2011年北京邮电大学考博英语真题及答案

2011年北京邮电大学考博英语真题及答案

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Part I Reading Comprehension (40 points)

Directions: In this part there are four passages for you to read. After each passage there are five questions, below each of which there are four answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark the corresponding letter with a pencil on the Machine-Scoring ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.

Passage One

The aroma of chocolate perfumes the air of the Rue d Assas in Paris. Entering Christian Constant's state-of-the-art boutique, you find yourself in the kingdom of Paris’s king of chocolate, where the humble cocoa bean is turned into mouth-watering chocolate Easter eggs.

Constant, who is a chef, admits that chocolate is his passion and main interest in life. He first developed a fascination with chocolate when he was working for Gaston Lenotre, a famous French pastry chef.

Every year he has a theme for decorating Easter eggs: this year his decorations are inspired by “Art Nouveau”. Tonight he has a dinner for 130 to organize and he has to prepare a three-foot-high Art Nouveau-style Easter egg by noon tomorrow. This, for Constant, is a normal schedule.

Constant believes that his chocolate creations are as much of a work of art as other sculptures. It is, therefore, understandable that the restaurant, which he opened last month, is situated in the National Monuments Museum in Paris. During the day the restaurant is a tearoom and offers chocolate in every imaginable form. Customers can choose from a selection of sweet chocolate desserts or tries the more exotic spicy chocolates. Constant is also a professional “nose” working closely with the French Institute of Taste. He is capable of identifying 450 different tastes and flavors. Constant explains that the mouth, which can only taste four things — salt, sweet, acid and bitter-is “stupid” in comparison to the nose. He believes that the nose is everything.

In his book The Taste of Chocolate, he explains how in 1502 Christopher Columbus came across an island and went ashore. He was greeted by an Indian chief bearing gifts, among which were huge sacks of beans which Columbus thought was local currency. To his surprise, they prepared a drink for him. But Columbus, who disliked the odd bitter taste, continued on his travels, ignorant of the fact that he had just tasted cocoa. Like Columbus, Constant travels those cocoa counties where he checks quality and works with local experts. Quality can vary depending on the region, year, and method of preparation. According to Constant, Venezuela and Trinidad have the best cocoa beans, which they export all over the world either as beans or as cocoa.

Constant, who is a hard worker, only sleeps three hours a night. He talks long into the night with members of a club he has formed. The club is called “The Chocolate Munchers”. Their main official activity is to get together for monthly dinners where they eat a very tiny dinner and tons of chocolate desserts.

“I am an addict,” Constant admits, “and I don't want to be cured!”

1. Which of the following is the most inclusive title for the passage?

A. Chocolate—The Passion of a lifetime.

B. The Chocolate Munchers Club.

C. Chocolate— A New Art Form.

D. The Last Word in Good Taste.

2. What does Constant do now?

A. He works for a French pastry chef.

B. He owns his own restaurant and tearoom.

C. He is a sculptor for a museum in Paris.

D. He is a chef in the Institute of Taste.

3. Constant’s newly-opened business______.

A. provides chocolates with various flavors

B. exhibits all of his chocolate sculptures

C. often needs to prepare a big Easter dinner

D. serves as a national monument in Paris

4. The underlined part “Constant is also a … ‘nose’”, means ___.

A. he believes he has the best nose in the world

B. his nose can taste salt, sweet, acid and bitter

C. his nose can identify various tastes and flavors

D. he is capable of smelling flavors from a long distance

5. According to Constant _____.

A. ancient Indians used cocoa beans as local currency

B. Columbus checked the quality of cocoa beans in different places

C chocolate addition makes people sleep less

D. the quality of cocoa beans varies from region to region

Passage Two

French are elegant people. They are artists in everyday life, having a very good taste in everything. They don’t like American tourists wearing jeans to go into their luxurious and exquisite five-star restaurants, so one of the restaurants put a notice outside its front door. It read “No trousers, please!”

A gourmet coffee was sold in Tokyo as an antidote to stress. Its name supposedly meant to people that it would soothe the troubled breast. Yet when it was printed in English, it turned out to be “Ease Your Bosoms”.

Swedes started a promotion stunt to promote the sales of their vacuum cleaner named Electro. Their original ad slogan was translated as “Nothing sucks like Electro”.

The General Motors' selling of Chevrolet was very bad in South America. And what is the reason? The translation of this brand sounds like “nova”- which means “It doesn't go” in Spanish.

When Pepsi-cola invaded the huge Chinese and German markets, the efforts initially fizzled. The product’s slogan, “Come alive with the Pepsi generation”, was rendered into German as “come out of the grave with Pepsi”. Coca-Cola also discovered something had gone wrong in Taiwan. The Chinese characters chosen for the world-famous product sound like “Bite the Wax Tadpole.”

A beer company's slogan “Turn it loose” became, in Spanish, equivalent to “suffer from diarrhea.”

A company translated its sticky tape slogan into Japanese and came up with a sticky problem. The slogan “Sticks like crazy” became literally “it sticks foolishly” in Japanese.

A tonic product in China is made of royal jelly and is supposed to be very effective for some chronic diseases. Yet it was translated as “oral liquid”, which means “saliva” in English, In the brochure, it was described in this way: “it tastes like medicine”, when the language in the original meant to use it as a food therapy.

Even the wrong nonverbal cue can bring havoc to a product. A baby food company initially packaged their African products just the same as in the U.S.—with a cute baby picture on the jar. They didn't realize that because so many Africans cannot read, nearly all packaged products sold in Africa carry pictures of what is inside. Pureed baby! How horrible!

In an Asian city, where traffic is really very bad, to secure people's safety, the municipal government has built underground passageways. Pedestrians are asked to use them whenever they need to cross the main street. A sign was posted once on the roadside, pointing to the entrance to an underground passageway, intending to notify English-speaking passengers, “Go Underground”.

We chuckled at such clumsy translations. Is there anything wrong in the language? We must be aware that few words and idioms can be literally translated. It's best to hire the best for translation. Don't take it for granted that as long as one speaks a little English, he is autonomously able to do the translation. It takes a while to learn to be a good translator.

6. “No trousers, please!” sounds funny on the front door of a five-star restaurant, because could mean “____”, in English.

A. Take off your trousers, then come in please

B. We don’t sell any trousers here’

C. We don’t have any pairs of trousers here

D. Anyone who does not wear trousers is not welcome

7. From the passage, you may guess that Chevrolet is most probably____.

A. shoes of some kinds that South American like

B. the brand name of a kind of vehicle

C. a pet animal which runs fast

D. a word in Spanish which has a very bad meaning

8. Any product with a cute baby picture on the jar will most probably ___ in Africa.

A. sell well            B. receive favorable attention

C. cause great interest   D. bring an end to the product

9. The Chinese characters chosen for Coca-Cola ____ in Taiwan first.

A. were well received              B. had a wrong name

C sounded terrible in the language    D. were all terrible words

10. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Clumsy translations can sometimes produce the desired effect.

B. We should not take it for granted that anything can be translated.

C. Few words and idioms can be literally translated.

D. Clumsy translation could mean more than just a laughing matter.