华东师大博士生英语入学试卷四
Passage Five
I had visited the capital before although my friend Arthur had not, I first visited London as a student, reluctantly released from the bosom of a tearful mum, with a traveling trunk stuffed full of home-made fruit cakes and woolly vests. I was ill-prepared for the Spartan standards of the South. Through even the grimmest post-war days, as kids we had ploughed our way through corner cuts of beef and steamed puddings. So you can imagine my dismay when I arrived, that first day, at my London digs to be faced with a plate of tuna-paste sandwiches and a thin slice of cake left curling under a tea-towel. And that was supposed to be Sunday lunch!
When I eventually caught up with my extremely irritating landlady, I met with a vision of splendor more in keeping with the Royal Enclosure at the races than the area in which she lived. Festooned with jewels and furs and plastered with exclusive cosmetics, she was a walking advert for Bond Street.
Now, we have a none too elegant but very apt phrase for this in the North of England, and it was the one my friend Arthur came up with to describe London after three days there: ‘All fur coat and nothing underneath’.
Take our hotel. The reception area was plush and inviting, the lounge and dining-room posh enough to start Arthur speaking ‘properly’. But journey upstairs from one landing to the next, and the veneers of civilization fell away before your eyes. By the time we reached our room, all pretension to refinement and comfort had disappeared. The fur coat was off (back in the hands of the hire purchase company), and what we were really expected to put up with for a small fortune a night was exposed in all its shameful nakedness. It was little more than a garret, a shabby affair with patched and peeling walls. There was a stained sink with pipes that grumbled and muttered all night long and an assortment of furnishings that would have disgraced Her Majesty’s Prison Service. But the crowning glory was the view from the window. A peek behind the handsome façade of our fabled city. Rank gardens choked with rubbish; all the debris of life piled against the back door. It was a good job the window didn’t open, because from it all arose the unmistakable odor of the abyss.
Arthur, whose mum still polishes her back step and disinfects her dustbin once a week, slumped on to the bed in a sudden fit of depression. ‘Never mind’, I said, drawing the curtains. ‘You can watch telly.’ This was one of the hotel’s luxuries, which in the newspaper ad had persuaded us we were going to spend the week in style. It turned out to be a yellowing plastic thing with a picture which rolled over and over like a floundering fish until you took your fist to it. But Arthur wasn’t going to be consoled by any cheap technological gimmicks.
He was sure his dad had forgotten to feed his pigeons and that his dogs were pining away for him. He grew horribly homesick. After a terrible night spent tossing and turning to a ceaseless cacophony of pipes and firedoors, traffic, drunks and low-flying aircraft, Arthur surfaced next day like a claustrophobic mole. London had got squarely on top of him. Seven million people had sat on him all night, breathed his air, generally fouled his living space, and come between him and that daily quota of privacy and peace which prevents us all from degenerating into mad axemen or reservoir poisoners.
Arthur had to be got out of London for a while.
81. When the writer first came to the capital .
A he had been very reluctant to leave his mother B his mother had not wanted him to leave home
C he had made no preparations for his journey south D he had sent his possessions on ahead in a trunk
82. The writer was surprised at what he received for Sunday lunch because .
A food had always been plentiful at home B he had been used to grimmer times at home
C things had been difficult after the war up North
D beef had always been available from the butcher on the corner at home
83. The landlady seemed to epitomize a phrase used in the North of England to indicate that things were .
A tender underneath the surface B vulnerable to the outside world C more profound than they seemed D beautiful but only superficially
84. The room which the writer and his friend were to share .
A was more suited to housing prisoners than hotel guests B had a magnificent view from one of its windows
C had a door which provided access to a rubbish tip D was situated above some foul-smelling gardens
85. The writer feels that in order to remain sane, one needs a certain amount of .
A physical exercise B fresh air C daily nourishment D breathing space
Paper Two
Part V Translation (25%)
Section A (12%)
Directions: Translate the following English passage into Chinese. Write your version on Answer Sheet II.
The idea that public status comes with a loss of privacy is unpersuasive. Far more persuasive is the thought that a person’s privacy may be breached if the information disclosed serves a proven public interest. A code of press practice specifies the various conditions that could count as involving a genuine public interest in publication, such as detecting or exposing crime, protecting public health, preventing the public from being misled. Showing public officials to be corrupt, grossly inefficient, criminally negligent, or dishonest is certainly in the public’s interest, provided that these failings bear directly on their performance of their public duties. Thus, for example, a revealing that a minister is a highly paid non-executive director of a company which regularly seeks contracts with the government is a matter for public concern. However, the majority of cases where privacy is breached touch on matters of sexual morality and it is much harder to see how the public interest is served by their disclosure
Section B (13%)
Directions: Translate the following Chinese passage into English. Write your version on Answer Sheet II.
可以相当有把握地预言，未来的机械所需要的动力将主要是原子能。到那时候，世界上的煤和石油已全部用光，风力和潮汐将不被人们所重视，而通过分裂原子即可获得的原子能因使用更为方便，将备受欢迎。使用原子能的方法目前还是一个严加保守的秘密，但对未来的人们说来，则将成为常识。由于可以获得无穷无尽的动力使整个世界正常运转，未来的公民们将具有比我们现在更高的生活水平和更多的闲暇。这样，人类就可以把一部分精力从赚取足够的钱财以求生存下去这种单调的需要中解放出来，将它用于享受更大的人生乐趣，用于更全面地征服大自然。
Part VI Writing (15%)
Directions: In this part you are to write a composition of about 200 words based on the following topic. Please write your composition on Answer Sheet Ⅱ.
The Power of Humor
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