Part I Writing (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on Einstein's remark "I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious." You should give an example or two to illustrate your point of mew. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.
Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
1. A) Prepare for his exams. B) Catch up on his work.
C) Attend the concert. D) Go on a vacation.
2. A) Three crew members were involved in the incident.
B) None of the hijackers carried any deadly weapons.
C) The plane had been scheduled to fly to Japan.
D) None of the passengers were injured or killed.
3. A) An article about the election. B) A tedious job to be done.
C) An election campaign. D) A fascinating topic.
4. A) The restaurant was not up to the speakers' expectations.
B) The restaurant places many ads in popular magazines.
C) The critic thought highly of the Chinese restaurant.
D) Chinatown has got the best restaurants in the city.
5. A) He is going to visit his mother in the hospital.
B) He is going to take on a new job next week.
C) He has many things to deal with right now.
D) He behaves in a way nobody understands.
6. A) A large number of students refused to vote last night.
B) At least twenty students are needed to vote on an issue.
C) Major campus issues had to be discussed at the meeting.
D) More students have to appear to make their voice heard.
7. A) The woman can hardly tell what she likes.
B) The speakers like watching TV very much.
C) The speakers have nothing to do but watch TV.
D) The man seldom watched TV before retirement.
8. A) The woman should have retired earlier.
B) He will help the woman solve the problem.
C) He finds it hard to agree with what the woman says.
D) The woman will be able to attend the classes she wants.
Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
9. A) Persuade the man to join her company.
B) Employ the most up-to-date technology.
C) Export bikes to foreign markets.
D) Expand their domestic business.
10. A) The state subsidizes small and medium enterprises.
B) The government has control over bicycle imports.
C) They can compete with the best domestic manufactures.
D) They have a cost advantage and can charge higher prices.
11. A) Extra costs might eat up their profits abroad.
B) More workers will be needed to do packaging.
C) They might lose to foreign bike manufacturers.
D) It is very difficult to find suitable local agents.
12. A) Report to the management.
B) Attract foreign investments.
C) Conduct a feasibility study.
D) Consult financial experts.
Questions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
13. A) Coal burnt daily for the comfort of our homes.
B) Anything that can be used to produce power.
C) Fuel refined from oil extracted from underground.
D) Electricity that keeps all kinds of machines running.
14. A) Oil will soon be replaced by alternative energy resources.
B) Oil reserves in the world will be exhausted in a decade.
C) Oil consumption has given rise to many global problems.
D) Oil production will begin to decline worldwide by 2025.
15. A) Minimize the use of fossil fuel. B) Start developing alternative fuels.
C) Find the real cause for global warming. D) Take steps to reduce the greenhouse effect.
Section B
Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
Passage One
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16. A) The ability to predict fashion trends. B) A refined taste for artistic works.
C) Years of practical experience. D) Strict professional training.
17. A) Promoting all kinds of American hand-made specialties.
B) Strengthening cooperation with foreign governments.
C) Conducting trade in art works with dealers overseas.
D) Purchasing handicrafts from all over the world.
18. A) She has access to fashionable things. B) She is doing what she enjoys doing.
C) She can enjoy life on a modest salary. D) She is free to do whatever she wants.
Passage Two
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.
19. A) Join in neighborhood patrols.
B) Get involved in his community.
C) Voice his complaints to the city council.
D) Make suggestions to the local authorities.
20. A) Deterioration in the quality of life.
B) Increase of police patrols at night.
C) Renovation of the vacant buildings.
D) Violation of community regulations.
21. A) They may take a long time to solve.
B) They need assistance from the city.
C) They have to be dealt with one by one.
D) They are too big for individual efforts.
22. A) He had got some groceries at a big discount.
B) He had read a funny poster near his seat.
C) He had done a small deed of kindness.
D) He had caught the bus just in time.
Passage Three
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
23. A) Childhood and family growth. B) Pressure and disease.
C) Family life and health. D) Stress and depression.
24. A) It experienced a series of misfortunes.
B) It was in the process of reorganization.
C) His mother died of a sudden heart attack.
D) His wife left him because of his bad temper.
25. A) They would give him a triple bypass surgery.
B) They could remove the block in his artery.
C) They could do nothing to help him.
D) They would try hard to save his life.
Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
When most people think of the word "education", they think of a pupil as a sort of animate sausage casing. Into this empty casting, the teachers (26)____ stuff "education".
But genuine education, as Socrates knew more than two thousand years ago, is not (27) ____ the stuffing of information into a person, but rather eliciting knowledge from him; it is the (28) ____ of what is in the mind.
"The most important part of education'" once wrote William Ernest Hocking, the (29) ____ Harvard philosopher, "is this instruction of a man in what he has inside of him."
And, as Edith Hamilton has reminded us, Socrates never said, "I know, learn from me" He said, rather, "Look into your own selves and find the (30) ____ of truth that God has put into every heart, and that only you can kindle（点淋）to a (31) ____."
In a dialogue, Socrates takes an ignorant slave boy, without a day of (32) ____, and proves to the amazed observers that the boy really "knows" geometry—because the principles of geometry are already in his mind, waiting to be called out.
So many of the discussions and (33) ____ about the content of education are useless and inconclusive because they (34) ____ what should "go into" the student rather than with what should be taken out, and how this can best be done.
The college student who once said to me, after a lecture, "I spend so much time studying that I don't have a chance to learn anything," was clearly expressing his (35) ____ with the sausage casing view of education.
Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.
Travel websites have been around since the 1990s, when Expedia, Travelocity, and other holiday booking sites were launched, allowing travelers to compare flight and hotel prices with the click of a mouse. With information no longer 36____ by travel agents or hidden in business networks, the travel industry was revolutionized, as greater transparency helped 37____ prices.
Today, the industry is going through a new revolution—this time transforming service quality. Online rating platforms—38____ in hotels, restaurants, apartments, and taxis—allow travelers to exchange reviews and experiences for all to see.
Hospitality businesses are now ranked, analyzed, and compared not by industry 39____, but by the very people for whom the service is intended—the customer. This has 40____ a new relationship between buyer and seller. Customers have always voted with their feet; they can now explain their decision to anyone who is interested. As a result, businesses are much more 41____, often in very specific ways, which creates powerful 42____ to improve service.
Although some readers might not care for gossipy reports of unfriendly bellboys（行李员）in Berlin or malf-unctioning hotel hairdryers in Houston, the true power of online reviews lies not just in the individual stories, but in the websites' 43____ to aggregate a large volume of ratings.
The impact cannot be 44____. Businesses that attract top ratings can enjoy rapid growth, as new customers are attracted by good reviews and 45____ provide yet more positive feedback. So great is the influence of online ratings that many companies now hire digital reputation managers to ensure a favorable online identity.
注意：此部分此题请在答题卡2上作答。
A) accountable
B) capacity
C) controlled
D) entail
E) forged
F) incentives
G) occasionally
H) overstated
I) persisting
J) pessimistic
K) professionals
L) slash
M) specializing
N) spectators
O) subsequently
Section B
Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
Plastic Surgery
A better credit card is the solution to ever larger hack attacks
[A] A thin magnetic stripe (magstripe) is all that stands between your credit-card information and the bad guys. And they've been working hard to break in. That's why 2014 is shaping up as a major showdown: banks, law enforcement and technology companies are all trying to stop a network of hackers who are succeeding in stealing account numbers, names, email addresses and other crucial data used in identity theft. More than 100 million accounts at Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels stores were affected in some way during the most recent attacks, starting last November.
[B] Swipe（刷卡）is the operative word: cards are increasingly vulnerable to attacks when you make purchases in a store. In several recent incidents, hackers have been able to obtain massive information of credit-, debit-（借记）or prepaid-card numbers using malware, i.e. malicious software, inserted secretly into the retailers' point-of-sale system—the checkout registers. Hackers then sold the data to a second group of criminals operating in shadowy comers of the web. Not long after, the stolen data was showing up on fake cards and being used for online purchases.
[C] The solution could cost as little as $2 extra for every piece of plastic issued. The fix is a security technology used heavily outside the U.S. While American credit cards use the 40-year-old magstripe technology to process transactions, much of the rest of the world uses smarter cards with a technology called EMV (short for Europay, MasterCard, Visa) that employs a chip embedded in the card plus a customer PIN (personal identification number) to authenticate（验证）every transaction on the spot. If a purchaser fails to punch in the correct PIN at the checkout, the transaction gets rejected. (Online purchases can be made by setting up a separate transaction code.)
[D] Why haven't big banks adopted the more secure technology? When it comes to mailing out new credit cards, it's all about relative costs, says David Robertson, who runs the Nihon Report, an industry newsletter: "The cost of the card, putting the sticker on it, coding the account number and expiration date, embossing（凸印）it, the small envelop—all put together, you are in the dollar range." A chip-and-PIN card currently costs closer to $3, says Robertson, because of the price of chips. (Once large issuers convert together, the chip costs should drop.)
[E] Multiply $3 by the more than 5 billion magstripe credit and prepaid cards in circulation in the U.S. Then consider that there's an estimated $12.4 billion in card fraud on a global basis' says Robertson. With 44% of that in the U.S., American credit-card fraud amounts to about $5.5 billion annually. Card issuers have so far calculated that absorbing the liability for even big hacks like the Target one is still cheaper than replacing all that plastic.
[F] That leaves American retailers pretty much alone the world over in relying on magstripe technology to charge purchases—and leaves consumers vulnerable. Each magstripe has three tracks of information, explains payments security expert Jeremy Gumbley, the chief technology officer of CreditCall, an electronic-payments company. The first and third are used by the bank or card issuer. Your vital account information lives on the second track, which hackers try to capture. "Malware is scanning through the memory in real time and looking for data," he says. "It creates a text file that gets stolen."
[G] Chip-and-PIN cards, by contrast, make fake cards or skimming impossible because the information that gets scanned is encrypted（加密）. The historical reason the U.S. has stuck with magstripe, ironically enough, is once superior technology. Our cheap, ultra-reliable wired networks made credit-card authentication over the phone frictionless. In France, card companies created EMV in part because the telephone monopoly was so maddeningly inefficient and expensive. The EMV solution allowed transactions to be verified locally and securely.
[H] Some big banks, like Wells Fargo, are now offering to convert your magstripe card to a chip-and-PIN model. (It's actually a hybrid（混合体）that will still have a magstripe, since most U.S. merchants don't have EMV terminals.) Should you take them up on it? If you travel internationally, the answer is yes.
[I] Keep in mind, too, that credit cards typically have better liability protection than debit cards. If someone uses your credit card fraudulently（欺诈性地）it's the issuer or merchant, not you, that takes the hit. Debit cards have different liability limits depending on the bank and the events surrounding any fraud. "If it's available, the logical thing is to get a chip-and-PIN card from your bank," says Eric Adamowsky, a co-founder of CreditCardInsider.com. "I would use credit cards over debit cards because of liability issues." Cash still works pretty well too.
[J] Retailers and banks stand to benefit from the lower fraud levels of chip-and-PIN cards but have been reluctant for years to invest in the new infrastructure（基础设施）needed for the technology, especially if consumers don't have access to it. It's a chicken-and-egg problem; no one wants to spend the money on upgraded point- of-sale systems that can read the chip cards if shoppers aren't carrying them一yet there's little point in consumers' carrying the fancy plastic if stores aren't equipped to use them. (An earlier effort by Target to move to chip and PIN never gained progress.) According to Gumbley, there's a "you-first mentality. The logjam（僵局）has to be broken."
[K] JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently expressed his willingness to do so, noting that banks and merchants have spent the past decade suing each other over interchange fees—the percentage of the transaction price they keep-rather than deal with the growing hacking problem. Chase offers a chip-enabled card under its own brand and several others for travel-related companies such as British Airways and Ritz-Carlton.
[L] The Target and Neiman hacks have also changed the cost calculation: although retailers have been reluctant to spend the $6.75 billion that Capgemini consultants estimate it will take to convert all their registers to be chip-and-PIN-compatible, the potential liability they now face is dramatically greater. Target has been hit with class actions from hacked consumers. "It's the ultimate nightmare," a retail executive from a well-known chain admitted to TIME.
[M] The card-payment companies MasterCard and Visa are pushing hard for change. The two firms have warned all parties in the transaction chain一merchant, network, bank一that if they don't become EMV-compliant by October 2015, the party that is least compliant will bear the fraud risk.
[N] In the meantime, app-equipped smartphones and digital wallets—all of which can use EMV technology—are beginning to make inroads（侵袭）on cards and cash. PayPal, for instance, is testing an app that lets you use your mobile phone to pay on the fly at local merchants—without surrendering any card information to them. And further down the road is biometric authentication, which could be encrypted with, say, a fingerprint.
[O] Credit and debit cards, though, are going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and so are hackers, if we stick with magstripe technology. "It seems crazy to me," says Gumbley, who is English, "that a cutting-edge- technology country is depending on a 40-year-old technology." That's why it may be up to consumers to move the needle on chip and PIN. Says Robertson: ‘‘When you get the consumer into a position of worry and inconvenience, that's where the rubber hits the road."
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
46. It's best to use an EMV card for international travel.
47. Personal information on credit and debit cards is increasingly vulnerable to hacking.
48. The French card companies adopted EMV technology partly because of inefficient telephone service.
49. While many countries use the smarter EMV cards, the U.S. still clings to its old magstripe technology.
50. Attempts are being made to prevent hackers from carrying out identity theft.
51. Credit cards are much safer to use than debit cards.
52. Big banks have been reluctant to switch to more secure technology because of the higher costs involved.
53. The potential liability for retailers using magstripe is far more costly than upgrading their registers.
54. The use of magstripe cards by American retailers leaves consumers exposed to the risks of losing account information.
55. Consumers will be a driving force behind the conversion from magstripe to EMV technology.
Section C
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
I'll admit I've never quite understood the obsession（难以破除的成见）surrounding genetically modified (GM) crops. To environmentalist opponents, GM foods are simply evil, an understudied, possibly harmful tool used by big agricultural businesses to control global seed markets and crush local farmers. They argue that GM foods have never delivered on their supposed promise, that money spent on GM crops would be better channeled to organic farming and that consumers should be protected with warning labels on any products that contain genetically modified ingredients. To supporters, GM crops are a key part of the effort to sustainably provide food to meet a growing global population. But more than that, supporters see the GM opposition of many environmentalists as fundamentally anti-science, no different than those who question the basics of man-made climate change.
For both sides, GM foods seem to act as a symbol: you're pro-agricultural business or anti-science. But science is exactly what we need more of when it comes to GM foods, which is why I was happy to see Nature devote a special series of articles to the GM food controversy. The conclusion: while GM crops haven't yet realized their initial promise and have been dominated by agricultural businesses, there is reason to continue to use and develop them to help meet the enormous challenge of sustainably feeding a growing planet.
That doesn't mean GM crops are perfect, or a one-size-fits-all solution to global agriculture problems. But anything that can increase farming efficiency一the amount of crops we can produce per acre of land一will be extremely useful. GM crops can and almost certainly will be part of that suite of tools' but so will traditional plant breeding, improved soil and crop management一and perhaps most important of all, better storage and transport infrastructure（基础设施）, especially in the developing world. (It doesn't do much good for farmers in places like sub-Saharan Africa to produce more food if they can't get it to hungry consumers.) I'd like to see more non-industry research done on GM crops—not just because we'd worry less about bias, but also because seed companies like Monsanto and Pioneer shouldn't be the only entities working to harness genetic modification. I'd like to see GM research on less commercial crops, like com. I don't think it's vital to label GM ingredients in food, but I also wouldn't be against it一and industry would be smart to go along with labeling, just as a way of removing fears about the technology.
Most of all, though, I wish a tenth of the energy that's spent endlessly debating GM crops was focused on those more pressing challenges for global agriculture. There are much bigger battles to fight.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
56. How do environmentalist opponents view GM foods according to the passage?
A) They will eventually ruin agriculture and the environment.
B) They are used by big businesses to monopolize agriculture.
C) They have proved potentially harmful to consumers' health.
D) They pose a tremendous threat to current farming practice.
57. What does the author say is vital to solving the controversy between the two sides of the debate?
A) Breaking the GM food monopoly. B) More friendly exchange of ideas.
C) Regulating GM food production. D) More scientific research on GM crops.
58. What is the main point of the Nature articles?
A) Feeding the growing population makes it imperative to develop GM crops.
B) Popularizing GM technology will help it to live up to its initial promises.
C) Measures should be taken to ensure the safety of GM foods.
D) Both supporters and opponents should make compromises.
59. What is the author's view on the solution to agricultural problems?
A) It has to depend more and more on GM technology.
B) It is vital to the sustainable development of human society.
C) GM crops should be allowed until better alternatives are found.
D) Whatever is useful to boost farming efficiency should be encouraged.
60. What does the author think of the ongoing debate around GM crops?
A) It arises out of ignorance of and prejudice against new science.
B) It distracts the public attention from other key issues of the world.
C) Efforts spent on it should be turned to more urgent issues of agriculture.
D) Neither side is likely to give in until more convincing evidence is found.
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
When the right person is holding the right job at the right moment, that person's influence is greatly expanded. That is the position in which Janet Yellen, who is expected to be confirmed as the next chair of the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) in January, now finds herself. If you believe, as many do, that unemployment is the major economic and social concern of our day, then it is no stretch to think Yellen is the most powerful person in the world right now.
Throughout the 2008 financial crisis and the recession and recovery that followed, central banks have taken on the role of stimulators of last resort, holding up the global economy with vast amounts of money in the form of asset buying. Yellen, previously a Fed vice chair, was one of the principal architects of the Fed's $3.8 trillion money dump. A star economist known for her groundbreaking work on labor markets, Yeilen was a kind of prophetess early on in the crisis for her warnings about the subprime（次级债）meltdown. Now it will be her job to get the Fed and the markets out of the biggest and most unconventional monetary program in history without derailing the fragile recovery.
The good news is that Yellen, 67, is particularly well suited to meet these challenges. She has a keen understanding of financial markets, an appreciation for their imperfections and a strong belief that human suffering was more related to unemployment than anything else.
Some experts worry that Yellen will be inclined to chase unemployment to the neglect of inflation. But with wages still relatively flat and the economy increasingly divided between the well-off and the long-term unemployed' more people worry about the opposite, deflation（通货紧缩）that would aggravate the economy's problems.
Either way, the incoming Fed chief will have to walk a fine line in slowly ending the stimulus. It must be steady enough to deflate bubbles（去泡沫）and bring markets back down to earth but not so quick that it creates another credit crisis.
Unlike many past Fed leaders, Yellen is not one to buy into the finance industry's argument that it should be left alone to regulate itself. She knows all along the Fed has been too slack on regulation of finance.
Yellen is likely to address right after she pushes unemployment below 6%, stabilizes markets and makes sure that the recovery is more inclusive and robust. As Princeton Professor Alan Blinder says' "She's smart as a whip, deeply logical, willing to argue but also a good listener. She can persuade without creating hostility." AH those traits will be useful as the global economy's new power player takes on its most annoying problems.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
61. What do many people think is the biggest problem facing Janet Yellen?
A) Lack of money. B) Subprime crisis. C) Unemployment. D) Social instability.
62. What did Yellen help the Fed do to tackle the 2008 financial crisis?
A) Take effective measures to curb inflation.
B) Deflate the bubbles in the American economy.
C) Formulate policies to help financial institutions.
D) Pour money into the market through asset buying.
63. What is a greater concern of the general public?
A) Recession. B) Deflation. C) Inequality. D) Income.
64. What is Yellen likely to do in her position as the Fed chief?
A) Develop a new monetary program. B) Restore public confidence.
C) Tighten financial regulation. D) Reform the credit system.
65. How does Alan Blinder portray Yellen?
A) She possesses strong persuasive power.
B) She has confidence in what she is doing.
C) She is one of the world's greatest economists.
D) She is the most powerful Fed chief in history.
Part VI Translation (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.
2011年是中国城市化(urbanization)进程中的历史性时刻，其城市人口首次超过农村人口。在未来20年里，预计约有3.5亿农村人口将移居到城市。如此规模的城市发展对城市交通来说既是挑战，也是机遇。中国政府一直提倡“以人为本”的发展理念。强调人们以公交而不是私家车出行。它还号召建设“资源节约和环境友好型”社会。有了这个明确的目标，中国城市就可以更好地规划其发展，并把大量投资转向安全、清洁和经济型交通系统的发展上。