1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 146及答案与解析 SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are several passages followed by fourteen multiple-choice questions. For each multiple-choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A , B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer. 0 (1)Be
2、ing told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should be something suitable to youth something didactic, instructive, or something in the nature of good advice. Very well. I have a few things in my mind which I have often longed to say for the i
3、nstruction of the young: for it is in ones tender early years that such things will best take root and be most enduring and most valuable. First, then, I will say to you my young friends and I say it beseechingly, urgingly (2)Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy i
4、n the long run, because if you dont, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment. (3)Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and some
5、times to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures: simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense, come out frankly and confess y
6、ourself in the wrong when you struck him: acknowledge it like a man and say you didnt mean to. Yes, always avoid violence: in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined. (4)Go to bed early, get up early this is wise. Some authori
7、ties say get up with the sun: some say get up with one thing, others with another. But a lark is really the best thing to get up with. It gives you a splendid reputation with everybody to know that you get up with the lark: and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily
8、 train him to get up at half past nine, every time its no trick at all. (5)Now as to the matter of lying, you want to be very careful about lying: otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young
9、 person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young out not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary: still while I cannot go quite so far
10、 as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable. Patience, diligence, painstakin
11、g attention to detail these are requirements: these in time, will make the student perfect: upon these only, may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence. Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, went to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to imp
12、ose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that “Truth is mighty and will prevail“ the most majestic compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved. For the history of our race, and each individuals experience, are sewn thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to
13、kill, and that a lie well told is immortal. There is in Boston a monument of the man who discovered anesthesia: many people are aware, in these latter days, that that man didnt discover it at all, but stole the discovery from another man. Is this truth mighty, and will it prevail? Ah no, my hearers,
14、 the monument is made of hardy material, but the he it tells will outlast it a million years. An awkward, feeble, leaky he is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid: such a lie as that has no more real permanence than an average truth. Why, you might as well tell the truth
15、at once and be done with it. A feeble, stupid, preposterous lie will not live two years except it be a slander upon somebody. It is indestructible, then of course, but that is no merit of yours. A final word: begin your practice of this gracious and beautiful art early begin now. If I had begun earl
16、ier, I could have learned how. (6)There are many sorts of books: but good ones are the sort for the young to read. Remember that. They are a great, an inestimable, and unspeakable means of improvement. Therefore be careful in your selection, my young friends: be very careful: confine yourselves excl
17、usively to Robertsons Sermons, Baxters Saints Rest, The Innocents Abroad, and works of that kind. (7)But I have said enough. I hope you will treasure up the instructions which I have given you, and make them a guide to your feet and a light to your understanding. Build your character thoughtfully an
18、d painstakingly upon these precepts, and by and by, when you have got it built, you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely and sharply it resembles everybody elses. 1 According to the author, the youth should try to follow parents advice in that_. （ A） parents can make the best policies （
19、 B） the young should avoid conflicts （ C） parents advice is usually beneficial （ D） parents always have better judgment 2 The author mentions the lark in Para. 4 with a_note. （ A） cautious （ B） humorous （ C） sarcastic （ D） warning 3 About whether the young should lie, the author holds the belief tha
20、t_. （ A） awkward lies should all be avoided （ B） subtle lies are completely necessary （ C） skills of telling lies can be trained （ D） telling lies needs various qualities 4 The sentence “A final word: begin your practice of this gracious and beautiful art early begin now. “ in Para. 5 is used as a(n
21、)_. （ A） analogy （ B） euphemism （ C） hyperbole （ D） irony 5 The author winds up the passage with a conclusion that_. （ A） the young should try to follow instructions （ B） a sound character is precious to the young （ C） the process to build character is surprising （ D） the characters of different peo
22、ple are similar 5 (1)If all had gone according to plan, the James Webb Space Telescope(JWST)would be celebrating its 10th anniversary of capturing stunning portraits of distant galaxies, NASA would be hard at work on its dark energy detector, Virgin Galactic would be running two daily tourist flight
23、s to the edge of space for just $ 50,000 a head, and a Russian company would be doing brisk business with its orbiting luxury space hotel. Of course, thats not how it worked out in reality. Last month, Virgin Galactic made its tenth annual prediction that “next year“ it will finally shuttle tourists
24、 to space, joining the JWST on the horizon of 2018, and the inaugural mission of NASAs new Space Launch System slipped to 2019. As for that space hotel, dont ask. (2)Planning for the future is part of what it means to be human, but cognitive biases, development challenges, and financing conventions
25、conspire to make accurate predictions next to impossible. With forecasting occupying a central role in our greatest ambitions from space to construction, economists and engineers alike are harnessing new tools that let the past inform the future, aiming to make prediction more science and less art.
26、(3)At the root of the problem is the tendency to take the optimism generated by a grand idea and overlay that on the execution without applying the critical rigor required to foresee the inevitable hurdles that are likely to complicate the process. Known to psychology for decades, the Planning Falla
27、cy describes the tendency to overstate chances of finishing tasks on time, despite memories of past projects having rarely gone as planned. “ Kind of counterintuitively, its because people base their predictions too much on imagining and planning how the task is going to unfold,“ explains Dr. Buehle
28、r, a professor of social psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. (4)Most folks think through a mental simulation of completing various stages of the task and budget time accordingly. Even when reminded of past failed predictions, people tend to assume those were isolated mishaps, forgetting that t
29、here are countless ways for a plan to go wrong but only one way for it to go right. When individuals gather into groups, the situation gets even worse. “If the team is all invested in the project, getting together and planning it out as a group in fact exacerbated the bias,“ says Buehler. Apparently
30、, no one wants to be a Negative Nancy. (5)Such optimism often leads to underestimating the chance of unknown unknowns derailing your project, so planning experts suggest a technique called reference class forecasting, where project planners learn from past risk by predicting overruns based on how si
31、milarly complex projects fared before. (6)The aerospace industry in particular could use some new tricks. Virgin Galactic doesnt release public estimates, but according to the U. S. Government Accountability Offices annual review, NASAs large project costs have overrun budget by between 10 percent a
32、nd 50 percent in each of the last nine years, a figure dominated by the ballooning costs of the JWST. The 2015 NASA Cost Estimating Handbook outlines three prediction models: drawing holistic analogies to previous projects, calculating relationships between key characteristics and cost, and building
33、 up itemized costs. (7)But when youre attempting the unprecedented, be it space tourism or a Pluto probe, how do you build data-based models? (8)Not one to back down from a challenge, NASA in 2013 and 2014 developed the Technology Cost and Schedule Estimating(TCASE)software, which uses reference cla
34、ss forecasting tenets to predict the most uncertain of undertakings: creating new technology. Mining a database of over 3,000 past technology development projects, the programs creators isolated a handful of characteristics that showed predictive power, such as technology area and a classification s
35、cheme known as Technology Readiness Levels, or TRLs, which go from 1(physically conceivable on paper)to 9(mission proven). Such tools formalize techniques that have proved effective, according to former ESA program manager Alan Thirkettle, who oversaw the development of the European ISS components.
36、He describes a budgeting process that has long incorporated reference class forecasting type thinking, but one that may have varied between managers and facilities. (9)TCASE is just one of a suite of models, and how successful theyll prove remains to be seen. The 2016 GAO report congratulated NASA f
37、or slowing budget creep in recent years, but attributed it only in part to new project management tools, with the rest of the credit going to rising baseline estimates that hide percentage-wise growth. (10)Whats more, TCASE applies only to technologies in the early development stage. This period may
38、 be the most uncertain, but it counterintuitively accounts for less than a fifth of total development resources. A meta-study of a dozen NASA missions found that costs tend to explode toward the end, with nearly half of the total dedicated to moving a technology from TEL 7(space-ready prototype)to l
39、aunch. Mr. Thirkettle says this trend is standard, likening spacecraft development to building an electric car. Even if inventing long-range battery tech is tough, actually building the whole car costs much more. “The system is far, far more expensive than the technology development part,“ he says.
40、(11)These unavoidable features of the development cycle combine with cognitive bias to make even the best-laid plans go awry. But to make matters worse, even if reference class forecasting could roughly estimate the chance of unknown unknowns cropping up, its hard to get advance funding for what-if
41、scenarios. “ Historically you can say on the average project you might get somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of surprise that you just couldnt foresee,“ says Thirkettle, but “you cant say give me an extra so many million because I may get a launch failure. “ Available money tends to get spent, so a
42、ny rainy-day funds have to be carefully earmarked. (12)This paradox means that even though planners may expect delays, initially authorized plans often dont reflect that wisdom, making them closer to a best case scenario than a firm promise. And space just exaggerates that challenge. “You tend to be
43、 fairly close to the state of the art so you can get surprises no matter how much discipline you try to put into things,“ Thirkettle says. 6 What function does the first paragraph serve in the whole passage? （ A） It introduces the situation of space industry. （ B） It is the prelude to the authors ar
44、gument. （ C） It presents the authors counterargument. （ D） It brings into focus contrasting opinions. 7 According to the author, all of the following may bring about the Planning Fallacy EXCEPT_. （ A） the ambition for a great cause （ B） the reliance on imagination （ C） the failure to consider thorou
45、ghly （ D） the tendency to be over-optimistic 8 The key difference that “reference class forecasting“ has brought into planning lies in that_. （ A） it is largely based on imagination （ B） it relies on accurate calculations （ C） it learns from the past experience （ D） it establishes prediction models
46、9 What can we know about the TCASE software? （ A） It is based on a huge database. （ B） It is divided into nine levels. （ C） It has attained initial success. （ D） It helps to realize cost saving. 9 (1)I began learning German at the age of 13, and Im still trying to explain to myself why it was love a
47、t first sound. The answer must surely be: the excellence of my teacher. At an English public school not famed for its cultural generosity, Mr. King was that rare thing: a kindly and intelligent man who, in the thick of the second world war, determinedly loved the Germany that he knew was still there
48、 somewhere. Rather than join the chorus of anti-German propaganda, he preferred, doggedly, to inspire his little class with the beauty of the language, and of its literature and culture. One day, he used to say, the real Germany will come back. And he was right. Because now it has. (2)Why was it lov
49、e at first sound for me? Well, in those days not many language teachers played gramophone records to their class, but Mr. King did. They were old and very precious to him and us, and he kept them in brown paper bags in a satchel that he put in his bicycle basket when he rode to school. What did they contain, these precious records? The voices of classical German actors, reading romantic German poetry. The records were a bit cracked, but that was part of their beauty. (3)And I loved them. I learned to imita
