1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 166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) A
2、t a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I
3、 walked over each farmers premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it took everything but a deed of it took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk cultivated it,
4、 and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a ho
5、use but a sedes, a seat? Better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summe
6、r and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lo
7、t, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. (2) My
8、imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several farms the refusal was all I wanted but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials
9、with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife every man has such a wife changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed
10、 my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a
11、 rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that / had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarr
12、ow. With respect to landscapes, “I am monarch of all I survey. My right there is none to dispute. “ (3)I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for
13、 many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk. (4) The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete retirement, being
14、, about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house
15、 and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, nawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the h
16、ouse was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short,
17、had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders I never heard what compensation he received for that and do all those things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested in
18、 my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said. (5) All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale I have always cultivated a garden was, th
19、at I had had my seeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, as long as possible live free and uncommi
20、tted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail. (6) Old Cato, whose “De Re Rustica“ is my “Cultivator“, says and the only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage “When you think of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not to buy g
21、reedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good. “ I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more
22、 at last. 1 It can be inferred from Para. 1 that_. （ A） the author had bought a farm （ B） the author enjoyed talking with farmers （ C） the author was quite adept at bargaining over the price of houses （ D） the author spent the winter in the countryside 2 The authors attitude indicated in the second
23、paragraph is that_. （ A） he took the landscape as his true possession （ B） he did not want to own the Hollowell farm （ C） he should be generous to others no matter rich or poor （ D） he enjoyed surveying the farms 3 Which of the following statements contains a metaphor? （ A） .to my eyes the village w
24、as too far from it. (Para. 1) （ B） .I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. (Para. 2) （ C） .has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it. (Para.3) （ D） .like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders. (Para.4) 4 According to Para. 5 and Para. 6, what is the authors attitude towards
25、getting a farm? （ A） He is not interested in the issue of ownership. （ B） He believed a farm would become a jail if you are uncommitted to it. （ C） He wanted to own one farm and yield abundant crop. （ D） He enjoyed wandering around his farm. 5 Which of the following does the author NOT advocate in t
26、he passage? （ A） The harmony between man and nature. （ B） The charm of country life. （ C） The importance of buying property. （ D） The indifference to material wealth. 5 (1) As a child, I loved Charlie Chaplin films. I would put on my fathers shoes and wander about with a trampish gait. Luckily, I ne
27、ver boiled and ate the shoes I would not see Chaplin do that (in The Gold Rush) for a few years yet. I am from the last generation that found it quite normal to watch silent films on television. There was nothing arcane or archaic about it. It was an everyday part of BBC2 programming. (2) As I grew
28、older, my love of Laurel and Hardy remained, but Chaplin went out of favour. The received wisdom that he was overly sentimental meant that it became unfashionable to like him. Keaton was the one to revere; he was considered a more serious clown, with a stone face of existential angst and boasting a
29、collaboration with Samuel Beckett. (3) Why it might be necessary to make a choice between Keaton and Chaplin I have no idea there is time enough to celebrate both. But I find a surprising number of people who say: “I never really got Chaplin. “ Each time I return to Chaplin, I find it harder to unde
30、rstand how anyone can dismiss him. He wrote, produced, directed, starred in and composed the music for a series of powerful, funny, philosophical and moving films. Even the first cinematic outing of the tramp, Kid Auto Races at Venice, can make me laugh 100 years on, as Chaplin repeatedly gets in th
31、e way of the news cameras and racing cars with such brazen cheek. (4) Or there is the ludicrous image of Chaplin becoming a wooden hedgehog as he hurls 11 chairs on his back in Behind the Screen, as fresh as any visual comedy being made now. (5) Though the bread-roll dance from The Gold Rush has bee
32、n so often imitated that it may seem to have lost some of its wonder, watch the sequence again and you will see how intricate something of seeming simplicity is. Johnny Depp spoke of having to imitate it in Benny and Joon and said it took days to get everything just right. It is so much more than it
33、 at first seems. (6) That is what makes Chaplin live on the depth of thought behind each seemingly simple routine. It is never just falling over with a bang, it is acrobatics with aplomb, it is the grace of the chaos. As his biographer Richard Schickel noted, with Chaplin, all that seems solid melts
34、 into something else. (7) For those who ask, “But is Chaplin really still funny?“ I can promise you that a new generation of children do laugh at Chaplin attempting a tightrope walk while distracted by monkeys in The Circus. There may be many banana-skin routines, but I am pretty sure Chaplin was th
35、e first to attempt the banana skin on the tightrope. (8) The Rink is my earliest memory of watching Chaplin. Here he is, a waiter, his face showing no servile deference as he works out a bill based on the remnants of food spattered over the diner, the furious and luxuriantly eyebrowed Eric Campbell,
36、 before pocketing an unoffered tip. He is lovable, rebellious, coquettish, both worldly and otherworldly. As for the roller-rink routine in that film, I would watch Dancing on Ice if only it were that good. (9) Eric Campbell was also the monstrous street-fighting adversary in Easy Street. Unable to
37、floor him, or even move him with fisticuffs, Chaplin eventually overcomes him by pulling his head into the lamp of a street light and gassing him. Woody Allen declared that Easy Street would be funny in a thousand years from now. The potency of the ridiculousness has made it last nearly a century al
38、ready. (10) Neil Brand, a fine pianist who frequently accompanies silent film performances, acknowledges that todays audiences have to overcome the mores and attitudes of a bygone age, but says that once that is done, we can still empathise with Chaplin as he responds to overwhelming forces. (11) Ci
39、ty Lights, Chaplins most revered film and highest on the American Film Institutes 100 greatest films list, opens on a scene of accidental rebellion. The grand unveiling of an epic statue is ruined when the drape comes off to reveal the tramp asleep in the arms of the granite god. As the US national
40、anthem plays, the tramp attempts to stand to attention while dangling by the butt of his trousers from the sword of a carved figure. (12) There is set piece after set piece and, though my twentysomething self probably sneered at the innocent love story of tramp and blind girl, the fortysomething me
41、is more romantic and easily moved by this tale of a tramp who will do anything for the love of a woman. It also has the best joke with an elephant in any movie I can think of. (13) As for The Great Dictator, amid the drama, social commentary and vivid portrayal of the rising oppression of the Jewish
42、 people in Germany, there are moments of superb broad comedy. Adenoid Hynkel, a petty, preposterous dictator with delusions of monstrous grandeur, is ripe for having his pretensions punctured. (14) The scenes of desperation as he attempts to show that he is a great dictator to rival Napaloni, played
43、 with oomph and chutzpah by Jack Oakie, continue to make me laugh. And it contains undoubtedly my favourite choking-on-hot-mustard scene. There are few greater joys than seeing those of high status fall flat on their face. (15) And then there is Limelight. The music hall may be long dead, but Limeli
44、ght still conveys what it is to be a clown, the desperation and fear of losing your audience, what it is to age and rail against age and loss. (16) If you want to sample his magnificence with a brief scene, just look at the delicacy with which he plays drunk in Limelight, the subtlety with which he
45、conveys an inebriate attempting to find the keyhole in a door. If that doesnt work for you, then watch him dressed as a chicken in The Gold Rush or with his face manically covered in soup by a malfunctioning machine that is meant to be a sign of a bright new future in Modern Times. (17) There is bea
46、uty, humour and humanity to be found here. Chaplin was and is, a cinematic clown genius. 6 Which of the following can NOT be inferred from the first three paragraphs? （ A） Watching silent films on TV used to be a normal activity. （ B） The author preferred Laurel and Hardy to Chaplin as he grew up. （
47、 C） Keaton was more popular than Chaplin for he was considered more serious. （ D） Many people found Chaplins movies not that interesting. 7 According to the author, which of the following is NOT the charm of Chaplins movies? （ A） Humorous plot. （ B） Traditional customs of the bypast era. （ C） Comple
48、x performing style. （ D） Humanitarian themes. 8 Which of the following statements about Chaplins movies is INCORRECT? （ A） The Gold Rush shows Chaplins sophisticated dance. （ B） The Rink is the first Chaplins movie the author watched. （ C） The author found the romance in City Lights quite touching i
49、n his 20s. （ D） Modern Times and The Gold Rush both are Chaplins representative works. 9 What rhetorical device is used in the last sentence of Para. 3? （ A） Simile. （ B） Analogy. （ C） Hyperbole. （ D） Metaphor. 10 What could be the most appropriate title for this passage? （ A） Who Is Charlie Chaplin? （ B） Memorizing Charlie Chaplin. （ C） Charlie Chaplin: A Clown Genius. （ D） Charlie Chaplin: Is He Still Funny? 10 (1) The more responsibility you take on at work and in life, the more often you face gray-area problems. These are situations w
