歷年英語專業(yè)八級改錯(cuò)真題

1、2010年真題So far as we can tell, all human languages are equally complete and perfect as instruments of communication: that is, every language appears to be well 1 equipped as any other to say the things their speakers want to say. 2 There may or may not be appropriate to talk about primitive peoples o

2、r 3 cultures, but that is another matter. Certainly, not all groups of people are equally competent in nuclear physics or psychology or the cultivation of rice or the engraving of Benares brass. Whereas this is not the fault of their language. 4 The Eskimos can speak about snow with a great deal fur

3、ther precision and 5 subtlety than we can in English, but this is not because the Eskimo language (one of those sometimes miscalled primitive) is inherently more precise and subtle than English. This example does not come to light a defect in English, 6 a show of unexpected primitiveness. The positi

4、on is simply and obviously that the Eskimos and the English live in similar environments. The English 7 language will be just as rich in terms for different kinds of snow, 8 presumably, if the environments in which English was habitually used made such distinction as important. 9 Similarly, we have

5、no reason to doubt that the Eskimo language could beas precise and subtle on the subject of motor manufacture or cricket if these topics formed the part of the Eskimos life. For obvious historical reasons, 10 Englishmen in the nineteenth century could not talk about motorcars with the minute discrim

6、ination which is possible today: cars were not a part of their culture. But they had a host of terms for horse-drawn vehicles which send us, puzzled, to a historical dictionary when we are reading Scott or Dickens. How many of us could distinguish between a chaise, a landau, a victoria, a brougham,

7、a coupe, a gig, a diligence, a whisky, a calash, a tilbury, a carriole, a phaeton, and a clarence ?2009年真題The previous section has shown how quickly a rhyme passesfrom one school child to the next and illustrates the further difference (1)_between school lore and nursery lore. In nursery lore a vers

8、e, learnt in early childhood, is not usually passed on again when the little listener (2)_ has grown up, and has children of their own, or even grandchildren. (3)_The period between learning a nursery rhyme and transmitting It may be something from twenty to seventy years. With the playground (4)_lo

9、re, therefore, a rhyme may be excitedly passed on whtin the very hour (5)_it is learnt; and in the general, it passes between children of the (6)_same age, or nearly so, since it is uncommon for the difference in age between playmates to be more than five years. If therefore, a playgroundrhyme can b

10、e shown to have been currently for a hundred years, or (7)_even just for fifty, it follows that it has been retransmitting overand over; very possibly it has passed along a chain of two or three (8)_hundred young hearers and tellers, and the wonder is that it remains live (9)_after so much handling,

11、 to let alone that it bears resemblance to the (10)_original wording. 2008年真題 The desire to use language as a sign of national identity is avery natural one, and in result language has played a prominent (1)_part in national moves. Men have often felt the need to cultivate (2)_a given language to sh

12、ow that they are distinctive from another (3)_race whose hegemony they resent. At the time the United States (4)_split off from Britain, for example, there were proposals thatindependence should be linguistically accepted by the use of a (5)_different language from those of Britain. There was even o

13、ne (6)_proposal that Americans should adopt Hebrew. Others favouredthe adoption of Greek, thought, as one man put it, things wouldcertainly be simpler for Americans if they stuck on to English (7)_and made the British learn Greek. At the end, as everyone (8)_know, the two countries adopted the pract

14、ical and satisfactorysolution of carrying with the same language as before. (9)_Since nearly two hundred years now, they have shown the world (10)_That political independence and national identity can be completeWithout sacrificing the enormous mutual advantages of a commonlanguage.2007年真題 From what

15、 has been said, it must be clear that no one can make very positive statements about how language originated.There is no material in any language today and in the earliest (1)_records of ancient languages show us language in a new and (2)_emerging state. It is often said, of course, that the languag

16、e (3)_originated in cries of anger, fear, pain and pleasure, and the (4)_necessary evidence is entirely lacking: there are no remote tribes, no ancient records, providing evidence of a language with alarge proportion of such cries than we find in English. Ti is true that the (5)_absence of such evid

17、ence does not disprove the theory, but in (6)_other grounds too the theory is not very attractive. People of all races and languages make rather similarnoises in return to pain or pleasure. The fact that such noises are (7)_similar on the lips of Frenchmen and Malaysians whose languagesare utterly d

18、ifferent, serves to emphasize on the fundamental (8)_difference between these noises and language proper. We maysay that the cries of pain or chortles of amusement are largelyreflex actions, instinctive to large extent, whereas language (9)_proper does not consist of signs but of these that have to

19、be learnt (10)_and that are wholly conventional.2006年真題 We use language primarily as means of communication with other human beings. Each of us shares with the community in whichwe live a store of words and meanings as well as agreeing conven- (1)_tions as to the way in which words should be arrange

20、d to convey a (2)_particular message; the English speaker has in his disposal a vocabu- (3)_lary and a set of grammatical rules which inables him to communi- (4)_cate his thoughts and feelings, in a variety of styles, to the other (5)_English speakers. His vocabulary, in particular, both that which

21、heuses actively and that which he recognizes, increases in size as hegrows old, as a result of education and experience. (6)_ But, whether the language store is relatively small or large,the system remains no more than a psychological reality for the indi-vidual, unless he has a means of expressing

22、it in terms able to beseen by another member of his linguistic community; he has to give (7)_the system a concrete transmission form. We take it for granted the (8)_two most common forms of transmissionby means of sounds pro-duced by our vocal organs (speech) or by visual signs (writing). And (9)_th

23、ese are among most striking of human achievements. (10)_2005年真題 A number of colleges and universities have announced steep tu-ition increases for next yearmuch steeper than the current,very low, rate of inflation. They say the increases are needed be-cause of a loss in value of university endowments

24、 heavily investing (1)_in common stock. I am skeptical. A business firm chooses the pricethat maximizes its net revenues, irrespective fluctuations in in- (2)_come; and increasingly tihe outlook of universities in the UnitedStates is indistinguishable from those of business firms. The rise in (3)_tu

25、itions may reflect the fact economic uncertainty increases the de- (4)_mand for education. The biggest cost of being in the school is fore- (5)_going income from a job (this primarily a factor in graduateandprofessionalschool tuition): the poor ones job prospects, the more (6)_sense it makes to real

26、locate time from the job market to education,in order to make oneself more marketable. The ways which universities make themselves attractive to (7)_students include soft majors, student evaluations of teachers, givingstudents a governance role, and eliminate required courses, Sky- (8)_high tuitions

27、 have caused universities to regard their students ascustomers. Just as business firms sometimes collude to shorten the (9)_rigors of competition, universities collude to minimize the cost tothem of the athletes whom they recruit in order to stimulate alumnidonations, so the best athletes now often

28、bypass higher education inorder to obtain salaries earlier from professional teams. And untilthey were stopped by the antitrust authorities, the Ivy Leagueschools colluded to limit competition for the best students, byagreeing not to award scholarships on the basis of merit rather thanpurely of need

29、just like business firms agreeing not to give dis-counts on their best customer. (10)_2004年真題 One of the most important non-legislative functions of the U.S.Congress is the power to investigate. This power is usually delegatedto committeeseither standing committees, special committees set (1)_for a

30、specific purpose, or joint committees consisted of members of (2)_both houses. Investigations are held to gather information on the need forfuture legislation, to test the effectiveness of laws already passed,to inquire into the qualifications and performance of members andofficials of the other bra

31、nches, and in rare occasions, to lay the (3)_groundwork for impeachment proceedings. Frequently, committeesrely outside experts to assist in conducting investigative hearings (4)_and to make out detailed studies of issues. (5)_ There are important corollaries to the investigative power. Oneis the po

32、wer to publicize investigations and its results. Most commit- (6)_tee hearings are open to public and are reported widely in the mass (7)_media. Congressional investigations nevertheless represent one im- (8)_portent tool available to lawmakers to inform the citizenry and to (9)_ arouse public inter

33、ests in national issues. Congressional committees also have the power to compel testi- mony form unwilling witnesses, and to cite for contempt of Con-gress witnesses who refuse to testify and for perjury these who give (10)_false testimony.2003年真題 Demographic indicators show that Americans in the po

34、st-warperiod were more eager than ever to establish families. They quicklybrought down the age at marriage for both men and women andbrought the birth rate to a twentieth century height after more than (1)_a hundred years of a steady decline, producing the “baby boom”.(2)_These young adults establis

35、hed a trend of early marriage and rela-tively large families that went for more than two decades and caused (3)_a major but temporary reversal of long-term demographic patterns.From the 1940s through the early 1960s, Americans married at a high (4)_rate and at a younger age than their Europe counter

36、parts. (5)_ Less noted but equally more significant, the men and women (6)_who formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced (7)_the divorce rate after a post-war peak; their marriages remained in-tact to a greater extent than did that of couples who married in ear- (8)_lier as well as

37、later decades. Since the United States maintained its (9)_dubious distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world,the temporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in (10)_Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role of breadwinnerAnd homemaker was not abandoned.200

38、2年真題 There are great impediments to the general use of a standard inpronunciation comparable to that existing in spelling (orthography).One is the fact that pronunciation is learnt naturally and uncon-sciously, and orthography is learnt deliberately and consciously. (1)_Large members of us, in fact,

39、 remain throughout our lives quite un-conscious with what our speech sounds like when we speak(2)_out, and it often comes as a shock when(3)_we firstly hear a recording of ourselves.(4)_ It is not a voice we recognize at one, whereas our own hand-writing is something which we almost always know. We

40、begin the (5)_natural learning of pronunciation long before we start learning toRead or write, and in our early years we went on unconsciously imi- (6)_tating and practicing the pronunciation of those around us for manymore hours per every day than we ever have to spends learning even (7)_our diffic

41、ult English spelling. This is natural, therefore, that our speech-(8)_sounds should be those of our immediate circle; after all, as we haveseen, speech operates as a means of holding a community and to(9)_give a sense of belonging. We learn quite early to recognize astranger, someone who speaks with

42、 an accent of a different com-munityperhaps only a few miles far. (10)_2001年真題 During the early years of this century, wheat was seen as thevery lifeblood of Western Canada. People on city streets watched theyields and the price of wheat in almost as much feeling as if they (1)_were growers. The mar

43、keting of wheat became an increasing favor- (2)_ite topic of conversation. War set the stage for the most dramatic events in marketingthe western crop. For years, farmer mistrusted speculative grainselling as carried on through the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. Wheatprices were generally low in the autum

44、n, so farmers could not wait (3)_for markets to improve. It had happened too often that they soldtheir wheat soon shortly after harvest when farm debts were coming (4)_due, just to see prices rising and speculators getting rich. (5)_ On various occasions, producer groups, asked firmer control,(6)_bu

45、t the government had no wish to become involving, at least not(7)_until wartime when wheat prices threatened to run wild. Anxious to check inflation and rising life costs, the federal gov-(8)_ernment appointed a board of grain supervisors to deal with deliver-ies form the crops of 1917 and 1918. Gra

46、in Exchange trading wassuspended, and farmers sold at prices fixed by the board. To handle with (9)_the crop 1919, the government appointed the first CanadianWheat Board, with total authority to buy, sell, and set prices. (10)_2000年真題 The grammatical words which play so large a part in Englishgramma

47、r are for the most part sharply and obviously different fromthe lexical words. A rough and ready difference which may seem the (1)_most obvious is that grammatical words have “l(fā)ess meaning”, but(2)_in fact some grammarians have called them “empty” words asopposed in the “full” words of vocabulary. B

48、ut this is a rather(3)_misled way of expressing the distinction. Although a word like “the” (4)_is not the name of something as man is, it is very far away from being (5)_meaningless; there is a sharp difference in meaning between “manis vile” and “the man is vile”, yet “the” is the single vehicle o

49、f this(6)_difference in meaning. Moreover, grammatical words differ considerably among them-selves as the amount of meaning they have, even in the lexical(7)_sense. Another name for the grammatical words has been “l(fā)ittlewords”. But size is by no mean a good criterion for distinguishing (8)_the gramm

50、atical words of English, when we consider that we havelexical words as go, man, say, car. Apart from this, however, (9)_there is a good deal of truth in what some people say: we certainlydo create a great number of obscurity when we omit them. This is il- (10)_lustrated not only in the poetry of Rob

51、ret Browning but in the proseof telegrams and newspaper headlines.1999年真題 The hunter-gatherer tribes that today live as our prehistoric(1)_human ancestors consume primarily a vegetable diet supplementing (2)_with animal foods. An analysis of 58 societies of modern hunter-gatherers, including the Kun

52、g of southern Africa, revealed thatone-half emphasize gathering plant foods, one-third concentrate onfishing, and only one-sixth are primarily hunters. Overall, two-thirds and more of the hunter-gatherers calories come from plants. (3)_Detailed studies of the Kung by the food scientists at the Unive

53、rsityof London, showed that gathering is a more productive source offood than is hunting. An hour of hunting yields in average about 100 (4)_edible calories, as an hour of gathering produces 240. (5)_ Plant foods provide for 60 percent to 80 percent of the Kung di-(6)_er, and no one goes hungry when

54、 the hunt fails. Interestingly, ifthey escape fatal infections or accidents, theses contemporary abo-rigines live to old ages despite of the medical care. They(7)_experience no obesity, no middle-aged spread, little dental decay,no high blood pressure, no heart disease, and their blood cholesterolle

55、vels are very low (about half of the average American adult).(8)_If no one is suggesting that we return to an aboriginal life style, we(9)_certainly could use their eating habits as a model for healthier diet.(10)_1998年真題 When a human infant is born into any community in any part ofthe world it has

56、two things in common with any infant, provided (1)_neither of them have been damaged in any way either before or dur-(2)_ing birth. Firstly, and most obviously, new born children are com-pletely helpless. Apart form a powerful capacity to pay attention to(3)_their helplessness by using sound, there

57、is nothing the new bornchild can do to ensure his own survival. Without care from some oth-er human being or beings, be it mother, grandmother, or humangroup, a child is very unlikely to survive. This helplessness of hu-man infants is in marked contrast with the capacity of many newborn animals to get on their feet within minutes of birth and run(4)_with the herd with in a few hours. Alt