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北京外国语大学611英语基础测试（技能）历年考研真题及详解试读：
2000年北京外国语大学611基础英语考研真题及详解
I. Reading Comprehension.(32分)
1．Read the following article and paraphrase the underlined parts:
The twenty-first century will mark the era of tertiary and lifelong learning for everybody-or almost everybody. Thus the West Report from Australia, echoing a key theme of the immediately preceding Dearing Report in the UK① (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education [NCIHE], 1997).
The notion of lifelong learning has pervaded higher education around the world as governments have increasingly come to recognize a link between their education systems and national economic performance. However, policy relating to the actual making of the link needs deeper consideration. The development of key skills’ has been seen in the UK as an important way in which higher education can contribute to economic development, but it can be argued that to focus on these skills represents a narrow and insufficient response to what employers-and the wider interest-really need (see Stephenson’s [1998] argument for a ‘capability’ approach to higher education and, more broadly, the discussion in part 2 of Barnett [1994]. However the contested nature of this aspect of higher education might be resolved, current discussions have left relatively unexplored the broader implications for curricula ② and, in particular, for fist-cycle provision.
In earlier times many took the view that a first degree ③ was a sufficient basis for lifetime career. The accelerating pace of knowledge development has undermined this conception, and increasing attention is now being given to the provision of higher degree programs and other opportunities for professional development. This raises a serious question: what function does the first degree serve in the context of lifelong learning?
Logically, it makes no sense in today’s world to try to pack first degree curricula with all the knowledge, understanding and skills need for the rest of a lifetime. There simply is not the time available, and anyway curriculum-packing runs the risk of superficiality of learning.④ A first degree should, if they have not already acquired it, develop in students the ability to learn how to learn, as well as enhance their subject-specific expertise and other relevant skills. The old saying is valid here: giving individuals each a fish might feed them for a day, but teaching them the skills of fishing could feed them for life.
There is a need to think of the first degree in terms of the quality, rather than the quantity, of students’ learning, In today’s world the first degree becomes more of a foundation qualification, upon which graduates will expect to build during their lives. Some might react by saying that to make such a shift implies a dilution of academic standards—but the counter is that standards relate primarily to the quality, and not the quantity, of students’ learning. ⑤ The reconstrued first degree need be no intellectual poor relation: academic rigour can be built into curricula of widely differing focus. The standards may well be different, but they do have to be inferior.
Some reduction in the volume of discipline-specific content will require an adjustment of thought ⑥—in particular, on the part of employers and professional bodies. The professional accreditation of some first degree programs is seen by some as an essential condition. However, there seems no necessary reason for this to be the case-and it might well be to the professions’ longer-term advantage if first degree curricula were to pay particular attention to developing in graduates the ability to learn to learn, ⑦ leaving subsequent professional and developmental activities to provide the ‘topping-up’ that would cohere with the professional bodies’ expectations.
A strategic vision for higher education in the next millennium requires more than a muttering of the mantra of lifelong learning. Making lifelong learning ‘work demands a sustained commitment to fitting together the pieces of the multidimensional jigsaw whose components include educational purposes, values and practicalities. Academics are among the people who ought to relish this jigsaw’s challenge.
Whippier-snapper: an insignificant, esp. young, person who appears impertinent.【答案】
①repeating the main subject of recent Dearing Report in the UK
②Discussion of the present time pays no attention to the examination of the deeper implied meaning and function of courses, no matter how people have dealt with the problem that higher education serves as skill training.
③bachelor’s degree
④Too many courses may lead to the result that students only get the surface meaning of studies instead of exploring deep.
⑤the argument is that standards should rather base on the excellency of students’ learning than on the quantity of courses they have attended to
⑥People need to adjust their thought to decrease the amount and content of courses.
⑦if courses were designed to teach the graduates how to learn during the bachelor’s degree study, it would be helpful to the professions from the long-term perspective
II. Read the following passage and answer the following questions:(28分)
When that Grand old Man of Victorian, William Evart Gladstone, thwas in his 85 year, he was steering the second home-rule bill foe Ireland through a recalcitrant parliament and going home to translate the odes of Horace at night, When Ronald Reagan reached the tender age of 73, he was fighting his second presidential election campaign. Alan Greenspan, the world’s most successful central banker, is also 73. Politics and economics are plainly jobs that the old can do well. They are not alone. The boardrooms of the world’s big companies are full of non-executive sages, telling whippersnapper 40-somethings how to run their firms. ①
Why, then, are so few of the rich world’s older folk in employment? They live longer and enjoy better health than their parents did. Most jobs have become less physically demanding; most people in late middle age are well sensibly, is no harder than training the young. But the figures show an 1960, men could expect to spend 50 of their 68 years of life in paid work. Today, they are likely to work for only 38 of their 76 years. Fewer than two-thirds of men in their late 50a and early 60s ate in the rich world’s labour force, by the time they thcelebrate their 55 birthday, more than half of Europe’s men have gone home to translate Horace.②
For most, that is something to celebrate. Never before have so many people been able to look forward to so many years of healthy leisure. Two-thirds of people say that they like being retired and have no desire to go back to work. There are grandchildren to enjoy, foreign countries to visit, books to read and golf games to play. The pleasures of old age less expensive, and more widely available, than ever before. ③ Silver-haired lining
The big question is whether all of this retirement is voluntary. It is worth asking for its own sake; in a liberal society, the old, too, should be free to choose. But, in addition, the stampede to retire has consequences not merely for the old themselves. And it is often being encouraged by perverse public policy.
Widespread and early retirement will increasingly affect the lives of everyone else, for two reasons. The first is a familiar one: as the share of old folk in the population rises, so will the burden on the young of paying for their pensions and health care. The second is less discussed: the rise of the grey-headed leisured class has consequences for economic growth, because of its impact on the supply of labour and of capital.
Many governments, their eyes focused on the impact that future pensions claims will have on public finances, have embarked on reforms but not always reforms that five pensioners a freer choice. For their eyes are also trained in the shorter term, on high unemployment.④ Governments, especially in western Europe, are pressing more people to retire early, on the mistaken view that this will provide jobs for the young, even as they try to trim pensioners’ entitlements in order to reduce the burden on public finances. This is unforgivable from a liberal point of view. It is also foolish from the perspective of public policy.
The sheer size of the baby-boom generation that starts to teach retirement age over the coming decade means that there will be a simple, but huge imbalance: too few people in work, paying taxes and pension contributions; too many in retirement, drawing on pensions and running up health costs. In that case, the main alternatives will be to renege on the pensions that workers thought they had been promised, or to raise taxes. It would be far better for the health of economies if much older people went on working instead. Quite small rises in the ages at which people retire have large effects.⑤ As long as older folk stay in the job market, they pay taxes (helping one side of the fiscal balance) and draw either no pension, or a smaller one(helping the other).
Governments should recognize that people(like politicians)would prefer to decide for themselves when to retire. At Present, the choice is, perversely, biased in favour of retirement. For example, in many countries, the opportunity cost of working beyond the minimum retirement age is high: workers must often leave the job market in order to receive a state pension, and even where this is not the case, they rarely earn any extra pension for their additional taxes and contributions, If they claim disability benefit, as many in their late 50s and early 60s do, their pension rights are rarely affected. Such perverse incentives should be replaced with neutrality.
Employers, often urged on by trade unions, also put obstacles of their own in the way of older workers. Pension schemes based on defined benefits make it disproportionately expensive to offer jobs to older people. Pay schemes that reward longs service more that merit and productivity make it disproportionately costly to keep older workers on the payroll.⑥ And sheer discrimination, formally banned in the united States but flourishing in most countries, persuades many older folk to go home rather than risk probable rebuff.
Would such changes coax 60-olds off the golf course? In America, where jobs for older workers are plentiful and the government is scrapping the tax disincentives for older folk to work, early retirement has begun to fall. Give people a choice, and they might surprise you.
Answer the following questions.
1．The boardrooms of the world’s big companies are full of non-executive sages, telling whippersnapper 40-somethings how to run their firms.
(1)what is the meaning of “boardroom” in this sentence?
(2)what is meant by “non-executive sages”?
(3)what is meant by “whippier-snapper 40 something’s”?【答案】
(1) Boardroom is the room in which the meetings of the board of directors of a company are held.
(2) It means wise men that are not executives. It refers to the old men.
(3) It refers to younger people around 40 who are not so experienced.th
2．By the time they celebrate their 55 birthday, more than half of Europe’s men have gone home to translate Horace. Do they really go home to translate poetry? What do they do?【答案】No. The writer means that, the old go home to enjoy themselves and do whatever appeal to them, such as reading.
3．The pleasures of old age are less expensive, and more widely available, than ever before. Explain the idea of this sentence in your own words.【答案】Nowadays, the old are able to retire earlier than ever before, as there are so many young people waiting to be employed. And they are able to enjoy their leisure time, which has never been so easily achieved. For example, they can play with their grandchildren and play golf games.
4．For their eyes are also trained in the shorter term, on high unemployment. What is the meaning of this sentence?【答案】They are only concerned that there are now so many people unemployed and thus the old should retire, because they are narrow-minded and are not able to perceive the whole matter from a long-term perspective.
5．Quite small rises in the ages at which people retire have large effects. Explain in your own words.【答案】If people retire a little bit later, it will greatly influence the current situation.
6．Pay schemes that reward long service more than merit and productivity make it disproportionately costly to keep older workers on the payroll.
(1)why is it very costly to keep older workers on the payroll?
(2)what is meant by “to keep….. on the payroll”?【答案】
(1) It is costly to hire older workers because of the pay scheme in which time of service is emphasized instead of capacity and productivity. Consequently, they tend to have higher wages.
(2) It means to hire older workers.
7．Does the author of this article advocate that workers reaching retirement age should stay on their jobs? If so, why? If not, what does he advocate?【答案】Yes. He advocates that old people continue to work because their early retirement means fewer people at work, paying taxes and pension contributions, while more people drawing on pensions and running up health costs. Consequently, the economy is not balanced. The author insists that people should be given the right to make their own choice whether to continue to work or not.
III. Translate the following Chinese passage into English.(40分)
从诞生的那天起，人类就开始一刻也不停地创造着他的文明。从埃及的金字塔到中国的万里长城，从达芬奇名画中蒙娜丽莎那微笑到梵高那色彩斑斓的向日葵，从撼人心魄的英雄交响曲到动人的天湖，从《荷马史诗》到《红楼梦》，无一不是前人留给后世的宝贵遗产。
就中国人而言，对秦始皇兵马俑，我们有无限的赞叹，对于万里长城我们有无限的自豪。但对于我们的无形遗产、曾经塑造了我们民族精神的——儒家、道家文化，我们却知之甚少。传统中的视个人道德为人生的最高价值所在，已在“现代生活”中成为笑谈。我们不仅在生活方式上盲目地追求西方，不仅说着写着已经欧化的句子，而且在文学、历史、哲学这些人文学科领域里，到处用着西方的理论、术语。我们这里并不是反对西方的东西，西方的这些理论都是世界文化遗产的一分子，我们也应该加以保护和继承。但是，一个民族之所以成其为一个民族，必须有其自身的东西。我们应该认真地研读和思考本民族的文化典籍，在继承与更新中把其中所铭刻的文化脉络延续下去。【参考译文】
From the beginning of its birth, mankind has been in their continuous efforts to create its civilization. From the Pyramids in Egypt to the Great Wall in China, from the Mona Lisa’s smile in the well-known painting of Da Vinci to the colorful sunflowers of Vincent Van Gogh, from the soul-stirring “Heroic Symphony” to the moving “Swan Lake”, from Iliad and Odyssey to Dream of the Red Chamber, all are treasurable legacy left by ancestors to later generations.
As Chinese, we marvel at Emperor Qin’s terra-cotta warriors and horses and take pride in the Great Wall. However, we know little of the invisible legacy—the culture of Confucianism and Taoism, which has molded our national spirit. It has become a joke in “modern life” to consider individual morality the highest value of life. We not only follow blindly the west in lifestyle and speak and write Europeanized sentences, but also adopt western theories and terms in the fields of humanities such as literature, history and philosophy. We do not mean to deny western things that should also be protected and inherited, for all the western theories are part of the world cultural heritage. Nevertheless, only with something unique that belongs to its own a nation can be called a nation. We should study and think over carefully national cultural classics to carry their cultural essence forward by inheritance and innovation.
2001年北京外国语大学611基础英语考研真题及详解
I. Reading Comprehension (35%)
A nation divided
What to do about the ever widening gulf between rich and poor?
Mortimer B. Zuckerman
We are becoming two nations. The prosperous are rapidly getting more prosperous and the poor are slowly getting poorer. George W. Bush did well to rebuke his party when House Republicans maneuvered to balance the budget by proposing to delay the earned income tax credit for the working poor—paying it in monthly installments rather than an annual lump sum. “I don’t think they ought to balance the budget on the backs of the poor,” Bush said. Instead, it is time for aspiring leaders to ponder how the two nations might more closely become one.
The American economy is growing dramatically. But this prosperity is being distributed very unevenly. The America that is doing well is doing very well indeed. But most benefits have gone to those who work in industries where the main product is information. The losers have been the producers of tangible goods and personal services—even teachers and health care providers. The high-tech information economy has been growing at approximately 10 times the rate of the older industrial economy. It has enjoyed substantial job growth, the highest productivity gains (about 30 percent a year), and bigger profits. It can therefore afford bigger wage gains (about four times that of the older economy). And this wage gap is likely to widen for years to come.
The rich get richer. The concentration of wealth is even more dramatic. New York University economist Edward Wolff points out that the top 20 percent of Americans account for more than 100 percent of the total growth in wealth from 1983 to 1997 while the bottom 80 percent lost 7 percent. Another study found that the top 1percent saw their after-tax income jump 115 percent in the past 22 years. The top fifth have seen an after-tax increase of 43 percent during the same period while the bottom fifth of all Americans—including many working mothers—have seen their after-tax incomes fall 9 percent. The result is that 4 out of 5 households—some 217 million people—will take home a thinner slice of the economic pie than they did 22 years ago.
There are those who point out that these income figures do not fully reflect the improvement in the standard of living and say that attention should be paid to what Americans own, what they buy, and how they live, a fair point. Two economists, W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, have revealed that each person in the average household today has 814 square feet of living space compared with 478 square feet in 1970; that 62 percent of all households own two or more vehicles compared with 29 percent back then; that the number of gas ranges has increased sixfold, air travel four times, and the median household wealth—i.e., the family right in the middle—has jumped dramatically. Even given such improvements in life quality, our public policy must not exacerbate the disproportionate concentrations of wealth.
Fortunately, Americans are pragmatists. They know that what you earn depends on what you learn, especially in a digital economy; so 83 percent of our children now complete four years of high school, compared with 55 percent in 1970.This is good news. But vast numbers of people feel marginalized in an information-based economy. For too many, work no longer provides the kinds of wages and promotions that allow them to achieve economic success or security. Wage increases do not substantially increase their real income, so they have to work longer hours, get a higher-paying shift, or find another job. These are the people who are particularly concerned about the benefits they stand to gain from Medicare and Social Security. If they do manage to put together a successful strategy to survive, they should not be hit with sudden shocks—like the denial of the lump-sum tax credit.
Bush may have discomfited his Republican colleagues, but his words served to remind that they are out of touch with the realities of life for so many Americans. He later softened his criticism, but it is time, nevertheless, for a more generous leadership from the House Republicans. They should not berate Bush. Indeed, they may well find themselves in his dept should his appeal to the center of American politics provide them the coattails they will need when voters head to the polls in just over a year.
1．Explain the underlined part in English, bringing out the implied meaning, if there is any: (22%)
(1) I don’t think...of the poor.(3%)
(2) The result is...22 years ago.(3%)
(3) a fair point(2%)
(4) our public policy...wealth(3%)
(5) vast numbers...economy(3%)
(6) These are...Social Security.(3%)
(7) They may well find...over a year.(3%)【答案】
(1) I don’t think that, by making use of the poor, i.e. by delaying the earned income tax credit, they can make the amount of money that they spend equal to the amount of money available.
试读结束[说明：试读内容隐藏了图片]