专业英语八级考试冲刺练习及参考答案
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TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS
GRADE EIGHT
MODEL TEST TWO
TIME LIMIT: 195 MIN
PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION [ 35 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. Some of the gaps may require a maximum of THREE words. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may refer to your notes while completing the task. Use the blank sheet for note-taking. Now listen to the mini-lecture.
SECTION B INTERVIEW
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
Questions I 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. Which of the following statements is TRUE about the research Dr. Smith and his colleagues have been doing?
A. They try to help cancer patients overcome flight.
B. They help doctors become sensitive to patients' feelings.
C. They have been doing the research for five years.
D. There are totally four of them in the research program.
2. What does Dr. Smith think about doctors' ability to communicate bad news?
A. Some of the doctors are born with the ability.
B. Most doctors can develop the ability naturally by interacting with patients.
C. Some doctors don't deem this ability important.
D. Doctors can acquire the ability over time by following good models and practicing.
3. According to Dr. Smith, doctors had better ________ if his cancer has come back.
A. ask the patient about his expectation first
B. ask the patient about his past experience with cancer first
C. tell the patient directly
D. tell the patient everything's OK
4. Which of the following should NOT doctors do when telling the bad news?
A. To use the patient's language.
B. To be direct and concrete.
C. To distance themselves from the patient.
D. To show empathy for the patient.
5. Dr. Smith's motivation to do the research comes from________.
A. his experience with many cancer patients
B. his mother's death
C. his conversation with a senior physician
D. his experience as an oncology trainee
SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
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. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, how many children were killed?
A. 750
B. About 250
C. 18
D. 9
Questions 7 to 8 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.
7. Which of the following statements about the Church of the Nativity is NOT true?
A. It's located in Bethlehem.
B. It's on the birth place of Jesus Christ.
C. It's on Manger Square.
D. Less people visited it at Christmas time than a decade ago.
8. Less pilgrims go to Bethlehem this year because _________.
A. they are afraid of violence
B. they are forbidden to go there
C. there is great economic crisis there
D. citizens there are fleeing the city
Questions 9 to 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.
9. Foreign ambassadors in Zimbabwe will be thrown out except for
A. backing its opposition
B. downfalling its government
C. disclosing its police outrage
D. meddling in its internal affairs
10. According to the news, which of the following is an illustration of the so-called police brutality?
A. Four countries have been charged of supporting MDC.
B. The political campaign aimed at bringing down its government.
C. Some opposition leaders were spotted seriously injured from police detention.
D. Mugabe's government would expel diplomats for violating the rules.
PART H READING COMPREHENSION [ 30 MIN ]
In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
TEXT A
The first performance of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, in St. Petersburg in 1892, was a flop. Wrote one critic the next day: "For dancers there is rather little in it; for art absolutely nothing, and for the artistic fate of our ballet, one more step downward." Two decades passed before another production was attempted.
A century later, the ballet constitutes the single biggest fine-arts moneymaker in the United States, which has claimed the ballet as its own. In 1996, box-office receipts for some 2,400 American performances of the work by more than 20,000 dancers totaled nearly U.S. $50 million. Despite the ballet's popularity, however, few Americans are aware of its history--or of some of the twists and turns of fate that have changed it from its original form.
Choreographer Maurice Petipa (known as the "father of classical ballet") prepared the first production for Tchaikovsky in 1892. He based his scenario not on the macabre 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann, which the composer had thought to use for his inspiration, but on Alexander Dumas's
more benign 1845 French adaptation. Petipa did use the Hoffmann version to name his characters, but mixed up some names because he could not read German.
In the original story the Mouse King had seven heads and terrified the seven-year-old Marie by foaming blood from all seven mouths and grinding and chattering all seven sets of teeth. These memorable characteristics, along with other sinister qualities in Hoffmann's story, are among those aspects of the original that have been removed in most modem adaptations.
Removed from the ballet altogether by Petipa is a vital plot-within-a-plot in the Hoffmann story. This is the fairytale related to Marie while she recovers from injuries sustained in the battle between the forces of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King. As a result, the storyline in the ballet does not really make sense.
In the fairytale, we learn that the Mouse King's desire for vengeance has its origins in his evil mother, the wily Madam Mouserinks, whose first seven sons have been executed by the royal court for eating all the fat from the royal family's sausages. In retribution, Madam Mouserinks has attacked the little Princess Pirlipat in her cradle, turning her into a misshapen creature whose beauty can be restored only if she eats a certain rare, difficult-to-crack nut called Krakatuk.
After many years the nut is finally located in Asia by the court clockmaker and wizard, Drosselmeyer, whose young nephew is identified as a prime candidate to crack it. The young man is already known as "the Nutcracker" for the gallantry he shows in cracking nuts for young ladies in his father's shop. As predicted, he alone is able to crack the hard nut. He offers it to the princess to eat, and her beauty is restored. At that moment, however, the Nutcracker chances to step backwards, trampling on none other than Madam Mouserinks. She is fatally injured, but manages to place a curse on the young man before she dies. He is transformed into a grotesque parody of his former self, with a monstrous head, a yawning mouth and a lever in the back by which his jaw may be moved up and down. Madam Mouserinks sentences him to battle her son, the Mouse King, whom she bore after the death of her seven previous sons, and who has their seven heads. The curse may be removed only when the Nutcracker is able to win the love of a young lady in spite of his ugliness
Hoffmann, the author of the original Nutcracker story, was as peculiar as many of his characters. Small and wiry, with sunken eyes and dark bushy hair, he had nervous tics that caused his hands, feet and face to twitch constantly. He adored the music of Mozart, was subject to bouts of deep melancholy and was an alcoholic who sold the rights to his first book for a cellar of wine. He eventually died of a combination of liver disease and a neural illness that gradually paralyzed his body, starting with his feet.
Several of Hoffmann's stories provided the basis for operas and ballets. The French composer Jacques Offenbach, for example, used three of his short stories as the basis for The Tales of Hoffmann--a quite serious piece, breaking with Offenbach's earlier light-hearted style.
Tchaikovsky, composer of The Nutcracker, was invited to conduct his work but refused. He was terrified that if he were to mount the podium and try to conduct an orchestra his head might fall off. He died shortly after the first performance of The Nutcracker, during a cholera epidemic--it was supposed he had been drinking impure water, but a more recent theory suggests that he killed himself out of fear of exposure for a sexual scandal involving the Russian royal family.
The author and the composer may have had unusual characteristics, and the story of the Nutcracker itself may be bizarre, but its popularity endures. In recent years American choreographers have played with the formula to bring it up to date. Kirk Peterson's The American Nutcracker is set in the redwood forests of Northern California and replaces some of the characters with legendary or famous American names---notably 19th-century writer Mark Twain as a party guest.
Americans wanting to reclaim some of the psychology of the Hoffmann short story have been investigating choreographer Mark Morris's dark 1991 update since it became available on video. Set in the 1960s, Morris's visionary The Hard Nut probes many of the same moral issues as the Hoffmann original, most of which are lost in today's conventional versions.
11. The word "flop" in the first paragraph means __
A. failure
B. popularity
C. hit
D. criticism
12. According to the passage, The Nutcracker__
A. is America's biggest moneymaker
B. was originally a short story written by Alexander Duma
C. is America's most popular ballet
D. has been popular since 1892
13. Choreographer Maurice Petipa's The Nutcracker
A. was based on Hoffmann's short story
B. omitted an important plot in Hoffmann's story
C. was a misinterpretation of the original story
D. had a storyline clear and easy to follow
14. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT about Hoffmann's short stories?
A. Many of the characters in these stories were peculiar.
B. Several ballets were based on his stories.
C. There were operas adapted according to his stones.
D. Most of the stories were sinister in nature.
15. What can be concluded about Jacques Offenbach?
A. He was a French choreographer.
B. He preferred light-hearted music.
C. He produced works of more than one style.
D. He was interested in most of Hoffmann's stories.
16. According to the passage, the story of The Nutcracker is
A. tragic
B. amusing
C. weird
D. thought-provoking
TEXT B
Researchers investigating brain size and mental ability say their work offers evidence that education protects the mind from the brain's physical deterioration.
It is known that the brain shrinks as the body ages, but the effects on mental ability are different from person to person. Interestingly, in a study of elderly men and women, those who had more education actually had more brain shrinkage.
"That may seem like bad news," said study author Dr. Edward Coffey, a professor of psychiatry and of neurology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. However, he explained, the finding suggests that education allows people to withstand more brain-tissue loss before their mental functioning begins to break down.
The study, published in the July issue of Neurology, is the first to provide biological evidence to support a concept called the "reserve" hypothesis, according to the researchers. In recent years, investigators have developed the idea that people who are more educated have greater cognitive reserves to draw upon as the brain tissue to spare.
Examining brain scans of 320 healthy men and women ages 66 to 90, researchers found that for each year of education the subjects had, there was greater shrinkage of the outer layer of the brain known as the cortex. Yet on tests of cognition and memory, all participants scored in the range indicating normal.
"Everyone has some degree of brain shrinkage," Coffey said. "People lose (on average) 2.5 percent per decade starting in adulthood."
There is, however, a "remarkable range" of shrinkage among people who show no signs of mental decline, Coffey noted. Overall health, he said, accounts for some differences in brain size. Alcohol or drug use, as well as medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, contribute to brain-tissue loss throughout adulthood.
In the absence of such medical conditions, Coffey said, education level helps explain the range of brain shrinkage exhibited among the mentally-fit elderly. The more-educated can withstand greater loss.
Coffey and colleagues gauged shrinkage of the cortex by measuring the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain. The greater the amount of fluid means the greater the cortical shrinkage. Controlling for the health factors that contribute to brain injury, the researchers found that education was related to the severity of brain shrinkage. For each year of education from first grade on, subjects had an average of 1.77 milliliters more cerebrospinal fluid around the brain.
For example, Coffey's team reported, among subjects of the same sex and similar age and skull size, those with 16 years of education had 8 percent to 10 percent more cerebrospinal fluid compared with those Who had four years of schooling.
Of course, achieving a particular education level is not the definitive measure of someone's mental capacity. And , said Coffey, education can be "a proxy for many things". More-educated people, he noted, are often less likely to have habits, such as smoking, that harm overall health. But Coffey said that his team's findings suggest that like the body, the brain benefits from exercise. "The question is whether by continuing to exercise the brain we can forestall the effects of (brain shrinkage)," he said. "My hunch is that we can."
According to Coffey, people should strive throughout life to keep their brains alert by exposing themselves to new experiences. Traveling is one way to stimulate the brain, he said, a less adventuresome way is to do crossword puzzles.
"A hot topic down the road," Coffey said, will be whether education even late in life has a protective effect against mental decline.
Just how education might affect brain cells is unknown. In their report, the researchers speculated that in people with more education, certain brain structures deeper than the cortex may stay intact to compensate for cortical shrinkage.
17. According to this passage, all of the following factors could account for brain shrinkage EXCEPT
A. mood
B. high blood pressure
C. alcohol
D. age
18. Which of the following statements is CORRECT?
A. Brain shrinkage usually begins when a person is 66 years old.
B. The brain of an adult person Shrinks 2.5% every 10 years.
C. The cerebrospinal fluid of a person with more years of education may increase only slightly.
D. The cerebrospinal fluid of a person can imply the severity of mental decline.
19. What does Coffey mean by saying "education can be ' a proxy for many things' "?
A. Education level can help measure people's mental capacity.
B. Education is the direct factor preventing mental decline.
C. Well-educated people are often healthy.
D. Education is related to people's overall health via other things.
20. It can be concluded from the passage that education can
A. enhance mental development
B. protect the brain from mental decline
C. prevent the brain from shrinking
D. compensate for brain shrinkage