1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 85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)It
2、is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English, something really big must be going on. And something big is
3、 going on. (2)Partly, its that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French ecommerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French businessmen also have to speak English because they want to
4、 get their message out to American investors, possessors of the worlds deepest pockets. (3)The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one
5、 another and to the rest of the world. And for a number of reasons, theyve decided upon English as their common tongue. (4)So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely Latinate Aventis as the new com
6、pany name -and settled on English as the companys common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the European Commission, with
7、11 official languages and a traditionally French-speaking bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year. (5)How did this happen? One school attributes Englishs great success to the sheer weight of its merit. Its a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the
8、 fifth century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were shed while few of the complications of French were
9、 added. The result is a language with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more efficiently than either of its parents. Whats more, English has remained ungoverned and open to change foreign words, coinages, and grammatical shifts in a way that French, ruled by the pur
10、ist Academie Francaise, has not. (6)So its a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economics as to the languages ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is that the competit
11、ion first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German faded with the waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London
12、 the worlds most important financial centre, which made English a key language for business. Englands colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global reach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the status of the worlds preeminent political, economic, military, and cult
13、ural power, English became the obvious second language to learn. (7)In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English. The last generation of business and government leaders who hadnt studied English in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new mem
14、bers and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done. Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing, meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at
15、the whole continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along. (8)The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get in on it, you had to speak some English. The other was that by s
16、urfing the Web, Europeans who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now coming into contact with it daily. (9)None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the European Union, 47% of Western Europeans(including the British and Irish)speak Eng
17、lish well enough to carry on a conversation. Thats a lot more than those who can speak German(32%)or French(28%), but it still means more Europeans dont speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even me U.S. and British
18、 media companies that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their bets CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the Financial Times has recently launched a daily German-language edition. (10)But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college students, 69% of managers
19、, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the European Unions non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English, all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European business hasnt been all that traumatic, and its only going to get easier in t
20、he future. 1 Europeans began to favour English for all the following reasons EXCEPT its _. （ A） inherent linguistic properties （ B） association with the business world （ C） links with the United States （ D） disassociation from political changes 2 French lost its dominant status as an international l
21、anguage for _. （ A） religious reasons （ B） political reasons （ C） economic reasons （ D） military reasons 3 Which of the following statements forecasts the continuous rise of English in the future? （ A） About half of Western Europeans are now proficient in English. （ B） U.S. and British media compani
22、es are operating in Western Europe. （ C） Most secondary school students in Europe study English. （ D） Most Europeans continue to use their own language. 4 The passage mainly examines the factors related to _. （ A） the rising status of English in Europe （ B） English learning in non-English-speaking E
23、.U. nations （ C） the preference for English by European businessmen （ D） the switch from French to English in the European Commission 4 (1)Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history,
24、 were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metal-smims and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened
25、to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Roma
26、ny word for “man“. But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies. (2)In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have bee
27、n forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery it wasnt until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsie
28、s were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy
29、 families. (3)But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group, and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continents largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin do
30、wn. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere. Wit
31、h very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their ownunlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. “Romanestan,“ said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, “is where my two feet stand.“ 5 In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in
32、 their persecution by all the following EXCEPT _. （ A） the Egyptians （ B） the state （ C） the church （ D） the Nazis 6 According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of_. （ A） language （ B） culture （ C） identity （ D） custom 7 Which of the followin
33、g is NOT true about the history of the Gypsies? （ A） The origin of the Gypsies can only be guessed from their language. （ B） Europeans had thought that the Gypsies originated from Egypt. （ C） Some people had thought that the Gypsies might disappear as a distinct nationality. （ D） There was once a co
34、untry of the Gypsies in northern India. 7 (1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the
35、 largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries will want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years time a revised version of the whole caboodle, calle
36、d the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade. (2)When Dr. Nicholls wrote to The Spectato
37、r in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions.(Well, she had written to “other quality newspapers“ too.)As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional pro
38、blems of an editor began. Contributors didnt file copy on time; some who did sent too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr. Nicholls. (3)There remains the dinner-party game of whos in, whos out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Crimin
39、als were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is
40、 out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy(the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons)notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegr
41、aphy(he had tried to escape by ship to America). (4)It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known. (5)Of Hugo of Bury St Edm
42、unds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments, “Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility“. Then there had to be more women, too(12 per cent, against the
43、 original DNBs 3), such as Roy Strongs subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks, “Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory“. Doesnt seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it m
44、ay be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed(such as Merlin)and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, “except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is n
45、o trace of J. W. Clerke“. 8 The writer suggests that there is no sense in buying the latest volume _. （ A） because it is not worth the price （ B） because it has fewer entries than before （ C） unless one has all the volumes in his collection （ D） unless an expanded DNB will come out shortly 9 Crippen
46、 was absent from the DNB _. （ A） because he escaped to the U.S. （ B） because death sentence had been abolished （ C） for reasons not clarified （ D） because of the editors mistake 10 Throughout the passage, the writers tone towards the DNB was . （ A） complimentary （ B） supportive （ C） sarcastic （ D） b
47、itter 10 (1)The decline of civility and good manners may be worrying people more than crime, according to Gentility Recalled, edited by Digby Anderson, which laments the breakdown of traditional codes that once regulated social conduct. It criticises the fact that “manners“ are scorned as repressive
48、 and outdated. (2)The result, according to Mr. Anderson director of the Social Affairs Unit, an independent think-tank is a society characterised by rudeness: loutish behaviour on the streets, jostling in crowds, impolite shop assistants and bad-tempered drivers. (3)Mr. Anderson says the cumulative
49、effect of these apparently trivial, but often offensive is to make everyday life uneasy, unpredictable and unpleasant. As they are encountered far more often than crime, they can cause more anxiety than crime. (4)When people lament the disintegration of law and order, he argues, what they generally mean is order, as manifested by courteous forms of social contact. Meanwhile, attempts to re-establish restraint and self-control through “politically correct“ rules are artificial. (5)The book has contributions f
