SECTION 5: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)

Directions: Read the f ollowing passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions whichf ollow each passage. Use only inf ormationf rom the passage you havejust read and write your answer in the correspond ing spa ce in your ANS WER BOOKLET.
      
Questions 1-3
     Stolen masterpieces are being used by crime gangs as "get out of jail free cards" to trade for more lenient sentences. The criminals stash paintings and other works of art and use them in plea bargaining for other offences, the head of the Metropolitan Police's arts and antiques unit has revealed. Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley also disclosed that Scotland Yard had started compiling the country's first national police database of stolen works of art. He said: "Some have clearly been held as a 'get out of jail for free' by criminal gangs. There is clear evidence this has been done."

     He explained: "If you bury the painting in a dustbin in a wood and you wait until you get arrested for another crime, such as armed robbery, you can tell the police you know about a 'nasty villain' who stole the painting, which could be worth ￡13m to ￡14m. If you are instrumental in the recovery of the painting you can get a credit from sentencing for the armed robbery. The concern is that it's becoming more common."

     Alexandra Smith, director of operations at the Art Loss Register, a London-based company that holds the details of 140,000 stolen works of art from around the world, said that in some cases criminals probably stole famous paintings and then discovered they were impossible to sell because they were so easy to recognize. "What is more plausible is that criminals steal something valuable and find they cannot get rid of it, so when they are caught for another crime they trade the painting to commute the sentence."

     Det Sgt Rapley, the head of the country's only dedicated stolen art squad, estimated that the trade in illicit art in Britain is worth about ￡1bn a year. To help crack down on the criminal enterprise, the Metropolitan Police is expanding its database and hopes to produce the first national register of stolen works. It currently has records of 50,000 stolen items and is encouraging other forces to add to the database.

     Det Sgt Rapley said he hoped that by the end of the year the public would be able to access parts of the database to check for stolen items. He said the criminals who stole the paintings and artworks only made a fraction of the massive profits available for stolen art, getting at most about 10 per cent of the value. In one case a thief stole a silver beaker from a museum without knowing that it was priceless. He later sold it to a market trader for a new pounds.

     Det Sgt Rapley added: "I totally disagree with the Hollywood image of upper-class thieves who steal for some Mr. Big. They are nothing more than common criminals stealing for financial gain. They may be slightly better burglars, but there is nothing in the talk of sophisticated Raffles-type cat burglars, or great art fakers." The issue of stolen art hit the headlines last year with the theft of a Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece. Madonna with they Yarnwinder, which was taken from Drumlanrig Castle, rear Dumfries, in August, has been valued as worth up to ￡80m.

     The Art Loss Register has compiled a list of the artists whose works are most frequently stolen worldwide. Ms Smith said the most commonly stolen works were by artists that criminals could easily identify as famous and therefore valuable, and those produced by the most prolific artists.

1.   What are "get out ofjail free cards"? What is the use of such cards?
2.   Introduce briefly the illicit trade in art in the UK and the countermeasures of the Metropolitan Police to crack down such criminal acts.
3.   Det Sgt Rapely said "I tatally disagree with the Hollywood image of upper-class thieves who steal for some Mr. Big." (para.6) Give your interpretation of this statement.

Questions 4-6
     A hundred years after the Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk, the European consortium Airbus announced a millstone of its own-surpassing the American aviation giant Boeing in the number of airliners delivered in 2003. Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, in now beating its U.S. rival at its own game of size and distance: The 555-passenger, long-range A380, bigger than any Boeing, is already in production.

     Airbus's success should be no surprise. American and France may be sparring diplomatically, but technologically the two nations have had a long love affair. Each has developed outstanding innovations, and each has assiduously exploited the other's ideas.

     Even the current U.S. military-industrial hegemony has some decidedly French roots. Sylvanus Thayer graduated from West Point in 1808, spent two years in Europe, and was utterly taken with French military thought and training. When he became superintendent in 1817, Thayer modeled the academy's demanding technical curriculum and ethic of honor and service after France's Ecole Polytechnique. Classics on sieges and fortifications by Louis XIV's engineering genius, Marshal Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, were standard texts; studying French was de rigueur.

     The French connection persisted into the Civil War. The Minie bullet that made that conflict's rifle-muskets three times as deadly as earlier weapons was originally developed by French officers. In 1885, the French ordnance engineer Paul Vielle introduced smokeless powder. French artillerymen invented the revolutionary hydropneumatic recoil that allows cannons to remain murderously locked on target for shot after shot. And where would the Navy SEALs be without scuba gear, developed in 1943 on the French Riviera by Emile Gagnan and a soon-to-be famous French officer, Jacques Cousteau?

    Even interchangeable parts, the foundation of America's mass production, have French roots. The historian of science Ken Alder has shown that a French gunsmith was using such a system as early as the 1720s. By the 1780s, French military officials were introducing uniform jigs and fixtures at arms factories to enforce strict tolerances and ensure deadlier firearms and ordnance. Thomas Jefferson praised the system, and while it fell into disuse in France in the 19th century, U.S. armories embraced it. Related methods became known in Europe as the American System and, later, as Fordism.

     Speaking of Ford, what could be more American than the automobile? Yet a Frenchman built the first self-propelled vehicle, powered by steam, more than 200 years ago. A hundred years later the French company Panhard introduced the basic architecture that automobiles have followed ever since. Henry Ford's triumphs depended not just on standardization but on use of strong, rust-resistant vanadium steel, which had impressed him in the wreck of a French racing car.

     Long before airbus, the French produced superlative aeronautical engineers. They were the first Europeans to acclaim the Wrights' breakthroughs in aircraft control, and they made key improvements. French inventors, especially Louis Bleriot and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, created the monoplane as we know it, which is why we still speak of fuselages and ailerons. Esnault-Pelterie, was also the father of thejoystick.

     Flag-waving Americans may reply that many of France's own technological triumphs rely on ideas born here. French high-speed trains lead the world today, but as the railroad historian Mark Reutter has shown, the Budd Co. of Philadelphia was already building lightweight, articulated streamliners in the 1930s. And France now gets 75 percent of its electricity from America's great hope of 50 years ago, nuclear power. Social legislation also helps make France a showplace of other U.S. innovations: vending machines (limited retailing hours) and mass-produced antibiotics (generous health benefits).

     In fact, the French have so often jettisoned their heritage in favor of novel technology that it sometimes takes Americans to defend it. The Cornell University scholar Steven Kaplan has revived the art of French bread making, and Mother Noella Marcellino, an American Benedictine nun with a Ph.D. in microbiology, has been saving the classic cheese of France from pasteurization——a process invented by the Frenchman Louis Pasteur.

     It's pointless to debate who owes more to whom, and far more interesting to rejoice in cross-appropriation. Airbus has many U.S. suppliers, and Boeing will jump ahead sooner or later in the endless technological leapfrog. The last word may belong to the sage——perhaps Oscar Wide——who said, "Talents imitate; geniuses steal."

4.   Why does the author introduce the Wright brothers and the European Airbus at the beginning of the passage?
5.   What does the author mean by saying that "technologically the two nations [America and France] have had a long love affair"? Give some examples.
6.   Paraphrase the sentence "the French have so often jettisoned their heritage in favor of novel technology that it sometimes takes Americans to defend it." (para.9)

Questions 7-10
     Millions of elderly Germans received a notice from the Health & Social Security Ministry earlier this month that struck a damaging blow to the welfare state. The statement informed them that their pensions were being cut. The reductions come as a stop-gap measure to control Germany's ballooning pension crisis. Not surprisingly, it was an unwelcome change for senior citizens such as Sabine Wetzel, a 67-year-old retired bank teller, who was told her state pension would be cut by $12.30, or 1% to $1,156.20 a month. "It was a real shock," she says. "My pension had always gone up in the past."

     There's more bad news on the way. On Mar. 11, Germany's lower house of Parliament passed a bill gradually cutting state pensions——which have been rising steadily since World War II——from 53% of average wages now to 46% by 2020. And Germany is not alone. Governments across Western Europe are racing to curb pension benefits. In Italy, the government plans to raise the minimum retirement age from 57 to 60, while France will require that civil servants put in 40 years rather than 37.5 to qualify for a full pension. The reforms are coming despite tough opposition from unions, leftist politicians, and pensioners' groups.

     The explanation is simple: Europeans are living longer and having fewer children. By 2030 there will only be two workers per pensioner, compared with four in 2000. With fewer young workers paying into the system, cuts are being made to cover a growing shortfall. The gap between money coming in and payments going out could top $10 billion this year in Germany alone. "In the future, a state pension alone will no longer be enough to maintain the living standards employees had before they retired," says German Health & Social Security Minister Ulla Schmidt. Says Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti: "The welfare state is producing too few cradles and too few graves."

     Of course, those population trends have been forecast for years. Some countries, such as Britain and the Netherlands, have responded by making individuals and their employers assume more of the responsibility for pensions. But many Continental governments dragged their feet. Now, the rapid runup in costs in finally forcing them to act. State-funded pension payments make up around 12% of gross domestic product in Germany and France and 15% in Italy——two percentage points more than 20 years ago. Pensions account for an average 21% of government spending across the European Union. The U.S. Social Security system, by contrast, consumes just 4.8% of GDP. The rising cost is having serious repercussions on key European nations' commitments to fiscal restraint. "Governments have no choice but to make pension reform a priority," says Antonio Cabral, deputy director of the European Commission's Directorate General for Economic & Financial Affairs.

     Just as worrisome is the toll being exacted on the private sector. Corporate contributions to state pension systems——which make up 19.5% of total gross pay in Germany——add to Europe's already bloated labor costs. That, in turn, blunts manufacturers' competitiveness and keeps unemployment rates high. According to the Institute of German Economics in Cologne, benefit costs reached a record 41.7% of gross wages in Germany last year, compared with 37.4% a decade before. French cement manufacturer Lafarge says pension cost of $121 million contributed to a 9% fall in operating profits last year.

     To cope, Germany and most of its EU partners are using tax breaks to encourage employees to put money into private pensions schemes. But even if private pensions become more popular, European governments will have to increase minimum retirement ages and reduce public pensions. While today's seniors complain about reduced benefits, the next generation of retirees may look back on their parents' pension checks with envy.

7.   What does the author want to tell us from the example of the retired bank teller Sabine Wetzel?
8.   Paraphrase Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti's statement "The welfare state is producing too few cradles and too few graves." (para.3)
9.   Introduce briefly the pension reforms in some key European countries.
10.  What is implied by the last sentence of the passage "While today's seniors complain about reduced benefits, the next  generation  of retirees may  look back  on their  parents' pension checks with envy."?

SECTION 6: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)

Directions:  Translate the following passage into English and write your version in the correspond ing spa ce in your ANS WER BOOKLET.

   舒舍予，字老舍，现年四十岁，面黄无须，生于北平，三岁失怙，可谓无父，志学之年，帝王不存，可谓无君，无父无君，特别孝爱老母。幼读三百篇，不求甚解。继学师范，遂奠教书匠之基，及壮，糊口四方，教书为业。甚难发财，每购奖券，以得末奖为荣，示甘为寒贱也。二十七岁，发愤著书，科学哲学无所终，故写小说，博大 一笑，没什么了 不得。三十四岁结婚，今已有一男一女，均狡猾可喜。书无所不读，全无所获，并不着急，教书做事，均甚认真，往往吃亏，也不后悔。再活四十年，也许能有点出息。

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