1、专业英语八级模拟试卷 254及答案与解析 SECTION A MINI-LECTURE Directions: In this section you sill hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after the mini-lecture.
2、 When the lecture is over, you will be given two minutes to check your notes, and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE. Use the blank sheet for note-taking. 0 Tennis During the first 50 years of its history, tennis was largely a pastime of【 1】 _ 【 1】 _ people. Its
3、 widespread popularity began with the growth of【 2】 _. This happened 【 2】 _ immediately after the major national championships became【 3】 _ events. 【 3】 _ They began to accept professionals as well as amateurs. Soon industrial firms began to 【 4】 _ tournaments and offer large cash 【 4】 _ prizes. The
4、 turning point came in 1968, when the British, with the final permission of the International Lawn Tennis Federation, transformed their Wimbledon championships to an open event. In the same year, they went a step further by erasing the【 5】 _ 【 5】 _ between amateurs and professionals. Women players d
5、emand for【 6】 _ prize money 【 6】 _ gained its first success in the United States Open in【 7】 _. With the introduction 【 7】 _ of【 8】 _ rackets, equipment for playing 【 8】 _ tennis needs not to be【 9】 _. Other 【 9】 _ reasons for tennis rising popularity include greater media coverage and peoples incre
6、asing interest in physical【 10】 _. 【 10】 _ 1 【 1】 2 【 2】 3 【 3】 4 【 4】 5 【 5】 6 【 6】 7 【 7】 8 【 8】 9 【 9】 10 【 10】 SECTION B INTERVIEW Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an intervie
7、w. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview. 11 According to Mr. Bacon, people keep snakes because _. （ A） they like them as pets （ B） they like them although they dont have them as pets （ C） they use them to
8、 frighten other people （ D） they are keen on snake meat 12 From the conversation, we can conclude that the RoyaI-RSPCA must be _. （ A） a zoo with various animals （ B） a market selling various animals （ C） an organization for the protection of animals （ D） an organization for the protection of childr
9、en 13 Animals are good for old peoples health in the sense that animals _. （ A） can look after them in hospital and home （ B） can be their good companions （ C） are more reliable than people （ D） can help them establish more social contacts 14 The lipstick marks on the animals heads show that people
10、_. （ A） are cruel with their animals （ B） spend more money on animals than on their children （ C） are treating their animals too well （ D） are making up their animals 15 According to Mr. Bacon, the best part of his job is _. （ A） the excitement involved with the possible danger （ B） the small amount
11、 of paper work （ C） the veterinary medicine （ D） the delivering of new animals SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. At the end of each news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the
12、 questions. 16 According to the news item, John Garang _ （ A） is the president of the Khartoum government （ B） is the vice president of the Khartoum government （ C） is the vice president of the southern states （ D） used to be No. 2 of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army 17 Before Spain withdrew its tr
13、oops from Iraq ,_Latin American countries had had troops stationed in the country. （ A） 1 （ B） 2 （ C） 3 （ D） 4 18 How many Salvadoran soldiers have died in Iraq so far? （ A） None. （ B） 1. （ C） 2. （ D） 3. 19 On John Howards agenda ,_would be his next stop. （ A） Doha （ B） Hong Kong （ C） London （ D） Wa
14、shington 20 According John Howard, it would be more important _ in order to help the poor countries. （ A） for the rich countries to increase their overseas aids （ B） for the rich countries to raise their moral standards （ C） for the rich countries to remove tile trade barriers （ D） for the rich coun
15、tries to increase their mean subsidies to poor overseas farmers 20 It was a little after 5 a. m. in my home when Jerzy Dudek, the Polish goalkeeper of Liverpool Football Club, saved a penalty from Andriy Shevchenko, a Ukrainian playing for AC Milan. The save ended the most exciting sporting event yo
16、u will ever see, secured for Liverpool the top European soccer championship for the first time in 21 years, and allowed me to breathe. Within seconds, my wife had called from London, and the e-mails started to flood in the first from TIMEs Baghdad bureau, others from Sydney, London, Washington and N
17、ew York. In my fumbled excitement, I misdialed my brothers phone number three times. Then Steven Gerrard, Liverpools captain, lifted the trophy, and behind the Cantonese chatter of the TV commentators I could just make out 40,000 Liverpudlian voices singing their clubs anthem, Youll Never Walk Alone
18、. And thats when I started to cry. Apart from the big, obvious things love, death, children most of the really walloping emotional highs and lows of my life have involved watching Liverpool. There was the ecstasy of being in the crowd when the club won the European championship in 1978, and the horr
19、or of settling down in my office for a 1985 European championship game only to watch Juventus fans get crashed to death when some Liverpool supporters rioted. Through long experience, my family has come to know that their chances of having a vaguely pleasant husband and father on any given Sunday de
20、pend largely on how Liverpool fared the previous day. But what on earth makes this lets admit it pretty unsophisticated devotion to the fortunes of men Ive never met and dont really want to so powerful? Fandom the obsessional identification with a sports team is universal. The greatest book ever on
21、the psychology of being a fan, Nick Hornbys Fever Pitch, was written about a London soccer team but easily translated into a film about the Boston Red Sox. Particularly in the U. S., it seems possible to be a fan of a team thats based far from where you have ever lived, but I suspect the origins of
22、my obsession are more common. I didnt have much choice in the matter. Both my parents were born in tiny row houses a stones throw from Liverpools stadium. My father took me to my first game as a small child, and from the moment I saw what was behind the familiar brick walls all those people ! That w
23、all of noise ! The forbidden, dangerous smells of cigarettes and beer ! I was hooked. We fans like to describe our passion in religious terms, as if the places our heroes play are secular cathedrals. Its easy to see why. When you truly, deeply love a sports team, you give yourself up to something bi
24、gger than yourself, not just because your individuality is rendered insignificant in the mass of the crowd, but because being a fan involves faith. No matter what its current form may be, your team is worthy of blind devotion - or will soon redeem itself. Belief is all. As Brooklyn Dodgers fans said
25、 in the 1950s: wait til next year. But as you get older, it becomes harder to believe. Yes, the Dodgers won the World Series in 1955; but they arent ever coming back from Los Angeles. Loss of faith can set in. That, however, is when you appreciate the deeper benefits of being a fan. For me, followin
26、g one soccer team has been the connective tissue of my life. I left Liverpool to go to college and have never had the slightest desire to live there again, but wandering around the world, living in seven different cities in three continents, my passion was the thing that gave me a sense of what “hom
27、e“ meant. Being a fan became a fixed point, wherever I lived; it was it is one of the two or three things that 1 think of as making me, well, me. But fandom does more than defeat distance and geography. It acts as a time machine. There is only one thing that I have done consistently for nearly 50 ye
28、ars, and that is support Liverpool. To be a fan is a blessing, for it connects you as nothing else can to childhood, and to everything and everyone that marked your life between your time as a child and the present. So when I sat in Hong Kong at dawn last week watching the game on TV, I didnt have t
29、o try to manufacture the tiny, inconsequential strands that make up a life. They were there all around me. Tea at my Grandmas after a game; a favorite uncle who died too young; bemused girlfriends who didnt get it (I married the one who did); the 21st birthday cake that my mother iced in Liverpools
30、colors; my tiny daughters in their first club shirts; the best friends with whom Ive long lost touch. What does being a fan mean? It means youll never walk alone. 25 Isnt it amazing how one person, sharing one idea, at the fight time and place can change the course of your lifes history? This is cer
31、tainly what happened in my life. When I was 14, I was hitchhiking from Houston, Texas, through El Paso on my way to California. I was following my dream, journeying with the sun. I was a high school dropout with learning disabilities and was set on surfing the biggest waves in the world, first in Ca
32、lifornia and then in Hawaii, where I would later live. Upon reaching downtown El Paso, I met an old man, a bum, on the street comer. He saw me walking, stopped me and questioned me as I passed by. He asked me if I was running away from home, I suppose because I looked so young. I told him, “Not exac
33、tly, sir,“ since my father had given me a ride to the freeway in Houston and given me his blessings while saying, “It is important to follow your dream and what is in your heart, son.“ The bum then asked me if he could buy me a cup of coffee. I told him, “No, sir, but a soda would be great.“ We walk
34、ed to a comer malt shop and sat down on a couple of swiveling stools while we enjoyed our drinks. After conversing for a few minutes, the friendly bum told me to follow him. He told me that he had something grand to show me and share with me. We walked a couple of blocks until we came upon the downt
35、own E1 Paso Public Library. We walked up its front steps and stopped at a small information stand. Here the bum spoke to a smiling old lady, and asked her if she would be kind enough to watch my things for a moment while he and I entered the library. I left my belongings with this grandmotherly figu
36、re and entered into this magnificent hall of learning. The bum first led me to a table and asked me to sit down and wait for a moment while he looked for something special amongst the shelves. A few moments later, he returned with a couple of old books under his arms and set them on the table. He th
37、en sat down beside me and spoke. He started with a few statements that were very special and that changed my life. He said, “There are two things that I want to teach you, young man, and they are these: “number one is to never judge a book by its cover, for a cover can fool you.“ He followed with, “
38、I bet you think Im a bum, dont you, young man?“ I said, “Well, uh, yes, I guess so, sir.“ “Well, young man, Ive got a little surprise for you. I am one of the wealthiest men in the world. I have probably everything any man could ever want. I originally come from the Northeast and have all the things
39、 that money can buy. But a year ago, my wife passed away, bless her soul, and since then I have been deeply reflecting upon life. I realized there were certain things I had not yet experienced in life, one of which was what it would be like to live like a bum on the streets. I made a commitment to m
40、yself to do exactly that for one year. For the past year, I have been going from city to city doing just that. So, you see, dont ever judge a book by its cover, for a cover can fool you.“ “Number two is to learn how to read, my boy, for there is only one thing that people cant take away from you, an
41、d that is your wisdom.“ At that moment, he reached forward, grabbed my right hand in his and put them upon the books hed pulled from the shelves. They were the writings of Plato and Aristotle immortal classics from ancient times. The bum then led me back past the smiling old woman near the entrance,
42、 down the steps and back on the streets near where we first met. His parting request was for me to never forget what he taught me. 30 It takes a while, as you walk around the streets of Nantes, a city of half a million people on the banks of the Loire River, to realize just what it is that is odd. T
43、hen you get it: there are empty parking slots, which is highly unusual in big French towns. Two decades of effort to make life more livable by dissuading people from driving into town has made Nantes a beacon for other European cities seeking to shake dependence on the automobile. The effects were c
44、lear recently during Mobility Week, a campaign sponsored by the European Union that prompted more than 1,000 towns across the Continent to test ways of making their streets, if not car- free, at least manageable. “That is an awfully difficult problem,“ acknowledges Joel Crawford, an author and leade
45、r of the “car free“ movement picking up adherents all over Europe. “You cant take cars oat of cities until there is some sort of alternative in place. But there are a lot of forces pointing in the direction of a major reduction in car use, like the rise in fuel prices, and concerns about global warm
46、ing.“ Last week, proclaiming the slogan “In Town, Without my Car !“ hundreds of cities closed off whole chunks of their centers to all but essential traffic. Nantes closed just a few streets, preferring to focus on alternatives to driving so as to promote “Clever Commuting“, the theme of this years
47、EU campaign. Volunteers pedaled rickshaws along the cobbled streets, charging passengers $1.20 an hour; bikes were available for free; and city workers encouraged children to walk to school along routes supervised by adults acting as Pied Pipers and picking up kids at arranged stops. The centerpiece
48、 is a state-of-the-art tramway providing service to much of the town, and a network of free, multistory parking lots to encourage commuters to “park and ride“. Rene Vincendo, a retired hospital worker waiting at one such parking lot for his wife to return from the city center, is sold. “To go into t
49、own, this is brilliant,“ he says. “I never take my car in now.“ It is not cheap, though. Beyond the construction costs, City Hall subsidizes fares to the tune of 60 million euros ($ 72 million) a year, making passengers pay only 40 percent of operating costs. That is the only way to draw people onto tra
