II. Grammar and Vocabulary
Section A（16分）
Directions:After reading the passages below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
(A)
English is (25) ________ (widely) used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings (26) ________ speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary — perhaps as many as two million words.
However, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in (27) ________ eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy, while sweetbreads, (28) ________ aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English (29) _______ granted. But when we explore its paradoxes (矛盾), we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths in them.
And why is it (30) ________ a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
So far English, (31) ________ (invent) by people not computers, (32) ________ (reflect) the creativity of human beings.
