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大学英语A试卷

2007年4月

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Information for the Examinees:

This examination consists of THREE parts. They are:

   Part Ⅰ: Reading Comprehension  (50 points, 60 minutes)

   Part Ⅱ: Vocabulary and Structure (30 points, 30 minutes)

   Part Ⅲ: Writing (20 points, 30 minutes)

   The total score for this examination is 100. The time allowed for this examination is 2 hours (120 minutes).

Part Ⅰ: Reading Comprehension              (50 points)                              

Section A    Questions 1—5 are based on this section. (10 points)

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best answer from A, B, C and D. Blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

Manhattan Island is the oldest and most important of the five boroughs that make up New York City. It is 21.7 kilometers long and 3.8 kilometers wide at its widest point. It contains New York’s tallest buildings as well as some of the largest schools and colleges, and the most famous financial and theater districts in the United States. It has skyscrapers and Central Park, the old and the new, the best and the worst. It is like no other big city. It is unique.

   To understand Manhattan, we must know something of its early history: its early days of Dutch colonists and English settlers; the waves of nineteenth-century European immigrants who arrived at its shores; the African-Americans who moved north after the Civil War; recent immigrants from China and other parts of Asia; and young people who go to New York from all over America. It is a mix of ethnic groups and cultures, successes and failures, hopes and fears.

   The United States is a nation of immigrants and no other city displays this fact as well as New York City. From Chinatown and Little Italy to Harlem, New York is a place where communities take pride in retaining their ethnicity. Most immigrants went to America with very little money. They were the poor and unhappy in their own countries. America gave them hope and a new beginning. Millions of immigrants have prospered in America.

   On July 4, 1884, the people of France gave to the United States as a symbol of friendship, a statue sculptured by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. This statue was placed on an island in New York Harbor. It is 46 meters high and is the first sight immigrants see as they come into New York City by ship. It is known as the Statue of Liberty. On the statue is a poem written by Emma Lazarus. This poem sums up the American tradition of accepting people from other countries. It follows:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

1.  What is the first landmark people on incoming ships see as they enter New York Harbor?

1. Chinatown.
   
2. Central Park.
   
3. Harlem.
   
4. The Statue of Liberty.

2.  Emma Lazarus’ poem says that America is a place _________________.

1. where poor and unfortunate people are welcome
   
2. where there is liberty for people coming from other parts of the world
   
3. where there is garbage and litter on the shore
   
4. where there is a big light people can get together

3.  Manhattan is __________________.

1. an island in the Pacific Ocean
   
2. a borough of New York City
   
3. often called Litter Italy
   
4. another name for City of New York

4.  Statue of Liberty is _______________.

1. a gift from the people of France
   
2. a huge statue in Central Park
   
3. a symbol of justice
   
4. a chapter in the Constitution of the United States

5.  New York City is ______________.

1. the only big city with a Chinatown
   
2. the largest city in the world
   
3. home to many ethnic groups
   
4. the richest city on earth

Section B  Questions 6—10 are based on this section. (10 points)

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best answer from A, B, C and D. Blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

The camel is a slow-moving creature. But what it lacks in speed it gains in endurance. This veritable beast of burden can walk 30 miles a day carrying a load that weighs half a ton.

         The kangaroo, with its long, muscular hind legs, is a marvel of fitness. Weighing about 200 pounds, it can thrust its heavy body into the air and clear a fence nine feet high. While airborne, this leaping athlete uses its thick tail as both a counterbalance and a steering wheel.

         Never underestimate the strength of an insect. The tiny ant can move a burden 50 times its weight. And the brawny bee, when tied to a small load on wheels, is able to haul up to 300 times its own weight.

         The elephant is a monument to muscles. Its trunk alone, which can do everything from pulling out a tree to delicately picking up a pin, contains about 70 times the number of muscles in your body.

         One of the world’s longest leapers is the flea: it can jump 13 inches — about 350 times its own length. For a person six feet tall, this would be like jumping approximately 2,000 feet, or seven football fields. No one yet has leaped even as much as 30 feet.

         A seemingly inexhaustible jumper is the Oriental rat flea: it can jump 600 times an hour for three whole days without stopping.

         The fastest muscle movement ever recorded belongs to the mighty midge. This tiny, agile insect can beat its wings 133,000 times a minute, about 100 times faster than a human can blink an eye — which takes all of one twenty fifth of a second.

         By land, air or sea, birds are masters of motions. The ostrich outruns any animal on two legs, carrying its 300-pound body at 30 miles an hour. The flight of the Indian bird sometimes exceeds 100 mph. And the gentoo penguin, by at least one account, can swim 22mph. At this speed, the penguin keeps pace with one of the fastest-swimming marine mammals, the dolphin.

6.  It can be learned from the passage that ______.

A.      the camel cannot cover 30 miles a day with a heavy load

B.       the kangaroo cannot jump high with its heavy body

C.       the elephant’s trunk is both flexible and mighty

D.      the brawny bee has incredible strength when it is fastened to a tree

7.  Which of the following figures is NOT correct?

A.      The weight of a normal kangaroo is about 200 pounds.

B.       The flea is the world’s greatest high jumper.

C.       No one can jump 30 feet so far.

D.      The oriental rat flea can jump for three days nonstop.

8.  The fastest muscle movement champion belongs to a kind of ______.

A.      marine mammal

B.       huge-tailed animal

C.       mighty beast

D.      small insect

9.  It can be inferred from the passage that ______.

A.      an animal’s size decides its physical power

B.       human beings can hardly jump as high as fleas

C.       ostrich is kind of bird

D.      the penguin swims faster than the dolphin

10.  It seems that the author of this passage intends to ______.

A.      compare animals with human athletes

B.       introduce some gifted animal athletes

C.       show the underestimated strength of some animals

D.      demonstrate the law of “survival of the fittest”

Section C  Questions 11—15 are based on this section. (10 points)

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best answer from A, B, C and D. Blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

Early in the development of agriculture, men discovered how to make alcoholic drinks from grapes and corn. The ancient Egyptians drank both wine and beer, and the Greeks carried on a lively trade in wine throughout the Mediterranean. The vines of grapes are all of a single species, Vitis vinifera, although there are hundreds of varieties adapted to different soils and climates.

         Wine is the fermented juice of fresh grapes. The juice of the wine grape contains sugar, and the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol, when there is no air present, by process called fermentation. Red wine is made from dark grapes, and white wine from white grapes or from dark grapes whose skins have been removed from the wine press at an early stage.

         The most famous wine-growing countries are France, Germany and Italy. Wine was made in England in the Middle Ages, but the climate is not really suitable for grapevines. Wines must be drunk quickly once they are opened, otherwise bacteria will use the air to convert the alcohol to vinegar. The bacteria are killed by a higher alcohol content than is found in wine and that is why sherry and port, the specialties of Spain and Portugal, are fortified by the addition of spirits to make them last longer.

         Beer is made from sprouting barley grains (malt), which is fermented with yeast to produce alcohol; hops are added for flavour. Ale, the most common drink in England in the Middle Ages, was also made from barley, but without hops; the ale of today is merely a type of beer. In Japan, beer is made from rice.

         Spirits have a higher alcoholic content than beer and wine and are made by distillation from a base of grain or some other vegetable. Gin and Vodka can be distilled from a variety of ingredients, including potatoes; gin is flavoured with juniper berries. Scotch whisky is obtained from a base of fermented barley, and brandy from the distillation of wine. Rum is derived from sugar cane by fermentation of molasses, a by-product in refining sugar. Cider is made from apples. South American Indians make alcoholic drinks from cactus leaves and the shoots of certain palm trees.

11.  The earliest alcoholic drinks were made from ______.

A.      rice and potatoes

B.       grapes and corn 

C.       grains and barley   

D.      apples and berries

12.  The colour of the red wine comes mainly from ______.

A.      the juice of wine grapes

B.       the juice of red grapes

C.       the skin of wine grapes

D.      the skin of dark-coloured grapes

13.  “Fermentation” in the second paragraph refers to ______.

A.      a container to keep air from entering the wine

B.       a kind of yeast to change sugar into alcohol

C.       a method to produce wine through chemical reactions

D.      a machine to obtain juice from grapes

14.  The purpose of using hops is to ______.

A.      convert barley grains into alcohol  

B.       make English beer better than Japanese beer

C.       to make ale a popular drink in ancient England

D.      give beer a special taste

15.  Which of the following description is true according to the passage?

A.      Brandy is a kind of soft drink.

B.       Gin is distilled from juniper berries.

C.       Whisky is made of potatoes.

D.      Cider is converted from apples.

Section D  Questions 16—20 are based on this section. (10 points)

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best answer from A, B, C and D. Blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

One dictionary broadly defines the word “crisis” as “a crucial turning point in the progress of an affair or of a series of events, as in politics, business, a story, or play …” This paper will attempt to define a much narrower but extremely significant aspect of crisis: personal crisis.

Sometimes our more or less steady progress through life comes to a jolting halt. Something unexpected, shocking, frightening, threatening, and disastrous happens — a crisis. Such a development can disturb relationships, interfere with work efficiency, and cause confusion, disorganization, and serious emotional upheaval. Solutions that have worked for us in solving past problems no longer prove adequate. As anxiety increases, our powers to cope with it correspondingly decrease. The crisis quickly leads to frustration; we feel helpless either to escape from the problem or to resolve it successfully.

Many people think of crisis as being connected only with unhappy or unpleasant events. This is not the case. Crisis can occur as a result of any change, even on what is generally welcomed: marriage, birth of a child, graduation from school or college, or election to public office.

Crises are generally of two types. First, there are the expected, maturational crises we experience at times of life development and change. Examples of this include a child’s first enrollement in school or his transfer at a later age to a new school. These events may precipitate a crisis — both for the younger and his parents. Another time when crisis can be expected is during adolescence.

The second type of crisis is the unexpected, accidental kind. This can stem from many sources becoming involved in a legal suit, having an automobile crash, being fired from a job, losing a large sum of money, or falling suddenly ill. Severe illness will create a crisis not only for the individual concerned but also for his family. And an illness may itself be caused by an emotional crisis, such as the death of a spouse, offspring, or other family members.

In a recent attitude survey, researchers gathered information to determine which crisis situations in life were most likely to precede illness. The study showed that the three most stressful life events were death of a spouse, divorce, and marital separation. Other events that fell toward the top of the crisis scale were a jail term, death of a close family member, personal injury or illness, marriage, losing one’s job, marital reconciliation, retirement, change in the health of a family member, pregnancy, sex difficulties, gain of a new family member, business readjustment, and the change in financial state.

16.  In this passage, the author mainly intends to ______.

A.      give a more accurate definition to the word “crisis”

B.       illustrate one important aspect of “crisis”

C.       divide “crisis” into three different categories

D.      explain the meaning of “crisis” in general

17.  Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

A.      In crisis, one’s general solutions can hardly yield the usual results.

B.       People may become more powerful as their anxiety increases.

C.       Crisis has little to do with people’s work efficiency.

D.      Frustration usually results in crisis.

18.  In the author’s opinion, ______.

A.      crisis usually befalls people unexpected

B.       the crisis caused by being elected to public office belongs to the second type

C.       crisis is seldom experienced by children

D.      illness may be either the result or the cause of crisis

19.  According to the writer, which of the following is NOT true?

A.        Adolescence is a period when crisis is quite likely to occur.

B.         Lots of people do not associate graduation from college with crisis.

C.         Crisis is not necessarily the result of unpleasant events.

D.        Marital reconciliation is found to be the number one stressful problem.

20.  The word “broadly” in the first paragraph of the passage is similar in meaning to ______.

A.        generally

B.         critically

C.         extremely

D.        narrowly

Section E   Questions 21—25 are based on this section. (10 points)

Directions: In this section, there is one passage followed by a total of five pieces of information marked 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in Column A. Match them with their correspondent parts marked A, B, C, D and E in Column B. Skim or scan the text as required and then blacken your answers on your answer sheet.

Royal Oak, Michigan, U.S.A, is a city with a population of about 75,000 people. Most of the people live in detached single family homes, bungalows, two-story houses, and ranch (one floor with basement) houses. The city is about 50 square kilometers in size.

There are 12 primary schools, four middle schools, and four high schools in Royal Oak. There is also a community college there where many people learn job skills such as how to use a computer. Since life-long learning is a reality in America, the community college has many classes for people who want to learn skills that may make their lives more enjoyable such as pottery making, water color painting, music appreciation and foreign language training.

Royal Oak is known throughout the region as a city with good restaurants. There are many types of restaurants in Royal Oak and there are many cuisines represented there. There is a large Chinese restaurant that is owned by a Chinese-American family. There are three new Italian restaurants and they are very popular. Greek, Thai and French restaurants are usually crowded. One restaurant that is always very crowded is the Lebanese restaurant. There is a huge Arab population in Michigan and many of the Arabs have built many new restaurants that serve authentic Middle East food. There are many American restaurants. One serves food from the southern states, one is a seafood restaurant, others serve vegetarian food, and others serve what most of the world thinks Americans eat all the time: hamburgers and steaks.

There are 20 churches in Royal Oak. Most of the people there consider themselves Christians. There are three Catholic Churches and many Protestant churches. One of these churches, the Shrine of the Little Flower, was built with money that was given to the church because of the church’s radio program. This was a very controversial program because the priest was supporting the policies of Hitler and Mussolini before World War II. Nevertheless, Shrine of the Little Flower is one of the most beautiful churches in America and has a large membership.

The largest building in Royal Oak is William Beaumont Hospital. It is one of the largest and most famous hospitals in America. People go to Beaumont from all over the world to be cured of their illnesses. The medical treatment tends to be traditional western medicine. It is a teaching hospital where young doctors are trained after their eight years at the university.

Part Ⅱ: Vocabulary and Structure             (30 points)

Section A   Questions 26—35 are based on this section. (15 points)

Directions: Read the following sentences and choose the best answer from A, B, C and D. Blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

26.  They turned a ______ ear to my request for help.

A.   dead                                B. blind                        C. deaf                         D. mute

27.  _______ his sister, Jack is quiet and does not easily make friends with others.

A. Dislike                    B. Unlike           C. Alike                        D. Liking

28.  The key  ______ success is hard work and persistence.

A.   on                                    B. for                            C. to                             D. of

29.  Water, when boiled, always  ______ steam.

A.    gives in                          B. gives out                C. gives up                 D. gives off

30.  This kind of work is unfamiliar ______ me.

A.   with                                 B. by                            C. to                             D. of

31.  It is strange that such a thing ______ in your school.

A. will happen                                                          B. would happen

C. should happen                                                     D. shall happen

32.  ______ his cold, he came first in the athletics meet.

A. Regardless                                                           B. In spite

C. In spite of                                                             D. Despite of

33.  Written in great haste, ______.

A.  there are plenty of mistakes in the report    

B.   there are plenty of errors in the report

C.  we found a great deal of mistakes in the letter

D.  the book is full of errors

34. It’s no use ______ to persuade him to give up his plan.

A.  in trying                          B. trying                      C. to try                       D. try

35. The new secretary is really incompetent. The memo ______ hours ago.

    A. should finish                              B. must be finished

C. must have finished                                            D. should have been finished 

Section B  Questions 36—45 are based on this section. (15 points)

Directions: Read the following passage and fill in each blank by choosing the best answer from A, B, C and D. Blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

The Indians rise as soon as it is light. The children run down to the river to swim, and the women go to the creek  36  fresh water. Soon maize soup is being prepared for breakfast. Before noon, they will eat again, usually fish, meat and bananas, the fruit on the “chontadure” palm and a drink of “chicha”. When the sun has  37  over the river, some of the younger women go with their children by canoe to their forest plantation to collect maize, bananas and wild fruits. The older women stay in the house making pots which  38  for drinking water and for “chicha”.

 Later, they have to prepare the evening meal and look  39  the children. The women do most of the daily work and each new day involves much the same  40 . The men, who may have been hunting during the night, pass the day repairing nets, replacing an arrow  41  while hunting, fishing with hook and line or “atarraya” net.

In January after the rains,  42  men and women go to the forest plantation to sow maize. Later, in August and September, they sow a second crop. Four months after each sowing, the maize is ready for  43  by the women. At nightfall, the family congregates once again, and after the babies are  44  in their hammocks, they discuss the day’s events. A man picks up a flute and starts playing. Soon, sleeping mats are spread out on the platforms and the house  45 

silent.