1、专业八级-617 及答案解析(总分：100.10，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：2，分数：100.00)Section A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are several passages followed by fourteen multiple-choice questions. For each multiple-choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose t
2、he one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. Passage One The average U. S, household has to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an Internet connection that the rest of the industrial world would find mediocre, According to a recent report by the Berkman Cente
3、r for Internet and Society at Harvard University, broadband Internet service in the U.S. is not just slower and more expensive than it is in tech-savvy nations such as South Korea and Japan; the U.S. has fallen behind infrastructure-challenged countries such as Portugal and Italy as well. The conseq
4、uences are far worse than having to wait a few extra seconds for a movie to load. Because broadband connections are the railroads of the 21st centuryessential infrastructure required to transmit products (these days, in the form of information) from seller to buyerour creaky Internet makes it harder
5、 for U.S. entrepreneurs to compete in global markets. As evidence, consider that the U.S. came in dead last in another recent study that compared how quickly 40 countries and regions have been progressing toward a knowledge-based economy over the past 10 years. “We are at risk in the global race for
6、 leadership in innovation,“ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski said recently. “Consumers in Japan and France are paying less for broadband and getting faster connections. We“ve got work to do.“ It was not always like this. A decade ago the U.S. ranked at or near the
7、top of most studies of broadband price and performance. But that was before the FCC made a terrible mistake. In 2002 it reclassified broadband Internet service as an “information service“ rather than a “telecommunications service.“ In theory, this step implied that broadband was equivalent to a cont
8、ent provider (such as AOL or Yahoo!) and was not a means to communicate, such as a telephone line. In practice, it has stifled competition. Phone companies have to compete for your business. Even though there may be just one telephone jack in your home, you can purchase service from any one of a num
9、ber of different long-distance providers. Not so for broadband Internet. Here consumers generally have just two choices: the cable company, which sends data through the same lines used to deliver television signals, and the phone company, which uses older telephone lines and hence can only offer slo
10、wer service. The same is not true in Japan, Britain and the rest of the rich world. In such countries, the company that owns the physical infrastructure must sell access to independent providers on a wholesale market. Want high-speed Internet? You can choose from multiple companies, each of which ha
11、s to compete on price and service. The only exceptions to this policy in the whole of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are the U.S., Mexico and the Slovak Republic, although the Slovaks have recently begun to open up their lines. A separate debateover net neutralit
12、y, the principle that Internet providers must treat all data equally regardless of their origin or contenthas put the broadband crisis back in the spotlight. Earlier this year a federal appeals court struck down the FCC“s plan to enforce net neutrality, saying that because the FCC classified the Int
13、ernet as an information service, it does not have any more authority to ensure that Internet providers treat all content equally than it does to ensure that CNN treats all political arguments equally. In response, the FCC announced its intention to reclassify broadband Internet as a telecommunicatio
14、ns service. The move would give the FCC power to enforce net neutrality as well as open broadband lines up to third-party competition, enabling free markets to deliver better service for less money. Yet, puzzlingly, the FCC wants to take only a half-step. Genachowski has said that although he regard
15、s the Internet as a telecommunications service, he does not want to bring in third-party competition. This move may have been intended to avoid criticism from policy makers, both Republican and Democrat, who have aligned themselves with large Internet providers such as AT “We went to (Grant“s) house
16、, and there were even trails where someone had walked the path for 40 years,“ remembers Jonas Rivera, an Up producer who started at the studio as an intern in its Toy Story phase. “It was really inspiring to us, the patina and weight of age on that house.“ Remarkably, the expectations haven“t change
17、d Pixar“s wonky, director-driven focus on the teeny-tiny. “(I“d) walk into the story room and hear a half-hour argument about how Carl might sit down in a chair, or where his phone would go,“ Rivera says. “What we“re trying to do is not just argue about the details, but find ways to create a believa
18、ble, implied history.“ Up “s details have an incredible tactile quality, from the jiggle of golden retriever Dug“s glossy coat to the sweet earnesty of Russell“s sewn-on scout badges. An early sequence shows Carl aging not through conventional tropes like seasons changing, but through a montage of h
19、is neckties as his wife lovingly draws up their knots. The texture and style of his ties change to reflect the decades, and the tie fibers are so closely rendered that you can almost feel their nubby weave. “We sent our shading art director.to the Fashion Institute to research fabric samples of diff
20、erent eras for the ties, even for Carl“s suits, like the houndstooth,“ says Rivera. The guiding principle is the same across all Pixar films: “Wonder and interest doesn“t have to come out of pizzazz and spectacle and huge idea.I always knew that the power came from the small, and not from the big,“
21、Wall-E director Andrew Stanton said earlier this year. “(Making Wall-E ) got me thinking about, and this may sound commercial, but how good Spielberg was at making moments of the littlest things.“ That minor details drive major plot points doesn“t happen without meticulous curation, especially in th
22、e opening, silent montages of both Wall-E and Up . “It“s not letting any stone be unturned,“ Stanton said about Wall-E . “It wasn“t a random choice to just pick this. It“s a conversation, like, “Why are we picking this, why are we using this object, why are we in this set?“ And frankly, I know these
23、 are questions I know you“re supposed to ask yourself as a filmmaker with any film, but there“s something interesting about doing a film whereand I never see it as silentdialogue is no longer one of the ingredients that“s giving you information. All I could do is give you intention and emotion.“ As
24、Up continues to remind us, sometimes that“s all you need. (此文选自 Newsweek)Passage Three It is quite a feat to be invisible while occupying substantial buildings in central London flanking the Royal Academy of Arts. But that“s just what the Linnean Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Geologic
25、al Society of London, the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Astronomical Society managed to do for nearly a century. Then, in 2004, Her Majesty“s Government not only noticed but also questioned their right to remain at Burlington House, as the complex is called. To the Learned Societies
26、 this may have seemed a bitter irony. In 1857,the government of a previous queen had built Burlington House expressly to house them all. Reverence for such institutions, along with the value of real estate, was not what it had been in Victoria“s day. But their terms of occupancy remained unchanged.
27、When they moved into Burlington House, only the Royal Academy, run by supposedly impractical artists, asked for a lease. It was given 999 years at a peppercorn rent. The Societies and their allegedly hard-headed scientist members, were leaseless and rent-free. As decades passed, keeping a low profil
28、e must have seemed a sensible idea. Indeed, by 1920, some fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL), thought it essential. When a 1919 Act of Parliament made it illegal to bar women from such societies merely because of their gender, a committee of SAL fellows pressed for immediate actio
29、n: women must be invited to become fellows at once. This was not in order to right previous wrongs, it was to avoid criticism and with it the risk that people might notice that no rent was being paid. The danger averted, heads stayed below the parapet. But danger reappeared in 2004. With the reputed
30、 aim of clarifying SAL“s presence at Burlington House, the government brought a suit against it. Rumour swept through intellectual London that, in fact, the government wanted to turf the Societies outor to get a full market rent, which would have amounted to much the same thing. Alarmed feathers fro
31、m five aviaries of rare birds went flying. Now, three years later, feathers are smooth . Indeed, cooing can be heard occasionally from Burlington House. Compromises reached with the government have given the Learned Societies security of tenure at affordable rents. In return, the Societies have begu
32、n introducing themselves to one another and to the public. They have created a “cultural campus“ in the courtyard to share scholarship and convivialityand reflect their new appreciation that there is strength in numbers. Earlier this year, the Linnean Society announced it was producing a digital arc
33、hive of its priceless collections of specimens, manuscripts and letters of the world famous Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, on this the 300th anniversary of his birth. The SAL, also 300 this year, is celebrating with a nine-month series of lectures. On September 26th, David Starkey, one of the mo
34、st high-profile of its 2,300 fellows, will talk about “The Antiquarian Endeavour“ at St James“s Church, Piccadilly. On November 8th at Harvard, home to many of SAL“s 100 American-based fellows, Felipe Fern ndez-Armesto tackles “Don Francisco“s nose-piece. forming new empires in Renaissance America“.
35、 The biggest birthday event is an exhibition of 150 of SAL“s treasures at the Royal Academy from September 15th to December 2nd. Among these treasures is an oil on oak portrait of Queen Mary I painted by Hans Eworth in 1554 and a glowing 12th-century enamel casket designed to hold the remains of Tho
36、mas Becket. How good that invisibility is a thing of the past. (此文选自 The Economist ) Passage Four To say that the novel is dead or dying is to utter a clich. The evidence is stri-kingly abundant. Yet, paradoxically, never before have so many been written so well. Libraries have been ransacked and te
37、chniques have been anatomized. The how of writing a novel has been mastered. But the why of a novel“s very beingits significant contentis sadly wanting. And it is this fatal error, this almost exclusive obsession with style and technique that has alienated the novelist from his potential audience. Z
38、ola was a Naturalist: a reflector of life rather than an interpreter. He had a story to tell, and his means of telling it was always secondary to the story itself. One may often groan under the weight of his cumbersome sentences, excessive detail, and quaint moralizing, but interest never flags. The
39、 man“s energy and vigor is larva-like. You are pushed, shoved, and carried alonga willing captive. For in his hand the dazzling Second Empire comes alive in all its tinsel glamour and decadence. Zola“s approach to his material was quasi-scientific, almost clinical. He had a case to prove. (And not a
40、n existential one!) Man was a victim of his heredity and environment, and no matter how he writhed or struggled in his chains, there was no escape. Society was the arch-villain from whom there was no reprieve. Thus, Zola was never concerned with the subtleties of individual psychology. Man in the ma
41、ss was his sole quarryman and his institutions built on corruption, hypocrisy and vice. The publication of Nana (1880) created a storm of protest. It was banned in England, but that was to be expected. And it sold exceedingly well. It was excoriated as being a dirty book, written by a monster and de
42、signed to corrupt the morals of both young and old. Years later, a similar fate befell many of the works of that arch-sedu-cer, Theodore Dreiser. Strangely enough, however, the book“s advent did not noticeably increase the battalion of streetwalkers. Poor Nana dies much too horrible a death. And her
43、 brief period of splendor hardly compensates for the hideous price she has to pay. The truth is that Zola was an impassioned moralist. He used Nanathe slum childas weapon to flay the shams and pretensions of a profligate society. For Zola to have given us his superb portrait of Nana would have been
44、triumph enough. But his intent and purpose was so much more! Nana, after all, was mere witless pawn, spawned by a corrupt society whose licentiousness was equaled only by its gross materialism. It fed on sensation and thrived on injustice. And it is this society that Zola pilloried with all his matc
45、hless weapons. What were they? First and foremost, an intimate knowledge of his subject matter. Secondly, his unparalleled descriptive powers. Actually, Zola does more than merely describe. He literally makes you taste and smell. You are seated at Nana“s Nero-like banquets. You are in Nana“s intoxic
46、ating dressing room. You are a participant in the mass frenzy at the races. And finally, you are presentin the very roomat Nana“s death. Everything is painted in livid colorsall the swirl, the ebb and the flow, the pulsating excitement of a society hellbent on destroying itself. Lastly, Zola“s outra
47、ged moral sense, which gives added weight to his scathing indictment. (此文选自 Nana )（分数：44.00）(1).Which of the following statements can best describe American Internet service?(Passage One)（分数：2.00）A.People have to pay more to get better Internet connections.B.It has always been ranked low with regard
48、 to its broadband performance.C.Internet used to be regarded as the tool of providing information in America.D.Slower speed and higher price will hinder the competitiveness of American Internet.(2).Paragraph Three and the first two paragraphs can form a -|_|-.(Passage One)（分数：2.00）A.chronological re
49、lationshipB.parallel relationshipC.sharp contrastD.causal relationship(3).What conclusion can be drawn from the last two paragraphs?(Passage One)（分数：2.00）A.The current action taken by FCC will be very effective in improving American communication infrastructure.B.Only through the third-party participation in the competition can American Internet experience advance.C.The author agrees with FCC“s measures in dealing with American Internet.D.The policy makers stand by FCC since their intentions are important for America.(4).Which of the following is the best title
