2012温州大学英语基础考研真题试卷A卷
2012年硕士研究生招生入学考试试题
科目代码及名称: 618 英语基础 适用专业：英语语言文学
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A卷
Part I Reading Comprehension 30% （3 marks for each answer）
Passage One
A World We Have Not Known
By Henry A. Kissinger
To suggest that a newly elected administration raise its sights to the kind of world the next millennium will bring may appear as a rude interruption to the near-blissful tranquility that tends to settle in after our national elections. Events, however, develop their own mometurn, which, if not mastered, becomes increasingly difficult to manage. This is a particular challenge for inherently lame-duck second-term administrations, which are always in danger of losing the capacity for implementing long-range decisions well before the end of their tenure. The key choices must be made early in the administration, especially since the period of international calm that characterized the first Clinton term is dawing to a close.
Never before have so many structural changes in the international system occurred simultaneously. Some elements are now global---for example, economics and communications---while politics remains confined to the nation-state or is reduced to ethnic units. To make a long-term difference, the re-elected Clinton administration must envision the world it seeks to achieve. Only in that way will it he able to establish criteria for judging where it is heading
Let me focus on three areas likely to present the greatest challenges in the next century: Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the transatlantic region encompassing the NATO countries and the territory of the former Soviet bloc.
In Asia, China will emerge as an incipient superpower. When it reaches the per capita income of South Korea (about a third of ours), its GNP will be double that of the United States. Such an economic colossus is bound to have a major impact. China's vast market, reinforced by its growing military power, will, in the hands of skillful and determined leaders, provide avehicle for growing political influence.
But that does not mean that China will necessarily aim for hegemony. Or that American policy
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will lose its capacity to affect the evolution of Asia. For one thing, China's growth will not take place in a vacuum. The end of the bipolar world and the rise of other power centers---in India, Vietnam, China and South Korea---will bring about a more nationalist course in Japan. Less and less convinced that its interests inevitably parallel those of the United States, Japan will emphasize foreign and defense policy more geared to its own national perceptions.
India is emerging as a major power, especially in South and Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asian nations, from Vietnam to Myanmar(Burma) and Indonesia, will increase their cohesion. in these conditions, hegemony by any one nation can occur only if all others collapse internally or as a result of a military effort on a scale for which there is as yet no evidence and which, if it occurred, would evoke strong countervailing reactions.
There is a school of thought that proposes trying to anticipate challenges which have not yet occurred by confronting China with human-rights pressures and economic warfare. The theory is that democratization will lead to a more peaceful policy and that economic short-falls will cut down on China's military options. Under present circumstances such a policy is certain to fail, while evoking the very dangers with which it seeks to deal. Human-rights pressures against China have failed for the past six years, partly because they reflect a number of misconceptions. China's foreign policy is not so much driven by communist ideology as by growing nationalism, which can be inflamed only by a confrontational American policy, particularly if we isolate ourselves further by bringing similar pressures on friendly countries like Indonesia. The Chinese economy is not a Stalinist planned system but a self-styled socialist market economy, with the word "market" operationally for more significant than the word "socialist." Its biggest danger is that it will overheat, not stagnate, as was the case in the Soviet Union. Moreover, Chinese society is already being transformed by indigenous factors, especially the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping. By decentralizing decision-making, they have created a kind of pluralism, if not necessarily democracy. Similarly, the impact of the one-child family on historical Chinese social patterns is likely to be profound.
Finally, there is no objective basis in Asia for military containment on the model of the Cold War. The Soviet Union's European neighborsfelt threatened and were eager for visible American military support. By contrast, none of China's neighbors will be prepared to ground their policy or join an alliance based on the assumption of Chinese aggression. To be sure, They want American prsence, especially in the diplomatic and economic fields. To establishthe idea that America is not indifferent to their fate. But, knowing that China is a permanent part of Asia while American commitments are likely to be epoisodic, they will refuse, short of a direct challenge, to base their policy on hostility to China. A corifrontational American policy that is
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perceived as unprovoked will drive the countries of Asia away from the United States and toward both nationalism and neautralism. Of course, we must not shrink from confrontation if vital American interests or the global equilibrium are chanllenged. But the stakes are sufficietnly high not to prompt a crisis. Chinese society is more cohesive, and the neighbouring countries are more ambivalent aboyt where the threat to the world economy and a global international system. Before turning to confrnotation, a cooperative relationship must be geven a chance. For all these reasons, American policy toward Asia in the next century will need to be based on the following ingredients:
1. Maintaining good relations with all the countries of the region, to give our diplomacy the greatest possible flexibility. We have no un-bridgeable schisms with any of the key countries of Asia; in general, our differences with them are less than each has with its neighbours. We have no interest in dividing Asia into friendly and hostile blocs. Paradoxically, this is the best method of ensuring that we have allies in unavoidable crisis.
2. Continuing the alliance with Japan as the keys tone of our Asian security policy. Were it to end or even to weaker, the Japanese trend toward nationalism would be greatly accelerated. At the same time, we must be sensitive to the historic fears of the other Asian na-tions and conduct the alliance with Japan, in both words and actions, so that it cannot be perceived as a cover for a new wave of Japanese expansionism.
3. Strengthening the alliance with South Korea to prevent aggression and to develop common positions on unification. The new century will not be very far along before the issue of Korean unification becomes pressing, if indeed it does not happen earlier. The United States will be torn between support of the principle of seif-determination and reluctance to face the implications of Northeast Asian instabil ity. Moreover, the views of Korea's neighbors---especially China and Japan---will be highly ambivalent. These conflicting motivations are not irreconcilable. But they require a serious dialogue with all the countries concerned; to improvise a resolution after the Korean peninsula had exploded would be far too dangerous
4. Establishing a genuine strategic dialogue with China. Amencan policy must not forgo the possibility of political understanding with Beijing. The two countries have a parallel interest in avoiding war in Asia, while China's disagreements with several of its neighbors are likely to be greater than the ones it has with the United States. Nor will China, for the foreseeable future, have the military strength to undertake a hegemonic policy. All this makes it worth trying to reconcile policies where possible, and to take the sting out of disagreements where it is not.
The Clinton administration's new emphasis on strategic dialogue with Beijing is to be welcomed. What is lacking is a rationale for this policy. Is it a re-labeling of the policy of
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altering Chinese institutions, or does it mark a genuine shift toward attempting to reconcile perceptions on international affairs? The sudden reversal last March from near-military confrontation to the announcement of three high-level visits rns the risks of being construed as a largely tactical maneuver in China and of confusing the other capitals of Asia. The effectiveness of the dialogue will depend on its content. It needs to be based on a precise and detailed analysis of Asian trends and of the means to distill parallel approaches or to siten the impact of disagreement.
Short-answer questions
1. What does the phrase “a rude interruption” imply with regard to the response from the Clinton administration to the suggestions?
2. Why does the author say “that does not mean that China will necessarily aim for hegemony”?
3. The author thinks the Clinton administration’s recent policy to China is to be welcomed except that ..?
4. What are the main suggestions the author makes about U. S. policy to Asia?
5. If the text is a complete discussion on the geopolitical situation in Asia, what will probally be discussed in the part following the text?
Passage Two
Morals in the Rat Race
There are new things under the sun, but political scandal amd corruption are not among them. There are dishonest people in every society. No political epoch has been without its share of crooks and charlatans
Canadians have a vague sense, however, that the recent spate of corrupt practices in our society, like those occurring in our neighbor to the south, is a sign of something other than ordinary human fallibility. There seems to be a growing public cynicism, a sense that both personal and public morality have declined drastically. The question irresistibly poses itself: has dishonest behavior become so widespread that it threatens the very fabric of our society?
Is ours a civilization in decline? The evidence is less than conclu sive, but it points toward an affirmative answer.
The most profoundly important innovation of Western liberal society has been to put the marketplace at the center of all social transactions. The gospel according to Adam Smith assumes that the pursuit of individual self-interest in the marketplace will lead to the general
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good. When every citizen rationally pursues his self-interest, all will flourish.
Or so the theory would have it. But social reality can be rather disappointing, and the philosophy of liberal individualism is looking distinctly threadbare these days. The very competitive individualism that has produced for us a superabundance of televisions, VCRs, microwave ovens and vacations in Florida now threatens to so undermine civic virtue that our culture crumbles from within. We cannot help but recall that the collapse of earlier civilizations---the Roman Empire comes to mind---was precipitated more powerfully by internal corruption than by external force
Neo-conservatives such as U. S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher lament the collapse of traditional social values: family, work, patriotism, restraint. They are right, of course. There has been a deep erosion of traditional values, but the process began several hundred years ago. What we are witnessing today is, perhaps, the culmination of a iong historical process, a process accelerated by the policies of Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher.
Ironically, it is the very marketplace morality at whose shrine the neo-conservatives worship that produces the social disintegration they lament, The pursuit of individual self-aggrandizement, individual gratification, individual pleasure has led mnore and more of us into the scramble for wealth and power. Ambition and hedonism prevail. Can any society survive when its citizens are all engaged in a furious cornpetition to carve up the spoils?
As long as oniy a minority is motivated by ruthless self-interest, social bonds can remain largely inlact, But when businessmen dishonuor their contracts, when ordinary folk cheat on their income tax, when welfare recipients chisel the government, when doctors and nurses and policemen strike for higher pay, when politicians use their power to enrich themselves and their cronies, this should be seen as a dramatic sign that social cohesion is deeply threatened.
Business civilization regards work solely as a means to profit, income,consumption. Creative work ceases to be viewed as an end in itself. The cash nexus replaces the spirit of work; the real value of work is lost.
A similar process of devaluation occurs within the family. Men have never been siow to abandon their wives and children in the pursuit of self-interest. But the bonds of family solidarity now have become so attenuated that women seek their own freedom as single-mindedly as men. This may be the ultimate "triumph" of individual liberty. "I love your majesty according to my bond; nor more nor less," Cordelia says to her father. If King Lear had achieved any wisdom along with grey hairs, he would have been thrilled by this testimony. Instead he was outraged. We know better.
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Perhaps the most striking paradox of our times is that liberal market society can survive only as long as most people live by the value system that pre-dated the marketplace---the pre-bourgeois values of public-spiritedness, civic virtue, honesty and honor, mutual co-operation, family bonds. Instead, wherever we turn---to government, to business, to work, to the family---we observe a radical loosening of social bonds. It is the rapid spread of marketplace morality throughout society which now threatens the very existence of this society.
As the political economist Seymour Hirsch has pointed out, the things for which we are now all competing so frantically can, by their very nature, be available only for a small elite. Only a few can be generals. The rest must be privates. Only a few can enjoy their vacations on an unspoiled beach. When everyone can afford a car capable of traveling at speeds in excess of 170 kilometers an hour, all are forced by traffic congestion to creep along at 20 kilometers. When everyone achieves a home with a view, the view is likely to be of each other's homes. When everyone gets his PhD, the competitive advantage of this estimable degree tends to diminish, and its holders find themselves driving taxis.
It is important to realize that the central delusion of the affluent society is not that money does not buy happiness (though it does not). No, the central delusion is the belief that the benefits of affluence can be preserved when nearly everyone becomes "middle class". When everyone has a car, a home in the suburbs and a PhD, none of these things can deliver what they promise.
We must now face squarely a nightmare vision of our future: endless traffic jams, endless grey, box-like houses in endless, grey Mississauga, unemployed PhDs, businessmen on the make, families split, doctors milking their patients and patients suing their doctors, politicians on the take. And everyone lamenting the decline of morality while heaping praise upon the very institution that has led to this inpasse.
The metaphor of a “rat race,” Although a cliche, is appropriate because the system ensures that we must run ever faster just to maintain our relative position in the competition. And we must compete rythlessly as the most unsrupulous or lose the golden palm.
A civilization that encourages the motive of self-interested calculation to rule every sphere of social life is on a sure path to moral bankruptcy. The ultimate freedom---from the bonds of community, family, friendship, neighborliness---becomes the ultimate slavery. This way lies social disintegration.
Canadians, right to be deeply concerned. We are far richer than our parents and incomparably richer than our great-grandparents Does anyone believe that we are also happier? Or better people? The challenge that faces us will not be an easy one to meet, for it is nothing less than the creation of a new sense of freedom, a sense of personal liberation that is compatible with the
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deeper values of community and public-spiritedness.
Short-answer questions:
6. According to the text, what are the problems with the Theory of Adam Simth?
7. Describe the philosophy of liberal individualism.
8. According to the text, what lies behind a prosperous civilization?
9. Why do people heap praise upon the marketplace system that has led to the moral cirruption?
10.What is the way out of the current impasse?
Part II Translation 60%
A: Translate the underlined part of the text into English （30%）
我到这个城市出差，昨天下午下榻在这家旅馆。他和他的妻子就住在我的隔壁。这家旅馆的条件不太好，隔墙很薄，一点都不隔音。他们说话的声音总是很清晰地传过来。很快，我就凭直觉得到了一个印象，那女人很懒，不管什么事情都爱支使丈夫：给我倒杯水；给我找双袜子……
女人发号施令的手段很高明，使用的都是口气柔和的祈使句。但不管怎样，事无巨细，都要男人效劳是很不应该的。他对妻子总是百依百顺，我从未听到过那有什么不耐烦的表示，而且，我听得出来，他极其恭顺而温存，仿佛这么奴役般地被老婆支使得团团转是一种享受似的。于是我猜测：他的妻子很漂亮，因为大凡漂亮的女人都颇有些自命不凡，总把自己当做高贵的公主。
B: Translate the underlined part of the text into Chinese （30%）
Since the 1960s, a lot of houses have been built in suburbs, far from the centers of large cities. While more people are working in and around big cities, most prefer not to live in city conditions. As the suburbs grow, the city centers tend to become mainly places for business. Once an American has reached his home he is interested in working to improve it---making things, mending things, and working on the car---to make it as pleasant as possible. There is a strong desire to spend much free time at home when the home is well-equipped, comfortable and attractive; even the private swimming pool is mo longer reserved for the very rich.
But Americans are a restless people who are always ready to move. So, although they enjoy the life in the suburbs, they will by no means end their pursuit there. When his income rises as his career makes progress, he soon looks for a better house, in a better district, with more land, a better view, a bigger and finer swimming pool. He may be attached to the house which
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is home for the time being, but this does not mean that he will put his roots there. Today’s job, today’s income, today’s friends and neighborhood: all these are part of an American’s (and his family’s) identity. Instant coffee, instant friends—but nothing is seen as permanent; an American hopes and expects to exchange them all for something better; and he finds no difficulty in identifying himself with the new.
Part III. Essay-writing 60%
You’re required to write an essay by choosing ONE topic from the following three.
Word lmit: 450-500
1. The real estate business triggers the inflation in China.
2. The students who breach the school regulations are bad students.
3. Money paves way to the right for good education.
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