Part Ⅰ    Vocabulary and Structure      ( 30 points，1 for each )

In this section, there are thirty incomplete sentences. For each sentence four alternatives are given. Decide which of the alternatives A, B, C or D best completes the sentence. Write the appropriate letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

1.It is important to boost the morale of the soldiers as low morale can render an army_______.

A. impotent      B. disabled  C. sterile        D. barren

2.The Jacksons are shocked by the manager’s _______indifference to the sufferings of the poor workmen.

A. fragrant      B. festering    C. flagrant      D. ignorant

3.After the eruption of the volcano there was a serious _____ of typhoid in the area.

A. outrage      B.  outcome  C. outbreak      D. output

4.The proposal was carried by a narrow _______.

A.  verge      B. margin      C. rim          D. fringe

5.  He seemed to have a (an) _______ of reasons not to take part in our research project.

A. profusion    B. multitude    C. abundance      D. pack

6.  Martin is considered one of the geniuses in our school but I think his paintings are quite ______.

A. mediocre    B. medium      C. moderate    D. meager

7 .The soldiers in the platoon shined their bayonets in _______ of the inspection by the general.

A. contemplation  B. preconception  C. anticipation  D. meditation

8. My woolen sweater used to be bigger than this. It has ______ in the wash.

A. shrunk        B. shortened      C. reduced    D. lessened

9. Do you see __________ with James Degnan's point of view?

A. back to back    B. eye to eye      C. face to face  D. heart to heart

10. John was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment because he tried to _____ taxes by falsifying his returns.

A. avoid  B. escape    C. dodge      D. evade

11.________,  we shall go out for a picnic on Monday

A. Weather permits      B. Weather permitted  C. Weather permitting      D. With weather to permit

12.We think ________ possible for them to fulfill their task in a few weeks..

A.it                B. that                  C. what              D. this

13. Not until the game had begun ________ at the sports ground.

A. should he have arrived            B. had he arrived      

C. did he arrive                    D. would he had arrived

14. There used to be a theater here years ago, ________.

A. didn’t it              B. usedn’t it        C. didn’t there use to        D. didn’t there

15. With all the children ________ at home during the holidays, she had a great deal of work to do.

A. be                B. were            C. been                D. being

16. The dying soldier had the message ________ straight to the headquarter.

A. be sent            B. being sent    C. sent        D. to be sent

17. How close parents are to their children ________ a strong influence on the character of their children.

A. having            B. have          C. has        D. to have

18. There’s  _________ when we shall meet again.

A. no knowing        B. not know      C. not to know        D. never knowing

19. One of the requirements for a fire is that the material ________ to its burning temperature.

A. heated            B. be heated      C. to be heated    D. being heated

20. Kunming is usually cool in the summer, but Shanghai ________.

A. is rarely             B. is hardly      C. rarely is            D. hardly is

21. All living creatures have some ______ that are passed on from one generation to the next.

A.  aspects      B. attributes  C. properties      D. faculties

22.The lovely damsel of the court could not _______ the temptation of throwing glances of admiration upon the handsome young man.

A. resist        B. obstruct    C. conflict    D. challenge

23.  It is hoped that the person on trail will be released through the _____ of the king’s daughter.

A. interruption  B.  interrogation      C. intervention        D. meditation

24. When they were evicted for not paying the rent, they wept, wailed, and _________ their teeth.

A. bit      B. chewed        C. gnashed        D. munched

25. Mr. Bright _______ down the stairs, trying not to disturb his roommates, but a creaking floorboard woke up his best friend, Tom.

A. tiptoed    B. limped        C. trudged        D. strutted    

26. Betty liked to have her clothes made to ______ but I preferred ready-made clothes.

A. medium  B. measurement  C. standard    D. measure

27. The whole area of national and local governments was subjected to a thorough financial_______ , and inefficiency and waste were attacked.

A. survey  B. search        C. research  D. scrutiny

28. In my younger and more _______ years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

A. frail    B. pregnable      C. assailable      D. vulnerable

29. Formulated in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine________ that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization.

A. argued  B. asserted      C. entreated        D. accentuated

30. As we all know, houses are __________ to be at rest with respect to the earth but the earth itself is not motionless .

A. resumed  B. consumed    C. assumed    D. presumed

Part II  Reading Comprehension ( 40 points )

Section A: In this section, there are three passages. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the BEST choices and then write the appropriate answer on the ANSWER SHEET. ( 30 points，2 for each )

Passage 1

According to a recent publication of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, at the present rate of progress, it will take forty-three years to end job discrimination-hardly a reasonable timetable.

If our goal is educational and economic equity and parity, it is then we need affirmative action to catch up. We are behind as a result of discrimination and denial of opportunity. There is one white attorney for every 680 whites, but only one black attorney for every 4,000 blacks; one white physician for every 659 whites, but only one black physician for every 5,000 blacks; and one white dentist for every 1,900 whites, but only one black dentist for every 8,400 blacks. Less than 1 percent of all engineers or of all practicing chemists is black. Cruel and uncompassionate injustice created gaps like these. We need creative justice and compassion to help us close them.

Actually, in the U.S. context, “reverse discrimination” is illogical and a contradiction in terms. Never in the history of mankind has a majority, with power, engaged in programs and written laws that discriminate against itself. The only thing whites are giving up because of affirmative action is unfair advantage, something that was unnecessary in the first place.

Blacks are not making progress at the expense of whites, as news accounts make it seem. There are 49 percent more whites in medical school today and 64 percent more whites in law school than there were when affirmative action programs began some eighteen years ago.

In a recent column, William Raspberry raised an interesting question. Commenting on the Bakke case, he asked, “What if, instead of setting aside 16 of 100 slots, we added 16 slots to the 100.” That, he suggested, would not interfere with what whites already have. He then went on to point out that this, in fact, is exactly what has happened in law and medical schools. In 1968, the year before affirmative action programs began to get under way, 9,571 whites and 282 members of minority groups entered U.S. medical schools. In 1976, the figures were 14,213 and 1,400 respectively. Thus, under affirmative action, the number of “white places” actually rose by 49 percent; white access to medical training was not diminished, but substantially increased. The trend was even more marked in law schools. In 1969, the first year for which reliable figures are available, 2,933 minority-group members were enrolled; in 1976, the number was up to 8,484. But during the same period, law school enrollment for whites rose from 65,453 to 107,064, an increase of 64 percent. In short, it is a myth that blacks are making progress at white expense.

Allan Bakke did not really challenge preferential treatment in general, for he made no challenge to the preferential treatment accorded to the children of the rich, the alumni and the faculty or to athletes or the very talented only to minorities.

1. The author is for affirmative action __________.

A. because it will take 43 years to end job discrimination

B. because there is discrimination and denial of opportunity in the U.S.

C. if we aim at educational and economic equity and parity

D. when there is no reasonable timetable in the U.S.

2. It requires  ______  to close the gap between the whites and the blacks in the U.S.

A. creative justice and compassion

B. a lot more black engineers and chemists

C. education and economic development

D.one black attorney for every 4,000 blacks

3. Blacks are not making progress at the expense of whites, according to the author, because ________    

A. there are 49 percent more white in medical school today already

B. what whites give up is only unfair advantage

C. there are 64 percent more whites in law schools today

D. whites, the majority in the U.S., will never discriminate against themselves

4. William Raspberry, while commenting on the Bakke case, suggests  ________    .

A. to follow what has happened in law and medical schools.

B. to interfere with what whites already have.

C. to offer 84 slots to whites and 16 to blacks.

D. to offer 100 slots to whites and 16 to blacks.

5. According to the author, ________,

A. Blacks are not making progress at white expense.

B. Affirmative action is an effective way to end job discrimination.

C. The things whites are giving up because of affirmative action are necessary.

D. Under affirmative action, white access to medical training was diminished.

Passage 2

I have observed that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ideas than the French. This is especially true in politics.

Although the Americans infuse into their legislation far more general ideas than the French, and although they strive more than the latter to adjust the practice of affairs to theory, no political bodies in the United States have ever shown so much love for general ideas as the Constituent Assembly and the Convention in France. At no time has the American people laid hold on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind confidence in the value and absolute truth of any theory.

This difference between the Americans and the French originates in several causes, but principally in the following one. The Americans are a democratic people who have always directed public affairs themselves. The French are a democratic people who for a long time could only speculated on the best manner of conducting them. The social condition of the French led them to conceive very general ideas on the subject of government, while their political constitution prevented them from correcting those ideas by experiment and from gradually detecting their insufficiency; whereas in America the two things constantly balance and correct each other.

It may seem at first sight that this is very much opposed to what I have said before, that democratic nations derive their love of theory from the very excitement of their active life. A more attentive-examination will show that there is nothing contradictory in the proposition.

Men living in democratic countries eagerly lay hold of general ideas because they have but little leisure and because these ideas spare them the trouble of studying particulars. This is true, but it is only to be understood of those matters which are not the necessary and habitual subjects of their thoughts. Mercantile men will take up very eagerly, and without any close scrutiny, all the general ideas on philosophy, politics, science, or the arts which may be presented to them; but for such as relate to commerce, they will not receive them without inquiry or adopt them without reserve. The same thing applies to statesman with regard to general ideas in politics.

If, then, there is a subject upon which a democratic people is peculiarly liable to abandon itself, blindly and extravagantly, to general ideas, the best corrective that can be used will be to make that subject a part of their daily practical occupation. They will then be compelled to enter into details, and the details will teach them the weak points of the theory. This remedy may frequently be a painful one, but its effect is certain.

Thus it happens that the democratic institutions which compel every citizen to take a practical part in the government moderate that excessive taste for general theories in polities which the principle of equality suggests.

6. Why do the Americans show less enthusiasm for general ideas than the French?

A. In America, the constitution provides checks and balances.

B. The French constitution did not allow for experiment.

C. The social conditions in France led to different ideas.

D. The Americans have always been in charge of their own public affairs.

7. Some people in different democratic countries prefer general ideas because______.

A. in politics it is easier to study general ideas

B. general ideas on different subjects are more interesting

C. they do not have time to address details.

D. mercantile men prefer general ideas on philosophy, politics, science and the arts

8. What does the writer think would inhibit people’s preference for general ideas?

A. Teaching them the weak points of the theory.

B. Encouraging them to take a practical part in their daily work practice.

C. Trying to make them abandon those ideas.

D. Compelling them to study details.

9. The writer’s conclusion is that ________.

A. people’s taste for general ideas can be diminished through taking a practical part in democratic institutions

B. general theories in politics should be the most important part of democracy

C. citizens should be forced to take part in democratic institutions

D. the principle of equality must be paramount

10. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?

A. The Americans have a more decided taste for general ideas than the French.

B. The Americans introduce far more general ideas into their legislation than the French.

C. Some political bodies in the United States have shown so much love for general ideas as the Constituent Assembly and the Convention in France.

D. The political constitution condition of the French is helpful for the correction of those ideas by experiment.

Passage  3

I have some difficulty in describing why I traveled to West Africa and what I was doing there, since the journey that become so complicated and took me to so many unexpected places seemed – in the beginning – to be so simple and so clearly defined. I went to Africa to find the roots of the blues. It had always been obvious that the blues sprang from a complex background, with much of it developing from the music of the long period of African slavery in the United States and with some of its harmonic forms and instrumental styles derived out of a broad European context. It had always been just as obvious that there were certain elements in the blues – in the singing style and in the rhythmic structures – that were not traceable to anything in the countryside of the American South. These things, it seemed to me, might have come from a distantly remembered African background, even if there had been such a lengthy period between the break in contact with Africa and the emergence of the blues in the 1890’s.

In the beginning I planned simply to record the tribal singers of West Africa known as griots, since it was these musicians who seemed to come closest to what we know as a blues singer. They are from tribes that had many people taken to the southern states as slaves, and they usually sing alone, accompanying themselves for the most part on plucked string instruments. Since most African music is performed by village groups, and is often dominated by drumming, this practice in itself is enough to set the groits apart. At the same time I hoped to collect from the singers narrative accounts of the first encounters between the Africans and the Europeans, told from the African viewpoint. I felt that this could give me a clearer picture of one of the factors that had shaped the early Black experience in the United States.

Before leaving for Africa I’d spent months taking notes on the tribal groups and working with as much material on the griots as I could find. As I traveled I had a definite idea of where I wanted to go, but at the same time I had not planned the trip in anyway. I’ve always felt that to plan a trip too carefully is to make sure you won’t find out anything you don’t already know.

I didn’t know, however, how much the simple trip I had begun would change direction once I’d come to Africa, almost as if it took on a life and a will of its own. I began to feel like someone who had bought a set of boxes that fit inside each other in a wooden nest. When I opened one there was another inside it, and inside that one was still another. I found so many boxes inside each other that the simple project I had begun with became a series of new perceptions, each of which was contained within the perception – the box – that I’d just opened. Sometimes, as I sat on sagging beds engulfed in mosquito nets, the space around me seemed to be filled with the myriad boxes of different sizes that my notebooks and tapes had come to symbolize.

When I opened the box that was the music I’d come to record, I found that the box inside was slavery itself. There was no way that I could work with the music without taking into consideration how it had come to the United States. I also realized that this was one of the reasons I had come to Africa. I was trying to find traces of an experience, and not only that, I was looking for traces of an experience that had occurred hundreds of years before. Would what I found have any reality for me so many years afterwards?

I understand now that this complex set of questions had already been there in my mind when I put the microphones and the tape recorded into my shoulder bag. I had always tried to have some conception of the slavery that had brought people from West Africa to the United States, even if I hadn’t seen, symbolically, that when I opened the box decorated with pictures of musicians and instruments inside it would be the next box, illustrated with old engravings of slave ships. I had come to Africa to find a kind of song, to find a kind of music and the people who performed it. But nothing can be taken from a culture without considering its context.

11. The “singing style” and “ rhythmic structures” underlined in paragraph 1 is mentioned in order to ______.  

A. discuss why the blues have remained popular through the years

B. identify aspects of the blues that present a historical enigma

C. argue that the American South had a profound influence on the musical structure of the blues

D. praise the musical complexity of a little-known art form

12. The “narrative account” in paragraph 2 is viewed by the author primarily as ______.

A. offering a useful perspective on a complex historical situation

B. lending authenticity to an unusual form of music

C. contributing to a community’s sense of patriotism

D. exhibiting the versatile nature of an art from

13. The function of the first sentence in paragraph 4 (“I didn’t … own”) is to ______.

A. indicate a significant turning point in the author’s research.

B. suggest that the author’s initial hypothesis lacked validity

C. reveal the author’s ability to adapt to a new environment

D. highlight the importance of the author’s thorough preparation.

14. In context, the reference to “notebooks and tapes” at the end of paragraph 4 primarily serves to ______.

A. illustrate the technology required by the author’s research

B. underscore the author’s growing awareness of the scope of the undertaking

C. suggest that few people appreciate the difficulty of writing historical narratives

D. describe the author’s success in collecting data that supports oral history

15. The primary purpose of the passage is to describe the ______.

A. author’s theory about the origins of slave music in the American South

B. mental processes of a researcher considering an issue in music history

C. position of the griots in the musical culture of West Africa

D. various research techniques utilized by different musicologists

Section B: Read the following passage and answer the questions followed and write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. ( 10 points，2 for each )

There is an immense and justified pride in what our colleges have done. At the same time there is a growing uneasiness about their product. The young men and women who carry away our degrees are a very attractive lot—in looks, in bodily fitness, in kindliness, energy, courage, and buoyancy. But what of their intellectual equipment? That too is in some ways admirable; for in spite of President Lowell’s remark that the university should be a repository of great learning, since the freshmen always bring a stock with them and the seniors take little away, the fact is that our graduates have every chance to be well informed, and usually are so. Yet the uneasiness persists. When the uneasiness becomes clearly and distinctly expressed, it takes the form of wishes that these attractive young products of ours had more intellectual depth and force, more freedom from trouble and worry in dealing with the different ideas, more of the firm, clear, quiet thoughtfulness that is so potent and so needed a guard against besetting humbug and quackery. The complaint commonly breaks itself up into a list of three particulars. Firstly, granting that our graduates know a good deal, their knowledge lies about in fragments and never gets welded together into the stuff of a tempered and mobile mind. Secondly, our university graduates have been so busy studying a certain narrow and particular subject, acquiring special knowledge and skills, that in later life they have astonishingly little in common in the way of ideas, standards, or principles. Thirdly, it is alleged that as has been revealed in the past two decades, our university graduates have been singularly in want of clarity about the great aim of living, and only attached to the great aim of living can a life have significance and direction. Here are three grave charges against American education, and I want to discuss them briefly. My argument will be simple, perhaps too simple. What I shall contend is that there is a great deal of truth in each of them, and that the remedy for each is the same. The remedy is to infuse the educated with the philosophic habit of mind in a considerable way.

Questions:

1.Is the author’s point of view personal or impersonal? How do you know?

2.Describe the kind of readers for whom you think this essay is intended.

3.Which sentence expresses the author’s argument as a thesis statement? Write down the sentence.

4.The author moves from the general to the particular, a common way of opening. From which sentence in the paragraph does the author adjust his focus from the general to the particular? Write down the sentence.

5. The paragraph falls into two roughly equal halves. Suppose the first had been omitted, and the paragraph had begun with "There are three principal complaints against our colleges. Firstly, …Secondly,…Thirdly…” This would have made a much briefer opening, yet one which told us all we really need to know about the subject and plan of the essay to follow. But this shorter version would not have been as good a beginning. What would it have sacrificed?

Part Ⅲ    Writing  (30 points)

Passengers will be banned from eating on Shanghai subway trains, though they are still allowed to eat in the stations, according to a new rule released by Shanghai's transport authority. Advocates said the policy will improve the carriage environment for commuters. However, some argue there’s good reason to eat on the train, more likely if an elderly passenger wants to drink water.

   
   

Should passengers be banned from eating on the subway? Write a passage on the issue. You should clearly state your opinion and explain the reasons for your opinion.

Your essay must be no less than 400 words and must be written on the ANSWER SHEET.