on writing and research: the source of status. Richard Huber, a former college dean, writes knowingly in a new book (“How Professors Play the Cat Guarding the Cream: Why We’re Paying More and Getting Less in Higher Education”): Presidents, deans and trustees ... call for more recognition of good teaching with prizes and salary incentives.(6)The reality is closer to the experience of Harvard University’s distinguished paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould: “To be perfectly honest, though lip service is given to teaching, I have never seriously heard teaching considered in any meeting for promotion... Writing is the currency of prestige and promotion.”(7)About four-fifths of all students attend state-subsidized systems, from community colleges to prestige universities. How governors and state legislatures deal with their budget pressures will be decisive. Private schools will, for better or worse, be influenced by state actions. The states need to do three things.(8)First, create genuine entrance requirements. Today’s low standards tell high school students: You don’t have to work hard to go to college. States should change the message by raising tuitions sharply and coupling the increase with generous scholarships based on merit and income. To get scholarships, students would have to pass meaningful entrance exams. Ideally, the scholarships should be available for use at in-state private schools. All schools would then compete for students on the basis of academic quality and costs. Today’s system of general tuition subsidies provides aid to well-to-do families that don’t need it or to unqualified students who don’t deserve it.(8)Next, states should raise faculty teaching loads, mainly at four-year schools. (Teaching loads at community colleges are already high.) This would cut costs and reemphasize the primacy of teaching at most schools. What we need are teachers who know their fields and can communicate enthusiasm to students. Not all professors can be path-breaking scholars. The excessive emphasis on scholarship generates many unread books and mediocre articles in academic journals. “You can’t do more of one (research) without less of the other (teaching),” says Fairweather. “Peopleare working hard – it’s just where they’re working.”(10)Finally, states should reduce or eliminate the least useful graduate programs. Journalism (now dubbed “communications”), business and education are prime candidates. A lot of what they teach can – and should – be learned on the job. If colleges and universities did a better job of teaching undergraduates, there would be less need for graduate degrees.(11)Our colleges and universities need to provide a better education to deserving students. This may mean smaller enrollments, but given today’s attrition rates, the number of graduates need not drop. Higher education could become a bastion of excellence, if we would only try.20.It can be concluded from Para.3 that the author was ______ towards the education.A.indifferentB.neutralC.positiveD.negative21.The following are current problems facing all American universities EXCEPT______.A.high dropout ratesB.low admission standardsC.low undergraduate teaching loadsD.explosion of graduate degrees22.In order to ensure teaching quality, the author suggests that the states do allthe following EXCEPT ______.A.set entrance requirementsB.raise faculty teaching loadsC.increase undergraduate programsD.reduce useless graduate programs23.“Prime candidates” in Para. 10 is used as ________.A.euphemismB.metaphorC.analogyD.personification24.What is the author’s main argument in the passage?A.American education can remain excellent by ensuring state budget.B.Professors should teach more undergraduates than postgraduates.C.Academic standard are the main means to ensure educational quality.D.American education can remain excellent only by raising teaching quality.SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONSIn this section there are eight short answer questions based on the passages in Section A. Answer each question in NO more than 10 words in the space provided on ANSWER SHEET TWO.PASSAGE ONE25.From the description of the party preparation, what words can you see to depictGatby’s party?26.How do you summarize the party scene in Para. 6?PASSAGE TWO27.What do the cases of Target, Adobe and eBay in Para. 3 show?28.Why does the author say the task is becoming harder in Para. 7?29.What is the conclusion of the whole passage?PASSAGE THREE30.What does the author mean by saying “Their case is weak” in Para. 2?31.What does “grade inflation” in Para. 3 mean?32.What does the author mean when he quotes Richard Huber in Para. 5?PART III LANGUAGE USAGEThe passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proof-read the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in theblank provided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” signand write the word you believe to be missing in the blankprovided at the end of the line.For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a slash “/” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.ExampleWhen∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) anit never buys things in finished form and hangs (2) never them on the wall. When a natural history museumwants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibitProofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET THREE as instructed.PART IV TRANSLATIONTranslate the underlined part of the following text from Chinese into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.流逝，表现了南国人对时间最早的感觉。
英语专业8级试题及答案
英语专业8级试题及答案一、听力理解（共20分）1. 根据所听内容，选择正确的答案。
A. 选项AB. 选项BC. 选项CD. 选项D[听力材料][问题][答案] B2. 根据对话内容，回答以下问题。
A. 问题1B. 问题2[听力材料][答案]A. 问题1的答案B. 问题2的答案二、阅读理解（共30分）1. 阅读以下文章，回答后面的问题。
[文章内容]A. 问题1B. 问题2A. 问题1的答案B. 问题2的答案2. 阅读第二篇文章，并完成以下任务。
[文章内容]A. 问题1B. 问题2[答案]A. 问题1的答案B. 问题2的答案三、词汇与语法（共20分）1. 选择适当的词汇填空。
[例句] The _______ of the building is impressive.A. scaleB. skillC. speedD. spirit[答案] A2. 根据语法规则，选择正确的选项。
[例句] _______ he is very young, he is very knowledgeable.A. ThoughB. SinceC. BecauseD. Unless四、翻译（共20分）1. 将以下句子从英语翻译成中文。
[英文句子][答案] [中文翻译]2. 将以下句子从中文翻译成英语。
[中文句子][答案] [英文翻译]五、写作（共10分）根据以下提示写一篇不少于200词的短文。
[写作提示][范文][评分标准]请注意：以上内容仅为试题及答案的排版格式示例，具体题目和答案需要根据实际考试内容进行填充。
2016年专业英语八级考试真题及答案
2016年专业英语八级考试真题及答案PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSIONSECTION A MINI-LECTUREIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for note-taking.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.Now listen to the mini-lecture. When it is over, you will be given THREE minutes to check your work.SECTION B INTERVIEWIn this section you will hear ONE interview. The interview will be divided into TWO parts. At the end of each part, five questions will be asked about what was said. Both the interview and the questions will be spoken ONCE ONLY. After each question there will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of A, B, C and D, and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO. You have THIRTY seconds to preview the questions.Now, listen to the Part One of the interview. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1. A. Maggie’s university life.B. Her mom’s life at Harvard.C. Maggie’s view on studying with Mom.D. Maggie’s opinion on her mom’s major.2. A. They take exams in the same weeks.B. They have similar lecture notes.C. They apply for the same internship.D. They follow the same fashion.3. A. Having roommates.B. Practicing court trails.C. Studying together.D. Taking notes by hand.4. A. Protection.B. Imagination.C. Excitement.D. Encouragement.5. A. Thinking of ways to comfort Mom.B. Occasional interference from Mom.C. Ultimately calls when Maggie is busy.D. Frequent check on Maggie’s grades.Now, listen to the Part Two of the interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6. A. Because parents need to be ready for new jobs.B. Because parents love to return to college.C. Because kids require their parents to do so.D. Because kids find it hard to adapt to college life.7. A. Real estate agent.B. Financier.C. Lawyer.D. Teacher.8. A. Delighted.B. Excited.C. Bored.D. Frustrated.9. A. How to make a cake.B. How to make omelets.C. To accept what is taught.D. To plan a future career.10.A. Unsuccessful.B. Gradual.C. Frustrating.D. Passionate.SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONSIn this section there are three passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.PASSAGE ONE(1)There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests divingfrom the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes（滑水板）over cataracts of foam. On weekends Mr. Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with scrubbing-brushes and hammer and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.(2)Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York – every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.(3)At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre（冷盘）, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials（加香甜酒）so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.(4)By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived – no thin five-piece affair buta whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.(5)The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.(6)The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath – already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.(7)Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythmobligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the Folies. The party has begun.(8)I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.(9)I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer – the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night. He had seen me several times and had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it – signed Jay Gatsby ina majestic hand.(10)Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know – though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train.I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.(11)As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table – the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.PART II READING COMPREHENSION11.It can be inferred form Para. 1 that Mr. Gatsby ______ through the summer.A.entertained guests from everywhere every weekendB.invited his guests to ride in his Rolls-Royce at weekendsC.liked to show off by letting guests ride in his vehiclesD.indulged himself in parties with people from everywhere12.In Para.4, the word “permeate” probably means ______.A.perishB.pushC.penetrateD.perpetrate13.It can be inferred form Para. 8 that ______.A.guests need to know Gatsby in order to attend his partiesB.people somehow ended up in Gatsby’s house as guestsC.Gatsby usually held garden parties for invited guestsD.guests behaved themselves in a rather formal manner14.According to Para. 10, the author felt ______ at Gatsby’s party.A.dizzyB.dreadfulC.furiousD.awkward15.What can be concluded from Para.11 about Gatsby?A.He was not expected to be present at the parties.B.He was busy receiving and entertaining guests.C.He was usually out of the house at the weekend.D.He was unwilling to meet some of the guests.PASSAGE TWO(1)The Term “CYBERSPACE” was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, “Neuromancer”, whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators”and “a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.”(2)His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient（有先见之明的）. Cyberspace has become shorthand for the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity’s collective store of knowledge every day.(3)But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks. Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit- and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company, and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit.(4) The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America’s National Security Agency (NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America’s president, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats “pose one of the gravest national-security dangers” the country is facing.(5)Securing cyberspace is hard because the architecture of the internet was designed to promote connectivity, not security. Its founders focused on getting it to work and did not worry much about threats because the network was affiliated with America’s military. As hackers turned up, layers of security, from antivirus programs to firewalls, were added to try to keep them at bay. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that last year organizations around the globe spent $67 billion on information security.(6)On the whole, these defenses have worked reasonably well. For all the talk about the risk of a “cyber 9/11”, the internet has proved remarkably resilient. Hundreds of millions of people turn on their computers every day and bank online, shop at virtual stores, swap gossip and photos with their friends on social networks and send all kinds of sensitive data over the web without ill effect. Companies and governments are shifting ever more services online.(7)But the task is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion – a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria.(8)To add to the worries, there is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. One precedent is the destruction in 2010 of centrifuges（离心机）at a nuclear facility in Iran by a computer program known as Stuxnet.(9)But such events are rare. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and trade secrets. For example, smarter, better-organized hackers are making life tougher for the cyber-defenders, but the report will argue that even so a number of things can be done to keep everyone safer than they are now.(10)One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. All too often breaches are caused by simple blunders, such as failing to separate systems containing sensitive data from those that do not need access to them. Companies also need to get better at anticipating where attacks may be coming from and at adapting their defences swiftly in response to new threats. Technology can help, as can industry initiatives that allow firms to share intelligence about riskswith each other.(11)There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. One idea is to encourage internet-service providers, or the companies that manage internet connections, to shoulder more responsibility for identifying and helping to clean up computers infected with malicious software. Another is to find ways to ensure that software developers produce code with fewer flaws in it so that hackers have fewer security holes to exploit.(12)An additional reason for getting tech companies to give a higher priority to security is that cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computers that connect them to the web and make them more useful. Dubbed “the internet of things”, this is already making it possible, for example, to control home appliances using smartphone apps and to monitor medical devices remotely.(13)But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.16.Cyberspace is described by William Gibson as ______.A. a function only legitimate computer operators haveB. a representation of data from the human systemC.an important element stored in the human systemD.an illusion held by the common computer users17.Which of the following statements BEST summarizes the meaning of the first fourparagraphs?A.Cyberspace has more benefits than defects.B.Cyberspace is like a double-edged sword.C.Cyberspace symbolizes technological advance.D.Cyberspace still remains a sci-fi notion.18.According to Para. 5, the designing principles of the internet and cyberspacesecurity are ______.A.controversialplimentaryC.contradictoryD.congruent19.What could be the most appropriate title for the passage?A.Cyber Crime and Its Prevention.B.The Origin of Cyber Crime.C.How to Deal with Cyber Crime.D.The Definition of Cyber Crime.PASSAGE THREE(1)You should treat skeptically the loud cries now coming from colleges and universities that the last bastion of excellence in American education is being gutted by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is, higher education is not a bastion of excellence. It is shot through with waste, lax academic standards and mediocre teaching and scholarship.(2)True, the economic pressures – from the Ivy League to state systems – are intense. Last year, nearly two-thirds of schools had to make midyear spending cuts to stay within their budgets. It is also true (as university presidents and deans argue) that relieving those pressures merely by raising tuitions and cutting courses will make matters worse. Students will pay more and get less. The university presidents and deans want to be spared from further government budget cuts. Their case is weak.(3)Higher education is a bloated enterprise. Too many professors do too little teaching to too many ill-prepared students. Costs can be cut and quality improved without reducing the number of graduates. Many colleges and universities should shrink. Some should go out of business. Consider:●Except for elite schools, admissions standards are low. About 70 percent offreshmen at four-year colleges and universities attend their first-choice schools. Roughly 20 percent go to their second choices. Most schools have eagerly boosted enrollments to maximize revenues (tuition and statesubsidies).●Dropout rates are high. Half or more of freshmen don’t get degrees. A recentstudy of PhD programs at 10 major universities also found high dropout rates for doctoral candidates.●The attrition among undergraduates is particularly surprising becausecollege standards have apparently fallen. One study of seven top schools found widespread grade inflation. In 1963, half of the students in introductory philosophy courses got a B – or worse. By 1986, only 21 percent did. If elite schools have relaxed standards, the practice is almost surely widespread.●Faculty teaching loads have fallen steadily since the 1960s. In majoruniversities, senior faculty members often do less than two hours a day of teaching. Professors are “socialized to publish, teach graduate students and spend as little time teaching (undergraduates) as possible,” concludes James Fairweather of Penn State University in a new study. Faculty payconsistently rises as undergraduate teaching loads drop.Universities have encouraged an almost mindless explosion of graduate degrees.Since 1960, the number of masters’ degrees awarded annually has risen more than fourfold to 337,000. Between 1965 and 1989, the annual number of MBAs (masters in business administration) jumped from 7,600 to 73,100.(4)Even so, our system has strengths. It boasts many top-notch schools and allows almost anyone to go to college. But mediocrity is pervasive. We push as many freshmen as possible through the door, regardless of qualifications. Because bachelors’degrees are so common, we create more graduate degrees of dubious worth. Does anyone believe the MBA explosion has improved management?(5)You won’t hear much about this from college deans or university presidents. They created this mess and are its biggest beneficiaries. Large enrollments support large faculties. More graduate students liberate tenured faculty from undergraduate teaching to concentrate on writing and research: the source of status. Richard Huber, a former college dean, writes knowingly in a new book (“How Professors Play the Cat Guarding the Cream: Why We’re Paying More and Getting Less in Higher Education”): Presidents, deans and trustees ... call for more recognition of good teaching with prizes and salary incentives.(6)The reality is closer to the experience of Harvard University’s distinguished paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould: “To be perfectly honest, though lip service is given to teaching, I have never seriously heard teaching considered in any meeting for promotion... Writing is the currency of prestige and promotion.”(7)About four-fifths of all students attend state-subsidized systems, from community colleges to prestige universities. How governors and state legislatures deal with their budget pressures will be decisive. Private schools will, for better or worse, be influenced by state actions. The states need to do three things.(8)First, create genuine entrance requirements. Today’s low standards tell high school students: You don’t have to work hard to go to college. States should change the message by raising tuitions sharply and coupling the increase with generous scholarships based on merit and income. To get scholarships, students would have to pass meaningful entrance exams. Ideally, the scholarships should be available for use at in-state private schools. All schools would then compete for students on the basis of academic quality and costs. Today’s system of general tuition subsidies provides aid to well-to-do families that don’t need it or to unqualified students who don’t deserve it.(8)Next, states should raise faculty teaching loads, mainly at four-year schools. (Teaching loads at community colleges are already high.) This would cut costs and reemphasize the primacy of teaching at most schools. What we need are teachers who know their fields and can communicate enthusiasm to students. Not all professors can be path-breaking scholars. The excessive emphasis on scholarship generates many unread books and mediocre articles in academic journals. “You can’t do more of one (research) without less of the other (teaching),” says Fairweather. “Peopleare working hard – it’s just where they’re working.”(10)Finally, states should reduce or eliminate the least useful graduate programs. Journalism (now dubbed “communications”), business and education are prime candidates. A lot of what they teach can – and should – be learned on the job. If colleges and universities did a better job of teaching undergraduates, there would be less need for graduate degrees.(11)Our colleges and universities need to provide a better education to deserving students. This may mean smaller enrollments, but given today’s attrition rates, the number of graduates need not drop. Higher education could become a bastion of excellence, if we would only try.20.It can be concluded from Para.3 that the author was ______ towards the education.A.indifferentB.neutralC.positiveD.negative21.The following are current problems facing all American universities EXCEPT______.A.high dropout ratesB.low admission standardsC.low undergraduate teaching loadsD.explosion of graduate degrees22.In order to ensure teaching quality, the author suggests that the states do allthe following EXCEPT ______.A.set entrance requirementsB.raise faculty teaching loadsC.increase undergraduate programsD.reduce useless graduate programs23.“Prime candidates” in Para. 10 is used as ________.A.euphemismB.metaphorC.analogyD.personification24.What is the author’s main argument in the passage?A.American education can remain excellent by ensuring state budget.B.Professors should teach more undergraduates than postgraduates.C.Academic standard are the main means to ensure educational quality.D.American education can remain excellent only by raising teaching quality.SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONSIn this section there are eight short answer questions based on the passages in Section A. Answer each question in NO more than 10 words in the space provided on ANSWER SHEET TWO.PASSAGE ONE25.From the description of the party preparation, what words can you see to depictGatby’s party?26.How do you summarize the party scene in Para. 6?PASSAGE TWO27.What do the cases of Target, Adobe and eBay in Para. 3 show?28.Why does the author say the task is becoming harder in Para. 7?29.What is the conclusion of the whole passage?PASSAGE THREE30.What does the author mean by saying “Their case is weak” in Para. 2?31.What does “grade inflation” in Para. 3 mean?32.What does the author mean when he quotes Richard Huber in Para. 5?PART III LANGUAGE USAGEThe passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proof-read the passage and correct it in the following way:For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in theblank provided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” signand write the word you believe to be missing in the blankprovided at the end of the line.For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a slash “/” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.ExampleWhen∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) anit never buys things in finished form and hangs (2) never them on the wall. When a natural history museumwants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibitProofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET THREE as instructed.PART IV TRANSLATIONTranslate the underlined part of the following text from Chinese into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.流逝，表现了南国人对时间最早的感觉。
2013年专业英语八级真题试卷(题后含答案及解析)
2013年专业英语八级真题试卷(题后含答案及解析)题型有： 1. LISTENING COMPREHENSION 2. READING COMPREHENSION 3. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE 4. PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION 5. TRANSLATION 6. WRITINGPART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION (35 MIN)SECTION A MINI-LECTUREDirections: In this section you sill hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after the mini-lecture. When the lecture is over, you will be given two minutes to check your notes, and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.听力原文：What Do Active Learners Do? Good morning. Today, I’ll discuss what is active learning and uh…what do active learners do. In order to define active learning, I’ll look at the differences between active learning and passive learning by examining six characteristics of active learners and contrasting them with those of passive learners. OK. Let’s start. With the first characteristic, active learners tend to read with the purpose of understanding and remembering. I bet that no one deliberately sits down to read with the purpose of not understanding the text. However, I’m sure that some of you have been in a situation, probably more than once, where you read, quote and unquote, an assignment, closed the text, and thought, what the world was that about. When you interact with a text in this manner, you are reading passively. (1) Active readers, on the other hand, set goals before they read and check their understanding as they read. When they finish, they can explain the main points and know that they have understood what they have read, Now, the second characteristic of active learners is to reflect on information and think critically. Being reflective is an important part of active learning because that means that you are thinking about the information. In other words, you are processing the information. For instance, you may make connections between the new information and what you already know, (3) identify concepts that you may not understand very well, (4) or evaluate the importance of what you are reading. An active learner reflects constantly in this way. In contrast, passive learners may read the text and listen to lectures and even understand most of what is read and heard, but they did not take that crucial next step of actually thinking about it. Let’s move on to the third one. (5) The third characteristic is to listen actively by taking comprehensive notes in an organized way, like what you should be doing now. We lecturers are always amazed at the number of students who engage in activities other than listening and note-taking in their lecture classes. We’ve seen students reading newspapers, doing an assignment for another class, or chatting with the classmates. Perhaps the all-time winner for passive learning, however, was a student who regularly came to my class with a pillow and fell asleep.Unlike these students, active learners are engaged learners. They listen actively to the professor for the entire class period, and they write down as much information as possible. To be an active note-taker, you must be more than simply present. You have to think about the information before you write. The fourth characteristic is to get assistance when they are experiencing problems. (6) Because active learners are constantly monitoring their understanding, they know when their comprehension breaks down and they ask for help before they become lost. In addition, active learners often predict the courses or even particular concepts within courses that may give them trouble. They have a plan in mind for getting assistance should they need it. Active learners may seek assistance from their professors or peers. Although passive learners may seek help at some point, it is often too little, too late. In addition, because passive learners do not reflect and think critically, they often don’t even realize that they need help. The next characteristic is to question information. This means that active learners raise questions on information that they read and hear, while passive learners accept both the printed page and the words of their professors as truth. Of course, active learners don’t question everything, but they do evaluate what they read and hear. (7) When new information fails to fit in with what they already know, they may differ in the conclusions they draw or in the inferences they make. The last characteristic, which I think is the most fundamental one, is to accept much of the responsibility for learning. (8) Active learners understand that the responsibility for learning must come from within while passive learners often want to blame others for their lack of motivation, poor performance, time management problems and other difficulties that they might experience. (9) When active learners don’t perform as well as they’d hoped, they evaluate why they didn’t do well and change those studying behaviors the next time. Passive learners, on the other hand, often approach every course in the same manner and then get angry with professors when their performance is poor. It is only when students accept the responsibility for their own learning that they can truly be called active learners. So, from what I’ve said so far, you can see that being an active learner involves both skill and will. By skill, I mean the tools to handle the studying and learning demands placed on you, like how to read with purpose, when and where to get assistance if you are having difficulty. By will, I mean the desire and motivation to follow through. Here I’d like to emphasize that skill is nothing without will. For example, you may have a friend who is knowledgeable but not motivated in the classroom. Even though he reads widely and can intelligently discuss a variety of issues, he does little school work and rarely studies. In other words, students such as these may have the skills to do well, but for some reason, they simply do not have the will. (10) And because skill and will go hand in hand, unmotivated students, those who do not have the will, may experience difficulty in college. OK. Today, we discussed the differences between an active learner and a passive one, and some useful study strategies that may eventually help you become an active learner.What Do Active Learners Do? There are differences between active learning and passive learning. Characteristics of active learners:I. reading with purposeA. before reading: setting goalsB. while reading: (1)______ (1) ______II.(2) ______ and critical in thinking (2) ______i. e. information processing, e. g.—connections between the known and the new information—identification of (3) ______ concepts (3) ______—judgment on the value of (4) ______ (4) ______III. active in listeningA. ways of note-taking: (5) ______ (5) ______B. before note-taking: listening and thinkingIV. being able to get assistanceA. reason 1: knowing comprehension problems because of(6) ______ (6) ______B. reason 2: being able to predict study difficultiesV. being able to question information A. question what they read or hearB. evaluate and (7) ______ (7) ______VI. last characteristicA. attitude toward responsibility —active learners: accept—passive learners: (8) ______ (8) ______B. attitude toward (9) ______ (9) ______—active learners: evaluate and change behaviour—passive learners: no change in approachRelationship between skill and will; will is more important in(10)______. (10) ______Lack of will leads to difficulty in college learning.1．(1)正确答案：checking their understanding2．(2)正确答案：reflective on information3．(3)正确答案：unfamiliar4．(4)正确答案：the reading material5．(5)正确答案：comprehensive and organized6．(6)正确答案：constant monitoring7．(7)正确答案：judge8．(8)正确答案：blame others9．(9)正确答案：poor performance10．(10)正确答案：active learningSECTION B INTERVIEWDirections: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.Now listen to the interview.听力原文：Ml :Good morning, Mr. West. Nice to have you on our program.M2: Good morning.Ml: OK. We all work, or very few people can get away with not working. Work is the fact of life when we are adults. But before, there wasn’t a lot of choice in the selection of work. Now things are different. (l)With greater mobility, the mobility that is offered when people have greater opportunities for higher education or training, more and more people are able to choose the fields that interest them. They can and do have opinions about what makes one job for them better than another job. So, Mr. West, what do people actually want from their jobs? What are workers’opinions, you know, about what makes one job better than another?M2:Well, to answer your questions, I’d like to look at two polls, two surveys. They were both done in the 1990s. The purposes were to find out what issues or job characteristics were especially important to workers.Ml:Hmm, what were they?M2: Some of you might guess that the answer is obvious.Ml: I think so.M2: You might say, “Oh, people just want higher salaries, more money. “ But let’s see if that’s true.Ml: OK.M2:Now, the first poll, the first poll was taken in 1990. And this poll asked respondents to choose what was the most important to them among five items. And they were only allowed to choose one out of the five items.Ml :So, what were the five items?M2: Alright. The first item was important and meaningful work. The second was high income. The third was chances for advancement, promotion and so on. The fourth item was job security and the fifth was short of work hours. OK?Ml: It would be interesting to know the survey results.M2:Yes. Now, let me tell you the results. (2)50% considered important and meaningful work the most important characteristic of a job. They didn’t choose high income. Interesting! Anyway, 24% did say high income was the most important characteristic of a job. Of the remaining, 16% said chances for advancement was most important. Maybe these were younger workers starting out on a career. 6% said job security and finally 4% said short of work hours was most important.Ml: I think what’s striking about the results is that by far workers valuedimportant and meaningful work as more important than any of the other characteristics that included salary.M2:Yeah. Now, I’m going to tell you about another poll. And this poll was taken a year later in 1991, and they asked the respondents to reflect on how important certain job characteristics were in their work. (3) And this is a different type of poll because whereas in the first poll, respondents had to choose only one out of five. In this poll, they want their respondents to react to each item separately. You know, this is to rank each item as not important, somewhat important, important, or very important. So they had four choices for each item.Ml: Sorry to interrupt you. How many items altogether?M2: Oh, the poll had 16 items. Let me give you a few examples.Ml: OK.M2: The second item they asked about is interesting work. They asked how important is interesting work to you. And again, I’m just going to tell you about how many people said it was very important. In this case, 78% of the respondents ranked this as very important to them.Ml: 78%?M2:Yes. 78%. This is the key point, I think. One often sees people working for a lot less if they enjoy their work.Ml: That’s true.M2:The fourth item they asked about was opportunity to learn new skills. How important is that to you? 68% ranked this as very important. And I think that goes again to the idea of interest level, personal satisfaction, and the idea that people want their work to be meaningful.Ml: Definitely!M2: Another item, item No. 7—recognition from co-workers. 62% of the respondents said that this was very important. It was important for them to be recognized, to be respected, and acknowledged for the work they’ve done. And I see recognition as a psychological benefit. There is no monetary reward necessarily attached to it, although sometimes there could be. But more people are looking for the psychological reward in terms of appreciation.Ml: (4) It seems to me that people value psychological reward a lot more than money.M2: That’s right. At least the poll results seem to say so. Now let’s take a look at another item, No. 14.Ml: OK.M2: (5)No. 14 was chances for promotion. 53% said that this was very important to them. It was important to them to have opportunities for advancement, chances for promotion. And I think this goes along with high income and recognition. There’s both a psychological reward to promotion, as well as a monetary reward.Ml: Hmm.M2:15 is contact with a lot of people. Some people are very people-orientated and 52% said that this was very important to them.Ml: So we can see workers do have a lot of things that are very important to them.M2:Yes, but you can also see the variation in numbers. But a note of caution here. These are averages. And polls talk about averages. But still, I think it’s important for employers to become more aware of polls like these. Because it might allow them to keep their workers satisfied in ways that maybe they haven’t thought of before.Ml: Yeah. OK. Thank you very much, Mr. West, for talking to us on the program.M2: Pleasure.11．According to the interviewer, which of the following best indicates the relationship between choice and mobility?A．Better education→greater mobility→more choices.B．Better education→more choices→greater mobility.C．Greater mobility→better education→more choices.D．Greater mobility→more choices→better education.正确答案：A12．According to the interview, which of the following details about the first poll is INCORRECT?A．Shorter work hours was least chosen for being most important.B．Chances for advancement might have been favoured by young people.C．High income failed to come on top for being most important.D．Job security came second according to the poll results.正确答案：D13．According to the interviewee, which is the main difference between the first and the second poll?A．The type of respondents who were invited.B．The way in which the questions were designed.C．The content area of the questions.D．The number of poll questions.正确答案：B14．What can we learn from the respondents’ answers to items 2, 4 and 7 in the second poll?A．Recognition from colleagues should be given less importance.B．Workers are always willing and ready to learn more new skills.C．Psychological reward is more important than material one.D．Work will have to be made interesting to raise efficiency.正确答案：C15．According to the interviewee, which of the following can offer both psychological and monetary benefits?A．Contact with many people.B．Chances for advancement.C．Appreciation from coworkers.D．Chances to learn new skills.正确答案：BSECTION C NEWS BROADCASTDirections: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. At the end of each news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.听力原文： A Moscow company is now marketing “Sleepboxes”—freestanding, mobile boxes with beds inside—for travelers stranded overnight, or those in need of a quick snooze. (7)The Sleepboxes are meant to be installed in airports and rented for 30 minutes to several hours at a time. A Sleepbox is currently installed at the Sheremetyevo Inter national Airport in Moscow. “We travel a lot and many times we face a problem of rest and privacy in airports, “says co-designer Mikhail Krymov of design firm Arch Group, who together with Alexei Goryainov came up with the idea of Sleepbox. “And as we are architects, we like to think of solutions. “(7)Measuring 1. 4 meters wide, 2 meters in length and 2. 3 meters in height, Sleepbox’s star feature is a two-meter-long bed made of polymer foam and pulp tissue that changes bed linen automatically. It also comes with luggage space, a ventilation system, WiFi, electric sockets and an LCD TV.16．According to the news item, “sleepboxes”are designed to solve the problems ofA．airports.B．passengers.C．architects.D．companies.正确答案：B17．Which of the following is NOT true with reference to the news?A．Sleepboxes can be rented for different lengths of time.B．Renters of normal height can stand up inside.C．Bedding can be automatically changed.D．Renters can take a shower inside the box.正确答案：D听力原文：Police in London are lining up a huge police operation for the Notting Hill Carnival in the wake of the rioting and looting that hit the city earlier this month. More than a million people are expected to head to west London over the course of the colorful two-day event, which features music, parades, dancing and stalls serving up Caribbean favorites like jerk chicken and rice and peas. (8)Some 5,500 officers will be on duty at the carnival on Sunday and 6,500 on Monday—a public holiday in Britain—with 4,000 additional officers deployed elsewhere across the city on top of usual police numbers, London’s Metropolitan Police said. Commander Steve Rodhouse said creating a safe environment at the carnival is “a top priority”for the police force.18．What is the news item mainly about?A．London’s preparations for the Notting Hill Carnival.B．Main features of the Notting Hill Carnival.C．Police’s preventive measures for the carnival.D．Police participation in the carnival.正确答案：C听力原文：Growing up starved of calories may give you a higher risk of heart disease 50 years on, research suggests. Researchers in The Netherlands tracked the heart health of Dutch women who lived through the famine at the end of World War II. Those living on rations of 400 to 800 calories a day had a 27% higher risk of heart disease in later life. It’s the first direct evidence that early nutrition shapes future health, they report in the European Heart Journal. The Dutch famine of 1944-45 gave researchers in Holland a unique opportunity to study the long-term effects of severe malnutrition in childhood and adolescence. A combination of factors—including failed crops, a harsh winter and the war-caused thousands of deaths among people living in the west of The Netherlands. (10)The women, who were aged between 10 and 17 at the time, were followed up in 2007. The team found those who were severely affected by the famine had a 27% greater risk of developing heart disease than those who had enough to eat.19．The news item reports on a research finding aboutA．the Dutch famine and the Dutch women.B．early malnutrition and heart health.C．the causes of death during the famine.D．nutrition in childhood and adolescence.正确答案：B20．When did the research team carry out the study?A．At the end of World War II.B．Between 1944 and 1945.C．In the 1950s.D．In 2007.正确答案：DPART II READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)Directions: In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.Three hundred years ago news travelled by word of mouth or letter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of pamphlets and newsletters. “The coffee houses particularly are very roomy for a free conversation, and for reading at an easier rate all manner of printed news,” noted one observer. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience newspaper, The New York Sun , pioneered the use of advertising to reduce the cost of news, thus giving advertisers access to a wider audience. The penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from atwo-way conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of firms controlling the media. Now, the news industry is returning to something closer to the coffee house. The internet is making news more participatory, social and diverse, reviving the discursive characteristics of the era before the mass media. That will have profound effects on society and politics. In much of the world, the mass media are flourishing. Newspaper circulation rose globally by 6% between 2005 and 2009. But those global figures mask a sharp decline in readership in rich countries. Over the past decade, throughout the Western world, people have been giving up newspapers and TV news and keeping up with events in profoundly different ways. Most strikingly, ordinary people are increasingly involved in compiling, sharing, filtering, discussing and distributing news. Twitter lets people anywhere report what they are seeing. Classified documents are published in their thousands online. Mobile-phone footage of Arab uprisings and American tornadoes is posted on social-networking sites and shown on television newscasts. Social-networking sites help people find, discuss and share news with their friends. And it is not just readers who are challenging the media elite. Technology firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter have become important conduits of news. Celebrities and world leaders publish updates directly via social networks; many countries now make raw data available through “open government”initiatives. The internet lets people read newspapers or watch television channels from around the world. The web has allowed new providers of news, from individual bloggers to sites, to rise to prominence in a very short space of time. And it has made possible entirely new approaches to journalism, such as that practiced by WikiLeaks, which provides an anonymous way for whistleblowers to publish documents. The news agenda is no longer controlled by a few press barons and state outlets. In principle, every liberal should celebrate this. A more participatory and social news environment, with a remarkable diversity and range of news sources, is a good thing. The transformation of the news business is unstoppable, and attempts to reverse it are doomed to failure. As producers of new journalism, individuals can be scrupulous with facts and transparent with their sources. As consumers, they can be general in their tastes and demanding in their standards. And although this transformation does raise concerns, there is much to celebrate in the noisy, diverse, vociferous, argumentative and stridently alive environment of the news business in the ages of the internet. The coffee house is back. Enjoy it.21．According to the passage, what initiated the transformation of coffee-house news to mass-media news?A．The emergence of big mass media firms.B．The popularity of radio and television.C．The appearance of advertising in newspapers.D．The increasing number of newspaper readers.正确答案：C解析：事实细节题。
专业英语八级(听力)模拟试卷65(题后含答案及解析)
专业英语八级（听力）模拟试卷65(题后含答案及解析) 题型有：1. LISTENING COMPREHENSIONPART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION (35 MIN)SECTION A MINI-LECTUREDirections: In this section you sill hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after the mini-lecture. When the lecture is over, you will be given two minutes to check your notes, and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.听力原文：How to Speak Good English Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Having authentic and polished oral English is every learner’s dream, however,(1)many of my students spent a lot of years, money and efforts on speaking this language well but failed to be able to communicate and speak out, the reason to which might be mainly the lack of confidence and right methods. I still remember when I first landed on the soil of Beijing 5 years ago: I could not communicate with my friends and even felt uneasy when going out with them because I did not have the confidence to start a conversation with my Mandarin.(2)It’s the same to the English learners who have no courage to start a topic and face an awkward silence after the initial greeting was given because they don’t know what to talk about and are not confident of putting something across correctly, thus the conversation comes to an end. Here I would like to give you some advice on how to speak good English in terms of the experience I got from being a teacher for many language training schools and being interpreter for government as well as embassies. There are 3-D methods(Dialogue, Discussion and Debate)to improve your eloquence. First of all, it’s important to be involved in dialogues. I notice that many students do well in speaking when conducting a prepared speech or presentation in class.(3)But speaking English fluently is not just about making presentations and giving speeches. It is about expressing your ideas and insight on the most mundane of things around you. The ability to make dialogues is very important in social communication.(4)Topics for casual conversation could include the weather, education, music, current affairs, hobbies, travel, etc. Do not always ask foreigners “what is your name and how is your job” when you want to find one to practice your English with. Before going to English Corner, please read up on your area of interest and try framing sentences to express your opinions.(5)Talk about it with someone close to you or someone’s English level is higher than yours, so you can check for your language accuracy and fluency. You’d better grasp regularly used ways of small talk, and you will be able to initiate speaking more confidently. If you can break this barrier and speak out with passion and confidence, you can take your first step into the realm of English speaking and become a public speaker in the future. Secondly, discussion and debate play a keyrole. (6)I always enlighten my students that your language ability and academic achievements are very important and imperative, but the most important of all is your eloquence to communicate in the personal relationships. Elite may not have eloquence, but an eloquent person must be an elite. So the best way to drill your speaking abilities is to discuss and debate. When I was a junior, I always raised discussions with my classmate in my dorm, questions like environmental protection, cohabitation, 2008 Olympics, postgraduate exams and so on. After everyone aired his opinions, then we conducted debate to argue, to express ideas to convince the others. And I gradually build up on my own repertoire of conversational topics and start using them whenever I get a chance: subsequently I have good command of English, and won a lot of awards in English speech contest and debate. Hence, it’s also effective for you, my beloved friends or students, to have a try to use your language to discuss and debate. Of course, other methods may work, too. Many students do want to improve their English by all means.(7)It’s self-evident that all of us like taking down notes when we are listening to the lectures given by teachers at school. But it’s not a correct way to speak good language. Can you learn swimming by standing at the edge of the pool and taking down the words spoken by the coach? You have to take the plunge, right? I seldom took notes when I was given lessons, but I would memorize them with my mouth, my mind and my ears. There is just one case I will take notes when I am doing my job as an interpreter for the Beijing municipal government and embassy. I still remember when I was interpreting for the ambassador from the Philippines, at which moment she was delivering the speech about 10 minutes at the Great Wall international conference. Hadn’t I taken the notice from the speaker, I don’t think I would have interpreted for her and won the applause from the officials. It is the same with language.(8)Unless you use the language everyday, you will never know how good you are at it. Ask your friends who are good at English to help. Try to speak it as much as possible, and let them interrupt you whenever you make mistakes and ask them to correct you.(9)Do not feel embarrassed to make mistakes, for that is the only way you will learn. Enjoy losing face and enjoy making mistakes because that is the way how the process of acquiring fluency a language occurs. Everyone may have made a lot of mistakes before getting a good grasp of mother tongue. The only difference now is that you are conscious of the mistakes. So, do not be afraid of making mistakes. Then, there are attitudes that count most. (10- 1)If you do want to learn something well, you are supposed to have confidence and passion. I love playing the piano, basketball and learning as well as being a teacher, to which I devote my whole interest, confidence and passion no matter how many mistakes I will encounter, how helpless, how hopeless and how far away for me to reach my final goal. I will never stop fighting for the betterment and improvement of myself and to be an all-grounded person equipped with knowledge and clear mindset.(10-2)And that is why I hope all of you can be confident and passionate for what you have done and what you will be doing. Finally, I want to say: try to be confident and passionate in the journey of study and life, all you need is a will to learn and the initiative to begin. That done, it is simply a matter of time and effort!How to Speak Good English I . IntroductionA. Many learners havingdifficulty in communicating due to the lack of【B1】______and right methods【B1】______B. Features of English learners:—having neither idea nor courage of expressing themselves: therefore ,conversation【B2】______【B2】______C. 3-D methods to improve oral English: Dialogue, Discussion and Debate II. Importance of dialoguesSpeaking good English not only means making presentation and【B3】______but concerns expressing ideas and perception of ordinary matters.【B3】______—ways to make dialogues1)talking about weather, education, music,【B4】______, hobbies,【B4】______travel, etc. rather than inquiring about the other’s name or job2)making preparations before going to English Corner3)not talking with people whose English level is【B5】______【B5】______4)knowing usual ways to start a conversation III. Significance of discussion and debate—【B6】______being even more important than language ability and【B6】______academic accomplishmentsIV. Other methodsA.【B7】______being not a proper way to improve one’s oral English 【B7】______—exception: working as an interpreter for the government and embassyB. Practising speaking English as much as possible—use the language everyday and resort to【B8】______【B8】______C.【B9】______being the only way to learn【B9】______V. Favorable attitudes—being confident and【B10】______in the course of study【B10】______1．【B1】正确答案：confidence解析：本题设题点在原因结果处。
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英语专业八级考试试题及答案(6)
作者简介
维吉尼亚·伍夫（1882-1941），英国小说家，在她的小说里，缩小
作者作为叙述者或评论者的作用。她同时也是一位公认的评论家。
注释
blur模糊;使模糊不清
banish 流放,放逐
preconception偏见
try to become him：应努力站在作者的立场上。become在这里用作
及物动伺、解作”配合”、”适应”。
steep陡峭的
acquaint yourself with...，使（你）自己认识（了解）...
impalpable无形的
contained从容的
PART VI WRITING (45 MIN)
Interview is frequently used by employers as a means to recruit
prospective employees. As a result, there have been many arguments for
or against the interview as a selection procedure. What is your opinion?
Write an essay of about 400 words to state your view.
In the first part of your writing you should state your main argument,
and in the second part you should support your argument with appropriate
details. In the last part you should bring what you have written to a
natural conclusion or make a summary. You should supply an appropriate
title for your essay.
Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and
appropriateness. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a
loss of marks.Write your composition on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.
改错部分:
The University as Business
A number of colleges and universities have announced steep
tuition increases for next year much steeper than the current,
very low, rate of inflation. They say the increases are needed because
of a loss in value of university endowments’ heavily investing in
common 1
stock. I am skeptical. A business firm chooses the price that
maximizes
its net revenues, irrespective fluctuations in income; and increasingly
the 2
outlook of universities in the United States is indistinguishable from
those of 3
business firms. The rise in tuitions mayreflect the fact economic
uncertainty 4
increases the demand for education. The biggest cost of being
in the school is foregoing income from a job (this isprimarily a factor
in 5
graduate and professional-school tuition); the poor one’ s job
prospects, 6
the more sense it makes to reallocate time from the job market to
education,
in order to make oneself more marketable. The ways which
universities make themselves attractive to students 7
include soft majors, student evaluations of teachers, giving students
a governance role, and eliminate required courses. 8
Sky-high tuitions have caused universities to regard their students as
customers. Just as business firms sometimes collude to shorten the 9
rigors of competition, universities collude to minimize the cost to
them of the
athletes whom they recruit in order to stimulate alumni donations, so
the best
athletes now often bypass higher education in order to obtain salaries
earlier
from professional teams. And until they were stopped by the antitrust
authorities,
the Ivy League schools colluded to limit competition for the best
students, by
agreeing not to award scholarships on the basis of merit rather than
purely
of need-just like business firms agreeing not to give discounts on their
best 10
customer.