1、专业英语八级模拟试卷 9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. W
2、hen 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. 1 The Importance of Questions For non-native speakers of English who want to participate in group discussions
3、, it is important to be able to ask questions in order to resolve their difficulties. . Causes of Breakdowns in 【 1】 _ 1. On students part -insufficient command over the 【 2】 _ of English -poor pronunciation 2. On teachers part -uncertainty of whether his student has asked a question -the students 【
4、 3】 _ to employ the correct question form -the teacher interprets the question as a comment -difficulties arising when the student employs an/a 【 4】 _ question form -the teacher may not know about the 【 5】 _ of the students difficulty . Specific Questions 1. Begin questions with an/a 【 6】 _ 2. Be ca
5、reful to 【 7】 _ the exact point. . Another Reason for the Correct Use of 【 8】 _ -Politeness 1. The students uses the imperative 【 9】 _ the question form when he is nervous or struggling with new subject matter. 2. The teacher may interpret it as 【 10】 _ and feel angry. 1 【 1】 2 【 2】 3 【 3】 4 【 4】 5
6、【 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 you will be given 10 seconds to answer eac
7、h of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview. 11 There is a great employment demand for graduates of all the following majors EXCEPT （ A） engineering, （ B） finance. （ C） management. （ D） accounting. 12 Which of the following is TRUE of the job market? （ A） Employees are in face of
8、fierce competition. （ B） Salaries of engineering grads are lower than the average. （ C） Starting salaries have been increased this year. （ D） There might be another hiring surge next year. 13 The expert suggests that graduates should not rely on the Internet because （ A） it is not a good job searchi
9、ng strategy. （ B） not all job vacancies are available on it. （ C） grads cannot have a direct contact with employers. （ D） many grads dont have access to the Internet. 14 According to the interview, which is NOT an advantage of an informational interview? （ A） It enables grads to get a job more easil
10、y. （ B） It enables grads to get a better-paid job. （ C） It allows grads to get a few contacts. （ D） It allows grads to know more about the industry. 15 What can parents do to help their children get a job? （ A） To encourage them to be confident. （ B） To support them financially. （ C） To urge them to
11、 be dependent. （ D） To keep an eye on their emotions. 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 Where did
12、the explosion take place? （ A） At a wedding hall. （ B） At a petrol station. （ C） In a downtown shopping center. （ D） Near the Turkish Health Ministry. 17 What happened shortly after the explosion? （ A） Shops on the street closed down. （ B） People were fleeing the city. （ C） Shooting broke out. （ D）
13、Assembly meeting was immediately held. 18 People protested against （ A） the detention of Mr. Wudato Santallo. （ B） the fraud elections. （ C） the rising of taxes. （ D） the police brutality. 19 What is the aim of the meeting held by EU foreign ministers in Brussels? （ A） To urge Serbia continue its Eu
14、ropean course. （ B） To discuss the upcoming elections in Serbia. （ C） To discuss the issue of Kosovo. （ D） To determine the border between Serbia and Kosovo. 20 How many parachutists were killed in the crash? （ A） 5. （ B） 44. （ C） 39. （ D） 49. 21 “Leave him alone!“ I yelled as I walked out of the or
15、phanage gate and saw several of the Spring Park School bullies pushing the deaf kid around. I did not know the boy at all but I knew that we were about the same age, because of his size. He lived in the old white house across the street from the orphanage where I lived. I had seen him on his front p
16、orch several times doing absolutely nothing, except just sitting there making funny like hand movements. In the summer time we didnt get much to eat for Sunday supper, except watermelon and then we had to eat it outside behind the dining room so we would not make a mess on the tables inside, About t
17、he only time that I would see him was through the high chain-link fence that surrounded the orphanage when we ate our watermelon outside. The deaf kid started making all kinds of hand signals, real fast like. “You are a stupid idiot!“ said the bigger of the two bullies as he pushed the boy down on t
18、he ground. The other bully ran around behind the boy and kicked him as hard as he could in the back. The deaf boys body started shaking all over and he curled up in a ball trying to shield and hide his face. He looked like he was trying to cry, or something but he just couldnt make any sounds. I ran
19、 as fast as I could back through the orphanage gate and into the thick azalea bushes. I uncovered my home-made bow which I had constructed out of bamboo and string. I grabbed four arrows that were also made of bamboo and they had Coca Cola tops bent around the ends to make real sharp tips. Then I ra
20、n back out of the gate with an arrow cocked in the how and I just stood there quiet like, breathing real hard just daring either one of them to kick or touch the boy again. “Youre a dumb freak just like him, you big eared creep!“ said one of the boys as he grabbed his friend and backed off far enoug
21、h so that the arrow would not hit them. “If youre so brave kick him again now,“ I said, shaking like a leaf. The bigger of the two bullies ran up and kicked the deaf boy in the middle of his back as hard as he could and then he ran out of arrow range again. The boy jerked about and then made a sound
22、 that I will never forget for as long as I live. It was the sound like a whale makes when it has been harpooned and knows that it is about to die. I fired all four of my arrows at the two bullies as they ran away laughing about what they had done. I pulled the boy up off the ground and helped him ba
23、ck to his house which was about two blocks down the street from the school building. The boy made one of those hand signs at me as I was about to leave. I asked his sister “If your brother is so smart then why is he doing things like that with his hands?“ She told me that he was saying that he loved
24、 me with his hands. Almost every Sunday for the next year or two I could see the boy through the chain-link fence as we ate watermelon outside behind the dining room, during the summer time. He always made that same funny hand sign at me and I would just wave back at him, not knowing what else to do
25、. On my very last day in the orphanage I was being chased by the police. They told me that I was being sent off to the Florida School for Boys Reform School at Marianna so I ran to get away from them. They chased me around the dining room building several times and finally I made a dash for the chai
26、n-link fence and tried to climb over in order to escape. I saw the deaf boy sitting there on his porch just looking at me as they pulled me down from the fence and handcuffed me. The boy, now about twelve jumped up and ran across San Diego Road, placed his fingers through the chain-link fence and ju
27、st stood there looking at us. They dragged me by my legs, screaming and yelling for more than several hundred yards through the dirt and pine-straw to the waiting police car. All I could hear the entire time was the high pitched sound of that whale being harpooned again. 21 It can be inferred that t
28、he deaf boys life in the orphanage was （ A） simple and tranquil. （ B） monotonous and hard. （ C） quiet and enigmatic. （ D） boisterous and hard. 22 It can be inferred from the passage that the author was all EXCEPT （ A） compassionate. （ B） dauntless. （ C） docile. （ D） dexterous. 23 The author was _ wh
29、en he tried to protect the deaf kid against the two bullies. （ A） about ten years old （ B） not quite about ten （ C） in his late teens （ D） in his twenties 24 The best title for the passage is probably （ A） The Wretched Life. （ B） The Orphanage Bullies. （ C） The Deaf Kid. （ D） The Whale Sound. 25 In
30、1981 Kenji Urada, a 37-year-old Japanese factory worker, climbed over a safety fence at a Kawasaki plant to carry out some maintenance work on a robot. In his haste, he failed to switch the robot off properly. Unable to sense him, the robots powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and accidentally pu
31、shed the engineer into a grinding machine. His death made Urada the first recorded victim to die at the hands of a robot. This astounding industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science fict
32、ion writer. The laws appeared in I, Robot, a book of short stories published in 1950 that inspired a Hollywood film. But decades later the laws, designed to prevent robots from harming people either through action or inaction, remain in the realm of fiction. With robots now poised to emerge from the
33、ir industrial cages and to move into homes and workplaces, roboticists are concerned about the safety implications beyond the factory floor. To address these concerns, leading robot experts have come together to try to find ways to prevent robots from harming people. “Security, safety and sex are th
34、e big concerns,“ says Henrik Christensen, chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and one of the organisers of the new roboethics group. Should robots that are strong enough or heavy enough to crush people be allowed into homes? Should rob
35、otic sex dolls resembling children be legally allowed? These questions may seem esoteric but in the next few years they will become increasingly relevant, says Dr. Christensen. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europes World Robotics Survey, in 2002 the number of domestic and s
36、ervice robots more than tripled, nearly outstripping their industrial counterparts. Japanese industrial firms are racing to build humanoid robots to act as domestic helpers for the elderly, and South Korea has set a goal that 100K of households should have domestic robots by 2020. In light of all th
37、is, it is crucial that we start to think about safety and ethical guidelines now, says Dr. Christensen. So what exactly is being done to protect us from these mechanical menaces? “Not enough,“ says Blay Whitby, an artificial-intelligence expert at the University of Sussex in England. This is hardly
38、surprising given that the field of “safety-critical computing“ is barely a decade old, he says. But things are changing, and researchers are increasingly taking an interest in trying to make robots safer. One approach, which sounds simple enough, is to try to program them to avoid contact with peopl
39、e altogether. But this is much harder than it sounds. Getting a robot to navigate across a cluttered room is difficult enough without having to take into account what its various limbs or appendages might bump into along the way. Regulating the behavior of robots is going to become more difficult in
40、 the future, since they will increasingly have self-learning mechanisms built into them, says Gianmarco Veruggio, a roboticist at the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation in Genoa, Italy. As a result, their behavior will become impossible to predict fully, he says, since they will not be
41、behaving in predefined ways but will learn new behavior as they go. 25 The word “astounding“ in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to （ A） gullible. （ B） awesome. （ C） gruesome. （ D） stupendous. 26 It can be inferred from the second paragraph that （ A） Isaac Asimov will make new laws to repl
42、ace the old ones. （ B） the Three Laws of Robotics have been invalidated. （ C） the book I, Robot was published in Hollywood, （ D） Isaac Asimov has shifted his attention to films. 27 According to the passage, domestic robots will （ A） be welcomed by housewives. （ B） surely go into every household. （ C
43、） help people a lot with their housework. （ D） help people with manual and mental work. 28 Blay Whitby thinks that “safety-critical computing“ （ A） is in its infancy. （ B） has its heyday. （ C） undergoes rapid development. （ D） can hardly be improved. 29 Which of the following statements is NOT true
44、of robots? （ A） Its difficult to prevent robots from contacting people. （ B） The behavior of robots will be more unforeseeable. （ C） Robots in the future will be more intelligent than those today. （ D） Programming robots through a cramped room is the most difficult task. 30 Britains east midlands we
45、re once the picture of English countryside, alive with flocks, shepherds, skylarks and buttercups the stuff of fairytales. In 1941 George Marsh left school at the age of 14 to work as a herdsman in Nottinghamshire, the East Midlands countryside his parents and grandparents farmed. He recalls skylark
46、s nesting in cereal fields, which when accidentally disturbed would fly singing into the sky. But in his lifetime, Marsh has seen the color and diversity of his native land fade. Farmers used to grow about a ton of wheat per acre; now they grow four tons. Pesticides have killed off the insects upon
47、which skylarks fed, and year-round harvesting has driven the birds from their winter nests. Skylarks are now rare. “Farmers kill anything that affects production,“ says Marsh. “Agriculture is too efficient.“ Anecdotal evidence of a looming crisis in biodiversity is now being reinforced by science. I
48、n their comprehensive surveys of plants, butterflies and birds over the past 20 to 40 years in Britain, ecologists Jeremy Thomas and Carly Stevens found significant population declines in a third of all native species. Butterflies are the furthest along 71 percent of Britains 58 species are shrinkin
49、g in number, and some, like the large blue and tortoiseshell, are already extinct. In Britains grasslands, a key habitat, 20 percent of all animal, plant and insect species are on the path to extinction. Theres hardly a corner of the countrys ecology that isnt affected by this downward spiral. The problem would be bad enough if it were merely local, but its not: because Britains temperate ecology is similar to that in so many other parts of the world, its the best microcosm sci
