2010年3月中级口译真题

2010年3月中级口译真题 SECTION 1: LISTENING TEST (45 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. The Internet is an excellent source for finding many types of information and for keeping up with new developments in the world. Today, an ever increasing number of people are using the Internet to ________(1) related information, conduct business, or personal activities, access electronic databases, send e-mail, and network with relatives, _______(2). Frequently referred to as the Information Super Highway, the Internet is actually a network of _______(3). You may think of the Internet as analogous to the _________(4), Just as the inter-state system connects to different cities via ________(5), the Internet connects computers around the world via a number of different  __________(6). At the most basic level, a computer, a modem, and a right type of  _________(7 can get a person onto the Internet. Through the Internet you can access massive amounts of information by ________(8) that are linked together. Generally speaking, two types of information are _________(9), are the most useful for people. That is ,conversational resources, and _________(10). Conversational resources allow users to have conversations with individuals _________(11). Mailing lists and news groups are _________(12) of conversational resources. Mailing lists include electronic mail, whereby the user __________(13), send to any other individual, or group of individuals, who have subscribed by having their name and electronical_________(14)  placed on the center’s list of addresses. News groups are essentially electronic ________(15). Any one with Internet access can __________(16) to the board, and any one with Internet access can read the board. The reference resources you_________(17) are the World Wide Web(www) or the web for short. The web uses HTML(hypertext markup language) to  ________(18), sound, graphics and video. Of course, you need browsers to view documents, and ________(19)through the intricate links structure. The most ________(20) browser is the Microsoft Internet Explorer. Part B: Listening Comprehension 1. Statements Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear several short statements. These statements will be spoken ONLY ONCE, and you will not find them written on the paper; so you must listen carefully. When you hear a statement, read the answer choices and decide which one is closest in meaning to the statement you have heard. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.     2. Talks and Conversations Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear several short talks and conversations. After each of these, you will hear a few questions. Listen carefully because you will hear the talk or conversation and questions ONLY ONCE. When you hear a question, read the four answer choices and choose the best answer to that question. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.     Part C: Listening and Translation 1. Sentence Translation Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 sentences in English. 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 passages in English. 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 2: STUDY SKILLS (45 minutes) Directions: In this section, you will read several passages. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. 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 On Saturday mornings I worked in the family shop. I started cycling down to the shop with Dad on Saturday as soon as I was big enough. I thought of it as giving him a hand and so I didn’t mind what I did, although it was mostly just fetching and carrying at a run all morning. I managed not to think of it as work and I looked forward to the bar of chocolate my grandmother passed me unsmilingly as I left. I tried not to look at her; I had reason to feel guilty because I’d generally already eaten some dried fruits or a sliver of cheese when no one was looking. As soon as I was fifteen, though, Dad said, “That’s it, our Janet. You’re of working age now and you’re not coming to work unless your grandmother pays you properly.’ He did his best to make his chin look determined. “I shall speak to her.” The next Saturday, Gran called me into her little office behind the shop. I always hated going in there. She had an electric heater on full blast, and the windows were always kept tightly closed whatever the weather. There were piles of dusty catalogues and brochures on the floor. “You’re wanting to get paid, I hear,” Gran said. “Yes, please,” I replied. It was rather like visiting the head mistress at school, so I was very quiet and respectful. Gran searched through the mess of papers on her crowded desk, sighing and clicking her tongue. Eventually she produced an official-looking leaflet and ran her fingers along the columns of figures. “How old are you?” “Fifteen ... Gran,” I added for extra politeness, but she looked at me as if I had been cheeky. “Full-timers at your age get two hundred and forty pounds for a thirty-five-hour week,” she announced in such a way as to leave no doubt that she wasn’t in favour of this. “No wonder there’s no profit in shopkeeping! So, Janet, what’s that per hour?” Question like that always flustered me. Instead of trying to work them out in my head, I would just stand there unable to think straight. “I’ll get a pencil and paper,” I offered. “Don’t bother,” snapped Gran angrily, “I’ll do it myself. I’ll give you 6 pounds an hour; take it or leave it,” “I’ll take it, please,” “And I expect real work for it, mind. No standing about, and if I catch you eating any of the stock, there’ll be trouble. That’s theft, and it’s a crime.” From then on, my main job at the shop was filling the shelves. This was dull, but I hardly expected to be trusted with handling the money. Once or twice, however, when Dad was extra busy, I’d tried to help him by serving behind the counter. I hated it. It was very difficult to remember the prices of everything and I was particularly hopeless at using the till. Certain customers made unkind remarks about this, increasing my confusion and the chances of making a fool of myself. It was an old-established village shop, going back 150 years at least and it was really behind the times even then. Dad longed to be able to make the shop more attractive to customers, but Gran wouldn’t hear of it. I overheard them once arguing about whether to buy a freezer cabinet. “Our customers want frozen food,” Dad said. “They see things advertised and if they can’t get them from us, they’ll go elsewhere.” “Your father always sold fresh food,” Gran replied. “People come here for quality, they don’t want all that frozen stuff.”   1.     How did Janet feel when she first started her Saturday morning job? (A) She enjoyed the work that she was given. (B) She was pleased to be helping her father. (C) She worried that she was not doing it well. (D) She was only really interested in the reward.   2.     What do we learn about her grandmother’s office in the second paragraph? (A) It was untidy. (B) It was dark. (C) It needed decorating. (D) It had too much furniture in it.   3.     The word “flustered” (para. 2) means _______. (A) bored (B) angered (C) confused (D) depressed   4.     What did Janet’s father and grandmother disagree about? (A) How to keep their customers loyal to the shop. (B) The type of advertising needed to attract customers. (C) The type of customers they wanted to attract. (D) How to get new customers to come to the shop.   5.     What impression do we get of Janet’s feelings towards her grandmother? (A) She respected her fairness. (B) She doubted her judgment. (C) She disliked her manner. (D) She admired her determination.   Questions 6-10 Many trees in the Brackham area were brought down in the terrible storms that March. The town itself lost two great lime trees from the former market square. The disappearance of such prominent features had altered the appearance of the town centre entirely, to the annoyance of its more conservative inhabitants. Among the annoyed, under more normal circumstances, would have been Chief Inspector Douglas Pelham, head of the local police force. But at the height of that week’s storm, when the winds brought down even the mature walnut tree in his garden, Pelham had in fact been in no fit state to notice. A large and healthy man, he had for the first time in his life been seriously ill with an attack of bronchitis. When he first complained of an aching head and tightness in his chest, his wife, Molly, had tried to persuade him to go to the doctor. Convinced that the police force could not do without him, he had, as usual, ignored her and attempted to carry on working. Predictably, though he wouldn’t have listened to anyone who tried to tell him so, this has the effect of fogging his memory and shortening his temper. It was only when his colleague, Sergeant Lloyed, took the initiative and drove him to the doctor’s door that he finally gave in. By that time, he didn’t have the strength left to argue with her. In no time at all, she was taking him along to the chemist’s to get his prescribed antibiotics and then home to his unsurprised wife who sent him straight to bed. When Molly told him, on the Thursday morning, that the walnut tree had been brought down during the night, Pelham hadn’t been able to take it in. On Thursday evening, he had asked weakly about damage to the house, groaned thankfully when he heard there was none, and pulled the sheets over his head. It wasn’t until Saturday, when the antibiotics took effect, his temperature dropped and he got up, that he realised with a shock that the loss of the walnut tree had made a permanent difference to the appearance of the living-room. The Pelhams’ large house stood in a sizeable garden. It had not come cheap, but even so Pelham had no regrets about buying it. The leafy garden had created an impression of privacy. Now, though, the storm had changed his outlook. Previously, the view from the living-room had featured the handsome walnut tree. This has not darkened the room because there was also a window on the opposite wall, but it had provided interesting patterns of light and shade that disguised the true state of the worn furniture that the family had brought with them from their previous house. With the tree gone, the room seemed cruelly bright, its worn furnishings exposed in all their shabbiness. And the view from the window didn’t bear looking at. The tall house next door, previously hidden by the tree, was now there, dominating the outlook with its unattractive purple bricks and external pipes. It seemed to have a great many upstairs windows, all of them watching the Pelhams’ every movement. “Doesn’t it look terrible?” Pelham croaked to his wife. But Molly, standing in the doorway, sounded more pleased than dismayed. “That’s what I’ve been telling you ever since we came here. We have to buy a new sofa, whatever it costs.”   6.     Why were some people in Brackham annoyed after the storm? (A) The town looked different. (B) The police had done little to help. (C) No market could be held. (D) Fallen trees had not been removed.   7.     What do we learn about Chief Inspector Pelham and his work, from the third paragraph? (A) He found his work extremely annoying. (B) He was sure that he fulfilled a vital role in his work. (C) He considered the police systems not efficient. (D) He did not trust the decisions made by his superiors.   8.     When Inspector Pelham’s wife first told him about the walnut tree, he appeared to be _______. (A) worried (B) shocked (C) saddened (D) uninterested   9.     As a result of the storm, the Pelhams’ living-room _______. (A) was pleasantly lighter (B) felt less private (C) had a better view (D) was in need of repair   10.   From what we learn of Inspector Pelham, he could best be described as _______. (A) open-minded (B) well-liked (C) warm-hearted (D) strong-willed   Questions 11-15 A team of world-leading neuro-scientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person’s brain and read their intentions before they act. The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists’ ability to probe people’s minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future. The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way. “Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there’s no way you could possibly tell is in there. It’s like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall,” said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University. The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain imaging has been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying, violent behaviour and racial prejudice. The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuro-science is progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate into the ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology. If brain-reading can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to assist interrogations of criminals and terrorists, and even usher in a “Minority Report” era (as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science fiction film of that name), where judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan. “These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about the implications, so that one day we’re not surprised and overwhelmed and caught on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are going to come to us in the next few years and we should really be prepared,” Professor Haynes said. The use of brain scanners to judge whether people are likely to commit crimes is a contentious issue that society should tackle now, according to Haynes. “We see the danger that this might become compulsory one day, but we have to be aware that if we prohibit it, we are also denying people who aren’t going to commit any crime the possibility of proving their innocence.” During the study, the researchers asked volunteers to decide whether to add or subtract two numbers they were later shown on a screen. Before the numbers flashed up, they were given a brain scan using a technique called functional magnetic imaging resonance. The researchers then used a software that had been designed to spot subtle differences in brain activity to predict the person’s intentions with 70 percent accuracy. Because brains differ so much, the scientists need a good idea of what a person’s brain activity looks like when they are thinking something to be able to spot it in a scan, but researchers are already devising ways of deducing what patterns are associated with different thoughts.   11.   According to the passage, the brain-reading technology can be used ______. (A) to eavesdrop on potential criminals and terrorists. (B) to probe people’s minds and read their intentions. (C) to design a software to spot subtle differences in brain activity. (D) to suppress activities linked to lying, violence and discrimination.   12.   Which of the following words can best describe the research on the brain scan? (A) Ethical. (B) Powerful. (C) Compulsory. (D) Groundbreaking.   13.   What should people do before brain scans are to be put into practical use? (A) Mobilize adequate resources. (B) Resolve controversial issues. (C) Improve the scanner’s accuracy. (D) Identify different brain activities.   14.   The word “this” in the sentence “We see the danger that this might become compulsory one day, …” (para. 5) refers to ______. (A) the use of brain scanners (B) the prohibition of brain scanners (C) warning people who are likely to commit crimes (D) denying people the possibility of proving their innocence   15.   How did neuroscientists manage to detect different brain activities of people? (A) Flashing them up on a screen. (B) Deducing varying patterns. (C) Using a designed software. (D) Predicting their intentions.   Questions 16-20 Why bankrupt yourself in a so-called old people’s home? Try a health spa—it might actually be cheaper. Sometimes I see old ladies shuffling along the pavement with their sticks, Zimmer frames for greater support, swollen ankles, backs bent, fingers clutching at the small bag of shopping for one, and I think: “There goes my future.” But perhaps it need not be like that. Instead of bankrupting oneself or the state with the increasingly high cost of home care or an old people’s home, why not try a health spa instead? My friend Rosemary has just returned from a five-day visit to one of these health farms, which she thought might aid her recovery from her heart attack. It wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, she said: a sort of mix between mall shopping and a Saga cruise, “with the same awful whirlpools, people waiting about half-clothed, and loads of boutiques selling odd things. It would have been more beneficial had she not foolishly tried yoga and lay on the floor trying to breathe. One should not do this after a heart attack. Rosemary soon felt clammy and sick, sat on a chair, and then, even more foolishly, raised her arms above her head and nearly flaked out. So she staggered to the smoking room, now hidden away in a distant chalet behind the lawn because despite a tremendous struggle, she hasn’t quite managed to give up completely yet. But the food was fabulous, the grounds were heavenly, and there were hordes of charming young staff, and loads of free activities, not all strenuous. Rosemary was able to do blessed little for five days and she did have a lovely rest—perfect if one is old and fairly helpless. When my mother was alive, I took her to both Rosemary’s health spa and a local care home. It wasn’t a nursing home—my mother was able to wash and dress herself and move about—but entertainment and activities were minimal and the food was grim: the customary dried chicken legs and bits of quiche and white bread ham sandwiches for supper. This wretched place cost exactly the same as the health spa. How can the spa do it for that price and also manage respect for guests, fabulous food and attractive surroundings? We just can’t work it out.   16.   What does the author mean when she thinks “There goes my future.” (para. 2)? (A) The same is true of her future. (B) Her future might be worse. (C) She doesn’t have much of a future. (D) She can’t tell what her future holds for her.   17.   In the author’s eyes, why did her friend Rosemary benefit less in the hea