3月上海高级口译考试真题及答案(阅读)

3月上海高级口译考试真题及答案（阅读）

上半场阅读理解第一篇：

本文选择《经济学人》杂志2013年9月23日。译文来自网络。

原文链接：een-thirties, when companies were first required to reveal those figures. More recently, rules have made companies detail the size and the structure of compensation packages and have enforced transparency about the kinds of comparisons they rely on to determine salaries. The business press, meanwhile, now rigorously tracks executive pay. The result is that shareholders today know far more about C.E.O. compensation than ever before. There’s only one problem: even as companies are disclosing more and more, executive pay keeps going up and up.

这一段开头黑体部分为我们提示了一个关键字：disclosure. 由此可以看出本文的话题是从收入差距说开去，转向CEO的收入披露机制。

This isn’t a coincidence: the drive for transparency has actually helped fuel the spiralling salaries. For one thing, it gives executives a good idea of how much they can get away with asking for. A more crucial reason, though, has to do with the way boards of directors set salaries. As the corporate-governance experts Charles Elson and Craig Ferrere write in a recent paper, boards at most companies use what’s called “peer benchmarking.” They look at the C.E.O. salaries at peer-group firms, and then peg their C.E.O.’s pay to the fiftieth, seventy-fifth, or ninetieth percentile of the peer group—never lower. This leads to the so-called Lake Wobegon effect: every C.E.O. gets treated as above average. With all the other companies following the same process, salaries ratchet inexorably higher. “Relying on peer-group comparisons, the way boards do, mathematically guarantees that pay is going to go up,” Elson told me.

本段讲到越是披露高管们的收入，他们就越能要求更高的收入。

On top of this, peer-group comparisons aren’t always honest: boards can be too cozy with C.E.O.s and may tweak the comparisons to justify overpaying. A recent study by the labor economist Ron Laschever shows that boards tend to include as peers companies that are bigger than they are and that pay their C.E.O.s more. The system is also skewed by so-called “leapfroggers,” the few C.E.O.s in a given year who, whether by innate brilliance or by dumb luck, end up earning astronomical salaries. Those big paydays reset the baseline expectations for everyone else.

段首句是主题句：高管们可能还会想方设法隐瞒自己高增长的收入。

This isn’t just an American problem. Elson notes that, when Canada toughened its disclosure requirements, executive salaries there rose sharply, and German studies have found something similar. Nor is it primarily a case of boards being helplessly in thrall to a company’s executives. Boards are far more independent of management than they used to be, and it’s notable that a C.E.O. hired from outside a company—who therefore has no influence over the board—typically gets twenty to twenty-five per cent more than an inside candidate. The real issues are subtler, though no less insidious. Some boards, in the face of much evidence to the contrary, remain convinced of what Elson calls “superstar theory”: they th ink that C.E.O.s can work their magic anywhere, and must be overpaid to stay. In addition, Elson said, “if you pay below average, it makes it look as if you’d hired a below-average C.E.O., and what board wants that?”

这个问题并不局限于美国，而是国际化的。

Transparent pricing has perverse effects in other fields. In a host of recent cases, public disclosure of the prices that hospitals charge for various procedures has ended up driving prices up rather than down. And the psychological causes in both situations

seem similar. We tend to be uneasy about bargaining in situations where the stakes are very high: do you want the guy doing your neurosurgery, or running your company, to be offering discounts? Better, in the event that something goes wrong, to be able to tell yourself that you spent all you could. And overspending is always easier when you’re spending someone else’s money. Corporate board members are disbursing shareholder funds; most patients have insurance to foot the bill.

收入披露在其他领域中也会引起一系列不良反应。

Sunlight is supposed to be the best disinfectant. But there’s something na瘀攀about the new S.E.C. rule, which presumes that full disclosure will embarrass companies enough to restrain executive pay. As Elson told me, “People who can ask to be paid a hundred million dollars are beyond embarrassment.” More important, as long as the system for setting pay is broken, more disclosure makes things worse instead of better. We don’t need more information. We need boards of directors to step up and set pay themselves, instead of outsourcing the job to their peers. The rest of us don’t get to live in Lake Wobegon. C.E.O.s shouldn’t, either.

本文得出的结论是，SEC的规则的潜台词是，完全披露收入将会是各大公司不愿提高高管的薪水。

上半场阅读理解第三篇：

本文讲述全球人口增长问题。文章第一段提出了Sir David Attenborough 的悲观看法：100年后的世界会出现各种问题，所以我们今天的人类一定要做好准备，尽力逆转。第二段用数字列举了人口增长的趋势。第三、四两段讨论了解决人口增长问题的conventioanal wisdom. 第五段提出非洲的新生儿死亡率大幅增加。第六段中，作者根据以上内容提出，世界人口停止增长的日期应该早于2070年。而且无论如何，读者无需为人口增长过快担忧。第七段分析了耕地和动物分布状

况，同样得出了无需杞人忧天的结论。最后一段赞扬了非洲的进步会为人类生存环境的改善加分。

题目解析：

第一题问作者为什么要提出Sir David Attenborough 的悲观看法。

第二题围绕birth control 的种种细节。

第三题要求考生解释词汇：as night follows day的意思。

第四题是新问法：四个说法中哪一个与另外三个不同?相当于NOT TRUE 体型。

第五题主旨题

上半场阅读理解第四篇：

本文开头便指出Help to buy 政策等同于help to vote，由此可知，该篇文章属于政治类。本文主人公George Osborne 提出一项help to buy 政策，而本段接下来便说IMF和其他经济观察组织指出这项政策十分疯狂。第二、三段中，作者为Osborne进行辩护，这项政策开始时的确发挥了积极的作用。而且他们的团队的确积极推行。第四段说英国财政部也积极配合，使得这个项目与房地美和房利美有本质不同。第五段话锋一转，说这个项目很好的证明了英国金融房地产政策的鲁莽政策。并从几个角度进行了具体分析。第六段说英国二三十岁的年轻人就开始希望拥有房产，而其他几个国家则普遍到四十岁以后考虑买房子，并用数据支持。第七段引用经济学家的观点说，国家补贴购房的政策不仅为通货膨胀的虚高的房价推波助澜，而且还会影响到真正需要住房的人。第八段说，新增住房的增加只会对目前awesome 的房地产存量雪上加霜。

题目解析：

第一题请考生解释help to vote 的意思。

第二题是词汇理解，问第二段的talisman 的意思。