江浙沪招生考试网

Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as “steering the economy to a soft landing” or “a touch on the brakes,” makes it sound like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth. The link between interest rates and inflation is uncertain. And there are long, variable lags before policy changes have any effect on the economy. Hence the analogy that likens the conduct of monetary policy to driving a car with a blackened windscreen, a cracked rear view mirror and a faulty steering wheel.

Given all these disadvantages, central bankers seem to have had much to boast about of late. Average inflation in the big seven industrial economies fell to a mere 2.3% last year, close to its lowest level in 30 years, before rising slightly to 2.5% this July. This is a long way below the double-digit rates which many countries experienced in the 1970s and early 1980s.

It is also less than most forecasters had predicated. In late 1994 the panel of economists which The Economist polls each month said that America’s inflation rate would average 3.5% in 1995. In fact, it fell to 2.6% in August, and expected to average only about 3% for the year as a whole. In Britain and Japan inflation is running half a percentage point below the rate predicted at the end of last year. This is no flash in the pan; over the past couple of years, inflation has been consistently lower than expected in Britain and America.

Economists have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America’s, have little productive slack. America’s capacity utilization, for example, hit historically high levels earlier this year, and its jobless rate (5.6% in August) has fallen bellow most estimates of the natural rate of unemployment -- the rate below which inflation has taken off in the past.

Why has inflation proved so mild? The most thrilling explanation is, unfortunately, a little defective. Some economists argue that powerful structural changes in the world have up-ended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation.

67.   From the passage we learn that ________.

[A] there is a definite relationship between inflation and interest rates

[B] economy will always follow certain models

[C] the economic situation is better than expected

[D] economists had foreseen the present economic situation

68.   According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?

[A] Making monetary policies is comparable to driving a car

[B] An extremely low jobless rate will lead to inflation

[C] A high unemployment rate will result from inflation

[D] Interest rates have an immediate effect on the economy

69.   The sentence “This is no flash in the pan” (Line 5, Paragraph 3) means that ________.

[A] the low inflation rate will last for some time

[B] the inflation rate will soon rise

[C] the inflation will disappear quickly

[D] there is no inflation at present

70.   The passage shows that the author is ________ the present situation.

[A] critical of

[B] puzzled by

[C] disappointed at

[D] amazed at

Section IV: English-Chinese Translation

Directions:

Read the following passage carefully and then translate the underlined sentences into Chinese. Your translation must be written clearly on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)

Do animals have rights? This is how the question is usually put. It sounds like a useful, ground-clearing way to start. 71) Actually, it isn’t, because it assumes that there is an agreed account of human rights, which is something the world does not have.

On one view of rights, to be sure, it necessarily follows that animals have none. 72) Some philosophers argue that rights exist only within a social contract, as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements. Therefore, animals cannot have rights. The idea of punishing a tiger that kills somebody is absurd, for exactly the same reason, so is the idea that tigers have rights. However, this is only one account, and by no means an uncontested one. It denies rights not only to animals but also to some people -- for instance to infants, the mentally incapable and future generations. In addition, it is unclear what force a contract can have for people who never consented to it, how do you reply to somebody who says “I don’t like this contract”?

The point is this: without agreement on the rights of people, arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. 73) It leads the discussion to extremes at the outset: it invites you to think that animals should be treated either with the consideration humans extend to other humans, or with no consideration at all. This is a false choice. Better to start with another, more fundamental, question: is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all?

Many deny it. 74) Arguing from the view that humans are different from animals in every relevant respect, extremists of this kind think that animals lie outside the area of moral choice. Any regard for the suffering of animals is seen as a mistake -- a sentimental displacement of feeling that should properly be directed to other humans.

This view which holds that torturing a monkey is morally equivalent to chopping wood, may seem bravely “logical.” In fact it is simply shallow: the confused center is right to reject it. The most elementary form of moral reasoning -- the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl -- is to weigh others’ interests against one’s own. This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: without which there is no capacity for moral thought. To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. 75) When that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankind’s instinct for moral reasoning in action, an instinct that should be encouraged rather than laughed at.

71.   ________

72.   ________

73.   ________

74.   ________

75.

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