1、I. Vocabulary and grammar （ 30） Multiple choice Directions： Beneath each sentence there are four words or phrases marked A， B， C and D. Choose the answer that best completes the sentence. Mark your answers on your answer sheet. 1. Thousands of people turned out into the streets to _ against the loca
2、l authorities decision to build a highway across the field. A. contradict B. reform C. counter D. protest 2. The majority of nurses are women， but in the higher ranks of the medical profession women are in a _. A. minority B. scarcity C. rarity D. minimum 3. Professor Johnson s retirement _ from nex
3、t January. A. carries into effect B. takes effect C. has effect D. puts into effect 4. The president explained that the purpose of taxation was to _ government spending. A. finance B. expand C. enlarge D. budget 5. The heat in summer is no less _ here in this mountain region. A. concentrated B. exte
4、nsive C. intense D. intensive 6. Taking photographs is strictly _ here， as it may damage the precious cave paintings. A. forbidden B. rejected C. excluded D. denied 7. Mr. Brown s condition looks very serious and it is doubtful if he will _. A. pull back B. pull up C. pull through D. pull out 8. Sin
5、ce the early nineties， the trend in most businesses has been toward on-demand， always-available products and services that suit the customer s _ rather than the company s. A. benefit B. availability C. suitability D. convenience 9. The priest made the _ of the cross when he entered the church. A. ma
6、rk B. signal C. sign D. gesture 10. This spacious room is _ furnished with just a few articles in it. A. lightly B. sparsely C. hardly D. rarely 11. If you explained the situation to your solicitor， he _ able to advise you much better than I can. A. would be B. will have been C. was D. were 12. With
7、 some men dressing down and some other men flaunting their looks， it is really hard to tell they are gay or _. A. straight B. homosexual C. beautiful D. sad 13. His remarks were _ annoy everybody at the meeting. A. so as to B. such as to C. such to D. as much as to 14. James has just arrived， but I
8、didn t know he _ until yesterday. A. will come B. was coming C. had been coming D. came 15. _ conscious of my moral obligations as a citizen. A. I was and always will be B. I have to be and always will be C. I had been and always will be D. I have been and always will be 16. Because fuel supplies ar
9、e finite and many people are wasteful， we will have to install _ solar heating device in our home. A. some type of B. some types of a C. some type of a D. some types of 17. I went there in 1984， and that was the only occasion when I _ the journey in exactly two days. A. must take B. must have made C
10、. was able to make D. could make 18. I know he failed his last test， but really he s _ stupid. A. something but B. anything but C. nothing but D. not but 19. Do you know Tim s brother？ He is _ than Tim. A. much more sportsman B. more of a sportsman C. more of sportsman D. more a sportsman 20. That w
11、as not the first time he _ us. I think it s high time we _ strong actions against him. A. betrayed take B. had betrayed took C. has betrayed took D. has betrayed take II. Reading comprehension （ 40） Section 1 Multiple choice （ 20） Directions： In this section there are reading passages followed by mu
12、ltiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your answer sheet. Passage A The Welsh language has always been the ultimate marker of Welsh identity， but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go the way of Manx， once widely spoken on the Isle of Man but now extinct.
13、Government financing and central planning， however， have helped reverse the decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in both Welsh and English， and schoolchildren are required to learn both languages. Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe s regional language
14、s， spoken by more than a half-million of the country s three million people. The revival of the language， particularly among young people， is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this small， proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the opening of the Nati
15、onal Assembly， the first parliament to be convened here since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and wealth， England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of legislative powers f
16、rom Westminster， implemented by Tony Blair， was designed to give the other members of the club Scotland， Northern Ireland， and Wales a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the very idea of the union. The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution. Whereas the Scots
17、 voted overwhelmingly for a parliament， the vote for a Welsh assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than 25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide how money from Westminster or the European union is spent. It cannot， unlike its count
18、erpart in Edinburgh， enact laws. But now that it is here， the Welsh are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more powers. Its importance as figurehead will grow with the opening in 2003， of a new debating chamber， one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff f
19、rom a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style waterfront city. Meanwhile a grant of nearly two million dollars from the European union will tackle poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe only Spain， Portugal， and Greece have a lower standard of living. Newspapers and magazines
20、 are filled with stories about great Welsh men and women， boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as Catherine Zeta-Jones， the movie star， and Bryn Terfel， the opera singer. Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And
21、 Wales now boasts a national airline， Awyr Cymru. Cymru， which means “ land of compatriots”， is the Welsh name for Wales. The red dragon， the nation s symbol since the time of King Arthur， is everywhere on T-shirts， rugby jerseys and even cell phone covers. “ Until very recent times most Welsh peopl
22、e had this feeling of being second-class citizens，” said Dyfan Jones， an 18-year-old student. It was a warm summer night， and I was sitting on the grass with a group of young people in Llanelli， an industrial town in the south， outside the rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod， Waless annual c
23、ultural festival. The disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new Welsh bands. “ There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of confidence，” Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his Welshness as in his membership in the English-speaking， global youth culture and the new federal Eu
24、rope， Dyfan， like the rest of his generation， is growing up with a sense of possibility unimaginable ten years ago. “ We used to think. We can t do anything， we re only Welsh. Now I think thats changing.” 1. According to the passage， devolution was mainly meant to A. maintain the present status amon
25、g the nations. B. reduce legislative powers of England. C. create a better state of equality among the nations. D. grant more say to all the nations in the union. 2. The word “ centrifugal” in the second paragraph means A. separatist. B. conventional. C. feudal. D. political 3. Wales is different fr
26、om Scotland in all the following aspects EXCEPT A. people s desire for devolution. B. locals turnout for the voting. C. powers of the legislative body. D. status of the national language. 4. Which of the following is NOT cited as an example of the resurgence of Welsh national identity？ A. Welsh has
27、witnessed a revival as a national language. B. Poverty-relief funds have come from the European Union. C. A Welsh national airline is currently in operation. D. The national symbol has become a familiar sight. 5. According to Dyfan Jones what has changed is A. people s mentality. B. pop culture. C.
28、town s appearance. D. possibilities for the people. Passage B The miserable fate of Enron s employees will be a landmark in business history， one of those awful events that everyone agrees must never be allowed to happen again. This urge is understandable and noble： thousands have lost virtually all
29、 their retirement savings with the demise of Enron stock. But making sure it never happens again may not be possible， because the sudden impoverishment of those Enron workers represents something even larger than it seems. It s the latest turn in the unwinding of one of the most audacious promises o
30、f the 20th century. The promise was assured economic security even comfort for essentially everyone in the developed world. With the explosion of wealth， that began in the 19th century it became possible to think about a possibility no one had dared to dream before. The fear at the center of daily l
31、iving since caveman days lack of food， warmth， shelter would at last lose its power to terrify. That remarkable promise became reality in many ways. Governments created welfare systems for anyone in need and separate programs for the elderly （ Social Security in the U.S.） . Labour unions promised no
32、t only better pay for workers but also pensions for retirees. Giant corporations came into being and offered the possibility in some cases the promise of lifetime employment plus guaranteed pensions？ The cumulative effect was a fundamental change in how millions of people approached life itself， a r
33、eversal of attitude that most rank as one of the largest in human history. For millennia the average person s stance toward providing for himself had been. Ultimately Im on my own. Now it became， ultimately I ll be taken care of. The early hints that this promise might be broken on a large scale cam
34、e in the 1980s. U.S. business had become uncompetitive globally and began restructuring massively， with huge Layoffs. The trend accelerated in the 1990s as the bastions of corporate welfare faced reality. IBM ended its no-layoff policy. AT&T fired thousands， many of whom found such a thing simply in
35、comprehensible， and a few of whom killed themselves. The other supposed guarantors of our economic security were also in decline. Labour-union membership and power fell to their lowest levels in decades. President Clinton signed a historic bill scaling back welfare. Americans realized that Social Se
36、curity won t provide social security for any of us. A less visible but equally significant trend affected pensions. To make costs easier to control， companies moved away from defined benefit pension plans， which obligate them to pay out specified amounts years in the future， to defined contribution
37、plans， which specify only how much goes into the play today. The most common type of defined-contribution plan is the 401（ k） . the significance of the 401（ k） is that it puts most of the responsibility for a person s economic fate back on the employee. Within limits the employee must decide how muc
38、h goes into the plan each year and how it gets invested the two factors that will determine how much it s worth when the employee retires. Which brings us back to Enron？ Those billions of dollars in vaporized retirement savings went in employees 401（ k） accounts. That is， the employees chose how muc
39、h money to put into those accounts and then chose how to invest it. Enron matched a certain proportion of each employee s 401（ k） contribution with company stock， so everyone was going to end up with some Enron in his or her portfolio； but that could be regarded as a freebie， since nothing compels a
40、 company to match employee contributions at all. At least two special features complicate the Enron case. First， some shareholders charge top management with illegally covering up the company s problems， prompting investors to hang on when they should have sold. Second， Enron s 401（ k） accounts were
41、 locked while the company changed plan administrators in October， when the stock was falling， so employees could not have closed their accounts if they wanted to. But by far the largest cause of this human tragedy is that thousands of employees were heavily overweighed in Enron stock. Many had place
42、d 100% of their 401（ k） assets in the stock rather than in the 18 other investment options they were offered. Of course that wasn t prudent， but it s what some of them did. The Enron employees retirement disaster is part of the larger trend away from guaranteed economic security. That s why preventi
43、ng such a thing from ever happening again may be impossible. The huge attitudinal shift to I ll-be-taken-care-of took at least a generation. The shift back may take just as long. It won t be complete until a new generation of employees see assured economic comfort as a 20th-century quirk， and unders
44、tand not just intellectually but in their bones that， like most people in most times and places， they re on their own. 6. Why does the author say at the beginning “ The miserable fate of Enron s employees will be a landmark in business history”？ A. Because the company has gone bankrupt. B. Because s
45、uch events would never happen again. C. Because many Enron workers lost their retirement savings. D. Because it signifies a turning point in economic security. 7. According to the passage， the combined efforts by governments， layout unions and big corporations to guarantee economic comfort have led
46、to a significant change in A. people s outlook on life. B. people s life styles. C. people s living standard. D. people s social values. 8. Changes in pension schemes were also part of A. the corporate lay-offs. B. the government cuts in welfare spending. C. the economic restructuring. D. the warnin
47、g power of labors unions. 9. Thousands of employees chose Enron as their sole investment option mainly because A. the 401（ k） made them responsible for their own future. B. Enron offered to add company stock to their investment. C. their employers intended to cut back on pension spending. D. Enron s
48、 offer was similar to a defined-benefit plan. 10. Which is NOT seen as a lesson drawn from the Enron disaster？ A. The 401（ k） assets should be placed in more than one investment option. B. Employees have to take up responsibilities for themselves. C. Such events could happen again as it is not easy to change people s mind. D. Economic security won t be taken for granted by future young workers. Section 2 Answering questions （ 20） Directions： Read the foll
