2011年英语专业八级考试真题

TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS(2011)

——GRADE EIGHT——

PART I　LISTENING COMPREHENSION　[25 MIN]

SECTION A　MINI-LECTURE

In 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　INTERVIEW

In 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 Part One of the interview. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.

1. A. Mother tongue.

B. Second language acquisition.

C. Similarities between languages.

D. Language competence.

2. A. Differences between two languages.

B. Declining capacity to learn syntax.

C. Lack of time available.

D. Absence of motivation.

3. A. It’s natural for language learners to make errors.

B. Differences between languages cause difficulty.

C. There exist differences between English and Czech.

D. Difficulty stems from either differences or similarities.

4. A. Complicated.

B. Confused.

C. Frustrated.

D. Bored.

5. A. It emphasizes speaking.

B. It focuses on conversational skills.

C. It emphasizes grammar teaching.

D. It focuses on reading.

Now, listen to Part Two of the interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.

6. A. Because it emphasizes language environment.

B. Because it is suggested by Dr. Harley.

C. Because it can handle all learning problems.

D. Because it is discussed in details.

7. A. Dr. Harley.

B. Stephen Hawking.

C. Stephen Krashen.

D. Albert Einstein.

8. A. Unconsciously and automatically.

B. Consciously and effortfully.

C. Unconsciously and effortfully.

D. Consciously and automatically.

9. A. The acquisition and learning distinction hypothesis.

B. The comprehensible input hypothesis.

C. The monitor hypothesis.

D. The active filter hypothesis.

10. A. Causes of language learning difficulties.

B. Differences between mother tongue and a second language.

C. Theoretical conceptualization of second language learning.

D. Pedagogical implementation of second language teaching.

PART II　READING COMPREHENSION　[45 MIN]

SECTION A　MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

In this section there are four 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) Whenever we could, Joan and I took refuge in the streets of Gibraltar. The Englishman’s home is his castle because he has not much choice. There is nowhere to sit in the streets of England, not even, after twilight, in the public gardens. The climate, very often, does not even permit him to walk outside. Naturally, he stays indoors and creates a cocoon of comfort. That was the way we lived in Leeds.

(2) These southern people, on the other hand, look outwards. The Gibraltar home is, typically, a small and crowded apartment up several flights of dark and dirty stairs. In it, one, two or even three old people share a few ill-lit rooms with the young family. Once he has eaten, changed his clothes, embraced his wife, kissed his children and his parents, there is nothing to keep the southern man at home. He hurries out, taking even his breakfast coffee at his local bar. He comes home late for his afternoon meal after an appetitive hour at his café. He sleeps for an hour, dresses, goes out again and stays out until late at night. His wife does not miss him, for she is out too—at the market in the morning and in the afternoon sitting with other mothers, baby-minding in the sun.

(3) The usual Gibraltarian home has no sitting-room, living-room or lounge. The parlour of our working-class houses would be an intolerable waste of space. Easy-chairs, sofas and such-like furniture are unknown. There are no bookshelves, because there are no books. Talking and drinking, as well as eating, are done on hard chairs round the dining-table, between a sideboard decorated with the best glasses and an inevitable display cabinet full of family treasures, photographs and souvenirs. The elaborate chandelier over this table proclaims it as the hub of the household and of the family. “Hearth and home”makes very little sense in Gibraltar. One’s home is one’s town or village, and one’s hearth is the sunshine.

(4) Our northern towns are dormitories with cubicles, by comparison. When we congregate—in the churches it used to be, now in the cinema, say, impersonally, or at public meetings, formally—we are scarcely ever man to man. Only in our pubs can you find the truly gregarious and communal spirit surviving, and in England even the pubs are divided along class lines.

(5) Along this Mediterranean coast, home is only a refuge and a retreat. The people live together in the open air—in the street, market-place. Down here, there is a far stronger feeling of community than we had ever known. In crowded and circumscribed Gibraltar, with its complicated inter-marriages, its identity of interests, its surviving sense of siege, one can see and feel an integrated society.

(6) To live in a tiny town with all the organization of a state, with Viceroy(总督), Premier, Parliament, Press and Pentagon, all in miniature, all within arm’s reach, is an intensive course in civics. In such an environment, nothing can be hidden, for better or for worse. One’s successes are seen and recognized; one’s failures are immediately exposed. Social consciousness is at its strongest, with the result that there is a constant and firm pressure towards good social behaviour, towards courtesy and kindness. Gibraltar, with all its faults, is the friendliest and most tolerant of places. Straight from the cynical anonymity of a big city, we luxuriated in its happy personalism. We look back on it, like all its exiled sons and daughters, with true affection.

11. Which of the following BEST explains the differences in ways of living between the English and the Gibraltarians?

A. The family structure.

B. Religious belief.

C. The climate.

D. Eating habit.

12. There is a much stronger sense of______among the Gibraltarians.

A. togetherness

B. survival

C. identity

D. leisure

13. According to the passage, people in Gibraltar tend to be well-behaved because of the following EXCEPT______.

A. the entirety of the state structure

B. constant pressure from the state

C. the small size of the town

D. transparency of occurrences

PASSAGE TWO

(1) For office innovators, the unrealized dream of the“paperless”office is a classic example of high-tech hubris(傲慢). Today’s office drone is drowning in more paper than ever before.

(2) But after decades of hype, American offices may finally be losing their paper obsession. The demand for paper used to outstrip the growth of the US economy, but the past two or three years have seen a marked slowdown in sales—despite a healthy economic scene.

(3) Analysts attribute the decline to such factors as advances in digital databases and communication systems. Escaping our craving for paper, however, will be anything but an easy affair.

(4) “Old habits are hard to break,”says Merilyn Dunn, a communications supplies director. “There are some functions that paper serves where a screen display doesn’t work. Those functions are both its strength and its weakness.”

(5) In the early to mid-’90s, a booming economy and improved desktop printers helped boost paper sales by 6 to 7 percent each year. The convenience of desktop printing allowed office workers to indulge in printing anything and everything at very little effort or cost.

(6) But now, the growth rate of paper sales in the United States is flattening by about half a percent each year. Between 2004 and 2005, Ms. Dunn say, plain white office paper will see less than a 4 percent growth rate, despite the strong overall economy. A primary reason for the change, says Dunn, is that for the first time ever, some 47 percent of the workforce entered the job market after computers had already been introduced to offices.

(7) “We’re finally seeing a reduction in the amount of paper being used per worker in the workplace,”says John Maine, vice president of a pulp and paper economic consulting firm. “More information is being transmitted electronically, and more and more people are comfortable with the information residing only in electronic form without printing multiple backups.”

(8) In addition, Mr. Maine points to the lackluster employment market for white-collar workers—the primary driver of office paper consumption—for the shift in paper usage.

(9) The real paradigm shift may be in the way paper is used. Since the advent of advanced and reliable office-network systems, data storage has moved away from paper archives. The secretarial art of“filing”is disappearing from job descriptions. Much of today’s data may never leave its original digital format.

(10) The changing attitudes toward paper have finally caught the attention of paper companies, says Richard Harper, a researcher at Microsoft. “All of a sudden, the paper industry has started thinking, ‘We need to learn more about the behavioural aspects of paper use,’”he says. “They had never asked, they’d just assumed that 70 million sheets would be bought per year as a literal function of economic growth.”

(11) To reduce paper use, some companies are working to combine digital and paper capabilities. For example, Xerox Corp. is developing electronic paper: thin digital displays that respond to a stylus, like a pen on paper. Notations can be erased or saved digitally.

(12) Another idea, intelligent paper, comes from Anoto Group. It would allow notations made with a stylus on a page printed with a special magnetic ink to simultaneously appear on a computer screen.

(13) Even with such technological advances, the improved capabilities of digital storage continue to act against“paperlessness,”argues Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster. In his prophetic and metaphorical 1989 essay, “The Electronic Piñata(彩罐),”he suggests that the increasing amounts of electronic data necessarily require more paper.

(14) “The information industry today is like a huge electronic piñata, composed of a thin paper crust surrounding an electronic core,”Mr. Saffo wrote. The growing paper crust“is most noticeable, but the hidden electronic core that produces the crust is far larger—and growing more rapidly. The result is that we are becoming paperless, but we hardly notice at all.”

(15) In the same way that digital innovations have increased paper consumption, Saffo says, so has video conferencing—with its promise of fewer in-person meetings—boosting business travel.

(16) “That’s one of the great ironies of the information age,”Saffo says. “It’s just common sense that the more you talk to someone by phone or computer, it inevitably leads to a face-to-face meeting. The best thing for the aviation industry was the Internet.”

14. What function does the second sentence in the first paragraph serve?

A. It further explains high-tech hubris.

B. It confirms the effect of high-tech hubris.

C. It offers a cause for high-tech hubris.

D. It offers a contrast to high-tech hubris.

15. The following are reasons for the slowdown in paper sales EXCEPT______.

A. workforce with better computer skills

B. slow growth of the US economy

C. changing patterns in paper use

D. changing employment trends

16. The two innovations by Xerox Corp. and Anoto Group feature______.

A. integrated use of paper and digital form

B. a shift from paper to digital form

C. the use of computer screen

D. a new style of writing

17. What is the author’s attitude towards“paperlessness”?

A. He reviews the situation from different perspectives.

B. He agrees with some of the people quoted in the passage.

C. He has a preference for digital innovations.

D. He thinks airlines benefit most from the digital age.

PASSAGE THREE

(1) When George Orwell wrote in 1941 that England was“the most class-ridden country under the sun”, he was only partly right. Societies have always had their hierarchies, with some group perched at the top. In the Indian state of Bihar the Ranveer Sena, an upper-caste private army, even killed to stay there.

(2) By that measure class in Britain hardly seems entrenched(根深蒂固的). But in another way Orwell was right, and continues to be. As a new YouGov poll shows, Britons are surprisingly alert to class—both their own and that of others. And they still think class is sticky. According to the poll, 48%of people aged 30 or over say they expect to end up better off than their parents. But only 28%expect to end up in a different class. More than two-thirds think neither they nor their children will leave the class they were born into.

(3) What does this thing that people cannot escape consist of these days? And what do people look at when decoding which class someone belongs to? The most useful identifying markers, according to the poll, are occupation, address, accent and income, in that order. The fact that income comes fourth is revealing: though some of the habits and attitudes that class used to define are more widely spread than they were, class still indicates something less blunt than mere wealth.

(4) Occupation is the most trusted guide to class, but changes in the labour market have made that harder to read than when Orwell was writing. Manual workers have shrunk along with farming and heavy industry as a proportion of the workforce, while the number of people in white-collar jobs has surged. Despite this striking change, when they were asked to place themselves in a class, Brits in 2006 huddled in much the same categories as they did when they were asked in 1949. So, jobs, which were once a fairly reliable guide to class, have become misleading.

(5) A survey conducted earlier this year by Expertian shows how this convergence on similar types of work has blurred class boundaries. Expertian asked people in a number of different jobs to place themselves in the working class or the middle class. Secretaries, waiters and journalists were significantly more likely to think themselves middle-class than accountants, computer programmers or civil servants. Many new white-collar jobs offer no more autonomy or better prospects than old blue-collar ones. Yet despite the muddle over what the markers of class are these days, 71%of those polled by YouGov still said they found it very or fairly easy to figure out which class others belong to.

(6) In addition to changes in the labour market, two other things have smudged the borders on the class map. First, since 1945 Britain has received large numbers of immigrants who do not fit easily into existing notions of class and may have their own pyramids to scramble up. The flow of new arrivals has increased since the late 1990s, multiplying this effect.

(7) Second, barriers to fame have been lowered. Britain’s fast-growing ranks of celebrities—like David Beckham and his wife Victoria—form a kind of parallel aristocracy open to talent, or at least to those who are uninhibited enough to meet the requests of television producers. This too has made definitions more complicated.

(8) But many Brits, given the choice, still prefer to identify with the class they were born into rather than that which their jobs or income would suggest. This often entails pretending to be more humble than is actually the case: 22%of white-collar workers told YouGov that they consider themselves working class. Likewise, the Expertian survey found that one in ten adults who call themselves working class are among the richest asset-owners, and that over half a million households which earn more than$191,000 a year say they are working class. Pretending to be grander than income and occupation suggest is rarer, though it happens too.

(9) If class no longer describes clear social, economic or even political status, is it worth paying any attention to? Possibly, yes. It is still in most cases closely correlated with educational attainment and career expectations.

18. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?

A. White-collar workers would place themselves in a different class.

B. People with different jobs may place themselves in the same class.

C. Occupation and class are no longer related with each other.

D. Changes in the workforce have made it difficult to define class.

19. The following are causes to blur class distinction EXCEPT______.

A. notions of class by immigrants

B. changing trends of employment

C. fewer types of work

D. easy access to fame

20. When some successful white-collar workers choose to stay in the working class, it implies that they are______.

A. showing self-respect

B. showing modesty

C. expressing boastfulness

D. making an understatement

21. What is the author’s main argument in the passage?

A. Occupation is the most useful identifying markers.

B. Class is no longer a reliable guide, but it still matters.

C. Class is not worth paying any attention to.

D. People often change the class they were born into.

PASSAGE FOUR

(1) The train was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that plains of Texas were pouring eastward. Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice.

(2) A newly married pair had boarded this coach at San Antonio. The man’s face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick-coloured hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion. From time to time he looked down respectfully at his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a barber’s shop. The glances he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy.

(3) The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with small reservations of velvet here and there, and with steel buttons abounding. She continually twisted her head to regard her puff sleeves, very stiff, and high. They embarrassed her. It was quite apparent that she had cooked, and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny of some passengers as she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class countenance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines.

(4) They were evidently very happy. “Ever been in a parlor-car before?”he asked, smiling with delight.

(5) “No,”she answered; “I never was. It’s fine, ain’t it?”

(6) “Great! And then after a while we’ll go forward to the dinner, and get a big lay-out. Fresh meal in the world. Charge a dollar.”

(7) “Oh, do they?”cried the bride. “Charge a dollar? Why, that’s too much—for us—ain’t it, Jack?”

(8) “Nor this trip, anyhow,”he answered bravely. “We’re going to go the whole thing.”

(9) Later he explained to her about the trains. “You see, it’s a thousand miles from one end of Texas to the other; and this runs right across it, and never stops but four times.”He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to her the dazzling fittings of the coach; and in truth her eyes opened wider and she contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support for a separated chamber, and at convenient places on the ceiling were frescos in olive and silver.

(10) To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Antonio; this was the environment of their new estate; and the man’s face in particular beamed with an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the Negro porter. This individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery. He oppressed them. But of this oppression they had small knowledge, and they speedily forgot that infrequently a number of travelers covered them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed to be something infinitely humorous in their situation.

(11) “We are due in Yellow Sky at 3:42,”he said, looking tenderly into her eyes.

(12) “Oh, are we?”she said, as if she had not been aware of it. To evince(表现出)surprise at her husband’s statement was part of her wifely amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch; and as she held it before her, and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new husband’s face shone.

(13) “I bought it in San Anton’from a friend of mine,”he told her gleefully.

(14) “It’s seventeen minutes past twelve,”she said, looking up at him with a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry(调情；卖俏). A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at himself in one of the numerous mirrors.

(15) At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of Negro waiters, in glowing white suits, surveyed their entrance with the interest, and also the equanimity(平静), of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage, entwined with the ordinary deference, was not plain to them. And yet, as they returned to their coach, they showed in their faces a sense of escape.

22. “sweeping over the horizon, a precipice”in Para. 1 is used as______.

A. euphemism

B. analogy

C. metaphor

D. personification

23. Which of the following adjectives BEST depicts the interior of the coach?

A. Modern.

B. Luxurious.

C. Practical.

D. Complex.

24. Which of the following BEST describes the attitude of other people on the train towards the couple?

A. They regarded the couple as an object of fun.

B. They expressed indifference towards the couple.

C. They were very curious about the couple.

D. They showed friendliness towards the couple.

SECTION B　SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

In 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 ONE

25. What can we learn from the description of the Gibraltarian home?

26. What does the italicized part in the third paragraph imply?

PASSAGE TWO

27. What does the author mean by quoting“That’s one of the great ironies of the information age”in the last paragraph?

PASSAGE THREE

28. Why does the author say“...Orwell was right, and continues to be”in the second paragraph?

29. What does the author mean by saying“...class still indicates something less blunt than mere wealth”?

PASSAGE FOUR

30. What can we learn from the description of the couple’s clothes and behaviour?

31. What does the author mean by saying“...she expected to cook, dutifully”?

32. What can be concluded from the last paragraph?

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. 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 provided 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.

Example

When＾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.

(1)an

(2)never

(3)exhibit

Proofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET THREE as instructed.

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the conscience that I was outraging my true nature and that soon or later I should have to settle down and write books.

(1)__________

(2)__________

(3)__________

(4)__________

(5)__________

I was the child of three, but there was a gap of five years on either side, and I barely saw my father before I was eight. For this and other reasons I was somewhat lonely, and I soon developed disagreeing mannerisms which made me unpopular throughout my schooldays. I had the lonely child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginative persons, and I think from the very start my literal ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing in unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life. Therefore the volume of serious—i.e. seriously intended—writing which I produced all through my childhood and boyhood would not amount to half a dozen pages. I wrote my first poem at the age of four or five, my mother taking it down to dictation.

(6)__________

(7)__________

(8)__________

(9)__________

(10)__________

PART IV　TRANSLATION　[20 MIN]

Translate the underlined part of the following text from Chinese into English. Write your translation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.

现代社会无论价值观的持有还是生活方式的选择都充满了矛盾。而最让现代人感到尴尬的是，面对重重矛盾，许多时候你却别无选择。匆忙与休闲是截然不同的两种生活方式。但在现实生活中，人们却在这两种生活方式间频繁穿梭，有时也说不清自己到底是“休闲着”还是“匆忙着”。譬如说，当我们正在旅游胜地享受假期，却忽然接到老板的电话，告诉我们客户或工作方面出了麻烦——现代便捷先进工具在此刻显示出了它狰狞、阴郁的面容——搞得人一下子兴趣全无，接下来的休闲只能徒有其表，因为心里已是火烧火燎了。

PART V　WRITING　[45 MIN]

According to a recent newspaper report, many famous sites of historical interest in China have begun or are considering charging tourists higher entry fees during peak travel seasons. This has aroused a lot of public attention and also public debate. What is your opinion? Should famous Chinese sites of historical interest charge higher fees during peak travel seasons? Read the excerpts carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you should:

1. summarize effects of and reactions to increasing ticket price at tourist sites;

2. give your comment.

Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.

Write your article on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.

Excerpt 1

An expert in Tourism Management

Excerpt 2

An administrator

ANSWER SHEET ONE

PART I　LISTENING COMPREHENSION

SECTION A　MINI-LECTURE

Classifications of Cultures

According to Edward Hall, different cultures result in different ideas about the world. Hall is an anthropologist. He is interested in relations between cultures.

I. High-context culture

A. feature

—context: more important than the message

—meaning(1)_______

i.e. more attention paid to(2)_______than to the message itself

B. examples

—personal space

—preference for(3)_______

—less respect for(4)_______

—attention to(5)_______

—concept of time

—belief in(6)_______interpretations of time

—no concern for punctuality

—no control(7)_______

II.Low-context culture

A.feature

—message: separate from context

—meaning: (8)_______

B. examples

—personal space

—desire/respect for(9)_______

—less attention to body language

—more concern for(10)_______

—(11)_______

—concept of time: (12)_______

—dislike of(13)_______

—time seen as commodity

III. Conclusion

awareness of different cultural assumptions

—relevance in(14)_______

e.g. business, negotiation, etc.

—(15)_______in successful communication