【2008-2014年专八人文知识真题及答案】

英语专八考试文化常识辅导

2000年教育部《高等学校英语专业高年级教学大纲》规定，高等学校英语专业高年级的教学任务是“继续打好语言基本功，进一步扩大知识面，重点应放在培养英语综合技能，充实文化知识，提高交际能力上”。2005年的英语专业考试依照2004年新版的《高校英语专业八级考试大纲》的有关规定，取消了快速阅读，取而代之的是人文知识，或者叫做文化常识题（General Knowledge）。那么到底这个题型考的是什么题，又有哪些内容呢？

英语专业的教学大纲对这一项并没有具体要求，但是八级考试大纲则有以下四点说明：

测试要求：

1. 能基本了解主要英语国家的地理、历史、现状、文化传统等。

2. 能初步具备英语文学知识。

3. 能初步具备英语语言学知识。

4. 考试时间为10分钟。

测试形式：

多项选择题，共10题。

测试范围：

主要涉及到三个方面的内容：

主要英语国家社会与文化（基本国家概况：地理、政治制度、文化生活、经济4/10）英美文学（作家、作品，文学流派，基本文学概念3/10）

英语语言学（词汇学、语义学、语用学、语言学流派、基本概念3/10）

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,

For the want of a horse the rider was lost,

For the want of a rider the battle was lost,

For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horse shoe nail.

--Benjamin Franklin

失去一颗马蹄钉，可能会失去一个国家；

忽略一个细节，你也可能失去整个专八。

2008年英语专业八级考试人文知识真题及答案

31. The largest city in Canada is___.

A. Vancouver.

B. Montreal.

C. Toronto

D. Ottawa.

32. According to the United States Constitution, the legislative power is invested in___.

A. the Federal Government.

B. the Supreme Court.

C. the Cabinet.

D. the Congress.

33. Which of the following is the oldest sport in the United States?

A. Baseball.

B. Tennis.

C. Basketball.

D. American football.

34. The head of the executive branch in New Zealand is____.

A. the President.

B. the Governor-General.

C. the British monarch

D. the

Prime Minister.

35. The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, is an important poetic work by___.

A. William Langland.

B. Geoffrey Chaucer.

C. William Shakespeare.

D. Alfred Tennyson.

36. Who wrote The American?

A. Herman Melville.

B. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

C. Henry James.

D. Theodore Dreiser.

37. All of the following are well-known female writers in 20th-century Britain EXCEPT____.

A. George Eliot.

B. Iris Jean Murdoch.

C. Doris Lessing.

D. Muriel Spark.

38. Which of the following is NOT a design feature of human language?

A. Arbitrariness.

B. Displacement.

C. Duality.

D. Diachronicity.

39. What type of sentence is “Mark likes fiction, but Tim is interested in poetry.”?

A. A simple sentence.

B. A coordinate sentence.

C. A complex sentence.

D. None of the above.

40. The phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form is called____.

A. hyponymy.

B. synonymy.

C. polysemy.

D. homonymy.

Keys: CDABB CADBD

2009年英语专业八级考试人文知识真题及答案

31. The Head of State of New Zealand is ______.

A. the governor-general

B. the Prime Minister

C. the high commissioner

D. the monarch of United Kingdom

32. The capital of Scotland is ______.

A. Glasgow

B. Edinburgh

C. Manchester

D. London

33. Who write the Declaration of Independence and later became the U.S. President ?

A. Thomas Jefferson

B. George Washington

C. Thomas Paine

D. John Adams

34. Which is the following cities is located on the eastern coast of Australia ?

A. Perth

B. Adelaide

C. Sydney

D. Melbourne

35. Ode to the West Wind was written by ______.

A. Willian Blake

B. Willian Wordsworth

C. Samuel Taylor Coleridege

D. Percy Bysshe Shelley

36. Who among the following is a poet of free verse ?

A. Ralph Waldo Emerson

B. Walt Whitman

C. Herman Melville

D. Theodore Dreiser

37. The novel Sons and Lovers was written by ______.

A. Thomas Hardy

B. John Galworhty

C.

D.H. Lawrence D. James Joyce

38. The study of mental processes of language comprehension and production is ______.