2014年硕士研究生入学考试初试专业课211翻译硕士英语试题
嘉积中学-伯恩茅斯大学
北 京 科 技 大 学
2014年硕士学位研究生入学考试试题
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试题编号： 211 试题名称：
翻译硕士英语 （共 12 页）
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翻译
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I.
Vocabulary and Structure ( 30 points, 1 point
each, 60 minutes)
Directions: Beneath
each sentence there are four words or phrases
marked A, B, C, or
D. Choose the answer that
best completes the sentence. Write your answers on
the
answer sheet.
1. It was nearly
always organized by the government, although some
club members
acted _______ their own
initiative.
A. by B. on C. with D.
in
2. He redesigned the process, thereby
________ the company thousands of dollars.
A.
saving B. to save C. saved D. save
3. Modern bodies are especially ______ to
cancer, because technology produces
waste that
inhibits their proper functioning.
A.
relevant B. invulnerable C. prone D.
attractive
4. Some of his plans were
impractical and ________ good for his work, but he
never
wavered in what he considered just.
A. too much B. much too C. so much D.
much so
5. Supporters praised the action
as a speedy and judicious solution, but critics
condemned it as ______ and unfairly influenced
by recent events.
A. delayed B. indisposed
C. hasty D. imperious
6. It is odd that
a person’s worth is measured by his wealth, ______
instead people’s
character should be measured
by their value to society.
A. while B. so
C. because D. when
7. During the
17
th
century many artists became involved
in color theory and ______
painting for
enlightenment.
A. looked up to B. looked
out C. looked on D. looked to
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8. No government can meet the _______
demand for ever more sophisticated
medical
technology by an aging population.
A.
intransigent B. insatiable C. ingenious D.
inglorious
9. It is difficult to
distinguish between the things that celebrities do
______ and those
that are carefully contrived
for effect.
A. reluctantly B. publicly
C. spontaneously D. prolifically
10.
The monkeys in the zoo are a group, because
primates are inevitably ______ and
build their
lives around each other.
A. social B.
independent C. stable D. curious
11.
When economy, language, culture and history
interact, people begin to view them
as _______
subjects rather than isolated ones.
A.
idiosyncratic B. integral C. synchronized D.
synthesized
12. Retired people are often
willing to _______ their time to help with
community
project.
A. give out B. give
away C. give of D. give off
13. Even
though formidable winters are the norm in this
region, people were
unprepared for the _______
of the blizzard that year.
A. mildness B.
ferocity C. inevitability D. probability
14. The committee provides funding to _______
artists like those of women and of
color, in
the hopes of rectifying a historical inequality.
A. prolific B. prominent C. promising D.
marginalized
15. All are in the _____
stages, until architectural historians survey each
house to
determine which have historic value.
A. preliminary B. primary C. prevalent D.
predicative
16. He has unusual insight
and imagination, which has made him succeed in
______
new and fundamental principles well in
advance of their general recognition.
A.
coordinating B. discerning C. acknowledging
D. dispelling
17. The storyline of the
novel was extremely involved and included many
lesser
characters _______ to the central
events.
A. consequential B. peripheral C.
indispensable D. permeating
18. Once I
finally _______ finding a definition, I see that
it was never any such thing.
A. get across to
B. get away with C. get round to D. get in
with
19. Despite the fact that the life
span of animals is conveniently divided into
separate
2
stages, those
periods are not truly _______.
A. distinct B.
continuous C. reflexive D. codependent
20. In spite of _______ among scientists, and
years of contentious discussion, the
claim
that earthquake can be predicted with great
precision prevails.
A. reception B.
popularity C. skepticism D. antipathy
21. No dictionary can really capture something
as fleeting and ______ as slang.
A. equivocal
B. equitable C. equable D. ephemeral
22. They bought up pieces of old furniture and
passed them ______ as valuable
antiques.
A. out B. by C. away D. off
23. That reason was unique human has come
_____ increasingly skeptical scrutiny:
more
researchers at least entertain the notion that
some animals can think.
A. in B. under
C. to D. with
24. Sam was a complete
country man, with a pronounced ______ with nature
in all its
forms.
A. infinity B.
conformity C. affinity D. fluidity
25.
It is no accident that most people find his book
disturbing, for it is calculated to
undermine
a number of beliefs they have long _______.
A.
cherished B. denied C. anticipated D.
misunderstood
26. Although the passage
of years has softened the initially hostile
reaction to his
poetry, even now only a few
independent observers _______ his works.
A.
neglect B. criticize C. comment D. praise
27. The exhibition, though small in
scale, succeeded in _______ its members with a
firm sense of self-worth and purpose.
A.
endowing B. imbuing C. ladening D.
providing
28. We were all impressed by
the style of his books which is strongly ________
of
Virginia Woolf’s novels.
A.
reminiscent B. symptomatic C. indicative D.
imitative
29. Historian can _______
“Augustan peace” only by failing to recognize that
this
peace in many respects resemble that of
death.
A. demand B. ridicule C. applaud
D. disapprove
30. Everything becomes
collectable in time, particularly when its history
and date of
manufacture can be ________.
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A. described B. acknowledged C.
overlooked D. authenticated
II.
Reading Comprehension (40 points, 2 points each,
60 minutes)
Section I
Directions: In
this section there are two reading passages
followed by multiple choice
questions. Read
the passages and then write your answers on your
answer sheet.
Passage One
Constant vigilance: that is the task of the people
who protect society from
enemies intent on
using subterfuge and violence to get their way. It
is also the watch
word of those who fear that
the protectors will pursue the collective interest
at untold
cost to individual rights. Edward
Snowden, a young security contractor, has come
down on one side of that tussle by leaking
documents showing that the National
Security
Agency (NSA) spied on millions of Americans’ phone
records on the internet
activity of hundreds
of millions of foreigners.
The documents,
published by the Guardian and the Washington Post,
include two
big secrets. One is a court order
telling Verizon, a telecoms company, to hand over
“metadata”, such as the duration, direction
and location of subscribers’ calls. The
other
gives some clues about a programme called PRISM,
which collects e-mails,
files and social-
networking data from firms such as Google, Apple
and Facebook.
Much of this eavesdropping has
long been surmised, and none of it is necessarily
illegal. America gives wide powers to its law-
enforcement and spy agencies. They are
overseen by Congress and courts, which issue
orders to internet firms.
Barack Obama has
responded to the leaks by saying that he
“welcomes” a debate
on the trade-off between
privacy, security and convenience. Despite the
president’s
words, however, the administration
and much of Congress seem unwilling to talk
about the programmes they oversee; and the
politicians and executives who do want
to
speak out are gagged by secrecy laws. Opinion
polls show that Americans are
divided about
the merits of surveillance—which is partly because
they know so little
about what is going on.
But spying in a democracy depends for its
legitimacy on
informed consent, not blind
trust.
You might argue that the spies are
doing only what is necessary. Al-Qaeda’s
assaults on September 11
th
2001
demonstrated to politicians everywhere that their
first
duty is to ensure their own citizens’
safety. With Islamist bombers, there is a good
case for using electronic surveillance: they
come from a population that is still hard
for
Western security services to penetrate, and they
make wide use of mobile phones
and the
internet. The NSA’s boss, Keith Alexander, says
the ploys revealed by Mr
Snowden have stopped
dozens of plots. The burden on society of sweeping
up
information about them has been modest
compared with the wars launched against
Afghanistan and Iraq. And the public seems
happy: if there were another attack on
America, Mr Snowden would soon be forgotten.
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Yet because the spies
choose what to reveal about their work, nobody can
judge if
the cost and intrusion are
proportionate to the threat. One concern is the
size, scope
and cost of the security
bureaucracy: some 1.4 million people have “top
secret”
clearances of the kind held by Mr
Snowden. Is that sensible?
A second worry
is the effect on America’s ties with other
countries. The
administration’s immediate
response to the PRISM revelation was that
Americans
have nothing to fear: it touched
only foreigners. That adds insult to injury in
countries
that count themselves as close
American allies: the European Union, in
particular,
fastidiously protects its
citizens’ data. Fears abound that the spy agencies
practice a
cynical swap, in which each
respects the letter of the law protecting the
rights of its
own people—but lets its allies
do the snooping instead.
Lawyerly officials
denials of such machinations fail to reassure
because of the
third worry: the governments
acting outside public scrutiny are not to be
trusted.
James Clapper, America’s director of
national intelligence, told Congress in March
that the NSA does not gather data on “millions
of Americans”. He now says he
answered in “the
least untruthful manner” possible. Trawls through
big databases may
produce interesting
clues—but also life-ruining false alarms,
especially when the
resulting decisions are
cloaked in secrecy. Those on “no-fly lists”, which
ban an
unknown number of people from most air
travel, are not told what they have done
wrong
and cannot clear their names. In desperation, 13
American citizens, including
some who were
exiled from their own country by the travel ban,
are suing the
government.
Our point is
not that America’s spies are doing the wrong
things, but that the level
of public scrutiny
is inadequate and so is the right of redress.
Without these, officials
will be tempted to
abuse their powers, because the price of doing so
is small. This is
particularly true for those
who bug and ban.
Spooks do need secrecy, but
not on everything, always and everywhere.
Officials
will complain that disclosure would
hinder their efforts in what is already an unfair
fight. Yet some operational efficiency is
worth sacrificing, because public scrutiny is a
condition for popular backing. Even allowing
for the need to keep some things
clandestine,
Americans need a clearer idea of what their spies
are doing in their name.
1. According to
the passage, which of the following statements
about vigilance is
true?
A. President
Obama describes the spying as a defense of
security.
B. Americans differ in their
attitude towards the government’s vigilance.
C. The administration and Congress feel
ashamed of the spying.
D. America’s law-
enforcement and spy agencies are not entitled to
spy.
2. The sentence in paragraph two “if
there were another attack on America, Mr
Snowden would soon be forgotten” probably
means ________.
A. Americans need divert their
attention from the spying event.
B. Mr Snowden
matters little compared to America’s potential
enemies.
C. Vigilance would be accepted by the
public if America was faced with danger.
5
D. Mr Snowden’s revelation of
PRISM would be forgotten sooner or later.
3. Americans have the following concerns
regarding vigilance EXCEPT_____.
A. Spy agents
leave Americans little privacy and less security.
B. Spying will damage America’s relation with
other countries.
C. It is not sensible to
devote much money and energy to vigilance.
D.
There lacks effective scrutiny of the government’s
surveillance.
4. The case that some
citizens are banned from air travel in paragraph 7
is presented
to illustrate ________.
A.
the efficiency of spying
B. the absurdity of
the ban
C. the inadequacy of the spying system
D. the interesting findings of spying
5. What is the author’s stance on vigilance by
the government?
A. Vigilance does more harm
than good to American citizens.
B. Protection
of society is merely an excuse for illegal
vigilance.
C. The legitimacy of vigilance is
still open to discussion.
D. Vigilance is
necessary but should be better scrutinized by the
public.
Passage Two
A
simple idea underpins science: “trust, but
verify”. Results should always be
subject to
challenge from experiment. That simple but
powerful idea has generated a
vast body of
knowledge. Since its birth in the 17
th
century, modern science has
changed the world
beyond recognition, and overwhelmingly for the
better. But
success can breed complacency.
Modern scientists are doing too much trusting and
not enough verifying—to the detriment of the
whole of science and of humanity.
Too many
of the findings that fill the academic ether are
the result of shoddy
experiments or poor
analysis. A rule of thumb among biotechnology
venture-capitalists is that half of published
research cannot be replicated. Even that
may
be optimistic. Last year researchers at one
biotech firm found they could
reproduce just
six of 53 “landmark” studies in cancer research.
In 2000-2010 roughly
80,000 patients took part
in clinical trials based on research that was
later retracted
because of mistakes or
improprieties.
Even when flawed research
does not put people’s lives at risks—and much of
it is
too far from the market to do so—it
squanders money and the efforts of some of the
world’s best minds. The opportunity costs of
stymied progress are hard to quantify,
but
they are likely to be vast. And they could be
rising.
One reason is the competitiveness of
science. In the 1950s, when modern
academic
research took shape after its successes in the
Second World War, it was still
a rarefied
pastime. The entire club of scientists numbered a
few hundred thousand. As
their ranks have
swelled, scientists have lost their taste for
self-policing and quality
6
control. The obligation to “publish or
perish” has come to rule over academic life.
Competition for jobs is cut-throat. Full
professors in America earned on average
$$135,000 in 2012—more than judges did. Every
year six freshly minted PhDs vie for
every
academic post. Nowadays verification does little
to advance a researcher’s
career. And without
verification, dubious findings live on to mislead.
Careerism also encourages exaggeration and
the cherry-picking of results. In
order to
safeguard their exclusivity, the leading journals
impose high rejection rates:
in excess of 90%
of submitted manuscripts. The most striking
findings have the
greatest chance of making it
onto the page. Little wonder that one in three
researchers
knows of a colleague who has
pepped up a paper by, say, excluding inconvenient
data
from results “based on a gut feeling”.
And as more research teams around the world
work on a problem, the odds shorten that at
least one will fall prey to an honest
confusion between the sweet signal of a
genuine discovery and a freak of the
statistical noise.
Conversely, failures
to prove a hypothesis are rarely even offered for
publication,
let alone accepted. “Negative
results” now account for only 14% of published
papers,
down from 30% in 1990. Yet knowing
what is false is as important to science as
knowing what is true. The failure to report
failures means that researchers waste
money
and effort exploring blind alleys already
investigated by other scientists.
The
hallowed process of peer review is not all it is
cracked up to be, either. When
a prominent
medical journal ran research past other experts in
the field, it found that
most of the reviewers
failed to spot mistakes it had deliberately
inserted into papers,
even after being told
they were being tested.
All this makes a
shaky foundation for an enterprise dedicated to
discovering the
truth about the world. What
might be done to shore it up? One priority should
be for
all disciplines to follow the example
of those that have done most to tighten standards.
Ideally, research protocols should be
registered in advance and monitored in virtual
notebooks. This would curb the temptation to
fiddle with the experiment’s design
midstream
so as to make the results look more substantial
than they are. Where
possible, trial data also
should be open for other researchers to inspect
and test.
The most enlightened journals are
already becoming less averse to humdrum
papers. Some government funding agencies,
including America’s National Institutes
of
Health, which dish out $$30 billion on research
each year, are working out how best
to
encourage replication. And growing numbers of
scientists, especially young ones,
understand
statistics. But these trends need to go much
further. Journals should
allocate space for
“uninteresting” work, and grant-givers should set
aside money to
pay for it. Peer review should
be tightened—or perhaps dispensed with altogether,
in
favor of post-publication evaluation in the
form of appended comments. Lastly,
policymakers should ensure that institutions
using public money also respect the rules.
Science still commands enormous—if sometimes
bemused—respect. But its
privileged status is
founded on the capacity to be right most of the
time and to correct
its mistakes when it gets
things wrong. And it is not as if the universe is
short of
genuine mysteries to keep generations
of scientists hard at work. The false trails laid
down by shoddy research are an unforgivable
barrier to understanding.
7
6. Which issue about science is mainly
addressed in the passage?
A. Science calls for
more verification.
B. Flawed science research
does harm to humanity.
C. Fierce competition
exists in science.
D. An objective evaluation
of science is necessary.
7. Which of the
following statements can best explain the major
issue in science?
A. Scientific research is
too flawed to be turned into productivity.
B.
Scientists are unwilling to get papers published
for promotion.
C. Competition in science leads
to irrational pursuit of startling results.
D.
Peer review mechanism is not fully implemented.
8. “cherry-picking of results” in
paragraph five refers to ______.
A.
overstating the results to get papers published
B. keeping only positive results to get paper
published
C. selecting only papers with the
most favorable results
D. safeguarding the
high quality of experiment results
9.
According to the passage, negative results in
scientific experiments should be
_____.
A.
dismissed as complete failures and never to be
considered
B. published to avoid unnecessary
waste of money and effort
C. investigated a
second time to confirm their inadequacy
D.
adapted to incorporate with a new hypothesis
10. The passage suggests the following
solutions to the issue in science EXCEPT
________.
A. implementing higher standards
in scientific experiment
B. carrying out
larger scale of inspection and test of trial data
C. allocating more funding for the
verification of science results
D. speeding up
the application of science results to the market
Section II
Directions: Read the
following two passages and answer in COMPLETE
SENTENCES the questions which follow the
passages. Write your answers in the
corresponding space on your answer sheet.
Passage Three
The American
dream has taken hit after hit the past half-
decade. It just suffered
another blow, based
on a new poll. Yet young people seem determined to
turn things
around, giving us all cautious
cause for optimism.
8
When
writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase in
1931 he called the
American dream “that dream
of a land in which life should be better and
richer and
fuller for everyone, with
opportunity for each according to ability or
achievement.” So
it was all about opportunity,
which largely has disappeared amid a poor job
market,
heavy debts, and wages that have
stalled for 25 years.
In more recent times,
the American dream became closely identified with
home
ownership. But that idea suffered a blow
in the housing bust. Just 65% of Americans
own
their home, down from 69% pre-bust, and four out
of five Americans are
rethinking the reasons
they’d want to buy a house.
Perhaps the
newest definition of the American dream comes from
the National
Endowment for Financial
Education, which found that nearly half of adults
define the
dream as a comfortable retirement.
Most just want to quit work at 65 or 67 and not
worry. That’s their dream, which far outpaces
the 17% who cling to homeownership
as the
embodiment of Adam’s vision.
Now we see yet
another blow to yet another version of the
American dream,
which at times has been
described as each generation doing better than the
last. Seven
in 10 Americans say that when
today’s children are adults, they’ll have less
financial
security than adults today,
according to an AllstateNational Journal Heartland
Monitor poll.
Adults overwhelmingly
believe childhood and parenthood were better for
earlier
generations; 79% say it was better to
have been a child when they were young. Most
believe today’s kids will have a poorer chance
of holding a steady job and owning a
home
without too much debt, and that their children
will have less opportunity to
achieve a
comfortable retirement.
The downbeat view
doesn’t stop here. Adults also believe that
today’s children
will display less patriotism,
a poorer work ethic, and less civic responsibility
when
they come of age.
All this
pessimism would be deadly troublesome if not for
one thing: young
people aren’t buying it. More
than half of teens in the poll say it’s better to
be a kid
today, and nearly half say that when
they are their parents’ age they will have more
opportunity—not less.
Maybe that’s
because young people learned a lot during the
Great Depression.
They saw their parents get
socked. But with no real assets at risk themselves
they
came through it unscathed, financially
speaking, and yet took the lessons to heart and
are more conscious about spending and debt
than Mom and Dad have been.
Maybe that’s
because they’ve seen stocks come roaring back and
the housing
market begin to recover. Mom and
Dad may not be whole yet, and still stinging. But
those who began their careers in the past five
years and were smart enough to sign up
for a
401 (k) have been building wealth steadily.
Maybe that’s because, stereotypes be damned, they
know something about their
work ethic that
boomers and other elders do not: Millennials are
pretty darned
committed to their careers—they
just see it in different terms.
Or maybe
it’s just because young people can’t imagine life
without the internet or
smartphones or, well,
reality TV. Toddlers today play on iPads. With
mobile
9
technology, young
professionals can get their jobs done at the
beach. By comparison,
older generations grew
up in the dinosaur age. We had outrageous long-
distance bills,
three channels and a TV with
rabbit ears. Dude, what’s so great about that?
11. What is the passage mainly about?
12. What specific aspects about American
dream are discussed in the passage?
13.
How do you interpret the first sentence in
paragraph eight: “All the pessimism
would be
deadly troublesome if not for one thing: young
people aren’t buying it.”?
14. What is
the author’s attitude towards the issue being
discussed?
15. Could you give a title to
the passage?
Passage Four
It’s an exciting notion that one’s very self could
be broadened by the mastery of
two or more
languages. In obvious ways (exposure to new
friends, literature and so
forth) the self-
reality is broadened. Yet it is different to
claim—as many people
do—to have a different
personality when using a different language. A
former
colleague, for example, reported being
ruder in Hebrew than in English. So what is
going on here?
Benjamin Lee Whorf, an
American linguist who died in 1941, held that each
language encodes a worldview that
significantly influences its speakers. Often
called
“Whorfinanism”, this idea has its
skeptics. But there are still good reasons to
believe
language shapes thought.
This
influence is not necessarily linked to the
vocabulary or grammar of a second
language.
Significantly, most people are not symmetrically
bilingual. Many have
learned one language at
home from parents, and another later in life,
usually at school.
So bilinguals usually have
different strengths and weaknesses in their
different
languages—and they are not always
best in their first language. For example, when
tested in a foreign language, people are less
likely to fall into a cognitive trap
(answering a test question with an obvious-
seeming but wrong answer) than when
tested in
their native language. In part this is because
working in a second language
slows down the
thinking. No wonder people feel different when
speaking them. And
no wonder they feel looser,
more spontaneous, perhaps more assertive or
funnier or
blunter, in the language they were
reared in from childhood.
What of “crib”
bilinguals, raised in two languages? Even they do
not usually have
perfectly symmetrical
competence in their two languages. But even for a
speaker
whose two languages are very nearly
the same in ability, there is another big reason
that person will feel different in the two
languages. This is because there is an
important distinction between bilingualism and
biculturalism.
10
Many
bilinguals are not bicultural. But some are. And
of those bicultural
bilinguals, we should be
little surprised that they feel different in their
two languages.
Experiments in psychology have
shown the power of “priming”—small unnoticed
factors that can affect behavior in big ways.
Asking people to tell a happy story, for
example, will put them in a better mood. The
choice between two languages is a huge
prime.
Speaking Spanish rather than English, for a
bilingual and bicultural Puerto
Rican in New
York, might conjure feelings of family and home.
Switching to English
might prime the same
person to think of school and work.
So there
are two very good reasons that make people feel
different speaking their
different languages.
We are still left with a third kind of argument,
though.
People seem to enjoy telling tales
about their languages’ inherent properties, and
how they influence their speakers. A group of
French intellectual worthies once
proposed,
rather self-flatteringly, that French be the sole
legal language of the EU,
because of its
supposedly unmatchable rigor and precision. Some
Germans believe
that frequently putting the
verb at the end of a sentence makes the language
especially
logical. We also see some
unsurprising overlap with national stereotypes and
self-stereotypes: French, rigorous; German,
logical; English, playful. Of course.
In
this case, Ms Chalaris, a scholar, at least
proposed a specific and plausible line
of
causation from grammar to personality: in Greek,
the verb comes first, and it
carries a lot of
information, hence easy interrupting. The problem
is that many
unrelated languages all around
the world put the verb at the beginning of
sentences.
Many languages all around the world
are heavily inflected, encoding lots of
information in verbs. It would be a striking
finding if all of these unrelated languages
had speakers more likely to interrupt each
other. Welsh, for example, is also both
verb-
first and about as heavily inflected as Greek, but
the Welsh are not known as
pushy
conversationalists.
Neo-Whorfians continue
to offer evidence and analysis that aims to prove
that
different languages push speakers to
think differently. One such effort is forthcoming:
“The Bilingual Mind” to be published in April.
Meanwhile John McWhorter takes the
opposite
stance in “The Language Hoax”, forthcoming in
February. But strong
Whorfian arguments do not
need to be valid for people to feel differently in
their
different languages.
16. Which
statement or notion is under discussion in this
passage?
17. Do bilinguals feel more
comfortable with their first language? Why or why
not?
18. According to the passage, why do
people feel different when they speak different
languages?
19. Why are Greeks likely
to interrupt in conversation according to some
scholar?
20. Does the author agree on the
causation from language to personality? How does
he argue for or against it?
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III. Writing ( 30 points, 60
minutes)
Some universities in China have
changed Chinese from a compulsory course
to an
optional one. Only Students who major in Chinese
literature or relevant
majors are taking
Chinese courses.
Write a composition of
about 400 words about the phenomenon described
above and your opinion about it.
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