1995-2017年英语专业八级改错真题及答案（文字/答案校对版）2017年改错真题The ability to communicate is the primary factor that distinguishes humanbeings from animals. And it is the ability to communicate well which 1.________ distinguishes one individual from another.The fact is that apart from the basic necessities, one needs tobe equipped with habits for good communication skills, thus this is 2.________ what will make one a happy and successful social being.In order to develop these habits, one needs to first acknowledgethe fact that they need to improve communication skills from time to time.They need to take stock of the way how they interact and the direction 3.________in which their work and personal relations are going. The only constantin life is change, th e more one accepts one’s strengths and works 4._______ towards dealing with their shortcomings, specially in the area of 5.________ communication skills, the better will be their interactions andthe more their social popularity.The dominated question that comes here is: How to improve 6.________ communication skills? The answer is simple. One can findplenty of literature on this. There are also experts, who conductworkshops and seminars based on communication skills of menand women. In fact, a large number of companies are bringing intrainers to regularly make sessions on the subject, in order to 7.________help their work force maintain better interpersonal work relations.Today effective communication skills have become a predominantfactor even while recruiting employees. While interviewing candidates,most interviewers judge them on the basis of the skills they communicate with.They believe that some skills can be improvised on the job; but ability to 8.________ communicate well is important, as every employee becomes therepresenting face of the company.There are trainers, who specialized in delivering custom-made 9._______ programs on the subject. Through the sessions they not only facilitatebetter communication skills in the workplace, but also look intothe problems in the manner of being able to convey messages effectively. 10._______ 2016年改错真题All social units develop a culture. Even in two-person relationships,a culture develops in time. In friendship and romantic relationships, 1._________for example, partners develop their own history, shared experiences,language patterns, habits, and customs give that relationship a special 2._________ character—a character that differs it in various ways from 3._________other relationships. Examples might include special dates, places,songs, or events that come to have a unique andimportant symbolic meaning for the two individuals. Thus, any 4._________ social unit—whether a relationship, group, organization, orsociety—develops a culture with the passage of time.While the defining characteristics of each culture are unique,all cultures share certain same functions. The relationship between 5.__________ communication and culture is a very complex intimate one. 6.__________ Cultures are created through communication; that is, communication isthe means of human interaction, through it cultural characteristics 7.__________are created and shared. It is not so much that individuals set out to create a culture when they interact in relationships, groups, organizations, or societies,but rather than that cultures are a natural by-product of social interaction.8._________In a sense, cultures are the “residue” of social commun ication.Without communication and communication media, it would be impossible tohave and pass along cultural characteristics from one place and time to 9.__________ another. One can say, furthermore, that culture is created, shaped, 10._________ transmitted, and learned through communication.2015年改错真题When I was in my early teens, I was taken to a spectacular showon ice by the mother of a friend. Looked round at the luxury of the 1. ________rink, my friend’s mother remarked on the “plush” seats we had beengiven. I did not know what she meant, and being proud of my 2.________ vocabulary, I tried to infer its meaning from the context. “Plush”was clearly intended as a complimentary, a positive evaluation; that 3. ________ much I could tell it from the tone of voice and the context. So I 4. ________ started to use the word. Yes, I replied, they certainly are plush, andso are the ice rink and the costumes of the skaters, aren’t they? Myfriend’s mother was very polite to correct me, but I could tell from her 5. ________ expression that I had not got the word quite right.Often we can indeed infer from the context what a word roughlymeans, and that is in fact the way which we usually acquire both 6. ________new words and new meanings for familiar words, specially in our 7. ________own first language. But sometimes we need to ask, as I should haveasked for plush, and this is particularly true in the 8.________ aspect of a foreign language. If you are continually surrounded by 9________ speakers of the language you are learning, you can ask them directly,but often this opportunity does not exist for the learner of English.So dictionaries have been developed to mend the gap. 10. _________2014年改错真题There is widespread consensus among scholars that second languageacquisition (SLA) emerged as a distinct field of research from the late 1950s toearly 1960s.There is a high level of agreement that the following questions 1.__________ have possessed the most attention of researchers in this area: 2.__________◆Is it possible to acquire an additional language in thesame sense one acquires a first language? 3.__________◆What is the explanation for the fact adults have 4.__________ more difficulty in acquiring additional languages than children have?◆What motivates people to acquire additional languages?◆What is the role of the language teaching in the 5.___________acquisition of an additional language?◆What socio-cultural factors, if any, are relevant in studying thelearning of additional languages?From a check of the literature of the field it is clear that all 6.__________the approaches adopted to study the phenomena of SLA so far haveone thing in common: The perspective adopted to view the acquiringof an additional language is that of an individual attempts to do 7.___________ so. Whether one labels it “learning” or “acquiring” an additionallanguage, it is an individual accomplishment or what is under 8.___________ focus is the cognitive, psychological, and institutional status of anindividual. That is, the spotlight is on what mental capabilities areinvolving, what psychological factors play a role in the learning 9.___________or acquisition, and whether the target language is learnt in theclassroom or acquired through social touch with native speakers. 10.___________ 2013年改错真题Psycho-linguistics is the name given to the study of the psychological processes involv ed in language. Psycholinguistics study understanding,production and remembering language, and hence are concerned 1.__________with listening, reading, speaking, writing, and memory for language.One reason why we take the language for granted is that it usually 2.__________ happens so effortlessly, and most of time, so accurately. 3.__________ Indeed, when you listen to someone to speaking, or looking at this page, 4.________you normally cannot help but understand it.It is only in exceptional circumstances we might become aware of 5._________the complexity involved: if we are searching for a word but cannotremember it; if a relative or colleague has had a stroke which has 6._________ influenced their language; if we observe a child acquire language; 7._________if we try to learn a second language ourselves as an adult; or if weare visually impaired or hearing-impaired or if we meet anyone else 8._________who is. As we shall see, all these examples of what might be called“language in exceptional circumstances” reveal a great deal about theprocesses evolved in speaking, listening, writing and reading. But 9.__________ given that language processes were normally so automatic, we also 10.__________ need to carry out careful experiments to get at what is happening.2012年改错真题The central problem of translating has always been whether totranslate literally or freely. The argument has been going since at least 1.__________ the first century B.C. Up to the beginning of the 19th century, manywriters favored certain kind of “free” translation: the spirit, not the 2.__________ letter; the sense not the word; the message rather the form; the matter 3.__________ not the manner. This is the often revolutionary slogan of writers who 4.___________ wanted the truth to be read and understood. Then in the turn of 5.___________ 19th century, when the study of cultural anthropology suggested thatthe linguistic barriers were insuperable and that the language was 6.__________ entirely the product of culture, the view translation was impossible 7.__________ gained some currency, and with it that, if was attempted at all, it must 8.__________ be as literal as possible. This view culminated the statement of the 9._________ extreme “literalists” Walter Benjamin and Vladimir Nobokov.The argument was theoretical: the purpose of the translation,the nature of the readership, the type of the text, was not discussed.Too often, writer, translator and reader were implicitly identified with eachother. Now, the context has changed, and the basic problem remains. 10. _________ 2011年改错真题From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, Iknew that when I grew I should be a writer. Between the ages 1._____________ of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon thisidea, but I did so with the conscience that I was outraging my 2._____________ true nature and that soon or later I should have to settle down 3._____________ and write books.I was the child of three, but there was a gap offive years on either side, and I barely saw my father 4._____________ before I was eight. For this and other reasons I was somewhatlonely, and I soon developed disagreeing mannerisms which 5._____________ made me unpopular throughout my schooldays. I had thelonely child's habit of making up stories and holdingconversations with imaginative persons, and I think from the 6._____________ very start my literal ambitions were mixed up with the feeling 7._____________ of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facilitywith words and a power of facing in unpleasant facts, and I 8._____________ felt that this created a sort of private world which I could get 9._____________ my own back for my failure in everyday life. Therefore, the 10.____________ volume of serious — i.e. seriously intended —writing whichI produced all through my childhood and boyhood would notamount to half a dozen pages. I wrote my first poemat the age of four or five, my mother taking it down to dictation.2010年改错真题So far as we can tell, all human languages are equallycomplete and perfect as instruments of communication: that is,every language appears to be well equipped as any other to say 1____________the things their speakers want to say. 2____________ There may or may not be appropriate to talk about primitive 3_____________people s or cultures, but that is another matter. Certainly, not allgroups of people are equally competent in nuclear physics orpsychology or the cultivation of rice . Whereas this is not the 4____________fault of their language. The Eskimos , it is said, can speak aboutsnow with further more precision and subtlety than we can in 5_____________ English, but this is not because the Eskimo language (one of thosesometimes miscalled 'primitive') is inherently more precise andsubtle than English. This example does not come to light a defect 6____________in English, a show of unexpected 'primitiveness'. The position issimply and obviously that the Eskimos and the English live in similar 7___________ environments. The English language will be just as rich in terms 8____________for different kinds of snow, presumably, if the environments in whichEnglishwas habitually used made such distinction as important. 9___________ Similarly, we have no reason to doubt that the Eskimo languagecould be as precise and subtle on the subject of motor manufactureor cricket if these topics formed the part of the Eskimos' life. 10____________For obvious historical reasons, Englishmen in the nineteenth centurycould not talk about motorcars with the minute discriminationwhich is possible today: cars were not a part of their culture.But they had a host of terms for horse-drawn vehicleswhich send us, puzzled, to a historical dictionary when weare reading Scott or Dickens. How many of us could distinguishbetween 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?2009年改错真题The previous section has shown how quickly a rhyme passes fromone school child to the next and illustrates the further difference 1.__________between school lore and nursery lore. In nursery lore a verse,learnt inearly childhood, is not usually passed on again when the little listener 2.__________has grown up, and has children of their own, or even grandchild 3.___________The period between learning a nursery rhyme and transmitting it maybe something from twenty to seventy years.With the playground lore, 4.__________ therefore, a rhyme may be excitedly passed on within the very hour it is 5._________ learnt; and in the general, it passes between children of the same age, 6.___________or nearly so, since it is uncommon for the difference in age betweenplaymates to be more than five years. If, therefore, a playground rhymecan be shown to have been currently for a hundred years, or even just 7.___________for fifty, it follows that it has been retransmitted over and over; very 8.___________ possibly it has passed along a chain of two or three hundred younghearers and tellers, and the wonder is that it remains live after so much 9.__________ handling, to let alone that it bears resemblance to the 10.___________ 2008年改错真题The desire to use language as a sign of national identity is avery 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 thatindependence 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 favouredthe adoption of Greek, though, as one man put it, things wouldcertainly 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 satisfactorysolution 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 completewithout sacrificing the enormous mutual advantages of a common language.2007年改错真题From what has been said, it must be clear that no one canmake 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 remotetribes, no ancient records, providing evidence ofa language with a large proportion of such cries 5.__________ than we find in English. It is true that the absenceof such evidence does not disprove the theory, but in other grounds 6.___________ too the theory is not very attractive.People of all races and languages make rather similarnoises in return to pain or pleasure. The fact that 7.___________ such noises are similar on the lips of Frenchmenand Malaysians whose languages are utterly different,serves to emphasize on the fundamental difference 8.___________between these noises and language proper. We maysay that the cries of pain or chortles of amusementare largely reflex actions, instinctive to large extent, 9.____________ whereas language proper does not consist of signsbut of these that have to be learnt and that are wholly conventional. 10.___________ 2006年改错真题We use language primarily as a means of communication withother human beings. Each of us shares with the community in which welive 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 activelyand that which he recognises, increases in size as he growsold 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 the individual, unlesshe has a means of expressing it in terms able to be seen by another 7._________ member of his linguistic community; he has to give the system aconcrete transmission form. We take it for granted the two most 8.___________ common forms of transmission-by means of sounds produced by ourvocal organs (speech) or by visual signs (writing). And these are 9.___________ among most striking of human achievements. 10.___________ 2005年改错真题The University as BusinesA number of colleges and universities have announced steep tuitionincreases for next year—much steeper than the current, very low rate ofinflation. They say the increases are needed because of a loss in value ofuniversity endowments heavily investing in common stock. I am skeptical. 1._______ A business firm chooses the price that maximizes its net revenues,irrespective fluctuations in income; and increasingly the outlook of 2._________ universities in the United States is indistinguishable from those of 3._________ business firms. The rise in tuitions may reflect the fact economic 4._________ uncertainty increases the demand for education. The biggest cost ofbeing in the school is foregoing income from a job (this is primarily a 5._________ factor in graduate and professional-school tuition);the poor one's job prospects, the more sense it makes to 6.__________ reallocate time from the job market to education,in order to make oneself more marketable.The ways which universities make themselves attractive to students7._________ include soft majors, student evaluations of teachers, giving studentsa governance role, and eliminate required courses. Sky-high tuitions 8.____________ have caused universities to regard their students as customers. Just asbusiness firms sometimes collude to shorten the rigors of competition, 9.___________ universities collude to minimize the cost to them of the athleteswhom they recruit in order to stimulate alumni donations, so the bestathletes now often bypass higher education in order to obtain salariesearlier from professional teams. And until they were stopped by theantitrust authorities, the Ivy League schools colluded to limit competitionfor the best students, by agreeing not to award scholarships on the basisof merit rather than purely of need—just like businessfirms agreeing not to give discounts on their best customer. 10 ___________2004年改错真题One of the most important non-legislative functions of the U.S. Congressis the power to investigate. The power is usually delegtated tocommittees —either stading committees,special committees set for a specific purpose, 1.___________or joint committees consisted of members of both houses. 2.___________ Investigations are held to gather information on the need forFuture legislation, to test the effectiveness of laws already passed,to inquire into the qualification and performance of members andofficials of the other branches, and in rare occasions, to lay the 3.___________ groundwork for impeachment proceedings. Frequently, committeesrely outside experts to assist in conducting investigative hearings 4.___________and to make out detailed studies of issues. 5.____________ There are important corallaries to the investigative power.One is the power to publicize investigations and its results. 6.___________ most committee hearings are open to public and are reported 7.___________ widely in the mass media. Congressional investigationnevertheless represent one important tool available to lawmakes 8.___________to inform the citizenry and to arouse public interests in national issuses.9.__________ Congressional committees also have the power to compeltestimony from unwilling witnesses, and to cite fro contemptof Congress witnesses who refuse to testify and for perjurythese who give false testimony. 10.__________ 2003年改错真题Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwarperiod were more eager than ever to establish families. They quicklybrought down the age at marriage for both men and women and broughtthe 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 largefamilies that went for more than two decades and caused a major 3.___________but tem porary reversal of long-term demographic patterns. Fromthe 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 who 6._________ formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced the 7._________ divorce rate after a postwar peak; their marriages remained intact toa greater extent than did that of couples who married in earlier as well 8.__________as late r decades. Since the United States maintained its dubious 9.__________ distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world, thetemporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in 10._________ Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role ofbreadwinner and homemaker was not abandoned.2002年改错真题There are great impediments to the general use of a standardin 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 2.____________ our speech sounds like when we speak out, and it often 3.____________ comes as a shock when we firstly hear a recording of ourselves. 4.____________ It is not a voice we recognize at once, whereas our own handwritingis something which we almost always know. We begin the “natural” 5.___________ learning of pronunciation long before we start learning to read orwrite, and in our early years we went on unconsciously imitating and 6.___________ practicing the pronunciation of those around us for many more hoursper every day than we ever have to spend learning even our difficult 7.__________ English spelling. This is “natural” therefore, that our speech-sounds 8.__________ should be those of our immediate circle; after all, as we have seen,speech operates as a means of holding a community and 9.__________ giving a sense of “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.__________ 2001年改错真题During the early years of this century, wheat was seen as the verylifeblood of Western Canada. People on city streets watched the yieldsand the price of wheat in almost as much feeling as if they were growers. 1.________ The marketing of wheat became an increasing favorite topic of conversation.2.______ War set the stage for the most dramatic events in marketing thewestern crop. For years, farmers mistrusted speculative grain sellingas carried on through the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. Wheat priceswere generally low in the autumn, so farmers could not wait for 3.____________ markets to improve. It had happened too often that they sold their wheatsoon shortly after harvest when farm debts were coming due, 4.____________ just to see prices rising and speculators getting rich. On various occasions,5.________ producer groups, asked firmer control, but the government had no wish to 6.________ become involving, at least not until wartime when wheat prices threatened7.________ to run wild.Anxious to check inflation and rising life costs, the federal 8.___________ government appointed a board of grain supervisors to deal with deliveriesfrom 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 9._________ 1919, the government appointed the first Canadian Wheat Board,with total authority to buy, sell, and set prices. 10.___________ 2000年改错真题The grammatical words which play so large a part in Englishgrammar are for the most part sharply and obviously differentfrom the lexical words. A rough and ready difference which mayseem the most obvious is that grammatical words have“ less 1.___________ meaning”, but in fact some grammarians have called them 2.___________ “empty” words as opposed in the “full” words of vocabulary. 3.__________ But this is a rather misled way of expressing the distinction. 4.__________ Although a word like the is not the name of something as man is,it is very far away from being meaningless; there is a sharp 5.__________ difference in meaning between “man is vile and” “the man isvile”, yet the is the single vehicle of this diff erence in meaning. 6.___________ Moreover, grammatical words differ considerably amongthemselves 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 weconsider that we have lexical words as go, man, say, car. Apart 9.___________ from this, however, there is a good deal of truth in what somepeople say: we certainly do create a great number of obscurity 10.__________ when we omit them. This is illustrated not only in the poetry ofRobert Browning but in the prose of telegrams and newspaper headlines.1999年改错真题The hunter-gatherer tribes that today live as our prehistoric 1.____________ human ancestors consume primarily a vegetable diet supplementing 2.____________ with animal foods. An analysis of 58 societies of modem hunter-gatherers, including the Kung of southern Africa, revealed that onehalf emphasize gathering plant foods, one-third concentrate onfishing and only one-sixth are primarily hunters. Overall, two-thirdsand more of the hunter-gatherer’s calories come from plants. Detailed 3.__________ studies of the Kung by the food scientists at the University ofLondon, showed that gathering is a more productive source of foodthan is hunting. An hour of hunting yields in average about 100 4.___________ edible calories, as an hour of gathering produces 240. 5.__________ Plant foods provide for 60 percent to 80 percent of the Kung 6.___________ diet, and no one goes hungry when the hunt fails. Interestingly, ifthey escape fatal infections or accidents, these contemporaryaborigines live to old ages despite of the absence of medical care. 7.___________ They experience no obesity, no middle-aged spread, little dentaldecay, no high blood pressure, on heart disease, and their bloodcholesterol levels are very low( about half of the average 8.__________ American adult), if no one is suggesting what we return to 9.___________an aboriginal life style, we certainly could use their eating habitsas a model for healthier diet.1998年改错真题。