英语专业八级考试人文知识题目训练

英语专业八级考试人文知识题目训练

Test 1

1. In Britain, where does the Changing of the Guard take place? a. Buckingham Palace. b. Downing Street c. Victoria and Albert Museum d. The Tower of London. 2. What is a double-decker? a. A bus b. A chocolate bar c. A Taxi d. A two-storey building 3. Of all the symbols, ______, which are considered to represent fertility and new life, are those most frequently associated with Easter. a. the pumpkin and the turkey b. the lamb and the beef c. the spring peas and the potatoes d. the egg and the rabbit

4. The first landing by Europeans in Australia was in 1606, but what is their nationality? a. Dutch b. French c. Spanish d. British 5. Middle English was used by the poet _______. a. Hardy b. Chaucer c. Shakespeare d. Milton 6. “A Tale of Two Cities” was written by _______. a. William Shakespeare b. Geoffrey Chaucer c. Charles Dickens d. Thomas Jefferson

7. Emily Dickinson wrote many short poems on various aspects of life. Which of the following is not a usual subject of her poetic expression? a. Religion and immortality b. Life and death c. Love and marriage d. War and peace 8. What three components, generally, make up a system of a typical language? a. Phonology, syntax, semantics. b. Semiosis, syntax, frames c. Frames, semantics, utterances. d. Sign, sign, signs. 9. Of the following word-formation processes, _______is the most productive. a. clipping b. blending c. initialism d. derivation 10. “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Is an example of _______. a. metonymy b. transferred epithet c. oxymoron d. metaphor Test 2

1. What is the affectionate name given to the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, Westminster? a. Big Ben b. Big Ken c. big Bill d. Big Bob 2. Which of these sports did not originate in UK? a. Cricket b. Snooker c. Football (Soccer) d. Golf 3. Which town has been nicknamed “Tinseltown” by the Americans? a. New Orleans b. Reno c. Hollywood d. Las Vegas 4. What is the other official language in Canada besides English and what is Canada’s capital? a. French, Ottawa b. Spanish, Ottawa c. Spanish, Toronto d. French, Toronto 5. Which English poet wrote of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden in Paradise Lost? a. John Donne b. John Milton c. Sir Philip Sidney d. Edmund Spenser

6. _______ died of tuberculosis at the age of 26, but not before leaving an impressive body of poems, including “To Autumn” and Ode on Melancholy”. a. John Keats b. Lord Byron c. Samuel Taylor Coleridge d. Percy Bysshe Shelley 7. Walt Whitman was a pioneering figure of American poetry. His innovation first of all lies in his use of _______, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. a. Blank verse b. Heroic couplet c. Free verse d. Iambic pentameter 8. Of the following words, _______ is an initialism.

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a. VOA b. NATO c. BASIC d. UNESCO 9. Which of the following words is NOT formed through clipping? a. Dorm b. Motel c. Gent d. Zoo

10. A regional variety of a language that has variations in pronunciation, vocabulary or meaning is called _______. a. accent b. slang c. dialect d. narrative

Test 3

1. The Channel Tunnel, linking the UK to the rest of Europe, runs between England and _______. a. France b. Germany c. Belgium d. Netherlands 2. What’s the name of the day set apart in USA for planting trees? a. Earth Day b. Ann Arbor Day c. Arbor Day d. Green Day 3. What was the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to New England in 1620? a. Golden Hinde b. Sunflower c. Mayflower d. Titanic 4. What are the official colours of Australia? a. Red, White and Blue b. Green and Gold c. Green and Brown d. Green and Red 5. _______ is the first important governess novel in the English literary history a. Jane Eyre b. Emma c. Wuthering Heights d. Middlemarch 6. _______ was a pre-Romantic writer and is best known for his Scottish songs. a. Sir Walter Scott b. Robert burns c. Samuel Taylor Coleridge d. William Blake 7. Mark Twain did Not write _______. a. The Prince and the Pauper b. The Old Curiosity Shop c. Pudd’nhead Wilson d. Tom Sawyer 8. Which of the following is not a dialect of English? a. Slang b. Buffalo c. American d. Southern 9. Some words in the basic word stock are said to be stable because they _______. a. are complex words b. are technical words c. refer to the commonest things in life d. denote the most important concepts 10. What is defined as “the study of sentence structure”? a. Syntax b. Phonology c. Morphology d. Semantics

Text 4

1. What colour is the British classified business telephone directory? a. Yellow b. White c. Blue d. Pink 2. What does IMF stand for? a. International Monetary Foundation. B. International Monetary Fund c. Internal Money Foundation d. Internal Monetary Fund 3. What do Americans celebrate on 4th July? a. Thanksgiving day b. The Revolution c. The Discovery of America d. Independence Day 4. What is Canada’s national animal? a. Beaver b. Moose c. Bear d. Husky 5. Which play by Shakespeare is not a tragedy? a. Titus Andronicus b. Pericles, Prince of Tyre c. Coriolanus d. Timon of Athens 6. What is the book Lord of the Flies about? a. A road trip around the USA b. A swarm of killer flies c. Schoolboys on a desert island d. An expert pilot

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7. a. Nathaniel Hawthorne did not write _______. a. The Scarlet Letter b. Twice Told Tales c. The Blithedale Romance d. Vanity Fair 8. Morphology is _______. a. how a word’s meaning evolves over time b. the way a language builds words by putting small, meaningful units together c. how a word’s spelling evolves over time d. in what order words are put in a sentence

9. Which of the following words can be described as containing an affricate? a. Pill b. Huffle c. Hammer d. Budged 10. The word _______ is usually not used by British people. a. tube b. put c. railroad d. taxi

Test 5

1. In the United Kingdom, ministers are appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of _______. a. the Speaker b. the Lord Chancellor c. The Duke of Edinburgh d. the Prime Minister 2. Who was the first person to walk on the moon? a. John Glenn b. Clint Eastwood c. Neil Armstrong d. Yuri Gagarin 3. How many states are there in the US? a. 49 b. 50 c. 51 d. 52 4. What is the title of Canada’s national anthem? a. True Patriot Love b. God Save the Queen c. Canada My Country d. O Canada 5. Who wrote “Where ignorance is bless, it is folly to be wise”? a. Browning b. Marx c. Shakespeare d. Kipling 6. _______ is the author of “To a Skylark” a. Mary Lamb b. John Keats c. Percy Bysshe Shelley d. Lord Byron

7. Henry David Thoreau’s work, _______, has always been regarded as a masterpiece of New England Transcendentalism. a. Walden b. The pioneers c. Nature d. Song of Myself 8. What is etymology? a. The history of a word b. The various ways in which a word can be pronounced. c. The study of unwritten languages. d. The study of dead languages.

9. _______ are bound morphemes because they cannot be used as separate words. a. Roots b. Stems c. Affixes d. Compounds 10. What is the dominant accent in the United States? a. Midwest b. General American c. Southern d. Canadian

Test 6

1. The vegetable, leek, is the emblem for which part of the UK? a. Wales b. Northern Ireland c. Scotland d. England 2. John Lennon is a member of the band of _______ in the 1960s. a. The Beatles b. The Police c. The Rolling Stones d. The Eagles 3. What is the title of the United States of America’s national anthem? a. America the Beautiful b. We Are the Champions c. God Bless America d. The Star Spangled Banner

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4. How many territories are there in Canada? a. 4 b. 2 c. 3 d. 1

5. In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift describes the island of the Houyhnhnms as the world’s most perfect society. What kind of animals are the Houyhnhnms? a. Monkeys b. Fish c. Dogs d. Horses 6. In which century were Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales written? a. Fourteenth b. Fifteenth c. Sixteenth d. Seventeenth

7. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the literary scene, _______ became the major trend in American literature in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century. a. sentimentalism b. romanticism c. realism d. naturalism 8. To which of these language groups does English belong? a. Romance b. Germanic c. Slavonic d. Baltic 9. “Present” and “absent” form a pair of _______. a. conversives b. gradable antonyms c. complementary antonyms d. marked antonyms

10. The morpheme is the smallest syntactical unit. How many morphemes does the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” have? a. 1 b. 5 c. 7 d. 6

Text 7

1. What is the name of the famous stadium in the north of London? a. Wembley b. Westminster c. Wimbledon d. Webster 2. What would you do with a “toad-in-the-hole”? a. Let it out. b. Sing it c. Eat it d. Play it.

3. Martin Luther King Jr., a young black clergyman, became a national leader of the _______ Movement. a. Boycott b. Civil Rights c. Segregation d. Integration 4. The majority of French-speaking Canadians live in _______. a. New Brunswick b. Ontario c. Quebec d. Nova Scotia\\ 5. Sir Thomas More coined the word “Utopia. What does the word mean in Greek? a.Nowhere land b. God’s blessings c. Kingdom in the sky d. Free from all sorrow

6. Where did Aldous Huxley get the title for Brave New World, which presents a chilling vision of a supposedly

ideal society? b a. The Bible’s Book of Psalms b. Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” c. Homer’s “Odyssey” d. Christopher Columbus’ journals 7. The Hemingway Code heroes are best remembered for their _______. a a. indestructible spirit b. pessimistic view of life c. war experiences d. masculinity 8. Which of the following does affect the register that we speak in? d a. Conversational partner b. Context c. Social status d. Gender

9. What is the smallest segment of sound that comprises the basic building blocks of a language?\\ d a. Morphemes b. Teramemes c. Metamemes d. Phonemes 10. The ambiguity in “Pass the port” is caused by _______. d a. lexical items b. a grammatical structure c. homonymy d. polysemy

Test 8

1. Which of these is the patron saint of Wales? b a. St. Patrick b. St. David c. St. Andrew d. St. George

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2. Where is the official residence of the British Prime Minister? b a. Constitution Hi.. b. Downing Street c. Whitehall Palace d. The Strand 3. Which American president freed the slaves?\\ c a. Thomas Jefferson b. George Washington c. Abraham Lincoln d. Bill Clinton 4. Who said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”? d a. Bill Clinton b. George Washington c. Richard Nixon d. Thomas Jefferson 5. Who was the author of the famous storybook Alice’s adventures in Wonderland? c a. Rudyard Kipling b. John Keats c. Lewis carol d. H. G. Wells. 6. Sonnets from the _______ is regarded as Elizabeth Barrett Browing’s best work. b a. Spanish b. Portuguese c. French d. Italian 7. Chinese poetry and philosophy have exerted great influence over _______. a a. Ezra Pound b. Ralph Waldo Emerson c. Robert Frost d. Emily Dickinson 8. The dictionary of a language can be called _______. c a. pragmatics b. semantics c. lexicon d. grammar 9. Which of the following is not associated with “Parentese” (how an adult talks to a child)? c a. Yes or no questions b. High pitch c. Long sentences d. Exaggerated intonation 10. The group of words _______ make up a semantic field. c a. “father, teacher, son, brother” b. “red, white, rose, milk” c. sorrow, grief, anguish, regret? d. “socks, slippers, shoes, glass”

Test 9

1. Which famous writer was born in Stratford-upon-Avon? a. Geoffrey Chaucer b. Agatha Christie c. William Shakespeare d. Thomas Hardy 2. In which year was the independence from England declared? a. 1679 b. 1876 c. 1776 d. 1779 3. Which of these U. S. A. states has been frequently called “the armpit of the Nation”? a. New Jersey b. Washington c. Maine d. Montana 4. Which of the following is Canada’s national symbol? a. Sunflower b. Maple leaf c. Golden wattle d. Rose 5. How many lines does a sonnet have? a. 10 b. 12 c. 14 d. They vary

6. _______ is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare, and his representative works are plays inspired by social criticism. a. Richard Sheridan b. Oliver Goldsmith c. Oscar Wilde d. Bernard Shaw 7. _______ is the title of the 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. a. Spiderman b. Dracula c. Frankenstein d. The Mummy 8. The four major modes of semantic changes are _______. a. Extension, narrowing, elevation and degradation b. Extension, generalization, elevation and degradation c. Extension, narrowing, specialization and degradation d. Extension, elevation, amelioration and degradation

9. _______ deals with the distinctive sounds that are combined to make words. a. Lexicon b. Morphology c. Phonology d. Semantics 10. “Vacuum-clean” resulting from “vacuum-cleaner” is an example of _______. a. clipping b. reduplication c. compounding d. back-formation

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Test 10

1. The Hundred Years’ War in the history was between England and _______. a. France b. Norway c. Denmark d. Germany 2. Which of the following countries was once called a big empire “on which the sun never sets”? a. America b. Norway c. Spain d. Britain 3. A Parliament in Britain has a maximum duration of _______ years. a. 2 b. 3 c. 4 d. 5 4. Which of the following is not a tragedy by Shakespeare? a. Romeo and Juliet b. Hamlet c. King Lear d. The Taming of the Shrew 5. Who is generally regarded as the greatest writer in the English language? a. Shakespeare b. Hemingway c. Chaucer d. Mark Twain 6. Which of the following is a chronicle play by Shakespeare? a. Julius Caesar b. The Twelfth Night c. A Midsummer Night’s Dream d. As You Like It 7. _______ is the branch of linguistics which studies meaning in language. a. Phonology b. Morphology c. Syntax d. Semantics 8. _______ is the branch of linguistics which studies meaning in language. a. Phonology b. Morphology c. Syntax d. Semantics 9. “Alive” and “dead” are _______ antonyms. a. relational b. gradable c. symmetric d. complementary 10. _______ is the study of the production, transmission, and reception of speech sounds. a. Phonology b. Morphology c. Syntax d. Phonetics

Test 11

1. Which university is the oldest one in Britain? a. Oxford b. Cambridge c. Edinburgh d. Glasgow 2. The Reuters is a famous news agency in _______. a. France b. Germany c. America d. Britain 3. The most typically English of sports is _______. a. soccer b. cricket c. horse racing d. golf 4. “The Red Badge of Courage” was written by _______. a. Jack London b. Stephen Crane c. Hamilin Garland d. S. Anderson 5. Fitzgerald’s first novel was _______. a. The Beautiful and Damned b. This Side of Paradise c. The Great Gatsby d. Tender Is Night 6. The theme of The Waste Land is _______. a. love b. spiritual quest for salvation c. death d. nature 7. Wallace Stevens was a successful _______.] a. poet b. essayist c. novelist d. critic 8. Chinese is a(n) _______ language. a. isolating b. agglutinative c. fusional d. incorporating 9. _______ validity refers to the extent to which the best adequately covers the syllabus area to be tested. a. Content b. Construct c. Empirical d. Face 10. Sentence (a) “He married a blonde heiress.” _______ sentence (b) “He married a blonde.” a. presupposes b. implicates c. entails d. negates

Test 12

1. The singing group the Beatles was formed in _______.

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a. the early 1960s b. the early 1970s c. the late 1960s d. the late 1970s 2. The most popular sport in England is _______. a. soccer b. cricket c. rugby d. golf 3. _______ is the base where America originated a. the Midwest b. the South c. the Great Plains d. New England 4. Napoleon sold the _______ Territory to the United States for only 15 million dollars. a. Colorado b. Louisiana c. New Mexico d. Texas 5. _______ introduced the technique of the stream of consciousness in his writing. a. Shakespeare b. James Joyce c. Thomas Hardy d. William 6. Edgar Allan Poe was a _______. a. novelist and critic b. poet and critic c. novelist and poet d. playwright and novelist 7. _______ was called “inventor of detective stories”. a. Washington Irving b. Fennimore Cooper c. Edgar Allan Poe d. Nathaniel Hawthorne 8. _______ are of the complementary type of antonyms. a. Sell-buy b. Long-short c. Good-bad d. Single-married 9. Which is created by cutting the initial part of a word? a. Van b. Prof c. Bike d. Telly

10. The word “holiday” originally meant holy day, but now the word signifies any day on which we do not have to work. This is an example of _______. a. meaning shift b. widening of meaning c. narrowing of meaning d. loss of meaning

Test 13.

1. _______ was the president of the United States during the Great Depression. a. Thomas Jefferson b. John F. Kennedy c. Franklin Roosevelt d. Truman 2. _______ was involved in the Watergate Scandal. a. Nixon b. Roosevelt c. Truman d. Ford 3. The Presidency Election is held every _______ years in America. a. 2 b. 3 c. 4 d. 6 4. The Master’s colleges and universities in America offer _______ degrees. a. BA b. Master’s c. BA and Master’s d. doctoral 5. “Scarlet Letter” is one of the greatest American novels. It is written by _______. a. Nathaniel Hawthorne b. Wallace Steven c. Francis d. Willa Cather 6. _______ was the first to explore fully the possibility of free verse in American history of literature. a. Ralph Waldo b. Stephen Crane c. Walt Whitman d. Robert Frost 7. Mark Twain was well-known as a _______. a. critic b. humorist c. poet d. playwright 8. Which is not a blending word? a. baby-sit b. transistor c. motel d. smog 9. The thematic role which deliberately performs the action described by the verb is _______. a. instrument b. source c. agent d. theme

10. Which of the following languages does not belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family? a. Italian b. English c. German d. Dutch

Test 14

1. Which of the following American higher education institution does not offer BA degree? a. Junior Colleges b. Research universities

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c. Doctoral universities d. Master’s colleges and universities 2. Yale and Harvard Universities are funded by the following except _______. a. the tuition fees paid by the students b. the donations by corporations and religious organizations c. individuals’ donations d. the governments at all levels

3. The unique contribution to architecture by Americans was the _______ in the late 19th century. a. skyscraper b. expressway c. bridges d. tall towers 4. Theodore Dreiser was the representative of the _______. a. transcendentalists b. modernists c. naturalists d. existentialists 5. “The Waste Land” was written by _______. a. Thomas Stearns Eliot b. Walt Whitman c. Emily Dickinson d. Robert Frost 6. Which of the following American writers did not win a Nobel Prize for Literature? a. Ernest Hemingway b. T.S. Eliot c. John Steinbeck d. Richard Wright 7. The word “_______” does not have the semantic property of “cause”. a. darken b. kill c. uglify d. touch 8. _______ is/are not included in Pragmatics. a. Speech acts b. Presuppositions c. Dexis d. Pronunciation 9. _______ is defined as the study of language in use and linguistic communication. a. Pragmatics b. Sociolinguistics c. Neurolinguistics d. Contextual linguistics 10. _______ carry semantic content. a. Grammatical words b. Form words c. Lexical words d. Functions

Test 15

1. Elvis Presley was the representative of _______ in American history. a. country music b. disco c. jazz d. rock’ n’ roll 2. Thanksgiving Day is on the _______ Thursday in November a. 1st b. 2nd c. 3rd d. 4th 3. The National Day of the American people is on _______. a. June 4 b. July 4 c. June 14 d. July 14 4. “Invisible Man” probes the existential status of a _______. a. Jewish b. Negro c. White d. Hispanic 5. Which of the following is a woman writer? a. Ralph Ellison b. Saul Bellow c. James Baldwin d. Willa Cather 6. “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” was written by _______ a. Sherwood Anderson b. William Faulkner c. Eugene O’Neil d. Bernard Shaw 7. Which of the following was not written by Ernest Hemingway? a. The Sun Also Rises b. For Whom the Bell Tolls c. Tender is the Night d. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place 8. Which of the following words are minimal pairs? a. beg, bag b. my, fly c. Cat, slight d. it, intelligent 9. “Man” and “men” are _______ allomorphs. a. replacive b. suppletive c. zero d. positional

10. _______ includes the study of linguistic variation, linguistic change, and sociocultural factors that influence language use. a. Pragmatics b. Sociolinguistics c. Neurolinguistics d. Contextual linguistics

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Test 16.

1. The longest city in Canada is A_______. a. Toronto b. Montreal c. Vancouver d. Quebec City 2. English is the language most commonly spoken throughout Canada Except _______. a. Toronto b. Montreal c. Vancouver d. Quebec 3. Today in Canada, services in almost all modern institutions work in _______. a. English b. English and French c. English and Spanish d. English and Dutch 4. Fitzgerald usually dealt with the double theme of _______. a. hatred and love b. hatred and war c. love and money d. money and death 5. The Sound and Fury was written by _______. a. Sinclair Lewis b. Theodore Dreiser c. F. Scott d. William Faulkner 6. Main Street is a masterpiece of _______. a. transcendentalism b. naturalism c. modernism d. provincialism 7. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a _______ poem. a. dramatic b. meditative c. satirical d. philosophical 8. _______ deals with the analysis and creation of words, idioms, and collocations. a. Morphology b. Lexicon c. Morphophonology d. Morphophonemics 9. Which of the following is not a fricative a. /f/ b. /v/ c. /s/ d. /tr/

10. An artificial language used for trade between speakers of different languages is called a _______. a. pidgin b. lingua franca c. creole d. slang

Keys

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