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I. ReadingComprehension(60 points)
This section containstwo passages. Read each passage and then answer the questions given at the endof the passage.
Just beforeSept. 11 changed storytelling in America forever, my Hollywood agent explainedthat my new novel was doomed in movieland because it lacked sufficient“explosive moments.” Given this, the fact that the Defense Department iscurrently consulting with Hollywood scriptwriters and producers to help U.S.generals “think outside the box” is beyond comprehension. Hollywoodstorytellers invented the box. They worship the box. They have spent theirlives mass-producing the box.
As Americanmovie geniuses scramble to reinvent their formula and edit out scenes thatmight offend post-Sept. 11 sensibilities . I feel a wonderful release. Thebox is dead. The tyranny of Hollywood has temporarily abated. What will fillthis storytelling vacuum has yet to be seen, but my bet is that the appetitefor stories that explore violence and mayhem, rather than exploiting them, willhave an even broader appeal.
Although thebody count is traditionally high in my genre , thebest thrillers and crime novels have never been about thrills or crime. Theyare about the often subtle, often banal inner workings of evil, and about the manyshapes of heroism — those impossible struggles of the individual challenged byforces that threaten his soul more than his body.
Certainly, someof the landscape of popular fiction is changed. Stock characters that have beenso reliable in their ability to scare us silly — serial killers, stalkers, hitmen, mob bosses, psychopathic cannibals— wither and turn to dust in the faceof the far more potent forms of evil we have encountered.
Real-life heroesreshape standards for bravery. Who has not tested his imagination by bandingtogether with strangers on that doomed plane, throwing together a hasty plan,then storming down the narrow aisle to tackle a group of razor-wielding thugs?Who hasn’t imagined himself pushing upward into those smoke-darkened hallwaysas choking civilians rush out of harm’s way, while all around us a faint rumblerises?
Thriller writersgrapple with the devilish distinction between revenge and justice, and showviolence and bravery in their starkest forms. Books like Huckleberry Finn,Moby-Dick and A Farewell to Arms share the gritty sensibility and brutallyhonest portraits of violence that distinguish the modern thriller.
Since Sept. 11, myHollywood agent has changed her tune. Now the reason my book will never bemade into a film is that the one explosive moment it did contain is a sceneportraying an airliner brought down by terrorists. In a book written over ayear ago, I’ve broken a brand new taboo . I get no points for prescienceand want none. My barometer was twitching: that’s all I can say. I write aboutwhat scares me.
And these dayseverywhere I look, I see material.
1. Explain the following sentences or phrases inEnglish, bringing out the implied meaning, if there is any：(18points)
(1) They havespent their lives mass-producing the box.
(2) edit outscenes that might offend post-Sept. 11 sensibilities
(3) the appetite for stories that explore violence and mayhem,rather than exploiting them, will have an even broader appeal
(4) Although thebody count is traditionally high in my genre...
(5) wither andturn to dust in the face of the far more potent forms of evil ...
(6) my Hollywoodagent has changed her tune
【答案】
(1) They have been writing stories all the time in large quantitiesabout thrills and crimes that scare people.
(2) Remove the scenes of crimes and thrills in their writing whichmay remind people of the Sept. 11, as people in the U.S. have become quitesensitive towards such scenes.
(3) Instead of stories that make use of violence and mayhem only toscare people only sensuously, stories that examine and analyze the reasons forviolence and mayhem may be more interesting to people.
(4) Although most of the stories by scriptwriters are on thesensuous level, which only scare people.
(5) Those stock characters are so weak and insignificant, comparedwith the far more powerful evil, which refers to the terrorists who attackedU.S on Sept. 11.
(6) My Hollywood agent has alerted her attitudes and manners about “explosivemoments”.
2. Give a brief answer to the following question:(6 points)
What does theauthor mean by saying: “I’ve broken a brand new taboo”?
【答案】 The author meansthat, the book he wrote a year ago is not to meet the current demands despitethe change of the way of storytelling in Hollywood after Sept. 11, because thistime he has touched upon the once pervasive but now forbidden thing—narrationabout “explosive moments”, which is forbidden for its offence of “post-Sept. 11sensibilities”.
It’s the firstweek of school at the University of California, Berkeley, and Sproul Plaza, thecampus’s main thoroughfare, is bustling with the usual lunchtime crowd:protesters clanging garbage-can lids and plinking cowbells; upperclassmenblaring boomboxes; a jazz ensemble luring potential recruits with a Miles Davisstandard. It’s a portrait of diversity in every way but one: skin color. A disproportionate number of the students walking around Sproul areAsian-Americans. Amy Tang, a third-year cognitive-science major, sits at abooth for the Chinese Student Association. “I came to Berkeley for thediversity,” she says, surveying the plaza. “But when I got here and saw all theAsians, it was really weird.”
Berkeley’srapidly morphing student body has sparked one of the fiercest debates in highereducation. The school’s Asian-American population had already been surging foryears when, in 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, a ballot initiativethat banned affirmative action at all state institutions. At the time, thecampus was tom by protests. And the result seemed to confirm the doomsayers’predictions: enrollment of African-American, Hispanic and Native Americanstudents plunged at Berkeley; while the Asian-American population continued torise. Asian-American students now make up about 45 percent of incoming freshmen,white students 30 percent, Hispanic students 9 percent and African-Americanonly 4 percent. And the drops in under-represented minorities are even moreacute at the grad schools. William Bagley, a university regent who supportsaffirmative action, insists that the university’s most prestigious campuses—likeBerkeley— have become “reverse ghettos, with Asians and whites and a lack ofcolor.”
What accountsfor the shift? To start, the pool of eligible Asian-American applicants wasalready huge. Nearby San Francisco boasts the highest percentage ofAsian-Americans in the continental United States. And Asian-Americans are manytimes more likely than other groups to graduate at the top of their high-schoolclasses. At Cal, many Asian-American students attribute their academic successto family pressure and, in some cases, an immigrant mind-set. “There’ssuch a push to succeed,” says Marian Liu, a fifth-year student at Cal whosefather was a Chinese immigrant. Ward Connerly, a UC regent who is one of themost vocal opponents of affirmative action, says that before 209, Asian-Americanstudents were discriminated against. “There was this fear that without the useof race, the whole campus would become Asian,” he says.
It’s a muchdifferent picture for Berkeley’s African-American, Hispanic and Native Americanstudents. Even after they’ve been admitted, Berkeley has a tough time persuadingthem to enroll. Brett Byers, a fourth-year business major who runs the schools’Black Recruitment and Retention Center, calls prospective to try to persuadethem to come to Cal. “When I call, they think there are no black studentshere,” she says. Byers recently helped reprise a tradition—called “Black Wednesday”—wherethe campus’s dwindling population of black students could relax, network andsocialize on Sproul. “There was a time when students of color used to hang outall the time on Sproul,” says Anya Booker, a friend and adviser of Byers’s whograduated from Berkely in 1989. “The shame is that it’s been reduced to asingle Wednesday.” And students say the lack of underrepresented minorities isapparent in class—especially the grad schools. Serena Lin, a first-year lawstudent who was also an undergraduate at Berkeley, says she sat in on adrug-policy seminar when she was a prospective student. “They were talkingabout how U.S. drug policy affects minorities,” she says. “And there wasn’t a singleAfrican-American in the class.
These daysBerkeley is trying to adjust to life after 209. The campus’s biggest new buzzwordis “outreach.” The University of California is spending $150 million—more thantwice the pre-209 number—in an effort to increase the pool of qualifiedunderrepresented minority students. And Daniel Hernandez, editor of the schoolnewspaper, says that despite all the changes, race relations on campus arerelatively healthy. “ Students are sort of settling in to the way thingsare,” says Hernandez. But is that necessarily good? Underrepresentedminorities have long been the backbone of Berkeley’s political mood,energizing the campus. In gaining a new face, Berkeley will have to live withwhat it has lost.
1. Explain the following sentences or phrases inEnglish, bringing out the implied meaning, if there is any:(18points)
(1) It’s a portraitdiversity in every way but one: skin color.
(2) And theresult seemed to confirm the doomsayers’ predictions...
(3) And thedrops in underrepresented minorities are even more acute at the grad schools.
(4) an immigrantmind-set
(5) Students aresort of settling in to the way things are....
(6) have longbeen the backbone of Berkeley’s political mood, energizing the campus
【答案】
(1) Everything here has diversity, with an exception of the skincolor of the students, most of whom are Asian Americans and the white, whileminorities only account for a small proportion.
(2) The result of the school’s enrollment was in accordance withsome people’s prediction, i.e. Asian- American population increased, whilepopulation of other skin colors decreased.
(3) It is more obvious at the graduate schools that the populationof African American and Hispanic American students has decreased.
(4) They are driven by the ideal of the immigrant, which is tosucceed in U.S.
(5) The main body of the students in the school is Asian Americans,and students have been accustomed to this situation.
(6) have been politically the supporting force of Berkley for a longtime and filling the campus with more energies
2. Answer the following questions briefly and tothe point:(18 points)
(1) Why does the author say that university’s most prestigiouscampuses like Berkeley “have become reverse ghettos, with Asians and whites anda lack of color”?
(2) What does the author mean when he says: “In gaining a new face,Berkeley will have to live with what it has lost.”?
(3) How does theauthor feel about proposition 209?
【答案】
(1) The campuses have become reverse ghettos because a majority ofstudents are Asians and the whites, while people from other races such asAfrican American and Hispanic students only account for a tiny percentage.
(2) The author means that, Berkeley needs to learn to functionwithout those minorities. Presently, most students in Berkeley are Asians andthe whites; the underrepresented minorities are no longer its supporting force.
(3) Though not clearly revealed, the author’s view seems moreagainst than for the Proposition 209. He seems to feel it is a pity that, campusesare no longer an integration of people of different colors and from differentraces, because of the increasing population of the Asian Americans anddecreasing population of underrepresented minorities.
II. Translate thefollowing passage into English.(40 points)
记得在苏黎世大学进行为期一年的博士后研修时，由于勤奋努力，我提前两个月完成了我的课题研究任务。当导师古根汉姆教授读完我提交的6篇论文时，惊喜万分。没过几天，校方拿来一份合同，提出以1.2万瑞士法郎（约合人民币6万元）的月薪聘请我担任研究员，我豪不犹豫地拒绝了。
我的举动大大出乎教授的意料。当天晚上，一向惜时如金的他，破例邀我去散步。我告诉他我之所以这么做的原因：第一，我的祖国很需要我；第二，我有我的信仰，我的所作所为不能违背我的信仰。我正想礼节性地道个歉，他却阻止了我，对我说，薛，你是第一个拒绝我的人，但你的选择却使我更为敬重你。教授感叹道，虽然我们信仰的东西不一样，但能为信仰而活着、而奋斗的人，总是令人尊敬的。
我从瑞士归国时，古根汉姆教授免费送我价值3000多美元的菌株和一本亲笔签名的最新著作。而在这之前，我就是出高价购买这种进口菌株，教授也是不会答应的。
我先后去过5个国家留学，与20多个国家的人共过事，从中我发现一个现象：爱国者人爱之，自尊者人尊之。人是要有一点精神的，这种精神就是理想、信念、民族自尊心、自信心和自豪感的总和。
【参考译文】
When I was doingthe one-year postdoctoral research in the University of Zurich, I finished theresearch on my subject two months in advance because of my hard work. Mysupervisor, Professor Guggenheim, was overjoyed after reading the six thesesthat I had turned in. A few days later, the university authority came to mewith a contract, offering me the research fellowship with a salary of 12000Swiss Franc(about 60000 RMB), but I refused without any hesitation.
My refusal wascompletely beyond my professor’s expectations. That evening, he, who treasuredhis time more than anything else, made an exception and invited me to go for awalk. I told him why I had made such a decision: firstly, my motherland neededme; secondly, I had my own belief and I would not act against it. I was justabout to make an apology out of politeness when he prevented me. He said to me:Xue, you were the first one to refuse me, but your decision made me respect youmore. The professor sighed with feeling that although we had different beliefs,people who lived and strived for his belief were respectable all the same.
When I was toleave Switzerland for home, Professor Guggenheim gave me over $3000 worth ofbacterial strains for free and a copy of his latest work with his signature.Before that, the professor would not give the bacterial strains to me eventhough I offered to buy it at a high price.
From myexperience of studying in five foreign countries and working with people fromover twenty countries, I have noticed a phenomenon: the patriotic ones areloved and the self-respecting ones are respected. People should have spirit, a combinationof ideal, faith, national self-respect, confidence and pride.