2000英语专业八级考试全真试题附答案

SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING ( 10 min)

In this section there are seven passages followed by ten multiple -choice q uestions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on the Colour ed Answer Sheet.

TEXT E

First read the following question.

31. In the passage Bill Gates mainly discusses ___.

A. a person’s opportunity of a lifetime

B. the success of the computer industry

C. the importance of education

D. high school education in the US

Now go through TEXT E quickly and answer question 31.

Hundreds of students send me e-mail each year asking for advice about educa tion. They want to know what to study, or whether it’s OK to drop out of colleg e since that’s what I did.

My basic advice is simple and heartfelt.“Get the best education you can. Take advantage of high school and college. Learn how to learn.”

It’s true that I dropped out of college to start Microsoft, but I was at H a rvard for three years before dropping out-and I’d love to have the time to go b a ck. As I’ve said before, nobody should drop out of college unless they believe they face the opportunity of a lifetime. And even then they should reconsider.

The computer industry has lots of people who didn’t finish college, but I ’m not aware of any success stories that began with somebody dropping out of high school. I actually don’t know any high school dropouts, let alone any successfu l ones.

In my company’s early years we had a bright part-time programmer who threa tened to drop out of high school to work full-time. We told him no.

Quite a few of our people didn’t finish college, but we discourage droppin g out.

College isn’t the only place where information exist. You can learn in a l i brary. But somebody handing you a book doesn’t automatically foster learning. Y o u want to learn with other people, ask questions, try out ideas and have a way t o test your ability. It usually takes more than just a book.

Education should be broad, although it’s fine to have deep interests, too.

In high school there were periods when I was highly focused on writing soft ware, but for most of my high school years I had wide-ranging academic interests . My parents encouraged this, and I’m grateful that they did.

One parent wrote me that her 15-year old son “lost himself in the hole of t he computer. ”He got an A in Web site design, but other grades were sinking, sh e said.

This boy is making a mistake. High school and college offer you the best ch ance to learn broadly-math, history, various sciences-and to do projects with ot her kids that teach you firsthand about group dynamics. It’s fine to take a dee p interest in computers, dance, language or any other discipline, but not if it j eopardizes breadth.

In college it’s appropriate to think about specialization. Getting real e x pertise in an area of interest can lead to success. Graduate school is one way t o get specialized knowledge. Choosing a specialty isn’t something high school s t udents should worry about. They should worry about getting a strong academic sta rt.

There’s not a perfect correlation between attitudes in high school and su c cess in later life, of course. But it’s a real mistake not to take the opportun i ty to learn a huge range of subjects, to learn to work with people in high schoo l, and to get the grades that will help you get into a good college.

TEXT F

First read the following question.

32. The passage focuses on ___.

A. the history and future of London

B. London’s manufacturing skills

C. London’s status as a financial centrer

D. the past and present roles of London

Now go through Text F quickly and answer question 32.

What is London for? To put the question another way, why was London, by 190 0, incomparably the largest city in the world, which it remained until the bomba rdments of the Luftwaffe? There could be many answers to this question, but any history of London will rehearse three broad explanations. One is the importance of its life as a port. When the Thames turned to ice in February 1855,50,000 men were put out of work, and there were bread riots from those whose liveliboods h ad been frozen with the river. Today, the Thames could be frozen for a year with out endangering the livelihoods of any but a few pleasure-boatmen.

The second major cause of London’s wealth and success was that it was easi l y the biggest manufacturing centre in Europe. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Dutch looms and the stocking knitting frame were first pioneered in London. The vast range of London’s manufacturing skills is another fact; almos t any item you can name was manufactured in London during the days of its prosper ity. In 1851, 13.75 percent of the manufacturing work-force of Great Britain was based in London. By 1961, this had dramatically reduced. By 1993, there were a mere 328,000 Londoners engaged in manufacturing. In other words, by our own time s, two of the chief reasons for London’s very existence-its life as a pert and as a centre of manufacture-had dwindled out of existence.

London’s third great function, since the seventeenth century, has been tha t of national and international bourse: the exchange of stocks and shares, bankin g, commerce and, increasingly, insurance. Both In wood and Francis Sheppard, in London: A history, manage to make these potentially dry matters vivid to the gen eral reader, and both authors assure us that “The City” in the financial sense i s still as important as ever it was. Both, however, record the diminution of the City as an architectural and demographic entity, with the emptying of many city offices (since the advent of the computer much of the work can be done anywhere ) and the removal of many distinctive landmarks.

TEXT G

First read the following question.

33. The primary purpose of the passage is to ___.

A. discuss the impact of the internet

B. forecast the future roles of the bookstore

C. compare the publisher with the editor

D. evaluate the limitations of the printed page

Now go through TEXT G quickly and answer question 33.

Since the advent of television people have been prophesying the death of the book. Now the rise of the World Wide Web seems to have revived this smolderi ng controversy from the ashes. The very existence of paper copy has been brought into question once more.It might be the bookstore, rather than the book itself, that is on the br ink of extinction. Many of you will have noted tom of bookseller websites poppin g up. They provide lists of books and let you read sample chapters, reviews from other customers and interviews with authors.

What does all this mean? Browsing a virtual bookstore may not afford you the same dusty pleasure as browsing round a real shop, but as far as service, pr ice and convenience are concerned there is really no competition. This may chang e before long, as publishers’websites begin to offer direct access to new publ ications.

Perhaps it is actually the publisher who is endangered by the relentless advance of the Internet. There are a remarkable number of sites republishing tex ts online--an extensive virtual library of materials that used to be handled pri marily by publishing companies.

From the profusion of electronic-text sites available, it looks as if thi s virtual library is here to stay unless a proposed revision to copyright law ta kes many publications out of the public domain. However, can electronic texts st ill be considered books?

Then again, it might be the editor at risk, in danger of being cut out of the publishing process. The Web not only makes it possible for just about anyon e to publish whatever they like whenever they like-there are virtually no costs involved. The editors would then be the millions of Internet users. And there is little censor ship, either.

So possibly it is the printed page, with its many limitations, that is pe rishing as the implications of new technologies begin to be fully realized. Last year Stanford University published the equivalent of a 6,000 page Business Engl ish dictionary, online. There seem to be quite obvious benefits to housing these multi-volume reference sets on the Web. The perceived benefits for other books, such as the novel, are perhaps less obvious.

TEXT H

First read the following question.

34. The reviewer’s attitude towards the books is ___.

A. ambiguous

B. objective

C. doubtful

D. ho stile

Now go through TEXT H quickly and answer question 34.

The 1990s have witnessed a striking revival of the idea that liberal democr atic political system are the best basis for international peace. Western states men and scholars have witnessed worldwide process of democratization, and tend t o see it as a sounder basis for peace than anything we have had in the past.

Central to the vision of a peaceful democratic world bas been the proposit ion that liberal democracies do not fight each other; that they may and frequent ly do get into fights with illiberal states, but not with other countries that a re basically similar in their political systems. The proposition appeals to poli tical leaders and scholars as well.

Yet it is doubtful whether the proposition is strong enough to bear the va st weight of generalization that has been placed on it. Among the many difficult ies it poses, two stand out: first there are many possible exceptions to the rul e that democracies do not fight each other; and second, there is much uncertaint y about why democracies have, for the most part, not fought each other.

Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American politics and international security b y John M. Owen is an attempt to explain the twin phenomena of liberal peace (why democracies do not fight each other) and liberal war (why they fight other sta tes, sometimes with the intent of making them liberal).

Owen’s analysis in the book strongly suggests that political leaders on a l l sides judged a given foreign country largely on the basis of its political sys tem; and this heavily influenced decisions on whether or not to wage war against it. However, be also shows that military factors, including calculations of the cost of going to war, were often influential in tipping the balance against war . In other words, democratic peace does not mean the end of power politics.

Owen hints at, but never addresses directly, a sinister aspect of democrat ic peace theory: its assumption that there would be peace if only everybody else was like us. This can lead only too easily to attempts to impose the favoured s ystem on benighted foreigners by force-regardless of the circumstances and sensi bilities that make the undertaking hazardous, Owen’s central argument is not st r engthened by the occasional repetition nor by the remorselessly academic tone of the more theoretical chapters. However, most of the writing is succinct; the hi storical accounts are clear and to the point; and the investigation of the causa l links between liberalism and war is admirably thorough.

There are several grounds on which the book’s thesis might be criticized. The most obvious is that some twentieth-century experience goes against the argu ment that liberal states ally with others, above all, because they perceive them as fellow liberals. In our own time, several liberal democracies have maintaine d long and close relations with autocracies. However, Owen’s argument for a deg r ee of solidarity between liberal states provides at least part of the explanatio n for the continuation and even expansion of NATO in the post-Cold War era.

TEXT I

First read the following questions.

35. In ___, the table of contents of the magazine was placed on its back cover.

A. 1922

B. 1948

C. the 1930s

D. the 1960s

36. The magazine was criticized for failing to ___.

A. appeal to the young

B. attract old people

C. interest readers aged 47

D. captivate rea ders in their 50s

Now go through TEXT I quickly and answer questions 35 and 36.

New York-Reader’s Digest, the most widely read magazine in the world, will get a new look in a bid to attract younger readers, Reader’ Digest Association Inc. announced on March 29. Beginning with the May issue, the world’s largest- circulation magazine will move its table of contents off the front cover to mode rnize its look and make it easier for readers to navigate, editor in chief Chris top her Willcox said. “When you have the table of contents on the cover, it limits w hat you can say about what’s in the magazine, ”Willcox said. The magazine’s f ami liar table of contents will be replaced with a photograph. The small size and fo cus of the editorial content will be unchanged, publisher Gregory Coleman said. “It will be a much more visual magazine, with more photography and less illustr ation,”he said in an interview.

Reader’s digest was first published in 1922, with line drawings on the c o vers, and in the 1930s began listing the contents on the front. For a couple of years in the 1960s, Willcox said,the table of contents was shifted to the back c over. The May issue will feature a cover photo of a woman firefighter in San Fra ncisco for an except from a new book,“ Fighting Fire. ”The names of a few arti cl es are listed on the cover, but the full table of contents will be on papes 2 an d 3. The issue began reaching subscribers on April 10 and will be on newsstands two weeks later. All 48 of the Digest’s worldwide editions—27 million copies in 19 languages—are making the change. Publisher Gregory Coleman said he expe cted the redesign to boost advertising sales. “We’ve done a lot of research, a nd have tested the concept in the US, Sweden, and New Zealand,”Coleman said.

The move comes as Reader’s Digest Association Inc. has struggled to boost profits. But industry analysts said its problems stretch beyond changes that wer e needed at the magazine. Publishing industry executives and Wall Street analyst s have criticized the magazine for failing to attract the next generation of rea ders. The company says its average reader is about 47,the same as the age for th e weekly new magazines, “They’ve been looking for ways to make the magazine a li ttle bit more the ’90s than the ’50s,” said Doug Arthur at Morgan Stanley Dea n W itter & Co. “The company has to be addressing the response rate on its direct m a rketing campaign, ”where its main problems lie. The company earned USD 133.5 mi l lion on sales of USD 2.8 billion in the year which ended last June. But it said, when it reported results, that profits would fall in the current year.

In answer to a question, Coleman said the redesign was not done because of advertisers, although they were enthusiastic about the changes. “This is being done from a reader-driven standpoint, ”he said.

TEXT J

First read the following questions.

37. Words in both the OWF and Longman Activator are ___.

A. listed according to alphabetical order

B. listed according to use frequency

C. grouped according to similarities only

D. grouped according to differences only

38. To know the correct word for “boiling with a low heat”, you will pr obably turn to first ___.

A. page 10

B. page 99

C. page 100

D. page 448

Now go through TEXT J quickly and answer questions 37 and 38.

The Oxford Wordfinder (OWF)is a “production dictionary” designed for learn er s of English at Intermediate level and above, It is a useful tool with which to discover and encode (produce) meaning, rather than just to simply check the mean ing, grammar and pronunciation of words. The OWF encourages a reversal of the tr aditional role of the language learners’dictionary, which is normally to help decode and explain aspects of words that appear in a text.

The OWF is based upon similar lines to the ground breaking Longman Activato r in that words in each dictionary are not simply listed in alphabetical order. Instead, they are grouped according to their similarities and differences in bot h meaning and use. Twenty-three main groups of 630 “keywords” (concepts) in al ph abetical order, assist the learner in exploring semantic areas such as: “People ” , “Food and drink”, and “Language and Communication”. Each of these rather l arge areas contains cross-referencing in order to provide further helpful lexical in formation. Some of the keywords helpfully direct the learner to another keyword. Most keywords, however, have an index that shows how lexical items and their re lated terms are organized. Other keywords point to smaller sub-section headings whilst a few contain sections labeled “More”, which deal with less frequently occurring vocabulary.

The majority of words in the OWF are grouped together because they are clea rly related in meaning. Examples include: rucksack, “suitcase”, trunk and hol d- all, on page 28, under the keyword “Bag”. Other words are grouped together bec au se statistically they tend to “collocate”, i.e. appear in English very near, i f not next to each other. The reader would, more often than not, find them in the same sentence or phrase. Examples include those for “butter”, “spread” and “melt ”, and those for Television on page 448: “watching”, “turn on/off”and “pr ogramme”.

The OWF is an ideal supplementary resource for learners to engage in word-b uilding activities during topic based lessons. How is it best used? Let’s say t h e learner wishes to know the correct word for “boiling with a low heat”. The i nt ermediate learner, who will probably begin her search under “Cook” on page 99, l ocates the sub-section: “heating food in order to cook it” on page 100,then th e further sub-section “cooking food in water” and finally finds the definition f ol lowed by the word:—to boil slowly and gently: simmer. With the help of the OWF teachers could design a variety of such vocabulary exercises for a class, or eve n go on to designing a vocabulary-based syllabus.

Definitions in the OWF are, as with all good dictionaries, concise but cle ar. They are obviously written according to a controlled defining vocabulary. Li nguistic varieties are also taken into consideration: formal/in formal labels ar e provided and, where it occurs, American English (AmE) is pointed out, e. g. fo r alcohol, liquor in AmE on page 10. The OWF also contains many drawings that ou tline meaning where words could not possibly do so or would require too much spa ce. Items chosen for inclusion in the OWF, along with example phrases outlining meaning are, it is assumed, based on evidence of frequency from a carefully cons tructed linguistic corpus, although this is not made clear.

TEXT K

First read the following questions.

39. Students who wish to take courses in Dutch or French ___.

A. should pass the TOEFL test first

B. must speak Dutch or French fluently

C. may receive language training

D. must have a good command of English

40. Belgian universities do NOT offer courses on ___.

A. medical sciences

B. computer science

C. political and social sciences

D. archaeology and art sciences

Now go through TEXT K quickly and answer questions 39 and 40.

To qualify to study in Belgium, it is essential to meet relevant requireme nts in (1) academic credentials, (2)linguistic skills, (3) academic objectives and (4) financial resources. Let us review these four points:

1. Academic credentials

Equivalence and admissibility of degrees will be assessed according to Belgian l aw and individual university regulations. Please submit a copy of your degree wi th a translation to the chosen university’s admission board.

2. Language skills

Chinese students who wish to follow courses in Dutch or French must realize that a superficial knowledge of the language will not do. The ability to speak Dutch or French is imperative in order to follow lectures and to pass examinations. A preparatory year of language instruction is available in some universities for already enrolled students. Please apply for information at the university of you r choice. Students who wish to attend lectures in English (post-academic trainin g international courses)must of course have a good command of that language. Uni versities will inform you about their individual TOEFL requirements.

3. Programmes

Belgian universities offer basic academic courses, advance academic training cou rses, doctoral programmes, post-academic training and various international stud y programmes (Master’s) in the field of technology, law, economics and applied e conomics, political and social sciences, dentistry, pharmaceutical sciences, lan guage and literature/history, archaeology and art sciences, psychology and educa tional sciences, medical sciences, engineering and applied biological sciences.

4. Financing

Although precise determination of study and living expenses depends on individua l life style, one can assess that about 350,000 Belgian Francs (BEF)( about 88,0 00 RMB) is necessary for one year’s study. This amount should include books, ho u sing, food, transport, and health insurance. It does not include registration fe es which can vary from about 25,000 BEF for a student under scholarship to 290,0 00 BEF for a self-financing student, according to the chosen study program.

Part ⅣTranslation (60 min)

SECTION A CHINESE TO ENGLISH

Translate the following underlined part of the text into English. Write your tra nslation on ANSWER SHEET THREE.

中国科技馆的诞生来之不易。与国际著名科技馆和其他博物馆相比，它先天有些不足，后天也常缺乏营养，但是它成长的步伐却是坚实而有力的。它在国际上已被公认为后起之秀。

世界上第一代博物馆属于自然博物馆，它是通过化石、标本等向人们介绍地球和各种生物的演化历史。第二代属于工业技术博物馆，它所展示的是工业文明带来的各种阶段性结果。这两代博物馆虽然起到了传播科学知识的作用，但是，它们把参观者当成了被动的旁观者。

世界上第三代博物馆是充满全新理念的博物馆。在这里，观众可以自己去动手操作，自己细心体察。这样，他们可以更贴近先进的科学技术，去探索科学技术的奥妙。

中国科技馆正是这样的博物馆!它汲取了国际上一些著名博物馆的长处，设计制作了力学、光学、电学、热学、声学、生物学等展品，展示了科学的原理和先进的科技成果。

SECTION B ENGLISH TO CHINESE

Translate the following text into Chinese. Write your translation on ANSWER SH EET THREE.

If people mean anything at all by the expression “untimely death”, they m us t believe that some deaths nm on a better schedule than others. Death in old age is rarely called untimely—a long life is thought to be a full one. But with th e passing of a young person, one assumes that the best years lay ahead and the m easure of that life was still to be taken.

History denies this, of course. Among prominent summer deaths, one recalls those of MariLarry Monroe and James Deans, whose lives seemed equally brief and co mplete. Writers cannot bear the fact that poet John Keats died at 26, and only h alf playfully judge their own lives as failures when they pass that year. The id ea that the life cut short is unfulfilled is illogical because lives are measure d by the impressions they leave on the world and by their intensity and virtue.

Part ⅤWriting (60 min)

Some people simply see education as going to schools or colleges, or as a m eans to secure good jobs; most people view education as a lifelong process. In y our opinion, how important is education to modem man?

Write a composition of about 300 words on the following topic:

EDUCATION AS A LIFELONG PROCESS

In the first part of your writing you should present your thesis statement, and in the second part you should support the thesis statement with appropriate deta ils. In the last part you should bring what you have written to a natural conclu sion or a summary.

Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriacy. Failur e to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.

Write your composition on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.