1999年英语专业八级考试真题（附听力mp3及答案）

　　TEXT J

　　First read the questions.?

　　37. In Japanese the work depato refers to ___.?

　　A. traditional Japanese stores

　　B. modern stores in cities?

　　C. special clothing stores

　　D. railway stores?

　　38. During the Meiji era depato was regarded byJapanese customers as a(n ) ___ shopping place.

　　A. cheap B. traditional C. fashionable D.attractive?

　　Now go through TEXT J quickly to answer questions 37 and 38.?

　　The Japanese have two words for the modern department stores that abound in large urbanareas. The older word, hyakkaten, which is seldom used in daily speech, can usually be foundengraved in ideographs in a building cornerstone, and i t is part of a store’s official rifle.Literally “a store with one hundred items ,” this word was coined during the late Meiji era( 1868 - 1912), when clothing stores began to expand their product lines and railroads began to buildshops at major train crossings. The more recent and more commonly used word is depato(from the English ‘department store’ ). ?

　　These words reflect the dual nature of Japanese department stores. Words written inideographs can impart an aura of antiquity and tradition. Frequently, a s in the case of theword hyakkaten, they suggest indigenous origin. In contrast , foreign borrowed words oftengive a feeling of modernity and foreignness. Many Japanese department stores actuallyoriginated in Japan several hundred years a go as dry goods stores that later patternedthemselves after foreign department stores. Even the trendiest and most avant-garde of thesestores practise pattern s of merchandising and retain forms of prepaid credit, customerservice, and special relationships with suppliers characteristic of merchandising during theTokygawa era (1600 — 1868). To many Japanese these large urban stores may seem like adirect import from the West, but like the word depato, they have undergone a transformationin the process of becoming Japanese.?

　　Throughout the Tokygawa era, Japan was closed by decree to foreign influences. During theMeiji era, however, Japan reopened to the western world; concurrently, depato emerged aslarge-scale merchandisers in Japan. The Meiji depato we re soon perceived by Japanesecustomers as glamorous places to shop because of t heir Western imports, which the Japanesewere eager to see and buy. Depato also sold Japanese goods but often followed practices thatpeople of the time considered foreign, such as letting customers wear their shoes whileshopping in the store.?

　　A representative of the Japan Department Store Association told me that throughout theirhistory depato have played on the Japanese interest in foreign pl aces, cultures and objects,and that to a great extent these were introduced to Japan through department stores. Isuggest that in addition to this role of cultural importer depato have also been involved in thecreation of domestic cultural meanings. They have made foreign customs, ideas andmerchandise familiar by giving them meanings consistent with Japanese cultural practice.?

　　TEXT K

　　First read the questions.?

　　39. The Agency for International Development is a ___ organization.

　　A. new B. regional C. UN D. US?

　　40. According to NDS’s statistics, the number of babies the average Philipino woman bearsdropped by ___ between 1960 and 1993.?

　　A.4.1 B.6.4 C.2.3 D.2.9

　　Now go through TEXT K quickly to answer questions 39 and 40.?

　　When representatives from 170 nations gather in Cairo next month for the third InternationalConference on Population and Development, they will vote on the largest population-controlplan in history. It is ambitious. Not only does it call for a host of “reproductive fights” and aimto freeze world population at 7 2 billion people by 2050; it also calls for billions of dollars innew government spending on the issue-US $ 13.2 billion by the end of the century.?

　　Some of the plan’s provisions have already aroused opposition, most notably from Pope JohnPaul II. All this has been gleefully covered by the newspapers. Yet scant attention has been paidto many of the dubious social and economic assumptions that underlie the plan. In particular,it is interesting to see how the se programmes are being sold in places like the Philippines, onthe front lines of the population debate. For the way the proponents of population controlhave gone about pushing their programmes raises serious doubts about the integrity of theirstudies, their ultimate value to development, and the role of foreign-aid groups.?

　　Although population-control measures in the Philippines never reached the coercive levelsthey did in India, they were not popular. This time, proponents have learned their lesson. Forthe past few years, they have been quietly laying the groundwork for Cairo. Rather than attackthe issue head-on, it has been redefined in terms of a host of new “reproductive rights” towhich the solution is invariably a government-funded initiative.?

　　We have just had a good taste of this in the Philippines. The National Statistics Office recentlypublished the results of the 1993 National Demographic Survey(NDS),which happens to havebeen funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. It is probably merecoincidence, but the NDS report, published on the eve of the Cairo meeting, nicely supportsthe thrust of the Cairo Declaration. That is, it has found a connection between mothers’ andchildren’s health an d fertility behaviour. The implication is that large-scale governmentfamily-planning programmes are essential if health issues are to be addressed. ?

　　But the demographic survey seems to have been selective about what facts i t would reportand connections it would make. Take the health issue. The document concludes that the highrisk of infant, child and maternal mortality is associated with pregnancies where mothers aretoo young, too old, or have already had several children. But a discussion of poverty is missingfrom the list of factor s related to health. It would be difficult to deny that poverty, lack ofaccess to safe water, poor housing, poor hygiene and unsanitary conditions all have a strongbearing on the health of the mother and child. Although the NDS collected data on housingcharacteristics, it did not include any data on income.?

　　A closer look at the fertility behaviour of the poor is important because of the extensiveliterature on the “replacement effect” of high infant mortality . Statistical studies in variouscountries show high fertility among the poor as a rational desire to have children who willsurvive into adulthood to help take care of them. This helps to explain why many poor womenhave babies at such short intervals. The 1993 NDS would have been a good opportunity toverify the validity of this behaviour in the Philippines. ?

　　The NDS avoided collecting data on socio-economic variables that would have a serious effecton these health issues. But, in one area, it made painstaking efforts to quantify fertilitypreference to derive figures for planned and unplanned pregnancies. It concluded that “if allunwanted births were avoided, the total fertility rate would be 2.9 children, which is almost30% less than the obse rved rate. ”This, too, was used to establish an “unmet” need requiringa government programme.

　　Yet the NDS’s own numbers suggest that Filipinos are aware of their options . The total fertilityrote——the number of babies the average woman bears over her lifetime——has dropped to 4.1in 1993 from 6.4 in 1960. Some 61% used contraceptives, just a few percentage points shortof the 65-80% rate prevailing in Europe, North America and most of East Asia. The delay ofmarriage by Filipinos to the age of 23 years represents a reduction of the risk of pregnancyby 19% given the 35 years of their reproductive life.?

　　In short, the Philippines has its problems but its people are not as ignorant as thepopulation-control lobby would suppose. Unfortunately, this lobby has development dollars,organizational muscle and support of the media. “We’ve built a consensus about populationas a global issue and family planning as a health issue,” says the UN’s Naris Sadik, host of theconference. Yes, they have. And now we know how.

　　PAPER TWO

　　PART IV TRANSLATION (60 MIN)

　　SECTION A CHINESE TO ENGLISH

　　Translate the following underlined part of the TEXT into English. Write your translation onANSWER SHEET THREE.

　　加拿大的温哥华1986年刚刚度过百岁生日，但城市的发展令世界瞩目。以港立市，以港兴市，是许多港口城市生存发展的道路。经过百年开发建设，有着天然不冻良港的温哥华，成为举世闻名的港口城市，同亚洲、大洋洲、欧洲、拉丁美洲均有定期班轮，年货物吞吐量达到8，00万吨，全市就业人口中有三分之一从事贸易与运输行业。

　　温哥华(Vancouver)的辉煌是温哥华人智慧和勤奋的结晶，其中包括多民族的贡献。加拿大地广人稀，国土面积比中国还大，人口却不足3000万。吸收外来移民，是加拿大长期奉行的国策。可以说，加拿大除了印第安人外，无一不是外来移民，不同的只是时间长短而已。温哥华则更是世界上屈指可数的多民族城市。现今180万温哥华居民中，有一半不是在本地出生的，每4个居民中就有一个是亚洲人。而25万华人对温哥华的经济转型起着决定性的作用。他们其中有一半是近5年才来到温哥华地区的，使温哥华成为亚洲以外最大的中国人聚居地。

　　SECTION B ENGLISH TO CHINESE

　　Translate the following underlined part of the TEXT into Chinese. Write your translation onANSWER SHEET THREE.

　　In some societies people want children for what might be called familial reasons: to extendthe family line or the family name, to propitiate the ancestors; to enable the proper functioningof religious rituals involving the family. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularizedsociety but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places.

　　In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category,namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband oroccupy the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children onthe assumption that family happiness lies that way. The point is underlined by its converse: insome societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a readycause for divorce.

　　Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the familyitself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family —they needchildren to enrich the circle, to validate its family character, to gather the redemptiveinfluence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, asthe social institution uniquely available, at least in principle, for security, comfort,assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile, world. To most people, such a homebase, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance and in generationalextension.

　　PART V WRITING (60 MIN)

　　Some people claim that competition is more important than co-operation in the present-daysociety. How far do you agree OR disagree with these people? You are to write a compositionof about 300 words on the following topic:

　　COMPETITION OR CO-OPERATION

　　In the first part of your writing you should present your thesis statement, and in the secondpart you should support the thesis statement with appropriate details. In the last part youshould bring what you have written to a natural conclusion or a summary.

　　Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriacy. Failure to follow theabove instructions may result in a loss of marks.

　　Write your response on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.

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