2010英语专八语法真题

2010英语专八语法真题

　　Part IV Proofreading & Error Correction (15 min)

　　The passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated 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 write 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 a unnecessary word,cross 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,

　　it buys things in finished form and hangs

　　them on the wall. When a natural history

　　museum wants an exhibition, it must often build it.

　　So far as we can tell, all human languages are equally complete and perfect as instruments of communication: that is, every language appears to be well equipped as any other to say the things their speakers want to say.

　　There may or may not be appropriate to talk about primitive peoples or cultures, but that is another matter. Certainly, not all groups of people are equally competent in nuclear physics or psychology or the cultivation of rice or the engraving of Benares brass. Whereas this is not the fault of their language. The Eskimos can speak about snow with a great deal more precision and subtlety than we can in English, but this is not because the Eskimo language (one of those sometimes miscalled 'primitive') is inherently more precise and subtle than English. This example does not come to light a defect in English, a show of unexpected 'primitiveness'. The position is simply and obviously that the Eskimos and the English live in similar environments. The English language will be just as rich in terms for similar kinds of snow, presumably, if the environments in which English was habitually used made such distinction as important.

　　Similarly, we have no reason to doubt that the Eskimo language could be as precise and subtle on the subject of motor manufacture or cricket if these topics formed the part of the Eskimos' life. For obvious historical reasons, Englishmen in the nineteenth century could not talk about motorcars with the minute discrimination which is possible today: cars were not a part of their culture. But they had a host of terms for horse-drawn vehicles which send us, puzzled, to a historical dictionary when we are reading Scott or Dickens. How many of us could distinguish between a chaise, a landau, a victoria, a brougham, a coupe, a gig, a diligence, a whisky, a calash, a tilbury, a carriole, a phaeton, and a clarence ?

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