北 京 科 技 大 学
2013年硕士学位研究生入学考试试题
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试题编号： 211 试题名称： 翻译硕士英语 （共 12 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。
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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 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. Helen?s been neglecting her homework lately. I?ll _____ with her 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 speaking would be very difficult for one as _____ as he.
A. amiable B. vivacious C. reticent D. decent
5. The commission asked that the administration?s 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 government _______ 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
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8. I could not but _____ very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression. A. being B. be C. to be D. was
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. The 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 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 existing 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 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. 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 becomes upset at any suggestion that he doesn?t exist.
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A. sedentary B. inquisitive C. tenacious D. superfluous
19. They ______ each other, making a perfect couple. He is rich but doesn?t care about money; she is poor but cares about it a lot. A. complement B. fabricate C. implement D. validate
20. People 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 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. addition 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 psychoanalysis: 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. 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. 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.
A. confirmed B. illustrated C. discredited D. disapproved
28. Dominant interests often benefit most from ________ of governmental interference in business, since they are able to take care of themselves if left alone.
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A. centralization B. authorization C. intensification D. elimination
29. As the world has moved into a scientific age, the origin of herbal medicine 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 cost 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 passages and then write your answer on your answer sheet.
Passage One
When Ford?s 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 furnaces. Today it is still Ford?s 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 plant?s 6,000 workers. The local steel mill is run by a Russian company, Severstal.
Outsourcing has transformed global business. Over the past 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 the world?s 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 measures commercial contracts of $25m or more) suggests that the total value of such contracts for the second quarter of 2011 fell by 18% 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% lower in the second quarter of 2011 than in the first half of 2010. This is partly explained by America?s 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 there has also been an uptick in legal disputes over outsourcing. In one case EDS, an IT company, had to pay
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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 courts 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, America?s biggest 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 having 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 schedule.
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 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 customers 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 staff. Extricating themselves from this tangle can be tough. It is much easier to close a department 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 model 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 firm?s core business and can be done better and more cheaply by specialists. 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 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-relationship” worth $100m or more a year fell by 62% this year compared with last. Companies are forming relationships with several outsourcers,
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