专业八级-477及答案解析.doc

1、专业八级-477 及答案解析(总分：99.98，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：5，分数：100.00)It is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are givi

2、ng in to English, something really big must be going on. And something big is going on. Partly, it“s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French ecommerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He a

3、nd other French businessmen also have to speak English because they want to get their message out to American investors, possessors of the world“s deepest pockets. The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on something more enduring. As they become entwined with eac

4、h other politically and economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the world. And for a number of reasons, they“ve decided upon English as their common tongue. So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with French competitor Rhone-Poulenc las

5、t year, the companies chose the vaguely Latinate Aventis as the new company nameand settled on English as the company“s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest rates for the new Euroland, they he

6、ld their deliberations in English. Even the European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-speaking bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year. How did this happen? One school attributes English“s great success to the sheer weight

7、of its merit. It“s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Ger

8、manic grammar were shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more efficiently than either of its parents. What“s more, English has remained ungoverned and open to changeforeign words, co

9、inages, and grammatical shiftsin a way that French, ruled by the purist Academic Francaise, has not. So it“s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economics as to the language“s ability to economica

10、lly express the concept win-win. What happened is that the competitionfirst Latin, then French, then, briefly, Germanfaded with the waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Br

11、itain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world“s most important financial centre, which made English a key language for business. England“s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global reach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the stat

12、us of the world“s preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the obvious second language to learn. In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English. The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn“t studied English in schoo

13、l was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done. Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappeari

14、ng, meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along. The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get i

15、n on it, you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now coming into contact with it daily. None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the European Union, 47% of

16、 Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak English well enough to carry on a conversation. That“s a lot more than those who can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don“t speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do i

17、t in French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the U.S. and British media companies that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their betsCNN broadcasts in Spanish; the Financial Times has recently launched a daily German-language edition. But just look at who speaks Eng

18、lish: 77% of Western European college students, 69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the European Union“s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English, all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European business hasn

19、“t been all that traumatic, and it“s only going to get easier in the future.（分数：19.98）(1).Europeans began to favour English for all the following reasons EXCEPT its -|_|-.（分数：3.33）A.inherent linguistic propertiesB.association with the business worldC.finks with the United StatesD.disassociation from

20、 political changes(2).French lost its dominant status as an international language for -|_|-.（分数：3.33）A.religious reasonsB.political reasonsC.economic reasonsD.military reasons(3).Which of the following statements forecasts the continuous rise of English in the future?（分数：3.33）A.About half of Wester

21、n Europeans are now proficient in English.B.U.S. and British media companies are operating in Western Europe.C.Most secondary school students in Europe study English.D.Most Europeans continue to use their own language.(4).The passage mainly examines the factors related to -|_|-.（分数：3.33）A.the rising

22、 status of English in EuropeB.English learning in non-English-speaking E.U. nationsC.the preference for English by European businessmenD.the switch from French to English in the European Commission(5).In the author“s opinion, what really underlies the rising status of English in France and Europe?（分

23、数：3.33）(6).What does the author want to show by using the example of CNN broadcasting in Spanish?（分数：3.33）Hostility 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 i

24、s 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

25、 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 tra

26、vels 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 fortunetelling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctiv

27、e 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 slaveryit wasn“t until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hyst

28、eria, 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 conf

29、ounded 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 underc

30、ounted, 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 exp

31、ressed no great desire for a country to call their ownunlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. “Romanestan,“ said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, “is where my two feet stand.“（分数：19.00）(1).In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all t

32、he following EXCEPT -|_|-.（分数：4.75）A.the EgyptiansB.the stateC.the churchD.the Nazis(2).According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of -|_|-.（分数：4.75）A.languageB.cultureC.identityD.custom(3).Which of the following is NOT true about the histor

33、y of the Gypsies?（分数：4.75）A.The origin of the Gypsies can only be guessed from their language.B.Europeans had thought that the Gypsies originated from Egypt.C.Some people had thought that the Gypsies might disappear as a distinct nationality.D.There was once a country of the Gypsies in northern Indi

34、a.(4).Under what circumstances would Gypsies unite?（分数：4.75）WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the ba

35、sic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries will want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years“ time a revised version of the whole

36、 caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography , will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade. When Dr. Nicholls wrote t

37、o The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to “other quality newspapers“ too.) As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the

38、professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn“t file copy on time; some who did sent too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr. Nicholls. There remains the dinner-party game of who“s in, who“s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue

39、 to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie i

40、s in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons ) notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to

41、be caught by telegraphy (he had tried to escape by ship to America). It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known. Of Hugo

42、of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments, “Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility“. Then there had to be more women, too (12 per ce

43、nt, against the original DNB“s 3), such as Roy Strong“s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks, “Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory“. Doesn“t seem to qualify her as a memorabl

44、e artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, “except for the entry in the List of Con

45、tributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke“.（分数：20.00）(1).The writer suggests that there is no sense in buying the latest volume -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.because it is not worth the priceB.because it has fewer entries than beforeC.unless one has all the volumes in his collectionD.unless an expanded DNB wil

46、l come out shortly(2).Crippen was absent from the DNB -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.because he escaped to the U.S.B.because death sentence had been abolishedC.for reasons not clarifiedD.because of the editors“ mistake(3).Throughout the passage, the writer“s tone towards the DNB was -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.complimentary

47、B.supportiveC.sarcasticD.bitter(4).On the issue of who should be included in the DNB, what does the writer suggest?（分数：4.00）(5).What is the role of the entries quoted in the last paragraph?（分数：4.00）The decline of civility and good manners may be worrying people more than crime, according to Gentilit

48、y Recalled , edited by Digby Anderson, which laments the breakdown of traditional codes that once regulated social conduct. It criticises the fact that “manners“ are scorned as repressive and outdated. The result, according to Mr. Andersondirector of the Social Affairs Unit, an independent think-tan

49、kis a society characterised by rudeness: loutish behaviour on the streets, jostling in crowds, impolite shop assistants and bad-tempered drivers. Mr. Anderson says the cumulative effect of theseapparently trivial, but often offensiveis to make everyday life uneasy, unpredictable and unpleasant. As they are encountered far more often than crime, they can cause more anxiety than crime. When people lament the disintegration of law and order, he argues, what they gene