[1]_________
meaning”, but in fact some grammarians have called them [2]_________
“empty” words as opposed in the “full” words of vocabulary. But [3]_________
this is a rather misled way of expressing the distinction. Although a [4]_________
word like the is not the name of something as man is, it is very
far away from being meaningless; there is a sharp difference in [5]_________
meaning between “man is vile and” “the man is vile”, yet
the is the single vehicle of this difference in meaning. [6]_________
Moreover, grammatical words differ considerably among
themselves as the amount of meaning they have, even in the [7]_________
lexical sense. Another name for the grammatical words has been
“little words”. But size is by no mean a good criterion for [8]_________
distinguishing the grammatical words of English, when we consider
that we have lexical words as go, man, say, car. Apart from [9]_________
this, however, there is a good deal of truth in what some people
say: we certainly do create a great number of obscurity when we [10]_________
omit them. This is illustrated not only in the poetry of Robert Browning
but in the prose of telegrams and newspaper headlines.
Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension [40 min]
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 carefully and then mark your answers on your answer sheet.
TEXT A
Despite Denmark’s manifest virtues, Danes never talk about how proud they are to be Danes. This would sound weird in Danish. When Danes talk to foreigners about Denmark, they always begin by commenting on its tininess, its unimportance, the difficulty of its language, the general small-mindedness and self-indulgence of their countrymen and the high taxes. No Dane would look you in the eye and say, “Denmark is a great country.” You’re supposed to figure this out for yourself.
It is the land of the silk safety net, where almost half the national budget goes toward smoothing out life’s inequalities, and there is plenty of money for schools, day care, retraining programmes, job seminars-Danes love seminars: three days at a study centre hearing about waste management is almost as good as a ski trip. It is a culture bombarded by English, in advertising, pop music, the Internet, and despite all the English that Danish absorbs—there is no
