1、专业英语八级模拟试卷 66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 pyramids Some of the most interesting building in the world are the pyramids. The pyramids stand huge
3、and si lent, and in modern days, people look at them and wonder, “Who built them? Why? When? What is in side? How did they do it?“ Thousands of years ago in Egypt, kings built the pyramids. They used to build them as 【 1】 _. The kings 【 1】 _ thought the pyramids would help them find life after 【 2】
4、【 2】 _ _, and join Ra in his journeys【 3】 _ the sky. 【 3】 _ They also wanted the world to remember them as important peo- ple. Some pyramids were found by thieves who in fact found their way into the pyramids and into most of the pharaohs tombs. The tombs were still full of treasure. There are many
5、pyramids along the 【 4】 _ River. 【 4】 _ The 【 5】 _ is the pyramid of Khufa. It is made of2,300, 【 5】 _ 000 huge 【 6】 _ , most of them higher than a person. It is 【 6】 _ About 144 meters high. Inside the pyramid are the burial rooms for the king and queen and long passageways to these rooms. The rest
6、 of the pyramid is solid stone. Workers usually built the pyramids when the flood began in 【 7】 _ and they could not work on their farms. To build 【 7】 _ the pyramid of Khufu, 100,000 men worked for twenty years. We know there were wonderful treasures in the pyramids. Robbers went into the pyramids
7、and took many of these treas- ures. Today some of the treasures are in museums, though. How did the people of ancient days build the pyramids? How did they carry and lift the huge stones? Each stone fit so well and they didnt have our modem machines! The ancient 【 8】 _ in Egyptian tombs give us some
8、 ideas. The workers 【 8】 _ used 【 9】 _ , levers and rollers to move stones. Besides 【 9】 _ the Egyptian pyramids, there are also great pyramids in 【 10】 【 10】 _ _which were used for human sacrifice and different from Egyptian tombs in shape and other aspects. 1 【 1】 2 【 2】 3 【 3】 4 【 4】 5 【 5】 6 【 6
9、】 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 you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the f
10、ollowing five questions. Now listen to the interview. 11 What are the speakers mainly discussing? （ A） Memberships in a food coup. （ B） The benefits of health food. （ C） Shopping in the supermarket. （ D） The current cost of food. 12 What change does the woman suggest the co -up make? （ A） Lowering i
11、ts prices. （ B） Selling more household necessities. （ C） Changing its membership rules. （ D） Opening up more checkout lines. 13 What is one thing the members of the co - up must do? （ A） Avoid junk food. （ B） Attend monthly meetings. （ C） Buy cleaning supplies at the co - up. （ D） Work at the co - u
12、p. 14 Why might the man join the co up? （ A） To save money on food. （ B） To buy food without additives. （ C） To do all his shopping in one place. （ D） To meet other health - conscious people. 15 Whats the advantage for the people who join the co-up for 6 month period? （ A） The membership fee is lowe
13、r. （ B） They can help choose the products that will be sold. （ C） They may attend fewer meetings. （ D） They may go to the co-up more times per week. SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. At
14、 the end of each news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. 16 Rabin announced new security measures on television _. （ A） after an emergency session of his inner security cabinet （ B） before the emergency meeting （ C） after two Arabs were shot dead （ D） before two Israeli poli
15、cemen were killed 17 The closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip will _. （ A） stop up to 100,000 Arab day laborers from working inside Israel （ B） allow a soldier to shoot only if he was in danger （ C） authorize a soldier to open tire on anyone bearing armsD revise open-tire regulations for soldiers
16、 18 Arab-Israeli bloodshed has increased because _. （ A） more Israeli troops were sent to combat the Arab militants （ B） Israel closed both the Gaza Strip and West Bank （ C） thousands of Arab Workers lost their jobs （ D） many Palestinians were driven out of their homeland 19 A two-day conference to
17、promote trade and investment in Africa will take place in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in _. （ A） February （ B） early March （ C） late March （ D） April 20 John Spence believes that after Latin America and the Far East, _ will be the next region for major foreign investors. （ A） Uganda （ B） Ivory Coast （ C
18、） Africa （ D） Botswana 20 A full moon was shining down on the jungle. Accompanied only by an Indian guide, the American explorer and archaeologist Edward Herbert Thompson - thirteen hundred years after the Mayas had left their cities and made a break for the country farther north-was riding through
19、the New Empire that they had built for themselves, which had collapsed after the arrival of the Spaniards. He was searching for Chichen-Irza, the largest, most beautiful, mightiest, and most splendid of all Mayan cities. Horses and men had been suffering intense hardships on the trail. Thompsons hea
20、d sagged on his breast from fatigue, and each time his horse stumbled he all but fell out of the saddle. Suddenly his guide shouted to him. Thompson woke up with a start. He looked ahead and saw a fairyland. Above the dark treetops rose a mound, high and steep, and on top of the mound was a temple,
21、bathed in cool moon light. In the hush of the night it towered over the treetops like the Parthenon of some Mayan acropolis. It seemed to grow in size as they approached. The Indian guide dismounted, unsaddled his horse, and roiled out his blanket for the nights sleep. Thompson could not tear his fa
22、scinated gaze from the great structure. While the guide prepared his bed, he sprang from his horse and continued on foot. Steep stairs overgrown with grass and bushes, and in part fallen into ruins, led from the base of the mound up to the temple. Thompson was acquainted with this architectural from
23、, which was obviously some kind of pyramid. He was familiar, too, with the function of pyramids as knows in Egypt. But this Mayan version was not a tomb , like the Pyramids of Gizeh. Externally it rather brought to mind a ziggurat, but to a much greater degree than the Babylonian ziggurats it seemed
24、 to consist mostly of a stony fill providing support for the enormous stairs rising higher and higher, towards the gods of the sun and moon. Thompson climbed up the steps. He looked at the ornamentation, the rich reliefs. On top, almost 96 feet above the jungle, he surveyed the scene. He counted one
25、 - two - three - a half-dozen scattered buildings, halfhidden in shadow, often revealed by nothing more than a gleam of moonlight stone. This, then, was Chichen-Itza. From its original status as advance outpost at the beginning of the great trek to the north, it had grown into a shining metropolis,
26、the heart of the New Empire. Again and again during the next few days Thompson climbed on to the old ruins. “I stood upon the roof of this temple one morning,“ he writes, “just as the first rays of the sun reddened the distant horizon. The morning stillness was profound. The noises of the night had
27、ceased, and those of the day were not yet begun, All the sky above and the earth below seemed to be breathlessly waiting for something, Then the great round sun came up, flaming splendidly, and instantly the whole world sang and hummed. The birds in the trees and the insects on the ground sang a gra
28、nd Te Deum, Nature herself taught primal man to be a sunworshipper and man in his heart of hearts still follows the ancient teaching.“ Thompson stood where he was, immobile and enchanted. The jungle melted away before his gaze. Wide spaces opened up, processions crept up to the temple site, music so
29、unded, palaces became filled with revelling, the temples hummed with religious adjuration. He tried to recognize detail in the billowing forest. Then suddenly he was no longer bemused. The cur rain of fancy dropped with a crash; the vision of the past vanished. The archaeologist had recognized his t
30、ask. For out there in the jungle green he could distinguish a narrow path, barely traced out in the weak light, a path that might lead to Chichen-Itzas most exciting mystery: the Sacred Well. 21 The territory which Thompson was exploring _. （ A） had been abandoned by the Mayas about thirteen hundred
31、 years previously （ B） had been occupied and developed by the Mayas about thirteen hundred years before （ C） had been deserted by the Mayas as soon as the Spaniards arrived （ D） was conquered by the Mayas thirteen hundred years ago 22 What was Thompsons first reaction to the scene ahead? （ A） He rem
32、ained in the saddle for several minutes spellbound. （ B） He immediately jumped down and went forward. （ C） He waited until his bed was ready and then dismounted. （ D） He rode to the mound and stared at the structure before him. 23 Thompson believed that man is instinctively a sun-worshipper because
33、_. （ A） the worship of the sun-god had clearly been the function of the temple （ B） all living things celebrate the sunrise （ C） the sunrise is the most magnificent of all phenomena （ D） It is natural for man to worship the sun and he has always done so 24 What abruptly ended Thompsons dream of the
34、past? （ A） The realization that this was only a time-consuming fantasy. （ B） The glimpse of an important clue to future discovery. （ C） A resolution derived from his fantasy that he must learn more about this great past city. （ D） The locating of the mysterious Sacred Well. 24 As every ancient marin
35、er knew, traveling by sail is a simple way to go. Though the winds could be fickle and the boats pokey, the energy source that moved the ship was free, plentiful and renewable. Now the same technology that conquered the oceans of Earth may conquer the ocean of space. This week a Russian and American
36、 consortium will announce plans for an April launch of the first so-called solar-sail vehicle, a multicasted spacecraft that will use sunlight to push itself along. To a public raised on smoke-and-tire rocketry, the idea of drawing energy straight from space seems fanciful. To the people behind the
37、new ship, however, the technology is not only sensible but inevitable, the easiest way to reinvent the business of cosmic travel. “This allows us to use very little fuel to fly very great distances,“ says Bud Schurmeier, a former NASA engineer and an adviser to the project. “Its an in triguing conce
38、pt.“ The idea behind solar sailing is simple. Although light is made of massless particles called photons, such ephemeral things exert real pressure, especially when they flow so close a source as the sun. Attach a sail of lightweight Mylar or other material to a spacecraft, set it up in the path of
39、 that outrushing energy, and you ought to be able to move in almost any direction. NASA has a keen interest in solar sailing and had budgeted $ 5 million to investigate 17 possible missions. It may select one as early as next month. But while the space agency has been mulling plans, the people behin
40、d the new ship, dubbed Cosmos I, have been getting set to fly. The project is the brainchild of Russias Babakin Space Center, near Moscow, and the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif. , a think tank founded in 1979 by astronomer Carl Sagan and others. The two groups had long been developing plans f
41、or a solar-sail mission but got the cash to make it happen only last year when Ann Druyan, Sagans widow and head of the Media Company Cosmos Studios, and Joe Firmage, the founder of US Web, threw their names and about $ 4 million behind the effort. “I had talked to people about solar sailing before,
42、“ says Lou Friedman ,former engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and director of the Planetary Society, “but between the Russians capabilities and Anns vision, I knew this one would click.“ The spacecraft is a 3-ft. metal with eight 35-ft. metallic wings. Mylar petals sprout from it
43、 - though the prototype used in the April launch will have just two petals. Mounted atop a reconfigured Russian ICBM and launched from a sub in the B arents Sea, the Cosmos I will fly to an altitude of 260 miles, where it will deploy the wings and float for a minute of so. If all goes well, the wing
44、s will then be jettisoned and the sphere aerobraked back to Earth, its bounce-down on Russian soil cushioned by air bags. By some measures, this cosmic lob shot is not that impressive, but for solar-sail scientists, the engineering is every thing. Few doubt that when sunlight strikes the wings, the
45、spacecraft will accelerate; the key is building wings that can open and pivot, allowing the ship to tack into the solar stream. If this mission works, a more ambitious orbital flight, using the eight-paneled craft, is set for the end of the year. The space-craft could circle Earth for months, surfin
46、g the sun until designers shut it down. “There will be a grandeur to it,“ says Druyan, “a 70-ft. sail that will be visible to the whole plan et.“ Grandeur aside, critics wonder if solar sails have a future. The technique is problematic in Earth orbit, since the changing position of sun relative to t
47、he space-craft makes constant tacking necessary. Sailing is best used for as the crow flies shots to neighboring planets. Even in these cases, progress can be slow, since sunlight exerts, at most, 2 lbs. of pres sure per square half-mile, requiring a year or more to rev a spacecraft to interplanetar
48、y speeds. Worse, beyond Jupiter, sunlight flickers out almost entirely; to go any farther would require energy beamen from Earth orbit, perhaps by giant laser howitzers. “None of these things has been tested, “says Mel Monte-merlo, one of NASAs solar-sailing chiefs. “We have a long way to go.“ Wheth
49、er that will continue to seem such a long way may depend on the spring-time flight of Cosmos I. A successful mission has a way of making impossible technologies seem possible - a big burden for a small rocket that will, for one day at least, carry the hopes of the worlds space community. 25 What is the energy source of
