2023年英语专八真题及其答案.pdf

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1、PARTISECTION ATEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS(2023)-GRADE EIGHT-LISTENING COMPREHENSION(35 MIN)MINI-LECTUREIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture.You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY.While listening,takenotes on the important points.Your notes will not be marked,but you will need them to complete agap-

2、filling task after the mini-lecture.When the lecture is over,you will be given two minutes to check yournotes,and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE.Use the blanksheet for note-taking.Complete the gap-filling task.Some of the gaps below may require a maximum of

3、THREE words.Make surethe word(s)you fill in is(are)both grammatically&semantically acceptable.You may refer to your notes.Paralinguistic Features of LanguageIn face-to-face communication speakers often alter their tomes of voice or change their physical postures inorder to convey messages.These mean

4、s are called paralinguistic features of language,which fall into twocategories.First category:vocal paralinguistic featuresA.(1)_B.Examples1.whispering:2.breathiness:3.(2)_4.nasality:to express attitude or intention(1).need for secrecydeep emotionunimportanceanxiety(2).5.extra lip-rounding:greater i

5、ntimacySecond category:physical paralinguistic featuresA.B.C.facial expressions1.(3)_-smiling:signal of pleasure or welcome2.less common expressions-eye brow raising:surprise or interest-lip biting:(4)gesturegestures are related to culture.1.British culture-shrugging shoulders:(5)-scratching head:pu

6、zzlement2.other cultures-placing hand upon heart:(6)-pointing at nose:secretproximity,posture and echoing.(4).(5).(6).1.proximity:physical distance between speakers-closeness:intimacy or threat(7).formality or absence of interestProximity is person-,culture-and(8).-specific.(7),(8)_2.posture-hunched

7、 shoulders or a hanging head:to indeicate(9).(9),3.-direct level eye contact:to express an open or challenging attitudeechoing-definition:imitation of similar posture(10).:aid in communication(10).conscious imitation:mockerySECTION BINTERVIEWIn this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY.Listen

8、carefully and then answer the questions thatfollow.Mark the correct answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview.At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds toanswer each of the following five questions.Now listen to the interview.1.According to

9、 Dr Johnson,diversity meansA.merging of different cultural identities.B.more emphasis on homogeneity.C.embracing of more ethnic differences.D.acceptance of more branches of Christianity.2.According to the interview,which of the following statements in CORRECT?A.Some places are more diverse than othe

10、rs.B.Towns are less diverse than large cities.C.Diversity can be seen everywhere.D.American is a truly diverse country.3.According to Dr Johnson,which place will witness a radical change in its racial makeup by 2025?A.MaineB.SelinsgroveC.PhiladelphiaD.California4.During the interview Dr Johnson indi

11、cates thatA.greater racial diversity exists among younger populations.B.both older and younger populations are racially diverse.C.age diversity could lead to pension problems.D.older populations are more racially diverse.5.According to the interview,religious diversityA.was most evident between 1990

12、 and 2000.B.exists among Muslim immigrants.C.is restricted to certain places in the US.D.is spreading to more parts of the country.SECTION C NEWS BROADCASTIn this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY.Listen carefully and then answer the questions thatfollow.Mark the correct answer to each ques

13、tion on your coloured answer sheet.Question 6 is based on the following news.At the end of the news item,you will be given 10 seconds toanswer the question.Now listen to the news.6.What is the main idea of the news item?A.Sony developed a computer chip for cell phones.B.Japan will market its wallet

14、phone abroad.C.The wallet phone is one of the wireless innovations.D.Reader devices are available at stores and stations.Question 7 and 8 is based on the following news.At the end of the news item,you will be given 20seconds to answer the questions.Now listen to the news.7.Which of the following is

15、mentioned as the governments measure to control inflation?A.Foreign investment.B.Donor support.C.Price control.D.Bank prediction.8.According to Kingdom Bank,what is the cuiTent inflation rate in Zimbabwe?A.20 million percent.B.2.2 million percent.C.11.2 million percent.D.Over 11.2 million percent.Qu

16、estion 9 and 10 are based on the following news.At the end of the news item,you will be given 20seconds to answer the question.Now listen to the news.9.Which of the following is CORRECT?A.A big fire erupted on the Nile River.B.Helicopters were used to evacuate people.C.Five people were taken to hosp

17、ital for bums.D.A big fire took place on two floors.10.The likely cause of the big fire isA.electrical short-cut.B.lack of fire-satefy measures.C.terrorism.D.not known.PART II READING COMPREHENSION(30 MIN)In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice quest

18、ions.Read thepassages and then mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet.TEXT AStill,the image of any city has a half-life of many years.(So does its name,officially changed in 2001from Calcutta to Kolkata,which is closer to what the word sounds like in Bengali.Conversing in English,Inever hea

19、rd anyone call the city anything but Calcutta.)To Westerners,the conveyance most identified withKolkata is not its modern subwaya facility whose spacious stations have art on the walls and cricketmatches on television monitorsbut the hand-pulled rickshaw.Stories and films celebrate aprimitive-lookin

20、g cart with high wooden wheels,pulled by someone who looks close to needing the succorof Mother Teresa.For years the government has been talking about eliminating hand-pulled rickshaws onwhat it calls humanitarian groundsprincipally on the ground that,as the mayor of Kolkata has often said,it is off

21、ensive to see“one man sweating and straining to pull another man.But these days politicians alsolament the impact of 6,000 hand-pulled rickshaws on a modern citys traffic and,particularly,on its image.Westerners try to associate beggars and these rickshaws with the Calcutta landscape,but this is not

22、 whatCalcutta stands for,the chief minister of West Bengal,Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,said in a pressconference in 2006.“Our city stands for prosperity and developm ent.T he chief minister一the equivalentof a state governor-went on to announce that hand-pulled rickshaws soon would be banned from the str

23、eetsof Kolkata.Rickshaws are not there to haul around tourists.(Actually,I saw almost no tourists in Kolkata,apartfrom the young backpackers on Sudder Street,in what used to be a red-light district and is now said to bethe single place in the city where the services a rickshaw puller offers may incl

24、ude providing femalecompany to a gentleman for the evening.)Its the people in the lanes who most regularly userickshaws一not the poor but people who are just a notch above the poor.They are people who tend to travelshort distances,through lanes that are sometimes inaccessible to even the most daring

25、taxi driver.An olderwoman with marketing to do,for instance,can arrive in a rickshaw,have the rickshaw puller wait until shecomes back from various stalls to load her purchases,and then be taken home.People in the lanes userickshaws as a 24-hour ambulance service.Proprietors of cafes or comer stores

26、 send rickshaws to collecttheir supplies.(One morning I saw a rickshaw puller take on a load of live chickens一tied in pairs by thefeet so they could be draped over the shafts and the folded back canopy and even the axle.By the time hetrotted off,he was canying about a hundred upside-down chickens.)T

27、he rickshaw pullers told me theirsteadiest customers are schoolchildren.Middle-class families contract with a puller to take a child to schooland pick him up;the puller essentially becomes a family retainer.From June to September Kolkata can get torrential rains,and its drainage system doesnt needto

28、rrential rain to begin backing up.Residents who favor a touch of hyperbole say that in Kolkata“if a straycat pees,theres a flood.During my stay it once rained fbr about 48 hours.Entire neighborhoods couldntbe reached by motorized vehicles,and the newspapers showed pictures of rickshaws being pulled

29、throughwater that was up to the pullers9 waists.When its raining,the normal customer base fbr rickshaw pullersexpands greatly,as does the price of a journey.A writer in Kolkata told me,“When it rains,even thegovernor takes rickshaws/，While I was in Kolkata,a magazine called India Today published its

30、 annual ranking of Indian states,according to such measurements as prosperity and infrastructure.Among Indias 20 largest states,Biharfinished dead last,as it has for four of the past five years.Bihar,a couple hundred miles north of Kolkata,iswhere the vast majority of rickshaw pullers come from.Once

31、 in Kolkata,they sleep on the street or in theirrickshaws or in a deraa combination garage and repair shop and dormitory managed by someone called asardar.For sleeping privileges in a dera,pullers pay 100 rupees(about$2.50)a month,which sounds like apretty good deal until youve visited a dera(庙护评估和研

32、究机构).They gross between 100 and 150rupees a day,out of which they have to pay 20 rupees fbr the use of the rickshaw and an occasional 75 ormore for a payoff if a policeman stops them for,say,crossing a street where rickshaws are prohibited.A2003 study found that rickshaw pullers are near the bottom

33、of Kolkata occupations in income,doing betterthan only the ragpickers（拾破烂的人）and the beggars.For someone without land or education,that stillbeats trying to make a living in Bihar.There are people in Kolkata,particularly educated and politically aware people,who will not ride in arickshaw,because the

34、y are offended by the idea of being pulled by another human being or because theyconsider it not the sort of thing people of their station do or because they regard the hand-pulled rickshaw asa relic of colonialism.Ironically,some of those people are not enthusiastic about banning rickshaws.Theedito

35、r of the editorial pages of Kolkatas TelegraphRudrangshu Mukheijee,a former academic who stillwrites history books-told me,for instance,that he sees humanitarian considerations as coming down onthe side of keeping hand-pulled rickshaws on the road.I refuse to be carried by another human beingmyself/

36、he said,but I question whether we have the right to take away their livelihood.Rickshawsupporters point out that when it comes to demeaning occupations,rickshaw pullers are hardly unique inKolkata.When I asked one rickshaw puller if he thought the government?s plan to rid the city of rickshaws wasba

37、sed on a genuine interest in his welfare,he smiled,with a quick shake of his heada gesture I interpretedto mean,“If you are so naive as to ask such a question,I will answer it,but it is not worth wasting wordson.Some rickshaw pullers I met were resigned to the imminent end of their livelihood and pi

38、n theirhopes on being offered something in its place.As migrant workers,they dont have the political cloutenjoyed by,say,Kolkata9s sidewalk hawkers,who,after supposedly being scaled back at the beginning ofthe modernization drive,still clog the sidewalks,selling absolutely everything-or,as I found d

39、uring the 48hours of rain,absolutely everything but umbrellas.The government was the government of the poorpeople/one sardar（司令官）told me.Now they shake hands with the capitalists and try to get rid ofpoor people.z，But others in Kolkata believe that rickshaws will simply be confined more strictly to

40、certainneighborhoods,out of the view of World Bank traffic consultants and California investment delegations-orthat they will be allowed to die out naturally as theyre supplanted by more modem conveyances.Buddhadeb Bhattachaijee,after all,is not the first high West Bengal official to say that ricksh

41、aws would beoff the streets of Kolkata in a matter of months.Similar statements have been made as far back as 1976.Theban decreed by Bhattacharjee has been delayed by a court case and by a widely held belief that someretraining or social security settlement ought to be offered to rickshaw drivers.It

42、 may also have beendelayed by a quiet reluctance to give up something that has been part of the fabric of the city for more than acentury.Kolkata,a resident told me,“has difficulty letting go.One day a city official handed me a reportfrom the municipal government laying out options for how rickshaw

43、pullers might be rehabilitated.“Which option has been chosen?I asked,noting that the report was dated almost exactly a yearbefore my visit.“That hasnt been decided,，/he said.“When will it be decided?“That hasnt been decided/he said.11.According to the passage,rickshaws are used in Kolkata mainly for

44、 the following EXCEPTA.taking foreign tourists around the city.B.providing transport to school children.C.carrying store supplies and purchasesD.carrying people over short distances.12.Which of the following statements best describes the rickshaw pullers from Bihar?A.They come from a relatively poor

45、 area.B.They are provided with decent accommodation.C.Their living standards are very low in Kolkata.D.They are often caught by policemen in the streets.13.That“For someone without land or education,that still beats trying to make a living in Bihar（4paragraph）means that even so,A.the poor prefer to

46、work and live in Bihar.B.the poor from Bihar fare better than back home.C.the poor never try to make a living in Bihar.D.the poor never seem to resent their life in Kolkata.14.We can infer from the passage that some educated and politically aware peopleA.hold mixed feelings towards rickshaws.B.stron

47、gly support the ban on rickshaws.C.call for humanitarian actions fro rickshaw pullers.D.keep quiet on the issue of banning rickshaws.15.Which of the following statements conveys the authors sense of humor?A.1.not the poor but people who are just a notch above the poor.(2 paragraph)B.which sounds lik

48、e a pretty good deal until youve visited a dera.(4 paragraph)C.Kolkata,a resident told me,“has difficulty letting go.(7 paragraph).D.”or,as I found during the 48 hours of rain,absolutely everything but umbrellas.(6 paragraph)16.The dialogue between the author and the city official at the end of the

49、passage seems to suggestA.the uncertainty of the courts decision.B.the inefficiency of the municipal government.C.the difficulty of finding a good solution.D.the slowness in processing options.TEXT BDepending on whom you believe,the average American will,over a lifetime,wait in lines for twoyears(sa

50、ys National Public Radio)or five years(according to customer-loyalty experts).The crucial word is average,as wealthy Americans routinely avoid lines altogether.Once the mostdemocratic of institutions,lines are rapidly becoming the exclusive province of suckers(people who stillbelieve in and practice