2000年英语专业八级考试真题（附听力mp3及答案）

　　TEXT E

　　First read the following question.?

　　31. In the passage Bill Gates mainly discusses ___.?

　　A. a person’s opportunity of a lifetime?

　　B. the success of the computer industry?

　　C. the importance of education?

　　D. high school education in the US?

　　Now go through TEXT E quickly and answer question 31.?

　　Hundreds of students send me e-mail each year asking for advice about education. They wantto know what to study, or whether it’s OK to drop out of college since that’s what I did.?

　　My basic advice is simple and heartfelt.“Get the best education you can. Take advantage ofhigh school and college. Learn how to learn.”?

　　It’s true that I dropped out of college to start Microsoft, but I was at Harvard for three yearsbefore dropping out-and I’d love to have the time to go b a ck. As I’ve said before, nobodyshould drop out of college unless they believe they face the opportunity of a lifetime. And eventhen they should reconsider.

　　The computer industry has lots of people who didn’t finish college, but I ‘m not aware of anysuccess stories that began with somebody dropping out of high school. I actually don’t knowany high school dropouts, let alone any successful ones.?

　　In my company’s early years we had a bright part-time programmer who threatened to dropout of high school to work full-time. We told him no.?

　　Quite a few of our people didn’t finish college, but we discourage dropping out.?

　　College isn’t the only place where information exist. You can learn in a library. But somebodyhanding you a book doesn’t automatically foster learning. Y o u want to learn with otherpeople, ask questions, try out ideas and have a way t o test your ability. It usually takes morethan just a book.?

　　Education should be broad, although it’s fine to have deep interests, too.

　　?

　　In high school there were periods when I was highly focused on writing soft ware, but for mostof my high school years I had wide-ranging academic interests . My parents encouraged this,and I’m grateful that they did.?

　　One parent wrote me that her 15-year old son “lost himself in the hole of t he computer. ”Hegot an A in Web site design, but other grades were sinking, she said.?

　　This boy is making a mistake. High school and college offer you the best chance to learnbroadly-math, history, various sciences-and to do projects with other kids that teach youfirsthand about group dynamics. It’s fine to take a deep interest in computers, dance, languageor any other discipline, but not if it jeopardizes breadth.?

　　In college it’s appropriate to think about specialization. Getting real expertise in an area ofinterest can lead to success. Graduate school is one way to get specialized knowledge.Choosing a specialty isn’t something high school students should worry about. They shouldworry about getting a strong academic start.?

　　There’s not a perfect correlation between attitudes in high school and success in later life, ofcourse. But it’s a real mistake not to take the opportunity to learn a huge range of subjects,to learn to work with people in high school, and to get the grades that will help you get into agood college.?

　　TEXT F

　　First read the following question.?

　　32. The passage focuses on ___.?

　　A. the history and future of London?

　　B. London’s manufacturing skills

　　C. London’s status as a financial center?

　　D. the past and present roles of London?

　　Now go through Text F quickly and answer question 32.?

　　What is London for? To put the question another way, why was London, by 1900, incomparably the largest city in the world, which it remained until the bombardments of the Luftwaffe? There could be many answers to this question, but any history of London will rehearse three broad explanations. One is the importance of its life as a port. When the Thames turned to ice in February 1855,50,000 men were put out of work, and there were bread riots from those whose liveliboods had been frozen with the river. Today, the Thames could be frozen for a year with out endangering the livelihoods of any but a few pleasure-boatmen. ?

　　The second major cause of London’s wealth and success was that it was easily the biggest manufacturing centre in Europe. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Dutch looms and the stocking knitting frame were first pioneered in London. The vast range of London’s manufacturing skills is another fact; almost any item you can name was manufactured in London during the days of its prosperity. In 1851, 13.75 percent of the manufacturing work-force of Great Britain was based in London. By 1961, this had dramatically reduced. By 1993, there were a mere 328,000 Londoners engaged in manufacturing. In other words, by our own time s, two of the chief reasons for London’s very existence-its life as a pert and as a centre of manufacture-had dwindled out of existence.?

　　London’s third great function, since the seventeenth century, has been that of national and international bourse: the exchange of stocks and shares, banking, commerce and, increasingly, insurance. Both In wood and Francis Sheppard, in London: A history, manage to make these potentially dry matters vivid to the general reader, and both authors assure us that “The City” in the financial sense i s still as important as ever it was. Both, however, record the diminution of the City as an architectural and demographic entity, with the emptying of many city offices (since the advent of the computer much of the work can be done anywhere ) and the removal of many distinctive landmarks.?

　　TEXT G

　　First read the following question.?

　　33. The primary purpose of the passage is to ___.?

　　A. discuss the impact of the internet?

　　B. forecast the future roles of the bookstore?

　　C. compare the publisher with the editor?

　　D. evaluate the limitations of the printed page?

　　Now go through TEXT G quickly and answer question 33.?

　　Since the advent of television people have been prophesying the death of the book. Now the rise of the World Wide Web seems to have revived this smoldering controversy from the ashes. The very existence of paper copy has been brought into question once more.

　　It might be the bookstore, rather than the book itself, that is on the brink of extinction. Many of you will have noted tom of bookseller websites popping up. They provide lists of books and let you read sample chapters, reviews from other customers and interviews with authors.?

　　What does all this mean? Browsing a virtual bookstore may not afford you the same dusty pleasure as browsing round a real shop, but as far as service, pr ice and convenience are concerned there is really no competition. This may change before long, as publishers’ websites begin to offer direct access to new publications.?

　　Perhaps it is actually the publisher who is endangered by the relentless advance of the Internet. There are a remarkable number of sites republishing texts online--an extensive virtual library of materials that used to be handled primarily by publishing companies.?

　　From the profusion of electronic-text sites available, it looks as if this virtual library is here to stay unless a proposed revision to copyright law takes many publications out of the public domain. However, can electronic texts still be considered books??

　　Then again, it might be the editor at risk, in danger of being cut out of the publishing process. The Web not only makes it possible for just about anyone to publish whatever they like whenever they like-there are virtually no costs involved. The editors would then be the millions of Internet users. And there is little censor ship, either.?

　　So possibly it is the printed page, with its many limitations, that is perishing as the implications of new technologies begin to be fully realized. Last year Stanford University published the equivalent of a 6,000 page Business English dictionary, online. There seem to be quite obvious benefits to housing these multi-volume reference sets on the Web. The perceived benefits for other books, such as the novel, are perhaps less obvious.?

　　TEXT H

　　First read the following question.?

　　34. The reviewer’s attitude towards the books is ___.?

　　A. ambiguous B. objective C. doubtful D. hostile?

　　Now go through TEXT H quickly and answer question 34.?

　　The 1990s have witnessed a striking revival of the idea that liberal democratic political system are the best basis for international peace. Western states men and scholars have witnessed worldwide process of democratization, and tend t o see it as a sounder basis for peace than anything we have had in the past.?

　　Central to the vision of a peaceful democratic world bas been the proposition that liberal democracies do not fight each other; that they may and frequently do get into fights with illiberal states, but not with other countries that a re basically similar in their political systems. The proposition appeals to political leaders and scholars as well.?

　　Yet it is doubtful whether the proposition is strong enough to bear the vast weight of generalization that has been placed on it. Among the many difficulties it poses, two stand out: first there are many possible exceptions to the rule that democracies do not fight each other; and second, there is much uncertainty about why democracies have, for the most part, not fought each other.?

　　Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American politics and international security b y John M. Owen is an attempt to explain the twin phenomena of liberal peace (why democracies do not fight each other) and liberal war (why they fight other states, sometimes with the intent of making them liberal).?

　　Owen’s analysis in the book strongly suggests that political leaders on all sides judged a given foreign country largely on the basis of its political sys tem; and this heavily influenced decisions on whether or not to wage war against it. However, be also shows that military factors, including calculations of the cost of going to war, were often influential in tipping the balance against war . In other words, democratic peace does not mean the end of power politics.?

　　Owen hints at, but never addresses directly, a sinister aspect of democratic peace theory: its assumption that there would be peace if only everybody else was like us. This can lead only too easily to attempts to impose the favoured system on benighted foreigners by force-regardless of the circumstances and sensibilities that make the undertaking hazardous, Owen’s central argument is not strengthened by the occasional repetition nor by the remorselessly academic tone of the more theoretical chapters. However, most of the writing is succinct; the historical accounts are clear and to the point; and the investigation of the causal links between liberalism and war is admirably thorough.?

　　There are several grounds on which the book’s thesis might be criticized. The most obvious is that some twentieth-century experience goes against the argument that liberal states ally with others, above all, because they perceive them as fellow liberals. In our own time, several liberal democracies have maintained long and close relations with autocracies. However, Owen’s argument for a degree of solidarity between liberal states provides at least part of the explanation for the continuation and even expansion of NATO in the post-Cold War era.?

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