2013全国大学生英语竞赛真题试卷(A类)(共12页).doc

精选优质文档-倾情为你奉上2013 National English Contest for College Students(Level A Preliminary) (总分：150分 答题时间：120分钟)Part II Vocabulary and Structure (15 marks)There are fifteen incomplete sentences in this section. For each blank there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that best completes the sentence. Then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre. 31. Katies parents never see her as the mothering type but when her son was born she took to it like a _ to water.A. shrimp B. horse C. duck D. dog 32. He has struggled for weeks inside his heart since the offer of a place at a good university is not to be _ at.A. coughed B. sneezed C. laughed D. rejected 33. When a professor gives students _ instructions, the instructions are generally easily understood.A. clear-cut B. blurry C. marginal D. ambiguous34. After years of neglect there was a huge _ programme to return the city to its former glory.A. refurbishment B. restoration C. conservation D. preservation35. More recently, green tea has also been _ added to the list of youth-promoting substances as it contains rich Vitamin.A. coincidentally B. supposedly C. surprisingly D. tentatively36. Our landlord tried to _ all the cockroaches in our building, but they came back the next year.A. remove B. deport C. expedite D. eradicate 37. Mariko believed everything she read on the Web, so she was _ by the hoax the TV Station played on April Fools Day.A. taken out B. taken in C. taken off D. taken on38. There is a lobby of people who insist that its justifiable and necessary to carry out these animal experiments _ science.A. leading to B. relating with C. in touch with D. in the name of 39. A drum is a percussion instrument made by _ a skin or other material over one or both ends of a hollow container.A. compressing B. strengthening C. calculated at D. stretching40. Britains gold and currency reserves _ 15,977 million, and this year they have repaid foreign loans to the value of 3,500 million.A. equal to B. amounted to C. calculated at D. targeted at 41. The film was initially a box-office disaster but quickly gained _ status, and the actress has been well-known ever since.A. cult B. humble C. vulgar D. feeble42. _, but seats are proffered, doors smilingly held open for pram-pushing mothers and tables miraculously appear in crowded restaurants.A. Not only are they not shunned B. They are not only shunnedC. Though they are not shunned D. Despite they not being shunned43. Selina: Do you think Tim takes after his dad?Tom: Well, he does, in some ways.Selina: How?Tom: Well, I mean, theyre both very stubborn, arent they?Selina: Thats for sure. _A. Its not taken for granted. B. Nothing serious.C. It runs in the family. D. Its hard to say.44. Assistant: Wadleys Garage called this morning. They said your new car wasnt ready.Manager: Oh, no _Assistant: They said there was a strike at the factory yesterday.Manager: Again?A. You sold it? B. why on earth not? C. I suppose not. D. Ive been there.45. Manager: What have you got? Assistant: Weve got the files up to 2010, but all those after 2010 have not been found. Manager: _ It wont take long to sort the rest out. A. Thats a relief! B. Bad news! C. Who knows? D. Let it go.Part III Cloze (10 marks)Read the following passage and fill in each blank with one word. Choose the correct word in one of the following three ways: according to the context, by using the correct form of the given word, or by using the given letter(s) of the word. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet.A top racehorse was brought down at Royal Ascot with a shot from a high-tech sound gun, a court was told yesterday. The gun was built into a pair of binoculars and fired from the crowd as the horse was (46) _ sight of certain victory. The “technically brilliant” ultra-sonic device-(47) _ could not be heard by people-was devised by a back-street inventor. It was to be used with potentially devastating effect in a secret plan “to destroy the entire system of race-course betting and bookmaking in this country,” defence lawyer Jonathan Goldberg told Southwark Crown Court in London. He said it had the potential to make a fortune in bets (48) _ the favourite because it made sure that the horse would lose. It was used last year to unseat the leading jockey Greville Starkey from Ile de Chypre just before the end of the King George V Handicap, which it (49) _ (doubt) would have won, he said. The astonishing story was told by the defence during a trial in which the inventor of the (50) g_, James Laming, denies drug conspiracy charges. It came to light because of his alleged connections with a drug baron who wanted to use the gun to help him win large bets. The inventor is a 49-year-old grandfather and south London car dealer who lives with his mother-in-law in a terraced house. He told the court that he got all the (51) inf_ on ultra-sonics for the gun from the Encyclopedia Britannica and tested it on horses in fields.The gun was made from a pair of race binoculars. Showing them to the jury, Mr Goldberg said: “This device subjected a passing racehorse to a sudden and (52) _ (deaf) noise which we human beings cannot hear at all. It is the equivalent in suddenness to letting a loud firework (53) exp _ in its ears.”The noise would be “a horrible ear-piercing shriek” like the feedback from a microphone. Because racehorses were sensitive and temperamental it would have the (54) ef _ of making the horse swerve and unseat the rider.“It left no evidence of its use and no permanent disability for the animal,” he said.The plan was to use the gun for horse races and possibly for greyhound races. Mr Goldberg said: “He would fire it (55) _ the favourite or second favourite in a race.”“These criminals, of course, were in a unique position to ensure that the horse lost.”Part IV Reading Comprehension (40 marks)Read the following passages. Each passage is followed by several questions. Respond to the questions using information from the passage. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet.Section A (10 marks)Questions 5660 are based on the following passage.I want to talk about the economy, not the one we hear about endlessly in the news each day and in politicians speeches, but the one we live in day by day. Its where most of us live on a daily basis, earning our living, paying our taxes, and purchasing the necessities of life. The term “economic expansion” suggests something desirable and benevolent, but expansion simply means spending more money. More spending doesnt mean that life is getting better. More spending merely feeds our whole economic system, which is based on production and consumption. Unless money keeps circulating, the economy collapses. If we dont keep consuming, then manufacturers and retailers go out of business. As a leading economist put it, consumer societies are “in need of need”. We dont need the things the economy produces as much as the economy needs our sense of need for things. Need is the miracle that keeps the engines of expansion turning relentlessly. In economics, there is no concept of enough. It is a hunger that cannot be satisfied. There is so much craziness in the world. There is a American company that manufactures a range of food with a high fat content. This causes obesity and high blood pressure. By coincidence, the same company also makes products that help people who are trying to diet. Not only that, it even produces pills for those with high blood pressure. Nearly all of my mail consists of bills, banks trying to lend me money, catalogues trying to make me spend it, and charity appeals for the losers in this ecstasy of consumption-the homeless, the refugees, the exploited, the starving. Why is it possible to buy strawberries from Ecuador and green beans from Kenya when these countries can hardly feed their own people? It is because there are cash crops, and the countries need the money to service their debts. Notice that servicing a debt does not mean paying it off. It means just paying the interest. Western banks make vast profits from third world debt. We buy clothes that are manufactured in sweat shops by virtual slaves in poor parts of the world. We create mountains of waste. We demand cheap food, mindless of the fact that it is totally devoid of taste and is produced using chemicals that poison the land. We insist on our right to drive our own car wherever we want to go. The evil of the consumption culture is the way it makes us oblivious to the impact of our own behavior. Our main problem is not that we dont know what to do about it. It is mustering the desire to do it.Questions 5660Complete the following sentences with information given in the passage, using a maximum of four words for each sentence.56. At the beginning of the passage, the author states that there are _ kinds of economy and he will talk about the one related to the majority of people.57. According to the passage, _ serve as the foundation of the whole economic system.58. Economists believe that the economy struggles to keep people feel like they are always _.59. The reason poor countries like Ecuador and Kenya export their crops is to get money to _. 60. The aim of this passage is to make people recognize the _ and thus be free to make their own choices in the consumption culture.Section B (10 marks)Questions 61-65 are based on the following passage.For more than a mile, the desert in southern Peru has a curious ruler-straight and tack-sharp design made by rocks. The wandering mule paths that cross it only emphasize its precision.Throughout hundreds of square miles of arid plateau, other such markings around, most of them concentrated between the towns of Nazca and Palpa. Known as the Nazca Lines, they form a geometric mélange of quardrangles, triangles, and trapezoids. The markings also form spirals and flowers, narrow lines that extend more than five miles, and a desert zoo of giant creatures-birds, reptiles, whales, a monkey, and a spider-all made by stones whose patterns can only be seen from the air.Because some of the figures resemble the ones that decorate Nazca pottery, archaeologists attribute the lines to the Nazcas, a coastal people whose culture rose, flourished, and declined between 100 B. C. and A. D. 700.Making the patterns must have been extremely time-consuming. The Nazcas must have cleared millions of rocks to expose the lighter ground beneath them, piled the rocks in rows, and created designs that, in this nearly rainless region, can last thousands of years.But why did they construct them? Nobody really knows. There have been many guesses. Some say that they were prehistoric roads, or farms. Others say they were signals or offerings to celestial beings. It has also been suggested that they constitute a giant astronomical calendar, an almanac for farmers who wished to predict the return of water to valley streams. One study did ascertain that some of the lines point to solstice positions of the sun and moon in ancient times, as well as to the rising and setting points on the horizon of some of the bright stars. But none of the theories have proven to be correct.And so the mystery remains, including the most tantalizing question of all: why did the Nazcas create immense designs that they themselves could never see, designs that people nowadays can only see from the air?One person who worked to find out the answer was Maria Reiche. For over forty years she photographed and charted “las lineas”, striving to complete a map of the hundreds of designs and figures of this area, which is some thirty miles long and threaded by the Pan American highway.This determined German-born mathematician slept on a camp cot behind her car on the rocky, grassless Peruvian “pampa”, and even when she was elderly, got up before daylight to conduct her research.She scorned the suggestion that the markings may have been airfields for outer-space visitors to earth during prehistoric times. “Once you remove the stones, the ground is quite soft,” she said. “Im afraid the spacemen would have gotten stuck.”Although Maria Reiche was not able to find the answer, she crusaded to preserve the patterns so that others following her might have a chance to do so.Questions 61 to 65Answer the following questions with the information given in the passage in a maximum of fifteen words for each question.61. Why do people name the patterns the Nazca Lines?62. Are there any definite reasons for the construction of Nazca Lines? If not, what does the author offer?63. Could those who built the Nazca Lines see the patterns? If not, how can people now see them?64. Did Maria Reiche believe the Nazca Lines have something to do with outer-space visitors? What was her reason?65. Whats Reiches contribution about the mystery of the Nazca Lines even though she had not solved it herself?Section C (10 marks)Questions 66 to 70 are based on the following passage.In the past, most cities usually were the natural outgrowth of villages and towns that happened to prosper. Rome started out as a small village, as did Athens, Paris, London and New York. Of course, there were exceptions to this general rule. In ancient times, Alexandria in Egypt, and Saint Petersburg, were both planned cities. But for the most part, cities throughout history were not the products of deliberate thought.Today the reverse is true. Many nations, alarmed by the urban sprawl that has been gobbling up farmland and open countryside, and appalled by the staggering urban problems in the central cities, have begun building new cities that are specifically designed to meet modern needs.Britain has long been a pioneer in planning new cities. As the first nation to become industrialized and urbanized, it faced traffic, slums and pollution long before anyone else. In 1898 an Englishman, Sir Ebenezer Howard, published a book calle