1、专业英语八级（作文）模拟试卷 58及答案与解析 一、 PART V WRITING 1 With the continued growth of online teaching systems and integration of massive open online courses(MOOCS) into higher education, college study will never be the same for both professors and students. The following are opinions from both sides. Read the ex
2、cerpts carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the opinions from both sides: 2. give your comment. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may
3、 result in a loss of marks. University The University of Washington(UW) in the US isnt shy about the benefits and drawbacks of online education. UW concedes online courses may be more effective for self-directed learners, and students who are not organized and in possession of good time-management s
4、kills may struggle. Thus, students should ask themselves whether they are capable of learning independently before signing up for online coursework. UW also mentions online courses may not be able to accurately replicate the vibrant sense of intellectual community that has been at the heart of highe
5、r education for ages. This might lead some to miss out on learning and networking opportunities. Students Jasmine Barta of Arizona State University: I take about half my classes online each semester, and Ill tell you why: Online classes are the secret to a happier, fuller and less stressful college
6、experience. Some students complain about the lack of social interaction and the ease with which they can forget to meet a deadline. But for me these concerns fall flat in the face of the convenience, flexibility and independence online learning offers. Chang Hanyi of Boston University: In order to s
7、queeze in some extra learning without taking the focus away from my major, I enrolled in a pass/fail online reading and writing workshop. The coursework is actually as demanding as my other regular language classes. But what I have learned so far is beyond my expectations. My professor assigns weekl
8、y assignments each Monday, and I am required to do readings, write study blogs and take quizzes regularly. I am also required to respond to comments from my professor and classmates. So, taking online courses doesnt mean zero physical interaction with your instructors. My professor even invited me t
9、o face-to-face meetings four times to address article structure in my writing assignments. My professor also uploads video clips to review class content and audio files to clarify some thorny points. Despite the hard work, I still enjoy cyber interaction with my professor and classmates. Yang Yang o
10、f Peking University: With MOOCS, we are no longer confined to a classroom at a certain time slot. Whenever I feel in the mood to study, I take out my laptop or iPad to watch course videos. I am now taking Legal Writing and Research on Coursera, a popular MOOCS platform. Each week, four or six course
11、s videos are released for us students to learn. Apart from the teaching sessions, there are also quizzes to assess whether I have grasped the knowledge well. Quiz scores make up 32 percent of my final score. The great thing about the quizzes is we even have them before each course. This encourages m
12、e to finish all the reading and preview the class early. Although MOOCS are improving my learning experiences, this new form of teaching cannot compete with traditional ways of learning in terms of teacher-student interaction. I used to ask questions immediately after class. But with MOOCS, we only
13、have office hours for question and answer sessions. Most of the time, I wont bother to go. Write your response on ANSWER SHEET FOUR. 2 How to solve the brain drain problem existing in universities in China has been a hot topic as our economy develops steadily. The following excerpt offers some opini
14、ons on this issue. Read the excerpt carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the authors opinions: 2. give your comment. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the a
15、bove instructions may result in a loss of marks. Every country sends out students. What makes China different is that most of these bright minds have stayed away. Only a third have come back, according to the Ministry of Education: fewer by some counts. A study this year by a scholar at Americas Oak
16、 Ridge Institute for Science and Education found that 85% of those who gained their doctorate in America in 2006 were still there in 2011. To lure experts to Chinese universities, the government has launched a series of schemes since the mid-1990s. These have offered some combination of a one-off bo
17、nus of up to 1m yuan($ 160,000), promotion, an assured salary and a housing allowance or even a free apartment. Some of the best universities have built homes for academics to rent or buy at a discount. All are promised top-notch facilities. Many campuses, which were once spartan, now have swanky bu
18、ildings. The programmes have also targeted non-Chinese. A “foreign expert thousand-talent scheme“ , launched in 2011, has enticed around 200 people. Spending on universities has shot up, too: sixfold in 2001 -2011. The results have been striking. In 2005 -2012 published research articles from higher
19、-education institutions rose by 54% : patents granted went up eightfold. But most universities still have far to go. Only two Chinese institutions number in the top 100 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Shanghai Jiao Tong University includes only 32 institutions from mainland
20、China among the worlds 500 best. The government frets about the failure of a Chinese scholar ever to win a Nobel Prize in science. Pulling some star scholars back from abroad will not be enough to turn China into an academic giant. Many of those who return do so on a part-time basis. According to Da
21、vid Zweig of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, nearly 75% of Chinese nationals who were lured by a “thousand-talent programme“ launched in 2008 did not give up tenure elsewhere. Such schemes have often bought reputation rather than better research. They typically target full profes
22、sors whose more productive, innovative years may already be behind them.(They also favour experts in science, technology and management.) Chinese universities have great difficulty fostering talent at home. The premium on foreign experience in China has created perverse incentives, says Cao Cong of
23、Nottingham University in Britain. It sends the message to todays best and brightest students that they should still spend their most productive years abroad. More than 300,000 students leave each year. Today the signs are more encouraging. Some universities are changing the way they recruit and henc
24、e finding it easier to attract staff from abroad. At Peking University departments now hire and promote using international evaluation methods. They advertise jobs and academics apply for promotion and are rewarded according to their achievements. Write your response on ANSWER SHEET FOUR. 3 In the I
25、nformation Age, the mass media have been playing an ever more important role in shaping our society. In the following excerpt, the author lists the benefits as well as the setbacks brought about by the mass media. Read the excerpt carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you sh
26、ould: 1. summarize briefly the authors opinion about the mass media: 2. give your comment. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. We are told the mass media are the g
27、reatest organs for enlightenment that the world has yet seen: that in Britain, for instance, several million people see each issue of the current affairs programme, Panorama. It is true that never in human history were so many people so often and so much exposed to so many intimations about societie
28、s, forms of life attitudes other than those which obtain in their local societies. This kind of exposure may well be a point of departure for acquiring certain important intellectual and imaginative qualities, width of judgment, and a sense of the variety of possible attitudes. Yet in itself such ex
29、posure does not bring intellectual or imaginative development. It is no more than the masses of stone which lie around in a quarry and which may, conceivably, go to the making of a cathedral. The mass media cannot build the cathedral, and their way of showing the stones does not always prompt others
30、 to build. For the stones are presented within a self-contained and self-sufficient world in which, it is implied, simply to look at them, to observe fleetingly individually interesting points of difference between them, is sufficient in itself. Life is indeed full of problems on which we have to or
31、 feel we should try to make decisions, as citizens or as private individuals. But neither the real difficulty of these decisions, nor their true and disturbing challenge to each individual, can often be communicated through the mass media. The disinclination to suggest real choice, individual decisi
32、on, which is to be found in the mass media, is not simply the product of a commercial desire to keep the customers happy. It is within the grain of mass communication. The organs of the Establishment, however well-intentioned they may be and whatever their form(the State, the Church, voluntary socie
33、ties, political parties), have a vested interest in ensuring that the public boat is not violently rocked, and will so affect those who work within the mass media that they will be led insensibly towards forms of production which, though they go through the dispute and enquiry, do not break through
34、the skin to where such enquiries might really hurt. They will tend to move, when exposing problems, well within the accepted cliche assumptions of the society and will tend neither radically to question these cliches nor to make a disturbing application of them to features of contemporary life. They
35、 will stress the “stimulation“ the programs give, but this soon becomes an agitation of problems for the sake of the interest of that agitation itself: they will therefore, again, assist a form of acceptance of the status quo. There are exceptions to this tendency, but they are uncharacteristic. The
36、 result can be seen in a hundred radio and television programs as plainly as in the normal treatment of public issues in the popular press. Different levels of background in the readers or viewers may be assumed, but what usually takes place is a substitute for the process of arriving at judgment. P
37、rograms such as this are noteworthy less for the “stimulation“ they offer than for the fact that that stimulation(repeated at regular intervals) may become a substitute for, and so a hindrance to, judgments arrived at and tested in the mind and on the pulses. Mass communications, then, do not ignore
38、 intellectual matters: they tend to castrate them, to allow them to sit on the side of the fireplace, sleek and useless, a family plaything. Write your response on ANSWER SHEET FOUR. 4 Celebrities are some of the worlds most influential trend setters in the world of fashion, style, movies, televisio
39、n, food, diets, and everything else in between. The question of whether celebrities should have the right to privacy remains controversial. The following are opinions on this issue. Read the excerpts carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the
40、different opinions: 2. give your comment. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. Vincent(China) Everyone has the right to privacy and the paparazzi should not be allo
41、wed to interfere in their life. They should be arrested and fined for invading the privacy of others and the magazines who buy the pictures should be sued as well. Why should actors be treated like this? Just because they earn more money or because of what? I think it is unfair because the paparazzi
42、 are killing the actors and pushing them too far. Vicki(the UK) Celebrities know perfectly well that when they are famous, the press is going to try and dig out all the secrets from their private life, but I do think that some things should be private because we are all human! Hannan(the US) I think
43、 that it seems a bit unfair that the press is too hard on the celebrities. Some celebrities just want to be a singer, or an actor, rather than a red-carpet walking person. Theyre just doing something that they really love and are so good at that they are famous for it. Linda(the UK) Even though they
44、 should have the right to their privacy, the reality is that once you put yourself in the spotlight, you must expect a certain amount of attention in your personal life. Its the price you pay for having such a high profile occupation or lifestyle. Oshuy(France) French law states that taking a pictur
45、e of you while you are in your house or car or anywhere private without your consent is forbidden, but allows any shot taken in a public area(with restrictions concerning publication). If the shot is taken at home, paparazzi may be fined. If the shot is taken inside and published, the publisher may
46、be sued for reparations. Mark Borkowski(Russia) If you want privacy, you can obtain it by keeping a delicate balance between the needs of promoting what you have to professionally and how you conduct your life. You need to have a long-term commitment to the amount of fame you have generated. You can
47、t switch it on and off, so you have to have a strategy of dealing with it. Christy(the US) I think that like everyone, they have the right to privacy in their houses, of their medical records, etc. , just like you and me, but when they go out in public, they are fair game for the paparazzi. Its publ
48、ic knowledge that a job in the entertainment industry makes you a target for this kind of thing. There are some entertainers who do a good job at remaining private, and I dont think thats entirely by chance. They arent necessarily hanging out at the “hollywood hotspots“ or getting into mischief that
49、 draws attention, and therefore arent as easy to follow. I think that they are well compensated in the size of their paychecks. Its one of those things where you have to take the good with the bad. Write your response on ANSWER SHEET FOUR. 5 Smoking bans in public places are becoming more and more common in many countries. Whether the rights of the non-smokers to breathe in fresh air outweigh those of the smokers to smoke freely is a matter of opinion, manifesting itself in a heated smoking ban debate. In the following excerpt, the author states the effect of
