2010年9月高级口译真题与答案.doc

2010年9月高级口译考试真题与答案【Spot Dictation】We already live in an over-communicated world that will only become more so in the next tech era. Weve developed technology that gets us so much information that weve got cell phones ringing every second. Weve got computers and laptops. Weve got personal organizers. And were just being bombarded with communication and every advancing technology seems to create more and more communications at us. We are thought of over-whelmed by the information flow. Research suggests that all the multi-tasking may actually make our brains work better and faster, producing a world-wide increase in IQ up to 20 points and more in recent decades. Is there any real benefit in all these mental gymnastics we now have to go through? We are not becoming a race of global idiots, but many do think certain skills are enhanced and certain are not. You know the ability to make fast decisions, to answer a dozen emails in 5 minutes or to fill out maybe big aptitude text. Thats enhanced. But when someone is out there with his kids laying in his little league, or something like that, hes got his cell phone in his pocket, he is always wondering: “Jeez, did I get a voicemail?” This might have negative effects on our own brains patterns. Creativity is something that happens slowly. It happens when your brain is just noodling around, just playing. When it puts together ideas which you havent thought of, or maybe you have time to read a book. You are a business person but you have time to read a book about history or about a philosopher and something that happened long ago, or something or some ideas, some default of long ago. Actually, it might occur to you that you can think of your own business in that way. And so if this mixture of unrelated ideas that feeds your productivity, feeds your creativity, and if your mind is disciplined to answer every email, then you dont have time for that playful noodling, you dont have time for those unexpected conjunctions. So I think maybe we are getting smarter in some senses, but over communication is a threat to our creativity and to our reflection. 【Listening Comprehension】Listening Comprehension 1 Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation. M: You know in designing this new town, we try to look backward at small town in America, and take the best of those planning elements. Houses close together, sidewalks from the porches, tree-lined streets, easy non-automobile-dependent access to the town center and to your neighbors and to the school and the other institutions that are vital. And weve tried to take some of those ideas and update them and come out with a livable, workable place where people can go and re-kindle the sense of community that seems to be missing from suburbs all across the country. W: So give us a sense of how these new towns are designed. M: Houses are all very close together. We were just 10 feet apart from our neighbors on either side of us. And thats pretty much the standard for the town. So, you have houses that are close together, houses that surround open areas. They have a lot of big parks, a lot of common areas. The theory is that you are willing to sacrificial private yards base. You dont need a quarter of an acre or half an acre. If you have a public area where you can go and enjoy the facilities there. And, most importantly, you can interact with your neighbors. That helps to create the sense of community. Thats so important to many of these new town developments. W: Now I see this whole sense of community. Its going to be a new town, but we are going to do it with the sense of nostalgia for the past, like, a lot of the houses had porches. M: yes, it would create a front-porch culture, that people would be out on their porches, talking to their neighbors next door, and to people walking down the street, or people riding their bikes. And that would be this culture that existed 40, 50 or 60 years ago. But that really has been one of the failures that we observed during our 2 years in this new town. And the people dont spend very much time at all on their front porches. There are a couple of things going on. One is this central Florida and its hotter than hell a god part of the year. And sitting on your front porch, even if you have a fun going, can be a very uncomfortable thing. People prefer to be inside in the air-conditioning. W: What were some of the rules you had to live by in the new project? And did any of these rules bother you? M: well, the developer and I have different feelings about rules. His feeling is, if I can summarize these feelings for him, that you move in then knowing the rules, and if you dont like them, you shouldnt move in. I have some problems with rules. I just sometimes like to break them. And They just bother me because of their inexistence. But the rules sometimes were silly and sometimes werent. They dictated what color your curtains could be facing this street, and actually asked a woman with red curtains to remove them.W: really? Is that true? M: And they dictated where you could park your car and for how long. They dictated any sort of thing you could attach to your house. You couldnt attach a satellite dish to your house, they dictated forever the color of your house. And they dictate how often you have to repaint your house. They try to go a step further and remove plastic flowers and plastic furniture from that all important front porches. Some rules seem to go a little too far. Questions:1. What are the two speakers talking about?2. There are several planning elements for recreating a sense of community. Which of the following is not one of these elements?3. According to the conversation, what can we learn about the so-called front porch culture?4. Which of the following is not one of the rules that the residents have to live by?5. What does the man think of these rules according to the conversation?Listening Comprehension 2 Question 6 to 10 are based on the following news New York, USThe biggest Wall Street banks slashed their small business loan portfolios by 9% between 2008 and 2009, more than double the rate at which they cut their overall lending, according to a government report released Thursday. The Congressional Oversight Panel report spotlights the role banks, especially the largest ones, played in the credit crunch that has plagued small companies throughout the recession. Big banks pulled back on everyone, but they pulled back harder on small businesses, Elizabeth Warren, the panels chairwoman. Warrens oversight committee was established to keep tabs on the federal governments financial stabilization effort. The committees May report focuses on the role her committee played in improving credit access for small companies. Madrid, SpainThe European Union eases trade with Latin America at Madrid summitThe EU plans to boost trade with Latin America despite warnings from some European ministers and farmers, who fear unfair competition. EU negotiations with the Mercosur trade bloc, frozen since 2004, will reopen. The Mercosur group embraces Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Trade deals were also reached with Central America, Peru and Colombia, following marathon talks in Madrid. EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said, “We have opened a ground-breaking chapter in the EU relationship with our Latin America and Caribbean partners.” The EU is pursuing regional trade agreements while global trade talks - the so-called Doha Round - have failed to make progress. Tripoli, LibyaMembers of a Dutch family are on their way to Libya after being told that the sole survivor of the plane crash that killed 103 people might be their relative. A member of the Dutch family told the media that officials had told her family the child being treated at a hospital in Tripoli might be her grandson, 9-year-old Ruben van Assouw. The Dutch foreign ministry confirmed that two presumed family members of the injured child were on their way to Tripoli. Ruben had been on safari in South Africa with his brother, mother and father. All of whom perished in the crash, said the newspaper. Sixty-one Dutch citizens were believed killed when the MA Flight 230 from Johannesburg to Tripoli crashed on landing in clear weather at 6am. The Times understands that seven passengers had been due to fly on to London. Two of the dead were Britons and one was Irish. London, the United KingdomTarget Corp posted a higher quarterly profit as consumers loosened their wallets to spend on items including clothing and electronics. The discount retailer said profit was $671 million in the first fiscal quarter that ended May 1, compared with $522 million a year earlier. Target has benefited from consumers becoming a bit more willing to spend on discretionary items such as clothing and home furnishings. The company previously said that sales at stores open at least a year rose 2.8 percent in the first quarter. Bonn, GermanyFears of greater financial regulation across Europe hammered stocks after German measures aimed at limiting speculation were taken to smack of desperation. Stock markets were unnerved by Germanys unilateral ban on certain naked shorts announced late on Tuesday. And the euro suffered a kneejerk reaction, falling more than 1 percent against the yen, as investors saw foreign exchange as the only way to bet against the euro zone. World stocks were down 1.43 percent whilst the more volatile emerging markets index fell 2.64 percent. There were also fears that the debt crisis was about to worsen as some believed Germanys move smacked of desperation. Questions:6. What did the Wall Street banks do between 2008 and 2009 as reported in the news?7. What did the European Union plan to do at the Madrid Summit?8. How many people were killed when the passenger plane from Johannesburg to Tripoli crashed on landing?9. How much profit did Target Corp make in the first quarter of the year?10. What did Germanys recent financial measures aim at? Listening Comprehension 3 Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview. Man: When most couples married, they may discuss some things in advance like how many children they want or where they want to live. But most of the day-to-day details or problems of married life work out after marriage. Not so with Steven Karen Parsons who have a 15-page prenuptial agreement that states the rules they must follow in almost every aspect of their married life. Today, Karen is here with us. Man: Karen, first Id like to ask you why you decided to write this agreement. Youve both been married before. Am I right? Woman: Yes, Ive been married twice and Steve was married once before. So we have some experience about what goes wrong in a marriage. Man: And thats why you wrote this agreement. Woman: Yes, we found that many problems happen when a person has different expectations from his or her spouse. We want to talk about everything openly and honestly before we start living together. Also, we both know how important it is to respect each others quotes. Were all bothered by things that seems small to someone else, like it used to really bother me when my ex-husband let his dirty clothes on the floor. So we put that in the agreement: dirty clothing must be put in a laundry bag. Now Steve knows what my expectations are. Man: Im sure that some people hearing this report will think this contract isnt very romantic. Woman: Well, we disagree. We think its very romantic. Disagreement shows that we set down and talked and really try to understand the other person. A lot of problems occur in a marriage because people dont talk about what they want. Thats right. When we disagree about something, we work out solution. Thats good for both of us. Id much rather do that than get some romantic gifts like flowers or candy. Man: Some of these rules sound like, well, a business agreement. Many of your rules concern money in some way, even the rules about having children. Woman: In our experience, disagreements about money can cause a lot of problems, so we talked about how we want to spend our money and put that in the agreement as well. Man: So do you spend a lot of time checking on each other to see if the rules are being followed? Woman: No, not at all. And we dont argue about them, either. As a matter of fact I think we spend less time arguing than most couples. Because we both know what the other person expects. We can spend our time doing things we enjoy and just being with each other.Man: What happens if one of you breaks the rule.？Woman: We dont think that will be a problem. No, because we do agree on these rules. Man: But what if, say, you dont want to cook dinner one night, what happens? Woman: Well, we talk about it and reach a compromise. Maybe theres a good reason. Man: But if you break a lot of rules all the time? Woman: Then we have to ask Is this marriage really working? Because if we cant follow all our own agreement. Theres no point making it. Man: So it sounds like you two are happy with this agreement. Do you think other couples should follow your example and write the prenuptial agreement of their own? Woman: “So a lot of work to write an agreement, but I think it could be useful to a lot of people. Maybe there would be fewer divorces if everyone did this. Questions:11. About which of the following topics is the woman been interviewed?12. What can we learn about the man and the woman from the interview?13. According to the woman, why did so many problems happen in a marriage?14. What does the woman think of this contract?15. What happens if one of the couple sometimes breaks a rule of the contract?Listening Comprehension 4 Question 16-20 are based on the following talk. Different cultures often have entirely different perceptions of time. The cultural anthropologist Edward T Hall popularized the idea that cultures use time and view time in very different ways. The idea of the past, present and future and the whole concept of scheduling or managing time can be so different that it leads to cross-cultural miscommunications. In his 1990 book，The Dance of Life, Hall writes time is one of the fundamental bases, on which all cultures rest, and around which all activities revolve. Understanding the difference between monochronic time and polychronic time is essential to success. Halls notion of monochronism and polychronism can be understood as follows: monochronic time is linear, events scheduled one at a time, one event following another. To a monochronic culture, this type of schedule is valued over interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, polychronic time is characterized by many things happening simultaneously. In addition, interpersonal relationships are highly valued in polychronic cultures. Halls theory is that monochronic time can be found primarily in North American and northern European cultures. These cultures emphasize schedules, punctuality and preciseness. They also emphasize doing things. They are cultures that value productivity, that value getting things done on time. They view time as something that can be lost, killed or wasted. Or conversely, they view as something that can or should be managed, planed and used efficiently. Polychronic time, on the other hand, can be found primarily in Latin American, African, and Native American cultures. Their conception of time is more connected to natural rhythms. It is connected to the earth, to the seasons. This makes sense when we consider that natural events can occur spontaneously, sporadically or concurrently. Polychronic cultures view time as being somewhat flexible. Since life isnt so predictable, scheduling and being processed simply isnt that important. In addition, relationships with people are valued more than making schedules. There is more value placed on being than on doing. Different cultural perceptions of time can lead to conflict, especially in the business world. The idea of being late versus on time for a meeting, for example, might differ widely between an American business person and a Brazilian. The American business person might be far less tolerant of a Brazilians late arrival. However, the Brazilian business person might be offended by an Americans insistence on punctuality, or on getting right down to business. The Brazilian would generally prefer to finish talking with colleagues first and would not want to cut conversation short in order to make an appointment. Some traditional time management programs used in the business world might not translate well in another culture. Traditional time management programs in the business world emphasize to-do-list and careful scheduling. They are monochronic. However, a business in a polychronic culture might not adjust well to that system. Companies, who impose those monochronic systems on places of business in polychronic cultures, might be guilty of ethno-centrism, which means making their own ethnical cultural values central and not valuing other values. Edward Halls theory of monochronic and polychronic cultures has been challenged by some critics. Some people think it is overly general. They argue that within any culture group we might find people who think of time differently. In other words, a primarily polychronic culture might have both monochronic and polychronic types of people. The same diversity among individuals might be found in a primarily monochronic culture. Critics of anthropologist like Edward Hall feel that it is more useful to think of time differences among individuals, not just between culture groups. Questions:16. Which of the following topics is the person talking about?17. What can we learn about Monochronism from the cul