99年英语专业八级考试真题.doc

99年英语专业八级考试真题

Part Ⅰ Listening Comprehension (40 min)

In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct response to each question on your Coloured Answer Sheet.

SECTION A TALK

Questions 1 to 5 refer to the talk in this section. At the end of the talk you w ill be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now list en to the talk.

1. The technology to make machines quieter ___.

A. has been in use since the 1930’s

B. has accelerated industrial production

C. has just been in commercial use

D. has been invented to remove all noises

2. The modern electronic anti-noise devices ___.

A. are an update version of the traditional methods

B. share similarities with the traditional methods

C. are as inefficient as the traditional methods

D. are based on an entirely new working principle

3. The French company is working on anti-noise techniques to be used in a ll EXCEPT ___.

A. streets B. factories C. aircraft D. cars

4. According to the talk, workers in “zones of quiet” can ___.

A. be more affected by noise

B. hear talk from outside the zone

C. work more efficiently

D. be heard outside the zone

5. The main theme of the talk is about ___.

A. noise-control technology

B. noise in factories

C. noise-control regulations

D. noise-related effects

SECTION B INTERVIEW

Questions 6 to 10 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you wil l be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.

6. Employees in the US are paid for their time. This means that they are supposed to ___.

A. work hard while their boss is around

B. come to work when there is work to be done

C. work with initiative and willingness

D. work through their lunch break

7. One of the advantages of flexible working hours is that ___.

A. pressure from work can be reduced

B. working women can have more time at home

C. traffic and commuting problems can be solved

D. personal relationships in offices can be improved

8. On the issue of working contracts in the US, which statement is NOT co rrect?

A. Performance at work matters more than anything else.

B. There are laws protecting employees’ working rights.

C. Good reasons must be provided in order to fire workers.

D. Working contracts in the US are mostly short-term ones.

9. We can be assumed from the interview that an informal atmosphere might be found in ___.

A. small firms B. major banks C. big corporations D. law offices

10. The interview is mainly about ___ in the USA.

A. office hierarchies B. office conditions C. office roles D. office life

SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

Question 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you wil l be given 15 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.

11. Senator Bob Dole’s attitude towards Clinton’s anti-crime policy is that of ___.

A. opposition B. support C. ambiguity D . indifference

Questions 12 and 13 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item , you will be given 30 seconds to answer the questions . Now listen to the news.

12. Japan and the United States are now ___.

A. negotiating about photographic material

B. negotiating an automobile agreement

C. facing serious problems in trade

D. on the verge of a large-scale trade war

13. The news item seems to indicate that the agreement ___.

A. will end all other related trade conflicts

B. is unlikely to solve the dispute once and for all

C. is linked to other trade agreements

D. is the last of its kind to be reached

Questions 14 and 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 30 seconds to answer the questions . Now listen to the news.

14. According to the news, the ice from Greenland provides information ab out ___.

A. oxygen B. ancient weather C. carbon dioxide D. temperature

15. Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

A. Drastic changes in the weather have been common since ancient times.

B. The change in weather from very cold to very hot lasted over a century.

C. The scientists have been studying ice to forecast weather in the future.

D. The past 10,000 years have seen minor changes in the weather.

SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

Fill in each of the gaps with ONE word. You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.

At present companies and industries like to sponsor sports events. Two reasons are put forward to explain this phenomenon. The first reason is that they get (1)___ throughout the world. 1.___

The second reason is that companies and industries(2)___ money, 2.___ as they get reductions in the tax they owe if they sponsor sports or arts activities.

As sponsorship is (3)___, careful thinking is required in deciding 3.___ which events to sponsor.

It is important that the event to be sponsored(4)___ the product(s) 4.___ to be promoted. That is, the right(5)___ and maximum product coverage 5.___ must be guaranteed in the event.

Points to be considered in sports sponsorship. Popularity of the event

International sports events are big(6)___ events, which get extensive 6.___ coverage on TV and in the press.

Smaller events attract fewer people. Identification of the potential audience

Aiming at the right audience is most important for smaller events.

The right audience would attract manufacturers of other related products like(7)___ , etc. 7.___ Advantages of sponsorship

Advantages are longer-term.

People are expected to respond (8)___ to the products promoted. 8.___ And be more likely to buy them.

Advertising is (9)___ the mind. 9.___

Sponsorship is better than straight advertising: a)less(10) ___ 10.___

b)tax-free

改错
Part Ⅱ Proofreading and Error Correction (15 min)
The following passage contains TEN errors. Each line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way. For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and wri te the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line. For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line. For an unnecessary word cross out the unnecessary word with a slash “/’ and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.
Example
When∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) an
it never／ buys things in finished form and hangs (2) never
them on the wall. When a natural history museum 
wants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibit

The hunter-gatherer tribes that today live as our prehistoric 1.___
human ancestors consume primarily a vegetable diet supplementing 2.___
with animal foods. An analysis of 58 societies of modem hunter-
gatherers, including the Kung of southern Africa, revealed that one 
half emphasize gathering plant foods, one-third concentrate on fishing
and only one-sixth are primarily hunters. Overall, two-thirds
and more of the hunter-gatherer’s calories come from plants. Detailed 3.___
studies of the Kung by the food scientists at the University of
London, showed that gathering is a more productive source of food
than is hunting. An hour of hunting yields in average about 100 4.___
edible calories, as an hour of gathering produces 240. 5.___
Plant foods provide for 60 percent to 80 percent of the Kung 6.___
diet, and no one goes hungry when the hunt fails. Interestingly, if
they escape fatal infections or accidents, these contemporary
aborigines live to old ages despite of the absence of medical care. 7.___
They experience no obesity, no middle-aged spread, little dental
decay, no high blood pressure, on heart disease, and their blood
cholesterol levels are very low( about half of the average American 8.___
adult), if no one is suggesting what we return to an aboriginal life 9.___
style, we certainly could use their eating habits as a model for 10.___
healthier diet.

阅读 A
Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension (40 min)

SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 min )

In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen m ultiple-choice questions. Read the passages carefully and then mark your answers on your Coloured Answer Sheet.

TEXT A

Ricci’s “Operation Columbus”

Ricci, 45, is now striking out on perhaps his boldest venture yet. He plan s to market an English language edition of his elegant monthly art magazine, FMR , in the United States. Once again the skeptice are murmuring that the successfu l Ricci has headed for a big fall. And once again Ricci intends to prove them wr ong.

Ricci is so confident that he has christened his quest “Operation Columbu s ” and has set his sights on discovering an American readership of 300,000. That goal may not be too far-fetched. The Italian edition of FMR — the initials, of course, stand for Franco Maria Ricci-is only 18 months old. But it is already the second largest art magazine in the world, with a circulation of 65,000 and a profit margin of US $ 500,000. The American edition will be patterned after th e Italian version, with each 160-page issue carrying only 40 pages of ads and no more than five articles. But the contents will often differ. The English-langua ge edition will include more American works, Ricci says, to help Americans get o ver “an inferiority complex about their art.” He also hopes that the magazine will become a vehicle for a two -way cultural exchange — what he likes to think of as a marriage of brains, culture and taste from both sides of the Atlantic.

 To realize this vision, Ricci is mounting one of the most lavish, enterpris ing — and expensive-promotional campaigns in magazine — publishing history. Between November and January, eight jumbo jets will fly 8 million copies of a sample 16-page edition of FMR across the Atlantic. From a warehouse in Michigan, 6.5 million copies will be mailed to American subscribers of various cultural, art and business magazines. Some of the remaining copies will circulate as a spe cial Sunday supplement in the New York Times. The cost of launching Operation Co lumbus is a staggering US $ 5 million, but Ricci is hoping that 60% of the price tag will be financed by Italian corporations.“ To land in America Columbus had to use Spanish sponsors,” reads one sentence in his promotional pamphlet. “We would like Italians.”

Like Columbus, Ricci cannot know what his reception will be on foreign shor es. In Italy he gambled — and won — on a simple concept: it is more important to show art than to write about it. Hence, one issue of FMR might feature 32 fu ll-colour pages of 17th-century tapestries, followed by 14 pages of outrageous e yeglasses. He is gambling that the concept is exportable. “I don’t expect that more than 30% of my reader... will actually read FMR,” he says. “The magazine is such a visual delight that they don’t have to.” Still, he is lining up an impr es sive stable of writers and professors for the American edition , including Noam Chomsky, Anthony Burgess, Eric Jong and Norman Mailer. In addition, he seems to be pursuing his won eclectic vision without giving a moment’s thought to such e s tablished competitors as Connosisseur and Horizon. “The Americans can do almost everything better than we can,” says Rieci, “But we(the Italians)have a 2,000 year edge on them in art.”

16. Ricci intends his American edition of FMR to carry more American art works in order to___.

A. boost Americans’ confidence in their art
B. follow the pattern set by his Italian edition
C. help Italians understand American art better
D. expand the readership of his magazine

17. Ricci is compared to Columbus in the passage mainly because___.
A. they both benefited from Italian sponsors
B. they were explorers in their own ways
C. they obtained overseas sponsorship
D. they got a warm reception in America

18. We get the impression that the American edition of FMR will probably ___.
A. carry many academic articles of high standard
B. follow the style of some famous existing magazines
C. be mad by one third of American magazine readers
D. pursue a distinctive editorial style of its own

TEXT B

 My mother’s relations were very different from the Mitfords. Her brother, Uncle Geoff, who often came to stay at Swimbrook, was a small spare man with th oughtful blue eyes and a rather silent manner. Compared to Uncle Tommy, he was a n intellectual of the highest order, and indeed his satirical pen belied his mil d demeanor. He spent most of his waking hours composing letters to The Times and other publications in which he outlined his own particular theory of the develo pment of English history. In Uncle Geoff’s view, the greatness of England had r isen and waned over the centuries in direct proportion to the use of natural man ure in fertilizing the soil. The Black Death of 1348 was caused by gradual loss of the humus fertility found under forest trees. The rise of the Elizabethans tw o centuries later was attributable to the widespread use of sheep manure. 

Many of Uncle Geoff’s letters-to-the-editor have fortunately been preserv ed in a privately printed volume called Writings of a Rebel. Of the collection, one letter best sums up his views on the relationship between manure and freedom

. He wrote:

Collating old records shows that our greatness rises and falls with the li ving fertility of our soil. And now, many years of exhausted and chemically murd ered soil, and of devitalized food from it, has softened our bodies and still wo rse, softened our national character. It is an actual fact that character is lar gely a product of the soil. Many years of murdered food from deadened soil has m ade us too tame. Chemicals have had their poisonous day. It is now the worm’s t urn to reform the manhood of England. The only way to regain our punch, our char acter, our lost virtues, and with them the freedom natural to islanders, is to c o mpost our land so as to allow moulds, bacteria and earthworms to remake living s oil to nourish Englishmen’s bodies and spirits.

The law requiring pasteurization of milk in England was a particular targe t of Uncle Geoff’s. Fond of alliteration, he dubbed it “Murdered Milk Measure ”, and established the Liberty Restoration League, with headquarters at his house i n London, for the specific purpose of orga