1、专业八级-473 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：5，分数：100.00)One school night this month I sidled up to Alexander, my 15-year-old son, and stroked his cheek in a manner I hoped would seem casual. Alex knew better, sensing by my touch, which lingered just a moment too long, that I was s
2、neaking a touch of the stubble that had begun to sprout near his ears. A year ago he would have ignored this intrusion and returned my gesture with a squeeze. But now he recoiled, retreating stormily to his computer screen. That, and a peevish roll of his eyes, told me more forcefully than words, Mo
3、m, you are so busted! I had committed the ultimate folly: invading my teenager“s personal space. “The average teenager has pretty strong feelings about his privacy,“ Lara Fox, a recent young acquaintance, told me with an assurance that brooked no debate. Her friend Hilary Frankel chimed in: “What Al
4、ex is saying is: “This is my body changing. It“s not yours.“ Intruding, however discreetly, risked making him feel babied “at a time when feeling like an adult is very important to him,“ she added. O.K., score one for the two of you. These young women, after all, are experts. Ms. Frankel and Ms. Fox
5、, both 17, are the authors of Breaking the Code (New American Library), a new book that seeks to bridge the generational divide between parents and adolescents. It is being promoted by its publisher as the first self-help guide by teenagers for their parents, a kind of Kids Are From Mars, Parents Ar
6、e From Venus that demystifies the language and actions of teenagers. The girls tackled issues including curfews, money, school pressures, smoking and sibling rivalry. Personally, I welcomed insights into teenagers from any qualified experts, and that included the authors. The most common missteps in
7、 interacting with teenagers, they instructed me, stem from the turf war between parents asserting their right to know what goes on under their roof and teenagers zealously guarding their privacy. When a child is younger, they write, every decision revolves around the parents. But now, as Ms. Fox tol
8、d me, “often your teenager is in this bubble that doesn“t include you.“ Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel acknowledge that they and their peers can be quick to interpret their parents“ remarks as dismissive or condescending and respond with hostility that masks their vulnerability. “What we want above all is
9、your approval,“ they write. “Don“t forget, no matter how much we act as if we don“t care what you say, we believe the things you say about us.“ Nancy Samalin, a New York child-rearing expert and the author of Loving Without Spoiling (McGraw-Hill, 2003), said she didn“t agree with everything the auth
10、ors suggested but found their arguments reasonable. “When your kids are saying, “You don“t get it, and you never will,“ there are lots of ways to respond so that they will listen,“ she said, “and that“s what the writers point out.“ As for my teenager, Alex, Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel told me I would ha
11、ve done better to back off or to have asked “Is your skin feeling rougher these days?“ A more successful approach, the authors suggest in their book, would have been for the mother to offer, as Ms. Fox“s own parents did, a later curfew once a month, along with an explanation of her concerns. “My par
12、ents helped me see,“ Ms. Fox told me, “that even though they used to stay out late and ride their bicycles to school, times have changed. These days there is a major fear factor in bringing up kids. Parents worry about their child crossing the street.“ The writers said they hoped simply to shed ligh
13、t on teenage thinking. For their parents it did. Reminded by Ms. Fox that teenagers can be quite territorial, her father, Steven Fox, a dentist, said, “These days I“m better about knocking on the door when I want to come into Lara“s room.“ “I try to talk to her in a more respectful way, more as an a
14、dultish type of teenager rather than a childish type of teenager,“ he added.（分数：20.00）(1).The book Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus is mentioned in the third paragraph because -|_|-.（分数：5.00）A.it has the same theme of the book written by the two girlsB.it has the opposite opinion to the bo
15、ok written by the two girlsC.it has ranked first on the list of best sellers for several timesD.it is another book that the two girls have ever written(2).As to the views mentioned in the two girls“ book, the author believes that -|_|-.（分数：5.00）A.they provide some approaches to her child-rearingB.th
16、ey revealed thought patterns of teenagers and parentsC.they have obtained unanimous support from the publicD.they have overestimated the rights of teenagers(3).Which of the following words best describes teenagers as seen by the two girls?（分数：5.00）A.Independent.B.Arrogant.C.Sensitive.D.Isolated.(4).
17、What does the sentence “You don“t get it, and you never will“ (6th paragraph) imply?（分数：5.00）Whom can you trust these days? It is a question posed by David Halpern of Cambridge University, and the researchers at the Downing Street Strategy Unit who take an interest in “social capital“. At intervals
18、they go around asking people in assorted nations the question: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted?“ The results are fascinating. The conclusion that leaps from the figures and into sensational headlines is that social dislocation, religious decline, pubic scandals, fa
19、mily fragmentation and the fear of crime have made us less trusting. Comparative surveys over 40 years suggest that British trustfulness has halved: in the 1950s 60 percent of us answered “yes, most people can be trusted“, in the 1980s 44 percent, today only 29 percent. Trust levels also continue to
20、 fall in Ireland and the USmeanwhile, the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and Dutch express tremendous confidence in one another“s probity: levels are actually rising. And the Palme d“Or for paranoid mutual suspicion goes to the Brazilianswith less than 3 percent replying “yes“and the Turks with 6.5 perce
21、nt. The French, apparently, never trusted one another and still don“t. So we become less Scandinavian and more French (or Turkish) every year. Regarding Britain, the obvious conclusions are being drawn. Mr. Halpern and others cite reasons why we appear less trustful: the demise of the job-for-life c
22、ulture, rising divorce, physical mobility, higher immigration, an aggressive commercial ethic and the new isolation of mass media. This is useful research, but there are a few caveats. The trouble is that you may not get a very thoughtful answer if you merely askas they did last yearwhether “general
23、ly speaking, most people can be trusted“. For the British like to think of themselves as canny, savvy, nobody“s fools, we have a powerful culture of satire and a hypercritical media which gleefully splash news of every private and public betrayal, however trivial. In our fantasy life we court parano
24、ia, lapping up crime thrillers and spy novels. We are fascinated by rogues, from Chaucer“s Pardoner to Del Boy. We are bad at risk-assessment, and repeated surveys show that we fear crime far more than is justified. So we are conditioned to claim that we don“t trust people much. A Scandinavian or Du
25、tchman is proud to express trust and affection for his fellow-man. Our national preference is to purse the lips, shake the head and affect an air of judicious canniness. But if you look at the actual daily workings of British society there is an astonishing degree of unquestioning trust of strategie
26、s, simply because we are a technological society. These respondents who tell the researchers that “generally speaking, people cannot be trusted“ are in fact blithely trusting distant strangers all day long. For example, every time you get on a train or plane you put your life into the hands of unsee
27、n engineers and designers, drivers, pilots and traffic controllers. The list of our trustful ways goes on and on. Twenty minutes“ contemplation of the simple scares uncovered by the BBC Watchdog should suggest that rather than living in a state of constant suspicion, in many areas of life we are rel
28、axed to the point of gullibility. But ask the bald question, and we think immediately about those who publicly let us down: politicians who broke election promises, pension funds that jeopardized our future while their directors swanned off with bonuses, stars who turned sleazy. This is not entirely
29、 healthy. What we say will, in the end, become what we think. US evidence is denser than ours, but broadly speaking it is clear that trust is linked to “social capital“networks, alliances, local societies, anything that takes people out into common places. Mr. Halpern“s book will come to more inform
30、ed conclusions than I can; but my own instinct, from the research and from observation, is to draw only two. Firstly, we“re not quite as cynical as we say we are, and nothing like as cynical as our media. Secondly, the worst crisis of trust is not actually between citizens, but between citizens and
31、their government and institutions. The remedy for that is in the hands of politicians, who ought to police their own ambition and greed and that of their corporate friends. Interference from the top is a lousy idea. Example from the top would be much better.（分数：20.00）(1).The British have lowered tru
32、stfulness NOT because of -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.strained relations in the familyB.the increasing social crimesC.infamous deeds of celebritiesD.the society in a state of disorder(2).The author“s attitude towards Halpern“s research is that of -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.blanket approvalB.slight antipathyC.strong disap
33、provalD.slight disapproval(3).The following statements about Scandinavians or Britons are true EXCEPT -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.Scandinavians are generally frank and openB.Britons are very fond of satirical artC.Scandinavians pretend to be shrewdD.Britons might underestimate the hazard(4).How does the author
34、 think the British tend to be in many areas of life?（分数：4.00）(5).What does the author imply at the end of the passage?（分数：4.00）The exasperated helpline caller said she couldn“t get her new Dell Computer to turn on. A Dell Computer Corp technician made sure the computer was plugged in and then asked
35、the woman what happened when she pushed the power button. “I“ve pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens,“ the woman replied. “Foot pedal?“ the technician asked. “Yes,“ the woman said, “this little white foot pedal with the on switch.“ The “foot pedal“, it turned out, was the compute
36、r“s mouse, a hand-operated device that helps to control the computer“s operations. Personal computer makers are discovering that it“s still a low-tech world out there. While they are finally having great success selling PCs to households, they now have to deal with people to whom monitors and disk d
37、rivers are as foreign as another language. “It is rather mystifying to get this nice, beautiful machine and not know anything about it,“ says a technician who helps field consumer calls at Dell“s headquarters here. “It“s going into unfamiliar territory. People are looking for a comfort level.“ Only
38、two years ago, most calls to PC helplines came from techniques needing help on complex problems. But now, with computer sales to homes exploding as new “multimedia“ functions gain mass appeal, PC makers say that as many as 70% of their calls come from rank novices. Partly because of the volume of ca
39、lls, some computer companies have started charging helpline users. The questions are often so basic that they could have been asked by opening the manual that comes with every machine. One woman called Dell“s toll-free line to ask how to install batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions
40、 were on the first page of the manual, the woman replied angrily. “I just spent $2,000 for this damn thing, and I“m not going to read a book.“ Indeed, it seems that these buyers barely refer to a manual when a phone is at hand. If there is a book and a phone and they“re side by side, the phone wins
41、time after time. It“s a phenomenon of people wanting to talk to people. And so they ever. Compaq“s help center in Houston, Texas, is inundated by some 8,000 consumer calls a day, with unbelievable inquiries like this one: A frustrated customer called, who said her brand new Compaq would not work. Sh
42、e had unpacked the unit, plugged it in, opened it up and, sat there for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, “What power switch?“ Seemingly simple computer features baffle some users. So many people have called to ask where the “any“ key is when
43、 “Press Any Key“ flashes on the screen that Compaq is considering changing the command to “Press Return Key“. Some people can“t figure out the mouse. One consumer complained that her mouse was hard to control with the “dust“ cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged
44、 in. Another consumer held the mouse and pointed it at the screen, all the while clicking madly. He got no response because the mouse works if it“s moved over a flat surface. Disk drivers are another bugaboo. A customer dutifully complied with a technician“s request that she send in a copy of defect
45、ive floppy disk. A letter from the customer arrived a few days later, along with a Xerox copy of the floppy. And at Dell, a technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and “close the door“. Asking the technician to “hold on“, the customer put the phone down and was h
46、eard walking over to shut the door to his room. The technician meant the door to his floppy drive. The software inside the computer can be equally befuddling. A Dell customer called to say he couldn“t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered th
47、e man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the “send“ key. Not realizing how fragile computers can be, some people end up damaging parts beyond repair. A Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it, he
48、said, filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking his keyboard for a day, and then removing all the keys and washing them individually. Computers make some people paranoid. A Dell technician, Morgan Vergara, says he once calmed a man who became enraged because “his computer had told him he wa
49、s bad and an invalid“; Mr. Vergara patiently explained that the computer“s “bad“ and “invalid“ responses shouldn“t be taken personally.（分数：20.00）(1).The woman at first took -|_|- as the power button.（分数：4.00）A.the plugB.the keyboardC.the mouseD.the foot pedal(2).The user did all of the following funny things EXCEPT that -|_|-.（分数：4.00）A.the user didn“t know how to switch on the computerB.the user regarded the keyboard as a remote controlC.the user spent much time looking for a keyD.t
