1、公共英语五级-20 及答案解析(总分:54.00,做题时间:90 分钟)一、Section Use of Eng(总题数:1,分数:20.00)If you“ve been on campus for very long, I“m certain that you“ve already heard about this course. You may know that last semester about fifty 1 of the students enrolled in my course failed it. Let me explain how this came 2 befor
2、e you jump to any 3 . In the first 4 , since this is a composition class, I expect my students to follow certain rules 5 formality. Unfortunately, students today dislike having to follow rules of any kind, especially those which they may feel to be unnecessary. For 6 , I ask that each of your papers
3、 7 typed and centered on the paper correctly. I count off points for various kinds of mistakes. A misspelled word will cost you 5 points. You“ve lost 25 points if you“ve 8 five words. If you write 9 incomplete sentence, you“ve lost 10 points. If you give me two complete sentences as one without adeq
4、uate punctuation, you“ve lost 15 points. I do not accept late 10 You will receive a zero for any theme which you fail to submit on 11 I expect, you to read each assignment. To make certain that you have read the assignment, I 12 give you a short unannounced quiz from time to 13 . This class meets on
5、 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You will have a total of six major tests throughout the 14 . Your final grade will be based 15 an average of these major tests, the pop tests, 16 eight written themes. If you have any questions at any time, you can see me on Tuesday. My office is 17 the second floo
6、r of this building. Your 18 for Wednesday is to read Hemingway“s short story on page 55. Friday will be the last class day of this week, so you can expect to write a short in class theme for me then. That“s 19 for today. I“ll 20 you on Wednesday.(分数:20.00)二、Section Reading Co(总题数:0,分数:0.00)三、Part A(
7、总题数:0,分数:0.00)四、Text 1(总题数:1,分数:5.00)“Junk science“ is how Elliot Morley, Britain“s minister responsible for genetically modified farming, describes studies that claim GM crops would be hazardous to Britain“s wildlife and consumers. This week the government granted permission for a strain of GM maiz
8、e to be grown commercially as cattle feed. That has incensed environmentalists and organic farmers, who say GM is unpopular (probably correct) and based on bad science (probably not). Three years of field testing have shown the herbicide-resistant maize, Bayer“s Chardon LL, to be safe and even kinde
9、r to the environment than non-GM maize. Two other crops on triala GM sugar-beet and a GM oilseed rapewill not be grown because they were worse for biodiversity (weeds) than conventional strains. The trials have not made the worries about introducing even a safe GM crop go away, though. Opponents say
10、 GM will stealthily take over the country by cross-pollination, will damage wildlife and introduce something nasty into the human food chain. How solid is all this? Evidence from America, which planted 105.7m acres of biotech crops in 2003, suggests concerns are overblown. In practice it is easy to
11、separate crops and prevent them from cross-pollinating. Even oilseed rape, which is particularly promiscuous, can be kept over 99% pure if it is a hundred metres away from another plantation. Cross-pollination probably will happen, but so far it has caused no problems, genetic material in plants cha
12、nges all the time through sexual reproduction anyway. Damage to wildlife is difficult to measure, but there is evidence that GM has had a positive effect, with birds and insects returning to GM cotton plantations in America. Certainly, GM crops tend to need fewer chemicals to protect them. Monsanto
13、says its sugarbeet, which was on trial along with the Chardon maize, requires 46% less herbicide than a conventional strain. Supposed threats to consumers, whether human or animal, are the most flaky. One recent study appeared to show that Chardon maize could be fatal to cattle, but the heifer in qu
14、estion in fact died from botulism. The British Medical Association now says there is “very little potential for GM foods to cause harmful health effects“ in people either. People have been eating the stuff in America for years, with no ill effects so far. The messing around with genetic material tha
15、t makes some people dislike GM crops has gone on for years in conventional plant breeding, where crops are exposed to radiation and chemicals to encourage them to mutate. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, over 2,000 types of crop have been bombarded with gamma rays to pr
16、oduce mutants, many of which are grown by organic farmers. “All food is frankenfood,“ according to Professor Howard Dalton, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Food and Rural Affairs, “but everybody“s got used to it.“ Maybe everybody will get used to GM soon, too.(分数:5.00)(1).According to
17、 the British government,(分数:1.00)A.genetically modified fanning can be described as junk science.B.GM crops pose hazards to Britain“s wildlife and consumers.C.GM food is not favored by the public.D.a kind of GM crop will be grown as animal feed.(2).Field testing in America has shown that(分数:1.00)A.n
18、on-GM crops are more environment-friendly than GM crops.B.concerns over the threats of GM crops are exaggerated.C.GM crops pose serious threats to biodiversity.D.cross-pollination has introduced nasty species into the human food chain.(3).The following statements are true EXCEPT(分数:1.00)A.GM crops a
19、re good to wildlife in America.B.conventional crops require more chemicals for protection.C.one study shows that GM crops are harmful to animals.D.GM foods have done no harm to Americans.(4).According to the author, conventional crop breeding has(分数:1.00)A.been for a long time exposed to radiation.B
20、.proved much safer than GM crop breeding.C.never been messed around with genetic material.D.produced no ill effects on people so far.(5).What is the author“s attitude towards GM crops?(分数:1.00)A.Disapproving.B.Neutral.C.Positive.D.Suspicious.五、Text 2(总题数:1,分数:5.00)Opinion polls are now beginning to
21、show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future
22、 of work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the
23、neighbourhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centres of production and work? The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people“s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which
24、 it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom. Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made
25、many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people“s homes. Later, as transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people c
26、ommuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people“s work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the h
27、ousehold and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes. It was not o
28、nly women whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excludeda problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives. All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come
29、to switch some effort and resources away from the utopian goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs.(分数:5.00)(1).Research carried out in recent opinion polls shows that _.(分数:1.00)A.available employment should be restricted to
30、 a small percentage of the populationB.new jobs must be created in order to rectify high unemployment figuresC.available employment must be more widely distributed among the unemployedD.the present high unemployment figures are a fact of life(2).The article suggests that we should now re-examine our
31、 thinking about the future of work and _.(分数:1.00)A.be prepared to admit that being employed is not the only kind of workB.create more factories in order to increase our productivityC.set up smaller private enterprises so that we in turn can employ othersD.be prepared to fill in time at home by taki
32、ng up hobbies and leisure activities.(3).The arrival of the industrial age in our historical evolution meant that _.(分数:1.00)A.universal employment virtually guaranteed prosperityB.economic freedom came within everyone“s graspC.patterns of work were fundamentally changedD.people“s attitudes to work
33、had to be reversed(4).The enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries meant that _.(分数:1.00)A.people were no longer legally entitled to own landB.people were forced to look elsewhere for means of supporting themselvesC.people were not adequately compensated for the loss of their landD.people were badl
34、y paid for the work they managed to find(5).The effects of almost universal employment were overwhelming in that _.(分数:1.00)A.the household and village community disappeared completelyB.men now travelled enormous distances to their places of workC.young and old people became superfluous components o
35、f societyD.the work status of those not in paid employment suffered六、Text 3(总题数:1,分数:5.00)The average person sees tens of thousands of images a dayimages on television, in newspapers and magazines, and on the sides of buses. Images also grace soda cans and T-shirts, and Internet search engines can i
36、nstantly procure images for any word you type. On Flickr. com, a photo-sharing Web site, you can type in a word such as “love“ and find photos of couples in embrace or parents hugging their children. Type in “terror“, and among the results is a photograph of the World Trade Center towers burning. “R
37、emember when this was a shocking image?“ asks the person who posted the picture. The question is not merely rhetorical. It points to something important about images in our culture: they have become less magical and less shocking. Until the development of mass reproduction, images carried more power
38、 and evoked more fear. Today, anyone with a digital camera and a PC can produce and alter an image. As a result, the power of the image has been diluted in one sense, but strengthened in another. It has been diluted by the ubiquity of images and the many populist technologies (like inexpensive camer
39、as and picture-editing software) that give almost everyone the power to create, distort, and transmit images. But it has been strengthened by the gradual surrender of the printed word to pictures. Text ceded to image might be likened to an articulate person being rendered mute, forced to communicate
40、 via gesture and expression rather than language. We love images and the democratizing power of technologies that give us the capability to make and manipulate images. What we are less eager to consider are the broader cultural effects of a society devoted to the image. Historians and anthropologist
41、s have explored the story of mankind“s movement from an oral-based culture to a written culture, and later to a printed one. But in the past several decades we have begun to move from a culture based on the printed word to one based largely on images. In making images rather than texts our guide, ar
42、e we opening up new vistas for understanding and expression, creating a new form of communication that is “better than print,“ as some scholars have argued? Or are we merely making a peculiar and unwelcome return to forms of communication once ascendant in preliterate societies? Two things in partic
43、ular are at stake in our contemporary confrontation with an image-based culture. First, technology has considerably undermined our ability to trust what we see, yet we have not adequately grappled with the effects of this on our notions of truth. Second, if we are indeed moving from the era of the p
44、rinted word to an era dominated by the image, what impact will this have on culture? Will we become too easily accustomed to verisimilar rather than true things, preferring appearance to reality and in the process rejecting the demands of discipline and patience that true things often require of us
45、if we are to understand their meaning and describe it with precision?(分数:5.00)(1).The first paragraph of the text tells us that(分数:1.00)A.we are exposed to a multitude of images every day.B.consumer goods with images look more graceful.C.the Internet can instantly present images of anything we want
46、to buy.D.Internet search engines give us undesired and shocking images.(2).With the development of mass reproduction, images(分数:1.00)A.have become less important in popular culture.B.are not as impressive as they were to viewers.C.will be more magical and shocking in the future.D.will become more an
47、d more thought-provoking.(3).The power of the image has been strengthened in the sense that(分数:1.00)A.populist technologies enable almost everybody to manipulate images.B.images have gradually won popularity among common people.C.images are forcing us to communicate via gestures rather than language
48、.D.with populist technologies, texts might give way to pictures gradually.(4).What does “forms of communication once ascendant in preliterate societies“ (line 4, para. 5) refer to?(分数:1.00)A.Images.B.Written words.C.Printed images.D.Texts.(5).From the text, it can be inferred that the author(分数:1.00
49、)A.agrees that images offer a better form of communication than the print.B.does not share the opinion that an image-based culture is less advanced.C.shows deep concern about the impact of images on culture.D.prefers the image era to that of the printed word.七、Part B(总题数:1,分数:10.00)Supermarket shoppers have never been more spoilt for choice. But just when we thought traditional systems of selective farming had created the most tempting array of foods money can buy, we are now being presented with the prospect of genetically created strains of cabbages, onion, t