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TEXT C
It is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English, something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it's that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French businessmen also have to speak English because they want to get their message out to American investors, possessors of the world's deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the world. And for a number of reasons, they've decided upon English as their common tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely Latinate Aventis as the new company name - and settled on English as the company's common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the European Commission. with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-speaking bureaucracy. effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English's great success to the sheer weight of its merit. It's a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth century A. D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more efficiently than either of its parents. What's more, English has remained ungoverned and open to change — foreign words, coinages, and grammatical shifts — in a way that French, ruled by the purist Academic Francaise, has not.
So it's a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economics as to the language's ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is that the competition first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German — faded with the waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world's most important financial center, which made English a key language for business. England's colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global reach. And as that former colony the US rose to the status of the world's preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English. The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn't studied English in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done. Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing, meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially lucrative new industry had its roots in the US, so if you wanted to get in on it, you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak English well enough to carry on a conversation. That's a lot more than those who can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don't speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the US and British media companies that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their bets — CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the Financial Times has recently launched a daily German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English. 77% Western European college students, 69% of managers, and 54% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the European Union's non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English, all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European business hasn't been all that traumatic, and it's only going to get easier in the future.
24. In the author's opinion, what really underlies the rising status of English in France and Europe is____ .
A. American dominance in the Internet software business
B. a practical need for effective communication among Europeans
C. Europeans' eagerness to do business with American businessmen
D. the recent trend for foreign companies to merge with each other
25. Europeans began to favor English for all the following reasons EXCEPT its____ .
A. inherent linguistic properties
B. association with the business world
C. links with the United States
D. disassociation from political changes
26. Which of the following statements forecasts the continuous rise of English in the future?
A. About half of Western Europeans are now proficient in English.
B. US and British media companies are operating in Western Europe.
C. Most secondary school students in Europe study English.
D. Most Europeans continue to use their own language.
27. The passage mainly examines the factors related to .
A. the rising status of English in Europe
B. English learning in non-English-speaking E. U. nations
C. the preference for English by European businessmen
D. the switch from French to English in European Commission
TEXT D
As humankind moves into the third millennium, it can rightfully claim to have broken new ground in its age-old quest to master the environment. The fantastic achievements of modern technology and the speed at which scientific discoveries are translated into technological applications attest to the triumph of human endeavor.
At the same time, however, some of these applications threaten to unleash forces over which we have no control. In other words, the new technology Man now believes allows him to dominate this wider cosmos could well be a Frankenstein monster waiting to turn on its master.
This is an entirely new situation that promises to change many of the perceptions governing life on the planet. The most acute challenges facing the future are likely to not only those pitting man against his fellow man, but those involving humankind's struggle to preserve the environment and ensure the sustainability of life on earth.
A conflict waged to ensure the survival of the human species is bound to bring humans closer together. Technological progress has thus proved to be a double-edged sword, giving rise to a new form of conflict: a clash between Man and Nature.
The new conflict is more dangerous than the traditional one between man and his fellow man, where the protagonists at least shared a common language.
Nature reacts with weather disturbances, with storms and earthquakes, with mutant viruses and bacteria — that is, with phenomena having no apparent cause and effect relationship with the modern technology that supposedly triggers them.
As technology becomes ever more potent and Nature reacts ever more violently, there is an urgent need to rethink how best to deal with the growing contradictions between Man and Nature.
For a start, the planet, and hence all its inhabitants, must be perceived as an integral whole, not as a dichotomous mass divided geographically into the rich and developed and the poor and underdeveloped.
Today, globalization encompasses the whole world and deals with it as an integral unit. It is no longer possible to say that conflict has shifted from its traditional east-west axis to a north-south axis. The real divide today is between summit and base, between the higher echelons of the international political structure and its grassroots level, between governments and NGOs, between state and civil society, between public and private enterprise.
The mesh structure is particularly obvious on the Internet. While it is true that to date the Internet seems to be favoring the most developed sectors of the international community over the less developed, this need not always be the case. Indeed, it could eventually overcome the disparities between the privileged and the underdeveloped.
On the other hand, the macro-world in which we live is exposed to distortions because of the unpredictable side-effects of a micro-world we do not and cannot totally control.
This raises the need for a global system of checks and balances, for mandatory rules and constraints in our dealings with Nature, in short, for a new type of veto designed to manage what is increasingly becoming a main contradiction of our time: the one between technology and ecology.
A new type of international machinery must be set in place to cope with the new challenges. We need a new look at the harnessing of scientific discoveries, to maximize their positive effects for the promotion of humanity as a whole and to minimize their negative effects. We need an authority with veto powers to forbid practices conducive to decreasing the ozone hole, the propagation of AIDS, global warming, desertification — an authority that will tackle such global problems.
There should be no discontinuity in the global machinery responsible for world order. The UN in its present form may fall far short of what is required of it. and it may be undemocratic and detrimental to most citizens in the world, but its absence would be worse. And so we have to hold on to the international organization even as we push forward for its complete restructuring.
Our best hope would be that the functions of the present United Nations are gradually taken over by the new machinery of veto power representing genuine democratic globalization.
28. The mention of Man's victory over Nature at the beginning of the passage is to highlight .
A. a new form of conflict B. Man's creative powers
C. the role of modern technology D. Man's ground-breaking work
29. According to the passage, which is NOT a responsibility of the proposed international authority?
A. Monitoring effects of scientific discoveries.
B. Dealing with worldwide environmental issues.
C. Vetoing human attempts to conquer Nature.
D. Authorizing efforts to improve human health.
30. When commenting on the present role of the UN, the author expresses his ____ .
A. dissatisfaction B. disillusionment
C. objection D. doubt
SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING (10 MIN)
In this section there are seven passages with ten multiple-choice questions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on your Colored Answer Sheet.
TEXTE
First read the following question.
31. What is the most appropriate topic of the following passage?
A. Strikes. B. Pensions.
C. Retirement Ages. D. Government decisions.
Now go through TEXT E quickly to answer question 31.
In addition to the national social security system, 17 special pension schemes are among the social advantages that government employees are not prepared to give up.
Under the national scheme, retirement is at the age of 65, whereas the special schemes offer retirement at 55 or even 50.
Most of the pension schemes are in the red and have to be topped up by the state. The total state contribution in 1994 was F125 billion ($25 billion).
The prime minister says he wants to keep the special schemes. There are three solutions for keeping them afloat: lengthening the contribution period, increasing contributions, or reducing the pensions paid out. The government chose the first solution in the plan that it announced on November 15. Private sector employees were required in 1993 to contribute for 40 instead of 37.5 years, in order to qualify for a full pension. State employees could still retire after 37.5 years' service provided they had reached the age limit.
The prime minister's announcement touched off strikes on the railways. Paris's transport services and government departments. Facing increasing opposition to this proposal, the prime minister said on December 5 that working more years would no longer be a condition for reforming the special pension schemes.
A government commission that will examine pensions will, however, be free to propose changes in the retirement age in certain professions. But it will take into consideration the hardships involved in the work and the constraints of working hours.
At the moment, the minimum retirement age is 60 - as in the private sector before 1983 — for 65 percent of public service employees. It is 55, or even 50, for 35 percent of employees considered to be doing work " involving special risks or exceptional fatigue".
Primary school teachers can retire at 55, but the limit for new. better qualified recruits is 60. Postal workers at sorting offices can retire at 55. The retiring age for police officers are 50, prison officers 50, nurses 55, and railway men 50 and 55 for others. The 30 000 employees of the Paris Metro have an average retirement age of 53.
Two-thirds of the "active" employees and those working in conditions that can damage health in the public gas and electric utility retire at 55. Retirement age for notary's clerks is 55 for women, and 60 for men. For miners, retirement is at 55.
Comparing the national pension scheme and the special schemes is not easy, because state employees receive bonuses — some of them substantial — which are not included in calculating their contributions or their pensions.
TEXT F
First read the following question.
32. In the following passage the author intends to _____ .
A. explain how the Gulf Stream is formed
B. compare global warming with global cooling
C. explain the composition of the sea currents
D. deliver a warning of a coming ice age
Now go through TEXT F quickly to answer question 32.
It seems obvious that trapping more of the sun's heat will make the planet hotter. But what seems obvious isn't always true. According to some respected scientists, there is a chance that global warming could plunge us into, of all things, an ice age.
The argument hinges on the Gulf Stream, the ocean current that brings warm surface water north and east and heats Europe. As it travels, some of the water evaporates; what's left is saltier and thus denser. Eventually the dense surface water sinks to the sea bottom, where it flows back southward. And then, near the equator, warm, fresh water from tropical rivers and rain dilutes the salt once again. allowing the water to rise to the surface, warm up and begin flowing north again.
But with global warming, melting ice from Greenland and the Arctic Ocean could pump fresh water into the North Atlantic? so could the increased rainfall predicted for northern latitudes in a warmer world. Result: the Gulf Stream's water wouldn't get saltier after all and wouldn't sink so easily. Without adequate re-supply, the southerly underwater current would stop, and the Gulf Stream would in turn be shut off.
If that happens. Europe will get very cold. Rome is. after all, at the same latitude as Chicago, and Paris is about as far north as North Dakota. More snow will fall, and the bright snow cover will reflect more of the sun's energy back into space, making life even chillier. Beyond that, the Gulf Stream is tied into other ocean currents, and shutting it down could rearrange things in a way that would cause less overall evaporation.
Worst of all, the experts believe, such changes could come on with astonishing speed — perhaps within a decade or less. And while we might have a great deal of trouble adjusting to a climate that gets 2°C warmer over the next century, an ice age by mid-century would be unimaginably devastating. The lingering uncertainty about whether our relentless production of greenhouse gases will keep heating our planet or ultimately cool it suggests that we should make a better effort to leave the earth's thermostat alone.
TEXT G
First read the following question.
33. What is the main theme of the following passage?
A. Strengths of paper books over E-books.
B. Projected extinction of paper books.
C. Market prospects of E-books.
D. The history of paper books.
Now go through TEXT G quickly to answer question 33.
Experts predict that the printed, paper and glue book will be rendered obsolete by electronic text delivery systems, of which one; the Microsoft Reader, is already on the market, offering "'books" on a pocket PC manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. This is not impossible; already much of the written communication that used to be handled by letters, newspapers and magazines has shifted to computer screens and to the vast digital library available over the Internet. If the worst comes true and the paper book joins the papyrus scroll and parchment codex in extinction, we will miss, I predict, a number of things about it.
The book as furniture. Shelved rows of books warm and brighten the starkest room. By bedside and easy chair, books promise a cozy, swift and silent release from this world into another. For ease of access and speed of storage, books are tough to beat.
The book as sensual pleasure. Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture, whether of cover cloth, glazed jacket or flexible paperback. The weight can rest on the little finger of the right hand for hours without strain, while the thumb holds the pages open and the fingers of the other hand turn them.
The rectangular block of type, a product of five and a half centuries of printers' lore, yields to decipherment so gently that one is scarcely aware of the difference immersing oneself in an imaginary world and scanning the furniture of one's own room.
The book as souvenir. One's collection comes to symbolize the contents of one's mind. Books read in childhood, in yearning adolescence, at college and in the first self-conscious years of adulthood travel along, often, with readers as they move from house to house. My mother's college texts sat untouched in a corner of our country bookcase.
The bulk of my own college books are still with me, rarely consulted but always there, reminders of moments, of stages, in a pilgrimage. The decades since add their own drifts and strata of volumes read or half read or intended to be read. Books preserve, daintily, the redolence of their first reading — this beach, that apartment, that summer afternoon, this flight to Indonesia.
Books as ballast. As movers and the moved both know, books are heavy freight, the weight of refrigerators and sofas broken up into cardboard boxes. They make us think twice about changing addresses. How many aging couples have decided to stay put because they can't imagine what to do with the books? How many divorces have been forestalled by love of the jointly acquired library?
Books hold our beams down. They act as counterweight to our fickle and flighty natures. In comparison, any electronic text delivery device would lack substance. Further, speaking of obsolescence, it would be outdated in a year and within 15 years as inoperable as my formerly treasured Wang word processor from the mid-80's. Electronic equals immaterial. Without books, we might melt into the airwaves, and be just another set of blips.
TEXT H
First read the following question.
34. The passage intends primarily to in some Asian cities.
A. explain how porters work
B. introduce top-end eateries
C. provide advice on tipping
D. describe how taxis are metered
Now go through TEXT H quickly to answer question 34.
It's difficult to determine what constitutes an appropriate tip in any country. In Japan, if you leave a couple of coins on the table, the waiter is liable to chase after you to return your forgotten change. In New York, on the other hand, if you leave less than 15%, your reservation might not hold up next time. Asia, with its multiplicity of cultures and customs, is a particularly difficult terrain. To make your next trip a little easier, here's a guide to tipping across the region:
HONG KONG
Tipping is de rigueur in this money-mad metropolis at all but the lowest establishments. Even bathrooms in posh hotels have little dishes for loose change.
Restaurants: Most places automatically add a 10% service charge to the bill, but the surcharge often ends up in the pocket of the owner, not the staff kitty. If the service is good, add another 10% to the bill, up to HK$100 if you're in an especially nice restaurant.
Porters: HK $10 should do it at all but the nicest hotels where a crisp HK $20 bill may be more acceptable.
Taxis: Round up to the nearest dollar, although many drivers will do this on their own when making change.
MANILA
Tipping is common in Manila, and anything above 10% will gain you undying loyalty.
Restaurants: Even if a service charge is included, custom dictates adding another 5%- 10% to the bill.
Porters: Service in top hotels is good and should be rewarded with 20 pesos per bag.
Taxis: Most cabs are metered, and rounding up to the next five pesos is a good rule of thumb.
SEOUL
Tipping is no part of Korean culture, although it has become a matter of course in international hotels where a 10% service charge is often added.
Restaurants: If you're at a Korean barbecue joint, there's no need to add anything extra. But a sleek Italian restaurant may require a 10% contribution.
Porters: If you're at a top-end hotel, international standards apply, so expect to give 500~l 000 won per bag.
Taxis: Drivers don't expect a tip, so unless you're feeling remarkably generous, keep the change for yourself.
SINGAPORE
According to government mandate in the Lion City, tipping is a no-no. It's basically outlawed at Changi Airport and officials encourage tourists not to add the 10% service charge that many high-end hotels add on to the bill.
Porters: Hotel staff are the one exception to the no-tipping rule. As a general guide, S$l should be adequate for baggage-lugging service.
Taxis: Drivers don't expect tipping, but they won't refuse if you want to round up the fare to the next Singaporean dollar.
TEXT I
First read the following questions.
35. If you want to see a performance by the Beijing Peking Opera Theatre, which phone number would you ring?
A. 6841—9283. B. 6848—5462.
C. 6301—6688. D. 6523—3320.
36. Supposing you have some free time after 7 p. m. on July 1st, which performance or exhibition can you go to?
A. Traditional Chinese music. B. Chinese modern operas.
C. Peking Opera. D. Lao Dao's recent paintings.
Now go through TEXT I quickly to answer questions 35 and 36.
WHAT'S ON CONCERTS
New concert hall: The movie theatre of the National Library of China has been turned into a concert hall after months of renovation.
The Guotu Concert Hall will open to the public for the first time on June 30. After the opening ceremony, the China National Song and Dance theatre will present highlights of Chinese modern operas from the past 50 years.
Programme: excerpts from Chinese modern operas including "The White-haired Girl", "Red Rocks" and more.
Time: 7:30 p.m. , June 30
Place: Guotu Concert Hall at the National Library of China
Tel: 6841-9283
Chinese music: The Traditional Band of China National Song and Dance Theatre will perform traditional Chinese music, under Liu Wenjin, composer and director of the theatre.
Programme: "Butterfly Lovers", "Moonlight Reflected on Number Two Spring", "The Night is Deep" and other traditional pieces.
Time: 7:30 p.m. , July 1—2
Place: Guotu Concert Hall at the National Library of China
Tel: 6848—5462
EXHIBITIONS
One-man show: Lao Dao is presenting his most recent paintings at the Wanfung Gallery.
Titled "Spanning the Space", the exhibition features about 30 works created from synthetic materials. The paintings are composed of mottled ancient doors with faded couplets pasted on them, leading the viewers into ancient stories hidden behind the door.
Time: 9 a.m.—5 p.m. until July 1st
Place: 136 Nanchizi Dajie, Dongcheng District
Tel: 6523—3320
Charm of ink: The Huangshicheng Gallery is hosting a solo show of ink-and-colour paintings by veteran calligrapher and painter Qin Tang. More than just visually appealing, Qin's work impresses the viewer with its vividness and simplicity.
Time: 9 a.m.—5 p.m. until 5th
Place: Nanchizi Dajie, Dongcheng District
Tel: 6528-9103
STAGE
Peking Opera: The Liyuan Theatre presents traditional Peking Opera excerpts in short programmes for foreign audiences and in original styles. With an explanation in English, the performances are from the Beijing Opera Theater.
Time: 7:30 p.m. July 3—5
Place: Liyuan Theater, Qianmen Jianguo Hotel, Xuanwu District
Tel: 6301—6688
