0903高级口译模拟试卷二.doc

昂立教育 高级口译英语高级口译资格证书第一阶段考试昂立模拟考试(2009年3月)试卷二TEST BOOK 2SECTION 4: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)Part A: Note-taking And Gap-fillingDirections: In this part of the test you will hear a short talk. You will hear the talk ONLY ONCE. While listening to the talk, you may take notes on the important points so that you can have enough information to complete a gap-filling task on a separate ANSWER BOOKLET. You will not get your ANSWER BOOKLET until after you have listened to the talkThere are now over 700 millions motor vehicles in the world and the number is rising by more than _ (1) each year. This dependence on motor vehicles has given rise to major problems, including environmental _ (2), depletion of oil resources, traffic congestion and _ (3). First, _ (4) from vehicles make air quality in urban areas unpleasant and sometimes dangerous to breathe. In _ (5) City, vehicle pollution is a major health _ (6). Until a hundred years ago, most journeys were made on a _ (7) back within the 20 km range. Heavy _ (8) could only be carried by water or _ (9). Today about 90 per cent of inland freight in the United Kingdom is carried by _ (10). In the United States, more land is assigned to car use than to _ (11). Also urban sprawl means that life without a car is next to impossible. Though car transport is _ (12) times as costly as rail travel in terms of the external social costs, cars easily surpass trains or _ (13) as a flexible and _ (14) mode of personal transport. It is unrealistic to expect people to give up private cars in favor of _ (15) transit. One solution that has been put forward is the long-term solution of designing cities and neighborhoods so that car journeys are not _ (16) all essential services being located within _ (17) distance or easily accessible by public transport. A more likely scenario seems to be a combination of mass _ (18) systems for travel into and around cities, with small low emission cars for urban use. Better _ (19) of transport systems is also highly desirableand all these lead to changes in modern _ (20).Part B: Listening and Translation1. Sentence TranslationDirections: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 English sentences. 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 TranslationDirections: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 English passages. 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 5: READING TEST (30 minutes)Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.Questions 1-3That sweetness is pleasant is no coincidence. Sweet food is at a premium in the wild because the sugars it contains provide valuable calories. But even with sugar there can be too much of a good thing, so it would be no surprise if the body were able to regulate the perception of sweetness as its nutritional needs vary. According to two studies presented to the International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste, held in San Francisco this week, that is exactly what happens. The studies, one on mice and one on people, have identified two hormones that seem to fine-tune the perception of sweetness, and thus regulate the intake of sugar independently of the previously known mechanism of satiation that is located in the brain.The mouse study was done by Steven Munger, a neurobiologist at the University of Maryland, and his colleagues. They picked a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that is made by intestinal cells in response to sugar and fat. This hormone is already known to act in the pancreas and the brain, where it helps, respectively, to regulate blood-sugar levels and the feeling of satiation that tells you when to stop eating. Dr Munger, though, found that both GLP-1 and the receptor molecule that picks it up and thus allows it to act are found in taste buds too.To investigate GLP-1s role in taste, the team used a strain of mice that were genetically engineered to lack GLP-1 receptors. They found that such animals are much less sensitive to sweetness than their unengineered confrres. Indeed, the mutants were no more interested in a dilute sugar solution (or, indeed, a solution of artificial sweetener) than they were in plain waterthough they did respond to concentrated solutions of sweetness. The “wild-type” mice, by contrast, drank significantly more of the sweet solution than they did of the water, even when the sweet solution was dilute. Moreover, the effect was limited to sweetness. The animals responses to the other four fundamentals of tastebitterness, sourness, saltiness and “umami” (the flavour of monosodium glutamate)were unaffected. That suggests, though it does not yet prove, that there is feedback from the gut to regulate the desirability of eating sweet food.The human study was done by Yuzo Ninomiya, a neuroscientist at Kyushu University, in Japan. He and his colleagues looked at leptin, another hormone that is known to regulate appetite and metabolism. Leptin levels are also known to fluctuate naturally over a 24-hour period, being lowest in the morning and highest at night, at least in people who eat three meals a day.In their experiments, Dr Ninomiya and his colleagues found that their volunteers were more sensitive to sweetness when their leptin levels were low. As the level of the hormone increased over the course of a day, the threshold for detecting sweetness rose. And when the researchers shifted the pattern of leptin production by changing the number of meals their volunteers ate, the volunteers sensitivity to sweetness shifted as well, suggesting that it was the hormone rather than merely the time of day that was causing the effect. As in the case of the mice, the humans did not show any changes in their sensitivity to other tastes. However, individuals who had lower leptin levels, and thus more sweet-taste sensitivity before a meal, experienced sharper increases in blood-sugar levels when they had eaten.Whether either of these results cast light on the perpetual search for pain-free ways of cutting calorie-intake in the modern world of abundant sweetness is not yet clear. But they may, at least, explain why so many people like lashings of sugar on their breakfast cereal.1.Why does the author say “that sweetness is pleasant is no coincidence” at the beginning of the passage?2.What is “GLP-1”? What is its role in taste? 3.What is leptin? What does Dr Ninomiya find about it?Questions 4-6“Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality. Companies, of course, would strongly disagree with this suggestion. Piracy is generally bad for business. It can undermine sales of legitimate products, deprive a company of its valuable intellectual property and tarnish its brand. Commercial piracy may not be as horrific as the seaborne version off the Horn of Africa. But stealing other peoples R&D, artistic endeavour or even journalism is still theft.That principle is worth defending. Yet companies have to deal with the real worldand, despite the best efforts of recorded-music companies, luxury-goods firms and software-industry associations, piracy has proved very hard to stop. Given that a certain amount of stealing is going to happen anyway, some companies are turning it to their advantage.For example, around 20 times as many music tracks are exchanged over the internet on “peer to peer” file-sharing networks as are legitimately sold online or in shops. Statistics about the traffic on file-sharing networks can be useful. They can reveal, for example, the countries where a new singer is most popular, even before his album has been released there. Having initially been reluctant to be seen exploiting this information, record companies are now making use of it. This month BigChampagne, the main music-data analyzer, is extending its monitoring service to pirated video, too. Knowing which TV programmes are being most widely passed around online can help broadcasters when negotiating with advertisers or planning schedules.In other industries, piracy can help to open up new markets. Take software, for instance. Microsofts Windows operating system is used on 90% of PCs in China, but most copies are pirated. Officially, the software giant has taken a firm line against piracy. But unofficially, it admits that tolerating piracy of its products has given it huge market share and will boost revenues in the long term, because users stick with Microsofts products when they go legit. Clamping down too hard on pirates may also encourage people to switch to free, open-source alternatives. “Its easier for our software to compete with Linux when theres piracy than when theres not,” Microsofts chairman, Bill Gates, told Fortune magazine last year.Another example, from agriculture, shows how piracy can literally seed a new market. Farmers in Brazil wanted to use genetically modified (GM) soyabean seeds that had been engineered by Monsanto to be herbicide-tolerant. The government, under pressure from green groups opposed to GM technology, held back. Unable to obtain the GM seeds legitimately, the farmers turned to pirated versions, many of them “Maradona” seeds brought in from Argentina. Eventually the pirated seeds accounted for over a third of Brazils soyabean plantings, and in 2005 the government relented and granted approval for the use of GM seeds. Monsanto could then start selling its seeds legitimately in Brazil.Piracy can also be a source of innovation, if someone takes a product and then modifies it in a popular way. In music unofficial remixes can boost sales of the original work. And in a recent book, “The Pirates Dilemma”, Matt Mason gives the example of Nigo, a Japanese designer who took Air Force 1 trainers made by Nike, removed the famous “swoosh” logo, applied his own designs and then sold the resulting shoes in limited editions at $300 a pair under his own label, A Bathing Ape. Instead of suing Nigo, Nike realised that he had spotted a gap in the market. It took a stake in his firm and also launched its own premium “remixes” of its trainers. Mr Mason argues that “the best way to profit from pirates is to copy them.”That this silver lining exists should not obscure the cloud. Most of the time, companies will decide to combat piracy of their products by sending in the lawyers with all guns blazing. And most of the time that is the right thing to do. But before they rush into action companies should check to see if there is a way for them to turn piracy to their advantage.4.Why does the author quote Nietzsches “merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person” at the beginning of the passage? Why would the companies “strongly disagree with this suggestion”?5.Why does Bill Gates say “Its easier for our software to compete with Linux when theres piracy than where theres not”? (Para. 4)6.Please explain the sentence “that this silver lining exists should not obscure the cloud”. (Para. 7)?Questions 7-10A man who is worried about global warming is pounded into the ground by falling oil barrels; another who is worried about rising energy bills tries to fry eggs over some candles; commuters who cannot afford to drive jog to work in their suits. Political advertisements featuring such alarming images have begun to air in many states. They are not related directly to this years elections but to a bill being debated in the Senate that would regulate Americas emissions of greenhouse gases. If the proxy battle on television is anything to judge by, the debate is getting serious.That said, the bill in question, named after Joe Lieberman and John Warner, the two senators who are sponsoring it, is unlikely to become law. It will struggle to secure the 60 votes needed to escape a deadly filibuster. Similar proposals are making much slower progress in the House of Representatives. And if the bill ever gets as far as George Bushs desk, the president has vowed to veto it.Nonetheless, Lieberman-Warner has made more headway than any of its many precursors and rivals. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have endorsed its basic premise: that the government should stem emissions by issuing a steadily declining number of tradable permits to emit carbon each year. The Democrats, who look certain to control Congress after the election, also endorse this “cap-and-trade” approach. So Lieberman-Warner is likely to serve as a template for any future bill, and the negotiations over it provide a good indication of the horse-trading to come.Three complaints, in particular, have come to the fore since the bill was unveiled last year. The first is that it will be too expensive. No fewer than ten different studies have attempted to assess the bills economic consequences, with results ranging from the innocuous to the cataclysmic. But at the very least it is likely to raise the prices of electricity, natural gas and petrol, as energy firms pass on the expense of buying permits to their customersa ticklish prospect at a time when voters are already enraged by rising energy prices.Industrialists had hoped for a “safety valve”, whereby the government could sell unlimited extra permits if they got too pricey. But green lobbyists argued that the number of permits had to be fixed if the bill was to have predictable environmental benefits; they doubt the ability of politicians to keep their nerve.The bill attempts to compromise by allowing the government to issue extra permits, but only by borrowing from the stock allocated for future years. To make their intention more explicit, the sponsors have now set a price$22 a tonabove which such borrowing of permits would be permitted. (Carbon rights currently trade at around $40 a ton in Europe.)Messrs Lieberman and Warner have also agreed to set aside a bigger share of the governments revenues from auctioning permits to help the firms and consumers hardest hit by the new regime. In addition, they have expanded the scope for firms to pay for emissions-reduction schemes outside the country in lieu of making cuts at home. Previously, the only international offsets allowed were in forestry; now, any investment that reduces emissions would be eligible. In theory, this should lower American firms costs.But the bill still only allows a limited number of international offsets, and factories that compete with American firms would not be eligible. These restrictions are intended to address the second complaint about the bill: that it does too little to protect American manufacturers from rivals that can pollute as much as they want, in countries such as China and India.In fact, the bill holds out more sticks than carrots to the developing world. The original had already threatened to impose tariffs on energy-intensive imports from the likes of China, but only if they had not changed their tune by 2020. To win over wavering colleagues, the sponsors have brought the deadline forward to a rather unrealistic 2014. They have also dramatically expanded t