[外语类试卷]专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷134及答案与解析.doc

1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 134及答案与解析 SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are several 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. 0 Letty

2、 the old lady lived in a “Single Room Occupancy“ hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old losers, junkies, cockroaches and rats. Whenever she left her room a tiny cubicle with a cot, a chair, a seven-year-old calendar and a window so filthy it blended with the unspe

3、akable walls she would pack all her valuables in two large shopping bags and carry them with her. If she didnt, everything would disappear when she left the hotel. Her “things“ were also a burden. Everything she managed to possess was portable and had multiple uses. A shawl is more versatile than a

4、sweater, and hats are no good at all, although she used to have lots of nice hats, she told me. The first day I saw Letty I had left my apartment in search of a “bag lady“. I had seen these women round the city frequently, had spoken to a few. Sitting around the parks had taught me more about these

5、city vagabonds. As a group, few were eligible for social security. They had always been flotsam and jetsam, floating from place to place and from job to job waitress, short order cook, sales clerk, stock boy, maid, mechanic, porter all those jobs held by faceless people. The “bag ladies“ were a spec

6、ial breed. They looked and acted and dressed strangely in some of the most determinedly conformist areas of the city. They frequented Fourteen Street downtown, and the fancy shopping districts. They seemed to like crowds but remained alone. They held long conversations with themselves, with telephon

7、e poles, with unexpected cracks in the sidewalk. They hung around lunch counters and cafeterias, and could remain impervious to the rudeness of a determined waitress and sit for hours clutching a coffee cup full of cold memories. Letty was my representative bag lady. I picked her up on the corner of

8、 Fourteenth and Third Avenue. She had the most suspicious face I had encountered; her entire body, in fact, was pulled forward in one large question mark. She was carrying a double plain brown shopping bag and a larger white bag ordering you to vote for some obscure man for some obscure office and w

9、e began talking about whether or not she was an unpaid advertisement. I asked her if she would have lunch with me, and let me treat, as a matter of fact. After some hesitation and a few sharp glances over the top of her glasses, Letty the Bag Lady let me come into her life. We had lunch that day, th

10、e next, and later the next week. Being a bag lady was a full-time job. Take the problem of the hotels. You cant stay to long in any one of those welfare hotels, Letty told me, because the junkies figure out your routine, and when you get your checks, and youll be robbed, even killed. So you have to

11、move a lot. And every time you move, you have to make three trips to the welfare office to get them to approve the new place, even if its just another cockroach-filled, rat-infested hole in the wall. During the last five years, Letty tried to move every two or three months. Most of our conversations

12、 took place standing in line. New York State had just changed the regulations governing Medicaid cards and Letty had to get a new card. That took two hours in line, one hour sitting in a large dank-smelling room, and two minutes with a social worker who never once looked up. Another time, her case w

13、orker at the welfare office sent Letty to try and get food stamps, and after standing in line for three hours she found out she didnt qualify because she didnt have cooking facilities in her room. “This is my social life,“she said. “I run around the city and stand in line. You stand in line to see o

14、ne of them fancy movies and calling it art; I stand in line for medicine, for food, for glasses, for the cards to get pills, for the pills; I stand in line to see people who never see who I am; at the hotel, sometimes I even have to stand in line to go to the John. When I die therell probably be a l

15、ine to get through the gate, and when I get up to the front of the line, somebody will push it closed and say, Sorry. Come back after lunch. These agencies, I figure they have to make it as hard for you to get help as they can, so only really strong people or really stubborn people like me can survi

16、ve. “ Letty would talk and talk; sometimes, she didnt seem to know I was even there. She never remembered my name, and would give a little start of surprise whenever I said hers, as if it had been a long time since anyone had said “Letty. “ I dont think she thought of herself as a person, anymore; I

17、 think she had accepted the view that she was a welfare case, a Mediaid card, a nuisance in the bus depot in the winter time, a victim to any petty criminal, existing on about the same level as cockroaches. 1 Which of the following is closest in meaning to “ flotsam and jetsam“ in the second paragra

18、ph? （ A） Old losers. （ B） Junkies. （ C） Vagabonds. （ D） Bag ladies. 2 According to the second and third paragraphs, which of the following is NOT true about the bag ladies? （ A） They tend to congregate in crowded city centers. （ B） They sometimes work as unpaid advertisement for certain candidates.

19、（ C） They tend to dress and act in an eccentric way. （ D） They are often treated with contempt and indifference. 3 From the passage we can get the impression that Letty is all of the following EXCEPT_. （ A） suspicious （ B） rude （ C） talkative （ D） cynical 4 What is the authors attitude towards Letty

20、? （ A） Doubtful. （ B） Detached. （ C） Sympathetic. （ D） Appreciative. 4 About two-thirds of the worlds population is expected to live in cities by the year 2020 and, according to the United Nations, approximately 3.7 billion people will inhabit urban areas some ten years later. As cities grow, so do

21、the number of buildings that characterize them: office towers, factories, shopping malls and high-rise apartment buildings. These structures depend on artificial ventilation systems to keep clean and cool air flowing to the people inside. We know these systems by the term “air-conditioning“. Althoug

22、h many of us may feel air-conditioners bring relief from hot, humid or polluted outside air, they pose many potential health hazards. Much research has looked at how the circulation of air inside a closed environment such as an office building can spread disease or expose occupants to harmful chemic

23、als. One of the more widely publicised dangers is that of Legionnaires disease, which was first recognised in the 1970s. This was found to have affected people in buildings with air-conditioning systems in which warm air pumped out of the systems cooling towers was somehow sucked back into the air i

24、ntake, in most cases due to poor design. This warm air was, needless to say, the perfect environment for the rapid growth of disease-carrying bacteria originating from outside the building, where it existed in harmless quantities. The warm, bacteria-laden air was combined with cooled, conditioned ai

25、r and was then circulated around various parts of the building. Studies showed that even people outside such buildings were at risk if they walked past air exhaust ducts. Cases of Legionnaires disease are becoming fewer with newer system designs and modifications to older systems, but many older bui

26、ldings, particularly in developing countries, require constant monitoring. The ways in which air-conditioners work to “clean “the air can inadvertently cause health problems, too. One such way is with the use of an electrostatic precipitator, which removes dust and smoke particles from the air. What

27、 precipitators also do, however, is to emit large quantities of positive air ions into the ventilation system. A growing number of studies show that overexposure to positive air ions can result in headaches, fatigue and feelings of irritation. Large air-conditioning systems add water to the air they

28、 circulate by means of humidifiers. In older systems, the water used for this process is kept in special reservoirs, the bottoms of which provide breeding grounds for bacteria and fungi which can find their way into the ventilation system. The risk to human health from this situation has been highli

29、ghted by the fact that the immune systems of approximately half of workers in air-conditioned office buildings have developed antibodies to fight off the organisms found at the bottom of system reservoirs. Chemical disinfectants, called “ biocides“, that are added to reservoirs to make them germ-fre

30、e, are dangerous in their own right in sufficient quantities, as they often contain compounds such as pentachlorophenol, which is strongly linked to abdominal cancers. Finally, it should be pointed out that the artificial climatic environment created by air-conditioners can also adversely affect us.

31、 In a natural environment, whether indoor or outdoor, there are small variations in temperature and humidity. Indeed, the human body has long been accustomed to these normal changes. In an air-conditioned living or work environment, however, body temperatures remain well under 37 , our normal temper

32、ature. This leads to a weakened immune system and thus greater susceptibility to diseases such as colds and flu. 5 The word “inadvertently“ in the fourth paragraph probably means_. （ A） intentionally （ B） indeliberately （ C） definitely （ D） imminently 6 Which of the following substance can NOT be fo

33、und directly from an old ventilation system? （ A） Chemical disinfectants. （ B） Bacteria. （ C） Fungi. （ D） Pentachlorophenol. 7 Air-conditioning may have ill effect on human body in all of the following ways EXCEPT that_. （ A） much exposure may make people feel annoyed （ B） harmful chemicals in the v

34、entilation system may cause cancers （ C） much exposure to low temperature may cause immune diseases （ D） people may suffer from headache in an air-conditioned office 8 The main purpose of the passage is to_. （ A） introduce the dangers of air-conditioning （ B） explain the defects of old air-condition

35、ing （ C） illustrate how air-conditioning affects peoples health （ D） advocate abandoning old air-conditioning 8 The other day, I walked into an airport mens room, which was empty except for one man, who appeared to be having a loud, animated conversation with a urinal. Ten years ago, I would have tu

36、rned right around and walked briskly back out of there. One rule my parents stressed when I was a child was: “Never stay in a restroom with a man who talks to the plumbing.“ But, of course, as a modern human, I knew that this man was talking on his cell phone, using one of those earpiece thingies, w

37、ith the little microphone on the wire, the kind that people feel they must shout at, to make sure their vital messages are getting through. Its not clear to me why so many people in airports use the earpiece thingies. Why do they need to keep their hands free? Do they expect some emergency to sudden

38、ly arise that will require them to have both hands free while talking? Or maybe theyre afraid that if they hold the phone next to their head, the radiation will give them brain cancer. If so, an option they might consider is wrapping their heads in aluminum foil. Granted, this would make them look s

39、tupid. But not nearly as stupid as they look shouting into their earpiece wires. So anyway, there I was, in this restroom, standing maybe six feet from this guy, both of us facing the wall, him shouting at his urinal about some business thing involving specifications, and at some point he said “I sw

40、ear this is a direct quote I am handling it.“ This caused me to emit an involuntary snorting sound (not loud; certainly nowhere near as loud as this guy was talking; just a little snortlet), which caused the guy to stop talking and violating the No. 1 Guy Rule of Restroom Etiquette? turn his head an

41、d look directly at me, so I could see (using peripheral vision) that he was irritated by my rude interruption of his conversation. Then he went back to shouting at the urinal. The point is that every key element of this scenario the cell phone, the airplane, the zipper is made possible by technology

42、. We know that technology is a wonderful thing. But at what point does technology go too far? Is it fair to say that cell phones, if used thoughtfully and politely, are OK, but that if a person attaches an earpiece thingy and walks around shouting in public, bystanders should be allowed to snatch th

43、e wire and sprint off down the airport concourse, with the shouters earphone, and possibly even the shouters detached ear, bouncing gaily behind on the floor? I think we all agree that the answer is: Yes. When technology goes too far, ordinary citizens must take action. But the question is: How do w

44、e define “too far“? I will tell you. We define “too far“ as “when scientists start putting weapons on cockroaches.“ This is actually happening, according to an article in the Sept. 6 issue of Science magazine, brought to my attention by alert reader Richard Sweetman. This article states that researc

45、hers at the University of California at Berkeley have been “mounting tiny cannons on the backs of cockroaches.“ That is correct: These researchers have been outfitting live cockroaches with backpacks containing “plastic tubes filled with explosives.“ Of course, the researchers have a scientific reas

46、on for doing this: They are on LSD. No, really, it has something to do with figuring out how cockroaches have such good balance (You almost never see a cockroach fall off a bicycle.). The researchers have used their findings to construct a working robot roach that is, according to Science, the size

47、of a breadbox. Swell! If theres anything this world needs more than armed cockroaches, its giant, mechanized cockroaches! Newspaper story from the year 2010:“A homeowner in Santa Rosa, California, was found shot to death in his kitchen Friday. Police said the man apparently was felled by 500 rounds

48、of small-bore cannon fire, mostly in his ankles, indicating that this was the work of the gang of armed research cockroaches that escaped from a Berkeley lab. Police said the motive in the slaying was apparently a Ring Ding. In a related development, an escaped robot cockroach broke into an Oakland

49、Wal-Mart and made off with an estimated 17,000 AA batteries. “Ask yourself; Is that the kind of story you want to read in your newspaper? No, seriously, this is bad. We need somebody in authority to look into this right away. Maybe Dick Cheney could handle it. 9 We can infer from “Never stay in a restroom with a man who talks to the plumbing“ in Paragraph One that people_. （ A） presumed such a man was more or less insane （ B） were afraid that the man would talk to them （ C） thought there was something wrong wi