2012年全国硕士研究生招生考试英语（二）试题

Millions of Americans and foreigners see G.I.

数百万美国人和外国人看到GI

Joe as a mindless war toy, the symbol of American military adventurism, but that’s not how it used to be.

乔作为无脑的战争玩具，是美国军事冒险主义的象征，但事情并非一直如此。

To the men and women who 1 in World War Ⅱ and the people they liberated, the G.I.

对于在第二次世界大战中参与1的男女以及他们所解放的人们，G.I.

was the 2 man grown into hero, the poor farm kid torn away from his home, the guy who 3 all the burdens of battle, who slept in cold foxholes, who went without the 4 of food and shelter, who stuck it out and drove back the Nazi reign of murder.

This was not a volunteer soldier, not someone well paid, 5 an average guy, up 6 the best trained, best equipped, fiercest, most brutal enemies seen in centuries.

这并不是一名志愿士兵，也不是一名报酬优厚的士兵，5是一名普通人，却要面对 6最精锐、装备最好、最凶猛、最残酷的敌人，这是几个世纪以来所见到的。

His name isn’t much.

他的名字不值一提。

G.I.

普通士兵

is just a military abbreviation 7 Government Issue, and it was on all of the articles 8 to soldiers.

只是军事缩写7政府配给，并且它印在所有分发给士兵的物品8上。

And Joe?

还有乔？

A common name for a guy who never 9 it to the top.

一个从未将9带到顶峰的人的常见名字。

Joe Blow, Joe Palooka, Joe Magrac.

乔·布洛，乔·帕卢卡，乔·马格拉克。

a working class name.

一个工人阶级的名字。

The United States has 10 had a president or vice-president or secretary of state Joe.

美国曾有 10 位总统、副总统或国务卿名为乔。

G.I.

普通士兵

Joe had a 11 career fighting German, Japanese, and Korean troops.

乔有 11 年的职业生涯与德、日、韩军队作战。

He appears as a character, or a 12 of American personalities, in the 1945 movie The Story of G.I.

他在 1945 年的电影《The Story of G.I.》中以一个角色或美国 12 位名人中的一个出现。

Joe, based on the last days of war correspondent Ernie Pyle.

乔基于战地记者Ernie Pyle的最后日子。

Some of the soldiers Pyle 13 portrayed themselves in the film.

皮尔13号士兵在电影中自己扮演了自己。

Pyle was famous for covering the 14 side of the war, writing about the dirt-snow-and-mud soldiers, not how many miles were 15 or what towns were captured or liberated.

派尔以报道战争的 14 个侧面而闻名，他撰写了关于在泥泞、积雪和污垢中作战的士兵的文章，而不是记录行军的 15 英里或被攻占和解放的城镇。

His reports 16 the “Willie” cartoons of famed Stars and Stripes artist Bill Maulden.

他的报道16著名《星条旗》艺术家Bill Maulden的《Willie》漫画。

Boh men 17 the dirt and exhaustion of war, the 18 of civilization that the soldiers shared with each other and the civilians: coffee, tobacco, whiskey, shelter, sleep.

博姆人17战争的污垢和疲惫，士兵们与平民共享的18文明：咖啡、烟草、威士忌、庇护所、睡眠。

19 Egypt, France, and a dozen more countries, G.I.

19 埃及、法国和十几个其他国家，G.I.

Joe was any American soldier, 20 the most important person in their lives.

乔是任何美国士兵，20是他们生命中最重要的人。

Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned.

家庭作业从未受到学生和许多家长的热烈欢迎，但近年来更是遭到了特别的蔑视。

School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on this educational ritual.

全国各地的学区，最近的是洛杉矶联合学区，正在重新思考这一教育传统。

Unfortunately, L.A.

不幸的是，洛杉矶

Unified has produced an inflexible policy which mandates that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student’s academic grade.

统一政策制定了一项僵化的规定，要求除了一些高级课程外，家庭作业在学生的学业成绩中所占比例不得超过10%。

This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework.

这项规定旨在解决来自贫困或混乱家庭的学生可能在完成家庭作业方面遇到的困难。

But the policy is unclear and contradictory.

但这项政策本身含糊不清且自相矛盾。

Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot complete on their own or that they cannot do without expensive equipment.

当然，不应布置学生无法独立完成或没有昂贵设备就无法完成的家庭作业。

But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children.

但如果该地区基本上对因家庭生活复杂而未能完成家庭作业的学生网开一面，那就意味着要冒着对贫困儿童降低标准的暗示风险。

District administrators say that homework will still be a part of schooling; teachers are allowed to assign as much of it as they want.

地区教育管理者表示，家庭作业仍然是学校教育的一部分；教师可以随意布置他们想要的作业量。

But with homework counting for no more than 10% of their grades, students can easily skip half their homework and see very little difference on their report cards.

但由于家庭作业在成绩中所占比例不超过10%，学生完全可以跳过一半的作业，而成绩单上的变化却微乎其微。

Some students might do well on state tests without completing their homework, but what about the students who performed well on the tests and did their homework?

一些学生可能在不完成家庭作业的情况下在州考试中表现良好，但那些既在考试中表现优异又完成了家庭作业的学生又该怎么办呢？

It is quite possible that the homework helped.

作业可能确实起到了帮助作用。

Yet rather than empowering teachers to find what works best for their students, the policy imposes a flat, across-the-board rule.

然而，这项政策并没有赋予教师根据学生情况找到最佳方法的权力，而是强加了一项一刀切的统一规则。

At the same time, the policy addresses none of the truly thorny questions about homework.

同时，这项政策并未触及关于作业的真正棘手的问题。

If the district finds homework to be unimportant to its students’ academic achievement, it should move to reduce or eliminate the assignments, not make them count for almost nothing.

如果该地区认为作业对其学生的学业成绩不重要，它就应该采取措施减少或取消作业，而不是让作业几乎不计成绩。

Conversely, if homework matters, it should account for a significant portion of the grade.

相反，如果作业确实重要，它就应该占成绩的很大一部分。

Meanwhile, this policy does nothing to ensure that the homework students receive is meaningful or appropriate to their age and the subject, or that teachers are not assigning more than they are willing to review and correct.

与此同时，这项政策并未确保学生所接受的作业是有意义的，或者适合他们的年龄和学科，也未确保教师不会布置超出他们愿意批改和纠正的作业量。

The homework rules should be put on hold while the school board, which is responsible for setting educational policy, looks into the matter and conducts public hearings.

在负责制定教育政策的校董事会调查此事并举行公开听证会之前，应暂时搁置这项作业规则。

It is not too late for L.A.

洛杉矶现在还来得及。

Unified to do homework right.

统一去做作业是对的。

Pretty in pink: adult women do not remember being so obsessed with the colour, yet it is pervasive in our young girls’ lives.

粉红色：成年女性似乎不记得自己曾经如此痴迷于这种颜色，然而它却充斥在我们年轻女孩的生活中。

It is not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girls’ identity to appearance.

并不是粉红色本身不好，而是它在彩虹中只占极小的一部分，尽管它以某种方式庆祝女孩的童年，但同时也反复而坚定地将女孩的身份与外貌联系在一起。

Then it presents that connection, even among two-year-olds, between girls as not only innocent but as evidence of innocence.

然后，它在女孩身上呈现了这种联系，即使在两岁的孩子中，也把女孩视为不仅是天真无邪的，更是天真无邪的象征。

Looking around, I despaired at the singular lack of imagination about girls’ lives and interests.

环顾四周，我绝望于对女孩生活和兴趣的想象力的极度匮乏。

Girls’ attraction to pink may seem unavoidable, somehow encoded in their DNA, but according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American Studies, it is not.

女孩对粉红色的迷恋似乎难以避免，仿佛被编码在她们的DNA中，但根据美国研究教授乔·帕奥莱蒂的说法，事实并非如此。

Children were not colour-coded at all until the early 20th century: in the era before domestic washing machines all babies wore white as a practical matter, since the only way of getting clothes clean was to boil them.

直到20世纪初，儿童才开始被按颜色进行区分：在家用洗衣机出现之前的时代，所有婴儿都穿白色衣服，这在实际中是合理的，因为当时唯一清洁衣物的方法就是煮沸。

What’s more, both boys and girls wore what were thought of as gender-neutral dresses.

更重要的是，男孩和女孩都穿着被认为是中性性别风格的连衣裙。

When nursery colours were introduced, pink was actually considered the more masculine colour, a pastel version of red, which was associated with strength.

当婴儿服颜色开始流行时，粉色实际上被认为是更具男子气概的颜色，它是红色的一种柔和版本，而红色则与力量相关。

Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, symbolised femininity.

蓝色则因其与圣母玛利亚、忠诚和忠实的暗示，象征着女性气质。

It was not until the mid-1980s, when amplifying age and sex differences became a dominant children’s marketing strategy, that pink fully came into its own, when it began to seem inherently attractive to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few critical years.

直到20世纪80年代中期，当放大年龄和性别差异成为儿童市场营销的主要策略时，粉色才真正大放异彩，开始被视为女孩与生俱来的吸引力，成为定义她们为女性的一部分，至少在最初几年的关键时期是如此。

I had not realised how profoundly marketing trends dictated our perception of what is natural to kids, including our core beliefs about their psychological development.

我之前没有意识到市场营销趋势在多大程度上决定了我们对儿童自然天性的认知，包括我们对她们心理发展的核心信念。

Take the toddler.

以幼儿为例。

I assumed that phase was something experts developed after years of research into children’s behaviour: wrong.

我曾以为这个阶段是专家们经过多年对儿童行为的研究后才得出的结论：错了。

Turns out, according to Daniel Cook, a historian of childhood consumerism, it was popularised as a marketing trick by clothing manufacturers in the 1930s.

据儿童消费史学家丹尼尔·库克所说，事实证明，这种做法是服装制造商在20世纪30年代为了促销而推广的一种营销手段。

Trade publications counselled department stores that, in order to increase sales, they should create a “third stepping stone” between infant wear and older kids’ clothes.

行业出版物建议百货商店，为了增加销量，他们应该在婴儿服装和较大儿童服装之间创造一个‘第三阶段’的产品。

It was only after “toddler” became a common shoppers’ term that it evolved into a broadly accepted developmental stage.

直到“幼儿”一词成为常见购物者术语之后，它才演变为一个被广泛接受的发展阶段。

Splitting kids, or adults, into ever-tinier categories has proved a sure-fire way to boost profits.

将儿童或成人划分为越来越细的类别已被证明是提高利润的稳妥方法。

And one of the easiest ways to segment a market is to magnify gender differences – or invent them where they did not previously exist.

而细分市场最简单的方法之一，就是放大性别差异——或者在原本不存在差异的地方人为制造差异。

In 2010, a federal judge shook America’s biotech industry to its core.

2010年，一名联邦法官震动了美国的生物技术行业。

Companies had won patents for isolated DNA for decades – by 2005 some 20% of human genes were patented.

几十年来，公司已经获得了分离DNA的专利——到2005年，约有20%的人类基因已被专利保护。

But in March 2010 a judge ruled that genes were unpatentable.

但在2010年3月，法官裁定基因无法被授予专利。

Executives were violently agitated.

企业高管们感到极度不安。

The Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO), a trade group, assured members that this was just a “preliminary step” in a longer battle.

生物技术产业组织（BIO）作为一个行业协会，向成员保证，这只是更长期斗争中的一个‘初步步骤’。

On July 29th they were relieved, at least temporarily.

7月29日，他们终于松了一口气，至少是暂时的。

A federal appeals court overturned the prior decision, ruling that Myriad Genetics could indeed hold patents to two genes that help forecast a woman’s risk of breast cancer.

一家联邦上诉法院推翻了之前的决定，裁定Myriad Genetics公司确实可以对两种有助于预测女性患乳腺癌风险的基因持有专利。

The chief executive of Myriad, a company in Utah, said the ruling was a blessing to firms and patients alike.

这家位于犹他州的Myriad公司首席执行官表示，这一裁决对公司和患者来说都是福音。

But as companies continue their attempts at personalised medicine, the courts will remain rather busy.

但随着企业继续尝试个性化医疗，法院的工作仍将相当繁忙。

The Myriad case itself is probably not over.

Myriad案本身可能还没有结束。

Critics make three main arguments against gene patents: a gene is a product of nature, so it may not be patented; gene patents suppress innovation rather than reward it; and patents’ monopolies restrict access to genetic tests such as Myriad’s.

批评者对基因专利提出了三个主要论点：基因是自然产物，因此可能无法申请专利；基因专利抑制了创新，而非奖励创新；专利的垄断限制了像Myriad这样的基因检测的获取途径。

A growing number seem to agree.

越来越多的人似乎对此表示赞同。

Last year a federal task-force urged reform for patents related to genetic tests.

去年，一个联邦特别工作组敦促对与基因检测相关的专利进行改革。

In October the Department of Justice filed a brief in the Myriad case, arguing that an isolated DNA molecule “is no less a product of nature…than are cotton fibres that have been separated from cotton seeds.

10月份，司法部在Myriad案件中提交了一份简要文件，主张一个孤立的DNA分子“与从棉花种子中分离出来的棉花纤维一样，都是自然产物……”。

Despite the appeals court’s decision, big questions remain unanswered.

尽管上诉法院做出了裁决，但仍有许多重大问题悬而未决。

For example, it is unclear whether the sequencing of a whole genome violates the patents of individual genes within it.

例如，尚不清楚对整个基因组进行测序是否会侵犯其中单个基因的专利。

The case may yet reach the Supreme Court.

此案仍有可能最终提交至最高法院。

As the industry advances, however, other suits may have an even greater impact.

然而，随着行业的发展，其他诉讼可能会产生更大的影响。

Companies are unlikely to file many more patents for human DNA molecules – most are already patented or in the public domain.

公司不太可能再为人类DNA分子申请大量专利——大多数已经获得专利或属于公共领域。

Firms are now studying how genes interact, looking for correlations that might be used to determine the causes of disease or predict a drug’s efficacy.

目前，企业正在研究基因之间的相互作用，寻找可用于确定疾病原因或预测药物效果的相关性。

Companies are eager to win patents for “connecting the dots,” explains Hans Sauer, a lawyer for the BIO.

“连接这些点”（即发现基因之间的关联）的专利申请，企业非常渴望获得，BIO的律师汉斯·索尔解释道。

Their success may be determined by a suit related to this issue, brought by the Mayo Clinic, which the Supreme Court will hear in its next term.

他们的成功可能取决于梅奥诊所就这一问题提起的诉讼，该诉讼将在最高法院下一次审理中进行听证。

The BIO recently held a convention which included sessions to coach lawyers on the shifting landscape for patents.

生物技术产业组织（BIO）最近举办了一次大会，其中包括指导律师应对专利领域不断变化的形势的专题会议。

Each meeting was packed.

每场会议都座无虚席。

The great recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably beginning.

尽管大萧条可能已经结束，但高失业率的时代很可能才刚刚开始。

Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults.

在这一时代结束之前，它很可能会改变一代年轻人的人生轨迹和性格特征。

And ultimately, it is likely to reshape our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years.

最终，它很可能在多年内重塑我们的政治、文化以及社会的性质。

No one tries harder than the jobless to find silver linings in this national economic disaster.

在失业者中，没有人比他们更努力地试图在这场国家经济灾难中找到积极的一面。

Many said that unemployment, while extremely painful, had improved them in some ways: they had become less materialistic and more financially prudent; they were more aware of the struggles of others.

许多人表示，虽然失业非常痛苦，但也在某些方面让他们有所提升：他们变得更加不重物质、更加注重财务审慎；他们对他人所面临的困境也更加敏感。

In limited respects, perhaps the recession will leave society better off.

在有限的范围内，也许经济衰退会让社会变得更好。

At the very least, it has awoken us from our national fever dream of easy riches and bigger houses, and put a necessary end to an era of reckless personal spending.

至少，它让我们从全国性的、追求轻松致富和更大住房的狂热梦中醒来，并结束了不负责任的个人消费时代，这是必要的。

But for the most part, these benefits seem thin, uncertain, and far off.

但总的来说，这些好处似乎微不足道、不确定且遥不可及。

In The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, the economic historian Benjamin Friedman argues that both inside and outside the U.S., lengthy periods of economic stagnation or decline have almost always left society more mean-spirited and less inclusive, and have usually stopped or reversed the advance of rights and freedoms.

在《The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth》一书中，经济史学家Benjamin Friedman认为，无论是在美国国内还是国外，长期的经济停滞或衰退几乎总是使社会变得更加吝啬和更不包容，并且通常会阻碍或逆转权利和自由的进步。

Anti-immigrant sentiment typically increases, as does conflict between races and classes.

反移民情绪通常会上升，种族和阶级之间的冲突也会加剧。

Income inequality usually falls during a recession, but it has not shrunk in this one.

事实上，收入不平等通常会在经济衰退期间缩小，但在此次衰退中却并未缩小。

Indeed, this period of economic weakness may reinforce class divides, and decrease opportunities to cross them – especially for young people.

确实，这段经济疲软时期可能会加剧阶级分化，并减少跨越阶级的机会——尤其是对年轻人而言。

The research of Till Von Wachter, the economist at Columbia University, suggests that not all people graduating into a recession see their life chances dimmed: those with degrees from elite universities catch up fairly quickly to where they otherwise would have been if they had graduated in better times; it is the masses beneath them that are left behind.

哥伦比亚大学的经济学家蒂尔·冯·瓦赫特的研究表明，并非所有在经济衰退期间毕业的人都会看到自己人生机会的减少：那些毕业于顶尖大学的人很快就能赶上原本在经济状况更好的时期毕业所应达到的水平；而他们之下的人群则被远远甩在后面。

In the Internet age, it is particularly easy to see the resentment that has always been hidden within American society.

在互联网时代，人们尤其容易看到美国社会中一直隐藏的怨恨情绪。

More difficult, in the moment, is discerning precisely how these lean times are affecting society’s character.

然而，当下更困难的是准确判断这些艰难时期如何影响社会的性格。

In many respects, the U.S. was more socially tolerant entering this recession than at any time in its history, and a variety of national polls on social conflict since then have shown mixed results.

在很多方面，美国在进入这次经济衰退时比历史上任何时期都更加社会包容，此后关于社会冲突的各种全国性民意调查结果也呈现出混杂的局面。

We will have to wait and see exactly how these hard times will reshape our social fabric.

我们必须拭目以待，这些艰难时期究竟会如何重塑我们的社会结构。

But they certainly will reshape it, and all the more so the longer they extend.

但可以肯定的是，它们一定会重塑社会结构，而且持续时间越长，这种重塑就越明显。

When people in developing countries worry about migration, they are usually concerned at the prospect of their best and brightest departure to Silicon Valley or to hospitals and universities in the developed world.

当发展中国家的人们担忧移民时，他们通常担心的是本国最优秀的人才前往硅谷或发达国家的医院和大学的前景。

These are the kind of workers that countries like Britain, Canada and Australia try to attract by using immigration rules that privilege college graduates.

这些是英国、加拿大和澳大利亚等国家试图通过使用优先考虑大学毕业生的移民规则来吸引的工人类型。

Lots of studies have found that well-educated people from developing countries are particularly likely to emigrate.

大量研究发现，发展中国家的受过良好教育的人尤其可能移民。

A big survey of Indian households in 2004 found that nearly 40% of emigrants had more than a high-school education, compared with around 3.3% of all Indians over the age 25.

2004年一项针对印度家庭的大规模调查发现，近40%的移民拥有高中以上教育，与约3.3%的25岁以上印度人相比。

This “brain drain” has long bothered policymakers in poor countries.

这种“人才流失”现象长期困扰着贫困国家的政策制定者。

They fear that it hurts their economies, depriving them of much-needed skilled workers who could have taught at their universities, worked in their hospitals and come up with clever new products for their factories to make.

他们担心这会损害他们的经济，剥夺了他们急需的高技能工人，这些工人可能在他们的大学任教、在他们的医院工作，并为他们的工厂研发出聪明的新产品。