编辑:
2015-11-13
Most of the truly profitable newspapers in the country today are essentially shopping circulars with some cheap journalism printed on those pages not devoted to shopping mall sales. The great newspaper chains take over local papers, fire journalists, and set out to fill their pages with still more advertisements. Well, they supply a service. They let readers know about the price, say, of chicken at the Giant or snow tires at the CVS. But fewer and fewer local newspapers supply much news and analysis. Great newspapers do, and not one that I know of makes a vast amount of money.
Great newspapers do help to set the agenda for the nation. They break stories of corruption or on other vital matters. One of the few things I find admirable about the New York Times is that its controlling family, the Sulzberger family, is not intent on squeezing every penny of profit out of its flagship paper. Thus last week when I read a long critique in the Times of the Wall Street Journal’s management for its sluggish financial performance, I discovered hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy is all the greater coming from liberals who are criticizing conservatives for their alleged devotion the “Almighty Dollar.” Profits are essential to all businesses. For one thing they are a very accurate poll of the populace’s tastes, but there are other services some corporations supply to society. Both the Journal and the Times supply—at too high a cost—information that enlightens the citizenry.
36. The journalistic herd’s distress is caused by the Wall Street Journal’s _____.
[A] credibility [B] prejudice [C] conformism [D] professionalism
37. The Bancroft family purchased the Wall Street Journal to _____.
[A] sell it for a higher price [B] promote the Dow Jones news service
[C] dominate the great newspapers chains [D] influence American civic life
38. It can be inferred from the passage that great newspapers _____ .
[A] have to engage in a form of sensationalism [B] make a bigger profit than local papers
[C] supply much news and analysis [D] refuse to accept the error of the journalistic herd
39. The author says “I discovered hypocrisy” (Last line, Paragraph 4), because _____ .
[A] the Times was involved in corruption [B] the Times was becoming profit-driven
[C] the Times was attacking the Journal [D] the Journal was in financial difficulty
40. The author seems to believe that all the newspapers should _____.
[A] maxmize the profit [B] satisfy the public’s tastes [C] provide social services [D] inform the readers at a high cost
Part B
Directions:
The following paragraph are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs int0 a coherent text by choosing from the list A-G to filling them int0 the numbered boxes. Paragraphs E and G have been correctly placed. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
In 1959 the average American family paid $ 989 for a year’s supply of food. In 1972 the family paid $1,311. That was a price increase of nearly one –third. Every family has had this sort of experience. Everyone agrees that the cost of feeding a family has risen sharply. But there is less agreement when reasons for the rise are being discussed. Who is really responsible?
Many blame the farmers who produce the vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, and cheese that stores offer for sale. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the farmer’s share of the $1,311 spent by the family in 1972 was $521. This was 31 percent more than the farmer had received in 1959.
But farmers claim that this increase was very small compared to the increase in their cost of living. Farmers tend to blame others for the sharp rise in food prices. They particularly blame those who process the farm products after the products leave the farm. These include truck drivers, meat packers, manufacturers of packages and other food containers, and the owners of stores where food is sold. 41) __________.
Of the $1,311 family food bill in 1972, middlement received $ 790, which was 33 percent more than they had received in 1959. It appears that the middlemen’s profit has increased more than farmer’s. But some economists claim that the middleman’s actual profit was very law. According to economists at the First National City Bank, the profit for meat packers and food stores amounted to less than one per cent. During the same period all other manufacturers were making a profit of more than 5 per cent.42) __________ .
43) __________ .
Vegetables and chicken cost more when they have been cut into pieces by someone other than the one who buys it. A family should expect to pay more when several “TV dinners” are taken home from the store. These are fully cooked meals, consisting of meat, vegetables, and sometimes desert, all arranged on a metal dish. The dish is put into the over and heated while the housewife is doing something else. Such a convenience costs money. 44) __________.
Economists remind us many modern housewives have jobs outside the home. They earn money that helps to pay the family food bills. The housewife naturally has less time and energy for cooking after a day’s work. She wants to buy many kinds of food that can be put on her family’s table easily and quickly. 45) __________ .
It appears that the answer to the question for rising prices is not a simple one. Producers, consumers, and middlemen all share the responsibility for the sharp rise in food costs.
A) Thus, as economists point out:” Some of the basic reasons for widening food price spreads are easily traceable to the increasing use of convenience foods, which transfer much of the time and work of meal preparation from the kitchen to the food processor’s plant.”
B) They are among the “middlemen” who stand between the farmer and the people who buy and eat the food. Are middlemen the ones to blame for rising food prices?
C) “If the housewife wants all of these.” The economists say, “that is her privilege, but she must be prepared to pay for the services of the those who make her work easier.”
D) Who then is actually responsible for the size of the bill a housewife must pay before she carries the food home from the store? The economists at First National City Bank have an answer to give housewives, but many people will not like it. These economists blame the housewife herself for the jump in food prices. They say that food costs more now because women don’t want to spend much time in the kitchen. Women prefer to buy food which has already been prepared before it reaches the market.
E) However, some economists believe that controls can have negative effects over a long period of time. In cities with rent control, the city government sets the maximum rent that a landlord can charge for an apartment.
F) Economists do not agree on some of the predictions. They also do not agree on the value of different decisions. Some economists support a particular decision while others criticize it.
G) By comparison with other members of the economic system both farmers and middlemen have profited surprisingly little from the rise in food prices.
Part C
Directions:
Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments int0 Chinese. Your translation should be written carefully on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)
Gandhi’s pacifism can be separated to some extent from his other teachings. (1)Its motive was religious, but he claimed also for it that it was a definitive technique, a method, capable of producing desired political results. Gandhi’s attitude was not that of most Western pacifists. Satyagraha, (2)the method Gandhi proposed and practiced, first evolved in South Africa, was a sort of non-violent warfare, a way of defeating the enemy without hurting him and without feeling or arousing hatred. It entailed such things as civil disobedience, strikes, lying down in front of railway trains, enduring police charges without running away and without hitting back, and the like. Gandhi objected to “passive resistance” as a translation of Satyagraha: in Gujarati, it seems, the word means “firmness in the truth”. (3)In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer War, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914-1918. Even after he had completely abjured violence he was honest enough to see that in war it is usually necessary to take sides. Since his whole political life centred round a struggle for national independence, he could not and,(4)indeed, he did not take the sterile and dishonest line of pretending that in every war both sides are exactly the same and it makes no difference who wins. Nor did he, like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions. In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: “What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?” (5)I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the “you’re another” type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer’s Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi’s view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.”
Section Ⅲ Writing
Part A
51.Directions
One of your students, Li Ming, wants to study for the Master's Degree under the supervision of Professor Smith in an oversea university, you are asked to write a letter of recommendation for him in about 100 words.
Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead.
You do not need to write the address.
Part B
52. Directions:
Write an essay of 160——200 words based on the following drawing. In your essay, you should
1) describe the drawing briefly,
2) explain it‘s intended meaning, and
3) give your comments.
Your should write neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (20 points)
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