TEXT A
　　The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photograph’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defence of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.
　　Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. They are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.
　　Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art. For example, those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting. Much of photography’s prestige today derives from the convergence of its aims with those of recent art, particularly with the dismissal of abstract art implicit in the phenomenon of Pop painting during the 1960’s. Appreciating photographs is a relief to sensibilities tired of the mental exertions demanded by abstract art. Classical Modernist painting—that is, abstract art as developed in different ways by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matisse—presupposes highly developed skills of looking and a familiarity with other paintings and the history of art. Photography, like Pop painting, reassures viewers that art is not hard; photography seems to be more about its subjects than about art.
　　Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—in short, an art.
　　1. What is the author mainly concerned with?
　　2. Why does the author introduce Abstract Expressionist painter?
　　3. How did the nineteenth-century defenders of photography stress the photography?
　　4. Could you name a few of the Classical Modernist painters?
　　5. what does the author want to tell us by saying “Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such.”(para. 2)
　　Text B:
　　Pop stars today enjoy a style of living which was once the prerogative only of Royalty. Wherever they go, people turn out in their thousands to greet them. The crowds go wild trying to catch a brief glimpse of their smiling, colorfully dressed idols. The stars are transported in their chauffeur driven Rolls-Royces, private helicopters or executive aeroplanes. They are surrounded by a permanent entourage of managers, press agents and bodyguards. Photographs of them appear regularly in the press and all their comings and goings are reported, for, like Royalty, pop stars are news. If they enjoy many of the privileges of Royalty, they certainly share many of the inconveniences as well. It is dangerous for them to make unscheduled appearances in public. They must be constantly shielded from the adoring crowds which idolize them. They are no longer private individuals, but public property. The financial rewards they receive for this sacrifice cannot be calculated, for their rates of pay are astronomical.
　　And why not? Society has always rewarded its top entertainers lavishly. The great days of Hollywood have become legendary: famous stars enjoyed fame, wealth and adulation on an unprecedented scale. By today’s standards, the excesses of Hollywood do not seem quite so spectacular. A single gramophone record nowadays may earn much more in royalties than the films of the past ever did. The competition for the title ‘Top of the Pops’ is fierce, but the rewards are truly colossal.
　　It is only right that the stars should be paid in this way. Don’t the top men in industry earn enormous salaries for the services they perform to their companies and their countries? Pop stars earn vast sums in foreign currency – often more than large industrial concerns – and the taxman can only be grateful fro their massive annual contributions to the exchequer. So who would begrudge them their rewards?
　　It’s all very well for people in humdrum jobs to moan about the successes and rewards of others. People who make envious remarks should remember that the most famous stars represent only the tip of the iceberg. For every famous star, there are hundreds of others struggling to earn a living. A man working in a steady job and looking forward to a pension at the end of it has no right to expect very high rewards. He has chosen security and peace of mind, so there will always be a limit to what he can earn. But a man who attempts to become a star is taking enormous risks. He knows at the outset that only a handful of competitors ever get to the very top. He knows that years of concentrated effort may be rewarded with complete failure. But he knows, too, that the rewards for success are very high indeed: they are the recompense for the huge risks involved and if he achieves them, he has certainly earned them. That’s the essence of private enterprise.
　　6. Why does the writer believe that Pop stars’style of living could be compared to that of Royalty?
　　7. The word “astronomical” in para. one means____.
　　8. In what way has the society rewarded its top entertainers lavishly?
　　9. What does “the tip of the iceberg” mean in the sentence “People who make envious remarks should remember that the most famous stars represent only the tip of the iceberg” ? (para.4)
　　10.What is the writer’s attitude towards the topic?
　　Part III  Proofreading & Error Correction (1’X10=20’)
　　The passage contains 10 errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way:
　　For a wrong word,  underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.
　　For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.
　　For an unnecessary word,  cross the unnecessary work with a slash “/” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.
　　EXAMPLE
　　When ∧ art museum wants a new exhibit, it (1) when∧art加入an
　　never buys things in finished form and hangs
　　(2)   删去never
　　them on the wall. When a natural history museum
　　wants an exhibition, it must often build it. (3) exhibition改成exhibit
　　The grammatical words which play so large a part in English grammar are for the most part sharply and obviously different from the lexical words. A rough and ready difference which may seem the most obvious is that grammatical words have “less
　　(1)_____________
　　meaning”, but in fact some grammarians have called  (2)_____________
　　them “empty” words as opposed in the “full” words (3)_____________
　　of vocabulary.  But this is a rather misled way of  (4)_____________
　　expressing the distinction.  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 is vile”, yet the is the single vehicle of this
　　(6)_____________
　　difference in meaning. Moreover, grammatical words differ considerably among themselves as the amount
　　(7)_____________
　　of meaning they have even in the lexical sense. Another name for the grammatical words has been “little words.” But size is by no mean a good criterion
　　(8)_____________
　　for distinguishing the grammatical words of English, when we consider that we have lexical words as go,
　　(9)_____________
　　man, say, car. Apart from this, however, there is a good deal of truth in what some people say: we certainly do create a great number of obscurity when we omit them. This is illustrated not only in the poetry of Robert Browning but in the prose of telegrams and newspaper headlines.
　　(10)_____________
　　Part IV Writing (30’)
　　Oscar Wilde said he felt sorry for those who never got their heart’s desire, but sorrier still for those who did. It seems to be a paradox. What’s your understanding of it? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
　　You should write at least 400 words. You are required to support your ideas with relevant information and examples based on your own knowledge and experience.