英美概况模拟试题

《英语国家社会与文化入门》模拟试题及参考答案
Part one
Fill in the blanks ( 10 points )
1.The full name of the United Kingdom is .
2.The Good Friday Agreement, known also as , emerged on 10 April 1998.
3., the ancestor of the present queen, Elizabeth II, united England under his rule
in 829.
4.written by Geoffrey Chaucer is often studied by middle school and college
students today.
5.The Bonfire Night, which is celebrated in November, sometimes is also called .
6.Columbus discovered the New World in the year of .
7.The Three Faiths in the US refer to Protestant, and Jewish.
8.In 1852, a New England woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel
titled , which intensified the political debate on slavery.
9.1968 was known in US history as a violent and tragic year in which the great leader of The
Civil Rights Movement: was assassinated.
10.The Grand Canyon is carved away for nearly 6 million years by the River. Part two
Read the following unfinished statements or questions carefully. For each unfinished statement or question four suggested answers A, B, C and D are given. Choose the one you think best completes the statement or answers the question: ( 20 points )
1.Franklin Roosevelt’s program for the depression was called .
a. Progressivism
b. laissez faire
c. New Freedom
d. New Deal
2. The United States did not join the Second World War directly until in December,
1941.
a. Great Depression
b. Pearl Harbor incident
c. the Japanese attack on China
d. the German attack on Poland
3. From 1649 to 1658 England was called a Commonwealth. It was ruled first by Oliver
Cromwell as .
a. Lord Protector
b. Lieutenant General
c. Commander of the New Model Army
d. President
4. Ireland is in the of Great Britain.
a. east
b. south
c. west
d. north
5. WASPs referred to .
a. the mainstream Americans
b. Hispanics
c. Asian-Americans
d. Blacks
6. Lincoln's Emancipation proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
formally ended .
a. the immigration movement
b. the Civil War
c. the slave system
d. the industrialization
7. About a hundred years ago, as a result of imperialist expansion, Britain ruled of the
world people and of the world’s land area.
a. one third
b. one fifth
c. one fourth
d. two fifths
8. The Celt’s religion was.
a. Teutonic religion
b. Christianity
c. Druidism
d. Buddhism
9. The spirit of the Great Charter was the limitation of the powers of , keeping them
within the bounds of the feudal law of the land.
a. the Archbishop of Canterbury
b. the barons
c. the church
d. the king
10. The ultimate authority for law-making resides in the .
a. the House of Lords
b. the House of Commons
c. the Privy Council
d. the Shadow Cabinet
11. The English Renaissance was largely .
a. religious
b. ideological
c. philosophical
d. literary
12. In the Industrial Revolution, changes occurred earliest and quickest in .
a. hardware
b. textile
c. pottery
d. chemicals
13. The Romans led by Julius Caesar launched their first invasion on Britain in .
a. 200 B. C.
b. 55 B. C.
c. 55 A. D.
d. 410 A. D
14. The Hundred Years’ War started in.
a. 1733
b. 1453
c. 1337
d. 1357
15. Civil Rights Movement happened in .
a. the 1960s
b. the 1950s
c. the 1940s
d. the 1930s
16. The open declaration of the containment policy was made by on March 12, 1949 in
a speech to the joint session of Congress.
a. President Roosevelt
b. President Kennedy
c. General Marshall
d. President Truman
17. The House of Commons consists of Members of Parliament.
a. 651
b. 1,200
c. 1,198
d. 763
18. About half of the Britain’s trade is with.
a. the United States
b. South-east Asia
c. the EC
d. the Latin America
19. The British recorded history begins with .
a. the arrival and settlement of Celts
b. the Norman Conquest
c. Roman invasion
d. Viking and Danish invasions
20. At the beginning of the First World War, the United States pursued a policy of .
a. containment
b. neutrality
c. pro-Germany partiality
d. pro-Ally partiality
Part three
Read the following statements carefully and decide if each of them is True or False: ( 20 points )
( ) 1. The Bill of Rights is the term for the first twelve amendments to the Constitution.
( ) 2. The stock market crash in 1929 was the beginning of a long economic depression in the U. S. ( ) 3. George Washington was the first president of the United States.
( ) 4. The system of the parliamentary government of the U.K. is based on a written constitution. ( ) 5. Benjamin Franklin alone drafted the Declaration of Independence, and on July 4, 1776, the Congress adopted the declaration.
( ) 6. Britain was the first country to start the Industrial Revolution which contributed to the establishment of the British Empire.
( ) 7. The word English means “the language that belongs to the Angles.”
( ) 8. The Pennines are known as the “Backbone of England”.
( ) 9. The largest lake in Britain is the Lough Neagh Lake in Wales which covers an area of 397 square kilometers.
( ) 10. Both the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress were held in Boston.
( ) 11. The American Constitution founded feudalism and introduced checks and balances.
( ) 12. The national church in Scotland is also the Church of England.
( ) 13.Of all the English university Oxford and Cambridge are the most prestigious
( ) 14. The House of Lords is now made up of two kinds of Lords: the Lords Spiritual and the Lords Temporal.
( ) 15. William, Duke of Normandy, founded a strong fleet which first beat the Danes at sea and he became known as “Father of the British Navy.”
( ) 16. Anglo-Saxons in Britain are believed to be ancestors of the Highland Scots, the Irish and the Welsh people.
( ) 17. After Margaret Thatcher was elected Britain’s first ever woman prime minister in 1979, she adopted a new program to cure the “British disease”.
( ) 18. America Vespucci proved that the land discovered by Columbus was not Indian, but a new continent. As a result, the new continent was named after him and became known as America. ( ) 19. Declaration of Independence was formally adopted by the Continental Congress on July 14, 1776, a day which has been celebrated each year as Independence Day of the United States. ( ) 20. When the news of American victory at Yorktown reached London, the Parliament voted to end the War and peace negotiation began in 1782.
Part four
Explain the following terms in English: (10 points)
1. The New Deal
2. The commonwealth
3. checks and balances
4. Constitutional monarchy
5. Puritanism
Part five
Tell what you know about the following in your own words. ( 20 points )
1. The Easter Rising
2. Class system in British society
3. The Bronte sisters
4. Counterculture
5. The containment policy
Part six
Write between 100-150 words on the following topic: ( 20 points )
Cold War
Keys:
Part one:
1.the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
2.the Belfast Agreement
3.King Egbert
4.The Canterbury Tales
5.Guy Fawkes Night
6.1492
7.Catholic
8.Uncle Tom’s Cabin
9.Martin Luther King
10.Colorado
Part two:
1~5dbaca 6~10cccdb 11~15dbbca 16~20daccb
Part three:
1~5 FTTFF 6~10 TTTFF 11~15 FFTTT 16~20 FTTFT
Part four:
1.It refers to a series of measures taken by Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 to prevent the possible
collapse of the American economic and political system.
2.The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of states which is made up mostly of former
British colonies. There are 50 members of the Commonwealth: many of these are developing countries like India and Cyprus: others are developed nations like Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The Commonwealth was set up as a forum for continued cooperation and as a sort of support network.
3.Each of the three branches of the government——the legislative, the executive and the
judicial——has part of the powers but not all the power. Each branch can check, or block, the actions of the other branches. The three branches are thus in balance. This is called “checks and balances”.
4. A constitutional monarchy is a county in which head of the state is a king or a queen. In
practice, the Sovereign reigns, but does not rule. In English history, constitutional monarchy was established after Glorious Revolution in 1688.
5.Puritans were those who followed the doctrine of John Calvin and wanted to purify the
Church of England. They believe that human beings were predestined by God before they were born. Some were God’s chosen people while others were damned to hell. No church nor good works could save people. The sign of being God’s elect was the success in his work or the prosperity in his calling. They also argued that everyone must read the Bible in order to find God’s will and establish direct contact with God. These beliefs had great impact on American culture.
Part five:
1.In order to gain independence, different Irish groups had been fighting against the British
institutions and the British military forces. One such activity was the Easter Rising which took place in 1916. the rebels occupied Dublin’s Post Office and Forced the British to take it back by military force. The leaders of the rebellion were executed by the British authorities.
2.The class system does exist in British society. Most of the British population would claim
themselves to be either of middle-class or working-class, though some people would actually belong to the upper middle-class or lower middle-class. Class divisions are now simply economic, they are cultural as well. People of different classes may differ in the kind of newspapers they read, in the way they speak and in the kind of education they receive. One of the distinctive features about the British class system is that aristocratic titles can still be inherited.
3.Perhaps the most famous literary family I British history are the Bronte sisters, who were
influenced by the Romantic Movement. Charlotte, Emily and Ann were daughters of the vicar of a village church in Yorkshire. Although they were poor, they were educated and respectable. In their short lives, they didn’t produce much, but their works are among the best-loved novels in English: Charlotte Bronte’ s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights 4.In the wake of the Free Speech Movement and the New Left, there appeared a phenomenon
that historians called “counterculture”. The counterculture rejected capitalism and other American principles. They had morals different from those taught by their parents. Some groups of youth tried to construct different ways of life. Among the most famous were the hippies. They sought new experience through dropping out, and drug taking. But it was music, rock music in particular, that became the chief vehicles for the counter culture assault on the traditional American society. The counterculture exerted a great influence upon people’s attitudes toward social morals, marriage, career and success.
5.The US put into effect the containment policy in the late 1940s. by containment, the Us meant
that it would use whatever means, including military force, to prevent the Soviet Union form breaking out of its sphere of influence. In order to contain communism, the US fought two wars in Asia: the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Part six:
Some historians say that the world entered Cold War immediately after the Second World War ended. The conflicts arose basically from the separate concepts of postwar world order. The United States, relying on its large economic and military strength, tried to play the role of world police under the pretext of fighting against the Soviet expansion. The Soviet Union put forward the theory that there could be no long-term peaceful coexistence between socialism and capitalism and the Soviet Union should rapidly build up its strength for the final struggle against capitalism, represented by the United States and Britain. Cold War was characterized by international tension and conflicts without bloody “hot war” between the Soviet Union and the United States. Cold War did not end until after the collapse of Berlin Wall in 1989.。