1、专业英语八级（作文）模拟试卷 77及答案与解析 一、 PART V WRITING 1 It is reported that Chinese lawmakers are considering regulations to promote reading among the public. The news has caused concern over what exactly a new policy regarding reading might entail, but some do believe that the measure could help promote the av
2、erage literacy rate across China. The following are excerpts of opinions. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the opinions; 2. give your comment. Ye Zhurong from Beijing While entertainment and leisure magazines are extremely popular, traditional pub
3、lications are no longer well received. People read books more flippantly. With the increase of soap operas and other TV shows, fewer and fewer people are attached to reading. Although electronic media help spread information, it still defers the traditional practice of reading. Raising the overall l
4、iteracy rate is no easy target. With reading not stressed at all, efforts to stimulate public interest will have to be plentiful. For example, schools should create encouraging atmospheres for reading and allow students to fall in love with books to eventually affect all of society. Furthermore, its
5、 important to set up more libraries. At some existing facilities, most books are old, procedures outdated and borrowing fees absolute. To boost national literacy, implementation is the key. We need to put into practice all kinds of effective measures to promote reading. Jia Zhiyong from Chongqi Whil
6、e a reading law places emphasis on national literacy levels, it also reflects the worrying fact that reading has yet to be encouraged among the Chinese public, which likes to boast about its 5,000-year-old history and rich culture. People read for certain purposes, including making money or conducti
7、ng research. It is also a leisurely pastime to be enjoyed in ones spare time. No matter what type you are engaged in, reading is helpful for both personal and social progress. A lack of reading could well damage the advancement of an innovative culture or civilization. In whatever form, reading is m
8、eant to make people feel good, improve personal qualities, tap into potential capabilities and promote innovation. How to develop and promote such a culture remains the key question. Qiu Shi from Shanghai To determine the necessity of a law we need to first ascertain what it entails. Officials claim
9、 the regulation would protect peoples right to read, while it remains unclear as to what would happen to those who do not enjoy books. Relevant authorities should provide sufficient investment in libraries and balance the distribution of reading materials across different areas, while ensuring peopl
10、e get enough time to read within a conducive environment. With a serious shortage of public facilities geared toward reading, laws are required to redress the matter. Mao Jianguo from Qingdao A nations literacy rate to a large extent affects its future development potential. When it comes to reading
11、, we have to look at two problems. First, the public must be provided with quality books, not trash ones on the market. Because pay is low, many writers can only survive by churning out as much of the latter as possible. Is it possible to better support authors in writing books with more literary va
12、lue? Second, its important to make reading more convenient, which requires the construction of more libraries. In some cities, such facilities lack books or are remotely situated. If people could have better access to quality reading material, surely public interest in books would increase. Therefor
13、e, at present, what we need is not a law, but more investment in facilities to boost enthusiasm for reading. 2 Unmarried men across China used to spend Nov. 11 lamenting their single status with a drink. Now that unofficial holiday has become the worlds largest online shopping event. The following t
14、wo excerpts are about this online shopping carnival. Though it sees record breaking sales every year, it causes many concerns meanwhile. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize the development of Double-11 craze, and then 2. express your opinion towards this fes
15、tival, especially whether consumers are truly benefiting from it. Excerpt 1 At one second after midnight, when the calendar flips to November 11th, millions of Chinese shoppers will start clicking themselves into a frenzy of consumer excess. Through their smartphones, computers and tablets, they wil
16、l take advantage of steep discounts and other incentives offered by Chinas biggest online retailers, who have been busily laying the groundwork with advertising campaigns and assiduous logistical preparations. By the time midnight rolls round the following day, shoppers will have spent billions of y
17、uan, and many of the hundreds of millions of packages that they ordered online will have been delivered to their doors. How did a frivolous and informal Chinese holiday evolve into the worlds biggest single-day retail event? November 11th is “Singles Day“ in China, a holiday that now occasions these
18、 massive movements of merchandise. Since the 1990s it has been observed casually and playfully by unmarried Chinese to celebrate or perhaps bemoan their single status. The date was chosen because of the four ones it contains (11/11). It is the Alibaba Group that claims the credit for transforming Si
19、ngles Day into a shopping orgy. In 2009, one of its executives was trawling the calendar for an autumn date to serve as the foundation for a Chinese shopping day that could rival Americas Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving that marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The goal was
20、to use discounts and other one-off promotions to lure Chinas already-avid consumer class into online retail. The promotion was an immediate success and has grown since: shoppers spent more than 57 billion yuan via Alibaba alone last year. That dwarfs the $1.5 billion spent by Americans online during
21、 last years Black Friday. Excerpt 2 “I like Double Eleven. Everything is cheap on this day. This year, Im only buying clothes. They are much cheaper online than they are in shopping malls. But the thing is, youve got to be careful on this day. You need to compare the prices offered in different shop
22、s, because some shops will raise prices first before they lower it on Singles Day.“ said Li Jianhua, a customer in Beijing. One issue which tends to crop up every year is the availability of products people want to buy. Zhao Ping with the Ministry of Commerce says theyve found a growing number of re
23、tailers, particularly those selling products online, are simply using Singles Day as a way to promote their own site. “The Double Eleven shopping spree is more complicated than it seems. Many online shops are involved in the promotion. But their supplies often dont meet the demand. Many people have
24、found that the low-price products theyve set their sights on are gone almost instantly. Many businesses use this trick to attract customers to their online shops, benefiting only a very small number of their customers.“ The Commerce Ministry is also warning consumers to be wary of certain bargains,
25、noting many retailers will begin increasing the prices of their products in advance of Singles Day to try to fool shoppers into thinking theyre getting a good deal with the Singles Day price-cut. 3 The recently increasing number of commercial activities in museums has caused widespread concern in Ch
26、ina. People worry that this trend will tarnish the image of museums as respected cultural venues and also threaten the cultural relics and classic objects in museum collections. Others, however, disagree. From the following excerpts, you can find two journalists opinions on this trend. Write an arti
27、cle of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the arguments on both sides; 2. give your comment on this trend. Excerpt 1 Zhu Changjun from When the Nanjing Museum in Jiangsu Province was used as a venue for promoting a real estate project, it significantly altered the pub
28、lics perception of such institutions. Opening museums to commercial activities poses potential risks to the collections and also betrays the nature of museums as public property. Should museums distance themselves entirely from commerce? The answer is: no. Regulations issued by the Ministry of Cultu
29、re encourage museums to engage in dissemination of scientific and cultural knowledge, development of cultural products, and provision of professional training on a for-profit basis. Arranging commercial activities in moderation to benefit museum operations is actually a common trend globally. Commer
30、cialization of museums is not necessarily a bad thing; the key is the degree to which museums should be open to business. In recent years, admission to more and more museums has become free, as these institutions have gained recognition as providers of public cultural goods and services. Concurrentl
31、y, though, lack of revenue, which adversely affects museums short- and long-term operations, has become an increasingly prominent issue. In these circumstances, moderate commercialization can help to make up for funding shortages. Commercial operations, though, must be standardized, as preventing ex
32、cessive commercialization from staining the reputation of museums and eroding their public nature is crucial. Excerpt 2 Xia Zhenbin from Guangzhou Daily Museums around the world are engaged in commercial activities. Regulations and relevant policies in China encourage the financing of protection and
33、 research of cultural relics through various channels and paid services. Museums are supposed to make profits by respecting basic principles and bottom lines. What principles can rein in museums commercial activities? Actually, a consensus already exists. Regarding safety, for example, commercial ac
34、tivities must pay full attention to the protection of cultural relics. Unfortunately, however, safety consciousness is often lacking in the minds of those who manage such events, which puts valuable objects in hazardous conditions. Commercial activities must accord with and serve the museums heritag
35、e protection and educational functions. These institutions are supposed to select business activities to host in a discerning way, so as not to associate themselves too closely with commercial organizations. Its acceptable for museums to generate income to improve their operations, but rules exist t
36、hat dictate what museums can and cannot do. State-owned museums, theoretically, need approval from administrative watchdogs in order to host commercial activities. In reality, however, this procedure is often neglected. And even if applications are submitted to supervisory bodies, the criteria used
37、for assessment and who has the final say of approval remain ambiguous. As museums belong to the public, the aim of commercial operations should not be to feather the nest but to re-invest proceeds in improving and developing the institutions. Although museums business activities ought to be transpar
38、ent to the general public, in many cases, commercial revenues are not publicly disclosed, and this creates circumstances that have the potential to facilitate corruption. In any case, commercialization is a general trend, and standardizing rather than trying to curb it would be prudent so that museu
39、ms can gain funding to improve their operations, which is in the public interest. 4 The influence of the field of “happiness economics“ is growing. Many corporations now employ “chief happiness officers,“ and mood-tracking personal devices are gaining in popularity. But some say quantifying happines
40、s only leads to anxiety, as individuals cant “achieve“ what is an inherently elusive feeling. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the main idea of the article, and then 2. express your opinion towards the trend, especially whether happiness is a heal
41、thy goal for society. Dont Make Personal Growth a Utilitarian Goal Economists have spent most of the 20th century ignoring psychology, positive or otherwise. But today there is a great deal of emphasis on how happiness can shape global economies, or on a smaller scale successful business practice. T
42、his is driven, in part, by a trend in “measuring“ positive emotions, mostly so they can be optimized. Neuroscientists, for example, claim to be able to locate specific emotions, such as happiness or disappointment, in particular areas of the brain. Wearable technologies, such as Spire, offer data-dr
43、iven advice on how to reduce stress. Happiness indicators are increasingly used as a basis to transform or discipline individuals. We are no longer just dealing with “happiness“ in a philosophical or romantic sense it has become something that can be monitored and measured, including by our behavior
44、, use of social media and bodily indicators such as pulse rate and facial expressions. There is nothing automatically sinister about this trend. But it is worried that the businesses and experts driving the quantification of happiness claim to have our best interests at heart, often concealing their
45、 own agendas in the process. In the workplace, happy workers are viewed as a “win-win“. Work becomes more pleasant, and employees, more productive. But this is now being pursued through the use of performance-evaluating wearable technology, such as Humanyze or Virgin Pulse, both of which monitor phy
46、sical signs of stress and activity toward the goal of increasing productivity. Cities such as Dubai, which has pledged to become the “happiest city in the world,“ dream up ever-more elaborate and intrusive ways of collecting data on well-being to the point where there is now talk of using CCTV camer
47、as to monitor facial expressions in public spaces. New ways of detecting emotions are hitting the market all the time: One company, Beyond Verbal, aims to calculate moods conveyed in a phone conversation, potentially without the knowledge of at least one of the participants. And Facebook demonstrate
48、d last summer that it could influence our emotions through tweaking our news feeds opening the door to ever-more targeted manipulation in advertising and influence. As the science grows more sophisticated and technologies become more intimate with our thoughts and bodies, a clear trend is emerging.
49、Where happiness indicators were once used as a basis to reform society, challenging the obsession with money that G.D.P. measurement entrenches, they are increasingly used as a basis to transform or discipline individuals. Happiness becomes a personal project, that each of us must now work on, like going to the gym. Since the 1970s, depression has come to be viewed as a cognitive or neurological defect in the individual, and never a consequence of circumstances. All of this simply escalates the sense of responsibility each of u
