高级口译2011真题

2011年上译考试高级口译笔试(全真试题+答案)完整版
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 world 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.
Play is very important for humans from birth to death. Play is not meant to be just for children. It is a form of ___________ (1) that can tap into your creativity, and can allow you the chance to find your inner child and the inner child of others. I have collected the ___________ (2) of play here.
Play can stimulate you ___________ (3). It can go against all the rules, and change the same ___________ (4). Walt Disney was devoted to play, and his willingness to ___________ (5) changed the world of entertainment. The next time you are stuck in a ___________ (6) way of life, pull out a box of color pencils, modeling clay, glue and scissors, and ___________ (7) and break free. You will be amazed at the way your thinking ___________ (8).
Playing can bring greater joy into your life. What do you think the world would be like-if
___________ (9) each day in play? I bet just asking you this question has ___________ (10). Play creates laughter, joy, entertainment, ___________ (11). Starting today, try to get 30 minutes each day to engage in some form of play, and ___________ (12) rise!
Play is known ___________ (13). Studies show that, as humans, play is part of our nature. We have the need to play because it is instinctive and ___________ (14).
With regular play, our problem-solving and ___________ (15) will be in much better shape to handle this complex world, and we are much more likely to choose ___________ (16) as they arise. It creates laughter and freedom that can instantly reduce stress and __________ (17) to our daily living.
Play can ___________ (18), curiosity, and creativity. Research shows that play is both a
‘hands-on’ and ‘minds-on’ learning process. It produces a deeper, ___________ (19) of the world and its possibilities. We begin giving meaning to life through story making, and playing out
___________ (20).
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) in CherryBlossomsVillage ninety of the residents are over 85 years old.
(B) In the United States, there are twice as many centenarians as there were ten years ago.
(C) All the people studied by these scientists from Georgia live in institutions for the elderly.
(D) Almost all the residents in CherryBlossomsVillage have unusual hobbies.
2. (A) Whether the centenarians can live independently in small apartments.
(B) Whether it is feasible to establish a village for the “oldest old〞people.
(C) What percentage of the population are centenarians in the state of Georgia.
(D) What the real secrets are to becoming an active and healthy 100-year-old.
3. (A) Diet, optimism, activity or mobility, and genetics.
(B) Optimism, commitment to interesting things, activity or mobility, and adaptability to loss.
(C) The strength to adapt to loss, diet, exercise, and genetics.
(D) Diet, exercise, commitment to something they were interested in, and genetics.
4. (A) The centenarians had a high calorie and fat intake.
(B) The centenarians basically eat something different.
(C) The centenarians eat a low-fat and low-calorie, unprocessed food diet.
(D) The centenarians eat spicy food, drink whiskey, and have sweet pork every day.
5. (A) Work hard.
(B) Stay busy.
(C) Stick to a balanced diet.
(D) Always find something to laugh about.
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following news.
6. (A) Global temperatures rose by 3 degrees in the 20th century.
(B) Global warming may spread disease that could kill a lot of people in Africa.
(C) Developed countries no longer depend on fossil fuels for transport and power.
(D) The impact of the global warming will be radically reduced by 2050.
7. (A) Taking bribes.
(B) Creating a leadership vacuum at the country’s top car maker.
(C) Misusing company funds for personal spending.
(D) Offering cash for political favors.
8. (A) The nation has raised alert status to the highest level and thousands of people have moved to safety.
(B) The eruption of MountMerapi has been the worst in Indonesia over the past two decades.
(C) All residents in the region ten kilometers from the base of the mountain have evacuated.
(D) The eruption process was a sudden burst and has caused extensive damage and heavy casualty.
9. (A) 6 to 7.
(B) 8 to 10.
(C) 11 to 16.
(D) 17 to 25.
10. (A) Curbing high-level corruption.
(B) Fighting organized crime.
(C) Investigating convictions of criminals.
(D) Surveying the threats to national security.
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.
11. (A) A wine taster.
(B) A master water taster.
(C) The host of the show.
(D) The engineer who works on the water treatment plant.
12. (A) Berkeley Springs.
(B) Santa Barbara.
(C) Atlantic City.
(D) Sacramento.
13. (A) Being saucy and piquant.
(B) Tasting sweet.
(C) A certain amount of minerals.
(D) An absence of taste.
14. (A) Looking—smelling—tasting.
(B) Tasting—smelling—looking.
(C) Smelling—looking—tasting.
(D) Tasting—looking—smelling.
15. (A) Bathing.
(B) Boiling pasta in.
(C) Swimming.
(D) Making tea.
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.
16. (A) Enhance reading and math skills.
(B) Increase the students’ appreciation of nature.
(C) Improve math, but not reading skills.
(D) Develop reading, but not math skills.
17. (A) To help the students appreciate the arts.
(B) To make the students’ education more well-rounded.
(C) To investigate the impact of arts training.
(D) To enhance the students’ math skills.
18. (A) Once weekly.
(B) Twice weekly.
(C) Once a month.
(D) Twice a month.
19. (A) Six months.
(B) Seven months.
(C) Eight months.
(D) Nine months.
20. (A) The children’s attitude.
(B) The children’s test scores.
(C) Both the children’s attitude and test scores.
(D) Both the tea chers’ and the children’s attitude.
SECTION 1: LISTENING TEST
(30 minutes)
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
Anyone who doubts that children are born with a healthy amount of ambition need spend only a few minutes with a baby eagerly learning to walk or a headstrong toddler starting to talk. No matter how many times the little ones stumble in their initial efforts, most keep on trying, determined to master their amazing new skill. It is only several years later, around the start of middle or junior high school, many psychologists and teachers agree, that a good number of kids seem to lose their natural drive to succeed and end up joining the ranks of underachievers. For the parents of such kids, whose own ambition is often inextricably tied to their children’s success, it can be a bewildering, painful experience. So it’s no wonder some parent s find themselves hoping that, just maybe, ambition can be taught like any other subject at school.
It’s not quite that simple. “Kids can be given the opportunities to become passionate about a subject or activity, but they can’t be forced,〞says Jacquelynne Eccles, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, who led a landmark, 25-year study examining what motivated
first-and seventh-grades in three school districts. Even so, a growing number of educators and psychologists do believe it is poss ible to unearth ambition in students who don’t seem to have much. They say that by instilling confidence, encouraging some risk taking, being accepting of failure and expanding the areas in which children may be successful, both parents and teachers can reignite that innate desire to achieve.
Figuring out why the fire went out is the first step. Assuming that a kid doesn’t suffer from an emotional or learning disability, or isn’t involved in some family crisis at home, many educators attribute a sudden lack of motivation to a fear of failure or peer pressure that conveys the message that doing well academically somehow isn’t cool. “Kids get so caught up in the moment-to-moment issue of will they look smart or dumb, and it blocks them from thinking about the long term,〞says Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford. “You have to teach them that they are in charge of their intellectual growth.〞Over the past couple of years, Dweck has helped run an experimental workshop with New York City public school seventh-graders to do just that. Dubbed Brainology, the unorthodox approach uses basic neuroscience to teach kids how the brain works and how it can continue to develop throughout life. “The message is that everything is within the kids’ control, that the ir intelligence is malleable,〞says Lisa Blackwell, a research scientist at ColumbiaUniversity who has worked with Dweck to develop and run the program, which has helped increase the students’ interest in school and turned around their declining math grade s. More than any teacher or workshop, Blackwell says, “parents can play a critical role in conveying this message to their children by praising their effort, strategy and progress rather than emphasizing their ‘smartness’ or praising high performance alone. Most of all, parents should let their kids know that mistakes are a part of learning.〞
Some experts say our education system, with its strong emphasis on testing and rigid separation of students into different levels of ability, also bears blame for the disappearance of drive in some kids. “These programs shut down the motivation of all kids who aren’t considered gifted and talented. They destroy their confidence,〞says Jeff Howard, a social psychologist and president of the Efficacy Institute, a Boston-area organization that works with teachers and parents in school districts around the country to help improve children’s academic performance. Howard and other educators say it’s important to expose kids to a world beyond homework and tests, through volun teer work, sports, hobbies and other extracurricular activities. “The crux of the issue
is that many students experience education as irrelevant to their life goals and ambitions,〞says Michael Nakkual, a Harvard education professor who runs a Boston-area mentoring program called Project IF (Inventing the Future), which works to get low-income underachievers in touch with their aspirations. The key to getting kids to aim higher at school is to disabuse them of the notion that classwork is irrelevant, to show them how doing well at school can actually help them fulfill their dreams beyond it. Like any ambitious toddler, they need to understand that you have to learn to walk before you can run.
1. Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the first paragraph?
(A) Children are born with a kind of healthy ambition.
(B) How a baby learns to walk and talk.
(C) Ambition can be taught like other subjects at school.
(D) Some teenage children lose their drive to succeed.
2. According to some educators and psychologists, all of the following would be helpful to cultivate students’ ambition to succeed EXCEPT ________.
(A) stimulating them to build up self-confidence
(B) cultivating the attitude of risk taking
(C) enlarging the areas for children to succeed
(D) making them understand their family crisis
3. What is the message that peer pressure conveys to children?
(A) A sudden lack of motivation is attributed to the student’s failure.
(B) Book knowledge is not as important as practical experience.
(C) Looking smart is more important for young people at school.
(D) To achieve academic excellence should not be treated as the top priority.
4. The word “malleable〞in the clause “that their intelligence is malleable,〞(para.3) most probably means capable of being ________.
(A) altered and developed
(B) blocked and impaired
(C) sharpened and advanced
(D) replaced and transplanted
5. The expression “to disabuse them of the notion〞(para.4) can be paraphrased as
________.
(A) to free them of the idea
(B) to help them understand the idea
(C) to imbue them with the notion
(D) to inform them of the concept Questions 6—10
Civil-liberties advocates reeling from the recent revelations on surveillance had something else to worry about last week: the privacy of the billions of search queries made on sites like Google, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft. As part of a long-running court case, the government has asked those companies to turn over information on its users’ search behavior. Al l but Google have handed over data, and now the Department of Justice has moved to compel the search giant to turn over the goods.
What makes this case different is that the intended use of the information is not related to national security, but the gov ernment’s continuing attempt to police Internet pornography. In 1998, Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), but courts have blocked its implementation due to First Amendment concerns. In its appeal, the DOJ wants to prove how easy it is to inadvertently stumble upon pore. In order to conduct a controlled experiment—to be performed by a UC Berkeley professor of statistics—the DOJ wants to use a large sample of actual search terms from the different search engines. It would then use those terms to do its own searches, employing the different kinds of filters each search engine offers, in an attempt to quantify how often “material that is harmful to minors〞might appear. Google contends that since it is not a party to the case, the government has not right to demand its proprietary information to perform its test. “We intend to resist their motion vigorously,〞said Google attorney Nicole Wong.
DOJ spokesperson Charles Miller says that the government is requesting only the actual search terms, and not anything that would link the queries to those who made them. (The DOJ is also demanding a list of a million Web sites that Google indexes to determine the degree to which objectionable sites are searched.) Originally, the government asked for a treasure trove of all searches made in June and July 2005; the request has been scaled back to one week’s worth of search queries.
One oddity about the DOJ’s strategy is that the experiment could conceivably sink its own case. If the built-in filters that each search engine provides are effective in blocking porn sites, the government will have wound up proving what the opposition has said all along—you don’t need
to suppress speech to protect minors on the Net. “We think that our filtering technology does a good job protecting minors from inadvertently seeing adult content,〞says Ramez Naam, group program manager of MSN Search.
Though the government intends to use these data specifically for its COPA-related test, it’s possible that the information could lead to further investigations and, perhaps, subpoenas to find out who was doing the searching. What if certain search terms indicated that people were contemplating terrorist actions or other criminal activities? Says the DOJ’s Miller, “I’m assuming that if something raised alarms, we would hand it over to the proper authorities.〞Privacy advocates fear that if the government request is upheld, it will open the door to further government examination of search behavior. One solution would be for Google to stop storing the information, but the company hopes to eventually use the personal information of consenting customers to improve search performance. “Search is a window into people’s personalities,〞says Kurt Opsahl, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attor ney. “They should be able to take advantage of the Internet without worrying about Big Brother looking over their shoulders.〞
6. When the American government asked Google, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft to turn over information on its users’ search behavior, t he major intention is _________.
(A) to protect national security
(B) to help protect personal freedom
(C) to monitor Internet pornography
(D) to implement the Child Online Protection Act
7. Google refused to turn over “its proprietary informatio n〞(para.2) required by DOJ as it believes that ________.
(A) it is not involved in the court case
(B) users’ privacy is most important
(C) the government has violated the First Amendment
(D) search terms is the company’s business secret
8. The ph rase “scaled back to〞in the sentence “the request has been scaled back to one week’s worth of search queries〞(para.3) can be replaced by _________.
(A) maximized to
(B) minimized to
(C) returned to
(D) reduced to
9. In the sentence “One oddity about the DOJ’s strategy is that the experiment could conceivably sink its own case.〞(para.4), the expression “sink its own case〞most probably means that _________.
(A) counterattack the opposition
(B) lead to blocking of porn sites
(C) provide evidence to disprove the case
(D) give full ground to support the case
10. When Kurt Opsahl says that “They should be able to take advantage of the Internet without worrying about Big Brother looking over their shoulders.〞(para.5), the expression “Big Brother〞is used to refer to _________.
(A) a friend or relative showing much concern
(B) a colleague who is much more experienced
(C) a dominating and all-powerful ruling power
(D) a benevolent and democratic organizationQuestions 11—15
On New Year’s Day, 50,000 inmates in Kenyan jails went without lunch. This was not some mass hunger strike to highlight poor living conditions. It was an extraordinary humanitarian gesture: the money that would have been spent on their lunches went to the charity Food Aid to help feed an estimated 3.5 million Kenyans who, because of a severe drought, are threatened with starvation. The drought is big news in Africa, affecting huge areas of east Africa and the Horn. If you are reading this in the west, however, you may not be aware of it—the media is not interested in old stories. Even if you do know about the drought, you may not be aware that it is devastating one group of people disproportionately: the pastoralists. There are 20 million nomadic or
semi-nomadic herders in this region, and they are fast becoming some of the poorest people in the continent. Their plight encapsulates Africa’s perennial problem with drought and famine.
How so? It comes down to the reluctance of governments, aid agencies and foreign lenders to support the herders’ traditional way of life. Instead they have tended to try to turn them into commercial ranchers or agriculturalists, even though it has been demonstrated time and again that pastoralists are well adapted to their harsh environments, and that moving livestock according to the seasons or climatic changes makes their methods far more viable than agriculture in
sub-Saharan drylands.
Furthermore, African pastoralist systems are often more productive, in terms of protein and cash per hectare, than Australian, American and other African ranches in similar climatic
conditions. They make a substantial contribution to their countries’ national economies. In Kenya, for example, the turnover of the pastoralist sector is worth $800 million per year. In countries such as Burkina Faso, Eritrea and Ethiopia, hides from pastoralists’ herds make up over 10 per cent of export earnings. Despite this productivity, pastoralists still starve and their animals perish when drought hits. One reason is that only a trickle of the profits goes to the herders themselves; the lion’s share is pocketed by traders. This is partly because the herders only sell much of their stock during times of drought and famine, when they need the cash to buy food, and the terms of trade in this situation never work in their favour. Another reason is the lack of investment in herding areas.
Funding bodies such as the World Bank and-USAID tried to address some of the problems in the 1960s, investing millions of dollars in commerci al beef and dairy production. It didn’t work. Firstly, no one bothered to consult the pastoralists about what they wanted. Secondly, rearing livestock took precedence over human progress. The policies and strategies of international development agencies more or less mirrored the thinking of their colonial predecessors. They were based on two false assumptions: that pastoralism is primitive and inefficient, which led to numerous failed schemes aimed at converting herders to modern ranching models; and that
A frica’s drylands can support commercial ranching. They cannot. Most of Africa’s herders live in areas with unpredictable weather systems that are totally unsuited to commercial ranching.
What the pastoralists need is support for their traditional lifestyle. Over the past few years, funders and policy-makers have been starting to get the message. One example is intervention by governments to ensure that pastoralists get fair prices for their cattle when they sell them in times of drought, so that they can afford to buy fodder for their remaining livestock and cereals to keep themselves and their families alive (the problem in African famines is not so much a lack of food as a lack of money to buy it). Another example is a drought early-warning system run by the Kenyan government and the World Bank that has helped avert livestock deaths.
This is all promising, but more needs to be done. Some African governments still favour forcing pastoralists to settle. They should heed the latest scientific research demonstrating the productivity of traditional cattle-herding. Ultimately, sustainable rural development in pastoralist areas will depend on increasing trade, so one thing going for them is the growing demand for livestock products: there will likely be an additional 2 billion consumers worldwide by 2020, the vast majority in developing countries. To ensure that pastoralists benefit, it will be crucial to give them a greater say in local policies. Other key tasks include giving a greater say to women, who play critical roles in livestock production. The rich world should pay proper attention to the plight of the pastoralists. Leaving them dependent on foreign food aid is unsustainable and will lead to more resentment, conflict, environmental degradation and malnu trition. It is in the rich world’s interests to help out.
11. Which of the following CANNOT be concluded from the passage?
(A) Forcing Africa’s nomadic herders to become ranchers will save them from drought.
(B) The difference between pastoralist and agriculturalist is vital to the African people.
(C) The rich world should give more support to the African people to overcome drought.
(D) Environmental degradation should be the major concern in developing Africa’s pastoralism.
12. The word “encaps ulates〞in the sentence “Their plight encapsulates Africa’s perennial problem with drought and famine.〞(para. l) can be replaced by ________.
(A) concludes.
(B) involves.
(C) represents.
(D) aggravates.
13. What is the author’s attitude toward A frican drought and traditional lifestyle of pastoralism?
(A) Neutral and indifferent.
(B) Sympathetic and understanding.
(C) Critical and vehement.
(D) Subjective and fatalistic.
14. When the author writes “the policies and strategies of internat ional development agencies more or less mirrored the thinking of their colonial predecessors.〞(para.4), he implies all the following EXCEPT that the aid agencies did not __________.
(A) have an objective view of the situation in Africa
(B) understand the unpredictable weather systems there
(C) feel themselves superior in decision making
(D) care about the development of the local people
15. The author’s main purpose in writing this article in _________.
(A) to evaluate the living conditions of Kenyan pastoralists
(B) to give suggestions on the support of the traditional pastoralism in Africa
(C) to illustrate the difference between commercial ranching and pastoralism
(D) to criticize the colonial thinking of western aid agencies Questions 16—20
The prospects for finding life beyond Earth may be brightening. Today, scientists are reporting evidence for yet another potential habitat in our solar system: Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Scientists mining new data from the Cassini spacecraft say they may have found evidence that Enceladus—the planet’s fourth-largest moon—hosts liquid water.
If the results hold up, this would bring to four the number of bodies in the solar system—including Earth—that display active volcanism. And since life as biologists know it requires liquid water and a source of energy, Enceladus would join Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Titan, as well as Mars, as possible spots beyond Earth where simple forms of life may have gained or still maintain a foothold.
The di scovery, however, is bittersweet for many scientists. NASA’s proposed budget for fiscal 2007 calls for a 50 percent cut in its astrobiology program. Although the program is a tiny piece of the agency’s overall spending plan for science, it’s a significant source of money for probing fundamental questions of how and why life emerged on Earth and whether life arose elsewhere in the universe.
A 50-percent cut “is almost a going-out-of-business-level cut〞in a vibrant line of research that stands as one pilla r supporting President Bush’s vision for space exploration, says planetary scientist Sean Solomon, who heads the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Nevertheless, the research in today’s issue of the journal Sci ence is the sort of thing that continues to light a fire under the field. Its report about liquid water under the icy surface of Enceladus is a “radical conclusion,〞acknowledges Carolyn Porco, who leads the imaging team working with data from the Cassini orbiter. But if the team is right, “we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar-system environments〞that might have rolled out the welcome mat “for living organisms,〞she concludes.
Images released last fall show the moon ejecting vast plumes of material near its unexpectedly warm south pole. As the team pondered the evidence, they nixed several explanations, including the idea that the particles in the plumes were driven by vapor billowing out as ice reached the surface and immediately turned into a gas. The last idea standing: Liquid water was venting from reservoirs near the surface, perhaps only tens of meters below the frigid crust. This explanation also helped solve the riddle of puzzlingly high levels of oxygen atoms found in Saturn’s ne ighborhood.
Confirmation could come with additional flybys, if water—and perhaps life—is present, it wouldn’t be “luxuriant,〞notes Jeffrey Kargel, a researcher at the University of Arizona at Tucson. It likely would face tough conditions—nasty chemicals, very low temperatures, and little energy to drive it. Still, he adds, it’s premature to cross the moon off the list of possible “outposts〞for life beyond Earth. Yet the prospect of building on these results could be dimmer with the threat of budget cuts. The proposed reductions post several challenges, researchers say.。