高校英语专业八级考试大纲(2004年新版)

英语专业八级考试样题

TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS GRADE EIGHT

(SAMPLE TEST)

TIME LIMIT: 185 MIN. PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION

[25 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 on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the mini-lecture. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.

Now listen to the mini-lecture.

In Section B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your answer sheet.

SECTIONB INTERVIEW

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

1.According to Janet, the factor that would most affect negotiations i s＿

A.English language proficiency

B.different cultural practices

C.different negotiation tasks

D.the international Americanized style

2.Janet’s attitude towards the Americanized style as a model for

business negotiations is＿

A.supportive

B.negative

C.ambiguous

D.cautious

3.Which of the following can NOT be seen as a difference between

Brazilian and America negotiators?

A.Americans prepare more points before negotiations.

B.Americans are more straightforward during negotiations.

C.Brazilians prefer more eye contact during negotiations.

D.Brazilians seek more background information.

4.Which group of people seems to be the most straightforward?

A.The British.

B.Germans.

C.Americans.

D.Not mentioned

5.Which of the following is NOT characteristic of Japanese negotiators?

A.Reserved.

B.Prejudiced.

C.Polite.

D.Prudent.

SECTIONC NEWS BROADCAST

Question 6 to 8 are based on the following news. At the end of the news items, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each question.

Now listen to the news.

6.According to the UN Human Development Report, which is the best

place for women in the world?

A.Canada.

B.The US.

C.Australia.

D.Scandinavia.

7.______is in the12th place in overall ranking.

A.Britain

B.France

C.Finland

D.Switzerland

8.According to the UN report, the least developed country is _______

A.Ethiopia

B.Mali

C.Sierra Leon

D.Central African Republic

Questions 9 to 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 second to answer each question.

Now listen to the news.

9.The French President’s visit to Japan aims at ______.

A.making more investments in Japan

B.stimulating Japanese businesses in France

C.helping boost the Japanese economy

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/db15758595.html,unching a film festival in Japan

10.T his is Jacques Chirac’s_______ visit to Japan.

A.second

B.fourteenth

C.fortieth

D.forty-first

PART II READING COMPREHENSION

[30 MIN.] In this section there are several reading passages followed by a total of twenty multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your

answers on your answer sheet.

TEXT A

The biggest problem facing Chile as it promotes itself as a tourist destination to be reckoned with, is that it is at the end of the earth. It is too far to be a convenient stop on the way to anywhere else and is much farther than a relatively cheap half-day’s flight away from the big tourist markets, unlike Mexico, for example.

Chile, therefore, is having to fight hard to attract tourists, to convince travelers that it is worth coming halfway round the world to visit. But it is succeeding, not only in existing markets like the USA and Western Europe but in new territories, in particular the Far East. Markets closer to home however are not being forgotten. More than 50% of visitors to Chile still come from its nearest neighbour, Argentina, where the cost of living is much higher.

Like all South American countries, Chile sees tourism as a valuable earner of foreign currency, although it has been far more serious than most in promoting its image abroad. Relatively stable politically within the region, it has benefited from the problems suffered in other areas. In Peru, guerrilla warfare in recent years has dealt a heavy blow to the tourist industry and fear of street crime in Brazil has reduced the attraction of Riode Janeiro as a dream destination for foreigners.

More than 150000 people are directly involved in Chile’s tourist

sector, an industry which earns the country more than US$950 million each year. The state-run National Tourism Service, in partnership with a number of private companies, is currently running a worldwide campaign, taking part in trade fairs and international events to attract visitors to Chile.

Chile’s great strength as a tourist destination is its geographical diversity. From the parched Atacama Desert in the north to the Antarctic snowfields of the south, it is more than 5000 km long. With the Pacific on one side and the Andean mountains on the other, Chile boasts natural attractions. Its beaches are not up to Caribbean standards but resorts such as Vina del Mar are generally clean and unspoilt and have a high standard of Services.

But the trump card is the Andes mountain range. There are a number of excellent ski resorts within one hour’s drive of the capital, Santiago, and the national parks in the south are home to rare animal and plant species. The parks already attract specialist visitors, including mountaineers, who come to climb the technically difficult peaks, and fishermen, lured by the salmon and trout in the region’s rivers.

However, infrastructural development in these areas is limited. The ski resorts do not have as many lifts and pistes as their European counterparts and the poor quality of roads in the south means that only the most determined travelers see the best of the national parks.

Air links between Chile and the rest of the world are, at present, relatively poor. While Chile’s two largest airlines have extensive networks within South America, they operate only a small number of routes to the United States and Europe, while services to Asia are almost non-existent.

Internal transport links are being improved and luxury hotels are being built in one of its national parks. Nor is development being restricted to the Andes. Easter of areas where the Government believes it can create tourist markets.

But the rush to open hitherto inaccessible areas to mass tourism is not being welcomed by everyone. Indigenous and environmental groups, including Greenpeace, say that many parts of the Andes will suffer if they become over-developed. There is a genuine fear that areas of Chile will suffer the cultural destruction witnessed in Mexico and European resorts.

The policy of opening up Antarctica to tourism is also politically sensitive. Chile already has permanent settlements on the ice and many people see the decision to allow tourists there as a political move, enhancing Santiago’s territorial claim over part of Antarctica.

The Chilean Government has promised to respect the environment as it seeks to bring tourism to these areas. But there are immense commercial pressures to exploit the country’s tourism potential. The Government will have to monitor developments closely if it is genuinely

concerned in creating a balanced, controlled industry and if the price of an increasingly lucrative tourist market is not going to mean the loss of many of Chile’s natural riches.

11.C hile is disadvantaged in the promotion of its tourism by______

A.geographical location

B.guerrilla warfare

C.political instability

D.street crime

12.M any of Chile’s tourists used to come from EXCEOT________

A.the United States.

B.The Far East

C.Western Europe

D.Her neighbours

13.A ccording to the author, Chile’s greatest attraction is __________

A.the unspoilt beaches

B.the dry and hot desert

C.the famous mountain range

D.the high standard of services

14. According to the passage, in which area improvement is already under way?

A. Facilities in the ski resorts.

B. Domestic transport system.

C. Air services to Asia.

D. Road network in the south.

16. The objection to the development of Chile’s tourism might be all EXCEPT that it_______

A. is ambition and unrealistic

B. is politically sensitive

C. will bring harm to culture

D. will cause pollution in the area

TEXT B

Fred Cooke of Salford turned 90 two days and the world has been beating a path to his door. I f you haven’t noticed, the backstreet boy educated at Black-pool grammar styles himself more grandly as Alastair Cooke, broadcaster extraordinaire. An honorable KBE, he would be Sir Alastair if he had not taken American citizenship more than half a century ago.

If it sounds snobbish to draw attention to his humble origins, it should be reflected that the real snob is Cooke himself, who has spent a lifetime disguising them. But the fact that he opted to renounce his British passport in 1941- just when his country needed all the wartime help it could get- is hardly a matter for congratulation.

Cooke has made a fortune out of his love affair with America,

entrancing listeners with a weekly monologue that has won Radio 4 many devoted adherents. Part of the pull is the developed drawl. This is the man who gave the world “midatlantic”, the language of the disc jockey and public relations man.

He sounds American to us and English to them, while in reality he has for decades belonged to neither. Cooker’s world is an America that exists largely in the imagination. He took ages to acknowledge the disaster that was Vietnam and even longer to wake up to Water-gate. His politics have drifted to the right with age, and most of his opinions have been acquired on the golf course with fellow celebrities.

He chased after stars on arrival in America, fixing up an interview with Charlie Chaplin and briefly becoming his friend. He told Cooke he could turn him into a fine light co-median; instead he is an impressionist’s dream.

Cooke liked the sound of his first wife’s name almost as much as he admired her good looks. But he found bringing up baby difficult and left her for the wife of his landlord.

Women listeners were unimpressed when, in 1996, he declared on air that the fact that 4% of women in the American armed forces were raped showed remarkable self-restraint on the part of Uncle Sam’s soldiers. His arrogance in not allowing BBC editors to see his script in advance worked, not for the first time, to his detriment. His defenders said he

could not help living with the 1930s values he had acquired and somewhat dubiously went on to cite “gallantry”as chef among them. Cooke’s raconteur style encouraged a whole generation of BBC men to think of themselves as more important than the story. His treacly tones were the model for the regular World Service reports From Our Own Correspondent, known as FOOCs in the business. They may yet be his epitaph.

16. At the beginning of the passages the writer sounds critical of________

A. Cooke’s obscure origins

B. Cooke’s broadcasting style

C. Cooke’s American citizenship

D. Cooke’s fondness of America

17. The following adjectives can be suitably applied to Cooke EXCEPT____

A. old-fashioned

B. sincere

C. arrogant

D. popular

18. The writer comments on Cooke’s life and career in a slightly______ tone

A. ironic

B. detached

C. scathing

D. indifferent

TEXT C

Mr. Duffy raised his eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window on the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside the empty distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on Lucan Road. What an end! The whole narrative of her death revolted him and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he held sacred. The cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the details of a commonplace vulgar death attacked his stomach. Not merely had she degraded herself; she had degraded him. His soul’s companion! He thought of the hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bottles to be filled by the barman. Just God, what an end ! Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which civilization has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.

As the light failed and his memory began to wander he thought her

hand touched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was now attacking his nerves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went out. The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves of his coat. When he came to the public-house at Chapel Bridge he went in and ordered a hot punch.

The proprietor served him obsequiously but did not venture to talk. There were five or six working-men in the shop discussing the value of a gentleman’s estate in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from their huge pint tumblers, and smoked, spitting often on the floor and sometimes dragging the sawdust over their heavy boosts. Mr. Duffy sat on his stool and gazed at them, without seeing or hearing them. After a while they went out and he called for another punch. He sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet. The proprietor sprawled on the counter reading the newspaper and yawning. Now and again a tram was heard swishing along the lonely road outside.

As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately the two images on which he now conceived her, he realized that she was dead, that she had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He began to feel ill at ease. He asked himself what else could he have done. He could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame? Now that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that

room. His life would be a lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memor y—if anyone remembered him.

19. Mr. Duffy’s immediate reaction to the report of the woman’s death was that of______

A. disgust

B. guilt

C. grief

D. compassion

20. It can be inferred from the passage that the reporter wrote about the woman’s death in a_____ manner

A. detailed

B. provocative

C. discreet

D. sensational

21. We can infer from the last paragraph that Mr. Duffy was in a(n)_______mood

A. angry

B. fretful

C. irritable

D. remorseful

22. According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?

A. Mr. Duffy once confided in the woman

B. Mr. Duffy felt an intense sense of shame

C. The woman wanted to end the relationship

D. They became estranged probably after a quarrel

TEXT D

Pundits who want to sound judicious are fond of warning against generalizing. Each country is different, they say, and no one story fits all of Asia. This is, of course, silly: all of these economies plunged into economic crisis within a few months of each other, so they must have had something in common.

In fact, the logic of catastrophe was pretty much the same in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea.(Japan is a very different story.) In each case investor s—mainly, but not entirely, foreign banks who had made short-term loans—all tried to pull their money out at the same time. The result was a combined banking and currency crisis: a banking crisis because no bank can convert all its assets into cash on short notice; a currency crisis because panicked investors were trying not only to convert long-term assets into cash, but to convert baht or rupiah into dollars. In the face of the stampede, governments had no good options. If they let their currencies plunge, inflation would soar and companies that had borrowed in dollars would go bankrupt; if they tried to support their

currencies by pushing up interest rates, the same firms would probably go burst from the combination of debt burden and recession. In practice, countries split the difference—and paid a heavy price regardless.

Was the crisis a punishment for bad economic management? Like most cliches, the catchphrase” crony capitalism” has prospered because it gets at something real: excessively cozy relationships between government and business really did lead to a lot of bad investments that look foolish in retrospect seemed sensible at the time.

Given that there were no good policy options, was the policy response mainly on the right track? There was frantic blame-shifting when everything in Asia seemed to be going wrong; now there is a race to claim credit when some things have started to go right. The International Monetary Fund points to Korea’s recovery—and more generally to the fact that the sky didn’t fall after all—as proof that its policy recommendations were right. Never mind that other IMF clients have done far worse, and that the economy of Malaysia—which refused IMF help, and horrified respectable opinion by imposing capital controls—also seems to be on the mend. Malaysia’s Prime Minister, by contrast, claims full credit for any good news—even though neighbouring economies also seem to have bottomed out.

The truth is that an observer without any ax to grind would probably conclude that none of the policies adopted either on or in defiance of the

IMF’s advice made much difference either way. Budget policies, interes rate policies, banking reform—whatever countries tried, just about all the capital that could flee, did. And when there was no more money to run, the natural recuperative powers of the economies finally began to prevail. At best, the money doctors who purported to offer cures provided a helpful beside manner; at worst, they were like medieval physicians who prescribed bleeding as a remedy for all ills.

Will the patients stage a full recovery? It depends on exactly what you mean by“full”. South Korea’s industrial production is already above its pre-crisis level; but in the spring of 1997 anyone who had predicted zero growth in Korean industry over the next two years would have been regarded as a reckless doomsayer. So if by recovery you mean not just a return to growth, but one that brings the region’s performance back to something like what people used to regard as the Asia norm, they have a long way to go.

23. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT the writer’s opinion?

A. Countries paid a heavy price for whichever measure taken.

B. Countries all found themselves in an economic dilemma

C. Withdrawal of foreign capital resulted in the crisis

D. Most governments chose one of the two options.

24. The writer thinks that those Asian countries______

A. well deserved the punishment

B. invested in a senseless way at the time

C. were unduly punished in the crisis

D. had bad relationships between government and business

25. It can be inferred from the passage that IMF policy recommendations______

A. were far from a panacea in all cases

B. were feasible in their recipient countries

C. failed to work in their recipient countries

D. were rejected unanimously by Asian countries

26. At the end of the passage, the writer seems to think that a full recovery of the Asian economy is_______

A. due

B. remote

C. imaginative

D. unpredictable

TEXT E

Harry Truman didn’t think his successor had the right training to be president. “ Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army,” he said. “ He’ll sit there all day saying‘do this, do that,’and nothing will happen.”Truman was wrong about Ike. Dwight Eisenhower had led a what to d o—

in a massive, chaotic war. He was used to politics. But Truman’s insight could well be applied to another, even more venerated Washington figure: the CEO-turned cabinet secretary.

As 20-year bull market has convinced us all that CEOs are geniuses, so watch with astonishment the troubles of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O’Neill. Here are two highly regarded businessmen, obviously intelligent and well-informed, foundering in their jobs.

Actually, we shouldn’t be surprised. Rumsfeld and O’Neill are not doing badly despite having been successful CEOs but because of it. The record of senior businessmen in government is one of almost unrelieved disappointment. In fact, with the exception of Robert Rubin, it is difficult to think of a CEO who had a successful career in government.

Why is this? Well, first the CEO has to recognize that he is no longer the CEO, the president. But even the president is not really the CEO. No one is. Power in a corporation is concentrated and vertically structured. Power in Washington is diffuse and horizontally spread out. The secretary might think he’s in charge of his agency. But the chairman of the congressional committee funding that agency feels the same. In his famous study“Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents,”Richard Neustadt explains how little power the president actually has and concludes that the only lasting presidential power is “the power to persuade”.

Take Rumsfeld’s attempt to transform the cold-warmilitary into one geared for the future. It’s innovative but deeply threatening to almost everyone in Washington. The Defense secretary did not try to sell it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, the budget office or the White House. As a result, the idea is collapsing.

Second, what power you have, you must use carefully. For example, O’Neil’s position as Treasury secretary is one with little formal authority. Unlike finance ministers around the world, Treasury does not control the budget. But it has symbolic power. The secretary is seen as the chief economic spokesman for the administration for the president.

O’Neill has been publicly critical of the IMF’s bailout packages for developing countries while at the same time approving such packages for Turkey, Argentina and Brazil. As a result, he has gotten the worst of both worlds. The bailouts continue, but their effect in bolstering investor confidence is limited because the markets are rattled by his skepticism.

Perhaps the government doesn’t do bailouts well. But that leads to a third rule: you can’t just quit. Jack Welch’s famous law for re-engineering Gerneral Electric was to be first or second in any given product category, or else get out of that business. But if the government isn’t doing a particular job at peak level, it doesn’t always have the option of relieving itself of that function.