Part ⅠListening Comprehension (40 min)

In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each ques tion on your Coloured Answer Sheet.

SECTION A TALK

Questions 1 to 5 refer to the talk in this section .At the end of the talk you w ill be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now list en to the talk.

1. The rules for the first private library in the US were drawn up by ___.

A. the legislature

B. the librarian

C. John Harvard

D. the faculty members

2. The earliest public library was also called a subscription library bec ause books ___.

A. could be lent to everyone

B. could be lent by book stores

C. were lent to students and the faculty

D. were lent on a membership basis

3. Which of the following is NOT stated as one of the purposes of free pu blic libraries?

A. To provide readers with comfortable reading rooms.

B. To provide adults with opportunities of further education.

C. To serve the community’s cultural and recreational needs.

D. To supply technical literature on specialized subjects.

4. The major difference between modem private and public libraries lies i n ___.

A. readership

B. content

C. service

on

5. The main purpose of the talk is ___.

A. to introduce categories of books in US libraries

B. to demonstrate the importance of US libraries

C. to explain the roles of different US libraries

D. to define the circulation system of US libraries

SECTION B INTERVIEW

Questions 6 to 10 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you wil l be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.

6. Nancy became a taxi driver because ___.

A. she owned a car

B. she drove well

C. she liked drivers’ uniforms

D. it was her childhood dream

7. According to her, what was the most difficult about becoming a taxi dr iver?

A. The right sense of direction.

B. The sense of judgment.

C. The skill of maneuvering.

D. The size of vehicles.

8. What does Nancy like best about her job?

A. Seeing interesting buildings in the city.

B. Being able to enjoy the world of nature.

C. Driving in unsettled weather.

D. Taking long drives outside the city.

9. It can be inferred from the interview that Nancy in a(n) ___ moth er.

A. uncaring

B. strict

C. affectionate

D. perm issive

10. The people Nancy meets are

A. rather difficult to please

B. rude to women drivers

C. talkative and generous with tips

D. different in personality

SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

Question 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you wil l be given 15 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.

11. The primary purpose of the US anti-smoking legislation is ___.

A. to tighten control on tobacco advertising

B. to impose penalties on tobacco companies

C. to start a national anti-smoking campaign

D. to ensure the health of American children

Questions 12 and 13 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item , you will be given 30 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.

12. The French President’s visit to Japan aims at ___.

A. making more investments in Japan

B. stimulating Japanese businesses in France

C. helping boost the Japanese economy

D. launching a film festival in Japan

13. This is Jacques Chirac’s ___ visit to Japan.

?A. second

?B. fourteenth

?C. fortieth

?D. forty-first

Questions 14 and 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item , you will be given 30 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.

14. Afghan people are suffering from starvation because ___.

A. melting snow begins to block the mountain paths

B. the Taliban have destroyed existing food stocks

C. the Taliban are hindering food deliveries

D. an emergency air-lift of food was cancelled

15. people in Afghanistan are facing starvation.

A. 160,000

B. 16,000

C. 1,000,000

D. 100 ,000

SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

Fill each of gaps with ONE word. You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.

On Public Speaking

When people are asked to give a speech in public for the first time, theyusually feel terrified no matter how well they speak in informal situations.In fact, public speaking is the same as any other form of (1)___ 1.___that people are usually engaged in. Public speaking is a way for a speaker to(2)___ his thoughts with the audience. Moreover, the speaker is free 2.___to decide on the (3)___ of his speech. 3.___Two key points to achieve success in public speaking:—(4)___ of the subject matter. 4.___—good preparation of the speech.To facilitate their understanding, inform your audience beforehand of the(5)___ of your speech, and end it with a summary. 5.___Other key points to bear in mind:—be aware of your audience through eye contact.—vary the speed of (6)___ 6.___—use the microphone skillfully to (7)___ yourself in speech. 7.___—be brief in speech; always try to make your message (8)___ 8.___Example: the best remembered inaugural speeches of the US presidents arethe (9)___ ones. 9.___Therefore, brevity is essential to the (10)___ of a speech. 10.___

Part ⅡProofreading and Error Correction (15 min)

The following passage contains TEN errors. Each line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way.For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and wri te the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧”sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.For an unnecessary word cross out the unnecessary word with a slash “/’ and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.

Example

When∧art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) an

it never／buys things in finished form and hangs (2) never

them on the wall. When a natural history museum

wants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibit

The grammatical words which play so large a part in English

grammar are for the most part sharply and obviously different 1.___

from the lexical words. A rough and ready difference which may

seem the most obvious is that grammatical words have“l(fā)ess

meaning”, but in fact some grammarians have called them 2.___

“empty”words as opposed in the “full”words of vocabulary. 3.___

But this is a rather misled way of expressing the distinction. 4.___

Although a word like the is not the name of something as man is,

it is very far away from being meaningless; there is a sharp 5.___

difference in meaning between “man is vile and”“the man is

vile”, yet the is the single vehicle of this difference in meaning. 6.___

Moreover, grammatical words differ considerably among

themselves as the amount of meaning they have, even in the 7.___

lexical sense. Another name for the grammatical words has been

“l(fā)ittle words”. But size is by no mean a good criterion for 8.___

distinguishing the grammatical words of English, when we

consider that we have lexical words as go, man, say, car. Apart 9.___

from this, however, there is a good deal of truth in what some

people say: we certainly do create a great number of obscurity 10.___

when we omit them. This is illustrated not only in the poetry of

Robert Browning but in the prose of telegrams and newspaper headlines.

Part ⅢReading Comprehension (40 min)

SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 min)

In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your Coloured Answer Sheet.

TEXT A

Despite Denmark’s manifest virtues, Danes never talk about how proud they a re to be Danes. This would sound weird in Danish. When Danes talk to foreigners about Denmark, they always begin by commenting on its tininess, its unimportance , the difficulty of its language, the general small-mindedness and self-indulgen ce of their countrymen and the high taxes. No Dane would look you in the eye and say, “Denmark is a great country.”You’re supposed to figure this out for yo urself.

It is the land of the silk safety net, where almost half the national budg et goes toward smoothing out life’s inequalities, and there is plenty of money f or schools, day care, retraining programmes, job seminars-Danes love seminars: t hree days at a study centre hearing about waste management is almost as good as a ski trip. It is a culture bombarded by English, in advertising, pop music, the Internet, and despite all the English that Danish absorbs—there is no Danish Academy to defend against it —old dialects persist in Jutland that can barel y be understood by Copenhageners. It is the land where, as the saying goes,“ Fe w have too much and fewer have too little, ”and a foreigner is struck by the swe e t egalitarianism that prevails, where the lowliest clerk gives you a level gaze, where Sir and Madame have disappeared from common usage, even Mr. and Mrs. It’ s a nation of recyclers—about 55 % of Danish garbage gets made into something new— and no nuclear power plants. It’s a nation of tireless planner. Trains run on time. Things operate well in general.

Such a nation of overachievers — a brochure from the Ministry of Busines s and Industry says, “Denmark is one of the world’s cleanest and most organize d countries, with virtually no pollution, crime, or poverty. Denmark is the most c orruption-free society in the Northern Hemisphere. ”So, of course, one’s heart l ifts at any sighting of Danish sleaze: skinhead graffiti on buildings(“Foreigne r s Out of Denmark! ”), broken beer bottles in the gutters, drunken teenagers slu mped in the park.

Nonetheless, it is an orderly land. You drive through a Danish town, it co mes to an end at a stone wall, and on the other side is a field of barley, a nic e clean line: town here, country there. It is not a nation of jay-walkers. Peopl e stand on the curb and wait for the red light to change, even if it’s 2 a.m. a n d there’s not a car in sight. However, Danes don’ t think of themselves as a w ai nting-at-2-a.m.-for-the-green-light people——that’s how they see Swedes and Ge r mans. Danes see themselves as jazzy people, improvisers, more free spirited than Swedes, but the truth is( though one should not say it)that Danes are very much like Germans and Swedes. Orderliness is a main selling point. Denmark has few n atural resources, limited manufacturing capability; its future in Europe will be as a broker, banker, and distributor of goods. You send your goods by container ship to Copenhagen, and these bright, young, English-speaking, utterly honest, highly disciplined people will get your goods around to Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and Russia. Airports, seaports, highways, and rail lines are ultramodern and well-maintained.

The orderliness of the society doesn’t mean that Danish lives are less me s sy or lonely than yours or mine, and no Dane would tell you so. You can hear ple nty about bitter family feuds and the sorrows of alcoholism and about perfectly sensible people who went off one day and killed themselves. An orderly society c an not exempt its members from the hazards of life.

But there is a sense of entitlement and security that Danes grow up with. Certain things are yours by virtue of citizenship, and you shouldn’t feel bad f o r taking what you’re entitled to, you’re as good as anyone else. The rules of th e welfare system are clear to everyone, the benefits you get if you lose your jo b, the steps you take to get a new one; and the orderliness of the system makes it possible for the country to weather high unemployment and social unrest witho ut a sense of crisis.

16. The author thinks that Danes adopt a ___ attitude towards their country.

A. boastful

B. modest

C. deprecating

D. mysterious

17. Which of the following is NOT a Danish characteristic cited in the pa ssage?

A. Fondness of foreign culture.

B. Equality in society.

C. Linguistic tolerance.

D. Persistent planning.

18. The author’s reaction to the statement by the Ministry of Business a nd Industry is ___.

A. disapproving

B. approving

C. noncommittal

D. doubtful

19. According to the passage, Danish orderliness ___.

A. sets the people apart from Germans and Swedes

B. spares Danes social troubles besetting other people

C. is considered economically essential to the country

D. prevents Danes from acknowledging existing troubles

20. At the end of the passage the author states all the following EXCEPT that ___.

A. Danes are clearly informed of their social benefits

B. Danes take for granted what is given to them

C. the open system helps to tide the country over

D. orderliness has alleviated unemployment

TEXT B

But if language habits do not represent classes, a social stratification in to something as bygone as “aristocracy” and “commons”, they do still of cour se s erve to identify social groups. This is something that seems fundamental in the use of language. As we see in relation to political and national movements, lang uage is used as a badge or a barrier depending on which way we look at it. The n ew boy at school feels out of it at first because he does not know the fight wor ds for things, and awe-inspiring pundits of six or seven look down on him for no t being aware that racksy means “dilapidated”, or hairy “out first ball”. Th e mi ner takes a certain pride in being “one up on the visitor or novice who calls t h e cage a “l(fā)ift” or who thinks that men working in a warm seam are in their “u nde rpants”when anyone ought to know that the garments are called hoggers. The “i ns ider”is seldom displeased that his language distinguishes him from the “outsi der”.

Quite apart from specialized terms of this kind in groups, trades and profe ssions, there are all kinds of standards of correctness at which mast of us feel more or less obliged to aim, because we know that certain kinds of English invi te irritation or downright condemnation. On the other hand, we know that other k inds convey some kind of prestige and bear a welcome cachet.

In relation to the social aspects of language, it may well be suggested tha t English speakers fall into three categories: the assured, the anxious and the in different. At one end of this scale, we have the people who have “position” an d “status”, and who therefore do not feel they need worry much about their use o f English. Their education and occupation make them confident of speaking an uni mpeachable form of English: no fear of being criticized or corrected is likely t o cross their minds, and this gives their speech that characteristically unself c onscious and easy flow which is often envied.

At the other end of the scale, we have an equally imperturbable band, speak ing with a similar degree of careless ease, because even if they are aware that their English is condemned by others, they are supremely indifferent to the fact . The Mrs Mops of this world have active and efficient tongues in their heads, a nd if we happened not to like the/r ways of saying things, well, we “can lump i t ”. That is their attitude. Curiously enough, writers are inclined to represent t he speech of both these extreme parties with -in’for ing. On the one hand, “w e’re goin’huntin’, my dear sir”; on the other, “we’re goin’racin’, ma te.”

In between, according to this view, we have a far less fortunate group, th e anxious. These actively try to suppress what they believe to be bad English an d assiduously cultivate what they hope to be good English. They live their lives in some degree of nervousness over their grammar, their pronunciation, and thei r choice of words: sensitive, and fearful of betraying themselves. Keeping up wi th the Joneses is measured not only in houses, furniture, refrigerators, cars, a nd clothes, but also in speech.

And the misfortune of the “anxious”does not end with their inner anxiet y. Their lot is also the open or veiled contempt of the “assured”on one side of them and of the “indifferent”on the other.

It is all too easy to raise an unworthy laugh at the anxious. The people t hus uncomfortably stilted on linguistic high heels so often form part of what is, in many ways, the most admirable section of any society: the ambitious, tense, inner-driven people, who are bent on“ going places and doing things”. The grea te r the pity, then, if a disproportionate amount of their energy goes into what Mr Sharpless called“ this shabby obsession” with variant forms of English— espe ci ally if the net result is(as so often)merely to sound affected and ridiculous. “ Here”, according to Bacon, “is the first distemper of learning, when men study w ords and not matter …. It seems to me that Pygmalion’ s frenzy is a good emble m …of this vanity: for words axe but the images of matter; and except they have l ife of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is to fall in love with a picture.”

21. The attitude held by the assured towards language is ___.

A. critical

B. anxious

C. self-conscious

D. nonchalant

22. The anxious are considered a less fortunate group because ___.

A. they feel they are socially looked down upon

B. they suffer from internal anxiety and external attack

C. they are inherently nervous and anxious people

D. they are unable to meet standards of correctness

23. The author thinks that the efforts made by the anxious to cultivate w hat they believe is good English are ___.

A. worthwhile

B. meaningless

C. praiseworthy

?D. irrational

TEXT C

Fred Cooke of Salford turned 90 two days ago and the world has been beating a path to his door. If you haven’t noticed, the backstreet boy educated at Bla c kpool grammar styles himself more grandly as Alastair Cooke, broadcaster extraor dinaire. An honorable KBE, he would be Sir Alastair if he had not taken American citizenship more than half a century ago.

If it sounds snobbish to draw attention to his humble origins, it should be reflected that the real snob is Cooke himself, who has spent a lifetime disguis ing them. But the fact that he opted to renounce his British passport in 1941 — just when his country needed all the wartime help it could get-is hardly a ma tter for congratulation.

Cooke has made a fortune out of his love affair with America, entrancing l isteners with a weekly monologue that has won Radio 4 many devoted adherents. Pa rt of the pull is the developed drawl. This is the man who gave the world “mida tlantic”, the language of the disc jockey and public relations man.

He sounds American to us and English to them, while in reality he has for decades belonged to neither. Cooke’s world is an America that exists largely in the imagination. He took ages to acknowledge the disaster that was Vietnam and e ven longer to wake up to Watergate. His politics have drifted to the right with age, and most of his opinions have been acquired on the golf course with fellow celebrities.

He chased after stars on arrival in America, Fixing up an interview with Ch arlie Chaplin and briefly becoming his friend. He told Cooke he could turn him i nto a fine light comedian; instead he is an impressionist’s dream.

Cooke liked the sound of his first wife’s name almost as much as he admir e d her good looks. But he found bringing up baby difficult and left her for the w ife of his landlord.Women listeners were unimpressed when, in 1996, he declared on air that th e fact that 4% of women in the American armed forces were raped showed remarkabl e self-restraint on the part of Uncle Sam’s soldiers. His arrogance in not allo w ing BBC editors to see his script in advance worked, not for the first time, to his detriment. His defenders said he could not help living with the 1930s values he had acquired and somewhat dubiously went on to cite “gallantry” as chief a mo ng them. Cooke’s raconteur style encouraged a whole generation of BBC men to th i nk of themselves as more important than the story. His treacly tones were the mo del for the regular World Service reports From Our Own Correspondent, known as F OOCs in the business. They may yet be his epitaph.

24. At the beginning of the passage the writer sounds critical of ___.

A. Cooke’s obscure origins

B. Cooke’s broadcasting style

C. Cooke’s American citizenship

D. Cooke’s fondness of America

25. The following adjectives can be suitably applied to Cooke EXCEPT ___.

A. old-fashioned

B. sincere

C. arrogant

D. popular

26. The writer comments on Cooke’s life and career in a slightly ___ tone.

A. ironic

B. detached

C. scathing

D. indifferent

TEXT D

Mr Duffy raised his eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window on the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside the empty distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on Lucan Road. What an end! Th e whole narrative of her death revolted him and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he held sacred. The cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the details of a commonplace vulgar death attacked his stom ach. Not merely had she degraded herself, she had degraded him. His soul’s comp a nion! He thought of the hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bot tles to be filled by the barman. Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been u nfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of th e wrecks on which civilization has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ev er done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.

As the light failed and his memory began to wander he thought her hand tou ched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was now attacking his n erves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went out. The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves of his coat. When he came to the pu blic house at Chapel Bridge he went in and ordered a hot punch.

The proprietor served him obsequiously but did not venture to talk. There were five or six working-men in the shop discussing the value of a gentleman’s e state in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from their huge pint tumblers, and smoked, spitting often on the floor and sometimes dragging the sawdust over their heavy boots. Mr Duffy sat on his stool and gazed at them, without seeing o r hearing them. After a while they went out and he called for another punch. He sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet. The proprietor sprawled on the counter reading the newspaper and yawning. Now and again a tram was heard swish ing along the lonely road outside.

As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately the two images on which he now conceived her, he realized that she was dead, that s he had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He began to feel ill at ea se. He asked himself what else could he have done. He could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame? Now that s he was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night afte r night alone in that room. His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ce ased to exist, became a memory-if anyone remembered him.

27. Mr Duffy’s immediate reaction to the report of the woman’s death wa s that of ___.

A. disgust

B. guilt

C. grief

D. compassion

28. It can be inferred from the passage that the reporter wrote about the woman’s death in a ___ manner.

A. detailed

B. provocative

C. discreet

D. sens ational

29. We can infer from the last paragraph that Mr Duffy was in a(n) ___ mood.

A. angry

B. fretful

C. irritable

D. remorseful

30. According to the passage , which of the following statements is NOT t rue?

A. Mr Duffy once confided in the woman.

B. Mr Duffy felt an intense sense of shame.

C. The woman wanted to end the relationship.

D. They became estranged probably after a quarrel.