(完整版)英语专八真题改错含答案.

2005 The University as Business

A number of colleges and universities have announced steep

tuition increases for next year much steeper than the current,

very low, rate of inflation. They say the increases are needed because

of a loss in value of university endowments heavily investing in common 1 stock. I am skeptical. A business firm chooses the price that maximizes

its net revenues, irrespective fluctuations in income; and increasingly the 2 outlook of universities in the United States is indistinguishable from those of 3 business firms. The rise in tuitions may reflect the fact economic uncertainty 4 increases the demand for education. The biggest cost of being

in the school is foregoing income from a job (this is primarily a factor in 5 graduate and professional-school tuition; the poor one's job prospects, 6 the more sense it makes to reallocate time from the job market to education,

in order to make oneself more marketable.

The ways which universities make themselves attractive to students 7 include soft majors, student evaluations of teachers, giving students

a governance role, and eliminate required courses. 8 Sky-high tuitions have caused universities to regard their students as customers. Just as business firms sometimes collude to shorten the 9 rigors of competition, universities collude to minimize the cost to them of the athletes whom they recruit in order to stimulate alumni donations, so the best athletes now often bypass higher education in order to obtain salaries earlier

from professional teams. And until they were stopped by the antitrust authorities, the Ivy League schools colluded to limit competition for the best students, by agreeing not to award scholarships on the basis of merit rather than purely

of need-just like business firms agreeing not to give discounts on their best 10 customer.

2006 We use language primarily as a means of communication with

other human beings. Each of us shares with the community in which we

live a store of words and meanings as well as agreeing conventions as 1

to the way in which words should be arranged to convey a particular 2

message: the English speaker has in his disposal vocabulary and a 3

set of grammatical rules which enables him to communicate his 4

thoughts and feelings, in a variety of styles, to the other English 5 speakers. His vocabulary, in particular, both that which he uses actively

and that which he recognizes, increases in size as he grows

old as a result of education and experience. 6

But, whether the language store is relatively small or large, the system

remains no more, than a psychological reality for tike inpidual, unless

he has a means of expressing it in terms able to be seen by another 7

member of his linguistic community; he bas to give tile system a

concrete transmission form. We take it for granted rice? two most 8

common forms of transmission-by means of sounds produced by our

vocal organs (speech or by visual signs (writing. And these are 9

among most striking of human achievements. 10

2007 From what has been said, it must be clear that no one can

make very positive statements about how language originated.

There is no material in any language today and in the earliest 1 __ _ records of ancient languages show us language in a new and 2 _ emerging state. It is often said, of course, that the language 3 _ ______ originated in cries of anger, fear, pain and pleasure, and the 4 _ necessary evidence is entirely lacking: there are no remote

tribes, no ancient records, providing evidence of

a language with a large proportion of such cries 5 _

than we find in English. It is true that the absence

of such evidence does not disprove the theory, but in6_

other grounds too the theory is not very attractive.

People of all races and languages make rather similar

noises in return to pain or pleasure. The fact that7

such noises are similar on the lips of Frenchmen

and Malaysians whose languages are utterly different,

serves to emphasize on the fundamental difference8

between these noises and language proper. We may

say that the cries of pain or chortles of amusement

are largely reflex actions, instinctive to large extent, 9

whereas language proper does not consist of signs

but of these that have to be learnt and that are10

wholly conventional.

08

The desire to use language as a sign of national identity is a

very natural one, and in result language has played a prominent ____1____ part in national moves. Men have often felt the need to cultivate ____2____ a given language to show that they are distinctive from another ____3____ race whose hegemony they resent. At the time the United States ____4____ split off from Britain, for example, there were proposals that independence should be linguistically accepted by the use of a ____5____ different language from those of Britain. There was even one ____6____ proposal that Americans should adopt Hebrew. Others favoured

the adoption of Greek, though, as one man put it, things would

certainly be simpler for Americans if they stuck on to English ____7____ and made the British learn Greek. At the end, as everyone ____8____ knows, the two countries adopted the practical and satisfactory

solution of carrying with the same language as before. ____9____

Since nearly two hundred years now, they have shown the world ____10____

that political independence and national identity can be complete

without sacrificing the enormous mutual advantages of a common

language.

09专八改错原题

Proofreading & Error Correction:

The previous section has shown how quickly a rhyme passes

from one school child to the next and illustrates the further difference

(1___________ between shcool lore and nursery lore. In nursery lore a verse, learnt

in early childhood, is not usually passed on again when the little listener

(2___________ has grown up, and has children of their own, or even grandchildren. (3____________ The period between learning a nursery rhyme and transmitting

It may be something from twenty to seventy years. With the playground

(4_____________ lore, therefore, a rhyme may be excitedly passed on within the very hour (5___________

it is learnt; and in the general, it passes between children of

the (6________________

same age, or nearly so, since it is uncommon for the difference in age

between playmates to be more than five years. If therefore, a playground

rhyme can be shown to have been currently for a hundred years, or (7__________ even just for fifty, it follows that it has been retransmitting over

and over; very possibly it has passed along a chain of two or three (8___________ hundred young hearers and tellers, and the wonder is that it remains live

(9_______________ after so much handling, to let alone that it bears resemblance to the (10____________

2010年专八真题改错原文

So far as we can tell, all human languages are equally complete and perfect as instruments of communication: that is, every language appears to be as well equipped as any other to say the things its speakers want to say. It may or may not be appropriate to talk about primitive peoples or cultures, but that is another matter. Certainly, not all groups of people are equally competent in nuclear physics or psychology or the cultivation of rice or the engraving of Benares brass. But this is not the fault of their language. The Eskimos can speak about snow with a great deal more precision and subtlety than we can in English, but this is not because the Eskimo language (one of those sometimes miscalled ?primitive? is inherently more precise and subtle t han English. This example does not bring to light a defect in English, a show of unexpected ?primitiveness?. The position is simply and obviously that the Eskimos and the English live in different environments. The English language would be just as rich in terms for different kinds of snow, presumably, if the environments in which English was habitually used made such distinction important.

Similarly, we have no reason to doubt that the Eskimo language could be as precise and subtle on the subject of motor manufacture or cricket if these topics formed part of the Eskimos? life. For obvious historical reasons, Englishmen in the nineteenth century could not talk about motorcars with the minute discrimination which is possible today: cars were not a part of their culture. But they had a host of terms for horse-drawn vehicles

which send us, puzzled, to a historical dictionary when we are reading Scott or Dickens. How many of us could distinguish between a chaise, a landau, a victoria, a brougham, a coupe, a gig, a diligence, a whisky, a calash, a tilbury, a carriole, a phaeton, and a clarence ?

2005 答案解析:

1.

investing应改为invested。这里说“投资于”普通股中的捐赠金价值损失惨重,既然是投资,就是指人去投资,即endowments (that wereheavily invested

in.括号内的部分是被省略的部分,本句形式上是主动,实际意义上为被动,因此应该把investing改为invested,否则逻辑上和语法上都是说不通的。

2.

在irrespective和fluctuations之间加上介词of。irrespectiveOf是一固定用法,意指“不论,不管,不顾,”等,如:irrespective Of the cost不惜工本,irrespective of the consequences不顾后果,irrespective of duty

status不论职位高低。此处指公司不顾收入的波动变化。

3. 把those改为that。本句的后半部分主要强调的是大学里的“看法或观点”(outlo ok与企业公司的看法或观点不一样,即着眼点在于对两种不同团体看法的对比。既然前面用的是单数形式,后面也应用单数形式,基本语法规则是前后应一致,本句为代词those的误用,所以应把those改为that。

4.在fact和economic之间力口上关系代词that。这是一个同位语从语,that在同位语从句中是不能省略的,否则就很可能出现意思所指不清的麻烦,所以此处必须加上关系代词that。

5.把定冠词the去掉。定冠词与一名词连用,表示某个或某些特定的人或物或机构等,而此处的in the

school,一则意思不清,二则可能指在某人正在某个具体学校做某事。这一层意思与本

文上下文不相吻合。比较之下,in

school是一固定说法,表示“在上学或求学”、“在校读书”正符合本文上下文的意思。因此应把定冠词去掉。

6.把形容词poor改为其比较级poorer。这句中的poor与后面的more形成一对比较关系,表示“越……越……”,根据这一思路,我们应把形容词poor改为其比较级poorer,以表达一种对称关系。

7.在ways和which之间加上一个介词in。在ways和which之间加上一个介词in,表示in these ways,即指通过前面提到的这些方法。相似的句子较多,如:Not all sounds made by animals serve as language,and we have only to turn to that extra ordinary discovery of

echo-location in bats to see a case in which the voice plays a strictly utilitarian role.(动物发出的声音并不是都能当作语言,因此我们只好求助于蝙蝠回声定位的这种非凡的发展,探究一下语音在何种情况下起着绝对有用的作用。

8.这里应该用动词的—

lng形式,即eliminating,以便使句型结构与前面的giving(students a governance

role保持一致,否则句子结构和意思都显得不正确。

9.将shorten(缩短;使变短改为reduce或weaken。此处属于用词不当。应将shorten(缩短;使变短改为reduce(使精神垮下来;使身体瘦弱或weaken(使削弱;使衰减,可表示文中所表示的“减弱竞争的残酷性”。

10.将to give discounts on改为to give discounts to their best

customer。意为实业公司给最好的客户提供优惠。而give discount on

something则指就某一商品打折扣,显然与本文的上下文是相悖的。因为本文一直在讨论就如何避免为抢最好的生源而展开恶性竞争,为抢好学生捉供优厚奖学金,与公司为抢客源,给最好的客户提供优惠道理是一样的。所以应做上述改动。

2006 1. agreeing-agreed

2. 加these/ those 在words前

3. in his disposal- at his disposal

4.enables-enable

5.the other English speakers-other English speakers

6.old-older

7.seen-understood/ perceived/ comprehended

8.take it for granted- take for granted

9.or----and

10. 加the 在most 前

2007 (1an d →or

(2 show →showing

(3去掉the

(4and →but_

(5 large →lager_

(6 in →on_____

(7 return →response_

(8 去掉on

(9 __∧a____

(10 these →those_

2008 1. in result 改成in fact,2 moves改成movements.

3 distinctive改成distinct或different

4 At改成When

5 by 改成with

6 those改成that

7 删除on,

8 At 改成In

9 carrying with 改成carrying on with

10 Since 改成For

09 answer(1illustrate改为illustrated(与前文的shown保持一致

(2 the 改为a (此次应该用不定冠词表示泛指

(3their改为his(代词与前文a little listener在单复数上保持一致

(4something 改为anything(这里anything from...to...表示大约在...之间

(5therefore改为however (根据上下文逻辑关系

(6 in the general去掉the (习惯用法in general 表示总的来说,一般不用冠词

(7 currently 改为current (这里起的是表语的作用,需要形容词而不是副词

(8 it has passed改为it has been passed (主动改为被动,与前文保持一致

(9 live 改为alive (live作形容词讲为“现场直播的”意思,这样显示需要用alive

(10 to let alone改为let alone (let alone 为习惯搭配,意思是“更不

2010年专八真题改错参考答案

1 be后插入as;

2 their改为its;

3 There改为It;

4 Whereas改为But

5 further 改为much

6 come改为bring;

7 similar改为different;

8 will改为would;

9 as important去掉as; 10 the part 去掉the

2004改错

One of the most important non-legislative functions of the U.S Congress

is the power to investigate. This power is usually delegated to committees - either standing committees, special committees set for a specific (1____

purpose, or joint committees consisted of members of both houses. (2____ Investigations are held to gather information on the need for

future legislation, to test the effectiveness of laws already passed,

to inquire into the qualifications and performance of members and

officials of the other branches, and in rare occasions, to lay the (3____

groundwork for impeachment proceedings. Frequently, committees

rely outside experts to assist in conducting investigative hearings (4____ and to make out detailed studies of issues. (5____

There are important corollaries to the investigative power. One

is the power to publicize investigations and its results. Most (6____ committee hearings are open to public and are reported (7____

widely in the mass media. Congressional investigations nevertheless represent one important tool available to lawmakers (8____ to inform the citizenry and to arouse public interests in national issues. (9____

Congressional committees also have the power to compel

testimony from unwilling witnesses, and to cite for contempt

of Congress witnesses who refuse to testify and for perjury

these who give false testimony. (10____

1.答案:^ special committees → or special committees

【详细解答】多项并列用句型either...or...or。

2.答案:consisted → consisting

【详细解答】consist of 意思是“由...构成”,故该处应用现在分词短语。

3.答案:in → on

【详细解答】固定搭配on ...occasions

4.答案:rely ^ → rely on

【详细解答】固定搭配rely on sb. to do something

5.答案:make out → make

【详细解答】make out

意思是“辨认出”,而此处意思是“对...做详细的研究”,故用“make detailed studies of...” 即可。

6.答案:its → their

【详细解答】此处指代的是“investigations”, 故用复数。

7.答案:^ public → the public

【详细解答】the +adj. 可表示某一类人,此处意思是“面向公众”,故应用“the public”。

8.答案:nevertheless → therefore (thus

【详细解答】此处不是表示意思的转折,而是与前文构成因果关系,故可改为theref ore 或thus。

9.答案:citizenry → citizens

【详细解答】citizenry

为集体名词,意为“全体公民”,且为旧用法;citizens指公民,强调具体的群体。

10.答案:these → those

【详细解答】those 指代witnesses ,

即指代名词复数做定语从句的先行词,而these不行

2003改错

Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwar

period were more eager than ever to establish families. They quickly brought down the age at marriage for both men and women and brought the birth rate to a twentieth century height after more than a hundred (1__ years of a steady decline, producing the “baby boom.” These young (2__ adults established a trend of early marriage and relatively large

families that Went for more than two decades and caused a major (3__

but temporary reversal of long-term demographic patterns. From

the 1940S through the early 1960s, Americans married at a high rate (4__ and at a younger age than their Europe counterparts.(5__

Less noted but equally more significant, the men and women on who (6__ formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced the (7__ divorce rate after a postwar peak; their marriages remained intact to

a greater extent than did that of couples who married in earlier as well (8__ as later decades. Since the United States maintained its dubious (9__ distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world, the temporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in (10__ Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role of breadwinner and

homemaker was not abandoned.

1. 答案:height→high

【详细解答】height为不可数名词,意为“高度,身高,海拔,顶点”等,故此处应改为可数名词high。

2.答案:a

【详细解答】此处steady

decline指稳定下降的行为、过程而不是其结果,为不可数名词,故应去掉定冠词a。

3.答案:went∧→on

【详细解答】go on为固定搭配,意为“持续”。

4.答案:high→higher

【详细解答】根据上下文,此处应为比较级。

5.答案:Europe→European

【详细解答】根据上下文,此处应用形容词作定语修饰名词counterparts。

6.答案:more

【详细解答】由上下文可知,more与equally矛盾,故应去掉。

7.答案:nevertheless→also

【详细解答】由上下文可知,此处讲的内容与前部分内容之间为递进关系,而非转折关系。

8.答案:that→those

【详细解答】由上下文可知,此处所指代的应为前面复数形式的marriages,故指示代词也应该用复数形式。

9.答案:Since→Although(或While

【详细解答】从逻辑上讲,此处应表达让步关系,而非因果关系。

10.答案:in→to

【详细解答】to...extent为固定搭配,意为“到……程度”

2002改错

There are great impediments to the general use of a standard in pronunciation comparable to that existing in spelling (orthography. One is the fact that pronunciation is learnt…naturally? and unconsciously, and orthography is learnt 1.___deliberately and consciously. Large numbers of us, in fact, remain throughout our lives quite unconscious with what our 2.___ speech sounds like when we speak out, and it often comes as a

3.___shock when we firstly hear a recording of ourselves. It is not a

4.___voice we recognize at once, whereas our own handwriting is something which we almost always know. We begin the

5.___…natural? learning of pronunciation long before we start learning to read or write, and in our early years we went on unconsciously

6.___ imitating and practicing the pronunciation of those around us for many more hours per every day than we ever have to spend

7.___ learning even our difficult English spelling. This is

…natural?, 8.___therefore, that our speech-sounds should be those of our immediate circle; after all, as we have seen, speech operates as a means of holding a community and giving a sense

of 9.___'belonging'. We learn quite early to recognize a …stranger?,someone who speaks with an accent of a different community-perhaps only a few miles far. 10.___

答案与详解

1.答案:and→while

【详细解答】前半句意为“发音是在无意识之中学成的”,后半句意为“拼写是有意识地学成的”,它们之间是转折而不是并列关系,故应该用连词while来连接。

2.答案:with→of

【详细解答】be unconscious

of是固定搭配,意为“无意识地,未意识到”。即“我们之中很多人一辈子都不知道自己的话听起来是什么样的”。

3.答案:speak∧→out

【详细解答】speak out意为“大胆地说出”,在这里句意不通。在speak

out中加上it,指代前面的speech,意为“当我们说出话后,自己听起来像什么”。

4.答案:firstly→first

【详细解答】firstly表示顺序中的“第一”,first则表示时间上的“第一次,首次”。这里是说“当我们第一次听到自己的录音时,通常会震惊”。故应将firstly改为first才合乎句意。

5.答案:which→that

【详细解答】在定语从句中,如果先行词是代词something,everything,nothing,little,f ew 等时,关系词应用that而不是which,故此处应将which改为that。6.答案:went→go 【详细解答】本文通篇用的都是一般现在时,所以此处也应用一般现在时,使上下文保持时态一致。

7.答案:per或every

【详细解答】per和every都是“每”的意思,在此属重复错误,故将两者去掉一个即可。

8.答案:This→It

【详细解答】根据句子结构,句中缺少一形式主语,而作形式主语的只能是代词it,t his是“这”的意思,不能用做形式主语,所以应将this改为it。

9.答案:community∧→together

【详细解答】hold意为“抓住,占据,包含”。此处想表达的意思是“语言用作使社区具有凝聚力、给人归属感的一种方式”,用hold a community不能表达此意;hold

sth.together表示“使结合在一起不破,使团结一致”的意思,符合句意。

10.答案:far→away

【详细解答】要表达距离上的远近,在英语中通常用副词away。far表示“远,从(到很远距离”,不合句意。

2001改错

During the early years of this century, wheat was seen as the

very lifeblood of Western Canada. People on city streets watched

the yields and the price of wheat in almost as much feeling as if 1.___

they were growers. The marketing of wheat became an increasing 2.___

favorite topic of conversation.

War set the stage for the most dramatic events in marketing

the western crop. For years, farmers mistrusted speculative grain

selling as carried on through the Winnipeg Grain Exchange.

Wheat prices were generally low in the autumn, so farmers could 3.___

not wait for markets to improve. It had happened too often that

they sold their wheat soon shortly after harvest when farm debts 4.___ were coming due, just to see prices rising and speculators getting rich. 5.___ On various occasions, producer groups, asked firmer control, 6.___

but the government had no wish to become involving, at 7.___

least not until wartime when wheat prices threatened to run

wild.

Anxious to check inflation and rising life costs, the federal 8.___ government appointed a board of grain supervisors to deal with deliveries from the crops of 1917 and 1918. Grain Exchange

trading was suspended, and farmers sold at prices fixed by the

board. To handle with the crop of 1919, the government 9.___

appointed the first Canadian Wheat Board, with total authority to 10.___ buy, sell, and set prices.

1.答案:as→so

【详细解答】由于本句中的much修饰的是名词feeling,应改用so来修饰。

2.答案:increasing→increasingly

【详细解答】increasing可用来修饰名词,表示“正在增加”,修饰名词topic不合题意。本句中应该用副词作状语修饰形容词favorite,所以应该改用副词increasingly。

3.答案:so→but

【详细解答】根据上下文判断,小麦价格在秋天不断下降,但是农民不能等着市场提升价格。这里应该是转折关系,而不是因果关系。

4.答案:soon或shortly

【详细解答】要表达“不久以后”,要么用soon after,要么用shortly after,就是没有soo n shortly after这种搭配。

5.答案:rich→richer

【详细解答】根据上下文,这里是说由于价格上涨,投机商们变得更加富有,故应该改用形容词的比较级形式。

6.答案:asked∧→for

【详细解答】ask for为固定搭配,意为“要求,请求”。

7.答案:inv olving→involved

【详细解答】be involved in为一固定搭配,意为“被卷入…”,这里的be为连系动词,

可用 become 替换。 8.答案：1ife→living

【详细解答】根据上下文，这里要表达的意思是“生活费用”，应为 living costs。life 则意为“生命”，不能修饰 costs。 9.答案：handle→deal或 with 【详细解答】handle

为及物动词，应直接带宾语。而固定搭配 deal with 与 handle 同义，都表示

“处理(某事”。 10.答案：total→full【详细解答】total

意为“总体的，全体的”，指一种整体的概念。而这里要表达的是“全部

的权威”，英语中常用 full authority。 2000 改错 The grammatical words which play so