上海大学2007年攻读硕士学位研究生入学考试
综合英语试题
Section 1: Reading Comprehension (36 points)
Directions: In this ction, you will find two passages each of which is followed by some questions. Read the passages carefully and then answer the questions in our own words on the answer sheet. Remember that each answer should be limited to less than ten words in order to be valid.
Question1-9
Perhaps the earliest forerunner of writing is a system of clay counting tokens ud in the ancient Middle East. The tokens date from 8000 to 3000BC and are shaped like disks, cones, spheres, and other shapes. They were stored in clay containers marked with a nearly version of cuneiform writing, to indicate what tokens were inside. Cuneiform was one of the first forms of writing and was pictographic, which symbols reprenting objects. It dev
eloped as a written language in Assyria from 3000 to 1000BC. Cuneiform eventually acquired ideographic elements associated with it.
小猪噜噜The oldest known examples of script-style writing date from 3000BC; papyrus sheets from 2700 to 2500BC have been found in the Nile Delta in Egypt bearing written hieroglyphs, another pictographic-ideographic form of writing.
Chine began as a pictographic-ideographic written language perhaps as early as the 15th century BC. Today, written Chine includes some phonetic elements as well. The Chine writing system is called logographic becau each of the full symbols or characters reprents a word. Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs eventually incorporated phonetic elements. In syllabic systems, such as Japane and Korean, written symbols stand for spoken syllable.
The alphabet, invented in the Middle East, was carried by the Phoenicians to Greece, where vowel sounds were added to it. Alphabet characters stand for phonetic sounds and can be combined in an almost infinite variety of words. Many modern languages, such as
English, German, French, and Russian, are alphabetic languages.
1. When and where did the earliest form of writing probably originate?
2. 面膜10大品牌What does the term〝英菲尼迪标志pictographic〞 most probably mean?
3. What characterizes an ideographic language?
4. What is a hieroglyphs?
5. What is cuneiform?
6. Do written symbols reprent spoken syllable sounds in Korean?
7. Is Chine mostly a pictographic or logographic language?
8. 无法找到Who invented the alphabet?
9. What characterizes an alphabetic language?
Question 10-18
清代历史
The centenary the birth of William Faulkner, one of the great modern novelists, was celebrated in September, 1997, Faulkner wrote about the southern states of the United States of America where he grew up, and where his family had an important part to play in the history of that region. His work became a touchstone for insights into the troubled issues of southern American identity, race relations, and the family interrelationships of the old-time southern gentry, Faulkner was also a technically advanced writer, introducing a narrative en form veral points of view in his novel. The Sound and the Fury and using an imaginative approach of 59 monologues by various characters in As I Lay Dying.
When Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, it was due recognition for a writer with a long and productive career. Faulkner had already produced such major works as the novels Flag in the Dust (1929), The Sound and the Fury 纷纷落下(1929), As I Lay Dying元宵节的起源简介 (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom (1936), followed by three novels about the Snopes family, short stories, including Faulkner’s most reprinted work〝The Bear〞, and a novel focud on race issues, Intruder in the Dust (1948)
When Faulkner accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm in December 1950, his speech emphasized that he wished to continue writing, but in a positive way that affirmed the power of humanity to prevail over adver circumstances. As he said in his speech, he still felt that, despite the threat of nuclear war then hanging over the world, the central concern of the writer should be“ the problems of the human heart in conflict with itlf”.He wanted the tensions and problems that he had cast the spotlight on in the southern states of America to be resolved by the life-affirming attitudes and actions of his characters.
In the years following that speech, Faulkner绿豆芽怎么炒好吃’s work often adopted a lighter, more conciliatory tone. His story A Fable(1954), an allegory which placed Jesus Christ at the heart of World WarⅠ, won for the 57-year-old writer a Pulitzer Prize, an award he also received for his novel The Reivers(1962). The Reivers was Faulkner’s last novel, published in the year that he died after injuring himlf in a fall from a hor. He was admitted to hospital in Oxford and died aged 64 on July 6, 1962 of a heart attack.
Like playwright Tenne Williams, Faulkner was a major voice who spoke for the troubled heart of the southern states of America. His achievement is all the more remarkable becau, as a schoolboy, he was not only a frequent truant but also reportedly failed to each pass grades in English class. His collected short stories, novels, allegorical stories and other writing form a legacy of literature which casts profound illumination on the special culture of the South.
