2023年英语专业八级考试试题原题及答案解析.doc

英语专业八级考试试题原题及参照答案

03月06日
TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS ()
-GRADE EIGHT-
PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)
SECTION A MINI-LECTURE
In this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after the mini-lecture. When the lecture is over, you will be given two minutes to check your notes, and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.

Writing a Research Paper
I. Research Papers and Ordinary Essay
A. Similarity in (1) __________:
e.g. —choosing a topic
—asking questions
—identifying the audience
B. Difference mainly in terms of (2) ___________
1. research papers: printed sources
2. ordinary essay: ideas in one's (3) ___________
II. Types and Characteristics of Research Papers
A. Number of basic types: two
B. Characteristics:
1. survey-type paper:
—to gather (4) ___________
—to quote
—to (5) _____________
The writer should be (6) ___________.
2. argumentative (research) paper:
a. The writer should do more, e.g.
—to interpret
—to question, etc.
b. (7) _________varies with the topic, e.g.
—to recommend an action, etc.
III. How to Choose a Topic for a Research Paper
In choosing a topic, it is important to (8) __________.
Question No. 1: your familiarity with the topic
Question No. 2: Availability of relevant information on the chosen topic
Question No. 3: Narrowing the topic down to (9) _________
Question No. 4: Asking questions about (10) ___________
The questions help us to work out way into the topic and discover its possibilities.

SECTION B INTERVIEW
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheet.

Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.Now listen to the interview.

1. What is the purpose of Professor McKay's report?
A. To look into the mental health of old people.
B. To explain why people have negative views on old age.
C. To help correct some false beliefs about old age.
D. To identify the various problems of old age

2. Which of the following is NOT Professor McKay's view?
A. People change in old age a lot more than at the age of 21.
B. There are as many sick people in old age as in middle age.
C. We should not expect more physical illness among old people.
D. We should not expect to find old people unattractive as a group.

3. According to Professor McKay's report,
A. family love is gradually disappearing.
B. it is hard to comment on family feeling.
C. more children are indifferent to their parents.
D. family love remains as strong as ever.

4. Professor McKay is ________ towards the tendency of more parents living apart from their children.
A. negative
B. positive
C. ambiguous
D. neutral

5. The only popular belief that Professor McKay is unable to provide evidence against is
A. old-age sickness.
B. loose family ties.
C. poor mental abilities.
D. difficulities in maths.

SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheet.

Question 6 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.
6. Scientists in Brazil have used frog skin to
A. eliminate bacteria.
B. treat burns.
C. Speed up recovery.
D. reduce treatment cost.

Question 7 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.
7. What is NOT a feature of the new karaoke machine?
A. It is featured by high technology.
B. It allows you to imitate famous singers.
C. It can automatically alter the tempo and tone of a song.
D. It can be placed in specially designed theme rooms.

Question 8 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.
8. China's Internet users had reached _________ by the end of June.
A. 68 million
B. 8.9 million
C. 10 million
D. 1.5 million

Question 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.
9. According to the WTO, Chinese exports rose _________ last year.
A. 21%
B. 10%
C. 22%
D. 4.73

10. According to the news, which trading nation in the top 10 has reported a 5 per cent fall in exports?
A. The UK.
B. The US.
C. Japan.
D. Germany.

PART II READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)

TEXT A

I remember meeting him one evening with his pushcart. I had managed to sell all my papers and was coming home in the snow. It was that strange hour in downtown New York when the workers were pouring homeward in the twilight. I marched among thousands of tired men and women whom the factory whistles had unyoked. They flowed in rivers through the clothing factory districts, then down along the avenues to the East Side.
I met my father near Cooper Union. I recognized him, a hunched, frozen figure in an old overcoat standing by a banana cart. He looked so lonely, the tears came to my eyes. Then he saw me, and his face lit with his sad, beautiful smile -Charlie Chaplin's smile.
"Arch, it's Mikey," he said. "So you have sold your papers! Come and eat a banana."
He offered me one. I refused it. I felt it crucial that my father sell his bananas, not give them away. He thought I was shy, and coaxed and joked with me, and made me eat the banana. It smelled of wet straw and snow.
"You haven't sold many bananas today, pop," I said anxiously.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"What can I do? No one seems to want them."
It was true. The work crowds pushed home morosely over the pavements. The rusty sky darkened over New York building, the tall street lamps were lit, innumerable trucks, street cars and elevated trains clattered by. Nobody and nothing in the great city stopped for my father's bananas.
"I ought to yell," said my father dolefully. "I ought to make a big noise like other peddlers, but it makes my throat sore. Anyway, I'm ashamed of yelling, it makes me feel like a fool. "
I had eaten one of his bananas. My sick conscience told me that I ought to pay for it somehow. I must remain here and help my father.
"I'll yell for you, pop," I volunteered.
"Arch, no," he said, "go home; you have worked enough today. Just tell momma I'll be late."
But I yelled and yelled. My father, standing by, spoke occasional words of praise, and said I was a wonderful yeller. Nobody else paid attention. The workers drifted past us wearily, endlessly; a defeated army wrapped in dreams of home. Elevated trains crashed; the Cooper Union clock burned above us; the sky grew black, the wind poured, the slush burned through our shoes. There were thousands of strange, silent figures pouring over the sidewalks in snow. None of them stopped to buy bananas. I yelled and yelled, nobody listened.
My father tried to stop me at last. "Nu," he said smiling to console me, "that was wonderful yelling. Mikey. But it's plain we are unlucky today! Let's go home."
I was frantic, and almost in tears. I insisted on keeping up my desperate yells. But at last my father persuaded me to leave with him.

11. "unyoked" in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to
A. sent out
B. released
C. dispatched
D. removed

12. Which of the following in the first paragraph does NOT indicated crowds of people?
A.Thousands of
B. Flowed
C. Pouring
D. Unyoked

13. Which of the following is intended to be a pair of contrast in the passage?
A. Huge crowds and lonely individuals.
B. Weather conditions and street lamps.
C. Clattering trains and peddlers' yells.
D. Moving crowds and street traffic.

14. Which of the following words is NOT suitable to describe the character of the son?
A. Compassionate
B. Responsible
C. Shy
D. Determined

15. What is the theme of the story?
A. The misery of the factory workers.
B. How to survive in a harsh environment.
C. Generation gap between the father and the son.
D. Love between the father and the son.

16. What is the author's attitude towards the father and the son?
A. Indifferent
B. Sympathetic
C. Appreciative
D. Difficult to tell

TEXT B

提醒：原文出自美国时代杂志（TIME） 日期Jan. 29,
文章标题No Fall Insurance 作者AN K. SMITH, M.D.

When former President Ronald Reagan fell and broke his hip two weeks ago, he joined a group of more than 350,000 elderly Americans who fracture their hips each year. At 89 and suffering from advanced Alzheimer's disease, Reagan is in one of the highest-risk groups for this type of accident. The incidence of hip fractures not only increases after age 50 but doubles every five to six years as the risk of falling increases. Slipping and tumbling are not the only causes of hip fractures; weakened bones sometimes break spontaneously. But falling is the major cause, representing 90% of all hip fractures. These... ...

17. The following are all specific measures to guard against injuries with the EXCEPTION of
A. removal of throw rugs.
B. easy access to devices
C. installation of grab bars
D. re-arrangement of furniture

18. In which paragraph does the author state his purpose of writing?
A. The third paragraph
B. The first paragraph
C. The last paragraph
D. The last but one paragraph

19. The main purpose of the passage is to
A. offer advice on how to prevent hip fractures
B. emphasize the importance of health precautions
C. discuss the seriousness of hip fractures.
D. identify the causes of hip fractures.

TEXT C

提醒：原文同专八英译汉翻译试题相似

In his classic novel, "The Pioneers", James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a teeming metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewildered. All she sees is a forest. "Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?" she asks. He's astonished she can't see them. "Where! Everywhere," he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.

Cooper was illustrating a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, "Life for the American is always becoming, never being."... ...

20. The third paragraph examines America's future-mindedness from the _________ perspective.
A. future
B. realistic
C. historical
D. present

21. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT brought about by future-mindedness?
A. Economic stagnation
B. Environmental destruction
C. High divorce rates
D. Neglect of history

22. The word "pooh-pooh" in the sixth paragraph means
A. appreciate
B. praise
C. shun
D. ridicule

23. According to the passage, people at present can forecast ________ of a new round of future-mindedness.
A. the nature
B. the location
C. the variety
D. the features

24. The author predicts in the last paragraph that the study of future-mindedness will focus on
A. how it comes into being
B. how it functions
C. what it brings about
D. what it is related to.

TEXT D

25. The phrase "men's sureness of their sex role" in the first paragraph suggests that they
A. are confident in their ability to charm women.
B. take the initiative in courtship.
C. have a clear idea of what is considered "manly".
D. tend to be more immoral than women are.

26. The third paragraph does NOT claim that men
A. prevent women from taking up certain professions.
B. secretly admire women's intellect and resolution.
C. doubt whether women really mean to succeed in business.
D. forbid women to join certain clubs and societies.

27. The third paragraph
A. generally agrees with the first paragraph
B. has no connection with the first paragraph
C. repeats the argument of the second paragraph
D. contradicts the last paragraph

28. At the end of the last paragraph the author uses humorous exaggeration in order to
A. show that men are stronger than women
B. carry further the ideas of the earliest paragraphs
C. support the first sentence of the same paragraph
D. disown the ideas he is expressing

29. The usual idea of the cave man in the last paragraph
A. is based on the study of archaeology
B. illustrates how people expect men to behave
C. is dismissed by the author as an irrelevant joke
D. proves that the man, not woman, should be the wooer

30. The opening quotation from Margaret Mead sums up a relationship between man and woman which the author
A. approves of
B. argues is natural
C. completely rejects
D. expects to go on changing

PART III GENERAL KNOWLEDGE (10 MIN)

31. ______ is the capital city of Canada.
A. Vancouver
B. Ottawa √
C. Montreal
D. York

32. U.S. presidents normally serves a (an) _________term.
A. two-year
B. four-year √
C. six-year
D. eight-year

33. Which of the following cities is NOT located in the Northeast, U.S.?
A. Huston. √
B. Boston.
C. Baltimore.
D. Philadelphia.

34. ________ is the state church in England.
A. The Roman Catholic Church.
B. The Baptist Church
C. The Protestant Church
D. The Church of England √

注：The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion.

35. The novel Emma is written by
A. Mary Shelley.
B. Charlotte Brontë.
C. Elizabeth C. Gaskell.
D. Jane Austen. √

36. Which of following is NOT a romantic poet?
A. William Wordsworth.
B. George Elliot. √
C. George G. Byron.
D. Percy B. Shelley.

37. William Sidney Porter, known as O. Henry, is most famous for
A. his poems.
B. his plays.
C. his short stories. √
D. his novels

注：O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910), He was famous for his short stories and a master of the surprise ending, O. Henry is remembered best for such enduring favorites as "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Ransom of Red Chief." The combination of humor and sentiment found in his stories is the basis of their universal appeal.

38. Syntax is the study of
A. language functions.
B. sentence structures. √
C. textual organization.
D. word formation.

注：Definition of Syntax:

a. The study of the rules whereby words or othe