2017年英语专八真题听力-附原文和答案

三部分：听力试题选项、听力原文、答案

一、听力试题选项

PARTI  LISTENING COMPREHENSION   [25 MIN]

SECTION A MINI-LECTURE

In this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the mini-lecture ONCE ONLY.

While listening to the mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for note-taking.

You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.

Now listen to the mini-lecture. When it is over, you will be given THREE minutes to check your work.

SECTION B INTERVIEW
In this section you will hear ONE interview. The interview will be divided into TWO parts. At the end of each part, five questions will be asked about what was said. Both the interview and the questions will be spoken once only. After each question there will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of A, B, C and D, and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.

You have THIRTY seconds to preview the questions.
Now listen to Part One of the interview. 

二、听力原文

The Modes of Language

Good morning, everyone!

In our last lecture, I was talking about language as part of our semiotic system.

And today I am going to move on to another topic, that is, the modes of language.

As you may know, messages are transmitted in human language most frequently through two primary modes: speech and writing.

Well, you know, there is also a third mode, which is not that frequently used as speech and writing.

The third mode is called signing, which is used by deaf people.

But in today's lecture, we will just focus on speech and writing, and the specific features of these two modes.

In linguistics, it is commonly noted that speech is primary and writing secondary.

Linguistics take this position because all languages are spoken except those dead languages such as Latin, which is only existent in written form.

All children will naturally acquire the spoken version of a language if they are exposed to it.

They acquire the spoken form of their mother tongue during the formative period of language acquisition.

However, to become literate, a child will need some kind of formal schooling in reading and writing.

In many respects, we might call speech "primary" and writing "secondary".

It implies that writing has a second-class status when compared with speech.

In fact, it is more accurate to view the two modes as having different but complementary roles.

For instance, in most legal systems, while an oral contract is legally binding, a written contract is preferred.

The reason is simple—unlike speech, writing provides a permanent record of the contract.

Thus, if the terms of the contract are disputed, the written record of the contract can be consulted and interpreted.

Disputes over an oral contract will involve one person's recollection of the contract versus another person's.

While writing may be the preferred mode for a contract, in many other contexts, speech will be more appropriate.

Because the most common type of speech—face-to-face conversation—is highly interactive.

This mode is well-suited to many social contexts, such as casual conversations over lunch, business transactions in a grocery store, discussions between students and teachers in a classroom.

And in these contexts, interactive dialogues have many advantages over writing.

For instance, individuals engaged in conversation can ask for immediate clarification if there is a question about something said;

in a letter to a friend, in contrast, such immediacy is lacking.

When speaking to one another, speakers are face to face and can therefore see how individuals react to what is said.

On the other hand, writing creates distance between writer and reader, preventing the writer from getting any immediate reaction from the reader.

Speech is oral, thus making it possible to use intonation to emphasize words or phrased and express emotion.

Of course, one might say that writing has punctuation.

Well, it can express only a small proportion of the features that intonation has.

Because speech is created "on-line," it is produced quickly and easily.

This may result in many "ungrammatical" constructions, but rarely do these rough sentences cause miscommunications.

You know, if there is a misunderstanding, it can be easily corrected.

On the contrary, writing is much more deliberate.

It require planning, editing and thus taking much more time to produce on the part of the writer.

Because of all these characteristics of writing, if an individual desires a casual, intimate encounter with a friend, he or she is more likely to meet personally than write a letter.

In this case, writing a letter to a friend might turn out to be too formal.

Of course, in today's world, the highly-developed technology has made such encounters possible with "instant messaging" over a computer or a smart phone.

And if someone wishes to have such an encounter with a friend living many miles away, then this kind of on-line written "chat" can mimic a face-to-face conversation.

But because such conversations are a hybrid of speech and writing, they still lack the intimacy and immediacy of a face-to-face conversation.

While speech and writing are often viewed as discrete modes, it is important for us to note that there is a continuum between speech and writing.

While speech is in general more interactive than writing, various kinds of spoken and written English display various degrees of interactivity.

For instance, various linguistic markers of interactive discourse, such as first and second person pronouns, contractions, and private verbs such as think and feel, occurred very frequently in telephone and face-to-face conversations but less frequently in spontaneous speeches, interviews, and broadcasts.

In addition, some kinds of writing, such as academic prose and official documents, exhibited few markers of interactive discourse, but the other kinds of written texts, particularly personal letters, ranked higher on the scale of interactivity than many of the spoken texts.

In other words, how language is structured depends less on whether it is spoken or written but more on how it is being used.

For example, a personal letter, even though it is written, will contain linguistic features marking interactivity because the writer of a letter wishes to interact with the receiver of the letter.

On the other hand, in an interview, the goal is not to interact necessarily but to get information from the person being interviewed.

Therefore, though interviews are spoken, they have fewer markers of interactivity and contain more features typically associated with written texts.

OK, to sum up, we have been dealing with the modes of language in today's lecture.

The two most frequently used modes are speech and writing.

As two different modes of language, speech and writing have their own characteristics.

Speech is a preferred mode in many social contacts where interactivity is needed.

Of course, when a formal stable record is preferred, writing should be an appropriate mode.

Finally, I have also emphasized that there is a continuum between speech and writing.

In the following lecture, we will concentrate on the linguistic structures of language.

Thank you!

【interview1】

M: Good evening, everybody. Despite new promise of aid, international leaders provided disheartening assessments of the current battle against Ebola. The head of the World Bank said the international community—community had "failed miserably" in its initial response. The director of the Center for disease control said the situation reminded him of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. We get our own assessment from one of the few nongovernmental groups treating patients in West Africa. International Medical Corps has built a treatment clinic in Liberia and is constructing other facilities in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. Its president and CEO, Mary Johnson, joins me now. Thank you for joining us.

W: Thank you, Jack.

M: How many beds, how many facilities, how many people would you say that you're engaged in treating now?

W: OK, So, in Liberia, International Medical Corps opened up a 70-bed hospital—or actually we call it a treatment unit. We opened that up in mid-September. We are scaling up and we will be opening up another treatment unit in Sierra Leone. In Liberia, we have about 200 people working in this treatment unit, trying to contain it, as well as treating people who have Ebola, With the hopes that they will recover, and they are recovering when they receive treatment.

M: Do you have any sense that the progress of this disease is being—is slowing?

W: Well, let me say that it's clear that efforts, like ours' and other organization's, are working. When there are treatment efforts, when there are health care workers to treat patients as they come in—I mean, our first patients that arrived to our treatment unit, they died at the doorstep. But now we see that patients are recovering, and they are returning back to their families. So any efforts around treatment and containment are working. The problem and the challenge is that there are just not enough operational efforts on the ground. That's the challenge.

M: Is that because a lack of international action or nongovernmental action, or is it because the infrastructure in these communities is so difficult that even if you sent them 10 pop-up hospitals, they couldn't build them?

W: OK. Well, it's a number of factors. One certainly, the health care infrastructure are very weak in West Africa, under-resourced. They don't have enough health workers. That's one thing. The second thing is the spread wasn't contained more quickly some months ago. International donors are stepping up. In fact, our treatment unit in Liberia was made possible from a grant from US AID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. It took 5 million to open that up and about a million a month. So, part of it is that the resources need to be there, but also people are really afraid. They are afraid to provide treatment because they also need to keep their own health workers safe. And so one of the things that we have done is we have said to other community health people as well as other international NGOs, we will provide case management protocol training. We will train their workers so that they can open up more treatment facilities. The problem we have now is that the disease and the outbreak is being—is outpacing the operational efforts on the ground. There are a lot of plans in place, by the way, to change that, and we're still within that window.

M: Well, Mary, thank you very much for staying with us today.

W: You're welcome.

Questions 1 to 5 are based on what you have just heard.

Q1: What is international leaders' assessment of the current battle against Ebola?

Q2: How many people are now working in the treatment unit in Liberia?

Q3: According to Mary, what is the challenge in the battle against Ebola?

Q4: Why do health workers need case management protocol training?

Q5: What does this interview mainly talk about?

【interview2】

W: Tom, I understand When Havas Media North America hired you early this year to be head of strategy and innovation, it did not include the words "future" of "futurist" in your title, but a large part of your role is understanding where the near and not-so-distant futures of media can be applied and accelerated in ways that give Havas and its clients a competitive advantage.

M: Yes.

W: So, what exactly is your role at Havas?

M: Well, I'm very lucky in that I get paid to think! My role is about understanding the changes in behavior, technology and media, and then to use that information to inspire new thinking and new ideas, and then to bring them to life. It could be anything from what the Internet of things means for our clients, to how mobile coupons could develop. The key is making something from it.

W: What areas of business do you think require the most focus on innovation right now?

M: I think we need to innovate in two very broad areas. First, we need to start working around people and not our own interests or channels. We need to create new processes and structures, and bring in new talent to take advantage of the evolving media landscape. In the same way that television show were plays that were filmed, we've tended to simply repurpose advertising units that were invented several decades ago. Secondly, we need to re-evaluate the role of advertising. For me, media agencies should not be advertising clients on how to spend marketing money, but applying design thinking, creativity, data and consumer understanding to solve client business problems.

W: How do you know which areas to focus on that will actually lead to business results, vs. being interesting, but potentially low-yielding dead-ends?

M: The hardest thing with innovation is that it needs people to take a risk. You can't do anything for the first time if you need to show previous success stories, because by definition it's never been done before. As an industry, we need to focus on our gut feelings and on superb ideas, not just data-supported arguments.

W: What areas do you think are being overlooked by the industry that could be game-changing opportunities in the future?

M: I believe that the industry is going to start targeting at a user level, serving messages directly to consumers. Right now, we still move people to visit websites or either enter some silly competition. Why not use ads to download mobile coupons or send offers to friends, or save locations to bookmark, or make phone calls?

W: How do you reconcile your role between innovating and applying it into strategy?

M: The hardest part of my job is establishing the "focal point". My approach is: first to take a long hard look at the future and see what will be possible one day, and then to consider an entry point that is buyable in the next 4 months, and make it happen.

W: What do you think of other agencies' getting directly into the ventures game to fuel innovation vis-a-vis capital? Or is it best left to professional venture capital firms, or clients to do directly?

M: I think the role of media agencies needs to be about collaboration and openness and fostering creativity, but the key is how that is done, and how we ensure that everything is about the best interests of our clients.

W: OK, Tom. Thanks for being with us.

M: Pleasure.

Questions 6 to 10 are based on what you have just heard.

Q6: What is Tom's main role in his new position?

Q7: According to Tom, what does innovation require of people?

Q8: What does Tom see as game-changing chances in the future?

Q9: What does Tom do first to deal with the toughest part of his work?

Q10: Which of the following might Tom work for?

三、答案：

SECTION A MINI-LECTURE

1. signing

2. primary

3. literacy

4. different but complementary

5. avoiding

6. many other contexts

7. characteristics/features

8. reaction

9. distance

10. emotion

11. deliberate

12. intimacy and immediacy

13. continuum

14. types of language

15. the usage

 

SECTION B  INTERVIEW

1. What is international leaders’ assessment of the current battle against Ebola?

答案：B. Disheartening.

2.How many people are now working in the treatment unit in Liberia?

答案：A. 200.

3.According to Mary, what is the challenge in the battle against Ebola?

答案：D. Insufficient operational efforts on the ground.

4.Why do health workers need case management protocol training?

答案：B. They can open up more treatment units.

5.What does this interview mainly talk about?

 答案：C. Ebola outpacing operational efforts.

6.What is Tom’s main role in his new position?

答案：C. Using media information to inspire new ideas.

7.According to Tom, what does innovation require of people?

答案：B. Being brave and willing to take a risk

8.What does Tom see as game-changing chances in the future?

答案：B. Aiming at a consumer level.

9.What does Tom do first to deal with the toughest part of his work?

答案：D. Examining the future carefully.

10.Which of the following might Tom work for?

答案：A. A media agency.