Part I  GRAMMAR (30 Points)
　　A、Correct Errors
　　The passage contains ten errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of one error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way:
　　For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.
　　For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a ∧ and write the word which you believe is missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.
　　For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a slash／and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.
　　The elderly who finds great rewards and satisfactions      (1)___________
　　In their later lives are a small minority in this country. But they
　　Do exist. They are the “aged elite”. It is most striking about these  (2)___________
　　People is their capacity for growth. When Arthur Robinson was
　　Eighty, someone told him that he was plying piano better than     (3)___________
　　Ever. “I think so,” he agreed.  “Now I take chances I never took
　　Before. I was used to be so much more careful. No wrong notes.   (4)___________
　　Not too bold ideas. Now I let go and enjoy myself and to be with   (5)___________
　　Everything besides the music.” Another reason for the success of
　　The aged elite are the traits they formed earlier in their lives. A     (6)___________
　　Sixty-eight-year old woman, three times married and widowed,
　　Says,” It’s not just what you do when you’re past sixty-five. It’s what
　　You did all your life which matters. If you have lived a full life,   (7)____________
　　Developed your mind, you will be able to use it past sixty-five.
　　Along frankness comes humor. A sense of humor is an      (8)___________
　　aid people use to cope with tension. “Humor,” says Dr. Barren,
　　“also leads you to join with other people. There are two ways to
　　Deal with stress. We either reach out or withdraw. The reachers    (9)___________
　　seek out other people to share their problems instead of pulling
　　away.” Growing, active, humorous, sharing – these are all qualities
　　which describe the aged elite.                               (10)__________
　　Part II  READING COMPREHENSION (60 points)
　　A. Multiple Choice
　　Please read the following passages and choose A, B, C or D to best complete the statements about them.
　　The Perils of Efficiency
　　This spring, disaster loomed in the global food market. Precipitous increases in the prices of staples like rice (up more than a hundred and fifty per cent in a few months) and maize provoked food riots, toppled governments, and threatened the lives of tens of millions. But the bursting of the commodity bubble eased those pressures, and food prices, while still high, have come well off the astronomical levels they hit in April. For Americans, the drop in commodity prices has put a few more bucks in people’s pockets; in much of the developing world, it may have saved many from actually starving. So did the global financial crisis solve the global food crisis?
　　Temporarily, perhaps. But the recent price drop doesn’t provide any long-term respite from the threat of food shortages or future price spikes. Nor has it reassured anyone about the health of the global agricultural system, which the crisis revealed as dangerously unstable. Four decades after the Green Revolution, and after waves of market reforms intended to transform agricultural production, we’re still having a hard time insuring that people simply get enough to eat, and we seem to be more vulnerable to supply shocks than ever.
　　It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Over the past two decades, countries around the world have moved away from their focus on “food security” and handed market forces a greater role in shaping agricultural policy. Before the nineteen-eighties, developing countries had so-called “agricultural marketing boards,” which would buy commodities from farmers at fixed prices (prices high enough to keep farmers farming), and then store them in strategic reserves that could be used in the event of bad harvests or soaring import prices. But in the eighties and nineties, often as part of structural-adjustment programs imposed by the I.M.F. or the World Bank, many marketing boards were eliminated or cut back, and grain reserves, deemed inefficient and unnecessary, were sold off. In the same way, structural-adjustment programs often did away with government investment in and subsidies to agriculture—most notably, subsidies for things like fertilizers and high-yield seeds.
　　The logic behind these reforms was simple: the market would allocate resources more efficiently than government, leading to greater productivity. Farmers, instead of growing subsidized maize and wheat at high cost, could concentrate on cash crops, like cashews and chocolate, and use the money they made to buy staple foods. If a country couldn’t compete in the global economy, production would migrate to countries that could. It was also assumed that, once governments stepped out of the way, private investment would flood into agriculture, boosting performance. And international aid seemed a more efficient way of relieving food crises than relying on countries to maintain surpluses and food-security programs, which are wasteful and costly.
　　This “marketization” of agriculture has not, to be sure, been fully carried through. Subsidies are still endemic in rich countries and poor, while developing countries often place tariffs on imported food, which benefit their farmers but drive up prices for consumers. And in extreme circumstances countries restrict exports, hoarding food for their own citizens. Nonetheless, we clearly have a leaner, more market-friendly agricultural system than before. It looks, in fact, a bit like global manufacturing, with low inventories (wheat stocks are at their lowest since 1977), concentrated production (three countries provide ninety per cent of corn exports, and five countries provide eighty per cent of rice exports), and fewer redundancies. Governments have a much smaller role, and public spending on agriculture has been cut sharply.
　　The problem is that, while this system is undeniably more efficient, it’s also much more fragile. Bad weather in just a few countries can wreak havoc across the entire system. When prices spike as they did this spring (for reasons that now seem not entirely obvious), the result is food shortages and malnutrition in poorer countries, since they are far more dependent on imports and have few food reserves to draw on. And, while higher prices and market reforms were supposed to bring a boom in agricultural productivity, global crop yields actually rose less between 1990 and 2007 than they did in the previous twenty years, in part because in many developing countries private-sector agricultural investment never materialized, while the cutbacks in government spending left them with feeble infrastructures.
　　These changes did not cause the rising prices of the past couple of years, but they have made them more damaging. The old emphasis on food security was undoubtedly costly, and often wasteful. But the redundancies it created also had tremendous value when things went wrong. And one sure thing about a system as complex as agriculture is that things will go wrong, often with devastating consequences. If the just-in-time system for producing cars runs into a hitch and the supply of cars shrinks for a while, people can easily adapt. When the same happens with food, people go hungry or even starve. That doesn’t mean that we need to embrace price controls or collective farms, and there are sensible market reforms, like doing away with import tariffs, that would make developing-country consumers better off. But a few weeks ago Bill Clinton, no enemy of market reform, got it right when he said that we should help countries achieve “maximum agricultural self-sufficiency.” Instead of a more efficient system, we should be trying to build a more reliable one.
　　(1) What can be learned from the first paragraph?
　　[A] Global financial crisis destablized governments.
　　[B] Food riots resulted from skyrockeing food bills.
　　[C] Financial crisis worsens food crisis.
　　[D] Food prices surged by 150% in April.
　　(2) The food crisis revealed the global agricultural system as           .
　　[A] fragile
　　[B] unresponsive
　　[C] costly
　　[D] unbearable
　　(3) According to the third paragraph, structural-adjustment programs           .
　　[A] intended to cope with poor harvests
　　[B] were introduced as part of “market forces” policies
　　[C] removed price controls and state subsidies
　　[D] encouraged countries to focus on food security
　　(4) The marketization of agriculture probably means           .
　　[A] private investment floods into agriculture
　　[B] market forces provide efficiency in agriculture
　　[C] agricultural policy works with the free market system
　　[D] agricultural production is free from government intervention
　　(5) Which of the following is NOT a feature of the existing agricutural system?
　　[A] Reduced government spending.
　　[B] Concentrated production.
　　[C] Self-sufficiency.
　　[D] Low wheat stocks.
　　(6) In the last paragraph, the underlined part “the redundancies” probably refer to           .
　　[A] High-yield seeds
　　[B] Grain reserves
　　[C] Cash crops
　　[D] Corn imports
　　Minding the Inequality Gap
　　During the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country.
　　Some analysts see the gulf between the rich and the rest as an incentive for strivers, or as just the way things are. Others see it as having a corrosive effect on people’s faith in the markets and democracy. Still others contend that economic polarization is a root cause of America’s political polarization. Could, and should, something be done?
　　Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, two Harvard economists, think yes. Their book, The Race Between Education and Technology (Harvard, $39.95), contains many tables, a few equations and a powerfully told story about how and why the United States became the world’s richest nation — namely, thanks to its schools.
　　The authors skillfully demonstrate that for more than a century, and at a steady rate, technological breakthroughs — the mass production system, electricity, computers — have been increasing the demand for ever more educated workers. And, they show, America’s school system met this demand, not with a national policy, but in grassroots fashion, as communities taxed themselves and built schools and colleges.
　　Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace, resulting, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz contend, in a sharply unequal nation.
　　The authors allow that a decline in union membership and in the inflation-adjusted minimum wage also contributed to the shift in who partook of a growing pie. But they rule out the usual suspects — globalization (trade) and high immigration — as significant causes of rising inequality. Amid the current calls to restrict executive compensation, their policy prescription is to have more Americans graduate from college.
　　If only it were that easy.
　　The authors’ argument is really two books in one. One offers an incisive history of American education, especially the spread of the public high school and the state university system. It proves to be an uplifting tale of public commitment and open access. The authors remind us that the United States long remained “the best poor man’s country.” A place where talent could rise.
　　The other story rigorously measures the impact of education on income. The authors’ compilation of hard data on educational attainment according to when people were born is an awesome achievement, though not always a gripping read.
　　They show that by the 1850s, America’s school enrollment rate already “exceeded that of any other nation.” And this lead held for a long time. By 1960, some 70 percent of Americans graduated from high school — far above the rate in any other country. College graduation rates also rose appreciably.
　　In the marketplace, such educational attainment was extremely valuable, but it didn’t produce wide economic disparity so long as more people were coming to the job market with education. The wage premium — or differential paid to people with a high school or a college education — fell between 1915 and 1950.
　　But more recently, high school graduation rates flatlined at around 70 percent. American college attendance rose, though college graduation rates languished. The upshot is that while the average college graduate in 1970 earned 45 percent more than high school graduates, the differential three decades later exceeds 80 percent.
　　“In the first half of the century,” the authors summarize, “education raced ahead of technology, but later in the century technology raced ahead of educational gains.”
　　Proving that the demand for and supply of educated workers began not in the time of Bill Gates but in the era of Thomas Edison is virtuoso social science. But wasn’t a slowdown in rising educational attainment unavoidable? After all, it’s one thing to increase the average years of schooling by leaps and bounds when most people start near zero, but quite another when the national average is already high.
　　The authors reject the idea that the United States has reached some natural limit in educational advances. Other countries are now at higher levels.
　　What, then, is holding American youth back?
　　The authors give a two-part answer. For one thing, the financial aid system is a maze. More important, many people with high school diplomas are not ready for college.
　　The second problem, the authors write, is concentrated mostly in inner-city schools. Because the poor cannot easily move to better school districts, the authors allow that charter schools as well as vouchers, including those for private schools, could be helpful, but more evaluation is necessary.
　　Data on the effects of preschool are plentiful, and point to large returns on investment, so the authors join the chorus in extolling Head Start, the federal government’s largest preschool program.
　　Providing more children with a crucial start, along with easier ways to find financial aid, are laudable national objectives. One suspects, though, that the obstacles to getting more young people into and through college have to do with knotty social and cultural issues.
　　But assume that the authors’ policies would raise the national college graduation rate. Would that deeply reduce inequality?
　　Averages can be deceptive. Most of the gains of the recent flush decades have not gone to the college-educated as a whole. The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industry’s share of corporate profits.
　　It remains to be seen how a reconfigured financial industry and possible new tax policies might affect the 30-year trend toward greater inequality.
　　In the meantime, it is nice to be reminded, in a data-rich book, that greater investments in human capital once put Americans collectively on top of the world.
　　(7) What do we learn from The Race Between Education and Technology?
　　[A] The United States has reached its natural limit in educational attainment.
　　[B] The 20th century was the American Century due to its educational advances.
　　[C] Technology raced ahead of education in the first half of the 20th century.
　　[D] American high school graduation rates levelled off at 80 percent in 1970.
　　(8) Which of the following is considered a significant cause of rising inequality according to Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz?
　　[A] High immigration.
　　[B] Executive compensation.
　　[C] Reduced union membership.
　　[D] Stagnate college graduation rates.
　　(9) What does the underlined word “laudable” mean?
　　[A] Reasonable.
　　[B] Achievable.
　　[C] Deserving praise.
　　[D] Worth trying.
　　(10) Which of the following led to the slowdown in American educational advances in the last three decades of the 20th century?
　　[A] No easy access to financial aid.
　　[B] Overemphasis on preschool programs.
　　[C] A dramatic fall in college enrollment rates.
　　[D] A rise in the number of poor school districts.
　　(11) What does the author think of the book?
　　[A] It is a research on human capital.
　　[B] It is intended for economists.
　　[C] It is a happy fireside read.
　　[D] It is rich in data.
　　(12) Which of the following is true according to the passage?
　　[A] The demand for educated workers began in the era of IT.
　　[B] The pace of technological change has not been steady.
　　[C] America is not educating its citizens the way it used to.
　　[D] High school graduation rates peaked in the U.S. in 1950.
　　B.  True or False
　　Read the following passage carefully and then decide whether the statements which follow are true (T) or false (F).
　　Generation What?
　　Welcome to the socio-literary parlor game of “Name That Generation.”
　　It all began in a quotation Ernest Hemingway attributed to his Paris patron, the poet and salonkeeper Gertrude Stein. On the title page of his novel “The Sun Also Rises,” published in 1926, he quoted her saying to her circle of creatively disaffected writers, artists and intellectuals in the aftermath of World War I, “You are all a lost generation.”
　　In the cultural nomenclature after that, the noun generation was applied to those “coming of age” in an era. Anne Soukhanov, U.S. editor of the excellent Encarta dictionary, observes, “Young people’s attitudes, behavior and contributions, while being shaped by the ethos of, and major events during, their time, came in turn to represent the tenor of the time.”
　　Taking that complex sense of generation as insightful, we can focus on its modifier as the decisive word in the phrases built upon it. The group after the lost generation did not find its adjective until long after its youthful members turned gray. Belatedly given a title in a 1998 book by Tom Brokaw, the Greatest Generation (which had previously been called the G.I. Generation) defined “those American men and women who came of age in the Great Depression, served at home and abroad during World War II and then built the nation we have today.”
　　That period, remembered as one characterized by gallantry and sacrifice, was followed by another time that was described in a sharply critical sobriquet: in 1951, people in their 20s were put down as the Silent Generation. That adjective was chosen, according to Neil Howe, author of the 1991 book “Generations,” because of “how quiescent they were during the McCarthy era . . . they were famously risk-averse.” The historian William Manchester castigated the tenor of youth in that era as “withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent.” Overlapping that pejorative label in time was the Beat Generation, so named by the writer Jack Kerouac in the ’50s. Though the author later claimed his word was rooted in religious Beatitudes, it was described by a Times writer as “more than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw . . . a sort of nakedness of mind.”
　　Now we’re up to the ’70s, dubbed by Tom Wolfe in New York magazine in 1976 as the “me decade.” That coinage led to the general castigation of young adults by their elders in that indulgent era as the Me Generation, preoccupied with material gain and “obsessed with self.” It was not so silent, far from beat, but still, in its own grasping way, a generation lost.
　　Then came the title denoting mystery of the demographically huge generation born from roughly 1946 to 1964 — begun as the Baby-Boom Generation, but in its later years its younger members took on a separate identity: Generation X. That is the title of a 1991 book by Douglas Coupland; “It is an identity-hiding label,” the generationist Howe tells my researcher Caitlin Wall, “of what is the generation with probably the weakest middle class of any of the other generations born in the 20th century.” While most boomers proudly asserted their generational identity, “Xers” at first did not; now, however, most feel more comfortable with the label. It has been followed by Y and Z, but those are too obviously derivative, and the Millennial Generation — if narrowly defined as those beginning to come of age since 2000 — has members still in knee pants.
　　THE JOSHUA GENERATION
　　U.S. presidents like to identify themselves with the zeitgeist inspiriting their electorate. “This generation of Americans,” F.D.R. told the 1936 Democratic convention, “has a rendezvous with destiny,” the final three words later evoked by both Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. John F. Kennedy, in his 1961 inaugural address, said, “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage.”
　　Speaking in March 2007 at a chapel in Selma, Ala., in commemoration of a bloody march for voting rights, Senator Barack Obama put forward a name for a new generation of African-Americans. After acknowledging “a certain presumptuousness” in running for president after such a short time in Washington, Obama credited the Rev. Otis Moss Jr. for writing him “to look at the story of Joshua because you’re part of the Joshua generation.”
　　He noted that the “Moses generation” had led his people out of bondage but was not permitted by God to cross the river from the wilderness to the Promised Land. In the Hebrew Bible, it was Joshua, chosen by Moses to be his successor, who led the people across, won the battle of Jericho and established the nation. “It was left to the Joshuas to finish the journey Moses had begun,” Obama said to the youthful successors to the aging leaders of the civil rights movement, “and today we’re called to be the Joshuas of our time, to be the generation that finds our way across the river.”
　　Though the spirit of an age is best defined in retrospect, and religious allusion is not currently considered cool, the Joshua Generation — unlike all its era-naming predecessors — does have alliteration going for it. (874)
　　(13) The Greatest Generation is also referred to as “The Veterans”.
　　(14) William Manchester didn’t think highly of the Silent Generation.
　　(15) The Beat Generation is characterized by being obsessed with material gain.
　　(16) The Generation X follows the the Baby-Boom Generation while the Generation Y precedes the Millennial Generation.
　　(17) The Moses Generation refers to American leaders, who fought for but never saw the “Promised land” of racial equality.
　　C.  Gap Filling
　　Please choose the best sentence from the list after the passage to fill in each of the gaps in the text. There are more sentences than gaps.
　　TV Can Be Good for You
　　Television wastes time, pollutes minds, destroys brain cells, and turns some viewers into murderers. (18)                . But television has at least one strong virtue, too, which helps to explain its endurance as a cultural force. In an era when people often have little time to speak with one another, television provides replacement voices that ease loneliness, spark healthful laughter, and even educate young children.
　　Most people who have lived alone understand the curse of silence, when the only sound is the buzz of unhappiness or anxiety inside one’s own head. Although people of all ages who live alone can experience intense loneliness, the elderly are especially vulnerable to solitude. For example, they may suffer increased confusion or depression when left alone for long periods but then rebound when they have steady companionship.
　　A study of elderly men and women in New Zealand found that television can actually serve as a companion by assuming “the role of social contact with the wider world,” reducing “feelings of isolation and loneliness because it directs viewers’ attention away from themselves”. (19)                .
　　The absence of real voices can be most damaging when it means a lack of laughter. (20)                . Laughter is one of the most powerful calming forces available to human beings, proven in many studies to reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure, and ease other stress-related ailments. Television offers plenty of laughter for all kinds of viewers: the recent listings for a single Friday night included more than twenty comedy programs running on the networks and on basic cable between 6pm and 9 pm.
　　A study reported in a health magazine found that laughter inspired by television and video is as healthful as the laughter generated by live comedy. Volunteers laughing at a video comedy routine “showed significant improvements in several immune functions, such as natural killer-cell activity”. (21)                . Even for people with plenty of companionship, television’s replacement voices can have healthful effects by causing laughter.
　　Television also provides information about the world. This service can be helpful to everyone but especially to children, whose natural curiosity can exhaust the knowledge and patience of their parents and caretakers. (22)                . For example, educational programs such as those on the Discovery Channel, the Disney Channel, and PBS offer a steady stream of information at various cognitive levels. Even many cartoons, which are generally dismissed as mindless or worse, familiarize children with the material of literature, including strong characters enacting classic narratives.
　　Two researchers studying children and television found that TV is a source of creative and psychological instruction, inspiring children “to play imaginatively and develop confidence and skills”. Instead of passively watching, children “interact with the programs and videos” and “sometimes include the fictional characters they’ve met into reality’s play time”. (23)                .
　　The value of these replacement voices should not be oversold. For one thing, almost everyone agrees that too much TV does no one any good and may cause much harm. Many studies show that excessive TV watching increases violent behavior, especially in children, and can cause, rather than ease, other antisocial behaviors and depression. (24)                . Steven Pinker, an expert in children’s language acquisition, warns that children cannot develop language properly by watching television. They need to interact with actual speakers who respond directly to their specific needs. Replacement voices are not real voices and in the end can do only limited good.
　　But even limited good is something, especially for those who are lonely, angry, or neglected. Television is not an entirely positive force, but neither is it an entirely negative one. Its voices stand by to provide company, laughter, and information whenever they’re needed.
　　[A] In addition, human beings require the give and take of actual interaction.
　　[B] While the TV may be baby-sitting children, it can also enrich them.
　　[C] Thus runs the prevailing talk about the medium, supported by serious research
　　as well as simple belief.
　　[D] Here, too, research shows that television can have a positive effect on
　　health.
　　[E] Thus television’s replacement voices both inform young viewers and
　　encourage exchange.
　　[F] Television can be a positive practical training ground for moral growth in a changing world.
　　[G] Thus television’s replacement voices can provide comfort because they distract from a focus on being alone.
　　[H] Further, the effects of the comedy were so profound that “merely anticipating
　　watching a funny video improved mood, depression, and anger as much as two days beforehand”.
　　Part III  TRANSLATION (60 points)
　　A. Please read the following passage and translate it into Chinese.
　　Australia’s convict origins have been variously written in and out of the national consciousness. While it was once a shameful admission to have a convict ancestor, today it is more likely to be seen as a badge of honour. Victorian notions of morality and scientific theories of the early 20th century influenced the view that a convict past was a moral ‘contagion’ that could be inherited through successive generations. As views changed, more emphasis was placed on the social environment as the most influential factor in shaping character and behaviour.
　　With the cessation of transportation, the gold rushes of the 1850s and the influx of free settlers, a view of the ‘born colonist’ emerged. Always male, he was regarded as a hardy type, adaptable, independent, sport loving and resolute. He was egalitarian and valued mateship highly above any respect to authority. The anti-authoritarian character of the ‘Australian Type’ was perpetuated by images of bushranging, the persistent eulogising of Ned Kelly, the independence, resolve and uprisings on the gold digging fields and the unionists of the late 19th century.
　　B. Please read the following passage and translate it into English.
　　动漫产业迅猛发展是不争的事实，但全球的漫画家都在抱怨生存的压力和生活的窘迫，而且似乎有越来越窘迫的趋势。
　　漫画家能否再像以前一样，作为艺术家而生存？事实上，如果漫画家愿意去当漫画产业的产业工人，生存不但不成问题，甚至比以前还要好。 一个原本能够独立创作的漫画家变成一位着色工，如何能够甘心？
　　对于普通读者来说，动画、漫画的发展是一个越来越兴旺的过程；而对于传统意义上的漫画家来说，动画、漫画的发展则是一个危机四伏的过程，是一个逐渐丧失自主创作可能的过程。这个过程完全可以与工业时代的纺织业发展来比拟：纺织机械出现后，人们发现市场上布料价格越来越便宜，质量花色越来越丰富，但手工纺织者却失业了。