爱华网2010年3月 高级口译真题
SECTION 2: MC
Question1-5
On theworst days, Chris Keehn used to go 24 hours without seeing hisdaughter with her eyes open. A soft-spoken tax accountant inDeloitte’s downtown Chicago office, he hated saying no when sheasked for a ride to preschool. By November, he’d had enough. “Irealized that I can have control of this,” he says with a smallshrug. Keehn, 33, met with two of the firm’s partners and hissenior manager, telling them he needed a change. They went for it.In January, Keehn started telecommuting four days a week, and whenKathryn, 4, starts T-ball this summer, he will be sitting along thebaseline.
In thiseconomy, Keehn’s move might sound like hopping onto the mommytrack—or off the career track. But he’s actually making a shrewdmove. More and more, companies are searching for creative ways tosave—by experimenting with reduced hours or unpaid furloughs orasking employees to move laterally. The up-or-out model, in whichemployees have to keep getting promoted quickly or get lost, may begrowing outmoded. The changing expectations could persist after theeconomy reheats. Companies are increasingly supporting more naturalgrowth, letting employees wend their way upward like climbingvines. It’s a shift, in other words, from a corporate ladder to thecareer-path metaphor long preferred by Deloitte vice chair CathyBenko: a lattice.
AtDeloitte, each employee’s lattice is nailed together duringtwice-a-year evaluations focused not just on career targets butalso on larger life goals. An employee can request to do more orless travel or client service, say, or to move laterally into a newrole—changes that may or may not come with a pay cut. Deloitte’sdata from 2008 suggest that about 10% of employees choose to “dialup” or “dial down” at any given time. Deloitte’s Mass CareerCustomization (MCC) program began as a way to keep talented womenin the workforce, but it has quickly become clear that women arenot the only ones seeking flexibility. Responding to millennialsdemanding better work-life balance, young parents needing time toshare child-care duties and boomers looking to ease graduallytoward retirement, Deloitte is scheduled to roll out MCC to all42,000 U.S. employees by May 2010. Deloitte executives are in talkswith more than 80 companies working on similar programs.
Noteveryone is on board. A 33-year-old Deloitte senior manager in asoutheastern office, who works half-days on Mondays and Fridays forhealth reasons and requested anonymity because she was notauthorized to speak on the record, says one “old school” managerinsisted on scheduling meetings when she wouldn’t be in the office.“He was like, ‘Yeah, I know we have the program,’ “she recalls,“‘but I don’t really care.’”
DeloitteCEO Barry Salzberg admits he’s still struggling to convert“nonbelievers,” but says they are the exceptions. The recessionprovides an incentive for companies to design more lattice-orientedcareers. Studies show telecommuting, for instance, can helpbusinesses cut real estate costs 20% and payroll 10%. What’s more,creating a flexible workforce to meet staffing needs in a changingeconomy ensures that a company will still have legs when the marketrecovers. Redeploying some workers from one division to another—orreducing their salaries—is a whole lot less expensive than layingeveryone off and starting from scratch.
Youngemployees who dial down now and later become managers may reinforcethe idea that moving sideways on the lattice doesn’t mean gettingsidelined. “When I saw other people doing it,” says Keehn, “Ithought I could try.” As the compelling financial incentives forflexibility grow clearer, more firms will be forced to giveemployees that chance. Turns out all Keehn had to do wasask.
1. The authorused the example of Chris Keehn _____.
(A) to show how much he loved his daughter and thefamily
(B) to tell how busy he was working as a taxaccountant
(C) to introduce how telecommuting changed the traditional way ofworking
(D) to explore how the partners of a company could negotiate andcooperate smoothly
2. What isthe major purpose of shifting from a corporate ladder to the careerpath of lattice?
(A) To take both career targets and larger life goals of employeesinto consideration.
(B) To find better ways to develop one’s career in response toeconomic crisis.
(C) To establish expectations which could persist after the economyreheats.
(D) To create ways to keep both talented women and men in theworkforce.
3. Theexpression “on board” in the sentence “Not everyone is on board.”(para. 4) means _____.
(A) going to insist on old schedules
(B) concerned about work-life balance
(C) ready to accept the flexible working system
(D) accustomed to the changing workingarrangement
4. Which ofthe following is NOT the possible benefit of lattice-orientedcareers for businesses?
(A) reducing the costs on real estate.
(B) cutting the salaries of employees.
(C) forming a flexible workforce to meet needs in a changingeconomy.
(D) keeping a workforce at the minimal level.
5. Accordingto the passage, the idea that “moving sideways on the latticedoesn’t mean getting sidelined”______.
(A) would discourage employees from choosingtelecommuting
(B) might encourage more employees to apply for flexible workhours
(C) would give employees more chances for their professionalpromotion
(D) could provide young employees with more financialincentives
Questions6-10
Right now,there’s little that makes a typical American taxpayer moreresentful than the huge bonuses being dispersed at Wall Streetfirms. The feeling that something went terribly wrong in the waythe financial sector is run—and paid—is widespread. It’s worthrecalling that the incentive structures now governing executive payin much of the corporate world were hailed as a miracle of humanengineering a generation ago when they focused once-complacent ECOswith laser precision on steering companies toward the brightestpossible futures.
So nowthere’s a lot of talk about making incentives smarter. That mayimprove the way companies or banks are run, but only temporarily.The inescapable flaw in incentives, as 35 years of research shows,is that they get you exactly what you pay for, but it never turnsout to be what you want. The mechanics of why this happens arepretty simple: Out of necessity, incentives are often based on anindex of the thing you care about—like sound corporateleadership—that is easily measured. Share price is such an index ofperformance. Before long, however, people whose livelihoods arebased on an index will figure out how to manipulate it—which soonmakes the index a much less reliable barometer. Once share pricedetermines the pay of smart people, they’ll find a way to move itup without improving—and in some cases by jeopardizing—theircompany.
Incentivesdon’t just fail; they often backfire. Swiss economists Bruno Frey(University of Zurich) and Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard BusinessSchool) have shown that when Swiss citizens are offered asubstantial cash incentive for agreeing to have a toxic waste dumpin their community, their willingness to accept the facility fallsby half. Uri Gneezy (U.C. San Diego’s Rady School of Management)and Aldo Rustichini (University of Minnesota) observed that whenIsraeli day-care centers fine parents who pick up their kids late,lateness increases. And James Heyman (University of St. Thomas) andDan Ariely (Duke’s Fuqua School of Business) showed that whenpeople offer passers-by a token payment for help lifting a couchfrom a van, they are less likely to lend a hand than if they areoffered nothing.
What thesestudies show is that incentives tend to remove the moral dimensionfrom decision-making. The day-care parents know they ought toarrive on time, but they come to view the fines as a fee for aservice. Once a payoff enters the picture, the Swiss citizens andpassersby ask, “What’s in my best interest?” The question they askthemselves when money isn’t part of the equation is quitedifferent: “What are my responsibilities to my country and to otherpeople?” Despite our abiding faith in incentives as a way toinfluence behavior. in a positive way, they consistently do thereverse.
Some mightsay banking has no moral dimension to take away. Bankers havealways been interested in making money, and they probably alwayswill be, but they’ve traditionally been well aware of theirresponsibilities, too. Bankers worried about helping farmers getthis year’s seed into the ground. They worried about helping a newbusiness get off to a strong start or a thriving one to expand.They worried about a couple in their 50s having enough to retireon, and about one in their 30s taking on too big a mortgage. Thesebankers weren’t saints, but they served the dual masters ofprofitability and community service.
In caseyou think this style. of banking belongs to a horse-and-buggy past,consider credit unions and community development banks. Many havesubprime mortgage portfolios that remain healthy to this day. Inlarge part, that’s because they approve loans they intend to keepon their books rather than securitizing and selling them to driveup revenue, which would in turn boost annual bonuses. And helpbring the world economy to its knees.
At theGroup of 20 gathering in September, France and Germany proposedstrict limits on executive pay. The U.S. Now has a pay czar, whojust knocked down by half the compensation of 136 executives. Butthe absolute amounts executives are paid may be inconsequential.Most people want to do right. They want their work to improve thelives of others. As Washington turns its sights on reforms for thefinancial sector, it just might consider nudging the industry’smajor players away from the time-dishonored tradition of incentivesand toward compensation structures that don’t strip the moraldimension away from the people making big decisions.
6. Accordingto the passage, the incentive structures governing today’sexecutive pay in the corporate world _____.
(A) are perfect and shall be continued
(B) have gone wrong somewhere and should beremedied
(C) are with inescapable flaws and must bestopped
(D) have fundamentally improved the corporatemanagement
7. Which ofthe following best paraphrases the sentence “Incentives don’t justfail; they often backfire.” (para. 3)?
(A) Incentives cannot promote the management of companies andbanks; they often lead to corporate bankruptcy.
(B) Incentives are only material stimulation, they can be used todestroy human morality.
(C) Incentives do not achieve desired results, moreover, they oftenproduce negative effect.
(D) Incentives do not treat everything in terms of money and theyare often used to change human mentality.
8. Accordingto the passage, with the current incentive structures, the risingof share prices _____.
(A) is surely the reliable barometer of a company’sperformances
(B) will endanger the company and do harm to the shareholders
(C) is often driven up by corporate managers to boost theirbonuses
(D) proves the necessity of reforms for the financialsector
9. The authorintroduced the “dual masters of profitability and communityservice” of the traditional bankers _____.
(A) to support the view that “banking has no moraldimension”
(B) to prove that bankers have always been interested in makingmoney
(C) to display that the traditional banking is healthier and moresuccessful
(D) to argue that bankers could be saints so long as they serve thecommunity
10. Which of the following canbe the major conclusion of the author?
(A) Strict limits should be imposed by the government on executivepay.
(B) The time-dishonored tradition of incentive structures couldjeopardize companies.
(C) The financial sector could be reformed on the basis ofcompensation structures.
(D) The moral dimension should be separated from incentivestructures.
Questions11-15
Quickquiz: Who has a more vitriolic relationship with the US? The Frenchor the British. If you guessed the French, consider this: Parisnewspaper polls show that 72 percent of the French hold a favorableimpression of the United States. Yet UK polls over the past decadeshow a lower percentage of the British have a favorable impressionof the United States.
Britain’s highbrow newspaper, The Guardian, sets the UK’sintellectual tone. On any given day you can easily read a handfulof stories sniping at the US and things American. The BBC’s Radio4, which is a domestic news and talk radio station, regularlylaments Britain’s social warts and follows them up with somethingthat has become the national mantra, “Well, at least we’re not asbad as the Americans.”
This isn’ta new trend: British abhorrence of America antedates George W. Bushand the invasion of Iraq. On 9/11 as the second plane was slamminginto the World Trade Center towers my wife was on the phone with anEnglish friend of many years. In the background she heard herfriend’s teenage son shout in front of the TV, “Yeah! The Americansare finally getting theirs.” The animosity may be unfathomable tothose raised to think of Britain as “the mother country” for whomwe fought two world wars and with whom we won the coldwar.
So what’sit all about?
I oftenasked that during the years I lived in London. One of the bestanswers came from an Englishwoman with whom I shared a table forcoffee. She said, “It’s because we used to be big and important andwe aren’t any more. Now it’s America that’s big and important andwe can never forgive you for that.” A detestation of thingsAmerican has become as dependable as the tides on the Thames risingand falling four times a day. It feeds a flagging British sense ofnational self-importance.
A new bookdocumenting the virulence of more than 30 years of corrosiveBritish animosity reveals how deeply rooted it has become in theUK’s national psyche. “[T]here is no reasoning with people who havecome to believe America is now a ‘police state’ and the USA is a‘disgrace across most of the world,’” writes Carol Gould, anAmerican expatriate novelist and journalist, in her book “Don’tTread on Me.”
A briefexperience shortly after George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraqillustrates that. An American I know was speaking on the street inLondon one morning. Upon hearing his accent, a British man yelled,“Take your tanks and bombers and go back to America.” Then theBritish thug punched him repeatedly. No wonder other Americanfriends of mine took to telling locals they were from Canada. Thelocal police recommended prosecution. But upon learning the victimwas an American, crown prosecutors dropped the case even though theperpetrator had a history of assaulting foreigners.
Theexamples of this bitterness continue:
I recallmy wife and I having coffee with a member of our church. The woman,who worked at Buckingham Palace, launched a conversation with,“Have you heard the latest dumb American joke?” which incidentallyturned out to be a racial slur against blacks. It’s common to hearBrits routinely dismiss Americans as racists (even with anAfrican-American president), religious nuts, global polluters,warmongers, cultural philistines, and as intellectualUntermenschen.
The UnitedKingdom’s counterintelligence and security agency has identifiedsome 5,000 Muslim extremists in the UK but not even they aredenounced with the venom directed at Americans. A British officemanager at CNN once informed me that any English high schooldiploma was equal to an American university degree. Thispredilection for seeing evil in all things American defiesintellect and reason. By themselves, these instances might be ableto be brushed off, but combined they amount to Britishbigotry.
OscarWilde once wrote, “The English mind is always in a rage.” But theenergy required to maintain that British rage might be betterchanneled into paring back what the Economist (a British newsmagazine) calls “an overreaching, and inefficient state withunaffordable aspirations around the world.” The biggest problem isthat, as with all hatred, it tends to be self-destructive. Thedanger is that as such, it perverts future generations.
The UKpublic’s animosity doesn’t hurt the United States if Americansdon’t react in kind. This bigotry does hurt the United Kingdom,however, because there is something sad about a society that mustdenigrate and malign others to feed its own self-esteem. WhatBritain needs to understand is that this ill will has poisoned theenormous reservoir of good will Britain used to enjoy in America.And unless the British tweak their attitude, they stand to becomeincreasingly irrelevant to the American people.
11. Which of the following isNOT the example given by the author to show the British abhorrenceof America?
(A) A boy shouted “The Americans are finally getting theirs.” whenwatching TV on 9/11.
(B) A woman working at Buckingham Palace told an American jokeagainst blacks.
(C) An American speaking on a London street was punched and noprosecution followed.
(D) An English author once wrote, “the English mind is always in arage.”
12. The word “animosity” usedin the passage can best be replaced by _____.
(A) stronghatred(B) total indifference
(C) greatsympathy(D) sheer irrelevance
13. The author quoted from theAmerican novelist Carol Gould’s book _____.
(A) to reveal how America has become a policestate
(B) to expand on the British attitude to America
(C) to explain the changing course of British mentality toAmerica
(D) to document the past 30 years of relationship between Britainand America
14. The author argues that theUK public opinion about America will _____.
(A) undermine the relations between the UK and theUS
(B) be self-destructive to Great Britain
(C) destroy the self-esteem of both the UK and theUS
(D) hurt the United States except the UnitedKingdom
15. What is the best title forthe passage?
(A) “Police state”: America in the eyes of the UKpublic
(B) “The mother country”: Britain and America fought two worldwars
(C) The British national psyche ofself-importance
(D) The ally the British love to hate
Questions16-20
Historymay soon become extinct in our secondary schools, only less missedand less lamented than before. A new study by the HistoricalAssociation found that 3 out of 10 comprehensives no longer botherto teach the subject, which isn’t part of the core curriculum afterthe age of 13. Only 30 per cent do GCSE history. The researchersinterviewed 700 history teachers. Most British kids can name everycontestant appearing in The X Factor, but a substantialnumber don’t know about the Battle of Trafalgar, 20 per centbelieve the Germans, Spanish or Americans once occupied Britain andsome think Winston Churchill was the first man to walk on themoon.
And whowere the dunces who decided to make this subject optional? Why theTories when last they ruled over us. That was then. Today’s Toriesare ardent History Boys, eager to return to the days when the pastwas hammered into the heads of the young, or embellished tales ofglory to give British children an inheritance of innatesuperiority. Michael Gove, Shadow Schools Secretary for Children,has been banging on about this for a while and earlier this yearthe Tory Andrew Rosindell raised the issue in parliament, butregrettably turned a serious debate into brassy, right-wingpatriotism: “The peoples of these magnificent British Isles...havea rich and proud history like no other”. Really, sir? So Fat Henryand his sorry wives or Churchill only have to stand up to blank outthe histories of Egypt, Turkey, Mexico, Austria, Greece, India,France, Iran and other old lands?
Many of uswho long passionately for the reinstatement of history as a coreGCSE subject are now concerned about the substance and purposebehind the Tory plans to do just that. They have a burning desireto use history as a feelgood hallucinogen, get its band ofrevisionist stars to head up the cavalry, to lead us back to thefuture. As this prospect approaches, at times I think the currentstate of ignorance may prove to be less harmful. When politiciansexploit these and turn them into propaganda, the results can belethal.
We are notimmune. Thousands of Britons today swallow the BNP’s message andvote for racist views, thus betraying the legacy of their iconicwar against Nazism and the millions of Indians, Africans, Chinese,Caribbeans and others who fought with this country in both worldwars. When the BBC hosts these blackguards on its most prestigiousprogrammes and uses democracy as an excuse, it too is guilty oftreacherous historical amnesia. Arguably, the lack of goodhistorical education makes our citizens more open to neo-Nazibrain-washers. Young Muslims too, are easily plucked off bycharismatic Islamicists who weave fictionalised accounts ofsplendiferous Islamic epochs when they did no wrong and broughtparadise to earth.
There isanother disconcerting trend. Britain is deeply conservative andthese days looks back longingly to the Tudors, Georgians,Victorians, Edwardians, wartime Britons, and now the Sixties.Showman historians provide our public with an entertaining andcomforting view of what has gone before. Audiences are never reallyforced to question things or feel troubled. If we are to reinstatehistory as a key subject in secondary schools, we must do so with abetter understanding of its impact, and design the syllabus to tellas full a story as possible of this complicated nation and itsconnections to the world. Few in power have the imagination to takeup this challenge because that would be too tricky. Yet ourchildren have a right to learn about British fascism as well as thebattles and ultimate victory over Hitler; they need to be taughtabout how this country set up the endless conflict in Palestine,and the mistakes made by the British government when Zimbabwe wascreated. Hardly anyone over 20 in Britain knows this. The cominggenerations surely must, if only to understand the games playedduring the bitter Cold War, particularly as we may be returning tothose days.
The longneglected positive aspects of our history also need to be exhumed.As left-wing historians often point out, the hard-won democraticrights we enjoy were not bestowed by kings and the landed gentry,but were wrested by oppressed peasants, industrial working classesand the abject poor. Most black, Asian and Arab British children donot know about the many white anti-Imperialist MPs and an alarmingnumber are woefully ignorant of the erudite Arabists who loved theMiddle East and its many cultures. If we had known better thehistory of Iraq and Afghanistan, our government might have avoidedthe foolhardy and disastrous interventions that have left us withno credit. I write here as one of the ignoramuses. I was not taughtanything about Afghanistan and have only now started to understanda little more about the people and the places.
OscarWilde wrote: “The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it”. Andhaving rewritten it as honestly as possible, to teach it to thosewho will inherit our land.
16. When the author says“today’s Tories are ardent History Boys” (para. 2), he implies that_____.
(A) the Tories should be responsible for having made the subject ofhistory optional
(B) the Tories have realised the mistakes they made in thepast
(C) the Tories plan to resume the course of history in secondaryeducation
(D) the Tories want to use history to gain back the ruling power ofthe country
17. Which of the following istrue?
(A) Winston Churchill was a statesman in the 20thcentury British history.
(B) The Germans, Spanish or Americans once occupiedBritain.
(C) British fascism led to the ultimate victory over Hitler inWorld War II.
(D) The Battle of Trafalgar was fought in the Trafalgar Square inLondon.
18. The passage mentions thehistories of Egypt, Turkey, Mexico, Austria, Greece, India, France,Iran and other old lands _____.
(A) to support the right-wing patriotism of the Tory AndrewRosindell
(B) to show the proud history of Great Britain over the pastcenturies
(C) to question the right-wing patriotism of the Tory AndrewRosindell
(D) to agree with the Tories on the interpretation of the Britishhistory
19. Which of the following isnot the author’s major concern about the reinstatement ofhistory as a core GCSE subject?
(A) The history of the Tudors, Georgians, Victorians, Edwardians,wartime Britons.
(B) The Tory’s purpose in planning to reintroduce history as a GCSEsubject.
(C) The possible use of history as simple propaganda for politicalpurposes.
(D) The negative aspects of the British history and the lessons tobe learned.
20. The basic tone of thepassage can be described as ______.
(A) indifferent and sarcastic
(B) persuasive and appreciative
(C) nostalgic and retrospective
(D) critical and argumentative
参考答案：
1. C2. A3. C4. D5. B6. B7. C8. C9. C10. C
11.D12. A13. B14. B15. D 16. D 17. A18. C19. A20. D
