北外研究生入学考试基础英语2005[试卷+答案]

北京外国语大学

2005年硕士研究生入学考试

基础英语试卷

Please write all the answers on the answer sheets.

Time Limit:3hours

I.Reading Comprehension

This section contains two passages.Read each passage and then answer the questions given at the end of it.Your answers must be in English.

Passage One

Critics and supporters of the United Nations have sometimes seemed worlds apart.But since last year,almost all of them,whether multilateralist or unilateralist.American or European,have come to agree that the organisation is in crisis.This week,a blue-ribbon panel commissioned by the body’s secretary-general.Kofi Annan.released its report on what to do about it.

The UN’s sorry state became most obvious with the Iraq war.Those favouring the War were furious that after a decade of Security Council resolutions,including the last-chance Resolution 1441threatening“serious consequences”if Iraq did not prove its disarmament,the UN could not agree to act.Anti—war types were just as frustrated that the world body failed to stop the War.But Iraq was not the UN’s only problem.It has done little to stop humanitarian disasters,such as the ongoing horror in Sudan.And it has done nothing to stop Iran’s and North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Recognising the danger of irrelevance.Mr Annan last year told a16-member panel, composed mainly of former government ministers and heads of government,to suggest changes. These fall broadly into two categories:the institutional and the cultural.The former has got most of the headlines—particularly a call for changing the structure of the Security Council.But changes in the UN’s working practices are crucial.too.

Everyone agrees that the Security Council is an unrepresentative relic:of its15seats.five are occupied by permanent,veto—wielding members(America,Russia,China,Britain and France)and ten go to countries that rotate every two years and have no veto.But that the council’s composition is a throwback to the world order immediately after the Second World War has been agreed on for decades,without any success in changing it.Japan and Germany:the second.and third.biggest contributors to the UN budget,believe they are entitled to permanent seats.So does India,the world’s second—most—populous country,and Brazil,Latin America’s biggest.Unlike in previous efforts,these four have finally banded together to press their case.And they are joined in spirit by the Africans,who want two seats for their continent.

But each aspirant has opponents.China mistrusts Japan.Italy opposes a permanent seat for Germany,which would make Italy the only biggish European power without one.(It instead proposes a single seat for the European Union,a non-starter since this would require Britain and France to give up theirs.and regional institutions cannot be UN members under the current UN Charter.)Spanish-speaking Mexico and Argentina do not think Portuguese-speaking Brazil should represent Latin America,and Pakistan strongly opposes its rival India’s bid.As for potential African seats,Egypt claims one as the representative of the Muslim and Arab world.That would leave Nigeria,the continent’s most populous country,and South Africa,which is richer and a more stable democracy,fighting for the other.

The panel has proposed two alternatives.The first would give six countries(none is named