1、专业英语八级模拟试卷 612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 Five Main Literary Movements in American History I. Transcendentalism born in【 B1】 _: the north eastern p
3、art of the US【 B1】 _ people can achieve spirituality without【 B2】 _【 B2】 _ individualism was highly praised Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature as a representative of the movement II. Romanticism spread from Britain and Germany centered on imagination and strong emotions American works include the supernatu
4、ral and focus on human【 B3】 _【 B3】 _ Edgar Allen Poe: best known for tales of【 B4】 _【 B4】 _ III. Realism started in France focused on events that were ordinary and typical rather than extraordinary many writers were also concerned with【 B5】 _【 B5】 _ Mark Twain: wrote about ordinary life in the【 B6】
5、_part of America【 B6】 _ IV. Naturalism had roots in France a persons behavior is influenced by【 B7】 _【 B7】 _ a person cannot escape his destiny or fate Jack London: humans behave like animals in【 B8】 _【 B8】 _ V. Modernism started in Europe probably can be described with the word【 B9】 _【 B9】 _ find o
6、ut what doesnt work and replace it with what does Ezra Pound: completely changed the concept of【 B10】 _【 B10】 _ 1 【 B1】 2 【 B2】 3 【 B3】 4 【 B4】 5 【 B5】 6 【 B6】 7 【 B7】 8 【 B8】 9 【 B9】 10 【 B10】 SECTION B INTERVIEW Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and t
7、hen answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. 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 Why is it important to have a good relationship with neighbors? （ A） Harmonious n
8、eighborhood is the most valuable relationship. （ B） Neighbors are the most helpful when help is needed. （ C） Neighbors are as important as family members. （ D） Getting along well with neighbors is good for ones health. 12 Which of the following is CORRECT about establishing new neighborhood? （ A） On
9、e who doesnt reach out to new arrival neighbors must be rude. （ B） Never reach out to your neighbors before they approach you. （ C） Its impolite to call your new neighbors by their first name. （ D） You can go ahead and introduce yourself to your neighbors. 13 Which of the following is NOT mentioned
10、about noise? （ A） Loud music is a very big problem among neighbors. （ B） People may not know their loud music is annoying neighbors. （ C） Its-me approach is a good choice to solve the problem. （ D） Noise has become the third largest polluting source in the world. 14 The following is Bettys advice to
11、 deal with unpleasant smells EXCEPT （ A） preventing your neighbor cooking smelly food. （ B） advising your neighbor to open windows. （ C） having your buildings ventilation system checked. （ D） getting support from fellow neighbors. 15 What is Bettys idea about a neighbor always coming around? （ A） He
12、 must be curious to know your personal privacy. （ B） He might be trying to be friendly, or maybe hes lonely. （ C） He is annoying and you should show some distance. （ D） He is very friendly and suitable to be your friend. SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST Directions: In this section you will hear everything O
13、NCE 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 What is the main idea about this news item? （ A） The carbon tax does not exist in Europe. （ B） French government backs down on carbon tax plan.
14、 （ C） The court rejected the carbon tax plan last year. （ D） The president is revising the carbon tax plan. 17 From the drug trade, Mexican gangs gained _ from the US each year. （ A） $1.4 billion （ B） $38 billion （ C） $17 billion （ D） $40 billion 18 In the US, the rise of heroin production in Mexico
15、 in 2008 resulted in （ A） lower heroin prices. （ B） rapid grow of drug trade. （ C） more diseases. （ D） widespread drug activists. 19 According to the news item, the potential treatment for sleeping sickness （ A） was identified by British experts. （ B） has been put into service for 18 months. （ C） ha
16、s not fully been developed so far. （ D） is taken by injection. 20 Which of the following statements about the disease is TRUE? （ A） It kills 60,000 people in Africa each year. （ B） It is easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. （ C） It spreads through air. （ D） It can cause death. 20 Of all the lesso
17、ns taught by the financial crisis, the most personal one has been that Americans arent too slick with money. We take out home loans we cant afford. We run up sky-high credit-card debt. We dont save nearly enough for retirement. In response, proponents of financial-literacy education are stumping wit
18、h renewed zeal. School districts in states such as New Jersey and Illinois are adding money-management courses to their curriculums. The Treasury and Education departments are sending lesson plans to high schools and encouraging students to compete in the National Financial Capability Challenge that
19、 begins in March. Students with top scores on that exam will receive certificates but chances for long-term benefits are slim. As it turns out, there is little evidence that traditional efforts to boost financial know-how help students make better decisions outside the classroom. Even as the financi
20、al-literacy movement has gained steam over the past decade, scores have been falling on tests that measure how informed students are about things such as budgeting, credit cards, insurance and investments. A survey of college students conducted for the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Lite
21、racy found that students whod had a personal-finance or money-management course in high school scored no better than those who hadnt. “We need to figure out how to do this in the right way,“ says Lewis Mandell, a professor at the University of Washington who after 15 years of studying financial-lite
22、racy programs has come to the conclusion that current methods dont work. A growing number of researchers and educators agree that a more radical approach is needed. They advocate starting financial education a lot earlier than high school, putting real money and spending decisions into kids hands an
23、d talking openly about the emotions and social influences tied to how we spend. One promising example of new thinking is found on Chicagos South Side. At the Ariel Community Academy, financial education starts in kindergarten with books like A Chair for My Mother(the moral: if you want to buy someth
24、ing, save money first)and quickly becomes hands-on. Each entering class at Ariel is entrusted with a $20,000 investment portfolio, and by seventh grade, kids are deciding what to buy and sell(profits help pay for college). Last year, for the first time, the eighth-grade class graduated with less tha
25、n the original $20,000. Talk about a teachable moment: stocks dont always go up. Other initiatives are tackling such real-world issues as the commercial and social pressures that affect purchasing decisions. Why exactly do you want those expensive name-brand sneakers so badly? “It takes confidence t
26、o take a stand and to think differently,“ says Jeroo Billimoria, founder of Aflatoun, a nonprofit whose curriculum, used in more than 30 countries, aims to help kids get a leg up in their financial lives. “This goes beyond money and savings.“ That approach might have helped in the recent housing bub
27、ble. Buyers didnt just need to know how different sorts of mortgages worked; they also needed the fortitude to choose a 30-year fixed rate when everyone around them was buying a bigger house with a riskier loan. Amid such a complicated landscape, some experts question whether there could ever be eno
28、ugh education to adequately prepare Americans for financial life. A better solution, these critics contend, is to reform the system. “What works is creating institutions that make it easy to do the right thing,“ says David Laibson, a Harvard economics professor who, like Mandell, has decided after y
29、ears of research that education isnt a silver bullet. One idea being discussed in Washington is the automatic IRA. Employers would have to enroll each worker in a personal retirement-savings account unless that worker decided to opt out. Yet even the skeptics are slow to write off financial educatio
30、n completely. More than anything, they say, we need to rigorously study the financial decisions of alumni of programs like Ariel and Aflatoun and compare them with those of peers who didnt get the same sort of education. “Until you have experimental evidence, its all a little speculative,“ says Mich
31、ael Sherraden, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who is conducting a seven-year, randomized, controlled study on whether giving children bank accounts inculcates the habit of saving a program already being tried on a large scale in the U.K. Yes, good, solid research like this takes a
32、 lot of time and resources. But if what were doing right now isnt working, its in our own best interest to figure out what does. 21 What are Americans supposed to do personally after the financial crisis? （ A） Make plans when assets are placed in investments options. （ B） Prepare themselves with som
33、e money-management skills. （ C） Try not to take economic security for granted. （ D） Pay much more attention to their retirements. 22 What is Lewis Mandells feeling toward the current financial-literacy movement? （ A） The program benefits people in budgeting and investment. （ B） The program has been
34、ineffective in financial managing. （ C） The program would cause psychological problems. （ D） The program symbolizes an end to the financial crisis. 23 According to the passage, the new kindergarten-entrance financial education is designed to （ A） educate kids to manage money from the very beginning.
35、 （ B） teach kids to recognize money from kindergarten. （ C） prepare kids education fees from the very beginning. （ D） help kids to decide what to purchase and sell. 24 According to some critics, a better way to ensure Americans to prepare for financial life is （ A） to compare two different systems.
36、（ B） to do experiments in virtual life. （ C） to provide enough curriculums. （ D） to set up new institutions. 25 Which of the following adjectives best describes the authors treatment of the topic? （ A） Neutral. （ B） Positive. （ C） Negative. （ D） Indifferent. 25 When I was 10 years old one of my fath
37、ers customers had caught a big catfish on a weekend trip to the Colorado River. It weighed 86 pounds, a swollen, gasping, grotesque netherworld creature pulled writhing and fighting up into the bright, hot, dusty world above. The man had brought the fish, wrapped in wet burlap, all the way out to my
38、 fathers service station in the back of his car. We were to have a big barbecue that weekend, and I was given the job of keeping the fish watered and alive until the time came to kill and cook it. All day long that Friday in late August, school had not yet started I knelt beside the gasping fish and
39、 kept it hosed down with a trickle of cool water, giving the fish life one silver gasp at a time, keeping its gills and its slick gray skin wet: the steady trickling of that hose, and nothing else, helping it stay alive. We had no tub large enough to hold the fish, and so I squatted beside it in the
40、 dust, resting on my heels, and studied it as I moved the silver stream of water up and down its back. The fish, in turn, studied me with its eyes, which had a gold lining to their perimeter, like pyrite. The fish panted and watched me while the heat built all around us, rising steadily through the
41、day from the fields, giving birth in the summer-blue sky to towering white clouds. I grew dizzy in the heat, and from the strange combination of the unblinking monotony and utter fascination of my task, until the trickling from my hose seemed to be inflating those clouds I seemed to be watering thos
42、e clouds as one would water a garden. Do you ever think that those days were different that we had more time for such thoughts, that time had not yet been corrupted? I am speaking less of childhood than of the general nature of the world we are living in. If you are the age I am now mid-50s then may
43、be you know what I mean. The water pooled and spread across the gravel parking lot before running in wandering rivulets out into the field beyond, where bright butterflies swarmed and fluttered, dabbing at the mud I was making. Throughout the afternoon, some of the adults who were showing up wandere
44、d over to examine the monstrosity. Among them was an older boy, Jack, a 15-year-old who had been kicked out of school the year before for fighting. Jack waited until no adults were around and then came by and said that he wanted the fish, that it was his fathers that his father had been the one who
45、had caught it and that he would give me five dollars if I would let him have it. “No,“ I said, “my father told me to take care of it.“ Jack had me figured straightaway for a Goody Two-Shoes. “Theyre just going to kill it,“ he said. “Its mine. Give it to me and Ill let it go. I swear I will,“ he said
46、. “Give it to me or Ill beat you up.“ As if intuiting or otherwise discerning trouble though trouble followed Jack, and realizing that did not require much foresight my father appeared from around the corner, and asked us how everything was going. Jack, scowling but saying nothing, tipped his cap at
47、 the fish but not at my father or me, and walked away. “What did he want?“ my father asked. “Nothing,“ I said. “He was just looking at the fish.“ I knew that if I told on Jack and he got in trouble, I would get beaten. 26 The authors behavior of guarding the fish showed （ A） bravery and self-control
48、. （ B） wisdom and responsibility. （ C） devotion and romance. （ D） chivalry and charity. 27 From the fourth paragraph, we get the impression that （ A） the author cherished his childhood memories. （ B） the author spent much time in daydreaming. （ C） the author may not have a happy childhood. （ D） the
49、author cant remember his childhood days. 28 “Jack had me figured straightaway for a Goody Two-Shoes.“(Paragraph Eight)means that （ A） I was not the boy as Jack supposed to be. （ B） I was much stingier than Jack thought. （ C） I was viewed as virtuous and righteous. （ D） I was irritating and foolish in Jacks eyes. 29 It can be inferred from the passage that Jack was all EXCEPT
