TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (2003)
—GRADE EIGHT—
TIME LIMIT: 95 MIN
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PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION [40 MIN]
In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your answer sheet.
SECTION A TALK
Questions I to 5 refer to the talk in this section. At the end of the talk you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the talk.
1. Which of the following statements about offices is NOT true according to the talk?
A. Offices throughout the world are basically alike.
B. There are primarily two kinds of office layout.
C. Office surroundings used to depend on company size.
D. Office atmosphere influences workers' performance.
2. We can infer from the talk that harmonious work relations may have a direct impact on your
A. promotion.
B. colleagues.
C. management.
D. union.
3. Supposing you were working in a small firm, which of the following would you do when you had some grievances?
A. Request a formal special meeting with the boss.
B. Draft a formal agenda for a special meeting.
C. Contact a consultative committee first.
D. Ask to see the boss for a talk immediately.
4. According to the talk, the union plays the following roles EXCEPT
A. mediation.
B. arbitration.
C. negotiation.
D. representation.
5. Which topic is NOT covered in the talk?
A. Role of the union.
B. Work relations.
C. Company structure.
D. Office layout.
SECTION B INTERVIEW
Questions 6 to 10 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 15seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
6. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT about David's personal background?
A. He had excellent academic records at school and university.
B. He was once on a PHD programme at Yale University.
C. He received professional training in acting.
D. He came from a single-parent family.
7. David is inclined to believe in
A. aliens.
B. UFOs.
C. the TV character.
D. government conspiracies.
8. David thinks he is fit for the TV role because of his
A. professional training.
B. personality.
C. life experience.
D. appearance.
9. From the interview, we know that at present David feels
A. a sense of frustration.
B. haunted by the unknown things
C. confident but moody.
D. successful yet unsatisfied.
10. How does David feel about the divorce of his parents?
A. He feels a sense of anger.
B. He has a sense of sadness.
C. It helped him grow up.
D. It left no effect on him.
SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
Question 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15seconds to answer the question.
Now listen to the news.
11. What is the main idea of the news item?
A. US concern over th6 forthcoming peace talks.
B. Peace efforts by the Palestinian Authority.
C. Recommendations by the Mitchell Commission.
D. Bomb attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.
Question 12 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the question.
Now listen to the news.
12. Some voters will waste their ballots because
A. they like neither candidate.
B. they are all ill-informed.
C. the candidates do not differ much.
D. they do not want to vote twice.
Questions 13 to 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given15 seconds to answer each of the questions.
Now listen to the news.
13. According to the UN Human Development Report, which is the best place for women in the world?
A. Canada.
B. The US.
C. Australia.
D. Scandinavia.
14. _______ is in the 12th place in overall ranking.
A. Britain
B. France
C. Finland
D. Switzerland
15. According to the UN report, the least developed country is
A. Ethiopia.
B. Mali.
C. Sierra Leon.
D. Central African Republic.
SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING
In this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a 15-minute gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the mini-lecture. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.
PART II PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)
Proofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET TWO as instructed.
PART III READING COMPREHENSIOS (40MIN)
SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)
In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet~
TEXT A
Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metal-smiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Romany word for “man”. But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies.
In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery it wasn't until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families.
But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent's largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own -unlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. “Romanestan” said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, "is where my two feet stand."
16. Gypsies are united only when they
A. are engaged in traditional crafts.
B. call themselves Roma.
C. live under a clan system.
D. face external threats.
17. In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all the following
EXCEPT
A. the Egyptians.
B. the state.
C. the church.
D. the Nazis.
18. According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of
A language.
B. culture.
C. identity.
D. custom.
TEXT Ｂ
I was just a boy when my father brought me to Harlem for the first time, almost 50 years ago. We stayed at the Hotel Theresa, a grand brick structure at 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. Once, in the hotel restaurant, my father pointed out Joe Louis. He even got Mr. Brown, the hotel manager, to introduce me to him, a bit paunchy but still the champ as far as I was concerned.
Much has changed since then. Business and real estate are booming. Some say a new renaissance is under way. Others decry what they see as outside forces running roughshod over the old Harlem.
New York meant Harlem to me, and as a young man I visited it whenever I could. But many of my old haunts are gone. The Theresa shut down in 1966. National chains that once ignored Harlem now anticipate yuppie money and want pieces of this prime Manhattan real estate. So here I am on a hot August afternoon, sitting in a Starbucks that two years ago opened a block away from the Theresa, snatching at memories between sips of high-priced coffee. I am about to open up a piece of the old Harlem- the New York Amsterdam News—when a tourist asking directions to Sylvia's, a prominent Harlem restaurant, penetrates my daydreaming. He's carrying a book: Touring Historic Harlem.
History. I miss Mr. Michaux's bookstore, his House of Common Sense, which was across from the Theresa. He had a big billboard out front with brown and black faces painted on it that said in large letters: "World History Book Outlet on 2,000,000,000 Africans and Nonwhite Peoples." An ugly state office building has swallowed that space.
I miss speaker like Carlos Cooks, who was always on the southwest comer of 125th and Seventh, urging listeners to support Africa. Harlem's powerful political electricity seems unplugged-although the sweets are still energized, especially by West African immigrants.
Hardworking southern newcomers formed the bulk of the community back in the 1920s and'30s, when Harlem renaissance artists, writers, and intellectuals gave it a glitter and renown that made it the capital of black America. From Harlem, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Zora Neal Hurston, and others helped power America's cultural influence around the world.
By the 1970s and '80s drugs and crime had ravaged parts of the community. And the life expectancy for men in Harlem was less than that of men in Bangladesh. Harlem had become a symbol of the dangers of inner-city life.
Now, you want to shout “Lookin’ good!” at this place that has been neglected for so long. Crowds push into Harlem USA, a new shopping centre on 125th, where a Disney store shares space with HMV Records, the New York Sports Club, and a nine-screen Magic Johnson theatre complex. Nearby, a Rite Aid drugstore also opened. Maybe part of the reason Harlem seems to be undergoing a rebirth is that it is finally getting what most people take for granted.
Harlem is also part of an “empowerment zone”—a federal designation aimed at fostering economic growth that will bring over half a billion in federal, state, and local dollars. Just the shells of once elegant old brownstones now can cost several hundred thousand dollars. Rents are skyrocketing. An improved economy, tougher law enforcement, and community efforts against drugs have contributed to a 60 percent drop in crime since 1993.
19. At the beginning the author seems to indicate that Harlem
A. has remained unchanged all these years.
B. has undergone drastic changes.
C. has become the capital of Black America.
D. has remained a symbol of dangers of inner-city life.
20. When the author recalls Harlem in the old days, he has a feeling of
A. indifference.
B, discomfort.
C. delight.
D. nostalgia.
21. Harlem was called the capital of Black America in the 1920s and '30s mainly because of its
A. art and culture.
B. immigrant population.
C. political enthusiasm.'
D. distinctive architecture.
22. From the passage we can infer that, generally speaking, the author
A. has strong reservations about the changes.
B. has slight reservations about the changes,
C. welcomes the changes in Harlem.
D. is completely opposed to the changes.
TEXT C
The senior partner, Oliver Lambert, studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. And he was hungry; with his background, he had to be. He was married, and that was mandatory. The firm had never hired an unmarried lawyer, and it frowned heavily on divorce, as well as womanizing and drinking. Drug testing was in the contract. He had a degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam the first time he took it and wanted to be a tax lawyer, which of course was a requirement with a tax firm. He was white, and the firm had never hired a black. They managed this by being secretive and clubbish and never soliciting job applications. Other firms solicited, and hired blacks. This firm recruited, and remained lily white. Plus, the firm was in Memphis, and the top blacks wanted New York or Washington or Chicago. McDeere was a male, and there were no women in the firm. That mistake had been made in the mid-seventies when they recruited the number one grad from Harvard, who happened to be a she and a wizard at taxation. She lasted four turbulent years and was killed in a car wreck.
He looked good, on paper. He was their top choice. In fact, for this year there were no other prospects. The list was very short. It was McDeere, or no one.
The managing partner, Royce McKnight, studied a dossier labeled "Mitchell Y. McDeere-Harvard." An inch thick with small print and a few photographs; it had been prepared by some ex-CIA agents in a private intelligence outfit in Bethesda. They were clients of the firm and each year did the investigating for no fee. It was easy work, they said, checking out unsuspecting law students. They learned, for instance, that he preferred to leave the Northeast, that he was holding three job offers, two in New York and one in Chicago, and that the highest offer was $76,000 and the lowest was $68,000. He was in demand. He had been given the opportunity to cheat on a securities exam during his second year. He declined, and made the highest grade in the class. Two months ago he had been offered cocaine at a law school party. He said no and left when everyone began snorting. He drank an occasional beer, but drinking was expensive and he had no money. He owed close to $23,000 in student loans. He was hungry.
Royce McKnight flipped through the dossier and smiled. McDeere was their man.
Lamar Quin was thirty-two and not yet a partner. He had been brought along to look young and act young and project a youthful image for Bendini, Lambert & Locke, which in fact was a young firm, since most of the partners retired in their late forties or early fifties with money to bum. He would make partner in this firm. With a six-figure income guaranteed for the rest of his life, Lamar could enjoy the twelve-hundred-dollar tailored suits that hung so comfortably from his tall, athletic frame. He strolled nonchalantly across the thousand-dollar-a-day suite and poured another cup of decaf. He checked his watch. He glanced at the two partners sitting at the small conference table near the windows.
Precisely at two-thirty someone knocked on the door. Lamar looked at the parmers, who slid the resume and dossier into an open briefcase. All three reached for their jackets. Immar buttoned his top button and opened the door.
23. Which of the following is NOT the firm’ s recruitment requirement?
A. Marriage.
B. Background.
C. Relevant degree.
D. Male.
24. The details of the private investigation show that the firm
A. was interested in his family background.
B. intended to check out his other job offers.
C. wanted to know something about his preference.
D. was interested in any personal detail of the man.
25. According to the passage, the main reason Lama Quin was there at the interview was that
A. his image could help impress McDereer.
B. he would soon become a partner himself.
C. he was good at interviewing applicants.
D. his background was similar to MeDereer's.
26. We get the impression from the passage that in job recruitment the firm was NOT
A. selective.
B. secretive.
C. perfunctory.
D. racially biased.
TEXT D
Harry Truman didn't think his successor had the right training to be president. "Poor Ike – it won’t be a bit like the Army," he said. "He'll sit there all day saying 'do this, do that,' and nothing will happen." Truman was wrong about Ike. Dwight Eisenhower had led a fractious alliance – you didn't tell Winston Churchill what to do- in a massive, chaotic war. He was used to politics. But Truman's insight could well be applied to another, even more venerated Washington figure: the CEO-mined cabinet secretary.
A 20-year bull market has convinced us all that CEOs are geniuses, so watch with astonishment the troubles of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O'Neill. Here are two highly regarded businessmen, obviously intelligent and well-informed, foundering in their jobs.
Actually, we shouldn't be surprised. Rumsfeld and O'Neill are not doing badly despite having been successful CEOs but because of it. The record of senior businessmen in government is one of almost unrelieved disappointment. In fact, with the exception of Robert Rubin, it is difficult to think of a CEO who had a successful career in government.
Why is this? Well, first the CEO has to recognize that he is no longer the CEO. He is at best an adviser to the CEO, the president. But even the president is not really the CEO. No one is. Power in a corporation is concentrated and vertically structured. Power in Washington is diffuse and horizontally spread out. The secretary might think he's in charge of his agency. But the chairman of the congressional committee funding that agency feels the same. In his famous study "Presidential Power and the Modem Presidents," Richard Neustadt explains how little power the president actually has and concludes that the only lasting presidential power is "the power to persuade."
Take Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the cold-war military into one geared for the future. It's innovative but deeply threatening to almost everyone in Washington. The Defense secretary did not try to sell it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, the budget office or the White House. As a result, the idea is collapsing.
Second, what power you have, you must use carefully. For example, O'Neill's position as Treasury secretary is one with little formal authority. Unlike Finance ministers around the world, Treasury does not control the budget. But it has symbolic power. The secretary is seen as the chief economic spokesman for the administration and, if he plays it right, the chief economic adviser for the president.
O'Neill has been publicly critical of the IMF's bailout packages for developing countries while at the same time approving such packages for Turkey, Argentina and Brazil. As a result, he has gotten the worst of both worlds. The bailouts continue, but their effect in holstering investor confidence is limited because the markets are rattled by his skepticism.
Perhaps the government doesn't do bailouts well. But that leads to a third role: you can't just quit. Jack Welch's famous law for re-engineering General Electric was to be first or second in any given product category, or else get out of that business. But if the government isn't doing a particular job at peak level, it doesn't always have the option of relieving itself of that function. The Pentagon probably wastes a lot of money. But it can't get out of the national-security business.
The key to former Treasury secretary Rubin's success may have been that he fully understood that business and government are, in his words, "necessarily and properly very different." In a recent speech he explained, "Business functions around one predominate organizing principle, profitability ... Government, on the other hand, deals with a vast number of equally legitimate and often potentially competing objectives--for example, energy production versus environmental protection, or safety regulations versus productivity."
Rubin's example shows that talented people can do well in government if they are willing to treat it as its own separate, serious endeavour. But having been bathed in a culture of adoration and flattery, it's difficult for a CEO to believe he needs to listen and learn, particularly from those despised and poorly paid specimens, politicians, bureaucrats and the media. And even if he knows it intellectually, he just can't live with it.
27. For a CEO to be successful in government, he has to
A. regard the president as the CEO.
B. take absolute control of his department.
C. exercise more power than the congressional committee.
D. become acquainted with its power structure.
28. In commenting on O'Neill's record as Treasury Secretary, the passage seems to indicate that
A. O'Neill has failed to use his power well.
B. O'Neill's policies were well received.
C. O'Neill has been consistent in his policies.
D. O'Neill is uncertain about the package he's approved.
29. According to the passage, the differences between government and business lie in the following areas EXCEPT
A. nature of activity.
B. option of withdrawal.
C. legitimacy of activity.
D. power distribution.
30. The author seems to suggest that CEO-turned government officials
A. are able to fit into their new roles.
B. are unlikely to adapt to their new roles.
C. can respond to new situations intelligently.
D. may feel uncertain in their new posts.
ANSWER SHEET ONE
PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION
SECTION D NOTE-TAKING & GAPFILING (15 MIN)
Fill in each of the gaps with ONE word You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.
Marslow's Hierarchy of Needs
