1、 1 北京科技大学 2013 年硕士学位研究生入学考试试题 试题编号： 211 试题名称： 翻译硕士英语 （共 14 页） 适用专业： 翻译（专业英语） 说明： 所有答案必须写在答题纸上，做在试题或草稿纸上无效。 I. Vocabulary and Structure (30 points, 1 point each, 60 minutes) Directions: Beneath each sentence there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the answer that best completes
2、the sentence. Write your answers on your answer sheet. 1. Ruth wanted to be transferred to another department, but her application was _ because her own department is understaffed. A. turned down B. turned over C. turned away D. turned off 2. Helens been neglecting her homework lately. Ill _ with he
3、r parents about it. A. have words B. have a word C. have the word D. have the last word 3. The reality of governance is rarely _; institutions do not operate according to mechanical laws, but they evolve organically. A. noble B. static C. inconsistent D. documented 4. A position that requires public
4、 speaking would be very difficult for one as _ as he. A. amiable B. vivacious C. reticent D. decent 5. The commission asked that the administrations 90-day ban on federal funds for human cloning _ indefinitely. A. to be extended B. to extend C. be extended D. being extended 6. There is talk of the g
5、overnment _ a new tax relief scheme for families with more than three children. A. bringing in B. bringing off C. bringing about D. bringing on 7. The nurses asked the local union to _ their strike by signing a letter of support. A. comply B. undermine C. endorse D. isolate 8. I could not but _ very
6、 much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression. A. being B. be C. to be D. was 2 9. _ more societies are geared to retirement at around 65, companies have a looming problem of knowledge management. A. Given that B. Provided C. Unless D. While 10. Th
7、e organization gives help and support to people in need, as well as _ money for local charities. A. raises B. raising C. raise D. to raise 11. The development of containers, possibly made from bark or the skins of animals, although it is a matter of _, allowed the extensive sharing of forage food in
8、 prehistoric human societies. A. conjecture B. fact C. record D. conspiracy 12. Most people choose a lawyer on the basis of such _ considerations as his cost, his field of expertise, and the fees he charges. A. humanistic B. irrelevant C. personal D. pragmatic 13. It cannot be denied that the existi
9、ng resources on earth will be depleted, but scientists are hesitant to _ the inevitability of that day, convinced that new energies can be found in the near future. A. recede B. exceed C. concede D. precede 14. There has been nothing good on television for weeks. Good programs are _. A. more or less
10、 B. far and between C. on and off D. here and there 15. Fred is a(n) _ complainer as soon as one problem is solved, he will come up with another. A. affluent B. prudent C. moderate D. chronic 16. Rita turned her _ of being lost in the desert into good fortune by selling the story to a movie studio.
11、A. ordeal B. pessimism C. retort D. patron 17. Psychologists maintain that the nature of human beings entails a strong need to _ their free time; idleness can be as stressful as activity. A. endanger B. preserve C. consume D. organize 18. At age 10, my cousin still has a _ belief in Santa Claus; she
12、 becomes upset at any suggestion that he doesnt exist. 3 A. sedentary B. inquisitive C. tenacious D. superfluous 19. They _ each other, making a perfect couple. He is rich but doesnt care about money; she is poor but cares about it a lot. A. complement B. fabricate C. implement D. validate 20. Peopl
13、e anticipated that vertical flight transports would carry millions of passengers as _ today. A. the airliners do B. do the airliners C. the airliners did D. did the airliners 21. Rumors, embroidered with detail, live on for years, neither denied nor confirmed, until they become accepted as fact even
14、 among people not known for their _. A. insight B. introspection C. obstinacy D. credulity 22. Imposing steep fines on employers for on-the-job injuries to workers could be an effective _ creating a safer workplace, especially in the case of employers with poor safety records. A. alternative B. addi
15、tion C. incentive D. deterrent 23. Her _ should not be confused with miserliness, as long as I have known her, she has always been willing to assist those who are in need. A. frugality B. diffidence C. intolerance D. apprehension 24. Observable as a tendency of our culture is a _ of belief in psycho
16、analysis: we no longer feel that it can solve out emotional problems. A. defence B. confrontation C. divergence D. withdrawal 25. The prospects of discovering new aspects of the life of a painter as thoroughly studied as Vermeer are not, on the surface, _. A. unpromising B. encouraging C. daunting D
17、. challenging 26. The history of film reflects the _ inherent in the medium itself: film contains still photographs to represent continuous motion and, while seeming to present life itself, can also offer impossible and dreamlike unrealities. A. biases B. constraints C. liabilities D. paradoxes 27.
18、The notion that cultural and biological influences equally determine cross-cultural diversity is _ by the fact that, in countless aspects of human existence, it is cultural programming that overwhelmingly accounts for cross-population variance. 4 A. confirmed B. illustrated C. discredited D. disappr
19、oved 28. Dominant interests often benefit most from _ of governmental interference in business, since they are able to take care of themselves if left alone. A. centralization B. authorization C. intensification D. elimination 29. As the world has moved into a scientific age, the origin of herbal me
20、dicine in many countries remains _ in mystery and often sounds fantastic to those trained in modern science. A. shrouded B. hidden C. covered D. hindered 30. We can scarcely afford to neglect airport security in light of the recent terrorist actions, but as a reliable critic has pointed out, the cos
21、t of actually implementing these measures remains a _ expense. A. feasible B. prohibitive C. suitable D. negligible II. Reading Comprehension (40 points, 2 points each, 60 minutes) Section I Directions: In this section there are two reading passages followed by multiple choice questions. Read the pa
22、ssages and then write your answer on your answer sheet. Passage One When Fords River Rouge Plant was completed in 1928 it boasted everything it needed to turn raw materials into finished cars: 100,000 workers, 16m square feet of factory floor, 100 miles of railway track and its own docks and furnace
23、s. Today it is still Fords largest plant, but only a shadow of its former glory. Most of the parts are made by sub-contractors and merely fitted together by the plants 6,000 workers. The local steel mill is run by a Russian company, Severstal. Outsourcing has transformed global business. Over the pa
24、st few decades companies have contracted out everything from mopping the floors to spotting the flaws in their internet security. TPI, a company that specializes in the sector, estimates that $100 billion-worth of new contracts are signed every year. Oxford Economics reckons that in Britain, one of
25、the worlds most mature economies, 10% of workers toil away in “outsourced” jobs and companies spend $ 200 billion a year on outsourcing. Even war is being outsourced: America employs more contract workers in Afghanistan than regular troops. The latest TPI quarterly index of outsourcing (which measur
26、es commercial contracts of $25m or more) suggests that the total value of such contracts for the second quarter of 2011 fell by 18% 5 compared with the second quarter of 2010. Dismal figures in the Americas (i.e. mostly the United States) dragged down the average: the value of contracts there was 50
27、% lower in the second quarter of 2011 than in the first half of 2010. This is partly explained by Americas gloomy economy, but even more by the maturity of the market: TPI suspects that much of what can sensibly be outsourced already has been. Miles Robinson of Mayer Brown, a law firm, notes that th
28、ere has also been an uptick in legal disputes over outsourcing. In one case EDS, an IT company, had to pay BSkyB, a media company, 318m ($469m) in damages. The two firms spent an estimated 70m on legal fees and were tied up in court for five months. Such nightmares are worse in India, where the cour
29、ts move with Dickensian speed. And since many disputes stay out of court, the well of discontent with outsourcing is surely deeper than the legal record shows. Some of the worst business disasters of recent years have been caused or aggravated by outsourcing. Eight years ago Boeing, Americas biggest
30、 aeroplane-maker, decided to follow the example of car firms and hire contractors to do most of the grunt work on its new 787 Dreamliner. The result was a nightmare. Some of the parts did not fit together. Some of the dozens of sub-contractors failed to deliver their components on time, despite havi
31、ng subcontracted their work to sub-sub-contractors. Boeing had to take over some of the subcontractors to prevent them from collapsing. If the Dreamliner starts rolling off the production line towards the end of this year, as Boeing promises, it will be billions over budget and three years behind sc
32、hedule. Outsourcing can go wrong in a colorful variety of ways. Sometimes companies squeeze their contractors so hard that they are forced to cut corners. (This is a big problem in the car industry, where a handful of global firms can bully the 80,000 parts-makers.) Sometimes vendors overpromise in
33、order to win a contract and then fail to deliver. Sometimes both parties write sloppy contracts. And some companies undermine their overall strategies with injudicious outsourcing. Service companies, for example, contract out customer complaints to foreign call centres and then wonder why their cust
34、omers hate them. When outsourcing goes wrong, it is the devil to put right. When companies outsource a job, they typically eliminate the department that used to do it. They become entwined with their contractors, handing over sensitive material and inviting contractors to work alongside their own st
35、aff. Extricating themselves from this tangle can be tough. It is much easier to close a department 6 than to rebuild it. Sacking a contractor can mean that factories grind to a halt, bills languish unpaid and chaos mounts. None of this means that companies are going to re-embrace the River Rouge mod
36、el any time soon. Some companies, such as Boeing, are bringing more work back in-house, in the jargon. But the business logic behind outsourcing remains compelling, so long as it is done right. Many tasks are peripheral to a firms core business and can be done better and more cheaply by specialists.
37、 Cleaning is an obvious example; many back-office jobs also fit the bill. Outsourcing firms offer labour arbitrage, using cheap Indians to enter data rather than expensive Swedes. They can offer economies of scale, too. TPI points out that, for all the problems in America, outsourcing is continuing
38、to grow in emerging markets and, more surprisingly, in Europe, where Germany and France are late converts to the idea. Companies are rethinking outsourcing, rather than jettisoning it. They are dumping huge long term deals in favour of smaller, less rigid ones. The annualized value of “mega-relation
39、ship” worth $100m or more a year fell by 62% this year compared with last. Companies are forming relationships with several outsourcers, rather than putting all their eggs in few baskets. They are signing shorter contracts, too. But still, they need to think harder about what their core business is,
40、 and what is peripheral. And above all, newspaper editors need to say no to the temptation to outsource business columns to cheaper, hungrier writers. 1. The Fords River Rouge Plant case is introduced in the first paragraph to _. A. indicate the prevalence of outsourcing B. lament over the past glor
41、y of the plant C. explain Boeings adoption of a similar model D. expose the weakness of its business model 2. Which of the following statements about outsourcing is correct? A. Outsourcing in all markets has encountered difficulties. B. Outsourcing, if well operated, can help reduce the costs. C. Re
42、cession is the major cause for less outsourcing in America. D. The outsourcing boom will go on indefinitely in spite of problems. 3. Currently companies in America have the following concerns EXCEPT_. A. low quality of subcontracted products and services 7 B. the saturated outsourcing market C. dras
43、tic increase of disputes over outsourcing D. the necessity of reforming outsourcing model 4. Which of the following solutions is NOT suggested in the passage? A. Develop several outsourcers to reduce potential risks. B. Sign short-term and flexible contracts with outsourcers. C. Rebuild the departme
44、nt to do the job once outsourced. D. Identify businesses appropriate for outsourcing. 5. The underlined word “peripheral” in paragraph 8 is closest in meaning to _. A. indispensable B. temporary C. essential D. secondary Passage Two Of all the methods of communication invented by humanity over the c
45、enturies, none has disseminated so much information so widely at such high speeds as the internet. It is both a unifying force and a globalizing one. But, its very ubiquity makes it a localizing one too, because it is clearly not the same everywhere, either in what it provides or how it is operated
46、and regulated. The smartphone has liberated its users from the PC on his desk, granting him access on the go not just to remote computers and long-lost friends on the other side of the world but also to the places around him. If he lives in a city, as most users do, then his fellow city-dwellers and
47、 the buildings, cars and streets around them are throwing off almost unimaginable quantities of valuable data from which he will benefit. And although communications across continents have become cheap and easy, physical proximity to others remains important in creating new ideas and productsespecia
48、lly (and perhaps ironically) for companies offering online services. You cannot (yet) have a coffee together online. This simultaneously more localized and more globalized world will be more complicated than the world of old. Different rules will continue to apply to different countries bits of cybe
49、rspace. Gartners Mr. Prentice thinks that three basic forces will shape the mobile internet, the transport of data across it and the content available on it: politicians demand for control; (most) peoples desire for freedom; and companies pursuit of profit. It is possible to imagine scenarios in which one of these forces comes out on top. But it i
