2008年职称英语考试

Modern Sun Worshippers
　　People travel for a lot of reasons. Some tourists go to see battlefields or religious shrines. Others are looking for culture, or simply want to have their picture taken in front of famous places. But most European tourists are looking for a sunny beach to lie on.
　　Northern Europeans are willing to pay a lot of money and put up with a lot of inconveniences for the sun because they have so little of it. Residents of cities like London, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam spend a lot of their winter in the dark because the days are so short, and much of the rest of the year in the rain. This is the reason the Mediterranean has always attracted them. Every summer, more than 25 million people travel to Mediterranean resorts and beaches for their vacation. They all come for the same reason: sun!
　　The huge crowds mean lots of money for the economies of Mediterranean countries. Italy’s 30, 000 hotels are booked solid every summer. And 13 million people camp out on French beaches, parks, and roadsides. Spain’s long sandy coastline attracts more people than anywhere else. 37 million tourists visit yearly, or one tourist for every person living in Spain.
　　But there are signs that the area is getting more tourism that it can handle. The Mediterranean is already one of the most polluted seas on earth. And with increased tourism, it's getting worse. The French can’t figure out what to do with all the garbage left by campers around St. Tropez. And in many places, swimming is dangerous because of pollution.
　　None of this, however, is spoiling anyone's fun. The Mediterranean gets more popular every year with tourists. Obviously, they don't go there for clean water and solitude. They tolerate traffic jams and seem to like crowded beaches. They don't even mind the pollution. No matter how dirty the water is, the coastline still looks beautiful. And as long as the sun shines, it's still better than sitting in the cold rain in Berlin, London, or Oslo.
1. The writer seems to imply that Europeans travel mostly for the reason that
A. they want to see historic remains or religious spots.
B. they are interested in different cultural traditions and social customs.
C. they would like to take pictures in front of famous sites.
D. they wish to escape from the cold, dark and rainy days back at home.

2. In paragraph 2, cities like London, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam are mentioned
A. to show that they are not good cities in terms of geography and climate.
B. to tell us how wealthy their residents are.
C. to suggest that these cities lack places of historic interest and scenic beauty.
D. to prove that they have got more tourism than they can handle.

3. According to the passage, which of the following countries attracts more tourists than the others?
A. Italy.
B. Spain.
C. France.
D. Greece.

4. The latter half of the last sentence in paragraph 3, i.e., “or one tourist for every person living in Spain” means
A. all the 37 million people living in Spain are tourists.
B. every year almost as many tourists visit Spain as there are people living in that country.
C. every person living in Spain has to take care of a tourist.
D. every Spanish is visited by a tourist every year.

5. According to the passage, which of the following factors might spoil the tourists' fun at Mediterranean resorts and beaches?
A. Polluted water.
B. Crowded buses.
C. Traffic jams.
D. Rainy weather.

One-room Schools
　　One-room schools are part of the heritage of the United States, and the mention of them makes people feel a vague longing for “the way things were”. One-room schools are an endangered species, however. For more than a hundred years, one-room schools have been systematically shut down and their students sent away to centralized schools. As recently as 1930 there were 149, 000 one-room schools in the United States. By 1970 there were 1, 800. Today, of the nearly 800 remaining one-room schools, more than 350 are in Nebraska. The rest are scattered through a few other states that have on their road maps wide-open spaces between towns.
　　Now that there are hardly any left, educators are beginning to think that maybe there is something yet to be learned from one-room schools, something that served the pioneers that might serve as well today. Progressive educators have come up with progressive-sounding names like “peer-group teaching” and “multi-age grouping” for educational procedures that occur naturally in the one-room schools. In a one-room school the children teach each other because the teacher is busy part of the time teaching someone else. A fourth grader can work at a fifth-grade level in math and a third-grade level in English without the stigma associated with being left back or the pressures of being skipped ahead. A youngster with a learning disability can find his or her own level without being separated from the other pupils. In larger urban and suburban schools today, this is called “mainstreaming.” A few hours in a small school that has only one classroom and it becomes clear why so many parents feel that one of the advantages of living in Nebraska is that their children have to go to a one-room school.
1. It is implied in the passage that many educators and parents today feel that one-room schools
A. need to be shut down.
B. are the best in Nebraska.
C. are a good example of the good old days.
D. provide good education.

2. Why are one-room schools in danger of disappearing?
A. Because they exist only in one state.
B. Because children have to teach themselves.
C. Because there is a trend toward centralization
D. Because there is no fourth-grade level in any of them.

3. What is mentioned as a major characteristic of the one-room school system in the second paragraph?
A. Some children have to be left back.
B. Teachers are always busy.
C. Pupils have more freedom.
D. Learning is not limited to one grade level at a time.

4. Which of the following can best describe the author's attitude toward one-room schools?
A. Praising.
B. Angry
C. Critical.
D. Humorous

5. It can be inferred from the last sentence that parents living in Nebraska
A. don't like centralized schools.
B. received education in one-room schools.
C. prefer rural life to urban one.
D. come from other states.