SECTION 1: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)
Part A: Spot Dictation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear a passage and read the same passage with blanks in it. Fill in each of the blanks with the word or words you have heard on the tape. Write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Remember you will hear the passage ONLY ONCE.
Renowned U.S. economist, John Rutledge, who helped frame the fiscal policies of two
former U.S. presidents, warned that an abrupt rise in China‟s currency could lead to another Asian financial crisis. The founder of Rutledge Capital told the media that if the yuan rises
____________________(1) it would discourage foreign direct investment in China while
____________________(2) by market speculators. Currency change is more difficult for investors and ____________________(3).
The Chinese currency has appreciated by ____________________(4) since July 2005 when the country allowed the yuan to ____________________(5) within a daily band of 0.3 percent. The analysts are expecting the currency to rise ____________________(6) by the end of this year. But if the yuan rose 20 to 30 percent, as some U.S. politicians are demanding, it would
____________________(7) causing a recession and deflation. Similar advice to allow an abrupt appreciation of a currency led to ____________________(8) in 1997, and came very close to destroying ____________________(9). The U.S. economist says that investors want foremost to ____________________(10) associated with large fluctuations in currency and inflation. They ____________________(11) after evaluating risks to benefits such as
____________________(12). A rising yuan would drive up labor costs for foreign investors and would not ____________________(13).
Earlier reports said that currency speculators had pumped ____________________(14) U.S. dollars into China by the end of last year, with another 70 billion U.S. dollars
____________________(15) in the first three months of this year. There is no way to
____________________(16) of this type of investment and many economists disagree that
____________________(17) is so high. Instead of further appreciating its currency, China should make the yuan ____________________(18). If the yuan were more easily converted into foreign currencies it would allow Chinese companies to expand overseas, ____________________(19), and provide management experience and capital that China needs. It would also
____________________(20) and reduce speculative money coming into the country. Part B: Listening Comprehension
Directions: In this part of the test there will be some short talks and conversations. After each one, you will be asked some questions. The talks, conversations and questions will be spoken ONLY ONCE. Now listen carefully and choose the right answer to each question you have heard and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.
1. (A) Younger people are more comfortable with technology than adults.
(B) Adults are less intimidated by technology than they used to be.
(C) Robert himself is comparatively better with computers than other people. (D) Most of his friends are a lot more addicted to games than he is. 2. (A) E-mail is very convenient.
(B) E-mail messages make better keepsakes.
(C) E-mail messages make a casual form of communication.
(D) E-mail is great for just saying hello and checking up on people. 3. (A) Playing games.
(B) Checking on little things. (C) Instant messaging.
(D) An interesting program.
4. (A) The Internet makes too many things accessible to people. (B) His generation is hooked on the Internet.
(C) Some of his friends make the Internet their whole life. (D) Not everyone has access to the Internet.
5. (A) They cannot become part of the work force. (B) They won‟t be an added asset as they are today. (C) They will have to get over their fear of these skills. (D) They are going to be at a disadvantage.
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following news.
6. (A) Because the nuclear reactor is Pakistan‟s property. (B) Because Russia helped build the reactor in the 1960s. (C) Because the uranium was provided by other nations.
(D) Because its neighbors are very sensitive about its nuclear program. 7. (A) Insisting that the revelations were unlikely to affect world events. (B) Dismissing those diplomatic cables as untrue.
(C) Purposely making some confidential materials public. (D) Effectively containing Iran‟s nuclear program. 8. (A) He thought the elections should be cancelled. (B) He was open to letting the results be counted.
(C) He thought he was one of the two front-runners in the balloting. (D) He proposed that reelections should be held as soon as possible. 9. (A) 1.5%. (B) 1.8%. (C) 3.3%. (D) 4.8%.
10. (A) Few people expect a breakthrough on reaching an international treaty. (B) The toughest issues on climate change would remain unresolved. (C) The United Nations negotiating process itself is at risk. (D) The United States entered the talks in a strong position. Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.
11. (A) Dressing styles throughout the world. (B) Taking a journey to Sri Lanka in South Asia.
(C) Life of a native Sri Lankan now living in California.
(D) Traditional dress in the interviewee‟s home country. 12. (A) Saris are not practical. (B) Saris are old-fashioned. (C) Saris are not cheap.
(D) Saris are hot and difficult to walk in. 13. (A) Education.
(B) Family background. (C) Friends people make.
(D) Countries they have been to.
14. (A) Men in the countryside used to wear a sarong. (B) Men in the city wear sarongs to relax at home. (C) Men wear pants and shirts now, never sarongs. (D) Men wear sarongs only on formal occasions. 15. (A) Because she sees more value in saris. (B) Because she has married an American. (C) Because she wants to be in style.
(D) Because she likes to appear really exotic.
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.
16. (A) 10%. (B) 20%. (C) 30%. (D) 40%.
17. (A) Insomnia. (B) Narcolepsy. (C) Sleep apnea. (D) Self-hypnosis. 18. (A) Snoring throughout the night. (B) Heavy breathing in sleep.
(C) Stopping breathing when sleeping.
(D) Not remembering to wake up in the morning.
19. (A) They get sudden attacks of sleep any time any place. (B) They are mostly students enrolled in 8 A.M. classes. (C) They are not easily cured if narcolepsy is diagnosed. (D) They often sit at a table and their faces fall into a soup.
20. (A) Chronic insomnia is a rare condition compared with apnea or narcolepsy. (B) Almost everybody has chronic insomnia once in a while. (C) The cause for chronic insomnia is most often psychological. (D) There is no effective cure for this type of sleep disorder. SECTION 2: READING TEST (30 minutes)
Directions: In this section you will read several passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. You are to choose ONE best answer, (A), (B), (C) or (D), to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1--5
There is no more fashionable answer to woes of the global recession than “green jobs.” Some
state leaders are pinning their hopes for future growth and new jobs on creating clean-technology industries, like wind and solar power, or recycling saw grass as fuel. It all sounds like the ultimate win-win deal: beat the worst recession in decades and save the planet from global warming, all in one spending plan. So who cares how much it costs? And since the financial crisis and recession began, governments, environmental nonprofits, and even labor unions have been busy spinning out reports on just how many new jobs might be created from these new industries—estimates that range from the thousands to the millions.
The problem is that history doesn‟t bear out the optimism. As a new study from McKinsey
consulting points out, clean energy is less like old manufacturing industries that required a lot of workers than it is like new manufacturing and service industries that don‟t. The best parallel is the semiconductor industry, which was expected to create a boom in high-paid high-tech jobs but today employs mainly robots. Clean-technology workers now make up only 0.6 percent of the American workforce. The McKinsey study, which examined how countries should compete in the http://mycsinfo.blog.hexun.com/ (@BryanXTong)
post-crisis world, figures that clean energy won‟t command much more of the total job market in the years ahead. “The bottom line is that these „clean‟ industries are too small to create the millions of jobs that are needed right away,” says James Manylka, a director at the McKinsey Global Institute.
They might not create those jobs—but they could help other industries do just that. Here, too, the story of the computer chip is instructive. Today the big chip makers employ only 0.4 percent of the total American workforce, down from a peak of 0.6 percent in 2000. But they did create a lot of jobs, indirectly, by making other industries more efficient: throughout the 1990s, American companies saw massive gains in labor productivity and efficiency from new technologies
incorporating the semiconductor. Companies in retail, manufacturing, and many other areas got faster and stronger, and millions of new jobs were created.
McKinsey and others say that the same could be true today if governments focus not on
building a “green economy,” but on greening every part of the economy using cutting-edge green products and services. That‟s where policies like U.S. efforts to promote corn-based ethanol, and giant German subsidies for the solar industry fall down. In both cases the state is creating bloated, unproductive sectors, with jobs that are not likely to last. A better start would be encouraging business and consumers to do the basics, such is improve building insulation and replace obsolete heating and cooling equipment. In places like California, 30 percent of the summer energy load comes from air conditioning, which has prompted government to offer low-interest loans to consumers to replace old units with more efficient ones. The energy efficiency is an indirect job creator, just as IT productivity had been, not only because of the cost savings but also because of the new disposable income that is created. The stimulus effect of not driving is particularly
impressive. “If you can get people out of cars, or at least get them to drive less, you can typically save between $1,000 and $8,000 per household per year,” says Lisa Margonelli at the New America Foundation.
Indeed, energy and efficiency savings have been behind the major green efforts of the
world‟s biggest corporations, like Walmart, which remains the world‟s biggest retailer and added 22,000 jobs in the U.S. alone in 2009. In 2008, when oil hit $148 a barrel, Walmart insisted that its top 1,000 suppliers in China retool their factories and their products, cutting back on excess packaging to make shipping cheaper. It‟s no accident that Walmart, a company that looks for
savings wherever it can find them, is one of the only American firms that continued growing robustly throughout the recession.
The policy implications of it all are clear: stop betting government money on particular green technologies that may or may not pan out, and start thinking more broadly. As McKinsey makes clear, countries don‟t become more competitive by tweaking their “mix” of industries but by outperforming in each individual sector. Green thinking can be a part of that. The U.S. could conceivably export much more to Europe, for example, if America‟s environmental standards for products were higher. Taking care of the environment at the broadest levels is often portrayed as a political red herring that will undercut competitiveness in the global economy. In fact, the future of growth and job creation may depend on it.
1. According to the passage, the creation of clean-technology industries will______. (A) ultimately be a win-win deal
(B) beat the worst recession in decades
(C) largely solve the problem of unemployment (D) contribute little to the total job market
2. The McKinsey study concludes that _______.
(A) clean industries will create the millions of jobs that are needed right away
(B) both old and new manufacturing industries have employed large numbers of workers (C) clean industries are similar to the semiconductor industry in the creation of jobs (D) more robots will be used in clean industries than in the semiconductor industry
3. The phrase “fall down” in the sentence “That‟s where policies like U.S. efforts to promote corn-based ethanol, and German subsidies for the solar industry fall down.” (para. 4) can best be paraphrased as ______.
(A) fail of expectation (B) meet with strong opposition (C) confront sharp criticism (D) need further clarification 4. The author uses the example of Walmart to show ______. (A) how it remains the world‟s biggest retailer
(B) how it takes all kinds of measures for cost savings (C) how energy and efficiency savings can be achieved (D) how the recession has affected Walmart‟s development 5. Which of the following is the best conclusion of the passage?
(A) “Green jobs” are considered by politicians a major solution to the global recession. (B) The financial crisis and recession stimulate the increasing of green jobs.
(C) The government should spend money on particular green technologies to create more jobs.
(D) Job creation may depend on the overall care of the environment at the broadest levels. Questions 6--10
The majority of the country‟s top universities have introduced schemes to give preferential treatment to pupils from poorly performing comprehensives. They range from lower A-level
offers to reserving places for them. Supporters of “handicapping” argue that it gives recognition to bright pupils who have been inadequately taught and promotes social mobility. Opponents,
however, believe some schemes crudely discriminate against private and grammar school pupils because of political pressure.
Out of the 39 institutions that are members of the Russell Group and 1994 Group of research
universities, at least 30 have introduced schemes that give some form of extra recognition to
whole categories of applicants from comprehensives or from deprived areas. Gillian Low, head of the Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton, west London, and president of the Girls‟ Schools association, said: “We are absolutely in favour of social mobility. The issue is how that is
achieved, how talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds are identified. Our objection is to anything that is generic by type of school as it does not address the individual pupil, it potentially discriminates against them.”
Low added: “It doesn‟t, for example, take account of the person at the low-performing school who is having private tuition—or the fact that many of our pupils are on full bursary support. It‟s too crude a tool.” Programmes include one at Manchester introduced for 2011 entry that gives priority consideration to applicants from underachieving schools and deprived areas. Durham is using a similar system.
Bristol, Exeter, Nottingham and some departments at Edinburgh advise admissions tutors to consider lowering the standard offer for a course if a successful applicant is from an
underperforming school. Research at Bristol released earlier this year justified this approach on the grounds that students who had attended poor schools outperformed those with the same grades who had been better educated.
This autumn, a group of 12 universities led by Newcastle and including Birmingham, Essex, Leeds and York will pilot a scheme for about 300 promising candidates nominated by their
comprehensives. They will be given coaching and in most cases will be entitled to offers up to two grades lower than applicants going to university through standard routes. Cambridge gives extra points to candidates from schools with poor average GCSE grades when shortlisting candidates, while Oxford gives priority to similar applicants when deciding who to interview. Neither university lowers its grade offers for places on this basis, however.
Pressure on universities to increase their numbers of state school pupils was expected to ease with the election of the Conservative-led coalition. Instead, however, the government, under pressure from the Liberal Democrats, has pursued a similar approach. This weekend, David Willetts, the universities minister, said: “These are the kinds of initiatives, transparent, based on robust evidence, looking at applicants‟ potential, which are a good way of promoting social mobility.”
Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter and president of Universities UK, said: “Universities make strenuous efforts to seek out potential by looking at a number of factors when selecting students, but they cannot admit people who are not applying. “This is why schemes that provide varied offers and seek out potential, as well as supporting applicants in preparing for higher education, can be so important.”
Only a handful of universities, including the London School of Economics, University College London, Warwick and Queen Mary, London, have held out against favoring whole categories of applicants although all four give extra individual recognition to candidates who have succeeded against the odds. Birmingham, Southampton and the medical school at King‟s College London, set aside places for students at comprehensives in their regions. The Access to Birmingham scheme, which this year will admit 193 students—4% of the intake—gives candidate lower offers on condition they complete courses to prepare them for higher education.
6. The expression “social mobility” used in the passage mainly means that _______. (A) private and grammar school pupils go to study in comprehensive schools
(B) state school pupils go to study in private and grammar schools
(C) talented students from underachieving schools are admitted to top universities (D) students from all sorts of schools are treated equally in university admission 7. A major concern of the head of the Lady Eleanor Holles school is______. (A) how to implement social mobility in university admission (B) how to identify talented pupils from poor schools (C) how to teach students from underachieving schools (D) how to investigate the backgrounds of applicants
8. When Gillian Low gave the example of the student “at the low-performing school who is having private tuition”, what she wanted to convey is ______.
(A) students from underachieving schools should not have private tuition (B) students from low-performing schools vary in their financial conditions (C) students should be treated on an individual basis instead of “type of school” (D) students‟ academic achievements are related to their economic conditions
9. All of the following can be found in universities‟ new entry schemes EXCEPT ______. (A) lowering the standard offer for a course if an applicant is from a poor school (B) giving extra points to students from schools with poor average GCSE grades (C) giving priority consideration to students from low-performing schools (D) reserving places for applicants from poor schools at a fixed proportion 10. Which of the following cannot be true according to the passage?
(A) The London School of Economics, University College London, Warwick and Queen Mary, London have not offered the new entry scheme.
(B) The majority of the British universities have agreed to give preferential treatment to students from low-performing comprehensives.
(C) The education in comprehensive schools is often poorer than that of private and grammar schools in Britain.
(D) British universities are allowed to adopt different approaches to enrol students from underachieving comprehensive schools. Questions 11--15
You know Adam Smith for his “invisible hand,” the mysterious force that steers the selfish economic decisions of individuals toward a result that leaves us all better off. It‟s been a hugely influential idea, one that during the last few decades of the 20th century began to take on the trappings of a universal truth.
Lately, though, the invisible hand has been getting slapped. The selfish economic decisions of home buyers, mortgage brokers, investment bankers and institutional investors over the past decade clearly did not leave us all better off. Did Smith have it wrong?
No, Smith did not have it wrong. It‟s just that some of his self-proclaimed disciples have given us a terribly incomplete picture of what he believed. The man himself used the phrase invisible hand only three times: once in the famous passage from The Wealth of Nations that everybody cites; once in his other big book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments; and once in a posthumously published history of astronomy (in which he was talking about “the invisible hand of Jupiter”—the god, not the planet). For Smith, the invisible hand was but one of an array of interesting social and economic forces worth thinking about.
Why did the invisible hand emerge as the one idea from Smith‟s work that everybody
remembers? Mainly because it‟s so simple and powerful. If the invisible hand of the market really can be relied on at all times and in all places to deliver the most prosperous and just society possible, then we‟d be idiots not to get out of the way and let it work its magic. Plus, the supply-meets-demand straightforwardness of the invisible-hand metaphor lends itself to
mathematical treatment, and math is the language in which economists communicate with one another.
Hardly anything else in Smith‟s work is nearly that simple or consistent. Consider The Theory of Moral Sentiments, his long-neglected other masterpiece, published 17 years before The Wealth of Nations, in 1759. I recently cracked open a new 250th-anniversary edition, complete with a lucid introduction by economist Amartya Sen, in hopes that it would make clearer how we ought to organize our economy.
Fat chance. Most of the book is an account of how we decide whether behavior is good or not. In Smith‟s telling, the most important factor is our sympathy for one another. “To restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature,” he writes. But he goes on to say that “the commands and laws of the Deity” (he seems to be referring to the Ten Commandments) are crucial guides to conduct too. Then, in what seems to be a strange detour from those earthly and divine parameters, he argues that the invisible hand ensures that the selfish and sometimes profligate spending habits of the rich tend to promote the public good.
There are similar whiplash moments in The Wealth of Nations. The dominant theme running through the book is that self-interest and free, competitive markets can be powerful forces for prosperity and for good. But Smith also calls for regulation of interest rates and laws to protect workers from their employers. He argues that the corporation, the dominant form of economic organization in today‟s world, is an abomination.
The point here isn‟t that Smith was right in every last one of his prescriptions and proscriptions. He was an 18th century Scottish scholar, not an all-knowing being. Many of his apparent self-contradictions are just that—contradictions that don‟t make a lot of sense.
But Smith was also onto something that many free-market fans who pledge allegiance to him miss. The world is a complicated place. Markets don‟t exist free of societies and governments and regulators and customs and moral sentiments; they are entwined. Also, while markets often deliver wondrous results, an outcome is not by definition good simply because the market delivers it. Some other standards have to be engaged.
Applying Smith‟s teachings to the modern world, then, is a much more complex and doubtful endeavor than it‟s usually made out to be. He certainly wouldn‟t have been opposed to every
government intervention in the market. On financial reform, it‟s easy to imagine Smith supporting the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency and crackdowns on giant financial institutions. He might have also favored the just-passed health care reform bill, at least the part that requires states to set up exchanges to ensure retail competition for health insurance. Then again, he might not have. Asking “What would Adam Smith say?” is a lot easier than conclusively
answering it. It is pretty clear, though, that he wouldn‟t just shout, “Don‟t interfere with the invisible hand!” and leave it at that.
11. The author introduced the selfish economic decisions of home buyers, mortgage brokers, investment bankers and institutional investors over the past decade to illustrate that_____. (A) the invisible hand was a universal truth
(B) supply-meets-demand is the law of market economy
(C) economic decisions are always guided by selfish motivations (D) the invisible hand can sometimes lead to disastrous consequences
12. The reason that everybody remembers Adam Smith‟s “invisible hand” is that ______. (A) it is plain, simple, and forceful (B) it can be relied on at all times
(C) it can be proved through mathematical calculation (D) it is a metaphor used in everyday life
13. Which of the following best paraphrases the meaning of the short sentence “Fat chance.”(para. 6)?
(A) There is almost no possibility of expounding the “invisible hand” theory. (B) The possibilities are plentiful for the discussion of free market. (C) There will be enough opportunities to introduce classical economy. (D) There is little discussion about how to organize our economy.
14. The author tries to show that Adam Smith‟s ideas expressed in his books ______. (A) are all related to the study of the nature of market forces (B) are consistent and systematic throughout (C) are sometimes apparently self-contradictory
(D) are supportive of the corporation as the dominant economic organization 15. Which of the following can serve as the conclusion of this passage?
(A) Adam Smith‟s analysis of the invisible hand is still the guideline for today‟s economy.
(B) Adam Smith‟s self-proclaimed disciples have misunderstood the expression of “the invisible hand”.
(C) Adam Smith used the metaphor of “the invisible hand” to describe different kinds of social phenomena.
(D) Adam Smith‟s self-contradictory assertions and discussions are understandable. Questions 16--20
If the past couple of weeks are any indication, mainstream media may be primed for a
comeback. In July, The Washington Post published its massive “Top Secret America” series,
painstakingly detailing the growth of the US intelligence community after 9/11. When it ran, New York Observer editor Kyle Pope crowed (on Twitter, ironically), “Show me the bloggers who could have done this!” The Los Angeles Times recently mobilized a community to action when it broke the news that top city officials in Bell, Calif., one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles county, were raking in annual salaries ranging from $100,000 to $800,000.
Clearly, if mainstream media is an aging fighter against the ropes, it still has a few punches left to throw. But such make-a-difference journalism requires lots of time and money, something most news outlets don‟t have. And it runs counter to the frantic pace of modern, Web-driven
newsrooms. So for journalism to survive in the Digital Age, it needs to be simultaneously
fast-paced and substantive, snarky and thought-provoking. Or, at the very least, it must find some middle ground where illuminating investigative pieces and Mel Gibson telephone call mash-ups can coexist.
The 24/7 newsroom has become an intractable part of the media landscape, and the Web is the primary battleground news outlets have to win in order to stay competitive. That has forced journalists to become much more mindful of online traffic, which can sap morale. As a recent New York Times piece put it: “Young journalists who once dreamed of trotting the globe in
pursuit of a story are instead shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.” But the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times pieces demonstrate that, regardless of whether the stories appear in print or online, reporters still need the time and space to be effective
watchdogs—to track down sources and slog through financial disclosures, and court documents that often fill the better part of a journalist‟s working life.
Right out of college, I spent several years working for a mid-size regional daily newspaper. I covered endless city and county government meetings, reported on crime and education, and
learned that reporters should always carry a sensible pair of shoes in their car in case they are sent into the mountains to cover a wildfire. In my relatively short time in the newspaper trenches, I developed a profound respect for the people who do the decidedly unglamorous work of keeping government honest for little pay and even less job security.
The Pew Research Center‟s State of the News Media 2010 report found that, while reported journalism is contracting and commentary and analysis is growing, 99 percent of the links on blogs circle back to the mainstream press. (Just four outlets—BBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post—account for 80 percent of all links.) The report concludes that new media are largely filled with debate that is dependent on the shrinking base of reporting coming from old media. The same report included polling data showing that 72 percent of Americans feel that most news sources are biased in their coverage, feel overwhelmed rather than informed by the amount of news and information they‟re taking in.
I‟m not advocating a return to some supposed halcyon period before the Internet. I‟m still a product of my generation. I like the alacrity of the Web and admire its ability to conned people around the world, and to aggregate and spread information at lightning speed. Its warming glow gives me probably 90 percent of the news I consume, and I enjoy commenting on articles that friends post on Facebook.
But I hope it won‟t make me sound prematurely aged to say that sometimes the Internet
exhausts me. That I‟m troubled by how frequently I find myself sucked into the blogging vortex of endless linkage, circuitous kvetching, and petty media infighting. I often emerge from these binges hours later, bleary-eyed and less informed than when I started.
The media need to be quick and smart. They should tell us something new, rather than simply
recycle outrage. Some of the watchdog role has been shouldered by nonprofit outfits like the Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica—which has recruited a number of top investigative reporters with a mission of producing journalism in the public interest—as well as smaller nonprofit ventures springing up around the country.
Many old-school media outlets are moving, toward a primarily Web-focused model. The “Top Secret America” series may be the best example to date of a deeply reported piece that probably could not have been achieved without the resources and support of a major news operation, but which is also packaged appealingly for the Web. All of this seems to indicate that, despite reported journalism‟s painful contractions, a few small inroads are being made toward creating a new model for news. Solid reporting and thoughtful analysis shouldn‟t be the sole province of a dying medium.
16. The author introduced The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times at the beginning of the passage in order to show that ______.
(A) newspapers can still play their role of effective watchdogs
(B) newspapers will spend lots of time and money to provide solid report
(C) mainstream media is an aging fighter that runs counter to Web-driven newsrooms (D) mainstream media is planning for a comeback in the Digital Age 17. According to the passage, journalists in the Digital Age______. (A) need only to use online traffic to provide all kinds of news
(B) can rely on computer to realize their dream of trotting the globe (C) are often forced to be fastened to their computers to do their work
(D) should be aware of the possible restrictions of online-based news reporting
18. The Pew Research Center‟s State of the News Media 2010 report concludes that______. (A) most links on blogs and debates from new media are still dependent on old medina (B) new media are separated farther away from old media
(C) reported journalism, commentary and analysis are growing
(D) with rapidly developing new media, the coverage of news becomes more balanced 19. When the author was telling his own experience with the Internet, he was______. (A) simply showing his admiration and appreciation (B) trying to let readers share his fascinating experience
(C) displaying his ambivalent attitude and confusion over the Internet (D) criticizing the power of the Internet
20. The author implies at the end of the passage that ______. (A) online journalism has little to learn from mainstream media
(B) solid reporting and thoughtful analysis is still one major advantage of old media (C) the painful contractions of reported journalism are inevitable and necessary, and mainstream media is dying fast
(D) with the coming of the Digital Age, it is almost impossible to inherit the old media‟s tradition of effective watchdogs
SECTION 3: TRANSLATION TEST (30 minutes)
Directions: Translate the following passage into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
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When President Obama took the stage here Wednesday to address a community—and a
nation—traumatized by Saturday‟s shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona, it invited comparisons to President George W. Bush‟s speech to the nation after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the memorial service President Bill Clinton led after the bombing of a federal office building killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995. But Mr. Obama‟s appearance presented a deeper challenge, reflecting the tenor of his times. Unlike those tragedies—which, at least initially, united a
mournful country and quieted partisan divisions—this one has, in the days since the killings, had the opposite effect, inflaming the divide.
It was a political reality Mr. Obama seemed to recognize the moment he took the stage. He
directly confronted the political debate that erupted after the rampage, asking people of all beliefs not to use the tragedy to turn on one another. He called for an end to partisan recriminations, and for a unity that has seemed increasingly elusive as each day has brought more harsh
condemnations from the left and the right. It was one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday‟s shootings to urge Americans “to remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.”
SECTION 4: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)
Part A: Note-taking and Gap-filling
Directions: In this part of the test you will hear a short talk. You will hear the talk ONLY ONCE. While listening to the talk, you may take notes on the important points so that you can have enough information to complete a gap-filling task on a separate ANSWER BOOKLET. You will not get your TEST BOOK and ANSWER BOOKLET until after you have listened to the talk. Stress is our response to threatening or __________________(1) events. We may experience different levels of stress depending on the __________________(2), meaning the events or
circumstances that cause us to feel stress. Stressors can be classified into __________________(3) main categories: __________________(4) events, personal stressors, and __________________(5)
stressors. Cataclysmic events are major events that cause stress __________________(6),
immediately, for a great many people at once. Personal stressors are major life events that create stress, including __________________(7) life events. Background stressors are
__________________(8) hassles, or minor irritations, or __________________(9) background stressors. Repeated exposure to stressors has both psychological and __________________(10) consequences. The long-term consequence is that body tissues such as the heart and blood vessels can begin to __________________(11). The __________________(12) system functions less effectively, and __________________(13) our ability to fight off illnesses.
The General Adaptation __________________(14) explains the sequence of physiological reactions to stress. There are three phases to G.A.S. The first is the “alarm and
__________________(15)” phase: we respond with alarm, and take __________________(16) to remove the stressor. The second phase is the __________________(17) stage: we fight against the stressor or try to cope with the stressor. This can lead to the third phase: __________________(18). The exhaustion phrase may be an __________________(19) way of
trying to avoid the stressors. The body may be telling us that we need to do whatever is __________________(20) to remove the stressor.
Part B: Listening and Translation
1. Sentence Translation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 English sentences. You will hear the sentences ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each sentence, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
2. Passage Translation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 English passages. You will hear the passages ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each passage, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. You may take notes while you are listening. (1) (2)
SECTION 5: READING TEST (30 minutes)
Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
Questions 1--3
The lobbying carried out by food manufacturers to block a European-wide food labelling system backed by doctors is laid bare in a series of private emails published today by The Independent. In a flurry of statements and position papers to MEPs in the run up to key votes, Kellogg‟s, Danone, Coca-Cola, Nestle and other manufacturers claimed that colour-coded traffic lights were incapable of informing shoppers about the right diet.
They claimed that studies showed that their favoured percentage-based Guideline Daily
Amounts (GDAs) had wide consumer acceptance. Polls by the National Heart Forum and the consumer group Which? that looked at both systems found shoppers preferred colour-coding. On Wednesday, the European Parliament rejected the traffic light system devised by the Food Standards Agency vote in favour of GDAs. At the same time, they backed the compulsory labeling of harmful trans-fats and country of origin on processed products.
Glenis Willmott, the leader of Labour‟s MEPs, accused the food industry of heavy-handed
tactics. “People weren‟t being told the full facts and the amount of time and money poured in by lobbyists was huge,” she said. “It must have had an impact.” Mette Kahlin, policy advocate for Which?, said: “While I was lobbying in Brussels for Which? it was clear I was outnumbered by industry lobbyists 100-1. Consumer and health organisations don‟t have enough money to match that.”
Devised by the UK Food Standards Agency in 2006, traffic lights show red lights for high levels of salt, fat and sugar, and amber and green for lower amounts. The British Medical Association, British Dietetic Association and British Heart Foundation are among the health groups that support the scheme. On Monday, the Ad Hoc GDA Group, representing 11
manufacturers including Kellogg‟s Mars, Nestle and Unilever, emailed Mps in a last-ditch attempt to swing their vote. “We still believe that a traffic light approach provides too judgmental an assessment of foodstuffs-the complex nutritional composition of a food and its place in the diet cannot be reduced to a single colour,” they wrote.
In an earlier email, Nestle France warned that the introduction of a colour-coded system
would “create an arbitrary judgment about the food and this, in total disconnection with dietary requirements.” Coca-cola even claimed that a diet based upon green lights could be harmful. In a document headed “Food labelling basic elements for discussion”, sent in 2008, the US fizzy drinks giant told MEPs:“Colour coding gives the consumer false assurances. A diet based upon products with green lights would lead to chronic nutritional deficiencies.”
“The briefings are not based on evidence,” protested Ms Kahlin, of Which? “In the UK we
have had traffic lights and no one has been admitted to hospital with malnutrition from eating food signed with green lights. People still eat products marked red but they become aware of what is in their food.” The EU wants to introduce a unified labelling system to cut obesity, diabetes and other illnesses, which are causing millions of lost days at work and billions of pounds in health costs.
At the request of the Food Standards Agency, retailers Sainsbury‟s and Asda have put traffic lights on their own-label products, but they have been fiercely opposed by Tesco and
multinational manufacturers. In recent months, Pepsico, Danone and other global food giants and trade groups have mounted one of the biggest lobbying operations in EU history.
Lobbyists accosted MEPs in bars and restaurants and began turning up in their offices
without appointments. They bombarded MEPs with documents, reports and fact-sheets praising
GDAs and undermining traffic lights. The lobbying was aimed at members of the Environment committee before a key vote in March, when it rejected traffic lights by 32-30. All 736 MEPs were targeted in the run-up to Wednesday‟s vote. Manufacturers maintained the lobbying was based on solid evidence.
Kellogg‟s said: “If we‟re to win the obesity battle, consumers need a labelling scheme that gives them a much greater understanding of what‟s in their food so they can make informed choices. GDAs do this in a way traffic lights simply can‟t, and that‟s why we‟ll continue to use and support them.” Coca-Cola said: “Our communication to MEPs was based on thorough research of European consumers that is publicly available.” Nestle said: “GDAs are factual and objective and ensure consumers can evaluate a product‟s role in their daily diet.” Unilever, Mars and Danone were unavailable for comment.
1. What is the traffic light system discussed in the passage? What is the function of such traffic light system?
2. Why do food manufacturers carry out lobbying campaign against the colour-coded food labelling system?
3. What are the differences between the Guideline Daily Amounts and the traffic light system?
Questions 4--6
At a recent Internet culture conference at the MIT in Cambridge, a local ice-cream shop
offered to make a custom flavor for the event. After some discussion, the organizers decided that it should be vanilla ice cream mixed with Nerds candies, “because the Internet is primarily white and nerdy,” explains Chris Csikszentmihalyi, who directs the MIT Center for Future Civic Media. While a joke, the ice-cream flavor was also a serious commentary on the digital divide that has grown between those who created the Internet—mostly affluent, white, male grogrammers—and the billions of people with whom they share little in common.
There‟s a push among development specialists to provide more people with Internet
connections and the assumption that these new Web citizens can then reap the same benefits as communities who‟ve long been online. This may not be the case, however. While few people dispute the value of getting the world online, many Internet experts say that current Web content has little relevance and thus little appeal to those whose lifestyle is worlds away from
programmers in the United States and Europe. If the majority of the world is to use the Web for more than just a few basic functions, Internet developers must address this gap.
Even in the US, this has proved to be a problem. A new study at Northwestern University
found that, among Americans, those from privileged backgrounds tend to have much higher skill levels and use the Web for more activities than those from less affluent families with equal
Internet access. “Just because people gain access doesn‟t mean that now they know how to use the Internet,” says the author Eszter Hargittai, “Even if we put a lot of effort into connecting more people [the concern is that] even once people obtain access, we will continue to observe considerable variation in their skills and online behavior.”
For those outside the US, crossing the digital divide may seem even more daunting. In the
Middle East, since 2000, Internet use has grown faster than anywhere else in the world. Although there are more Arabs online every day and their language is the world‟s fifth most widely spoken, less than 1 percent of Web content is in Arabic. Within the region, Jordan has been one of the most active countries bridging the digital divide. Here the information technology (IT) sector
enjoys strong support from King Abdullah II and makes up 12 percent of the nation‟s GDP.
According to StartupArabia, a website dedicated to tracking Arab tech companies, only the United Arab Emirates has surpassed Jordan in the number of start-ups.
“Jordan doesn‟t have resources. We don‟t have oil; we don‟t have any major mineral
resources; the only thing we have is education,” says Khamis Omar, dean of the IT department at the Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Amman. Despite these successes, Jordan is still on the far side of the perceived chasm. Only 54 percent of Jordanian homes have a personal computer and about 30 percent of people use the Internet. Of those who don‟t have computers, about half said they couldn‟t afford them while 40 percent said they didn‟t need them.
In some regards, it may take decades for the Internet, like other technological revolutions, to take firm root outside its place of origin, says Steven Low, a computer science professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “It takes time not only for the technology to
mature, but also for [a different] society to learn how to use it and then adapt how you live or how you work to make the most use of it,” he says. “That process has been going on in the developed world for the last several decades in terms of IT … but it‟s only starting for the developing
world.” In the meantime, Robert Fadel of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child says one of the most important things is to continue making technology available to more people so they can find ways to make it applicable to their lives. In the past two years, OLPC has helped distribute 1.5 million laptops to children in 35 countries.
“Children with the support of their community and their parents and teachers, will find it all out, they will discover it. We can help them out by giving them the freedom and the access to use such tools,” says Mr.Fadel. He adds that worrying that people might not get the full benefit of the Internet because they don‟t know how to use it, is like worrying that people may not benefit from a library if no one explains how to use it.
Still, Mr. Hargittai says that, for real Internet equality, it will likely take more than simply putting the tools in people‟s hands. Organizations working to bridge the divide must “devote resources to offering support, and potentially having a center where people can go for support, offering informal classes or instruction for the community,” she says. She adds that any classes would need to effectively target the necessary audience, as many people may not know how much more they have to learn.
4. What is the digital divide discussed in the passage? What does such a social gap tell us? 5. Why does the author say that “For those outside the US, crossing the digital divide may seem even more daunting.(para. 4)”?
6. What is the explanation given by the computer science professor Steven Low?
Questions 7--10
It is 15 years since Moises Naim coined the memorable phrase “corruption eruption”. But
there is no sign of the eruption dying down. Indeed, there is so much molten lava and sulphurous ash around that some of the world‟s biggest companies have been covered in it. Siemens and Daimler have recently been forced to pay gargantuan fines. BHP Billiton has admitted that it may have been involved in bribery. America‟s Department of Justice is investigating some 150 companies, targeting oil and drugs firms in particular.
The ethical case against corruption is too obvious to need spelling out. But many companies
still believe that, in this respect at least, there is a regrettable tension between the dictates of ethics
and the logic of business. Bribery is the price that you must pay to enter some of the world‟s most difficult markets (the “when in Rome” argument). Bribery can also speed up the otherwise glacial pace of bureaucracy (the “efficient grease” hypothesis). And why not? The chances of being caught are small while the rewards can be big and immediate.
But do you really have to behave like a Roman to thrive in Rome? Philip Nichols, of the Wharton School, points out that plenty of Western firms have prospered in emerging markets
without getting their hands dirty, including Reebok, Google and Novo Nor disk. IKEA has gone to great lengths to fight corruption in Russia. What is more, Mr Nichols argues, it is misguided to dismiss entire countries as corrupt. Even the greasiest-palmed places are in fact ambivalent about corruption: they invariably have laws against it and frequently produce politicians who campaign against it. Multinationals should help bolster the rules of the game rather than pandering to the most unscrupulous players.
And is “grease” really all that efficient? In a paper published by the World Bank, the authors
subjected the “efficient grease” hypothesis to careful scrutiny. They found that companies that pay bribes actually end up spending more time negotiating with bureaucrats. The prospect of a pay-off gives officials an incentive to haggle over regulations. The paper also found that borrowing is more expensive for corrupt companies.
The hidden costs of corruption are almost always much higher than companies imagine.
Corruption inevitably begets ever more corruption. Corruption also exacts a high psychological cost on those who engage in it. Mr Nichols says that corrupt business people habitually compare their habit to having an affair: no sooner have you given in to temptation than you are trapped in a world of secrecy and guilt. On the other hand, the benefits of rectitude can be striking. Oil giant Texaco had such an incorruptible reputation that African border guards were said to wave its jeeps through without engaging in the ritual shakedown. Moreover, the likelihood of being caught is dramatically higher than it was a few years ago. The internet has handed much more power to whistle-blowers. Every year Transparency International publishes its Corruption Perceptions Index, and its Global Corruption Barometer.
The likelihood of prosecution is also growing. The Obama administration has revamped the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and is using it to pursue corporate malefactors the world over. The Department of Justice is pursuing far more cases than it ever has before. Recent
legislation has made senior managers personally liable for corruption on their watch. They risk a spell in prison as well as huge fines. The vagueness of the legislation means that the authorities may prosecute for lavish entertainment as well as more blatant bribes.
America is no longer a lone ranger. Thirty-eight countries have now signed up to the OECD‟s 1997 anti-corruption convention, leading to a spate of cross-border prosecutions. In February Britain‟s BAE Systems, a giant arms company, was fined $400m as a result of a joint British and American investigation. Since then a more ferocious Bribery Act has come into force in Britain. On April 1st Daimler was fined $185m as a result of a joint American and German investigation which examined the firm‟s behaviour in 22 countries.
Companies caught between these two mighty forces—the corruption and anti-corruption
eruptions—need to start taking the problem seriously. A Transparency International study of 500 prominent firms revealed that the average company only scored 17 out of a possible 50 points on “anti-corruption practices.” Companies need to develop explicit codes of conduct on corruption, train their staff to handle demands for pay-offs and back them up when they refuse them.
Clubbing together and campaigning for reform can also help.
This may all sound a bit airy-fairy given that so many companies are struggling just to
survive the recession. But there is nothing airy-fairy about the $16 billion in fines that Siemens has paid to the American and German governments. And there is nothing airy-fairy about a spell in prison. The phrase “doing well by doing good” is one of the most irritating parts of the CSR mantra. But when it comes to corruption, it might just fit the bill.
7. Explain the sentence “Indeed, there is so much molten lava and sulphurous ash around that some of the world‟s biggest companies have been covered in it.”(para. 1)
8. Explain the “when in Rome” argument and the “efficient grease” hypothesis. (para. 2) 9. What is Philip Nichols‟s view about corruption?
10. What is the author‟s advice for companies against corruption? SECTION 6: TRANSLATION TEST (30 minutes)
Directions: Translate the following passage into English and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
合营企业设董事会，其人数组成由合营各方协商，在合同、章程中确定，并由合营各方 委派。董事会是合营企业的最高权力机构，决定合营企业的一切重大问题。董事长由合营各 方协商确定或由董事会选举产生。董事长是合营企业的法定代表人。董事长不能履行职责时， 应授权其他董事代表合营企业。
董事会会议由董事长负责召集并主持。董事会会议应当有2/3 以上董事出席方能举行。 董事不能出席的，可以出具委托书委托他人代表其出席和表决。董事会会议应用中文和英文 作详细记录，并在会议结束后14 日内送交每位董事，由出席董事会会议的各位董事签字确 认。
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