1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 64及答案与解析 0 It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Jud
2、ith, let us say. Shakespeare himself went, very probably his mother was an heiress to the grammar school, where he may have learnt Latin Ovid, Virgil and Horace and the elements of grammar and logic. He was, it is well known, a wild boy who poached rabbits, perhaps shot a deer, and had, rather soone
3、r than he should have done, to marry a woman in the neighborhood, who bore him a child rather quicker than was right. That escapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. He had, it seemed, a taste for the theatre; he began by holding horses at the stage door. Very soon he got work in the theatre,
4、became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe, meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practising his art on the boards, exercising his wits in the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen. Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at ho
5、me. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil. She picked up a book now and then, one of her brothers perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her
6、parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers. They would have spoken sharply but kindly, for they were substantial people who knew the conditions of life for a woman and loved their daughter indeed, more likely than not she was the appl
7、e of her fathers eye. Perhaps she scribbled some pages up in an apple loft on the sly, but was careful to hide them or set fire to them. Soon, however, before she was out of her teens, she was to be betrothed to the son of a neighboring wool-stapler. She cried out that marriage was hateful to her, a
8、nd for that she was severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased to scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. He would give her a chain of beads or a fine petticoat, he said; and there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him? How co
9、uld she break his heart? The force of her own gift alone drove her to it. She made up a small parcel of her belongings, let herself down by a rope one summers night and took the road to London. She was not seventeen. The birds that sang in the hedge were not more musical than she was. She had the qu
10、ickest fancy, a gift like her brothers,for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager a fat, loose-lipped man guffawed. He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting no wo
11、man, he said, could possibly be an actress. He hinted you can imagine what. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study o
12、f their ways. At last for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so who shall measure the heat and violence of the poets heart when c
13、aught and tangled in a womans body? killed herself one winters night and lies buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle. That, more or less, is how the story would run, I think, if a woman in Shakespeares day had had Shakespeares genius. 1 The word “ esca
14、pade“ in the second paragraph means_. （ A） the act of getting away （ B） an unconventional act （ C） a punishment （ D） an ignorant mistake 2 In Shakespeares time, we can infer from the third paragraph that women were supposed to do all of the following EXCEPT_. （ A） doing housework （ B） being underrat
15、ed （ C） being given arranged marriages （ D） killing time at home 3 Shakespeares gifted sister committed suicide because_. （ A） she found she was taken in （ B） she could hardly feed herself （ C） she could hardly bear peoples blame （ D） there was a narrow chance for her to be an actress 4 The author a
16、ims to_. （ A） mock the difference between Shakespeare and his sister （ B） exaggerate the death of imaginary Shakespeares gifted sister （ C） identify with women in Shakespeares time （ D） ridicule the unfair treatment of women in Shakespeares time 5 Which category of writing does the passage belong to
17、? （ A） Description. （ B） Argumentation. （ C） Exposition. （ D） Narration. 5 When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the final cuts to an already pain-peppered California budget in July, one of the most shocking indications of how dire things had become was the decision to close more than a third of
18、 the states parks. Fort Ross State Historic Park, 80 miles north of San Francisco, is among those that would have been closed. It was founded in 1812 as the southernmost Russian settlement in North America. Demonstrators outside the State Capitol in Sacramento last summer hung photos to share memori
19、es of their park visits. On Friday, though, Mr. Schwarzeneggers office said sufficient alternative savings had been found within the California Department of Parks and Recreation to avoid any closings at all, at least in this fiscal year. The savings, which the department had been unable to identify
20、 during months of budget wrangling, were suddenly realized with the help of Schwarzenegger administration finance experts looking over the shoulders of parks officials. In the two months since the July announcement, Mr. Schwarzeneggers threat to close 100 parks had landed in a budget soft spot creat
21、ed by bipartisan outrage among lawmakers, their constituents and lobbyists, and by a growing sense in the administration that closing parks would do little to burnish the governors reputation as a public figure committed to the environment. Though few will rue the preservation of the park system, th
22、e 11 th-inning save does underscore how even in the worst fiscal conditions, the threat of vast cuts is sometimes false, fueling skepticism among lawmakers and voters about ominous budget pronouncements and the ballot measures that often ensue to address them. “The budget process is so complicated a
23、nd confusing to people to begin with, and there is so much distrust in government, that when people hear about changes in spending cuts, they are left questioning whether or not real revenues are really needed,“ said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonparti
24、san research group based in San Francisco. A plan to cut $175 million from a health insurance program was also recently reversed, but that program was spared by bipartisan legislation that replaced one tax for another and used federal stimulus money to fill the gaps. The parks department situation i
25、s different, because it is essentially a re-do. The departments budget for the current fiscal year, which began July 1, was dealt a reduction of 10 percent, or $14.2 million. As a result, the state said in July, 100 of Californias 279 parks were to close at least temporarily unless dpnations or priv
26、ate partnerships materialized. But in the last week, amid a growing outcry and a leaked parks department memorandum suggesting that closing state parks could result in breach-of-contract lawsuits by the parks vendors, the administration began to back away. The backpedaling was apparently made comple
27、te with Fridays announcement by the governors office, which said the savings would instead be realized with steps like cutting back on maintenance, delaying the purchase of equipment and reducing days of operation in some parks, hours of operation in others. The announcement described these savings
28、as one-time, suggesting that the cost of running the parks would have to be addressed again in the budget for the next fiscal year. Roy Stearns, a spokesman for the parks department, said the earlier budget negotiations, which lasted months, had perhaps not offered sufficient time to find the cuts t
29、hat will now come to pass. Others attributed the impetus to political pressure from parks advocates and from lawmakers representing districts where businesses profit from the parks presence. Mindful that Fridays rescue would nonetheless mean reduced hours for the parks, among other steps, Elizabeth
30、Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, said: “They still have a $14.2 million budget cut. The governor found a clever way to find some political cover on this issue, but its not clear that the plan wont actually leave Californians with just as limited an access to their state
31、 parks as if they were fully closed. “ The foundation and other conservation groups hope to place a measure on the November 2010 ballot that would increase vehicle license fees by $15 a year to finance the parks, a move that would double their budget and free it from the states general fund. In exch
32、ange, California drivers would get free admission to all state parks. The governor rejected a similar measure proposed by lawmakers during the legislative session. 6 It can be inferred from Paragraph One that_. （ A） parks seem to be quite important in peoples life （ B） parks consume a large chunk of
33、 the states budget （ C） the economic condition affects the running of parks least （ D） all parks bear great historic significance with them 7 Which of the following best describes the publics feeling towards government on park-closing issue? （ A） Anxious. （ B） Doubtful. （ C） Desperate. （ D） Indiffer
34、ent. 8 Which of the following words in Paragraph Five is used metaphorically? （ A） Reverse. （ B） Stimulus. （ C） Gaps. （ D） Reduction. 9 Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a possible approach to keep the parks open? （ A） Raising fund from the public. （ B） Collecting money from drivers. （ C） S
35、hortening the opening hours. （ D） Getting help from the park officials. 10 We can learn from Paragraph Six and Paragraph Seven that_. （ A） keeping the parks open can benefit the economy better （ B） drivers should bear the responsibility of helping the parks （ C） the problem of the parks is far from
36、being thoroughly solved （ D） the governor is likely to accept the move this time 10 On Wednesday, the Treasury Department released more details of its plan to stress-test the nations 19 largest banks to see just how short of capital they would be if the recession worsened. Conceptually, the test mak
37、es sense. Since many of the banks have been deemed too big to fail, it is important for the government to know in advance how much capital they may need in order to absorb losses and sustain lending. Under the rules of the test, a bank that could not cover a projected shortfall by raising money from
38、 private investors would have to accept it from the government. In exchange, the government would take a potentially large ownership stake. In practice, however, the test could be yet one more step toward what is turning out to be a seemingly endless string of bailouts that do not stop the bleeding,
39、 stabilize the banks or adequately protect taxpayers. For starters, the tests worst-case assumptions may not be dire enough. They assume that the economy will contract this year by 3. 3 percent and remain flat in 2010, that unemployment will hit 8.9 percent this year and 10.3 percent next year, and
40、that house prices will fall an additional 22 percent this year. That would all be very bad. But given that the economy contracted by 6. 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and that virtually all other economic indicators are flashing red, it is hardly the worst that the government should plan fo
41、r. Even if the assumptions prove correct, there is no guarantee that the testing will be rigorous. The tests will be supervised by the government but carried out by the banks. Since a capital infusion by the government would be costly to a bank and pose risks to its existing shareholders, the banks
42、will have an incentive to arrive at the lowest possible capital shortfall. The result could be a situation much like the present one with Citigroup, in which one bailout follows another, with mounting costs and risks for taxpayers and with investors, borrowers and consumers left to wonder when the b
43、anking system will be reliably functional again. Worse still, even if the tests accurately gauge the banks conditions and the government provides adequate capital, taxpayers could still lose big. The government will increase a troubled banks capital by purchasing preferred stock that pays a 9 percen
44、t dividend. If a bank cant pay the dividend, it can convert the preferred shares into common stock. The problem is that a bank is likely to convert the shares only if its condition continues to deteriorate, which would stick the taxpayer with stock falling in value. If the banks prospects for recove
45、ry are good and it pays back the government within two years, all of the stocks future gains go to existing common shareholders. The system would be preserved, but by enriching private investors at taxpayers expense. That raw deal is improved somewhat if repayment occurs after two years. Unfortunate
46、ly, chances that a bank would return to health after years on government life support do not seem especially good. The administration has never adequately explained why rescuing the weakest banks should involve rescuing their shareholders, and by extension, their executives and managers, whose wealt
47、h is likely to be concentrated in the stock of the bank. Instead, they have staked out a seemingly arbitrary position, insisting the government should not assume control of perilously weak big banks, even if only to restructure their finances. Before the stress test results are in and acted upon, ta
48、xpayers deserve an explanation. 11 We can learn from the first two paragraphs that_. （ A） the test has been carried out to check the financial conditions of 19 largest banks （ B） large banks are not in short of capital for the time being （ C） the government intends to make profits from this plan （ D
49、） the test plan is meant to make preparations for potential danger of further recession 12 Which one is closest to the meaning of “bailouts“ in the third paragraph? （ A） Big mistakes. （ B） Financial assistance. （ C） Governmental supervision. （ D） First aids. 13 According to the passage, which of the following is INCORRECT? （ A） The stress-test plan is over-optimistic about the prospect of American economy. （ B） The stress-tests are likely to reveal the real conditions since they will be carried out
