Preface to the fourth edition

         A practical English Grammar is intended for intermediate(中级的) and post-intermediate students. We hope that more advanced learners and teachers will also find it useful.

         The book is a comprehensive survey of structures and forms, written in clear modern English and illustrated with numerous examples. Areas of particular difficulty have been given special attention. Differences between conversational usage and strict grammatical forms are shown but the emphasis is on conversational forms.

1. Explanation and examples have been brought up to date.

2. There is now more information on countable and uncountable nouns, attributive and predicative adjectives, adverbs of places, sentence adverbs, cleft sentences, prepositions, conjunctives, modal verbs, perfect tenses, infinitive constructions, the passive, purpose clauses and nouns.

In the fourth edition the main changes are as follows.

3. Some material has been rearranged to make comparisons easier. For example, parts of chapters on can, may, must etc. are now grouped by functions; verbs of liking and preference have a chapter to themselves; suggestions and invitations have joined the chapter on commands, requests and advice.

4. The contents list now summaries every edition heading, and there is a new index containing many more entries references.

         In this edition the sign “～” is frequently used to show a change of speaker in examples of dialogue. Note also that although the sign “＝”sometimes connects two words or expressions with the same meaning, it is often used more freely, e.g. to indicate a transformation from active to passive or direct to indirect speech.

         We wish to thank all at Oxford University Press who have assisted in the preparation of the fourth edition. We would also like to thank Professor Egawa of Nihon University, Japan, Professor Rene Dirven of Duisburg University, West Germany and other colleagues for their friendly and helpful suggestions.

         London, November 1985                                                                            A.J.T., A.VM

1.The grammar book mentioned in this passage is not suitable for __________.

A. a middle school teacher                                             B. a college student

C. a senior high student                                                   D. a primary school student

2.According to the passage, we know that this grammar book ___________.

A. compares modern English with old English

B. gives a large number of examples to reduce difficulty

C. attaches more importance to conversational forms

D. pays little attention to strict grammatical forms

3.Which of the following statements about the changes is TRUE?

A. This book keeps up with the latest usages of the American English language.

B. This edition offers more information about pronouns.

C. One particular chapter discusses verbs like “care, like, love, hate, prefer, wish”.

D. It’s not easy for us to find the information we need in this book.

4.When you see this line in the book, “Did you get a ticket? ～Yes, I managed to get one”, we can understand that _______.

A. the two parts before and after the sign “～”mean the same.

B. the topic is changed in the part after the sign “～”.

C. the second speaker repeats what the first speaker says.

D. the two parts before and after “～”are said by two different people.

Disposing（处理）of waste has been a problem since humans started producing it．As more and more people choose to live close together in cities,the waste-disposal problem becomes increasingly difficult．
During the eighteenth century,it was usual for several neighboring towns to get together to select a faraway spot as a dump site．Residents or trash haulers（垃圾拖运者）would transport household rubbish,rotted wood,and old possessions to the site．Periodically some of the trash was burned and the rest was buried．The unpleasant sights and smells caused no problem because nobody lived close by．
Factories,mills,and other industrial sites also had waste to be disposed of．Those located on rivers often just dumped the unwanted remains into the water．Others built huge burners with chimneys to deal with the problem．
Several facts make these choices unacceptable to modern society．The first problem is space Dumps,which are now called landfills,are most needed in heavily populated areas．Such areas rarely have empty land suitable for this purpose．Property is either too expensive or too close to residential neighborhoods．Long-distance trash hauling has been a common practice but once farm areas are refusing to accept rubbish from elsewhere,cheap land within trucking distance of major city areas is almost nonexistent．
Awareness of pollution dangers has resulted in more strict rules of waste disposal．Pollution of rivers,ground water,land and air is a price people can no longer pay to get rid of waste．The amount of waste,however,continues to grow．
Recycling efforts have become commonplace,and many towns require their people to take part．Even the most efficient recycling programs,however,can hope to deal with only about 50 percent of a city’s reusable waste．
【小题1】The most suitable title for this passage would be ______．

Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest and widely loved silent movie stars. From “Easy Street” (1917) to “Modern Times” (1936), he made many of the funniest and most popular films of his time. He was best known for his character, the naive and lovable Little Tramp. The Little Tramp, a well meaning man in a raggedy suit with cane, always found himself wobbling into awkward situations and strangely wobbling away. More than any other figure, it is this kind-hearted character that we associate with the time before the talkies (sound films).
Born in London in 1889, Chaplin first visited America with a theater company in 1907. Appearing as “Billy” in the play “Sherlock Holmes”, the young Chaplin toured the country twice. On his second tour, he met Mack Sennett and was signed to Keystone Studios to act in films. In 1914 Chaplin made his first one-reeler, “Making a Living”. That same year he made thirty-four more short films, including “Caught in a Cabaret”, “Caught in the Rain”, “The Face on the Bar-Room Floor”, and “His Trysting Place”. These early silent shorts allowed very little time for anything but physical comedy, and Chaplin was a master at it.
Though Chaplin is of the silent movie era, we see his achievements carried through in the films of today. With the appearance of the feature-length talkies, the need for more subtle acting became apparent. To maintain the audience’s attention throughout a six-reel film, an actor needed to move beyond constant comedy. Chaplin had demanded this depth long before anyone else. His strictness and concern for the processes of acting and directing made his films great and led the way to a new, more sophisticated, cinema.
【小题1】Which statement is TRUE according to the passage?

(C)
Sometimes people recall past events differently from how they happened. Have you ever confused dates and events from your life, or people’s names? Don’t be too hard on yourself if this is the case; it happens to almost everyone. Every day, our brain processes an amazing amount of information. In fact, all our experiences are based on the way our brain interprets the information it receives from our senses. It is impossible to store all of this information, so some of it gets lost. The parts that remain make up our memories. All our thoughts and memories depend on the way our senses work, and we cannot always trust everything our senses tell us.
If you have ever tried to make your own short film on a digital camera, you will have noticed that the images you record are often blurry(模糊不清). To stop the same thing from happening when we see things with our own eyes, our brain is always filling in the blanks. Before our eyes can even focus on an object, our brain has created its own picture of it so that we can move smoothly from looking at one thing to another without the world looking strange. If we are moving quickly or are not focusing properly, our brain may not correctly guess what is around us.
Memory is the way we store the information that our senses have experienced. As we have discussed above, our senses do not always see things accurately, so our memory is just how we store our interpretations of these experiences. When our brain takes in new experiences, it uses the information we retrieve from our memory as a reference. This means that we often do not remember the details of things but just the important parts. When we look at something, we often do not really look closely at it, but we merely look at the different hints that help us indentify it.
This also happens with our hearing and speaking. It is natural for students of English to confuse the word “kitchen”, with the familiar word “chicken”. As the sounds are similar, the mind mistakenly identifies the new word with the one that is familiar. This is perhaps the most common reason why people make mistakes when they learn a new language. 
72. Sometimes things people remember are quite different from how they really happened because ______.
A. not all people are smart enough                            B. the main part of the information gets lost
C. people are too strict with themselves            D. information was processed incompletely
73. Taking the short film on a digital camera for an example, the author means _____.
A. images recorded by cameras could not be accurate
B. brain may form an imagery picture without reference
C. blurry pictures are caused by too fast camera movements
D. the process of vision is an interpretive construct by the brain
74. The underlined word “retrieve” in Paragraph 3 probably means ______.
A. recall                    B. change            C. borrow                 D. differ
75. Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE in terms of memory?
A. Memory is exactly what senses have experienced.
B. Memories are made up of the information remaining in minds.
C. Memory is the way to store information experienced by senses.
D. Memories sometimes can be obstacles to learning something new.

第二部分：阅读理解（共两节）
第一节：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
We already know the fastest, least expensive way to slow climate change: Use less energy. With a little effort, and not much money, most of us could reduce our energy diets by 25 percent or more—doing the Earth a favor while also helping our wallets．
Not long ago．My wife, PJ, and I tried a new diet—not to lose a little weight but to answer an annoying question about climate change．Scientists have reported recently that the world is heating up even faster than predicted only a few years ago, and that the consequences could be severe if we don’t keep reducing emissions（排放）of carbon dioxide（CO2）and other greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in our atmosphere．
We decided to try an experiment．For one month we recorded our personal emissions of CO2．We wanted to see how much we could cut back, so we went on a strict diet．The average US household produces about 150 pounds of CO2 a day by doing common-place things like turning on air-conditioning or driving cars．That’s more than twice the European average and almost five times the global average, mostly because Americans drive more and have bigger houses．But how much should we try to reduce?
For an answer, I checked with Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth．In his book, he had challenged readers to make deep cuts in personal emissions to keep the world from reaching extremely important tipping points, such as the meltingof the ice sheets in Greenland or West Antarctica．“To stay below that point, we need to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent,” he said．
Good advice, I thought．I’d opened our bedroom windows to let in the wind．We’d gotten so used to keeping our air-conditioning going around the clock．I’d almost forgotten the windows even opened．We should not let this happen again．It’s time for us to change our habits if necessary．
41．Why did the author and his wife try a new diet?
A．To take special kinds of food B．To respond to climate change．
C．To lose weight      D．To improve their health
42．The underlined words “tipping points” most probably refer to          .
A．freezing points         B．burning points      
C．melting points           D．boiling points
43．It can be inferred from the passage that        .
A．it is necessary to keep the air-conditioning on all the time
B．it seems possible for every household to cut emissions of CO2
C．the average US household produces about 3,000 pounds of CO2 a month
D．the average European household produces about 1,000 pounds of CO2 a month
44．Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?
A．Saving Energy Strats at Home       B．Changing Our Habits Begins at Work
C．Changing Climate Sounds Reasonalbe    D．Reducing Emissions of CO2 Proves Difficult