1月自考高级英语试题(2)

2012年1月自考高级英语试题

2012年1月（全国）自考高级英语试题

I. The following paragraphs are taken from the textbooks，followed by a list of words or expressions marked A to Y. Choose the one that best completes each of the sentences and write the corresponding letter on your Answer Sheet. One word or expression for each blank only. (25 points，1 point for each) This strategy also has ancient antecedents. Ever since civilization began，certain 1 have tried to run away from it in hopes of finding a simpler，more 2 ，and more peaceful life. Unlike the dropouts，they are not 3 . They are willing to support themselves and to 4 something to the general community，but they simply don’t like the environment of civilization; that is，the city，with all its 5 and tension.

I had the lonely child’s habit of 6 stories and holding conversations with 7 persons，and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and 8 . I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing 9 facts，and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my 10 in everyday life.

Only two people shared her “special” seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat，his hands 11 over a huge carved walking-stick，and a big old woman，sitting 12 ，with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was 13 ，for Miss Brill always looked forward 14 the conversation. She had become really quite 15 ，she thought，at listening as though she didn’t listen，at sitting in other people’s lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

Our research shows that no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the 16 value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. We have identified three distinct value 17 ，so called because each discipline produces a different kind of 18 value. Choosing one discipline to master does not mean that a company 19 the other two，only that it picks a dimension of value on which to 20 its market reputation over the long term.

The value of snobbery in general，its humanistic “point”，consists in its power to 21 activity. A society with plenty of snobberies is like a dog with plenty of 22 : it is not likely to become comatose. Every snobbery demands of its devotees 23 efforts，a succession of sacrifices. The society-snob must be perpetually lion-hunting; the modernity-snob can never rest 24

trying to be up-to-date. Swiss doctors and the Best that has been thought or said must be the daily and nightly preoccupation of all the snobs respectively of 25 and culture.

A.making up

B.unique

C.upright

D.customer

E.ugliness

F.disciplines

G. imaginary

H.parasites

I.to

J.stake

K.fleas

L.clasped

M.disease

N.disappointing

O.failure

P.individuals

Q.expert

R.undervalued

S.contribute

T.abandons

U.unceasing

V.pastoral

W.from

X.stimulate

Y.unpleasant

II. Each of the following sentences is given four choices of words or expressions. Choose the right one to complete the sentence and write the corresponding letter on your Answer Sheet. (15 points，1 point for each)

26. What you say is far ______ from what you said before.

A. moved

B. removed

C. proved

D. disproved

27. There will be live ______ of the concert on TV and radio.

A. transaction

B. transition

C. transmission

D. transportation

28. The first priority for a government is to enable its citizens to live in peace and ______ .

A. tranquility

B. altitude

C. complexity

D. attitude

29. The pianist was ______ with the most extravagant applause from the audience.

A. loaded

B. burdened

C. pressed

D. weighed

30. The problem of poverty didn’t ______ itself until the earthquake.

A. manifest

B. demonstrate

C. emerge

D. exhibit

31. They got their just ______ when the scheme was finally uncovered.

A. desert

B. dessert

C. deserts

D. desserts

32. The tail of the whale ______ their boat and they all fell into water.

A. plucked

B. flicked

C. pecked

D. flapped

33. In time of prosperity，friends will be plenty; in time of ______ ，not one among twenty.

A. dilemma

B. adversity

C. insomnia

D. deadlock

34. He refused to ______ of such a solution to his problem.

A. deceive

B. receive

C. conceive

D. perceive

35. He felt proud to proclaim that he knew only English and somehow ______ of his native culture.

A. contemporary

B. temporary

C. contemptuous

D. contemptible

36. There is a growing recognition that we should abolish racial ______.

A. segregation

B. separation

C. integration

D. evaporation

37. It is desirable to ______ the chemicals before the plant is seriously damaged.

A. splash

B. spill

C. pour

D. spray

38. I didn’t expect him to descend to ______ abuse.

A. common

B. personal

C. ordinary

D. individual

39. Make a phone call if you are wishing to renew your ______ to our magazine.

A. contribution

B. distribution

C. subscription

D. attribution

40. He began to ______ as the intense cold pervaded the room.

A. shake

B. quake

C. jerk

D. shiver

Read the following passage carefully and complete the succeeding three items III，IV，V.

(1) “During the whole of a dull，dark and soundless day in the autumn of the year，when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens，I had been passing alone，on horseback，through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself，as the shades of the evening drew on，within view of the melancholy House of Usher.” Thus Edgar Allan Poe opened his story of “The Fall of the House of Usher” in 1839. In this beautifully crafted sentence he captured so much that is essential to the horror story—darkness，ominous solitude，foreboding calm，apprehension and uncertainty，and a deep feeling of melancholy that could soon turn to fear.

(2) Many kinds of fiction are self-explanatory: mysteries，westerns，love stories，spy thrillers，and science fiction define themselves by the terms used to name them. The horror story is less easily defined，perhaps because other types of

fiction so often use the trappings of terror to enhance their plots. Charles Dickens used the vehicle of an old-fashioned ghost Story to tell “A Christmas Carol”，but that book is not a horror story. Nor does a Grimm brothers fairy tale such as “H?nsel and Gretel，” with its child-devouring witch，belong to the genre.

(3) The nature of the horror story is best indicated by the title of the 1990s television series Tales from the Dark Side. Human beings have always acknowledged that there is evil in the world and a dark side to human nature that cannot be explained except perhaps in religious terms. This evil may be imagined as having an almost unlimited power to inspire anxiety，fear，dread，and terror in addition to doing actual physical and mental harm.

(4) In the tale of horror quite ordinary people are confronted by something unknown and fearful，which can be neither understood nor explained in reasonable terms. It is the emphasis on the unreasonable that lies at the heart of horror stories.

(5) This kind of literature arose in the 18th century at the start of a movement called Romanticism. The movement was a reaction against a rational，ordered world in which humanity

was basically good and everything could be explained scientifically. The literary type that inspired the horror story is Gothic fiction，tales of evil，often set in sinister medieval surroundings. This original kind of horror fiction has persisted to the present. An early 20th-century master of the type was H.P. Lovecraft，most of whose stories appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. A more recent writer was Stephen King，author of Carrie (1974)，The Shining (1977)，Pet Sematary (1984)，Misery (1987)，and Rose Madder (1995).

(6) Much horror literature is grounded in superstition，fear of demons，and the dread of death. No single tale brings all of these elements together so well as the vampire legend，an ancient folk superstition. The vampire is described as undead，an entombed individual who rises each night to feed on the blood of the living. In literature its best representation is Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. The legend was retold in Interview with the Vampire (1976) by Anne Rice. The Dracula story was eagerly taken up by Hollywood in the 1931 film that starred Bela Lugosi，and numerous movies on the theme have been made since.

(7) Similar to the vampire legend is the story of the wolfman，the human being under a curse who turns into a half man，half

wolf presumably when the moon is full. This creature prowls around，devouring animals，people，or corpses，but he returns to human form by day. As with Dracula，the wolfman became a popular subject for movies，beginning with The Werewolf of London (1935) and the wolfman films of the 1940s. According to one superstition the werewolf，after being killed，turns into a vampire.

(8) The belief that the dead can return to haunt and harm the living has long been an element of fiction. Ghost stories are at least as old as the Bible: in the Old Testament，King Saul calls up the ghost of Samuel to foretell the outcome of a battle. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet，the ghost of the slain king provides the information from which Hamlet plots reve nge for his father’s murder. One of the masters of the modern ghost story was Ambrose Bierce，some of whose stories were collected in Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce (1964). A variation on the ghost theme is the haunted house，about which hundreds of stories have been written.

(9) Between the vampires and the ghosts are creatures called the living dead and zombies who return from the grave to devour the living. Hollywood celebrated this story in Night of the Living Dead (1968) and other films. In literature one of the

best examples is the intriguing book The Beast with Five Fingers (1928; film version 1946) by W.F. Harvey. It is the story of a severed hand that goes on living after its owner dies. The movie Friday the 13th (1980) and its sequels also used the revived corpse as villain. In the 1986 film Trick or Treat，a dead rock music star is called back to life.

III. In this section，there are ten incomplete statements or questions，followed by four choices marked A，B，C and D. Choose the best answer and write the corresponding letter on your Answer Sheet. (20 points，2 points for each)

41. In the first paragraph，Edgar Allan Poe’s story is quoted to show ______.

A. how beautiful his writing is

B. what a horror story is like

C. He was good at writing horror stories

D. His stories are dark and mysterious

42. The word “ominous” in the first paragraph means ______.

A. foreshadowing evil

B. foretelling luck

C. forecasting rain

D. forbearing pain

43. “Many kinds of fiction are self-explanatory” in the second paragraph means ______.

A. they target ordinary readers

B. they are easy to understand

C. their categories show what they are about

D. they often employ horror to develop their plots

44. The most important element that makes a horror story is ______.

A. uncertainty

B. suspension

C. irrationality

D. superstition

45. The assumption behind horror stories is that ______.

A. humanity is evil in nature

B. humanity is basically good

C. humanity can be taught to be good

D. humanity can be explained

46. The w ord “entombed” in the sixth paragraph means ______.

A. wicked

B. fainted

C. wounded

D. buried

47. The word “slain” in the eighth paragraph means ______.

A. captured

B. killed

C. bitten

D. beaten

48. Stories of haunted houses deal with the theme of ______.

A. vampires

B. zombies

C. werewolves

D. ghosts

49. A typical example of a zombie story is ______.

A. Carrie

B. The Beast with Five Fingers

C. Dracula

D. The Werewolf of London

50. The purpose of this passage is to ______.

A. persuade

B. inform

C. entertain

D. reason

IV. Translate the following sentences into Chinese and write the translation on your Answer Sheet. (10 points，2 points for each) 51. The horror story is less easily defined，perhaps because other types of fiction so often use the trappings of terror to enhance their plots.

52. Human beings have always acknowledged that there is evil in the world and a dark side to human nature that cannot be explained except perhaps in religious terms.

53. Much horror literature is grounded in superstition，fear of demons，and the dread of death.

54. Similar to the vampire legend is the story of the wolfman，the human being under a curse who turns into a half man，half wolf presumably when the moon is full.

55. The belief that the dead can return to haunt and harm the living has long been an element of fiction.

V. Answer the following essay question in English within 80-100 words. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet. (10 points) 56. Do you like horror stories? Why or why not?

VI. Translate the following sentences into English and write the translation on your Answer Sheet. (20 points，2 points each for 57-60，4 points for 61，8 points for 62)

57.我很擅长这些欺骗伎俩，虽然我不能每次都骗得了自己。

58.我同意我们的食物有营养，而且我们大多数人的饮食是均衡的。

59.但我还没有放弃找到加速入睡的办法的希望。

60.我认为对于知识的追求主要源于对权力的热爱，而所有科技上的进步亦是如此。

61.老年生活既不是本来就痛苦，也不是本来就美满的。它和生活的每个阶段一样，有自己的问题、欢乐、恐惧和潜力。

62.这个国家的一切——社会结构、家庭组织形式、经济、国

际地位——变得更加复杂，而不是更加简单。然而，其占主导地位的传播工具，作为国家的主要连接纽带，却对通常难以解决的人类问题向人们兜售简单的解决方案。