1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 154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) T
2、here were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There were big palms and green benches in th
3、e public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain.
4、It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out of the empty square. (2) The American wife sto
5、od at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on. (3) “Im going down and get that kitty,“ the American wife said. “Ill do it,“ her husband offered f
6、rom the bed. “No, Ill get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table. “ (4) The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed. “Dont get wet,“ he said. (5) The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the of
7、fice. He was an old man and very tall. (6) “II piove,“ the wife said. She liked the hotel-keeper. (7) “Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo. It is very bad weather. “ (8) He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife liked him. She liked the deadly serious way he received any complaints
8、. She liked his dignity. She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands. (9) Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go a
9、long under the eaves. As she stood in the doorway, an umbrella opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room. “You must not get wet,“ she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the hotel-keeper had sent her. (10) With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along the gravel
10、 path until she was under their window. The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her. “Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?“ (11) “There was a cat,“ said the American girl. (12) “A cat?“ the maid laughed. “A cat in
11、the rain?“ (13) “Yes,“ she said, “under the table. “ Then, “Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty. “ (14) When she talked English the maids face tightened. “Come, Signora,“ she said. “We must get back inside. You will be wet. “ (15) They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door. Th
12、e maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme impor
13、tance. She went on up the stairs. She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed, reading. (16) “Did you get the cat?“ he asked, putting the book down. (17) “It was gone. “ (18) “ Wonder where it went to,“ he said, resting his eyes from reading. (19) She sat down on the bed. “I wanted it so
14、much,“ she said. “I dont know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isnt any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain. “ (20) George was reading again. She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, fi
15、rst one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head and her neck. “Dont you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?“ she asked, looking at her profile again. (21) George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a boys. “I like it the way it is. “
16、 (22) “I get so tired of it,“ she said. “I get so tired of looking like a boy. “ George shifted his position in the bed. He hadnt looked away from her since she started to speak. “You look pretty darn nice,“ he said. (23) She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the window and looked
17、 out. It was getting dark. “ I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,“ she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her. “ (24) “Yeah?“ George said from the bed. (25) “And I want to eat at a table with my own silver an
18、d I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes. “ (26) “Oh, shut up and get something to read,“ George said. He was reading again. (27) His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and
19、still raining in the palm trees. “Anyway, I want a cat,“ she said, “I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I cant have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat. “ (28) George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square. (29) Someo
20、ne knocked at the door. (30) “Avanti,“ George said. He looked up from his book. (31) In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body. “ Excuse me,“ she said, “ the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora. “ 1 Which of
21、the following is NOT the role of Para. 1 in the development of the story? （ A） Setting up the tone. （ B） Introducing the background settings. （ C） Describing the actual status. （ D） Preparing readers for the coming plot. 2 It can be inferred from the passage that the woman liked the hotel-keeper bec
22、ause_. （ A） he treated everything seriously （ B） he had a charming appearance （ C） he felt proud of being a hotel-keeper （ D） he made her feel being respected 3 It can be indicated that the American wife was interested in the cat because_. （ A） she felt pity for the poor cat （ B） she wanted to relie
23、ve her boredom （ C） she simply wanted the cat for no reason （ D） she wanted to catch the hotel-keepers attention 4 What can be inferred about the husbands attitude from Para. 20 to Para. 28? （ A） He was satisfied with his wifes appearance. （ B） He felt angry with his wife. （ C） He was indifferent to
24、 his wifes needs. （ D） He preferred short hair to long hair. 5 What is the tone of this fiction? （ A） Dramatic. （ B） Lively. （ C） Gloomy. （ D） Sarcastic. 5 (1) A member of the Class of 2010 who this season dons synthetic cap and gown, listens to the inspirational words of David Souter (Harvard), And
25、erson Cooper (Tulane), or Lisa Kudrow (Vassar), and collects a diploma need not be a statistics major to know that the odds of stepping into a satisfying job, or, indeed, any job, are lower now than might have been imagined four long years ago, when the first posters were hung on a dorm-room wall, a
26、nd having a . edu e-mail address was still a novelty. Statistically speaking, however, having an expertise in statistics may help in getting a job: according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, graduates with math skills are more likely than their peers in ot
27、her majors to find themselves promptly and gainfully employed. (2) The safest of all degrees to be acquiring this year is in accounting: forty-six per cent of graduates in that discipline have already been offered jobs. Business majors are similarly placed; forty-four per cent will have barely a mom
28、ent to breathe before undergoing the transformation from student to suit. Engineers of all stripes chemical, computer, electrical, mechanical, industrial, environmental have also fared relatively well since the onset of the recession; they dominate a ranking, issued by Payscale. com, of the discipli
29、nes that produce the best-earning graduates. Particular congratulations are due to aerospace engineers, who top the list, with a starting salary of just under sixty thousand dollars a figure that, if it is not exactly stratospheric, is twenty-five thousand dollars higher than the average starting sa
30、lary of a graduate in that other science of the heavens, theology. (3) Economics majors arent doing badly, either; their starting salary averages about fifty thousand a year, rising to a mid-career median of a hundred and one thousand. Special note should be taken of the fact that if you have an eco
31、nomics degree you can, eventually, make a living proposing that other people shouldnt bother going to college. This, at least, is the approach of Professor Richard K. Vedder, of Ohio University, who is the founder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. According to The Times, eigh
32、t out of the ten job categories that will add the most employees during the next decade including home-health aide, customer-service representative, and store clerk can be performed by someone without a college degree. “ Professor Vedder likes to ask why fifteen per cent of mail carriers have bachel
33、ors degrees,“ the paper reported. (4) The argument put forth by Professor Vedder is, naturally, economic: of those overly schooled mail carriers, he said, “Some of them could have bought a house for what they spent on their education. “ Another economist, Professor Robert I. Lerman, of American Univ
34、ersity (Ph. D., M. I. T.), told The Times that high schools, rather than readying all students for college, should focus on the acquisition of skills appropriate to the workplace. According to The Times, these include the ability to “solve problems and make decisions,“ “resolve conflict and negotiat
35、e,“ “cooperate with others,“ and “listen actively. “ (5) It may be news that the academy is making a case for the superfluity of the academy, but skepticism about the value of college, and of collegians, is hardly novel. Within the sphere of business, a certain romance attaches to the figure of the
36、successful college dropout, like Steve Jobs, who was enrolled at Reed for only a semester, or Bill Gates, who started at Harvard in 1973 but didnt get his degree until it was granted, honorarily, thirty-four years later. On the political stage, too, having spent excessive hours in seminar rooms and
37、libraries is widely regarded as a liability. Vide Peggy Noonans celebration, during the 2004 Presidential campaign, of George W. Bushs lack of cerebration. “Hes not an intellectual,“ Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world. “ (6) Meanwhile, Barack O
38、bamas degrees from prestigious universities were, to his critics, evidence of his unfitness for office. “The last thing we need are more pointy-headed intellectuals running the government,“ the political scientist Charles Murray (B. A., Harvard; Ph.D., M. I. T.) said during the closing months of the
39、 campaign. As President, Obama has rightly noted that too many Americans are already skipping college or dropping out, even without economists having advised them to do so; within weeks of the inauguration, he pledged to increase the national graduation rate, which is significantly lower than that o
40、f many other developed nations, including Canada, Japan, and Korea. (7) The skip-college advocates contention that, with the economic downturn, a college degree may not be the best investment has its appeal. Given the high cost of attending college in the United States, the question of whether a stu
41、dent is getting his or her moneys worth tends to loom large with whoever is paying the tuition fees and the meal-plan bills. Even so, one neednt necessarily be a liberal-arts graduate to regard as distinctly and speciously utilitarian the idea that higher education is, above all, a route to economic
42、 advancement. Unaddressed in that calculus is any question of what else an education might be for: to nurture critical thought; to expose individuals to the signal accomplishments of humankind; to develop in them an ability not just to listen actively but to respond intelligently. (8) All these are
43、habits of mind that are useful for an engaged citizenry, and from which a letter carrier, no less than a college professor, might derive a sense of self-worth. For whos to say in what direction a letter carriers thoughts might, or should, turn, regardless of the jobs demands? Consider Stephen Law, a
44、 professor of philosophy at the University of London, who started his working life delivering mail for the British postal service, began reading works of philosophy in his spare time, decided that hed like to know more, and went on to study the discipline at City University, in London, and at Oxford
45、 University. (A philosophy graduate in the Class of 2010, by the way, stands to earn an average starting salary of forty thousand dollars a year, rising to a lifetime median of seventy-six thousand. Not exactly statistician money, but something to think about.) Indeed, if even a professionally orien
46、ted college degree is no longer a guarantee of easily found employment, an argument might be made in favor of a students pursuing an education that is less, rather than more, pragmatic. (More theology, less accounting.) That way, regardless of each graduates ultimate path, all might be qualified to
47、be carriers of arts and letters, of which the nation can never have too many. 6 According to the statistics, who may have the highest starting salary? （ A） Graduates majoring in statistics. （ B） Graduates majoring in business. （ C） Graduates majoring in theology. （ D） Graduates majoring in electrica
48、l engineering. 7 It can be concluded from Para. 3 and Para. 4 that the professors believe that_. （ A） students other than economics majors should not go to college （ B） college degree will be of little use in the next decade （ C） higher education costs too much but gains little profit （ D） problem-s
49、olving and interpersonal skills outweigh college diploma 8 What does the word “liability“ mean in Para. 5? （ A） Advantage. （ B） Disadvantage. （ C） Responsibility. （ D） Tendency. 9 What is the authors attitude towards the value of college? （ A） The college degree is a profitable investment. （ B） College should foster students workplace abilities. （ C） The aim of higher education is more than economic advancement. （ D） The cultivation of arts is important for college education. 10 In which paragraph does the author place his m
