1、专业英语八级（作文）-试卷76及答案解析 (总分：10.00，做题时间：90分钟)一、WRITING(总题数：5，分数：10.00)1.PART V WRITING（分数：2.00）_2.Lotteries are quite popular in China and also in many other countries. Some people argue that lotteries are a form of gambling, which should be abolished. From the following article, you may find both merit
2、 and demerit of lottery. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly both merits and demerits of lottery; 2. express your opinion towards lottery, especially whether national lotteries should be abolished. The Good and Bad of National Lotteries Lotteries and
3、 prize draws are big businesses throughout the world, and entice significant annual investments from individuals who dream of scooping a huge and potentially life-changing cash prize. According to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, Americans spent a total of $50.4 bill
4、ion on lotteries last year. In actual fact, while your chances of winning the lottery anywhere are decidedly slim, the sheer size of the U.S. population and popularity of the game means that Americans must climb an even steeper mountain towards any potential windfall. This was evident to see in the
5、formative part of this year, as the nations Mega Millions jackpot soared to $656 million. When the first winner was announced, an estimated 1.5 billion tickets had been sold nationwide. Americans still invested more than $1 billion into chasing their fanciful dreams of wealth and fortune. This is re
6、flective of a growing trend, where lottery sales continue to soar despite the uncertain economic climate. There has been a significant rise in the number of syndicates that are purchasing tickets. This proves that rather than being discouraged by the seeming insurmountable odds of victory, Americans
7、 are instead looking for innovative ways to improve their chances and actively investing more into buying tickets. Now, while an estimated one in three global lotteries are won by syndicates, the likelihood of winning remains remote in the extreme. Even for those who win the lottery, their financial
8、 future or long-term happiness is not necessarily secured. Acquiring huge sums of money can inspire any number of extreme emotive reactions. There are individual state statistics which suggest that the majority of people only purchase lottery tickets when the jackpot has been steadily building over
9、a period of weeks, with just nine to 12% of Illinois residents playing regularly. This would suggest that rather than being symbolic of a growing gambling culture in the U.S., national lotteries are in fact played responsibly and only intermittently by most participants. Another factor in favor of l
10、otteries is the money that they generate for state funded projects, with public education bodies in particular benefiting from the investment made by participants. People who play the lottery responsibly are contributing towards local community development, which actually means that their small week
11、ly investment at least creates some form of social change. In terms of monetary value, 34 cents out of every $1 spent on lottery tickets is invested into education, with 58 cents being awarded to winners in the form of prizes and 6 cents paid to participating retailers for sales commissions. Nationa
12、l lotteries across the globe are always likely to be the subject of extreme opinion and controversy. Europe is looking to invest more during periods of sustained austerity. The fact remains, however, that participants have an individual responsibility to play the game responsibly, and spend within t
13、heir means while pursuing the dream of huge cash prizes. As long as they do so, then there is no reason why they cannot enjoy the lottery while also contributing to state funded educational projects.（分数：2.00）_3.The National Tourism Administration has recently issued a document to support the legaliz
14、ation of tips in the tourism industry in China. Some believe tips are necessary, as tour guides in China are paid much less than they deserve, but others doubt the effectiveness of tips in helping boost tour guides incomes and worry that it will increase tourists traveling costs. The following are o
15、pinions from three media. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the opinions from both sides; 2. give your comment.Zhang Fengyi (Xian Evening News) Amid various disputes and inconveniences existing in the tourism industry, the state hopes to make tip p
16、ayment a system that will encourage tour guides to provide better services when they have higher and more stable incomes. However, whether this will really happen is quite doubtful. Anyway, tips are only desserts after a dinner, not the main course. Besides, we in China dont have the tradition of pa
17、ying tips. Most consumers believe, after paying a certain amount of money to the travel agency, they deserve to be well served. They resist paying tips. When tips are given on free will, tourists can choose to pay or not. Once tips become a system, tourists will have to pay tips, or their tour guide
18、s will make the journey uncomfortable for them. Besides, possibilities remain that apart from collecting tips, some tour guides may continue to force tourists to shop. Therefore, before tips are legalized, a pay system for tour guides is necessary to ensure them a basic income and a decent life. Onl
19、y when these worries no longer exist can tips truly play a role of encouragement.Song Guifang () We have to realize that tour guides in China are struggling with their wages and social security falling far behind the rapid development of the tourism industry itself. If tour guides can expect payment
20、 that shows respect to their services, we can expect an overall improvement in the tourism industry. In China, the public treats tips as an extra payment for certain service items, and thus there is resistance to tips. Given the conditions tour guides are now in, tips actually act as a kind of compe
21、nsation to them, rather than bonuses. It sometimes happens that when we want to go to certain places to know more about local customs and scenic spots, we cant find a qualified tour guide. Its time to think of a way to make tour guides feel that their work is respected and that they dont need to exp
22、loit tourists to make a living. The legalization of tips may help solve the problem to some extent, but in the long run, we need to explore a new model for the sustainable development of the tourism industry.Zhu Dazhi (China Youth Daily) We worry that the legalization of tips will make a voluntary p
23、ayment a compulsory system, adding to the cost of traveling. This worry is not groundless. The Chinese society is not used to the practice of giving tips, and now it is planned that a system is to be set up to force people to give tips. This is not what tips are invented for. The priority now is not
24、 to push forward the tip system but to regulate and develop the tourism industry into a healthy sector and to let tour guides earn a payment that is at least equal to their work. When the tourism sector embraces sound development, even without a compulsory system, tourists tip the guides that offer
25、them good services.Shu Shengxiang (Beijing Youth Daily) Ideally, tips are paid to show respect and gratitude. In Western countries, although customers can choose to pay or not, giving tips has long been a common practice. The current salary system in Chinas tourism sector is such a mess that a large
26、 number of tour guides dont have base pay or basic insurance. A percentage drawn from the sum tourists pay for souvenirs during the trip has almost become a major income source of tour guides. Forcing tourists to shop has become a hidden rule in the tourism sector, which has seriously damaged touris
27、ts traveling experience and affected the long-term development of the tourism industry. It is against this backdrop that some travel agencies and local governments begin to seek to set up a tip system in the tourism industry, with the intention of dragging this industry out of the vicious cycle. If
28、tour guides can make money by asking tourists to buy souvenirs, they are likely to offer quality services on this precondition. However, once they are forbidden to accept kickbacks from shops and instead depend on tips, which are usually much lower than the brokerage given by souvenir shops, the ser
29、vice quality may deteriorate. Besides, its quite possible that the guides will be comfortable with those who have paid them tips, while at the same time they will be harsh to those who have not done so. As a result, something supposed to be based on free will become compulsory.（分数：2.00）_4.As online
30、shopping becomes yet more prevalent, and prepaid credit cards take the place of more and more low-value cash transactions, cash is now on its way out, accounting for just 40% of payments last year globally and dropping. From the following excerpts, you may find both benefits and concerns of removing
31、 cash from the economy. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize the trend of cashless society, and then 2. express your opinion towards the tendency.Excerpt 1 To see how a society might operate without cash, we can look to Sweden, which is almost cashless alread
32、y. In Stockholm, you dont need to carry bills or change. You can make donations to your church using a credit card, and give money to a friend using an inter-person payment app called Swishwhen splitting a restaurant check, for example. Many banks dont accept or provide cash in their branches, and p
33、ayment apps are on the rise. Swedish banks and businesses have good reason to prefer electronic payments. Stockholm has been a heist capital, with robberies targeting banks and cash-carrying security vans. But its not just the banks that prefer payments that cant be stolen. Stockholm native Peter Ma
34、thsson says that locals rarely use cash. Even the smallest transaction is made with a card. Living experiments like Sweden prove that cash-free living is not only possible, but desirable and potentially advantageous. In fact, many parts of the world are already cash free. People pay for a single cup
35、 of coffee with a credit card, often without signing or entering a PIN. People are already happy to operate without cash, and with new options like Apple Pay, which lets you use your iPhone and your fingerprint to pay with better security than an actual card, that trend is likely to accelerate. The
36、end of cash may seem like fancy thinking, but look at how money has changed since credit and debit cards started to usurp cash. We already route money around with bank transfers enacted from our tablets, we pay for Uber cars with the convenience of a phone app, and we travel abroad without even thin
37、king about buying foreign currency before we go. And PayPal, the original cashless payment system, turned 18 years old this year.Excerpt 2 Governments and their agencies love electronic transactions. Without cash, its much harder to hide money from the tax man. The police and government agencies lik
38、e the NSA love the trackable records that cashless payments leave behind. Last year, France and Spain both enacted laws that limit cash transactions. The promise is that banning cash would end black markets, but for honest citizens, the end of paper cash brings many unsettling downsides. Credit card
39、 transactions are already trackable, and electronic cash could bring that lack of anonymity to every single transaction you make. Once this information exists, it will become a target of government agencies such as the police and intelligence services and trafficked to insurance companies, tax colle
40、ctors, fraud squads, and even marketers. When all our payment transactions are tracked, says Rainey Reitman, activism director at the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, it creates a trove of data we have no control over. Its easy to imagine a daring divorce lawyer or a government agent trying to gain
41、access to our financial history to try to build a story about who we are.（分数：2.00）_5.Bookstores are disappearing in cities and town, both big and small, while online sellers like Amazon, e-readers and other evolving technologies threaten both physical books and the brick and mortar venues. The follo
42、wing article is discussing the prospects of physical bookstores. Read it carefully and write your response in NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the articles main idea; 2. give your comment. Two of the worlds largest bookstore chainsBarnes & Noble and Bordersare in dan
43、ger of being forced into bankruptcy; their plight raises the broader question of whether bookstores will survive in any significant number. There are two clear threats, both Internet-related, to the bookstore. The newest is the e-book, in which the contents of a book are transmitted over the Interne
44、t to an electronic reader owned by the books buyer. No bookstore is involved. Slightly older is the sale, as opposed to the delivery, of a book online; Amazon is the principal seller in this market No bookstore is involved unless Amazon doesnt have the book in inventory. A possible third threat is d
45、iminished appetite for books. It seems that the amount of entertainment and instruction available online is so great that online substitution for reading books must have reduced the demand for them. At the same time, however, the demand for books should be stimulated by the fall in cost when books a
46、re bought online, cutting out the middlemanthe bookstore. It seems inevitable that the number of books sold through bookstores will plummet. Books bought through bookstores are more costly not only in price (to cover the costs of the bookstore), but also in customers timethe time required to travel
47、to and from the bookstore, find the book one wants to buy, and complete the purchase. The only offsetting advantages of the bookstore are the opportunity it provides for browsing and the fact that the customer can see and handle the book before buying it. But these advantages are offset to a conside
48、rable extent (doubtless more than offset, for many customers) by the use by online sellers of artificial-intelligence programs to recommend books to their customers, by the much vaster inventory of an online seller like Amazon, by ease of search, by the reader reviews that the seller presents, and by the sellers ability to allow customers to look inside the online book before ordering it, much as if he were leafing through a printed book in a bookstore. At present few
