Section B

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C), and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.

You hear the refrain all the time: the U.S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn’t feel good. Why doesn’t ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent (富裕的) Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97.

The Affluent Society is a modern classic because it helped define a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, “hunger, sickness, and cold” threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote. “Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours.” After World War II, the dread of another Great Depression gave way to an economic boom. In the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4.5 percent.

To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would breed discontent. Through advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn’t really want or need. Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unfulfilling. Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people instinctively—and wrongly—labeled government only as “a necessary evil.”

It’s often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is standing still or falling behind. Well, there are many undeserving rich—overpaid chief executives, for instance. But over any meaningful period, most people’s incomes are increasing. From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted average family income rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200. people feel “squeezed” because their rising incomes often don’t satisfy their rising wants—for bigger homes, more health care, more education, faster Internet connections.

The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded. More workers fear they’ve become “the disposable American,” as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name.

Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the arrival of widespread affluence suggested utopian (烏托邦式的) possibilities. Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much les physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions.

Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens. But the quest for growth lets loose new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order. Affluence liberates the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-fulfillment. But the promise is so extravagant that it predestines many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown and obesity (肥胖癥). Statistical indicators of happiness have not risen with incomes.

Should we be surprised? Not really. We’ve simply reaffirmed an old truth: the pursuit of affluence does not always end with happiness.

注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2上作答。

52. What question does John Kenneth Galbraith raise in his book The Affluent Society?

A) Why statistics don’t tell the truth about the economy.

B) Why affluence doesn’t guarantee happiness.

C) How happiness can be promoted today.

D) What lies behind an economic boom.

53. According to Galbraith, people feel discontented because ________.

A) public spending hasn’t been cut down as expected

B) the government has proved to be a necessary evil

C) they are in fear of another Great Depression

D) materialism has run wild in modern society

54. Why do people feel squeezed when their average income rises considerably?

A) Their material pursuits have gone far ahead of their earnings.

B) Their purchasing power has dropped markedly with inflation.

C) The distribution of wealth is uneven between the r5ich and the poor.

D) Health care and educational cost have somehow gone out of control.

55. What does Louis Uchitelle mean by “the disposable American” (Line 3, Para. 5)?

A) Those who see job stability as part of their living standard.

B) People full of utopian ideas resulting from affluence.

C) People who have little say in American politics.

D) Workers who no longer have secure jobs.

56. What has affluence brought to American society?

A) Renewed economic security.

B) A sense of self-fulfillment.

C) New conflicts and complaints.

D) Misery and anti-social behavior.

Passage Two

Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.

The use of deferential (敬重的) language is symbolic of the Confucian ideal of the woman, which dominates conservative gender norms in Japan. This ideal presents a woman who withdraws quietly to the background, subordinating her life and needs to those of her family and its male head. She is a dutiful daughter, wife, and mother, master of the domestic arts. The typical refined Japanese woman excels in modesty and delicacy; she “treads softly (謹(jǐn)言慎行)in the world,” elevating feminine beauty and grace to an art form.

Nowadays, it is commonly observed that young women are not conforming to the feminine linguistic (語言的) ideal. They are using fewer of the very deferential “women’s” forms, and even using the few strong forms that are know as “men’s.” This, of course, attracts considerable attention and has led to an outcry in the Japanese media against the defeminization of women’s language. Indeed, we didn’t hear about “men’s language” until people began to respond to girls’ appropriation of forms normally reserved for boys and men. There is considerable sentiment about the “corruption” of women’s language—which of course is viewed as part of the loss of feminine ideals and morality—and this sentiment is crystallized by nationwide opinion polls that are regularly carried out by the media.

Yoshiko Matsumoto has argued that young women probably never used as many of the highly deferential forms as older women. This highly polite style is no doubt something that young women have been expected to “grow into”—after all, it is assign not simply of femininity, but of maturity and refinement, and its use could be taken to indicate a change in the nature of one’s social relations as well. One might well imagine little girls using exceedingly polite forms when playing house or imitating older women—in a fashion analogous to little girls’ use of a high-pitched voice to do “teacher talk” or “mother talk” in role play.

The fact that young Japanese women are using less deferential language is a sure sign of change—of social change and of linguistic change. But it is most certainly not a sign of the “masculization” of girls. In some instances, it may be a sign that girls are making the same claim to authority as boys and men, but that is very different from saying that they are trying to be “masculine.” Katsue Reynolds has argued that girls nowadays are using more assertive language strategies in order to be able to compete with boys in schools and out. Social change also brings not simply different positions for women and girls, but different relations to life stages, and adolescent girls are participating in new subcultural forms. Thus what may, to an older speaker, seem like “masculine” speech may seem to an adolescent like “liberated” or “hip” speech.

注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2上作答。

57. The first paragraph describes in detail ________.

A) the standards set for contemporary Japanese women

B) the Confucian influence on gender norms in Japan

C) the stereotyped role of women in Japanese families

D) the norms for traditional Japanese women to follow

58. What change has been observed in today’s young Japanese women?

A) They pay less attention to their linguistic behavior.

B) The use fewer of the deferential linguistic forms.

C) They confuse male and female forms of language.

D) They employ very strong linguistic expressions.

59. How do some people react to women’s appropriation of men’s language forms as reported in the Japanese media?

A) They call for a campaign to stop the defeminization.

B) The see it as an expression of women’s sentiment.

C) They accept it as a modern trend.

D) They express strong disapproval.

60. According to Yoshiko Matsumoto, the linguistic behavior observed in today’s young women ________.

A) may lead to changes in social relations

B) has been true of all past generations

C) is viewed as a sign of their maturity

D) is a result of rapid social progress

61. The author believes that the use of assertive language by young Japanese women is ________.

A) a sure sign of their defeminization and maturation

B) an indication of their defiance against social change

C) one of their strategies to compete in a male-dominated society

D) an inevitable trend of linguistic development in Japan today

Part V Cloze (15 minutes)

Directions: There are 20 blanks in the following passage. For each blank there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D) on the right side of the paper. You should choose the ONE that best fits into the passage. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2上作答。

Historically, humans get serious about avoiding disasters only after one has just struck them. __62__ that logic, 2006 should have been a breakthrough year for rational behavior. With the memory of 9/11 still __63__ in their minds, Americans watched hurricane Katrina, the most expensive disaster in U.S. history, on __64__ TV. Anyone who didn’t know it before should have learned that bad things can happen. And they are made __65__ worse by our willful blindness to risk as much as our __66__ to work together before everything goes to hell.

Granted, some amount of delusion (錯覺) is probably part of the __67__ condition. In A.D. 63, Pompeii was seriously damaged by an earthquake, and the locals immediately went to work __68__, in the same spot—until they were buried altogether by a volcano eruption 16 years later. But a __69__ of the past year in disaster history suggests that modern Americans are particularly bad at __70__ themselves from guaranteed threats. We know more than we __71__ did about the dangers we face. But it turns __72__ that in times of crisis, our greatest enemy is __73__ the storm, the quake or the __74__ itself. More often, it is ourselves.

So what has happened in the year that __75__ the disaster on the Gulf Coast? In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has worked day and night to rebuild the flood walls. They have got the walls to __76__ they were before Katrina, more or less. That’s not __77__, we can now say with confidence. But it may be all __78__ can be expected from one year of hustle (忙碌).

Meanwhile, New Orleans officials have crafted a plan to use buses and trains to __79__ the sick and the disabled. The city estimates that 15,000 people will need a __80__ out. However, state officials have not yet determined where these people will be taken. The __81__ with neighboring communities are ongoing and difficult.

62. A) To B) By C) On D) For

63. A) fresh B) obvious C) apparent D) evident

64. A) visual B) vivid C) live D) lively

65. A) little B) less C) more D) much

66. A) reluctance B) rejection C) denial D) decline

67. A) natural B) world C) social D) human

68. A) revising B) refining C) rebuilding D) retrieving

69. A) review B) reminder C) concept D) prospect

70. A) preparing B) protesting C) protecting D) prevailing

71. A) never B) ever C) then D) before

72. A) up B) down C) over D) out

73. A) merely B) rarely C) incidentally D) accidentally

74. A) surge B) spur C) surf D) splash

75. A) ensued B) traced C) followed D) occurred

76. A) which B) where C) what D) when

77. A) enough B) certain C) conclusive D) final

78. A) but B) as C) that D) those

79. A) exile B) evacuate C) dismiss D) displace

80. A) ride B) trail C) path D) track

81. A) conventions B) notifications C) communications D) negotiations

Part VI Translation (5 minutes)

Directions: Complete the sentences by translating into English the Chinese given in brackets. Please write your translation on Answer Sheet 2.