2007-3月高级口译考试试题及答案.doc

Part A: Spot Dictation Direction: 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 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.Most unassertive people are not confident and take no for an answer much too easily. There is a growing awareness in our society that this tendency _ (1) the rights of large numbers of people. For example, in recent years there has been an upsurge in _ (2) and pressure groups. This is a _ (3) as there will always be a need for such organizations to _ (4) individuals and minorities in a competitive society. The danger is that we _ (5) for our rights and lose the art of asserting ourselves. It is better for _ (6) with other people if you can learn _ (7) for yourself.Now, we have to learn to ignore some of the _ (8) that may be ringing in our unconscious minds, such as: If you ask once more, Ill flatten you, and _ (9).The main technique that we use in _ (10) to practice the art of persistence is called Broken Record. _ (11) we hear one sentence over and over again until we reach screaming pitch and _ (12).Broken Record is the skill of being able to repeat over and over again, _ (13), what it is you want or need, until the other person gives in or _ (14).Now, this technique is extremely useful for dealing with situations where your rights are clearly_ (15), or coping with situations where you are likely to be diverted by clever, _ (16).The beauty of using Broken Record is that you_ (17) because you know exactly what you are going to say, however_ (18) the other person tries to be.As with most assertive techniques, it must be used appropriately. It is _ (19) and is not designed to foster deep, interesting conversations and friendships with people! It is primarily of use in situations where _ (20).http:/Part B: Listening ComprehensionDirections: In this part of the test there will be some short talks and conversations. After each one, you will be asked some questions. The talks, conversations and questions will be spoken ONLY ONCE. Now listen carefully and choose the right answer to each question you have heard and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.1.(A) Education and health.(B) Health in adolescence.(C) Sleep deprivation in teens.(D) Mysteries of sleep.2.(A) A balance in cognitive thoughts and emotions.(B) A chronic sleep deprivation.(C) A huge wave of sleepiness.(D) A mighty sleep hormone.3.(A) Melatonin is the source of a big push from biology that makes teenagers night owls.(B) Melatonin is a simple signal that turns on in the morning and turns off in the evening.(C) Melatonin is secreted several hours later in childhood than it will be during adolescence.(D) Melatonin doesnt shut off until 11 oclock P.M. every day.4.(A) They have to struggle to stay up all night.(B) They get severely sleep deprived.(C) They very often oversleep.(D) They fall asleep too soon at night.5.(A) Alertness.(B) Reaction time.(C) Emotion.(D) Concentration.Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following news.6.(A) Corporate executives are confident in the stock market trends.(B) Investors in general believe that the outlook for profits is worsening.(C) Some major company executives are selling more shares than buying.(D) The US stock market is expanding at a 5.6 percent annual rate this year.7.(A) To inspect the shuttle for potentially critical heat shield damage.(B) To rewire the space station for a permanent power source.(C) To beat the odds to get off the launch pad in the first night-time launch.(D) To make a fiery ascent that turns night into day.8.(A) 50.(B) 80.(C) 150.(D) 180.9.(A) Forty-five women were killed in the blaze at a drug treatment center.(B) The fire was not caused by arson according to a senior firefighter.(C) Nine mentally ill patients died in the fire.(D) People were trapped behind locked gates and barred windows.10.(A) Two detectives investigating the case had tested positive for traces of radiation.(B) The ex-wife and the former mother-in-law of the spy were also poisoned.(C) The Russian businessman who met the former spy in London has fallen ill.(D) There is a high degree of probability that it is polonium that killed the spy.Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.11.(A) Closed to the public.(B) Silent and empty.(C) Packed with(D) Strangely crowded.12.(A) New Mexico.(B) Minnesota.(C) The coast of Florida.(D) The Caribbean.13.(A) Several gallons of petrol.(B) Food for at least three days.(C) Plenty of drinking water.(D) A sturdy pair of work boots.14.(A) The potential damage.(B) The unexpected temperature changes.(C) The hurricanes possible path.(D) The vulnerability of the locals.15.(A) Watch, wait and try not to panic.(B) Choose another place for a vacation.(C) Ask for their money back if theres a hurricane.(D) Plan for very bad weather.Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.16.(A) Car alarms.(B) Sirens.(C) Jack-hammers.(D) Loud music.17.(A) Break eggs on the road.(B) Take certain legal action.(C) Use some minor retaliatory step.(D) Paint the windshield or front hood of a car.18.(A) It can only alert the police.(B) It is of no use.(C) It can prevent the car being broken into.(D) It is really too expensive.19.(A) It makes them noisier than they were 20 years ago.(B) It makes it difficult for them to fall asleep.(C) It affects their work during the day.(D) It does harm to their hearing.http:/20.(A) Many New Yorkers agree about banning this form of sonic pollution.(B) The police have formed a posse to reduce the amount of noise.(C) Police can break into a car as soon as the alarm goes off.(D) Car alarms are very effective at preventing theft.http:/Questions 1-5http:/When Harvey Ball took a black felt-tip pen to a piece of yellow paper in 1963, he never could have realized that he was drafting the face that would launch 50 million buttons and an eventual war over copyright. Mr. Ball, a commercial artist, was simply filling a request from Joy Young of the Worcester Mutual Insurance Company to create an image for their smile campaign to coach employees to be more congenial in their customer relations. It seems there was a hunger for a bright grinthe original order of 100 smiley-face buttons were snatched up and an order for 10,000 more was placed at once.The Worcester Historical Museum takes this founding moment seriously. Just as youd want to know the biography of General Washington, we realized we didnt know the comprehensive history of the Smiley Face, says Bill Wallace, the executive director of the historical museum where the exhibit SmileyAn American Icon opens to the public Oct. 6 in Worcester, Mass.Worcester, often referred to by neighboring Bostonians as that manufacturing town off Route 90, lays claim to several other famous commercial firsts, the monkey wrench and shredded wheat among them. Smiley Face is a particularly warm spot in the citys history. Through a careful historical analysis, Mr. Wallace says that while the Smiley Face birthplace is undisputed, it took several phases of distribution before the distinctive rounded-tipped smile with one eye slightly larger than the other proliferated in the mainstream.As the original buttons spread like drifting pollen with no copyright attached, a bank in Seattle next realized its commercial potential. Under the guidance of advertising executive David Stern, the University Federal Savings & Loan launched a very public marketing campaign in 1967 centered on the Smiley Face. It eventually distributed 150,000 buttons along with piggy banks and coin purses. Old photos of the bank show giant Smiley Face wallpaper.By 1970, Murray and Bernard Spain, brothers who owned a card shop in Philadelphia, were affixing the yellow grin to everything from key chains to cookie jars along with Have a happy day. In the 1970s, there was a trend toward happiness, says Wallace. We had assassinated a president, we were in a war with Vietnam, and people were looking for tokens of happiness. The Spain brothers ran with it.The Smiley Face resurged in the 1990s. This time it was fanned by a legal dispute between Wal-Mart, who uses it to promote its low prices, and Franklin Loufrani, a Frenchman who owns a company called SmileyWorld. Mr. Loufrani says he created the Smiley Face and has trademarked it around the world. He has been distributing its image in 80 countries since 1971.Loufranis actions irked Ball, who felt that such a universal symbol should remain in the public domain in perpetuity. So in a pleasant proactive move, Ball declared in 1999 that the first Friday in October would be World Smile Day to promote general kindness and charity toward children in need. Ball died in 2001.The Worcester exhibit opens on World Smile Day, Oct. 6. It features a plethora of Smiley Face merchandisefrom the original Ball buttons to plastic purses and a toilet seatand contemporary interpretations by local artists. The exhibit is scheduled to run through Feb. 11.1.According to the passage, the Worcester Historical Museum _.(A) concentrates on the collection of the most famous commercial firsts the city has invented(B) has composed a comprehensive history of the Smiley Face through the exhibition(C) treats Smiley Face as the other famous commercial firsts the city has produced(D) has organized the exhibit to arouse the Americans patriotism2.When the author used the expression spread like drifting pollen (para.4) to describe the gradual distribution of Smiley Face, he implies that _.(A) Harvey Ball did not claim the copyright of the yellow grin button(B) the Smiley Face was immediately accepted by the public(C) the button was not sold as an ordinary commercial product(D) Harvey Ball had the intention to abandon the copyright of Smiley Face3.Why did Bill Wallace mention the assassination of the then American president and the Vietnam War in the 1970s?(A) To have a review of the contemporary American history.(B) To remind people that we should never forget the past.(C) To explain why Americans liked the Smiley Face during that period.(D) To show how the Spain brothers made a fortune through selling the yellow grin.4.In the expression Loufranis actions irked Ball (para.7), the word irked can best be replaced by _.(A) perplexed(B) provoked(C) irritated(D) challenged5.Which of the following is NOT true about the World Smile Day?(A) It was established to commemorate the founder Harvey Ball.(B) It was to promote general kindness and charity toward children in need.(C) It was declared by Harvey Ball in 1999.(D) It was decided to be held on the first Friday in October each year.Questions 6-10Good teachers matter. This may seem obvious to anyone who has a child in school or, for that matter, to anyone who has been a child in school. For a long time, though, researchers couldnt actually prove that teaching talent was important. But new research finally shows that teacher quality is a close cousin to student achievement: A great teacher can cram one-and-a-half grades worth of learning into a single year, while laggards are lucky to accomplish half that much. Parents and kids, it seems, have been right all along to care whether they were assigned to Mrs. Smith or Mr. Brown.Yet, while we know now that better teachers are critical, flaws in the way that administrators select and retain them mean that schools dont always hire the best.Many ingredients for good teaching are difficult to ascertain in advancecharisma and diligence come to mindbut research shows a teachers own ability on standardized tests reliably predicts good performance in the classroom. You would think, then, that top-scoring teachers would be swimming in job offers, right? Not so, says Vanderbilt University professor Dale Ballou. High-scoring teaching applicants do not fare better than others in the job market, he writes. Indeed, remarkably they do somewhat worse.Even more surprising, given the national shortage of highly skilled math and science teachers, school administrators are more keen to hire education majors than applicants who have math or science degrees. No one knows for sure why those who hire teachers routinely overlook top talent. Perhaps they wrongly think that the qualifications they shun make little difference for students. Also, administrators are probably naturally drawn to teachers who remind them of themselves.But failing to recognize the qualities that make teachers truly effective (and to construct incentives to attract and retain more of these top performers) has serious consequences. For example, because schools dont always hire the best applicants, across-the-board salary increases cannot improve teacher quality much, and may even worsen it. Thats because higher salaries draw more weak as well as strong applicants into teachingapplicants the current hiring system cant adequately screen. Unless administrators have incentives to hire the best teachers available, its pointless to give them a larger group to choose from.If public school hiring processes are bad, their compensation policies are worse. Most districts pay solely based on years of experience and the presence of a masters degree, a formula that makes the Federal General Schedulewhich governs pay for U.S. bureaucratslook flexible. Study after study has shown that teachers with masters degrees are no better than those without. Job experience does matter, but only for the first few years, according to research by Hoover Institutions Eric A. Hanushek. A teacher with 15 years of experience is no more effective, on average, than a teacher with five years of experience, but which one do you think is paid more?This toxic combination of rigid pay and steep rewards for seniority causes average quality to decline rather than increase as teacher groups get older. Top performers often leave the field early for industries that reward their excellence. Mediocre teachers, on the other hand, are soon overcompensated by seniority pay. And because they are paid more than their skills command elsewhere, these less-capable pedagogues settle in to provide many years of ineffectual instruction.http://So how can we separate the wheat from the chaff in the teaching profession? To make American schools competitive, we must rethink seniority pay, the value of masters degrees, and the notion that a teacher can teach everything equally wellespecially math and sciencewithout appropriate preparation in the subject.Our current education system is unlikely to accomplish this dramatic rethinking. Imagine, for a moment, that American cars had been free in recent decades, while Toyotas and Hondas sold at full price. Wed probably be driving Falcons and Corvairs today. Free public education suffers from a lack of competition in just this way. So while industries from aerospace to drugs have transformed themselves in order to compete, public schooling has stagnated.School choice could spark the kind of reformation this industry needs by motivating administrators to hire the best and adopt new strategies to keep top teachers in the classroom. The lesson that good teachers matter should be taught, not as a theory, but as a practice.6.The beginning sentence Good teachers matter. can mainly be explained as which of the following?(A) Good teachers help students establish confidence.(B) Good teachers determine the personality of students.(C) Good teachers promote student achievement.(D) Good teachers treat students as their own children.7.According to the author, seniority pay favors _.(A) good teachers with masters degrees(B) young and effective teachers(C) experienced and effective teachers(D) mediocre teachers of average qualityhttp:/8.The expression separate the wheat from the chaff in the teaching profession is closest in meaning to _.(A) distinguish better teachers from less capable ones(B) differentiate young teachers from old ones(C) tell the essential qualities of good teaching(D) reevaluate the role of senior teachers9.When the author uses the automobile industry as an example, she argues t