2016年英语专业八级考试真题及答案解析

(1)There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes(滑水板)over cataracts of foam. On weekends Mr. Gatsby's Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with scrubbing-brushes and hammer and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. (2)Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb. (3)At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre( 冷 盘 ) , spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials(加香甜酒)so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. (4)By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived—no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. (5)The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. (6)The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath— already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. (7)Suddenly one of the gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the Follies. The party has begun. (8)I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited—they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. (9)I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer—the honor would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his"little party"that night. He had seen me several times and had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it—signed Jay Gatsby in a majestic hand. (10)Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill- at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn't know—though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; allwell dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were all selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key. (11)As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table—the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.

(1)The Term“CYBERSPACE”was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel,“Neuromancer”, whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as“a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators"and“a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system." (2)His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient(有先见之明的).Cyberspace has become symbolic of the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity's collective store of knowledge every day. (3)But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks. Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit-and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company, and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit. (4)The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America's National Security Agency(NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America's President, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats “pose one of the gravest national-security dangers”the country is facing. (5)Securing cyberspace is hard because the architecture of the internet was designed to promote connectivity, not security. Its founders focused on getting it to work and did not worry much about threats because the network was affiliated with America's military. As hackers turned up, layers of security, from antivirus programs to firewalls, were added to try to keep them at bay. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that last year organizations around the globe spent $67 billion on information security. (6)On the whole, these defenses have worked reasonably well. For all the talk about the risk of a“cyber 9/11”, the internet has proved remarkably resilient. Hundreds of millions of people turn on their computers every day and bank online, shop at virtual stores, swap gossip and photos with their friends on social networks and send all kinds of sensitive data over the web without ill effect. Companies and governments are shifting ever more services online. (7)But the task is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion—a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria. (8)To add to the worries, there is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. One precedent is the destruction in 2010 of centrifuges( 离 心 机 )at a nuclear facility in Iran by a computer program known as Stuxnet. (9)But such events are rare. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and trade secrets. For example, smarter, better- organized hackers are making life tougher for the cyber-defenders, but even so a number of things can be done to keep everyone safer than they are now. (10)One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. All too often breaches are caused by simple blunders, such as failing to separate systems containing sensitive data from those that do not need access to them. Companies also need to get better at anticipating where attacks may be coming from and at adapting their defenses swiftly in response to new threats. Technology can help, as can industry initiatives that allow firms to share intelligence about risks with each other. (11)There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. One idea is to encourage internet-service providers, or the companies that manage internet connections, to shoulder more responsibility for identifying and helping to clean up computers infected with malicious software. Another is to find ways to ensure that software developers produce code with fewer flaws in it so that hackers have fewer security holes to exploit. (12)An additional reason for getting tech companies to give a higher priority to security is that cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computers that connect them to the web and make them more useful. Dubbed"the internet of things", this is already making it possible, for example, to control home appliances using smartphone apps and to monitor medical devices remotely. (13)But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.

(1)You should treat skeptically the loud cries now coming from colleges and universities that the last bastion of excellence in American education is being destroyed by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is, higher education is not a bastion of excellence. It is shot through with waste, lax academic standards and mediocre teaching and scholarship. (2)True, the economic pressures—from the Ivy League to state systems—are intense. Last year, nearly two-thirds of schools had to make midyear spending cuts to stay within their budgets. It is also true(as university presidents and deans argue)that relieving those pressures merely by raising tuition and cutting courses will make matters worse. Students will pay more and get less. The university presidents and deans want to be spared from further government budget cuts. Their case is weak. (3)Higher education is a bloated enterprise. Too many professors do too little teaching to too many ill- prepared students. Costs can be cut and quality improved without reducing the number of graduates. Many colleges and universities should shrink. Some should go out of business. Consider: ·Except for elite schools, admission standards are low. About 70 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges and universities attend their first-choice schools. Roughly 20 percent go to their second choices. Most schools have eagerly boosted enrollments to maximize revenues(tuition and state subsidies). ·Dropout rates are high. Half or more of freshmen don't get degrees. A recent study of PhD programs at 10 major universities also found high dropout rates for doctoral candidates. ·The attrition among undergraduates is particularly surprising because college standards have apparently fallen. One study of seven top schools found widespread grade inflation. In 1963, half of the students in introductory philosophy courses got a B—or worse. By 1986, only 20 percent did. If elite schools have relaxed standards, the practice is almost surely widespread. ·Faculty teaching loads have fallen steadily since the 1960s. In major universities, senior faculty members often do less than two hours a day of teaching. Professors are“socialized to publish, teach graduate students and spend as little time teaching(undergraduates)as possible,"concludes James Fairweather of Penn State University in a new study. Faculty pay consistently rises as undergraduate teaching loads drop. ·Universities have encouraged an almost mindless explosion of graduate degrees. Since 1960, the number of masters'degrees awarded annually has risen more than fourfold to 337,000.Between 1965 and 1989, the annual number of MBAs(masters in business administration)jumped from 7,600 to 73,100. (4)Even so, our system has strengths. It boasts many top-notch schools and allows almost anyone to go to college. But mediocrity is pervasive. We push as many freshmen as possible through the door, regardless of qualifications. Because bachelors'degrees are so common, we create more graduate degrees of dubious worth. Does anyone believe the MBA explosion has improved management? (5)You won't hear much about this from college deans or university presidents. They created this mess and are its biggest beneficiaries. Large enrollments support large faculties. More graduate students liberate tenured faculty from undergraduate teaching to concentrate on writing and research: the source of status. Richard Huber, a former college dean, writes knowingly in a new book“How Professors Play the Cat Guarding the Cream: Why We're Paying More and Getting Less in Higher Education”: Presidents, deans and trustees.….call for more recognition of good teaching with prizes and salary incentives. (6)The reality is closer to the experience of Harvard University's distinguished paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould:“To be perfectly honest, though lip service is given to teaching, I have never seriously heard teaching considered in any meeting for promotion….Writing is the currency of prestige and promotion." (7)About four-fifths of all students attend state-subsidized systems, from community colleges to prestige universities. How governors and state legislatures deal with their budget pressures will be decisive. Private schools will, for better or worse, be influenced by state actions. The states need to do three things. (8)First, create genuine entrance requirements. Today's low standards tell high school students: You don't have to work hard to go to college. States should change the message by raising tuition sharply and coupling the increase with generous scholarships based on merit and income. To get scholarships, students would have to pass meaningful entrance exams. Ideally, the scholarships should be available for use at in-state private schools. All schools would then compete for students on the basis of academic quality and costs. Today's system of general tuition subsidies provides aid to well-to-do families that don't need it or to unqualified students who don't deserve it. (9)Next, states should raise faculty teaching loads, mainly at four-year schools.(Teaching loads at community colleges are already high.)This would cut costs and reemphasize the primacy of teaching at most schools. What we need are teachers who know their fields and can communicate enthusiasm to students. Not all professors can be path-breaking scholars. The excessive emphasis on scholarship generates many unread books and mediocre articles in academic journals.“You can't do more of one(research)without less of the other (teaching),"says Fairweather.“People are working hard—it's just where they're working." (10)Finally, states should reduce or eliminate the least useful graduate programs. Journalism(now dubbed"communications"), business and education are prime candidates. A lot of what they teach can—and should—be learned on the job. If colleges and universities did a better job of teaching undergraduates, there would be less need for graduate degrees. (11)Our colleges and universities need to provide a better education to deserving students. This may mean smaller enrollments, but given today's attrition rates, the number of graduates need not drop. Higher education could become a bastion of excellence, if we would only try.