英美文化概况练习题韶师2014带答案

Decide the following statements are true or false

1.The commonwealth of Nations includes all European countries. F

2.The United Kingdom includes 3 constituent countries: England, Scotland and Wales.

F

3. Northern Ireland is part of Great Britain. F

4. Scotland was never conquered by the Romans. T

5. Most people in Scotland speak the old Celtic language, called ―Gaelic‖. F

6.Wales is rich in coal deposits. T

7. Cardiff, the capital of Wales, is a large city. F

?8. Britain is the oldest representative democracy in the world. T

?9. In Britain, the process of state-building has been one of evolution rather than revolution, in contrast to France and the USA. T

?10. The oldest institution of government in Britain is the Monarchy. T

?11. The term ―parliament‖ was first officially used in 1066 to describe the gathering of feudal barons and representatives from counties and towns. F ?12. Britain is both a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. T ?13. Britain, like Israel, has a written constitution of the sort which most countries have. F

?14. Common laws are laws which have been established through common practice in the courts. T

?15. Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. T

?16. The first English permanent settlement was founded in California. F

?17. The state of Pennsylvania used to be inhabited by the Quakers. T

?18. By the early 1760s, the 13 English colonies in North America were ready to separate themselves from Europe. T

?19. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln were regarded as the founding fathers of the United States of America. F

?20. The purpose of British education is not only to provide children with literacy and the other basic skills but also to socialize children. T

?21. The state seldom interferes with the decision of when, where, how and what children are taught. F

?22. In the UK, Public schools are part of the national education system and funded by the government. F

23. All secondary schools in Britain are run and supervised by the government. F

24. Independent schools get money mainly through the private sector and tuition rates, with some government support. T

25. Grammar schools selects children at the age of 11 and provide them with a general education. F

26. In 1948 President Truman put forward the Truman Doctrine, which is generally regarded as the formal declaration of the implementation of the US containment foreign policy. T

27. When the War of Independence was over, the United States was one unified nation as it is today. F

28. The US Constitution set up a federal system with a strong central government. T

29. The main duty of the congress is to make laws, including those which levy taxes that pay for the work of the federal government. T

30. The idea of checks and balances as a way of restricting governmental power and preventing its abuse is from constitution. T

31. Today, the United States has two major political parties. One is the Democratic Party, formed before 1800. The other is the Republican party, formed in the 1850s, by people in the states of the North and West. T

32. Americans have to join a political party in order to vote or to be a candidate for public office. F

33. One of the things that decides whether an applicant can be accepted by a college is his/ her scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. T

34. It takes at least four years to get a bachelor’s degree from an institution of higher learning in the US. T

35. Fibre and centre are American English spelling. F

36. dialog and monolog are British English spelling. F

II. Choose the answer that best completes the statement or answers the question.

1. Which of the following is NOT true of London?

A the cultural center

B the business center

C The financial center

D the sports center

2.Which of the following is not true about London?

A. it’s a political, economic and cultural center of the country.

B it has a larger population than all other cities in England.

C it is not only the largest city in the country, but also the largest in the world.

D it has played a significant role in the economic construction of the country.

3. Who are the ancestors of the English and the founders of England?

A the Anglo-Saxons b the Normans

C the Vikings d the Romans

4. Which is the largest city in Scotland?

A Cardiff b Edinburgh

c Glasgow

d Manchester

5. Where do the majority of people in Scotland live?

A in the Highlands b in the Lowlands

c in the Uplands

d in th

e west o

f Scotland.

6. Which of the following is not true?

A Wales was invaded by the Romans.

B Wales was invaded by the Anglo-Saxons.

C Wales was conquered by the Normans.

D Wales was threatened by the English.

7. When did Scotland join the Union by agreement of the English and Scottish Parliaments?

A in 1715 b in 1688 c in 1745 d in 1707

8. Which of the following kings was executed in the civil war?

A. James I

B. James II

C. Charles I

D. Charles II

9. What happened in 1215?

A. It was the year of Norman Conquest in British history.

B. Forced by barons, King John signed the Magna Carta. （大宪章）

C. Henry IV granted the Commons the power to review money grants.

D. King Egbert united England under his rule.

10. Which of the following is Not related to the Constitution?

?A. It is a written document which lists out the basic principles for government.

? B. It is the foundation of British governance today

? C. Conventions and Laws passed by Parliament are part of the Constitution.

? D. The common laws are part of the Constitution.

11. Which of the following is Not a feature of the House of Lords?

? A. Lords do not receive salaries and many do not attend Parliament sittings.

? B. It consists of the Lords Spiritual and the Lords Temporal.

?C. The Lords are expected to present the interests of the public.

? D. Most of the Lords in the House of Lords are male.

12. Which of the following is NOT based on the fact?

?A. Members of Parliament elect the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

? B. MPs receive salaries and some other allowances.

C. MPs are expected to represent the interests of the public.

D. Most MPs belong to the major political parties.

13. In Britain, the great majority of parents send their children to ___.

A. private schools

B. independent schools

C. state schools

D. public schools.

?14. In Britain, children from the age of 5 to 16 ___.

?A. can legally receive partly free education.

?B. can legally receive completely free education.

?C. can not receive free education at all.

?D. can not receive free education if their parents are rich.

?15. If a student wants to go to university in Britain, he will take the examination called___. ?A. General Certificate of Education — Advanced.

?B. General Certificate of Secondary Education

?C. the common entrance examination

?D. General National Vocational Qualifications.

?16. Which of the following is NOT true?

?A. Parents send their children to public schools because they are rich.

?B. Parents send their children to public schools because their children can get better jobs when they leave school.

?C. Parents send their children to public schools because their children can have a better chance of getting into a good university.

?D. Parents send their children to public schools because their children prefer to go to public schools.

?17. Which of the following is Not a characteristic of the open University?

?A. It’s open to ever ybody

?B. It requires no formal education qualification.

?C. No university degree is awarded.

?D. University courses are followed through TV, radio, correspondence, etc.

18. In the examination called ―the 11 plus‖, students with academic potential go to ___.

A. grammar schools

B. comprehensive schools

C. public schools

D. technical schools

?19. Which of the following is NOT included in the National Curriculum?

?A. Children must study the subjects like English, mathematics, science and so on.

?B. Children must sit in A-level exams.

?C. Children must pass national tests.

?D. Teachers must teach what they are told.

20. Which of the following schools would admit children without reference to their academic abilities?

A. Comprehensive schools

B. Secondary schools

C. Independent schools

D. Grammar schools

21. ―No taxation without representation‖ was the rallying cry of ____.

A. the settlers of Virginia

B. the people of Pennylvania

C. the colonists in New England.

D. the people of the 13 colonies on the eve of the American Revolution.

22. which of the following statements is NOT correct? When the War of Independence was over,___.

A. each new state had its own government.

B. each new state made its own laws and handled all of its internal affairs.

C. the national government was called the Congress with little power.

D. the relationships between the states and the national government were clearly defined.

23. Which of the following is the only branch that can make federal laws, and levy federal taxes?

A. the executive

B. the legislative

C. the judicial

D. the president

24. Which of the following is NOT a power of the president?

A. The president can veto any bill passed by Congress.

B. The president has the authority to appoint federal judges as vacancies occur.

C. The president can make laws.

D. The president broad powers, with the executive branch, to issue regulations and directives regarding the work of the federal departments.

25. The American foreign policy before WWI can be described as ___.

A. containment

B. swinging between containment and interventionism

C. isolationism

D. unilateralism

26. What did the US mean by containment?

A. It would use whatever means to prevent the Soviet Union from breaking out of its sphere of influence.

B. It wanted to reverse the situation in which the Soviet Union reached parity with the US in nuclear force

C. It planned to drag the the Soviet Union into another round of arms race

D. It intended to shift the balance of terror

27. On one occasion during the Cold War period, the US and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war. What was that occasion?

A. the US fought the Korean War

B. the US sent 50 000 troops to Vietnam

C. the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in 1962.

D. Large numbers of people fled East Berlin and East Germany to West Germany in 1961.

28. Which of the following subjects are NOT offered to elementary school students?

A. Mathematics and languages

B. Politics and business education

C. Science and social studies.

D. Music and physical education

29. The expenditure in American public schools is guided by or decided by___

A. teacher

B. students

C. headmasters

D. school boards

30. In the United States school systems, which of the following divisions is true?

A. Elementary school, grammar school

B. Elementary school, junior high school

C. Elementary school, secondary school

D. Junior high school, senior high school

31. In order to go to university, secondary school students must meet the following requirements except that_____.

A. they have high school records and recommendations from their teachers

B. they make good impressions during the interview

C. they get good scores in the Scholastic Aptitude Tests

D. they pass the college entrance examinations

32. Three of the following universities have large endowments from wealthy benefactors. Which is the exception?

A. Harvard University

B. the State University of New York

C. Yale University D, Princeton University

33. Both public and private universities depend on the following sources on income except____.

A. investment

B. student tuition

C. endowments

D. government funding

34. Shelley’ s political lyrics ______ is not only a war cry calling upon all working people to rise up against their political oppressors, but an address to them pointing out the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation.

A. ―Ode to Liberty‖

B. ―Ode to Naples‖

C. ―Ode to the West Wind‖

D. ―Men of England‖

35. Charlotte’ s works are famous for the depiction of the life of ______ working women, particularly governesses.

A. the middle – class

B. the lower - class

C. the upper - middle – class

D. the upper - class

36. Jane Austen’ s practical idealism is that love should be justified by ______ and disciplined by self-control.

A. reason

B. sense

C. rationality

D. sensibility

37. ―To be, or not to be - that is the question;/Whether’ tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles ,/And by

opposing end then?‖ These lines are taken from ______.

A. King Lear

B. Romeo and Juliet

C. Othello

D. Hamlet

38. Daniel Defoe’s ______ is universally considered as his masterpiece.

A. Colonel Jack

B. Robinson Crusoe

C. Captain Singleton

D. A Journal of the Plague Y ear

39. Jonathan Swift’ s ______ is generally regarded as the best model of satire, not only of the period but also in the whole English literary history.

A. Gullive r’s Travels

B. The Battle of the Books

C. ―A Modest Proposal‖

D. A Tale of a Tub

40. Dickens’ s first child hero is ______.

A. Little Nell

B. David Copperfield

C. Oliver Twist

D. Little Dorrit

41. With the scarlet letter A as the biggest symbol of all, ______ proves himself to be one of the best symbolists.

A. Hawthorne

B. Dreiser

C. James

D. Faulkner

42. The author of Leaves of Grass , a giant of American letters, is ______.

A. Faulkner

B. Dreiser

C. James

D. Whitman

43. Melville is best - known as the author of his mighty book, ________, which is one of the world’ s greatest masterpieces.

A. Song of Myself

B. Moby - Dick

C. The Marble Faun

D. Mosses from an Old Manse

44. During WWI, ______ served as an honorable junior officer in the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps and in 1918 was severely wounded in both legs.

A. Anderson

B. Faulkner

C. Hemingway

D. Dreiser

45. As an active participant of his age, Fitzgerald is often acclaimed literary spokesman of the ______.

A. Jazz Age

B. Age of Reason

C. Lost Generation

D. Beat Generation

46. The 20th -century stream- of- consciousness technique was frequently and skillfully used by ______ to emphasize the reactions and inner musings of the narrator.

A. Hemingway

B. Frost

C. Faulkner

D. Whitman

47. The Sun Also Rises casts light on a whole generation after WWI and the effects of the war by way of a vivid portrait of ―______.‖

A. the Beat Generation

B. the Lost Generation

C. the Babybooming Age

D. the Jazz Age

48. Within her little lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern ______, which include religion, death, immorality, love and nature.

A. the whole human beings

B. the frontiers

C. the African Americans

D. her relatives

49. In his poetry, Whitman shows concern for ______ and the burgeoning life of cities.

A. the colonists

B. the capitalists

C. the whole hard -working people

D. the intellectuals

1. William the Conqueror William was Duke of Normandy. He landed his army in Oct, 1066 and defeated king Harold in Hastings. Then he was crowned king of England on Christams Day the same year. He established a strong Norman government and the feudal system in England.

2. the Great Charter King John’s reign caused much discontent among the barons. In 1215, he was forced to sign a document, known as Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter). It has 63 clauses. Magna Carta was the first document imposed upon a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit King’s powers by law and protect the barons rights. It has long been regarded as the foundation of English liberties, and led to the rule of constitutional law in England.

3. Oliver Cromwell The leader during the Civil War who led the New Model Army to defeat the king and condemned him to death. Then he declared England a Commonwealth and made himself Lord of Protector. He ruled England till the restoration of charles II in 1660.

4. the Great Lakes The Great Lakes are the most important lakes in the United States. They are Lake Superior, which is the largest fresh water lake in the world, Lake Michigan ——the only one entirely in the U.S. —— Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. They are all located between Canada and the United States except Lake Michigan.

5. the Truman Doctrine: On March 12, 1949, President Truman put forward the Truman Doctrine in a speech to the joint session of Congress. The Truman Doctrine meant to say that the U.S. government would support any country which said it was fighting against Communism.

1. What are the differences in political system between the UK and the USA?

Differences

Differences 1. Form of government——The USA is a republic, while the UK is a constitutional monarchy. Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution,/A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. 2. Government The government consisting of three parts，or branches，the executive，the legislative and the judicial in USA. Each branch has powers that the others do not have and each branch has a way of counteracting and limiting any wrongful action by another branch. The president has the power to make treaties with other nations and to make all appointments to federal positions，including the position of Supreme Count justice. The Senate ，however must approve all treaties and confirm all appointments before they become official. In this way the Congress can prevent the president from making unwise appointments.///However，the UK government is not split into branches. The House of Commons reigns supreme, and the party with the greatest number of members of the Commons is the governing party. The leader of the governing party becomes Prime Minister, who almost has the power of a king. He or she alone has the power to declare war, to make alliances, to use nuclear weapons, and to appoint the people of his choice to the Cabinet, the

various government ministries and offices of state. These appointments are entirely his choice and are not subject to scrutiny or confirmation by any other person of body. The Prime Minister also has the power to dismiss any serving minister or secretary of state.

3. The constitution:The United States has a written constitution which is very difficult to change. The UK does not have a single document called the constitution but instead its constitutional provisions are scattered over various Acts of Parliament, any of which can be changed by a simple majority in the Parliament such as statute law, the common laws and conventions.

1.What’s the role of the monarch in the UK?

The king or the queen are the constitutional head of State; In law the Official titles include:

the executive; an integral part of the legislature; head of the judiciary; the commander-in-chief of all the armed forces; and the ―supreme governor‖ of the Church of England. But actually, the king or the queen No longer exercises political power, her principal role is symbolic: 1. Symbol of national unity 2. perform ceremonial functions 3. giving advice to ministers

What are some of the features of Romantic Literature?

Roughly the first third of the 19th century makes up English literature's romantic period. Writers of romantic literature are more concerned with imagination and feeling than with th e power of reason in Enlightenment period. Perhaps the rather violent and ugly world about them drove 19th-century writers to a literar y refuge.

The romanticists express a negative attitude towards the existing social or political conditions. They place the individual at the center of art. The key words of English Romanticism are nature ,imagination, individual and feeling.

How does novel develop?

The English novel has generally been seen as beginning with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719). while earlier works such as the "Prologue" to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have been suggested with novel characters. Another important early novel is Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), by Jonathan Swift, which is both a satire of human nature, as well as a parody of travellers' tales like Robinson Crusoe. The rise of the novel as an important literary genre is generally associated with the growth of the middle class in England.

Contrary to the traditional romance of aristocrats, novel gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people. The narrator boldly imposed his own attitudes; always he assumed an omniscience that tended to reduce the characters to puppets. For example, the author might interrupt his or her narrative to pass judgment on a character, or pity or praise another, and inform or remind the reader of some other relevant issue.

II. Fill in the blanks:

1. Geographically speaking, the north and west of Britain are _______, while the east and south-east are mostly______.

2. Welsh is located in the ______ of Great Britain.

3. The ancestors of the English are______, while the Scots, Welsh and Irish the ______.

4. In the mid-5th century, three Teutonic(日耳曼) tribes ______, _____, and _____ invaded Britain. Among them, the _____ gave their name to English people.

5. The battle of _______ witnessed the death of Harold in October, 106

6.

6. Under William, the ______ system in England was completely established.

7. The property record in William’s time is known as ______, which was compiled in _____.

8. ______ was the deadly bubonic plague, which reduced England’s population from four million to ______ million by the end of the 14th century.

9. James I and his son Charles I both believed firmly in ______.

10. During the Civil War, the Cavaliers supported ________, while the Roundheads supported _______.

11. After the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell declared England a ______, later, he became _________.

12. In 1707, the Act of _______ united England and ______.

13. The two parties originated with the Glorious Revolution were _____ and _______. The former were the forerunners of the ______ Party, the latter were of the ______ party.

14. After the Industrial Re volution, Britain became the ―______‖ of the world.

15. During the Second World War ________ led Britain to final victory in 1945.

16. Natural gas was discovered in 1965 and oil in 1970 under _______.

17. The party which wins the second largest number of seats becomes the official ______, with its own leader and ―______ cabinet‖.

18. The Prime Minister’s official residence is _____.

19. The criminal law in Britain presumes the _____ of the accused until he has been proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

20. The jury usually consists of _______ persons in England.

21. The history of English can be divided into four periods:＿＿＿，＿＿＿＿＿，Early Modern English, and Late Modern English.

22. Pandora’s Box belongs to _______allusion. 23. Waterloo belongs to ______allusion.

24. Taylor is a _____ surname. 25. In Euphemism, full-figured means _____.

26. Education in the England is compulsory for all between the ages of ______ and _____.

27. The most-known universities in Britain are _____ and _____ which date from the _____ and _____ centuries.

28. There are 50 states in the USA, two of them are not connected to the other contiguous states. They are ______ and ______.

29. In the Great Lakes, only _____ belongs to U.S. completely while the other four are shared with Ganada.

30. _____ is the largest continental state in area in the U.S.

31. The West can be divided into three parts: the Great Plains, the _____ and the Intermountain Basin and Plateau.

32. New England is sometimes called the ______ of America.

33. The first blacks were brought to North America as slaves in _____.

II. Fill in the blanks:

1.highlands, lowlands

2. west

3. Anglo-Saxons, Celts

4. Jutes, Saxons, Angles, Angles

5.

Hastings 6. feudal 7. Domesday Book, 1086 8. Black Death, two 9. the Divine Right of Kings 10. the king, the Parliament 11. Commonwealth, Lord Protector 12. Union, Scotland 13. Whigs Tories Liberal Conservative 14. workshop 15. Winston Churchill

16. the North Sea 17. Opposition, shadow 18. the Queen, No. 10 Downing 19. innocence

20. 12 21. Old English, Middle English 22. mythological 23. historical 24.

occupational 25. fat 26. 5, 16 27. Oxford, Cambridge, 12th, 13th 28. Alaska, Hawaii 29.

Lake Michigan 30. Alaska 31. Rocky mountains 32. birthplace 33. 1619