1、专业八级-492 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)I cry easily. I once burst into tears when the curtain came down on the Kirov Ballets “Swan Lake“. I still choke up every time I see a film of Roger Bannister breaking the “impossible“ four-minute mark for the mile. I figure
2、I am moved by witnessing men and women at their best; but they need not be great men and women, doing great things. Take the night, some years ago, when my wife and I were going to dinner at a friend“s house in New York city. It was sleeting. As we hurried toward the house, with its welcoming light,
3、 I noticed a car pulling out from the curb. Just ahead, another car was waiting to back into the parking spacea rare commodity in crowded Manhattan. But before he could do so another car came up from behind, and sneaked into the spot. That“s dirty pool , I thought; while my wife went ahead into our
4、friend“s house. I stepped into the street to give the guilty driver a piece of my mind. A man in work clothes rolled down the window. “Hey,“ I said, “this parking space belongs to that guy,“ I gestured toward the man ahead, who was looking back angrily. I thought I was being a good Samaritan, I gues
5、sand I remember that the moment I was feeling pretty manly in my new trench coat. “Mind your own business!“ the driver told me. “No,“ I said. “You don“t understand. That fellow was waiting to back into this space.“ Things quickly heated up, until finally he leaped out of the car. My God, he was colo
6、ssal. He grabbed me and bent me back over the hood of his car as if I was a rag doll. The sleet stung my face. I glanced at the other driver, looking for help, but he gunned his engine and hightailed it out of there. The huge man shook his rock of a fist of me, brushing my lip and cutting the inside
7、 of my mouth against my teeth. I tasted blood. I was terrified. He snarled and threatened, and then told me to beat it. Almost in a panic, I scrambled to my friend“s front door. As a former Marine, as a man, I felt utterly humiliated. Seeing that I was shaken, my wife and friends asked me what had h
8、appened. All I could bring myself to say was that I had had an argument about a parking space. They had the sensitivity to let it go at that. I sat stunned. Perhaps half an hour later, the doorbell rang. My blood ran cold. For some reason I was sure that the bruiser had returned for me. My hostess g
9、ot up to answer it, but I stopped her. I felt morally bound to answer it myself. I walked down the hallway with dread. Yet I knew I had to face up to my fear. I opened the door. There he stood, towering. Behind him, the sleet came down harder than ever. “I came back to apologize,“ he said in a low v
10、oice. “When I got home, I said to myself, what right I have to do that? I“m ashamed of myself. All I can tell you is that the Brooklyn Navy Yard is closing. I“ve worked there for years. And today I got laid off. I“m not myself. I hope you“ll accept my apology.“ I often remember that big man. I think
11、 of the effort and courage it took for him to come back to apologize. He was man at last. And I remember that after I closed the door, my eyes blurred, as I stood in the hallway for a few moments alone.（分数：20.00）(1).Which of the following does “dirty pool“ in the second paragraph stand for?（分数：5.00）
12、A.The car was waiting to back into the place.B.It had been sleeting all the time that night.C.Another car sneaked into the parking spot.D.The driver left the parking place quickly.(2).Which of the following contains a simile?（分数：5.00）A.He grabbed me and bent me back over the hood of his car as if I
13、was a rag doll.B.Things quickly heated up, until finally he leaped out of the car.C.But before he could do so another car came up from behind, and sneaked into the spot.D.I thought I was being a good Samaritan, I guessand.(3).What touched the writer in the end?（分数：5.00）A.The big man“s courage.B.The
14、big man“s sincerity.C.The big man“s experience.D.The big man“s masculinity.(4).How did the author“s wife and friend respond to the incident?（分数：5.00）She almost did not run. Christine Williams admits that now. She could barely put one foot after another following the wake for her sister, who had died
15、 in an automobile accident. But she did run. With the cheers of friends and strangers reaching her heart, Williams set a C. W. Post record nine days ago in Boston. Now she will run again, on Saturday in the national Division II cross-country championships in Evansville, Ind. She wanted to be sure sh
16、e was doing the right thing by running. She was the middle of three sisters, between Kerry, who is 25, and Jennifer, who was 18. Just going through any motions was hard enough, but Christine Williams wanted to know if she should put on her uniform and her shoes and run through the woods on an autumn
17、 afternoon, in the awful gaping time between her sister“s wake and her funeral. “I kind of got upset beforehand,“ Williams admitted Monday. Not a chatterbox under normal conditions, she now holds herself the best way she can, the fewer words the better. She almost walked away from the start line. Bu
18、t her friend Angela Toscano, who had flown up to Boston with her, directly from the wake, was standing near the line and talked her through it. “She said my sister would have wanted me to run,“ Christine said. And that was enough to get her started. The accident happened just after midnight on Nov.
19、4. Four young women were driving in an unfamiliar area of Long Island in Eastport, N.Y., when one of them apparently ran a yield sign, and the car was hit by another vehicle. Heather Brownrigg of Islip and Jennifer Williams died, and their friends April Brown and Kaci Moran, each from Bay Shore, wer
20、e treated at a hospital and released. The driver of the other car also walked away. “Two girls did survive,“ Jennifer“s father, Ed, said with the positive tone of a parent who knows that every daughter“s life is precious. The crash made the papers. April Brown was charged with driving while intoxica
21、ted and driving without a license. The family could have done without the remarks in The New York Post that the four friends were known as “party girls.“ Ed Williams said of his youngest daughter: “I never knew her to drink, and I never knew her to take drugs. They probably did stop and drink a few
22、beers.“ At the wake on Nov. 6, Brown was welcomed by the Williams family. “It was a little hard,“ Ed Williams said, “but it was an accident. Nobody was to blame, really. Jennifer just wasn“t lucky.“ The family had to make a decision. Ed and Debbie Williams have barely missed a track meet of Christin
23、e“s since she gave up cheerleading midway through Bay Shore High to concentrate on running. The wake began Saturday evening. The next day Christine was to run with the Post cross-country team at the regional meet. “Her mom said it was about the team,“ said Rich Degnan, the Post coach. “They were wor
24、ded about letting down the team.“ Degnan and Post officials offered a car service and tickets on the last flight to Boston on Saturday night for Christine and Toscano. When they arrived at the hotel, the entire team was waiting up for her. Everybody knew about it at the regional meet. Degnan had to
25、arrange for the flexibility of an alternate, just in case Christine could not go. The other teams agreed, unanimously. Not only that, but they all rooted for Christine. Runners and coaches and family members, wearing a multitude of team colors, all cheered for the Post runner in green and yellow. “T
26、here was a lot of positive energy flowing,“ Degnan said. “If their runner couldn“t win, they wanted Christine to win.“ Several times during the race, Christine felt she could not continue. But then she heard her friends and all those other people, those strangers from other colleges, calling her nam
27、e. She thought about Jennifer. And she ran. She finished fourth in 22 minutes 58 seconds, breaking the Post record for the six-kilometer distance by 15 seconds. And although the Post team did not qualify for the nationals, Christine did. The parents and the older daughter will fly to Indiana to watc
28、h Christine run in the nationals at 1 p.m. on Saturday. They surely know this race is keeping them going. “I“m just taking it one day at a time,“ said Christine, who admitted she has been feeling the stress. “I want to say, I“m just very proud of her,“ Ed Williams said. “I knew she had ability but w
29、hen the accident happened, I was concerned. She did beyond what I thought. I just hope she has one good race left.“（分数：20.00）(1).The efforts Christine“s Post team made for her include the following aspects EXCEPT -|_|-.（分数：5.00）A.offering car service and flight tickets to BostonB.arranging for a sub
30、stitute for her beforehandC.taking care of her food and uniformsD.cheering for her during the race(2).Which of the following details about Christine Williams is INCORRECT?（分数：5.00）A.Her youngest sister was killed in a car accident.B.She flew to Boston for the race directly from her sister“s wake.C.S
31、he broke the Post record in regional meet in Boston.D.Her Post team finally qualified for Nationals in Indiana.(3).The narrative skill employed in the whole story is -|_|-.（分数：5.00）A.depictionB.flashforwardC.flashbackD.narration with flashbacks(4).What was the direct cause of the car crash?（分数：5.00）
32、When I am in a serious humor , I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey, where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather tho
33、ughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he
34、 was born upon one day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left n
35、o other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head. Th
36、e life of these men is finely described in holy writ by “the path of an arrow,“ which is immediately closed up and lost. Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermix with
37、 a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, prie
38、sts and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed this great magazine
39、 of mortality, as it were, in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be ac
40、quainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelve month. In the poetical quarter, I found
41、 there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom
42、 of the ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honor to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness
43、of a nation, from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius, before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel“s monument has very often given me great offence: instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was
44、 the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument, for instead of celebrating the many remarkable
45、actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honor. The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings a
46、nd works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of seaweed, shells, and coral.
47、（分数：20.00）(1).The relationship between the second and third paragraphs is that -|_|-.（分数：5.00）A.each presents one side of the background information of the deadB.the second generalizes and the third gives examplesC.the third is the further development of the secondD.both present the author“s disagre
48、ements on the inscription(2).According to the third paragraph, which of the following statements is INCORRECT?（分数：5.00）A.Every epitaph on the tomb is overstated.B.Some epitaphs are modest while others are exaggerated.C.There are accounts on the monuments.D.The owners of some monuments are not clear.
49、(3).As for epitaphs, which of the following is NOT true?（分数：5.00）A.It may honor both the living and the dead.B.The author was unhappy with modern epitaphs.C.There are inscriptions on the monuments.D.Epitaphs may reflect one“s idea of a nation.(4).What“s the meaning of “humor“ in the first paragraph?（分数：5.00）Proponents of different jazz styles have always argued that their predecessors“ musical style did not include essential characteristics that define jazz as jazz. Thus, 1940“s swing was belittled by beboppers of the 1950“s, who were themselves
