2018 年专业英语八级考试真题
PARTI 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 to mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER
SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure you fill in
isboth grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for
note-taking.
You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.
Now listen to the mini-lecture. When it is over, you will be given THREE minutes
to check your work.
SECTIONB INTERVIEW
I n this section you will hear ONE interview.The interview will be divided into TWO
parts.At the end of each part, five questions will be asked about what was said.Both
the interview and the questions will be spokenONCE ONLY. After each question there
will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of
A), B), C) and D), and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
You have THIRTY seconds to preview the choices.
Now, listen to the first interview. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part Oneof the
interview.
Now listen to the interview.
1. A. Announcement of results.
B. Lack of a time schedule.
C. Slowness in ballots counting.
D. Direction of the electoral events.
2. A. Other voices within Afghanistan wanted so.
B. The date had been set previously.
C. All the ballots had been counted.
D. The UN advised them to do so.
3. A. To calm the voters.
B. To speed up the process.
C. To stick to the election rules.
D. To stop complaints from the labor.
4. A. Unacceptable.
B. Unreasonable.
C. Insensible.
D. Ill considered.
5. A. Supportive.
B. Ambivalent.
C. Opposed.
D. Neutral.
Now listening to Part Two of the interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two
of the interview.
6. A. Ensure the government includes all parties.
B. Discuss who is going to be the winner.
C. Supervise the counting of votes.
D. Seek support from important sectors.
7. A. 36%-24%.
B. 46%-34%.
C. 56%-44%.
D. 66%-54%.
8. A. Both candidates.
B. Electoral institutions.
C. The United Nations.
D. Not specified.
9. A. It was unheard of.
B. It was on a small scale.
C. It was insignificant.
D.It occurred elsewhere.
10.A. Problems in the electoral process.
B. Formation of a new government.
C. Premature announcement of results.
D. Democracy in Afghanistan.
PARTⅡREADING COMPREHENSION[25 MIN]
SECTION A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
In this section there are three passages followed by fourteen multiple choice
questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers
marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your
answer on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
PASSAGE ONE
(1) ―Britain’s best export,‖ I was told by the Department of Immigration in
Canberra, ―is people.‖ Close on 100,000 people have applied for assisted passages
in the first five months of the year, and half of these are eventually expected to
migrate to Australia.
(2) The Australian are delighted. They are keenly ware that without a strong flow
of immigrants into the workforce the development of the Australian economy is
unlikely to proceed at the ambitious pace currently envisaged. The new mineral
discoveries promise a splendid future, and the injection of huge amounts of American
and British capital should help to ensure that they are properly exploited, but with
unemployment in Australia down to less than 1.3 per cent, the government is
understandably anxious to attract more skilled labor.
(3) Australia is roughly the same size as the continental United States, but has
only twelve million inhabitants. Migration has accounted for half the population
increase in the last four years, and has contributed greatly to the country’s
impressive economic development. Britain has always been the principal source –
ninety per cent of Australians are of British descent, and Britain has provided one
million migrants since the Second World War.
(4) Australia has also given great attention to recruiting people elsewhere.
Australians decided they had an excellent potential source of applicants among the
so-called ―guest workers‖ who have crossed the ir own frontiers to work in other
arts of Europe. There were estimated to be more than four million of them, and a
large number were offered subsidized passages and guaranteed jobs in Australia.
Italy has for some years been the second biggest source of migrants, and the
Australians have also managed to attract a large number of Greeks
and Germans.
(5) One drawback with them, so far as the Australians are concerned, is that
integration tends to be more difficult. Unlike the British, continental migrants
have to struggle with an unfamiliar language and new customs. Many naturally
gravitate towards the Italian or Greek communities which have grown up in cities
such as Sydney and Melbourne. These colonies have their own newspapers, their own
shops, and their own clubs. Their habitants are not Australians, but Europeans.
(6) The government ’ s avowed aim, however, is to maintain ― a substantially
homogeneous society into which newcomers, from whatever sources, will merge
themselves‖. By and large, therefore, Australia still prefers British migrants,
and tends to be rather less selective in their case than it is with others.
(7) A far bigger cause of concerns than the growth of national groups, however, is
the increasing number of migrants who return to their countries of origin. One reason
is that people nowadays tend to be more mobile, and that it is easier than in the
past to save the return fare, but economic conditions also have something to do with
it. A slower rate of growth invariably produces discontent –and if this coincides
with greater prosperity in Europe, a lot of people tend to feel that perhaps they
were wrong to come here after all.
(8) Several surveys have been conducted recently into the reasons why people go home.
One noted that ― flies, dirt, and outside lavatories ‖ were on the list of
complaints from British immigrants, and added that many people also complained
about ―the crudity, bad manners, and unfriendliness of the Australians‖. Another
survey gave climate conditions, homesickness, and ―the stark appearance of the
Australian countryside‖ as the main reasons for leaving.
(9) Most British migrants miss council housing the National Health scheme, and their
relatives and former neighbor. Loneliness is a big factor, especially among
housewives. The men soon make new friends at work, but wives tend to find it much
harder to get used to a different way of life. Many are housebound because of
inadequate public transport in most outlying suburbs, and regular correspondence
with their old friends at home only serves to increase their discontent. One
housewife was quoted recently as saying: ―I even find I miss the people I used to
hate at home.‖
(10) Rent are high, and there are long waiting lists for Housing Commission homes.
Sickness can be an expensive business and the climate can be unexpectedly rough.
The gap between Australian and British wage packets is no longer big, and people
are generally expected to work harder here than they do at home. Professional men
over forty often have difficulty in finding a decent job. Above all, perhaps, skilled
immigrants often finds a considerable reluctance to accept their qualifications.
(11) According to the journal Australian Manufacturer, the attitude of many
employers and fellow workers is anything but friendly. ―We Australians,‖ it
stated in a recent issue, ―are just too fond of painting the rosy picture of the
big, warm-hearted Aussie. As a matter of fact, we are so busy blowing our own trumpets
that we have not not time to be warm-hearted and considerate. Go down ―heart-break
alley‖ among some of the migrants and find out just how expansive the Aussie is
to his immigrants.‖
11.The Australians want a strong flow of immigrants because .
A.Immigrants speed up economic expansion
B.unemployment is down to a low figure
C.immigrants attract foreign capital
D.Australia is as large as the United States
12.Australia prefers immigrants from Britain because .
A.they are selected carefully before entry
B.they are likely to form national groups
C.they easily merge into local communities
D.they are fond of living in small towns
13.In explaining why some migrants return to Europe the author .
A.stresses their economic motives
B.emphasizes the variety of their motives
C.stresses loneliness and homesickness
D.emphasizes the difficulties of men over forty
14.which of the following words is used literally, not metaphorically?
A.―flow‖ (Para. 2).
B.―injection‖ (Para. 2).
C.―gravitate‖(Para. 5).
D.―selective‖(Para. 6).
15.Para. 11 pictures the Australians as .
A.unsympathetic
B.ungenerous
C.undemonstrative
D.unreliable
PASSAGE TWO
(1) Some of the advantages of bilingualism include better performance at tasks
involving ―executive function‖ (which involves the brain’s ability to plan and
prioritize), better defense against dementia in old age and—the obvious—the
ability to speak a second language. One purported advantage was not mentioned, though.
Many multilinguals report different personalities, or even different worldviews,
when they speak their different languages.
(2) It’s an exciting notion, the idea that one’s very self coul d be broadened
by the mastery of two or more languages. In obvious ways (exposure to new friends,
literature and so forth) the self really is broadened. Yet it is different to claim
—as many people do—to have a different personality when using a different language.
A former Economist colleague, for example, reported being ruder in Hebrew than in
English. So what is going on here?
(3) Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist who died in 1941, held that each language
encodes a worldview that significantly infl uences its speakers. Often called ―
Whorfianism‖, this idea has its sceptics,but there are still good reasons to believe
language shapes thought. (4) This influence is not necessarily linked to the
vocabulary or grammar of a second language. Significantly, most people are not
symmetrically bilingual. Many have learned one language at home from parents, and
another later in life, usually at school. So bilinguals usually have different
strengths and weaknesses in their different languages—and they are not always best
in their first language. For example, when tested in a foreign language, people are
less likely to fall into a cognitive trap (answering a test question with an
obvious-seeming but wrong answer) than when tested in their native language. In part
this is because working in a second language slows down the thinking. No wonder people
feel different when speaking them. And no wonder they feel looser, more spontaneous,
perhaps more assertive or funnier or blunter, in the language they were reared in
from childhood.
(5) What of ―crib‖ bilinguals, raised in two languages? Even they do not usually
have perfectly symmetrical competence in their two languages. But even for a speaker
whose two languages are very nearly the same in ability, there is another big reason
that person will feel different in the two languages. This is because there is an
important distinction between bilingualism and biculturalism.
(6) Many bilinguals are not bicultural. But some are. And of those bicultural
bilinguals, we should be little surprised that they feel different in their two
languages. Experiments in psychology have shown the power of ―priming‖—small
unnoticed factors that can affect behavior in big ways. Asking people to tell a happy
story, for example, will put them in a better mood. The choice between two languages
is a huge prime. Speaking Spanish rather than English, for a bilingual and bicultural
Puerto Rican in New York, might conjure feelings of family and home. Switching to
English might prime the same person to think of school and work.
(7) So there are two very good reasons (asymmetrical ability, and priming) that make
people feel different speaking their different languages. We are still left with
a third kind of argument, though. An economist recently interviewed here at Prospero,
Athanasia Chalari, said for example that:
Greeks are very loud and they interrupt each other very often. The reason for that
is the Greek grammar and syntax. When Greeks talk they begin their sentences with
verbs and the form of the verb includes a lot of information so you already know
what they are talking about after the first word and can interrupt more easily.
(8) Is there something intrinsic to the Greek language that encourages Greeks to
interrupt? People seem to enjoy telling tales about their languages' inherent
properties, and how they influence their speakers. A group of French intellectual
worthies once proposed, rather self-flatteringly, that French be the sole legal
language of the EU, because of its supposedly unmatchable rigor and precision. Some
Germans believe that frequently putting the verb at the end of a sentence makes the
language especially logical. But language myths are not always self-flattering: many
speakers think their languages are unusually illogical or difficult—witness the
plethora of books along the lines of "Only in English do you park on a driveway and
drive on a parkway; English must be the craziest language in the world!" We also
see some unsurprising overlap with national stereotypes and self-stereotypes:
French, rigorous; German, logical; English, playful. Of course.
(9) In this case, Ms Chalari, a scholar, at least proposed a specific and plausible
line of causation from grammar to personality: in Greek, the verb comes first, and
it carries a lot of information, hence easy interrupting. The problem is that many
unrelated languages all around the world put the verb at the beginning of sentences.
Many languages all around the world are heavily inflected, encoding lots of
information in verbs. It would be a striking finding if all of these unrelated
languages had speakers more prone to interrupting each other. Welsh, for example,
is also both verb-first and about as heavily inflected as Greek, but the Welsh are
not known as pushy conversationalists.
16. According to the author, which of the following advantages of bilingualism is
commonly accepted?
A. Personality improvement.
B. Better task performance.
C. Change of worldviews.
D. Avoidance of old-age disease.
17. According to the passage, that language influences thought may be related to .
A. the vocabulary of a second language