2013年英语专业八级考试真题及答案解析

(1)Three hundred years ago news travelled by word of mouth or letter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of pamphlets and newsletters."The coffee houses particularly are very roomy for a free conversation, and for reading at an easier rate all manner of printed news,"noted one observer. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience newspaper, The New York Sun, pioneered the use of advertising to reduce the cost of news, thus giving advertisers access to a wider audience. The penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from a two-way conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of firms controlling the media. (2)Now, the news industry is returning to something closer to the coffee house. The Internet is making news more participatory, social and diverse, reviving the discursive characteristics of the era before the mass media. That will have profound effects on society and politics. In much of the world, the mass media are flourishing. Newspaper circulation rose globally by 6%between 2005 and 2009.But those global figures mask a sharp decline in readership in rich countries. (3)Over the past decade, throughout the Western world, people have been giving up newspapers and TV news and keeping up with events in profoundly different ways. Most strikingly, ordinary people are increasingly involved in compiling, sharing, filtering, discussing and distributing news. Twitter lets people anywhere report what they are seeing. Classified documents are published in their thousands online. Mobile-phone footage of Arab uprisings and American tornadoes is posted on social-networking sites and shown on television newscasts. Social-networking sites help people find, discuss and share news with their friends. (4)And it is not just readers who are challenging the media elite. Technology firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter have become important conduits of news. Celebrities and world leaders publish updates directly via social networks; many countries now make raw data available through“open government” initiatives. The Internet lets people read newspapers or watch television channels from around the world. The web has allowed new providers of news, from individual bloggers to sites, to rise to prominence in a very short space of time. And it has made possible entirely new approaches to journalism, such as that practiced by WikiLeaks, which provides an anonymous way for whistleblowers to publish documents. The news agenda is no longer controlled by a few press barons and state outlets. (5)In principle, every liberal should celebrate this. A more participatory and social news environment, with a remarkable diversity and range of news sources, is a good thing. The transformation of the news business is unstoppable, and attempts to reverse it are doomed to failure. As producers of new journalism, individuals can be scrupulous with facts and transparent with their sources. As consumers, they can be general in their tastes and demanding in their standards. And although this transformation does raise concerns, there is much to celebrate in the noisy, diverse, vociferous, argumentative and stridently alive environment of the news business in the ages of the internet. The coffee house is back. Enjoy it.

(1)Paris is like pornography. You respond even if you don't want to. You turn a corner and see a vista, and your imagination bolts away. Suddenly you are thinking about what it would be like to live in Paris, and then you think about all the lives you have not lived. Sometimes, though, when you are lucky, you only think about how many pleasures the day ahead holds. Then, you feel privileged. (2)The lobby of the hotel is decorated in red and gold. It gives off a whiff of 19th-century decadence. Probably as much as any hotel in Paris, this hotel is sexy. I was standing facing the revolving doors and the driveway beyond. A car with a woman in the back seat—a woman in a short skirt and black-leather jacket— pulled up before the hotel door. She swung off and she was wearing high heels. Normally, my mind would have leaped and imagined a story for this woman. Now it didn't. I stood there and told myself. Cheer up. You're in Paris. (3)In many ways, Paris is best visited in winter. The tourist crowds are at a minimum, and one is not being jammed off the narrow sidewalks along the Rue Dauphine. More than this, Paris is like many other European cities in that the season of blockbuster cultural events tends to begin in mid-to late fall and so, by the time of winter, most of the cultural treasures of the city are laid out to be admired. (4)The other great reason why Paris in winter is so much better than Paris in spring and fall is that after the end of the August holidays and the return of chic Parisian women to their city, the restaurant-opening season truly begins hopping. By winter, many of the new restaurants have worked out their kinks(不足；困难)and, once the hype has died down, it is possible to see which restaurants are actually good and which are merely noisy and crowded. (5) Most people are about as happy as they set their mind to being, Lincoln said. In Paris it doesn't take much to be happy. Outside the hotel, the sky was pale and felt very high up. I walked the few blocks to the Seine and began running along the blue-green river toward the Eiffel Tower. The tower in the distance was black, and felt strange and beautiful the way that many things built for the joy of building do. As I ran toward it, because of its lattice structure, the tower seemed obviously delicate. Seeing it, I felt a sense of protectiveness. (6)I think it was this moment of protectiveness that marked the change in my mood and my slowly becoming thrilled with being in Paris. (7)During winter evenings, Paris's streetlamps have a halo and resemble dandelions. In winter, when one leaves the Paris street and enters a café or restaurant, the light and temperature change suddenly and dramatically, there is the sense of having discovered something secret. In winter, because the days are short, there is an urgency to the choices one makes. There is the sense that life is short and so let us decide on what matters.

(1)If you want to know why Denmark is the world's leader in wind power, start with a three-hour car trip from the capital Copenhagen—mind the bicyclists—to the small town of Lem on the far west coast of Jutland. You'll feel it as you cross the 6.8 km-long Great Belt Bridge: Denmark's bountiful wind, so fierce even on a calm summer's day that it threatens to shove your car into the waves below. But wind itself is only part of the reason. In Lem, workers in factories the size of aircraft hangars build the wind turbines sold by Vestas, the Danish company that has emerged as the industry's top manufacturer around the globe. The work is both gross and fine; employees weld together massive curved sheets of steel to make central shafts as tall as a 14-story building, and assemble engine housings( 机 器 外 罩 )that hold some 18,000 separate parts. Most impressive are the turbine's blades, which scoop the wind with each sweeping revolution. As smooth as an Olympic swimsuit and honed to aerodynamic perfection, each blade weighs in at 7,000 kg, and they're what help make Vestas' turbines the best in the world.“The blade is where the secret is,"says Erik Therkelsen, a Vestas executive.“If we can make a turbine, it's sold." (2)But technology, like the wind itself, is just one more part of the reason for Denmark's dominance. In the end, it happened because Denmark had the political and public will to decide that it wanted to be a leader— and to follow through. Beginning in 1979, the government began a determined programme of subsidies and loan guarantees to build up its wind industry. Copenhagen covered 30%of investment costs, and guaranteed loans for large turbine exporters such as Vestas. It also mandated that utilities purchase wind energy at a preferential price—thus guaranteeing investors a customer base. Energy taxes were channeled into research centres, where engineers crafted designs that would eventually produce cutting-edge giants like Vestas'3-megawatt(MW)V90 turbine. (3)As a result, wind turbines now dot Denmark. The country gets more than 19%of its electricity from the breeze(Spain and Portugal, the next highest countries, get about 10%)and Danish companies control one-third of the global wind market, earning billions in exports and creating a national champion from scratch. “They were out early in driving renewables, and that gave them the chance to be a technology leader and a job-creation leader,"says Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council.“They have always been one or two steps ahead of others.” (4)The challenge now for Denmark is to help the rest of the world catch up. Beyond wind, the country (pop.5.5 million)is a world leader in energy efficiency, getting more GDP per watt than any other member of the E.U.Carbon emissions are down 13.3%from 1990 levels and total energy consumption has barely moved, even as Denmark's economy continued to grow at a healthy clip. With Copenhagen set to host all-important U.N.climate change talks in December—where the world hopes for a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol—and the global recession beginning to hit environmental plans in capitals everywhere, Denmark's example couldn't be more timely.“We'll try to make Denmark a showroom,"says Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.“You can reduce energy use and carbon emissions, and achieve economic growth.” (5)It's tempting to assume that Denmark is innately green, with the kind of Scandinavian good conscience that has made it such a pleasant global citizen since, oh, the whole Viking thing. But the country's policies were actually born from a different emotion, one now in common currency: fear. When the 1973 oil crisis hit,90% of Denmark's energy came from petroleum, almost allof it imported. Buffeted by the same supply shocks that hit the rest of the developed world, Denmark launched a rapid drive for energy conservation, to the point of introducing car-free Sundays and asking businesses to switch off lights during closing hours. Eventually the Mideast oil started flowing again, and the Danes themselves began enjoying the benefits of the petroleum and natural gas in their slice of the North Sea. It was enough to make them more than self-sufficient. But unlike most other countries, Denmark never forgot the lessons of 1973, and kept driving for greater energy efficiency and a more diversified energy supply. The Danish parliament raised taxes on energy to encourage conservation and established subsidies and standards to support more efficient buildings.“It all started out without any regard for the climate or the environment,"says Svend Auken, the former head of Denmark's opposition Social Democrat Party and the architect of the country's environmental policies in the 1990s.“But today there's a consensus that we need to build renewable power.” (6)To the rest of the world, Denmark has the power of its example, showing that you can stay rich and grow green at the same time."Denmark has proven that acting on climate can be a positive experience, not just painful,”says NRDC's Schmidt. The real pain could come from failing to follow in their footsteps.

(1)The first clue came when I got my hair cut. The stylist offered not just the usual coffee or tea but a complimentary nail-polish change while I waited for my hair to dry. Maybe she hoped this little amenity would slow the growing inclination of women to stretch each haircut to last four months while nursing our hair back to whatever natural colour we long ago forgot. (2)Then there was the appliance salesman who offered to carry my bags as we toured the microwave aisle. When I called my husband to ask him to check some specs online, the salesman offered a preemptive discount, lest the surfing turn up the same model cheaper in another store. That night, for the first time, I saw the Hyundai ad promising shoppers that if they buy a car and then lose their job in the next year, they can return it. (3)Suddenly everything's on sale. The upside to the economic downturn is the immense incentive it gives retailers to treat you like a queen for a day. During the flush times, salespeople were surly, waiters snobby. But now the customer rules, just for showing up. There's more room to stretch out on the flight, even in a coach. The malls have that serene aura of undisturbed wilderness, with scarcely a shopper in sight. Every conversation with anyone selling anything is a pantomime of pain and bluff. Finger the scarf, then start to walk away, and its price floats silkily downward. When the mechanic calls to tell you that brakes and a timing belt and other services willrun close to $2,000, it's time to break out the newly perfected art of the considered pause. You really don't even have to say anything pitiful before he'll offer to knock a few hundred dollars off. (4)Restaurants are also caught in a fit of ardent hospitality, especially around Wall Street: Trinity Place offers $3 drinks at happy hour any day the market goes down, with the slogan“Market tanked?Get tanked!”—which ensures a lively crowd for the closing bell. The“21”Club has decided that men no longer need to wear ties, so long as they bring their wallets. Food itself is friendlier: you notice more comfort food, a truce between chef and patron that is easier to enjoy now that you can get a table practically anywhere. New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni characterizes the new restaurant demeanor as“extreme solicitousness tinged with outright desperation.”“You need to hug the customer,”one owner told him. (5)There's a chance that eventually we'll return all this kindness with the extravagant spending that was once decried but now everyone is hoping will restart the economy. But human nature is funny that way. In dangerous times, we clench and squint at the deal that looks too good to miss, suspecting that it must be too good to be true. Is the store with the supercheap flat screens going to go bust and thus not be there to honour the “free”extended warranty?Is there something wrong with that free cheese?Store owners will tell you horror stories about shoppers with attitude, who walk in demanding discounts and flaunt their new power at every turn . These store owners wince as they sense bad habit forming: Will people expect discounts forever?Will their hard- won brand luster be forever cheapened, especially for items whose allure depends on their being ridiculously priced? (6)There will surely come a day when things go back to “normal”; retail sales even inched up in January after sinking for the previous six months. But I wonder what it will take for us to see those $545 Sigerson Morrison studded toe-ring sandals as reasonable?Bargain-hunting can be addictive regardless of the state of the markets, and haggling is a low-risk, high-value contact sport. Trauma digs deep into habit, like my 85-year-old mother still calling her canned-goods cabinet“the bomb shelter.”The children of the First Depression were saving string and preaching sacrifice long after the skies cleared. They came to be called the“greatest generation."As we learn to be decent stewards of our resources, who knows what might come of it?We have lived in an age of wanton waste, and there is value in practicing conservation that goes far beyond our own bottom line.