翻译硕士英语

湖北大学翻译硕士MTI《翻译硕士英语》考试样卷

PART I Grammar and Vocabulary（1’×20=20’）

Directions: There are forty sentences in this section. Beneath each sentence there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C and

D. Choose one word or phrase that best completes the sentence. Mark your answers on your answer sheet.

1. He plays tennis to the ______ of all other sports.

A. eradiction

B. exclusion

C. extension

D. inclusion

2. She answered with an ______ “No” to the request that she atte nd the public hearing

A. eloquent

B. effective

C. emotional

D. emphatic

3. Everyone who has visited the city agrees that it is ______ with life.

A. vibrant

B. violent

C. energetic

D. full

4. We met Mary and her husband at a party two months ago. ______ we’ve had no further communication.

A. Thereof

B. Thereby

C. Thereafter

D. Thereabouts

5. The heat in summer is no less______ here in this mountain region/

A. concentrated

B. extensive

C. intense

D. intensive

6. Could you just give me a hand? Let’s ______the car into motion; it got a flameout just now.

A. shove

B. nudge

C. prompt

D. poke

7. The river was______ with waste from that factory. Some measures must be taken to stop its production.

A. corrupted

B. consumed

C. contaminated

D. infected

8. This disease ______itself in yellowness of the skin and eyes.

A. manifests

B. modifies

C. magnifies

D. exposes

9. Is there any possible______ explanation for his bad health since he seems to have no obvious disease?

A. psychiatric

B. psychological

C. surgical

D. physical

10. The young lovers were not allowed to get married because their two families were ____ enemies.

A. hereditary

B. congenital

C. innate

D. latent

11. ______ I like economics, I like sociology much better.

A. As much as

B. So much

C. How much

D. Much as

12. ______ both sides accept the agreement ______ a lasting peace be established in this region.

A. Only if, will

B. If only, would

C. Should, will

D. Unless, would

13. I know he failed his last test, but really he’s ______ stupid.

A. something but

B. anything but

C. nothing but

D. not but

14. What’s the chance of______ a general election this year?

A. there being

B. there to be

C. there be

D. there going to be

15. ______ you______ further problems with your printer, contact your dealer for advice.

A. If…had

B. Have…had

C. Should…have

D. In case…had

16. Land belongs to the city; there is______ thing as private ownership of land.

A. no such a

B. not such

C. not such a

D. no such

17. It was______ we had hoped.

A. more a success than

B. a success more than

C. as much of a succes as

D. a success as much as

18. I am surprised ______ this city is a dull place to live in.

A. that you should think

B. by what you are thinking

C. that you would think

D. with what you were thinking

19. The opening ceremony is a great occasion. It is essential______ for that.

A. for us to be prepared

B. that we are prepared

C. of us to be prepared

D. our being prepared

20. Linda was ______ the experiment a month ago, but she changed her mind at the last minute.

A. to start

B. to have started

C. to be starting

D. to have been starting

PART II Reading Comprehension ( 2’×20=40’)

Section A

In this section there are three reading passages followed by 15 questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer. Mark your answers on your answer sheet.(2’×10=20’) TEXT A

In the 1960s, medical researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a checklist of stressful events. They appreciated the tricky point that any major change can be stressful. Negative events like "serious illness of a family member" were high on the list, but so were some positive life-changing events, like marriage. When you take the Holmes-Rahe test you must remember that the score does not reflect how you deal with stress--it only shows how much you have to deal with. And we now know that the way you handle these events dramatically affects your chances of staying healthy.

By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had followed Holmes and Rahe. And millions of Americans who work and live under stress worried over the reports. Somehow, the research got boiled down to a memorable message. Women’s magazines ran headlines like "Stress causes illness!" If you want to stay physically and mentally healthy, the articles said, avoid stressful events.

But such simplistic advice is impossible to follow. Even if stressful events are dangerous, many--like the death of a loved one--are impossible to avoid. Moreover, any warning to avoid all stressful events is a prescription for staying away from opportunities as well as trouble. Since any change can be stressful, a person who

wanted to be completely free of stress would never marry, have a child, take a new job or move.

The notion that all stress makes you sick also ignores a lot of what we know about people. It assumes we’re all vulnerable and passive in the face of adversity. But what about human initiative and creativity? Many come through periods of stress with more physical and mental vigor than they had Ira. fore. We also know that a long time without change or challenge can lead to boredom, and physical and mental swain.

1. The result of Holmes-Rahe’s medical research tells us________.

A. the way you handle major events may cause stress

B. what should be done to avoid stress

C. what kind of event would cause stress

D. how to cope with sudden changes in life

2. The studies on stress in the early 1970’s led to________.

A. widespread concern over its harmful effects

B. great panic over the mental disorder it could cause

C. an intensive research into stress-related illnesses

D. popular avoidance of stressful jobs

3. The score of the Holmes-Rahe test shows _________.

A. how much pressure you are under

B. how positive events can change your life

C. how stressful a major event can be

D. how you can deal with life-changing events

4. Why is "such simplistic advice" (Para. 3) impossible to follow?

A. No one can stay on the same job for long.

B. No prescription is effective in relieving stress.

C. People have to get married someday.

D.You could be missing opportunities as well.

5. According to the passage people who have experienced ups and downs may become ________.

A. nervous when faced with difficulties

B. physically and mentally strained

C. more capable of coping with adversity

D. indifferent toward what happens to them

TEXT B

That summer an army of crickets started a war with my father. They picked a fight the minute they invaded our cellar. Dad didn’t care for bugs much more than Mamma, but he could tolerate a few spiders and assorted creepy crawlers living in the basement. Every farm house had them. A part of rustic living and something you needed to put up with if you wanted the simple life.

He told Mamma: now that were living out here, you can’t be jerking your head and swallowing your gum over what’s pla in natural, Ellen. But she was a city girl through and through and had no ears when it came to defending vermin. She said a cricket was just a noisy cockroach, just a dumb horny bug that wouldn’t shut up. She said in the city there were blocks of buildings overrun with cockroaches with no way for people to get rid of them. No sir, no way could she sleep with all that chirping going on; then to prove her point she wouldn’t go to bed. She drank coffee and smoked my father’s cigarettes and she paced between th e couch and the TV. Next

morning she threatened to pack up and leave, so Dad drove to the hardware store and hurried back. He squirted poison from a jug with a spray nozzle. He sprayed the basement and all around the foundation of the house. When he was finished he told us that was the end of it.

But what he should have said was: this is the beginning, the beginning of our war, the beginning of our destruction. I often think back to that summer and try to imagine him delivering a speech with words like that, because for the next fourteen days mamma kept find dead crickets in the clean laundry. Shed shake out a towel or a sheet and a dead black cricket would roll across the linoleum. Sometimes the cat would corner one, and swat it around like he was playing hockey, then carry it away in his mouth. Dad said swallowing a few dead crickets wouldn’t hurt as long as the cat didn’t eat too many. Each time Mamma complained he told her it was only natural that we’d be finding a couple of dead ones for a while.

Soon live crickets started showing up in the kitchen and bathroom. Mamma freaked because she thought they were the dead crickets come back to haunt, but Dad said these was definitely a new batch, probably coming up on the pipes. He fetched his jug of poison and sprayed beneath the sink and behind the toilet and all along the baseboard until the whole house smelled of poison, and then he sprayed the cellar again, and then he went outside and sprayed all around the foundation leaving a

foot-wide moat of poison.

For a couple of weeks we went back to finding dead crickets in the laundry. Dad told us to keep a sharp look out. He suggested that we’d all be better off to hid as many a we could from mamma. I fed a few dozen to the cat who I didn’t like because he scratched and bit for no reason. I hoped the poison might kill him too so we could get a puppy. A couple of weeks later, when both live and dead crickets kept turning up, he emptied the cellar of junk. Then he burned a lot of bundled newspapers and magazines which he said the crickets had turned into nests.

He stood over that fire with a rake in one hand and a garden hose in the other. He wouldn’t leave it even when Mamma sent me out to fetch him for supper. He wouldn’t leave the fire, and she wouldn’t put supper on the table. Both my brothers

were crying. Finally she went out and got him herself. And while we ate, the wind lifted some embers onto the wood pile. The only gasoline was in the lawn mowers fuel tank but that was enough to create an explosion big enough to reach the house. Once the roof caught, there wasn’t much anyone could do.

11. The word “rustic” in the first paragraph probably means

A. urban

B. rural

C. metropolitan

D. extravagant

12. Which of the following is CORRECT about Dad and Mamma?

A. Compared with Mamma, Dad was more tolerant of bugs

B. Mamma took Dad’s advice to put up with some crawlers.

C. Dad could bear to have spiders more than bugs.

D. Mamma often swallowed her gum in the house.

13. Dad had to go to the hardware store to buy

A. some pesticide.

B. a toxic jug.

C. a spray nozzle.

D. some cigarettes.

14. Dad sprayed poison in all of the following places EXCEPT

A. kitchen.

B. basement.

C. bathroom.

D.

sitting-room.

15. The immediate cause of the fire is

A. the wind.

B. some embers.

C. the explosion of the fuel tank.

D. the materials of the roof.

Section B:

Directions: In this section there are two passages followed by a number of questions. You are required to give a brief answer in two or three lines to each of the questions.( 2’×5=10’)

TEXT A

The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photograph’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defence of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.

Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. They are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.

Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art. For example, those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting. Much of phot ography’s prestige today derives from the convergence of its aims with those of recent art, particularly with the dismissal of abstract art implicit in the phenomenon of Pop painting during the 1960’s. Appreciating photographs is a relief to sensibilities tired of the mental exertions demanded by abstract art. Classical Modernist painting—that is, abstract art as

developed in different ways by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matisse—presupposes highly developed skills of looking and a familiarity with other paintings and the history of art. Photography, like Pop painting, reassures viewers that art is not hard; photography seems to be more about its subjects than about art.

Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—in short, an art.

1. What is the author mainly concerned with?

2. Why does the author introduce Abstract Expressionist painter?

3. How did the nineteenth-century defenders of photography stress the photography?

4. Could you name a few of the Classical Modernist painters?

5. what does the author want to tell us by saying “Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to la bel it as such.”(para. 2)

Text B:

Pop stars today enjoy a style of living which was once the prerogative only of Royalty. Wherever they go, people turn out in their thousands to greet them. The crowds go wild trying to catch a brief glimpse of their smiling, colorfully dressed idols. The stars are transported in their chauffeur driven Rolls-Royces, private helicopters or executive aeroplanes. They are surrounded by a permanent entourage of managers, press agents and bodyguards. Photographs of them appear regularly in the

press and all their comings and goings are reported, for, like Royalty, pop stars are news. If they enjoy many of the privileges of Royalty, they certainly share many of the inconveniences as well. It is dangerous for them to make unscheduled appearances in public. They must be constantly shielded from the adoring crowds which idolize them. They are no longer private individuals, but public property. The financial rewards they receive for this sacrifice cannot be calculated, for their rates of pay are astronomical.

And why not? Society has always rewarded its top entertainers lavishly. The great days of Hollywood have become legendary: famous stars enjoyed fame, wealth and adulation on an unprecedented scale. By today’s standards, the excesses of Hollywood do not seem quite so spectacular. A single gramophone record nowadays may earn much more in royalties than the films of the past ever did. The competition for the title ‘Top of the Pops’ is fierce, but the rewards are truly colossal.

It is only right that the stars should be paid in this way. Don’t the top men in industry earn enormous salaries for the services they perform to their companies and their countries? Pop stars earn vast sums in foreign currency – often more than large industrial concerns – and the taxman can only be grateful fro their massive annual contributions to the exchequer. So who would begrudge them their rewards?

It’s all very well for people in humdrum jobs to moan about the successes and rewards of others. People who make envious remarks should remember that the most famous stars represent only the tip of the iceberg. For every famous star, there are hundreds of others struggling to earn a living. A man working in a steady job and looking forward to a pension at the end of it has no right to expect very high rewards. He has chosen security and peace of mind, so there will always be a limit to what he can earn. But a man who attempts to become a star is taking enormous risks. He knows at the outset that only a handful of competitors ever get to the very top. He knows that years of concentrated effort may be rewarded with complete failure. But he knows, too, that the rewards for success are very high indeed: they are the recompense for the huge risks involved and if he achieves them, he has certainly earned them. That’s the essence of private enterprise.

6. Why does the writer believe that Pop stars’style of living could be compared to that of Royalty?

7. The word “astronomical” in para. one means____.

8. In what way has the society rewarded its top entertainers lavishly?

9. What does “the tip of the iceberg” mean in the sentence “Peopl e who make envious remarks should remember that the most famous stars represent only the tip of the iceberg” ? (para.4)

10.What is the writer’s attitude towards the topic?

Part III Proofreading & Error Correction (1’X10=20’)

The passage contains 10 errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way:

the blank provided at the end of the line.

For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign

and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank

provided at the end of the line.

For an unnecessary word, cross th e unnecessary work with a slash “/” and put

the word in the blank provided at the end of the line. EXAMPLE

When ∧art museum wants a new exhibit, it(1) when∧art加入an

never buys things in finished form and hangs(2) 删去never

them on the wall. When a natural history museum

wants an exhibition, it must often build it.(3) exhibition改成exhibit

The grammatical words which play so large a part in

English grammar are for the most part sharply and obviously

different from the lexical words. A rough and ready difference

which may seem the most obvious is that grammatical words

have “less

(1)_____________

meaning”, but in fact some grammarians have called (2)_____________

them “empty” words as opposed in the “full” words(3)_____________

of vocabulary. But this is a rather misled way of (4)_____________

expressing the distinction. Although a word like the is not the

name of something as man is, it is very far away from being

meaningless; there is a sharp

(5)_____________

differen ce in meaning between “man is vile” and “the man is

vile”, yet the is the single vehicle of this

(6)_____________

difference in meaning. Moreover, grammatical words differ

considerably among themselves as the amount

(7)_____________

of meaning they have even in the lexical sense. Another name

for the grammatical words has been “little words.” But size is

by no mean a good criterion

(8)_____________

for distinguishing the grammatical words of English, when we

consider that we have lexical words as go,

(9)_____________

man, say, car. Apart from this, however, there is a good deal of

truth in what some people say: we certainly do create a great

number of obscurity when we omit them. This is illustrated not

only in the poetry of Robert Browning but in the prose of

telegrams and newspaper headlines. (10)_____________

Part IV Writing (30’)

Oscar Wilde said he felt sorry for those who never got their heart’s desire, but sorrier still for those who did. It seems to be a paradox. What’s your understanding of it? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?

You should write at least 400 words. You are required to support your ideas with relevant information and examples based on your own knowledge and experience.