1、专业英语八级模拟试卷 548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 The Classical Sense of Good Government Politics plays an extremely important role in human society. Polit
3、ical philosophers started to discuss the quality of good government thousands of years ago Among the forerunners are Plato, Aristotle, and Machiavelli. . Platos Political Proposal A. It is an irony for Plato to discuss good government because he 1 politics. 【 1】_. B. Plato believed that political fr
4、eedom could not be helpful. In fact, they usually led to uncertainty and dangerous changes. C. Plato feared 2 because other disciplines are very orderly and predictable.【 2】_. D. In Platos opinion, justice consisted of everybody doing what he or she 3 by natural talent. 【 3】 _. . Aristotles Politica
5、l Proposal A. Aristotle believed that every state is a kind of 4 . 【 4】 _. B. Aristotle believed that people in a state would be rather similar, and did not foresee the ethnic and cultural diversity of modern states. C. Aristotle believed that polls, or 5 , is the highest state of 【 5】 _. human soci
6、al and political development; and can ensure good life for everybody. D. According to Aristotle, in order to achieve the best quality of life, people must try to 6 【 6】 _. . Stoicism and Machiavelli A. Stoicism means 7 one lives in. 【 7】 _. B. Stoicism believes that the world is made up of virtue an
7、d vice, and the world is a difficult and disorderly place where happiness is unusual C. Plato and Aristotle presented what politics 8 , but Machiavelli discussed 【 8】_. what politics 9 and how it actually functions. 【 9】 _. D. Machiavelli believed that just being 10 does not promise 【 10】 _. good le
8、adership. 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 interview. At the end of the interview yo
9、u will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview. 11 According to the interview, bow did people view the practices that favour boys at the expense of girls? （ A） People took it for granted. （ B） People always questioned this value. （ C） Girls do
10、less than the boys in the family. （ D） Boys need more nutrition than girls. 12 According to the interview, Saras grades have fallen probably because _. （ A） She was tired of the study at school. （ B） She didnt get enough to eat. （ C） She helped too much with the chores. （ D） She always slept in the
11、class. 13 According to the family tradition about food distribution, which of the following statements is NOT correct? （ A） Sara had less to eat than her elder brother. （ B） Saras mother had less to eat than her father. （ C） Sara had more to eat than her elder sister. （ D） Saras mother had less to e
12、at than her brother. 14 In the later part of the interview, if the family is short of food in the hungry season, how did the mother distribute the food? （ A） She served everybody equally. （ B） She served girls less food. （ C） She gave more food to the boys. （ D） She gave more food to the father. 15
13、The ultimate purpose of the interview is to _. （ A） make the parents be aware of the importance of equality in the family. （ B） make people know that girls and boys should be treated differently. （ C） find good solutions about how to study well in the school. （ D） find good solutions about how to so
14、lve a family quarrel. 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 questions. 16 The news is mainly about_. （ A） the histor
15、y of Germans in the World Cup Football Championships （ B） the performance of the teams in the World Cup Football Championship （ C） the victory of the host nation in the beginning （ D） the response of the football fans 16 It is hard to love ants. Spiders and scorpions excepted, they are probably our
16、least favorite insect. They give no honey; they do not brighten the air or chirp in hedgerows. Ants are small and dark and silent and live underground where they cannot be seen. They arc venomous and they bite. They teem and swarm, moving en masse, like robots, in cryptic legions. And they are ugly;
17、 their huge heads and tiny waists make their bodies seem like grotesque, anorexic versions of our own. The industry of ants is a constant reproach to us; their most surprising feature, their social organization, seems sinister and totalitarian. Only our luck in being several thousand times as big ke
18、eps us safe from them. And ants, needless to say, do not love us. They hardly even notice us. This is hard to take. They challenge our anthropocentrism. For them, it seems we are not very important. And that is the truth of the matter. Ants arc the most successful organisms in evolutionary history:
19、there are over 8,000 species, distributed everywhere on Earth except the polar regions. In Peru, 43 different kinds of ant have been recorded in a single tree. Compared with this, primates are just a flash in the pan. Ants antedate us and will undoubtedly outlast us. There are a million times more o
20、f them:10 million billion, it has been estimated, alive at any one timea quarter of a million for every acre of land on the Earths surface. The greatest number of ant species, and the most spectacular, are to be found in tropical rainforests and savannahs. It is a common but disconcerting experience
21、 in such places to witness an invasion of driver ants, a predatory tribe that hunts at night as well as in the day. Driver ants move in columns a foot or so in width and a hundred yards in length, each composed of millions of individual ants. Waking up in the darkness with a marauding column in your
22、 tent, it seems as though a thick black oiled rope is running over your bed, over you, across the wall and out again: an endless skein of insects, running along each others backs, antennae and mandibles threateningly erect. A column of driver ants will attack lizards, snakes, rodents, anything in it
23、s path. If you happen to be dead, the ants will eat you, too; if you are not, they will just bite you. With their preposterously over-developed jaws, individuals of the soldier castes that form the flank of the column can scissor human flesh with ease. These are the rottweilers of the myrmecological
24、 world. Ants can eat us, but we cannot eat them with any pleasure. Unlike termites (which have a rich oily taste something like pork scratchings), ants, with a tough outer layer of chitin and a nasty whiff of formic acid in their body tissues, are generally indigestible, except by other ants. Even a
25、nteaters prefer termites. Ants, furthermore, are resistant to hard radiation and, in the case of some species, industrial pollution; some can live in deserts; some can float; some can slow their metabolism down and survive under water for days on end. 17 The author feels that the fact that ants are
26、always working _. （ A） makes humans feel lucky （ B） makes humans feel guilty （ C） makes them appear sinister （ D） makes them hard to love 18 Apart from their great numbers, why does the writer call ants “the most successful organisms“? （ A） They do not need to take account of human beings. （ B） They
27、 challenge mankinds view that humans are the most important life form. （ C） There are thousands of them in every land on Earth. （ D） They existed before humans and will exist after we have gone. 19 How does the writer describe the feelings of someone who observes the approach of driver ants? （ A） Fr
28、ightened. （ B） Distressed. （ C） Insecure. （ D） Uneasy. 20 What creatures are best equipped to digest ants? （ A） Certain humans. （ B） Anteaters. （ C） Other ants. （ D） Termites. 一、 PART III GENERAL KNOWLEDGE (10 MIN) Directions: There are ten multiple-choice questions in this section. Choose the best
29、answer to each question. 21 During the_century when the Roman Empire fell, the Germanic Angles and Saxons invaded and conquered Britain. （ A） fifth （ B） eighth （ C） ninth （ D） eleventh 22 _is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare, and his representative works are plays
30、inspired by social criticism. （ A） George Gordon Byron （ B） D.H. Lawrence （ C） Oscar Wilde （ D） Bernard Shaw 23 _are also known as the Continental Divide. （ A） The Rocky Mountains （ B） The Appalachian Highlands （ C） The Coast Mountains （ D） The Blue Mountains 24 The word pen originally meant “feathe
31、r used for writing with ink“. Now it refers to any devise used for writing with ink. This is an example of （ A） degradation of meaning. （ B） broadening of meaning. （ C） narrowing of meaning. （ D） elevation of meaning. 25 _takes London as the setting in most of his novels. （ A） Dickens （ B） Hardy （ C
32、） Thackeray （ D） Defoe 26 Easter falls officially on the _ Sunday after the full moon of March. （ A） first （ B） second （ C） third （ D） fourth 27 Emily Bronte was most famous for _. （ A） Wuthering Heights （ B） Jane Eyre （ C） Oliver Twist （ D） Paradise Lost 28 Which of the following is an inflectional
33、 affix? （ A） dis-. （ B） over-. （ C） -ward （ D） -ing. 29 Canada is one Of the worlds greatest _ producers. （ A） coal （ B） timber （ C） fur （ D） wool 30 Numerous British political leaders take pride in their being graduates of _. （ A） Cambridge University （ B） the University of London （ C） Oxford Unive
34、rsity （ D） the University of Westminster 二、 PART IV PROOFREADING What is the purpose of government? How much government is good for us? And, perhaps most importantly, if we dont like our governments policies, how can we change or get rid of them? More than 2,000 years ago, people started to think ab
35、out these questions. Today, we are going to look at some of the classical sense about good government. Ill tell you something about three ancient political philosophers. They are Plato, Aristotle and stoicism represented by Machiavelli. The first figure on my list is Plato, a political philosopher l
36、iving in the 400s 13. C. Some people think it is an irony that one of the first meaningful statements of good government was written by Plato because he held strong dislike of and contempt for politics. Plato did not believe that the free political freedom could produce useful results or solve dispu
37、tes. He thought that in politics the decision-making process is frequently based less on reason than on what seems to be a good idea at the moment. Moreover, the problem with politics has much to do with what politics finally produces-namely uncertain and dangerous changes. Plato feared and hated ch
38、anges because he was aware that other disciplines, such as mathematics, are quite orderly and predictable. The correct sum of two numbers added together never changes. The fact that such a discipline is changeless, orderly, and predictable led Plato to conclude that the same sort of view ought to be
39、 applied to human society. So he preferred a harmonious society that needs no change. In order to achieve this, people must define justice properly in their society. In Platos most famous work, The Republic, justice consisted of each citizen doing what he or she does best by natural talent. The seco
40、nd figure is Aristotle, who is said to be a student of Plato. Early in his most famous work, Politics, Aristotle wrote that; Every state is as we see a sort of partnership, and every partnership is formed with a view to some good since all the actions of all mankind are done with a view to what they
41、 think to be good. Of course, Aristotle believed that population in this kind of state was relatively homogeneous; he did not foresee the ethnic and cultural diversity of most modern states. But he did fully understand that any state has to be a reflection of common interests and is the natural outc
42、ome of human association. Aristotle viewed the polls, or city-state, as the highest stage of human social and political development, and it can allow its citizens to find and live the good life. For Aristotle, the polis is the only place where the good life is possible, the only place where the indi
43、vidual can make a good life for hat or himself. Aristotle believed that self-respecting people would not consider living anywhere else but within the confines of political society. In his eyes, human beings are basically a gregarious species “and so even when men have no need of assistance from each
44、 other they still desire to live together.“ Once one is within the confines of the state, the critical question is how the best quality of life can be achieved. Aristotles formula is avoiding extremes. In a healthy society, each of us should know how much is too much to be good for us. Neither cowar
45、d nor rash people can rule a state successfully. It is those who are moderate who are actually best fit to govern and be governed. Besides, extremes of wealth and poverty, Aristotle believed are probably inevitable but should be kept minimal. He recommended a large and broadly based middle class as
46、a recipe for political stability. So much for Plato and Aristotle. Next we need to move on to the third figure, Machiavelli. Aristotles lifetime coincided with the collapse of the city state system, because the city-states could not resist the strength of the empires. By the time the Roman Empire wa
47、s fully established two to three centuries later, it was becoming obvious that political philosophy must take into account a huge political entity that included a heterogeneous population as large as tens of millions. At this time Stoicism came into being. Stoicism means accepting whatever the situa
48、tion is like. Politically, this trend viewed the world as tom between virtue and vice, and considered the world a difficult and disorderly place where personal security and happiness was unusual eases. Stoicism held that social or political rank is arbitrary and temporary, and often even a matter of
49、 luck, therefore, one Should accept ones status, whether high or low, and do the best one Could in the role one was assigned. The same principle applies to government and governing. If it is ones destiny to govern, one should do so without complaint. But Stoicism did provide a prescription for proper governance; a ruler should re
