1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 178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、 large cask (木桶 ) of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops (桶箍 ) had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. (2) All the peo
3、ple within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed (筑坝阻拦 ) it into little
4、 pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops (勺 ) of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others,
5、men and women, dipped in the puddles (小水坑 ) with little mugs of mutilated earthenware (陶器 ), or even with handkerchiefs from womens heads, which were squeezed dry into infants mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stern the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, d
6、arted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing (大声咀嚼 ) the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, a
7、nd not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. (3) A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices voices of men, women, and childr
8、en resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to fr
9、olicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. Th
10、e man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with bare
11、arms, matted locks, and cadaverous (惨白的 ) faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars (地窖 ), moved away, to descend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine. (4) The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the
12、 suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets (木柴块 ); and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the
13、 stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear (污迹 ) about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger d
14、ipped in muddy wine-lees BLOOD. (5) The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. (6) And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam (一道光 ) had driven from his sacred countenance, the d
15、arkness of it was heavy cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabul
16、ous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces
17、and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them wi
18、th straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum (少量 ) of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal (动物杂碎 ), among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was
19、the inscription on the bakers shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomies in every
20、farthing (极少量 ) porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil. (7) Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding street, full of offence and stench (恶臭 ) , with other narrow winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelli
21、ng of rags and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking (骨瘦如柴的 ) though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor
22、 compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. 1 The phrase “shattered like a walnut-shell“ in Para. 1 is used as a(n) _. （ A） simile （ B） metaphor （ C） analogy （ D） euphemism 2 It can be inferr
23、ed from the second paragraph that_. （ A） only those idle people competed to drink the wine （ B） even babies drank the wine with handkerchiefs （ C） some people chewed the cask fragments out of hunger （ D） there was a sweeper to keep the street clean every day 3 What can be concluded from Para. 3 abou
24、t the wine game? （ A） There were many fights between people for sipping the wine. （ B） Some people became intimate friends due to the wine game. （ C） The wine game had a sudden start and end. （ D） People resumed what they should have done after finishing drinking. 4 What rhetorical device is used in
25、 the second sentence in Para. 6? （ A） Simile. （ B） Parallelism. （ C） Euphemism. （ D） Personification. 5 In Para.7, the word “brooding“ probably means_. （ A） reflecting （ B） discerning （ C） gloomy （ D） cheerful 5 (1) When Winston Chen told his friends that he had quit his job as chief technology offi
26、cer at a software company to move to a small island in Arctic Norway with his family for a year, few people called him crazy. (2) Instead, most people simply replied; “I wish I had the guts (勇气 ) to do that. “ (3) While many people dream of taking time off mid-career, few actually do it. But the num
27、ber of people taking lengthy sabbaticals later in life is increasing, according to experts. Thats in part due to companies becoming more open to the idea and the higher rate at which people are changing jobs. And depending on how you play your cards, you can return with a better job than when you le
28、ft. Time for a change (4) For Chen, who had been with the same company for a decade when he quit in 2011, it was time for a change, he said. His original plan was to find a new job, but the idea of taking time off inspired by a TED talk got him seriously thinking about a sabbatical. At first, he sai
29、d he was concerned that time away from the industry might hurt his career. (5) “Thats the main reason that keeps people from doing this, and I was no different,“ he said in an email. “But you have to create the urgency for living the life you want. “ (6) After quitting, Chen did look for another job
30、 until a family friend mentioned that a small island in Arctic Norway was looking for a teacher. Chens wife, who was born in Norway, wanted to go back to work after being at home with their kids for five years. “She called and basically got the job,“ said Chen. “So, very quickly, we decided that was
31、 it. “ Increasingly popular (7) Paul Payne, managing director of UK-based rail and construction recruitment firm OneWay, is one of a growing number of professionals in the recruiting field who have seen a number of clients opting for a gap year or sabbatical midway through their careers. (8) “Its an
32、 interesting idea, particularly when firms are looking to hire and, crucially, retain millennial talent who tend to get itchy feet quicker than their predecessors,“ he said in an email. “While its not for every business, more and more are offering sabbaticals as a retention tool by giving their empl
33、oyees paid leave to travel, volunteer or simply to take time off to recharge their batteries. “ Slacker label (9) Explaining a year off on your CV doesnt have to be a bad thing, said Payne. “Taking the time off can highlight to an organisation that you want to further your skill set and try new expe
34、riences,“ he said. “It could also mean that youll come back from your break with a different perspective, which is likely to aid your job performance. “ Try something new (10) If youre thinking of taking a mid-career break that boosts your outlook and skills, consider going abroad, where you could t
35、ry undertaking informal paid work or volunteering, either of which could give you a fresh perspective on things upon your return, according to Payne. The experience could also improve your basic competencies. (11) “Who knows what you could learn from working alongside professionals whove been develo
36、ped and trained in a different way to you,“ he said. “ In more general terms, taking this sort of break also allows you to develop life experience, which can contribute to building better soft skills like communication and people management. “ Plus, volunteer work can give your more insight into how
37、 to solve problems differently. By nature, volunteers have to buy in to what they are doing and work with limited or no resources. Always a risk (12) Of course, not all employers will be open to the idea of a gap year-but there are ways to make it more appealing to them, according to Holly Bull, pre
38、sident of Princeton, New Jersey-based gap year consultancy Center for Interim Programs, LLC. “Lay out what you have in mind to an employer and see how much time away they might agree to if there is a clear commitment to return to the job,“ she said in an email. “Enrol the employer by outlining the b
39、enefits of taking this kind of time; most people are reinvigorated by gap time and return with more to offer in their jobs. “ (13) Bull recommends being very clear about what is most important, and only then going to your employer with your intent and requests. “ See what happens,“ she said. “I thin
40、k one has to be ready to let a job go if an employer is not at all open to the gap option. “ (14) But dont be surprised if there is pushback about the idea. “Many employers are not so keen to see someone take off for a year because of the need for business continuity and consistency,“ said Reboot Pa
41、rtners Smith. Have a plan showing how they could cover you in your absence. One of Smiths clients pointed out to their manager how much money they could save in the budget for that year by not having to pay their salary, yet not sacrificing the investment they had made in training them over the year
42、s. “ It was a win-win for the company and the employee taking the break,“ said Smith. Time to move on (15) The year off may prove the stepping stone to your next job. “I think its really important people ask the question about whether their work is fulfilling. If its not, it may be scary to make a c
43、hange, but its invariably better to risk it to find something that really does light them up,“ said Bull. “ Gap options provide landing pads and a way to test the waters without making a full commitment to another job. “ (16) For some people, it can be as short as a few weeks to learn if something s
44、uits them or not. For Bull, it took a month of aquaculture (水产业 ) research to realise that she didnt have the patience for that kind of methodical work. Unexpected results (17) In Chens case, he developed an app just “for fun“ during his time away. But it became his new career and the precursor (先驱
45、) to voice-based mobile app company, Voice Dream when he returned to Boston a year later. (18) “Its not necessary to think of being away as a way to start a business or go to a new career,“ he said. “The point is: What would you do if, for a while, you dont have to think about making money?“ 6 Which
46、 of the following statements is CORRECT according to Para. 3? （ A） Its a common phenomenon that people take a mid-career break. （ B） Experts believe more and more people will take long vacations. （ C） More frequent job changes cause the change in companies attitudes. （ D） Playing cards well can lead
47、 to better job opportunities. 7 It can be inferred from the section of the first subheading that Chen_. （ A） started working in the company in 2001 where he resigned （ B） was initially scheduled to have a vacation after quitting his job （ C） had thought that taking long breaks was bad for his career
48、 （ D） moved to Norway because he found a new job there 8 According to Paul Payne, offering paid leaves is_. （ A） effective for companies to attract talent （ B） a measure suitable for every company （ C） a means for many companies to keep the best people （ D） beneficial for employees professional deve
49、lopment 9 Holly Bull suggested that employees should_before applying for a long vacation. （ A） make a clear presentation of their ideas to the boss （ B） estimate the length of their vacations approved by the boss （ C） promise that they will come back to the company （ D） figure out whether the vacation or the job is more important 10 The phrase “test the waters“ in Para. 15 is used as a(n) _. （ A） analogy （ B） metaphor （ C） euphemism （ D） metonymy 10 (1) Given all that has happened on so many campuses over
