專業英語八級考試真題
加拿大的溫哥華1986年剛剛度過百歲生日，但城市的發展令世界矚目。以港立市，以港興市，是許多港口城市生存發展的道路。經過百年開發建設，有著天然不凍良港的溫哥華，成為舉世聞名的港口城市，同亞洲、大洋洲、歐洲、拉丁美洲均有定期班輪，年貨物吞吐量達到8，000萬噸，全市就業人口中有三分之一從事貿易與運輸行業。
溫哥華（Vancouver）的輝煌是溫哥華人智慧和勤奮的結晶，其中包括多民族的貢獻。加拿大地廣人稀，國土面積比中國還大，人口卻不足3000萬。吸收外來移民，是加拿大長期奉行的國策。可以說，加拿大除了印第安人外，無一不是外來移民，不同的`只是時間長短而已。溫哥華則更是世界上屈指可數的多民族城市。現今180萬溫哥華居民中，有一半不是在本地出生的，每4個居民中就有一個是亞洲人。而25萬華人對溫哥華的經濟轉型起著決定性的作用。他們其中有一半是近5年才來到溫哥華地區的，使溫哥華成為亞洲以外最大的中國人聚居地。
Section B原 文：
In some societies people want children for what might be called familial reasons: to extend the family line or the family name, to propitiate the ancestors; to enable the proper functioning of religious rituals involving the family. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularized society but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places.
In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption that family happiness lies that way. The point is underlined by its converse: in some societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce.
Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the family itself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family —they need children to enrich the circle, to validate its family character, to gather the redemptive influence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, as the social institution uniquely available, at least in principle, for security, comfort, assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile, world. To most people, such a home base, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance and in generational