上外真题00-15

2015上海外国语大学翻译硕士笔试（回忆版）英语基础时间：12.27下午2:00~5:00一、Filling following blanks with a word.Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist.©2014/the new york timesAmerican Dream is Leaving AmericaThe best escalator to opportunity in the US is education. But a new study underscores that the escalator is broken.We expect each generation to do better, but, currently, more young American men have less education (29%) than their parents than have more education (20%).Among young Americans whose parents didn’t graduate from high school, only 5% make it through college themselves. In other rich countries, the figure is 23%.The US is devoting billions of dollars to compete with Russia militarily, but maybe we should try to compete educationally. Russia now has the largest percentage of adults with a university education of any industrialized country—a position once held by the US, although we’re plunging in that roster.These figures come from the annual survey of education from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, and it should be a shock to Americans.A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility. But the American dream seems to have emigrated because many countries do better than the US in educational mobility, according to the OECD study.As recently as 2000, the US still ranked second in the share of the population with a college degree. Now we have dropped to fifth. Among 25-to-34-year-olds—a glimpse of how we will rank in the future—we rank 12th, while once-impoverished South Korea tops the list.A new Pew survey finds that Americans consider the greatest threat to our country to be the growing gap between the rich and poor. Yet we have constructed an education system, dependent on local property taxes, that provides great schools for the rich kids in the suburbs who need the least help, and broken, dangerous schools for inner-city children who desperately need a helping hand.Too often, the US’s education system amplifies not opportunity but inequality. My dad was a World War II refugee who fled Ukraine and Romania and eventually made his way to France. He spoke perfect French, and Paris would have been a natural place to settle. But he felt that France was stratified and would offer little opportunity to a penniless Eastern European refugee, or even to his children a generation later, so he set out for the US. He di dn’t speak English, but, on arrival in 1951, he bought a copy of the Sunday edition of The New York Times and began to teach himself—and then he worked his way through Reed College and the University of Chicago, earning a PhD and becoming a university professor. He rode the American dream to success; so did his only child. But while he was right in 1951 to bet on opportunity in the US rather than Europe, these days he would perhaps be wrong. Researchers find economic and educational mobility are now greater in Europe than in the US.That’s particularly sad because, as my Times colleague Eduardo Porter noted last month, egalitarian education used to be the US’s strong suit. European countries excelled at first-rate education for the elites, but the US led the way in mass education.By the mid-1800s, most American states provided a free elementary education to the great majority of white children. In contrast, as late as 1870, only 2% of British 14-year-olds were in school.Then the US was the first major country, in the 1930s, in which a majority of children attended high school. By contrast, as late as 1957, only 9% of 17-year-olds in Britain were in school.Until the 1970s, we were pre-eminent in mass education, and Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz of Harva rd University argue powerfully that this was the secret to the US’s economic rise. Then we blew it, and the latest OECD report underscores how the rest of the world is eclipsing us.In effect, the US has become 19th-century Britain: We provide superb education for elites, but we falter at mass education.In particular, we fail at early education. Across the OECD, an average of 70% of 3-year-olds are enrolled in education programmes. In the US, it’s 38%.In some quarters, there’s a perception that American teachers are lazy. But the OECD report indicates that American teachers work far longer hours than their counterparts abroad. Yet American teachers earn 68% as much as the average American college-educated worker, while the OECD average is 88%.Fixing the education system is the civil rights challenge of our era. A starting point is to embrace an ethos that was born in the US but is now an expatriate: that we owe all children a fair start in life in the form of access to an education escalator.Let’s fix the escalator.二、Answer following questions大概，有出入）1、Why did the author’s father leave for America?2、What is educational mobility like in Europe?3、According to Claudia Goldin, what is the secret to the US’s economic rise?4、What is the 19th-century Britain education like?5、According to the author, how to fix the problem of American education system?三、WritingWrite a response essay:Would we be better off without religion?Write in the format why or why not英语翻译基础时间：12.28上午8:30~11：30一、write a description of future city based on the following passage.As much as the Internet has already changed the world, it is the Web’s next phase that will bring the biggest opportunities, revolutionizing the way we live, work, play, and learn. That next phase, which some call the Internet of Things and which we call the Internet of Everything, is the intelligent connection of people, processes, data, and things. Although it once seemed like a far-off idea, it is becoming a reality for businesses, governments, and academic institutions worldwide. Today, half the world’s population has access to the Internet; by 2020, two-thirds will be connected. Likewise, some 13.5 billion devices are connected to the Internet today; by 2020, we expect that number to climb to 50 billion. The things that are—and will be—connected aren’t just traditional devices, such as computers, tablets, and phones, but also parking spaces and alarm clocks, railroad tracks, street lights, garbage cans, and components of jet engines.All of these connections are already generating massive amounts of digital data—and it doubles every two years. New tools will collect and share that data (some 15,000 applications are developed each week!) and, with analytics, that can be turned into information, intelligence, and even wisdom, enabling everyone to make better decisions, be more productive, and have more enriching experiences.And the value that it will bring will be epic. In fact, the Internet of Everything has the potential to create $19 trillion in value over the next decade. For the global private sector, this equates to a 21 percent potential aggregate increase in corporate profits—or $14.4 trillion. The global public sector will benefit as well, using the Internet of Everything as a vehicle for the digitization of cities and countries. This will improve efficiency and cut costs, resulting in as much as $4.6 trillion of total value. Beyond that, it will help (and already is helping) address some of the world’s most vexing challenges: aging and growing populations rapidly moving to urban centers; growing demand for increasingly limited natural resources; and massive rebalancing in economic growth between briskly growing emerging market countries and slowing developed countries.PHYSICAL LIMITSMore than half of the world’s population now lives in or near a major urban area, and the move toward ever-greater urbanization shows no signs of slowing. According to the United Nations, the global population is expected to grow from seven billion today to 9.3 billion by 2050, and the world’s cities will have to accommodate about 70 percent more residents. The traditional ways of dealing with the influx—simply adding more physical infrastructure—won’t work, given limited resources and space. New ways of incorporating technology will be required to provide urban services, whether it’s roads, water, electricity, gas, work spaces, schools, or healthcare. In the future, there will be less emphasis on physical connections and more on access to virtual connections.Cities also face budgetary challenges, battling rising costs and shrinking resources. The world’s cities account for 70 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions, and according to UN-HABITAT, energy-related costs are one of the biggest municipal budget items. Technology could provide a simple fix just by updating aging street lighting systems. That would also improve citizen safety and create a more favorable environment for businessinvestments.There are similar issues in many of the world’s water systems, with aging pipes in desperate need of replacing. For instance, the United States’ water infrastructure is near the end of its lifecycle with approximately 240,000 water main breaks each year. The cost of fixing this crumbling infrastructure could exceed $1 trillion over the next 25 years, assuming that all pipes are replaced. By placing networked sensors in water mains and underground pipe systems as they are repaired and replaced, cities could more effectively monitor and better anticipate future leaks and other potential problems as the infrastructure is upgraded.More people also means more waste. The amount of municipal solid waste generated around the world is expected to reach 2.2 billion tons by 2025—up from 1.3 billion in 2012. Globally, solid waste management costs will rise to about$375.5 billion by 2025, according to predictions by the World Bank. Once again, the Internet of Everything offers ways to better manage and reduce these costs. For example, sensors in residential and commercial garbage containers could alert a city waste management system when they are full. Each morning, the drivers would receive their optimized route to empty the full containers. Compared to today’s fixed-route system, the new system could save millions of dollars by increasing efficiencies and worker productivity.The intelligent and efficient stewardship of growing cities must take top priority. And there, we are convinced that the Internet of Everything will bring one of the most significant technology transitions since the birth of the Internet. Connections between things and people, supported by networked processes, will enable everyone to turn data into actionable information that can be used to do things that weren’t possible before, or to do them better. We can more quickly discover patterns and trends; we can predict and prepare for anything from bus or assembly line breakdowns to natural disasters and quick surges in product demand.PUBLIC GOODPerhaps surprisingly, the public sector has been the most effective and innovative early adopter when it comes to making use of the Internet of Everything, especially in major metropolitan areas. New and innovative solutions are already transforming green fields and rundown urban centers into what we call Smart + Connected Communities, or Smart Cities. According to IHS Technology, the total number of Smart Cities will quadruple from 21 to 88 between 2013 and 2025. At Cisco, we are engaged with more than 100 cities in different stages of Smart City development.By definition, Smart Cities are those that integrate information communications technology across three or more functional areas. More simply put, a Smart City is one that combines traditional infrastructure (roads, buildings, and so on) with technology to enrich the lives of its citizens. Creative platforms and killer apps have helped reduce traffic, parking congestion, pollution, energy consumption, and crime. They have also generated revenue and reduced costs for city residents and visitors.For instance, one-third of the world’s streetlights use technology from the 1960s. Cities that update aging systems with networked motion-detection lights save administrative and management time as well as electricity and costs—as much as 70–80 percent, according to an independent, global trial of LED technology. By using such energy-saving technologies,cities can drastically lower their municipal expenditures on electricity. Cisco estimates that smart street lighting initiatives can also reduce area crime by seven percentbecause of better visibility and more content citizenry. Further, connected light poles can serve as wireless networking access points, enabling citizens and city managers to take advantage of pervasive connectivity. And networked sensors incorporated into utility lines could help reduce costs for both consumers and providers, with meters being ―read‖ remotely, and much more accurately. Cities such as Nice, France are already implementing smart lighting, which monitors lamp intensity and traffic sensors to reduce car theft, assaults, and even home burglary. These lighting initiatives are also expected to reduce the city’s energy bill by more than $8 million.Smart Cities are also saving energy indoors. Buildings outfitted with intelligent sensors and networked management systems can collect and analyze energy-use data. Such technologies have the potential to reduce energy consumption and cut costs by $100 billion globally over the next decade.Thanks to higher traffic, cities generate more than 67 percent of greenhouse gases released into our atmosphere. Experts predict that this figure will rise to 74 percent by 2030. In the United States alone, traffic congestion costs $121 billion a year in wasted time and fuel. Incredibly, drivers looking for a parking space cause 30 percent of urban congestion, not to mention pollution. To overcome this problem, the city of San Carlos, California has embedded networked sensors into parking spaces that relay to drivers real-time information about—and directions to—available spots. This program has helped reduce congestion, pollution, and fuel consumption. Moreover, parking fees can be dynamically adjusted for peak times, which generates more revenue for cities.Cities can also integrate sensors that collect and share real-time data about public transportation systems to improve traffic flow and better monitor the use of buses and trains, giving them the ability to adjust route times and frequency of stops based on changing needs. This alone will cut costs and bring new efficiencies. Mobile apps that aggregate the information, meanwhile, can help citizens track delays or check pick-up times for a more seamless commute. Barcelona, Spain has already changed the typical experience of waiting for a bus by deploying smart bus stops, where citizens can use touchscreen monitors to view up-to-date bus schedules, maps, locations for borrowing city-owned bikes, and local businesses and entertainment.Innovative municipal leaders understand the Internet of Everything’s incredible promise. In fact, these days, the most innovative cities have their own chief information officers or even chief digital officers.二、Write a summary of the following passage in English.树立高度的文化自信，讲好中国故事博大精深的传统文化、丰富多彩的民族文化、独具特色的红色文化、充满生机的当代文化——中华民族创造的文化,是我们引以为豪的软实力,也是我们文化自信的底气所在。