THE
NATURE OF CULTURE
Human beings are
unique among all the creatures of the animal kingdom in their capacity to
create and sustain culture. Each society of men possesses its own distinctive
culture, so that the members of one society behave differently in some
significant respects from the members of every other society. We observe, for
instance, that the Andaman Islander from the Indian Ocean weeps with ceremonial
copiousness when he greets a friend or relative after a long absence; a Frenchman
kisses his comrade on both cheeks; while we content ourselves with seizing his
right hand to agitate it with a pumping motion.
The situation
is the same in each of these instances, as is the social function of the
behavior; namely, to emphasize and reconstitute the special bond that exists
between the two persons. But the cultures of the Andaman Islander, Frenchman,
and American call for and produce different modes of action.
This is but a
single instance of a culture pattern. However, culture is more than a
collection of mere isolated bits of behavior. It is the integrated sum total of
learned behavior traits which are manifest and shared by the members of a
society.
The factor of
learned behavior is of crucial importance. It is essential to the concept of
culture that instincts, innate reflexes, and any other biologically inherited
forms of behavior be ruled out. Culture is, therefore, wholly the result of
social invention, and it may be thought of as social heritage for it is
transmitted by precept to each new generation. What is more, its continuity is
safeguarded by punishment of those members of a society who refuse to follow
the patterns for behavior that are laid down for them in the culture.
Social life as
such and cultural processes must not be confused. Many animals in addition to
man experience social life and even possess social organization. The complex
structure of ant society reveals an intriguing division of labor among queen,
workers, fighters, and drones. The ingenious exploitation of captive aphides as
food resources by some species of ants adds an auxiliary population to their
social organization. Yet for all its complexity the social organization of ant
society rests not in culture but upon instinct. There is no transmission, so
far as we can tell, of behavior through learning. A set of ant eggs, properly incubated without
the presence of any adult ants, will produce a host of ants, who on maturity
will re-enact in every detail all of the behavior of the myriad generations of
the species before them.
Would the same
occur if a collection of human babies were cut off from all adult supervision,
care, and training? Assuming that they could survive, which they could not, we
would not expect them to manifest any of the special traits of behavior that
characterized their parents. They would be devoid of language, complicated
tools, utensils, fire, arts, religion, government, and all the other features
of life that distinguish man among the animals. They would eat and drink, and
they would mate as adults, and they would presumably find themselves shelter,
for these would be direct responses to basic biological drives. Their behavior
would be instinctive and, in large measure, random. But what they would eat and
how they would eat would not be according to the specialized tastes and palates
of men as we know them now. Nor would their mating conform to the limiting and
channeling rules that give to each human society its present sexual
characteristics. Left solely to their own instinctive devices, the children of
men would appear as undeveloped brutes, although it is probable that they would
soon standardize this behavior as they learned from each other what one or
another had discovered. A rudimentary culture would soon take shape. The
specific responses to the generalized drives of instinct would quickly become
the specific patterns of culture.
The human
capacity for culture is a consequence of man's complex and plastic nervous
system. It enables man to make adjustments in behavior without going through a
biological modification of his organism. As of this moment it is the end
product of the whole process of inorganic and organic evolution which has moved
in the direction of increasing complexity of the organism, including the
nervous system. Only in man has the
nervous system reached the stage of complexity and adaptability to make
possible the creation and sustenance of culture through complex ratiocination,
possession of a protracted span of
memory for details, and the use of verbal symbols: language.
It would be an
error born of self-adulation were we to think that no traces of the
culture-creating capacity occur below the level of man. Our near relatives in
the primate family are capable of inventing new forms of behavior in the
solution of some of the simpler problems that are posed to them by experimental
animal psychologists. They apparently can also reason on very elementary levels. The famous experiments of
Wolfgang Kohler first demonstrated the ingenuity and intelligence of
chimpanzees in joining sticks, piling boxes, and undoing locks in order to gain
their goals -usually bananas. Further,
it is now thoroughly established that chimpanzees can and do learn from each
other the new discoveries and inventions of one of their numbers. The transmission of the discovery spreads by
imitation. A new and learned pattern of behavior is temporarily shared by the
society of chimpanzees. It is an element of nascent culture.
(907 words)
By E. Adamson
Hoebel
風邪をひいて頭がふらふらしている状態で読んだためか，久しぶりにいらいらする英文を読みました。かなり古い英文だと考えられます。１文，１文が長く，もっと平易に簡単に言えることをぐちゃぐちゃ書いてあって，典型的な国立２次の英文。要は「文化は人間特有のものであり。文化は遺伝で伝えられるものではない。社会的な学習によって伝えられるのだ」と言っているに過ぎないのに，英文をこねくり返していてかなり腹が立ちました。
Two Consultations
When I was 14
years old, my mother took me to see a doctor about some skin lesions on my face
and neck. The doctor was reputed to be one of the best in town. At his clinic,
we paid the consultation fee and waited in a queue, with about 10 before us
waiting to see him. After about 20 minutes, somebody called out my name and
asked us to enter the doctor's room. During the check-up, I explained all my
problems to him. He examined my lesions through a magnifying glass, quickly
wrote down a prescription, and, handing it to us, asked us to come for a
follow-up after a week. It hardly took a minute for him to see us off.
I had not
expected such a short consultation and felt he hadn't given me enough time to
explain about my problems and treatment in detail. Though he gave me a
prescription, he failed to give me any assurances or encouragement. I know my
mother felt the same, though neither of us spoke a word on our way back home. I
used the drugs that he had prescribed, and they cured my problem. But I never
went back to see him again.
About a year
ago, I accompanied my sick mother to another doctor for a very different
consultation. Firstly, my mother explained all her problems in detail. The
doctor listened carefully, and, after thoroughly examining her, he told us all
about the disease she had and the treatment he was going to give. Finally, he
asked her if she understood everything. My mother nodded happily. I could see
from her face how happy and relieved she felt after this consultation.
Now, I am in my
final year at medical school. Looking back at those two consultations, I think
they epitomize bad and good doctor-patient relationships. I see many patients
daily; as a student, I can't give them anything but assurances, encouragement,
hope, and my time to listen to their grievances. I know it helps them. I also
see my teachers examining patients: some patients return happily after their
check-ups, whereas some look dissatisfied when they feel that the doctor hasn't
given them enough time to explain all about their illness and treatment. This
reinforces my belief that the best management strategy for a patient can be
made even stronger when laid on a strong foundation of a good doctor-patient
relationship. (404 words)
(Adapted from a
letter contributed to the British Medical Journal 2005)
一転してこちらは平易な英文。１００字要約の必要も内容で，８０字ぐらいで要約できました。
【３月２８日】
Ⅴ
Nearly 2.7
meters long and as big as a grizzly bear, a huge catfish caught in northern
Thailand may be the largest freshwater fish ever recorded.
A team of
fishermen struggled for more than an hour to haul the creature in. It tipped the
scales at 293 kilograms. Despite efforts to keep the Mekong giant catfish
alive, it died and was later eaten by villagers. The Mekong giant catfish
(Pangasianodon gigas) species is listed as critically endangered by the World
Conservation Union, which means it faces a high risk of extinction in the wild.
The rare specimen, captured in Chiang Khong district, is the largest since
Thailand began keeping records in 1981.
The giant
catfish is currently the focus of a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and National Geographic
Society (NGS) project to identify and study the planet's biggest freshwater
fish---those that grow to 100 kilograms in weight or more than two meters in
length.
"It's
amazing to think that giants like this still swim in some of the world's rivers,"
said project leader Zeb Hogan, a National Geographic Society explorer and a WWF
conservation science fellow.
"We
believe this catfish is the current record-holder---an astonishing find,"
Hogan added. "I have heard of three-meter-plus catfish in Bulgaria, 500-kilogram
stingrays in Southeast Asia, and five-meter rapaima in the Amazon, but up until
now we have not been able to confirm these reports."
Other contenders
for the title of world's largest freshwater fish include the Chinese paddlefish
and dog-eating catfish---another Mekong giant. Hogan says such big species are
poorly studied and in urgent need of protection. "In many locations they
are now so rare that the opportunity for documentation and study may soon be
lost," he said. Photographer Suthep Kritsanavarin witnessed the record
catch on the Thai side of the Mekong, across the water from Laos. "I may
never see anything like it again in my lifetime," he said.
Kritsanavarin
says only four other Mekong giant catfish were landed this year. Thai fisheries
officials had hoped to release the adult female after stripping it of eggs for
a captive-breeding program. Unfortunately,
the fish didn't survive its ordeal.
Mekong giant
catfish are caught in Chiang Khong district in April and May when they run
upstream to their spawning grounds.
Fishermen hold
an annual ceremony at the start of the fishing season when they ask a river god
for permission to catch the fish. "Chicken sacrifices are performed aboard
the fishing boats," Kritsanavarin said.
There's a long
tradition of giant catfish fishing in Thailand and Laos. Hogan says cave
paintings of the fish in northeast Thailand show it has captured the
imagination of people living along the Mekong for more than a thousand years.
"Mekong people believe it's a sacred fish because it lives on plant matter
and ‘meditates' in the deep, stony pools of the Mekong River---somewhat like a
Buddhist monk," Hogan said. The fish attracts high prices in Thailand,
because eating it is supposed to bring good luck. Chinese believe the meat
boosts intelligence and prolongs life.
"From what
I've heard, the fish has a slightly muddy taste," Hogan added.
"Cambodians, who don't believe eating the fish brings good luck, say it's
not a good-tasting fish and sell it at a low price." Conservationists are
deeply concerned for the fish's future. Hogan says historic catches suggest the
population was once between a hundred and a thousand times larger than it is
today. Reasons for the collapse in numbers are unclear, though likely factors
include over-fishing, degraded habitats, and the construction of dams, which
block the fish's movements. Mekong giant catfish spawn in the Golden Triangle ---a
region where the borders of Thailand, Laos. Myanmar, and China meet. WWF's Rob
Shore works on the Living Mekong Program, based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He
says governments of lower Mekong countries have introduced measures designed to
protect the species.
In Cambodia, a
tagging and release program operates for several big Mekong fish species that
are caught in nets stationed in the main river channels. These species include
the giant barb (a type of carp), the giant freshwater stingray, and the river
catfish.
The fish are
tagged, measured, and then released. Fishermen are compensated for the return
of these fish to the wild. Zeb Hogan has been running this project. "The
reporting network actually works quite well, partly because of the revered
status of Mekong giant catfish,” Shore added.
In northern
Thailand, giant catfish fishing is allowed for research and conservation
purposes. Milt and eggs are taken for a reintroduction scheme run by the Thai
government. In 2001 the first offspring were raised from captive-bred parents.
It's still unclear whether these artificially reared young succeed in the wild.
Shore says the conservation of the Mekong giant catfish is also vital for a
host of other migratory fish species that rely on the same environments.
"In turn, these species sustain the lives and livelihoods of millions of
people," he said.
Zeb Hogan says a
species-conservation action plan for the whole Mekong Basin is an urgent
priority as there is no cross-border strategy to protect the fish. An action
plan is currently being prepared by the Mekong Wetlands Biodiversity Program.
Other priorities include sustainable fishing methods, improvement of critical
habitat, identification of spawning sites, and the creation of protected
freshwater areas. Hogan hopes to raise the profile of other seriously
threatened big freshwater fish species around the world. The WWF-NGS great
fishes project will travel next to China and Australia before heading for
Africa, South America, and the United States. "The challenge is clear-we
must find methods to protect these species and their habitats," Hogan
added, "By acting now, we can save animals like the Mekong giant catfish
from extinction."
(956 words)
国立大学は３月２３日で初めて。昨年度はかなりはやい段階から国立を解いていましたが，今年は諸般の事情もあり，問題が少なめ。
名工大は初の担当。文法問題を出題する数少ない大学として記憶していました。名工大の英文素材はかなりの部分インターネットで出典を確認できました。
この英文はhttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0629_050629_giantcatfish.html
大問１ 2
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2005-07/2005-07-18-voa1.cfm
大問２
1 http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/wr/article/0,17585,1054242,00.html
2 http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050613/pf/435861a_pf.html
大問４
2 (1) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2005-07/2005-07-25-voa1.cfm
(2) http://www.thecatconnection.com/news_2005/aug05/genestudy.htm
(3) http://www.used-robots.com/information2.htm
(4) http://www.unsv.com/voanews/specialenglish/scripts/2005/07/26/0045/
ところで大変奇妙な問題がありました。
大問Ⅰ 3 「この画家はしばしば美術史上重要人物としてみなされている。年代的には彼の作品は１９世紀後半の印象派，後期印象派の属し，確かに彼は多くの印象派画家の技術を彼の海外に統合している。主題の静物や風景の選択と色と光の描写は全て印象派の影響を示している。しかし，彼はまた日常的な物の表現に鮮明な幾何学図形（三角形，円，長方形）を楽しんで用いた。彼の幾何学図形とばらばらにされた遠近法によって彼はパブロ・ピカソ，キュビズム，２０世紀の抽象画を刺激する人物となった。」
どうもこの記述はセザンヌのようです。問題は絵が４つあって，この画家が描きそうな絵はどれかという物です。
これは問題の絵ではありませんが，こんな感じで一つは抽象画，一つは印象派の静物画，そしてピカソ（ぽい）絵，もう１枚は不鮮明でよくわかりませんが，抽象画か壁画のような感じ。
この記述を読むと，光と色で静物画や風景画を描いた。しかし，幾何学図形とdisjointed perspective（ばらばらになった遠近法）を用いて，ピカソやキュビズム，抽象画に影響を与えた。
セザンヌという記述からならば静物画を選ぶことになりますが，後半の説明からはピカソ的な絵を選ぶのと思います。しかし，絵画に対する背景知識を求めるのはちょっと異常。
【３月２５日】
Ⅰ
Susan B. Anthony (February 15, 1820---March
13, 1906) was raised in New York as a Quaker. She taught for a few years at a
Quaker seminary and from there became a headmistress at a women's division of a
school. At 29 years old Anthony became involved in abolitionism and then
temperance. A friendship with Amelia Bloomer led to a meeting with Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, who was to become her lifelong partner in political organizing,
especially for women's rights and woman suffrage.
While Elizabeth Cady Stanton, married and
mother to a number of children, served as writer and idea-person, Susan B.
Anthony, who was never married, was more often the organizer and the one who
traveled, spoke widely, and bore
the brunt of antagonistic public opinion.
After the Civil War, disappointed to know
that those working for “Negro" suffrage were willing to continue to
exclude women from voting rights, Susan B. Anthony became more focused on woman
suffrage. She helped to found the American Equal Rights Association in 1866,
and in 1868 with Stanton as editor, became publisher of Revolution. Stanton and
Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, larger than its rival
American Woman Suffrage Association. They finally joined in 1890.
One notable incident occurred in 1872. In an
attempt to claim that the constitutions should permit women to vote, Susan B.
Anthony cast a test vote in Rochester, New York, in the presidential election.
She was arrested and was found guilty, though she refused to pay the resulting fine
and no attempt was made to force her to do so.
In her writings, Susan B. Anthony
occasionally mentioned abortion. Susan B. Anthony opposed abortion which at the
time was an unsafe medical procedure for women, endangering their health and life.
She blamed men, laws, and the “double standard" for driving women to
abortion because they had no other options. She believed, as did many of the feminists
of her era, that only the achievement of women's equality and freedom would end
the need for abortion. Anthony used her anti-abortion writings as yet another
argument for women's rights.
In 1979, Susan B. Anthony's image was
chosen for the new dollar coin, making her the first woman to be depicted on US
currency. The size of the dollar was, however, close to that of the quarter,
and the Anthony dollar never became very popular. In 1999 the US government
announced the replacement of the Susan B. Anthony dollar with one featuring the
image of Sacagawea. (418 words)
スーザン・B・アンソーニーの伝記。
ちょっと難しい単語が続きますが，すべて注で出ています。
問題で不明なものがありました。
Elizabeth Cady Stantonに関して，以下のうち正しいものはどれか。
① She helped Susan B. Anthony mostly through financial aid.
② She introduced Amelia Bloomer to Susan B. Anthony.
③ She was arrested for demanding equal rights for women.
④ She worte for Susan B. Anthony on many occasions.
本文の記述からは①の記載なし，②はBloomerとAnthonyが知り合いでその関係でAnthonyはStantonと知り合いになったとあり誤り。③はAnthonyが逮捕されたので誤り。残りは④ですが，④の記述が本文にははっきりとはなく，Stantonはwriterであり，idea-personであること。Stantonが編集者としてRevolutionという雑誌の発行者になったとあります。消去法で④としましたが，釈然としません。女性運動家は昨年もどこかでやったような。
Ⅱ
We often think of agriculture as planting
seeds and harvesting crops. But many crops do not come from seeds. Many kinds
of trees and plants are grown from pieces cut from existing trees and plants.
This is called grafting.
Farmers cut branches or young growths,
called buds, from one plant and place them on a related kind of plant. The
branch or bud that is grafted is called a scion. The plant that accepts the
graft is called the root stock.
Over time, the parts from the two plants
grow together. The grafted plant begins to produce the leaves and fruit of the
scion, not the root stock.
A graft can be cut in several ways. A cleft
graft, for example, requires a scion with several buds on it. The bottom of the
scion is cut in the shape of the letter V. A plate is cut in the root stock to
accept the scion. The scion is then placed into the cut on the root stock.
Material called a growth medium is put on the joint to keep it wet and help the
growth.
Grafting can join scions with desirable
qualities to the root stock that is strong and resists disease and insects.
Smaller trees can be grafted with older scions. The American Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) says grafting can reduce the need to use pesticides on
crops. The EPA found that grafting stronger plants cost less than using
chemicals. Also, poisons can be dangerous to people and the environment.
Agriculture could not exist as we know it without
grafting. Many fruits and nuts have been improved through this method. Some
common fruit trees such as sweet cherries and apples have to be grafted.
Bing
cherries, for example , are one of the most popular kinds of cherries. But a
Bing cherry tree is not grown from seed. Branches that produce Bing cherries
must be grafted onto a root stock. All sweet cherries on the market are grown
this way.
And then there are seedless fruits like
navel oranges" and seedless watermelons. Have you ever wondered how
farmers grow them? The answer is: through grafting.
The grapefruit tree is another plant that
depends on grafting to reproduce. Grapes, apples, pears and also flowers can be
improved throng grafting. In an age of high technology agriculture, grafting is
a low-technology method that remains extremely important. (397 words)
こちらは接ぎ木の話し。実は私は接ぎ木について何の知識もなかったので，多少勉強になりました。この大学は少子化の影響をもろに受けている大学の一つだと推察されますが，その受験生にこの英文は少しきついのではないかと思います。最近の生徒の「常識」は大変危うく，社会の先生には「エチオピアとかサモアとか」そういう難しいことは聞いてはいけません，と言われました。とすればこの接ぎ木の話しはほとんどわからなかったと思われます。実は接ぎ木特有の単語scion, root stockなどは本文の定義だけで理解することになり，これもかなりハードルが高いと言わざる得ません。
【３月２３日】
Ⅰ
Cultures vary dramatically from one country to the next. Even within the
same country, different regions, ethnic groups and companies have their own
unique cultures. This becomes even more complicated in light of the fact that
most multinationals do business in over 70 different countries. Some people
think that taking culture into account means learning the language and the
details of every culture they have to interact with --- a vast number of tiny
nuances, customs, and practices. In practice, of course, this is impossible.
As a
practical business tool, knowledge of culture should include those areas that
facilitate effective business interactions. More in-depth observations and
documentation are the area of anthropologists. Here we select those values that
most impact the process of doing business and explain how they influence crucial people-to-people
interactions. The goal is to identify potential trouble spots and to give the
reader a feel for dealing with a wide variety of cultures that share certain
values and attitudes toward business.
Fortunately, many cultural values are shared among people of different
countries. Although every country is unique, there are common threads that run
through many different cultures. For example, group-oriented cultures share
certain similarities in attitudes and beliefs whether you are doing business in
Latin America or the Middle East. Americans, who are generally individualistic
in their outlook, feel comfortable getting down to business right away;
business people from group-oriented cultures, such as those found in Asia,
Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, usually expect to take a little time
at the beginning of a relationship to acknowledge the human element---to create
a feeling of goodwill and trust. The
point is that all these different group-oriented cultures share a similar
approach to establishing working relationships. This overlap of cultural traits
greatly simplifies the task of doing business overseas.
Learning about cultures is also cumulative. Once you’ve learned how to
operate in one foreign culture, understanding the next one becomes much easier.
Some of the knowledge gained in one culture can be transferred to another. More
importantly, you learn what kinds of things to look for. Experienced
international travelers feel comfortable in almost any cultural setting-even if
they find themselves in a place where they have little previous
experience-because they have learned the general principles for dealing with
cultural difference.
Of
course it is valuable to know as much as possible about the background and
history of each country you are dealing with. But what is most important from a
business perspective is learning the core values that affect the way other
cultures approach doing business. The surface features of a culture are far
less important than these deep values when it comes to being successful abroad.
As a skilled international negotiator told me, "Etiquette, such as how to
shake hands or not crossing your legs, is far less important than the deeper
cultural beliefs such as saving face and building trust. After all, people
understand that you do not necessarily know their customs, just as they do not
understand yours, so a great deal of tolerance is needed."
(523 words)
題材は典型的な入試英文。本文からも察することができるように，ビジネスマン向け文化学習法といったハウツー本の序論部分。
序論が入試英文に採用されることは大変多いと思います。簡単だし，内容もどうということはないのにいざ訳そうとすると結構難儀しました。ただ，とにかく常識的，印象に残らない英文になりそうです。
Ⅱ
The
Japanese live longer than anyone else on earth. Their average life span is now
an amazing 84 years for women and nearly 80 for men. This longevity seems to come from several factors.
First, the majority of Japanese have a healthy, low-fat, high-fiber diet that
keeps them fit and slim. Second, the
population is very health and fitness conscious
Finally, Japan has a universal
health plan that offers first-rate medical care to all its citizens at a very
reasonable price.
Meanwhile,
the average Japanese woman gives birth to only 1.3 children. Together, this longevity and low birth rate
have brought about what is called the aging of the Japanese population. In
fact, Japan is aging so fast that by
2030, it will have the world's oldest citizens, with 30% of its people over 65.
This is creating problems, of course. It puts pressure on both the health care system and the economy as a
whole. And it has raised some difficult
social questions like: Who is going to look after all these senior citizens?
The younger generation no longer seems to feel the obligation. And more and more wives--who have traditionally
handled the job---are now working
outside the home.
But
this aging population is also creating a booming new industry ---the care of
the elderly. Japan has comparatively few nursing homes. So more and more such
homes are being started up and staffed. Thus, in the near future, “the nursing home
caregiver" promises to be a hot new
career opportunity. Already several colleges and universities have set
up courses in the field. And one company
has branched out into training people to care for the elderly. It already
boasts thousands of graduates. These
"home helpers”, as they are
called, are not career professionals. Many are
housewives who still expect to have to take care of relatives at home.
At any rate, Japan's aging population makes the country a leader of sorts--- a kind
of test case. Eventually, other countries will catch up with Japan as far as
the aging of the population goes. They will face similar problems and
challenges. So now other developed countries are watching to see how things in
Japan come out, and looking to Japan to show the way forward.
(379 words)
こちらも典型的な英文。おそらく日本の英字新聞からの引用か，それをもとに書き下ろしたものと思えます。
長寿，少子化，介護問題と極めて典型的な論理展開。私としては英文を読んだらなんらかの発見がある，読むことで少しだけ物知りになる，といった学習場面が欲しいのですが，これでは，あまりに常識的で，中学の公民の教科書レベル。ちょっと内容がありきたりすぎりと感じました。
【３月１５日】
(A)
Diego
Rivera was born in Guanajuato in 1886 but moved to Mexico City when he was
eight. He studied in the San Carlos Academy and in the workshop of artist Jose
Guadalupe Posada, who was to influence him greatly. Awarded a scholarship to study in Europe, he
traveled to Paris in 1909. There, he was
influenced by post-impressionism and cubism. He became especially fascinated with Picasso's cubist
works. After some cubist experiments of
his own, he became disappointed with the elitist art world. In 1920, he went to Italy to study
Renaissance art.
When he returned to Mexico, Rivera quickly
rediscovered his roots. He decided that he wanted to create paintings which
would speak directly to the common people. Active in the socialist revolution
in Mexico, he felt that art could play a part in this by educating the Mexicans
about their history. His public wall
paintings illustrate Hispanic culture's proud pre-Columbian past, their
conquest by the Spanish, the conversion from their native religion to Catholicism,
the submission of the working class to the rich landowners, and the
Mexican Revolution. In addition to images about Mexico's history and
revolution, Diego loved to paint ordinary Mexican life in smaller paintings. In
these, he continued to use very bright colors and simplified compositions.
Common subjects in his paintings were the earth, the farmer, and the laborer.
In 1932, Diego went to America to complete a
commission for Edsel Ford. The commissioned wall paintings were created in the
garden court of the Detroit Institute of Art, illustrating the work force of
the Ford auto factory. By the following year, the wall paintings were
completed. It was quite ironic that Rivera, a communist, would create a work of
art for the greatest industrialist of the age, but the paintings are filled
with his own political beliefs. Rivera saw the Industrial Revolution as a
liberator of the laborer. All of the workers in his paintings work together
like the gears of a great machine, no one serving a greater role than any
other. Above the paintings, he created more images relating to the power of the
people, combining Caucasian, Oriental, Hispanic, and Black figures.
Industrialization, he felt, would equalize the races as well as the social
classes.
Rivera's next work was created in
Rockefeller Center in New York City. It would have a more controversial
history. Known as "Man at the Crossroads," Rivera's long title for
the painting was "Man at crossroads looking with hope and high vision to
the choosing of a new and better future." Though most of the painting was
considered successful and acceptable, Rockefeller asked Rivera to replace the
face of Lenin. Instead, Rivera offered to include Abraham Lincoln and other
19th century American figures in the painting. Unable to come to a satisfactory
compromise, Rivera was dismissed from the commission. The painting was
destroyed. In 1934, Rivera reproduced a smaller version of the painting on a
wall at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. (497
words)
英文は平易。出典も確認できました。
http://www.eyeconart.net/history/frida-y-diego.htm
(B)
Most
of our labels for people tend to be global: genius, homosexual, giant. Such labels tend to influence every other
judgment of, or reaction to, the person
who bears them. I first came to notice this effect when I was doing my training
in the psychology department in college. When people walked in the door of the
clinic, they labeled themselves "patients," and at the time I saw them this way as well. When we
discussed certain behaviors or feelings that they saw as a problem, I saw their
behavior as consistent with the label of "patient." Later, outside of
the therapy context, when I encountered exactly the same behavior (for example,
difficulty in making a decision or in making a commitment) or feelings (like
guilt or the fear of failure) in people
whom I know, it appeared to be perfectly common or to make sense given the
circumstances.
To test the impact of labels, psychologist
Robert Abelson and I designed an experiment using a videotape of a rather ordinary-looking
man being interviewed. He and the interviewer sat in armchairs facing each
other and talked about work. We showed
this videotape to psychotherapists. For
half of the therapists, we called the man being interviewed a "job
applicant." For the remaining half,
we called him a "patient." The therapists to whom we showed the tape
were of two different backgrounds. Half had been trained in various traditional
ways; the training of the other half had specifically emphasized the avoidance
of labels.
We found that when we called the man on the
tape a job applicant, he was perceived by both groups of therapists to be well
adjusted. When he was labeled a patient, therapists trained to avoid the use of
labels still saw him as well adjusted. Many of the other therapists, on the
other hand saw him as having serious psychological problems.
Because most of us grow up and spend our
time with people like ourselves, we tend to assume that others share the same
features as ours. When confronted with someone who is clearly different in one
specific way, we drop that assumption and instead look for more differences.
Often these perceived differences have no logical relation to the observable
differences. For instance, because of the unusual gestures of a person with
cerebral palsy, we might assume a difference in intelligence. Such faulty
assumptions tend to overstate the perceived gap between people who are
"normal" and those who are "different." This sometimes
leads to the formation of prejudices against certain groups of people. (425
words)
典型的な入試英文
ちょっとした知見を，ちょっとした実験で証明する。
内容的には当たり前の感じで，このような実験をせずとも，人は先入観で人を判断することはあまりに一般的で，「あの人は～の所属だから…のはず」方式のレッテルによる影響は日常茶飯事。
(C)
In May 1968, the U.S. submarine Scorpion
disappeared in the North Atlantic.
Although the navy knew the submarine's last reported location, it had no idea
what happened to the Scorpion and only the vaguest sense of how it might have
traveled after it had last made radio contact. As a result, the area where the navy
began searching for the Scorpion was a circle twenty miles wide and many
thousands of feet deep. You could not imagine
a more challenging task. The only possible solution, one might have
thought, was to find three or four top experts on submarines and ocean
currents, ask them where they thought the Scorpion was, and search there. But as Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew
explain in their book Blind Man's Bluff, a naval officer named John Craven had
a different plan.
First, Craven devised a series of scenarios ---alternative
explanations for what might have happened to the Scorpion. Then he assembled a
team of men with a wide range of knowledge, including mathematicians, submarine
specialists, and salvage men. Instead of asking them to consult with each other
to come up with an answer, he asked each of them to offer his best guess about
how likely each of the scenarios was. To keep things interesting, the guesses
were in the forms of wagers, with bottles of Scotch whisky as prizes. And so
Craven's men bet on why the submarine ran into trouble, on its speed as it
headed to the ocean bottom, on the steepness of its descent, and so forth.
Needless to say, no one of these pieces of
information could tell Craven where the Scorpion was. But Craven believed that
if he put all the guesses together, building a picture of how the Scorpion
died, he'd end up with a pretty good idea of where it was. And that's exactly
what he did. When he was done, Craven had what was, roughly speaking, the
group's collective estimate of where the submarine was.
The location that Craven came up with was not
a spot that any individual member of the group had picked. In other words, not
one of the members of the group had a picture in his head that matched the one
Craven had constructed using the information gathered from all of them. The
final estimate was a genuinely collective judgment that the group as a whole
had made, as opposed to representing the individual judgment of the smartest
people in it. It was also a genuinely brilliant judgment. Five months after the
Scorpion disappeared, a navy ship found it. It was 220 yards from where
Craven's group had said it would be.
What is
astonishing about this story is that the evidence that the group was relying on
in this case amounted to almost nothing. It was really just tiny pieces of
data. No one knew why the submarine sank, no one had any idea how it was
traveling or how steeply it fell to the ocean floor. And yet even though no one
in the group knew any of these things, the group as a whole knew them all. (521
words)
この潜水艦スコーピオンの沈没はバミューダ海域でのこと，原子力潜水艦であったこと，多数の死者が出たことなど，過去の原潜事故としてかなり有名なもののようです。さらにこのクレイブンのプロジェクトの方法，それから，この英文自体も様々なところで引用されているようです。内容的に今一すっきりわからないのは細かい説明がないためと思われますが，専門家が持つ孤立した情報分析を第３者が総合的に判断することで，個々の判断からは導かれないような，全体的な結論が出る。専門家が分析を持ち寄って，その中でもっともすぐれた分析を採用するのでなく，全体を見通すことで，真実が見えてくる。なんとなくわかたようで，わからない英文でした。
（３月１１日）
Ⅴ
A month after Bill Clinton was elected
president, the Secret Service sent a fax to all
of its 2,051 agents, warning them not to talk to the press without first
clearing it with headquarters. After Clinton had been sworn in on January 15,
1993, another fax went out. The Secret
Service had a "one-voice policy," the message said. In other words,
only those Secret Service officials
named to talk to the press could do so. In April, after Newsweek quoted Secret Service agents as saying
Hillary Rhodham Clinton had thrown a lamp at her husband, the Secret Service sent out a third
fax repeating the previous warnings. The
message was clear: anyone caught talking to the press would be fired.
The level of concern was unprecedented but
understandable. The Clintons had a chilly marriage. At night, guards on the
first floor of the White House were shocked to hear yelling from the second floor,
which, together with the third floor, is the residence portion of the White House. The screaming
echoed through the 201-year-old structure.
Moreover, while Hillary Clinton had not thrown a lamp at her husband,
she had thrown a briefing book at him. If such details ever leaked through the
Secret Service, the agency could find itself in danger.
Yet there was nothing unusual about a
president and first lady leading a life that departed radically from the image
they sought to project. In private, no modern president or his family has
matched its public image. Indeed, every president has engaged in elaborate pretense to conceal his true
character, actions, and words. Modern presidents have managed to mask their
real faces, controlling the press to conceal the truth. In The Twilight of the Presidency, George E. Reedy, press secretary to
President Johnson, said the "splendid isolation" of the president
within the White House had turned the presidency into a monarchy. "By the
twentieth century, the presidency had taken on all the clothing of monarchy
except gowns, a '"scepter, and a crown," Reedy wrote.
The people who know what really goes on in
the White House are the Secret Service agents and the White House maids and
guards. Like video monitoring cameras, these nonpolitical aides are there but
forgotten, observing what goes on when the press conferences and public
speeches are over. For the White House is a stage, where the stars skillfully
play their roles. Only the producers, directors, and stage crew know what the
actors and actresses are really like. For the most part, this structure
continues from administration to administration. Devoted to maintaining their
own power, the permanent staff presides over an institution that remains
largely unchanged, regardless of who is president.
"If the general public knew what was
going on inside the White House, they would scream," a Secret Service
agent said "Americans have such an idealized notion of the presidency and
the virtues that go with it, honesty and so forth. That's the furthest thing
from the truth." (494 words)
成渓大学は以前経済学部を担当したことがありました。その時には結構な分量で，内容的にもがっちりしており，成蹊大学の問題を見直したことがありました。出典は「心にチキンスープを」で，恥ずかしながら，その時初めてこのシリーズの存在を知りました。それ以来，いろいろなところで，「チキン」を出典とした英文に出会いますので，成渓の問題には感謝しております。
さて，今回は法学部。すべて選択式。問題は結構難しいと考えられます。Ⅴのようが易しいですが，内容的には私が現在教えている生徒たちを思い浮かべるとかなり難しい感じ。大統領の私生活は政治の表に出ていない一部の人を除き，知られていない。現在国民の前に登場する大統領は俳優が舞台にたつようなものだ，とちょっと皮肉。ホワイトハウスをしばらく見たので，ホワイトハウスの中が想像できました。
Ⅵ
"War appears to be as old as mankind,
but peace is a modern invention." So wrote Sir Henry Maine in the middle
of the nineteenth century. There is ( (1 ) to suggest that he was wrong. All
surviving documentary evidence indicates that war, armed conflict between organized political groups, has been
the universal rule in human history. It is hardly necessary to explore whether
this was the result of human aggressiveness.
Rousseau may have been right in suggesting that men in a state of nature
were timid, and only became warlike when they entered into social relations;
but social relations were necessary for
survival.
Peace may or may not be "a modern
invention" but it is certainly a far more complex affair than war. Hobbes defined it as a
period when war was neither near at hand nor actually being fought, but this
definition is hardly comprehensive. At best this is what is usually described
as negative peace. But peace as generally understood today involves much more
than this. Positive peace implies a social and political ordering of society
that is generally accepted as just. The creation of such an order may take
generations to achieve, and social changes may then destroy it within a few
decades. Paradoxically, war may be an essential part of that order. Indeed
throughout most of human history it has been accepted as such. An international
order in which war plays no part has been regarded by political leaders as a
desirable goal only during the past two hundred years.
War, it has rightly been said, starts in
the minds of men, but ( ). For some
people--perhaps for most---any order is acceptable so long as their
expectations are met, and for most of human history these expectations have
been very basic. This majority will be
little concerned about injustice to others. For them peace is what they have
got, and they want to preserve it. There will always be a minority, however
small, aware of the defects of their
societies, but such awareness usually demands an exceptional degree of
education. It was from this minority that critics of the social order emerged.
For such critics the defects of the
existing order made it so unjust that war against it was justified. Throughout
human history mankind has been divided between those who believe that peace
must be preserved, and those who believe that it must be attained.
(404
words)
最近の英文量からすると多少少なめ。しかし，がっちりとした文章でした。出典はかすりもしませんでした。冒頭のメインの言葉は大変有名なようで，この言葉はいろいろなところで引用されていましたが… 内容もかなり高度。受験生諸君でこれがきちんと読めれば，たいしたものだと思います。実際にはかなり難儀したものと推察されます。問題が選択式なので，そのことで救われている思います。
（３月９日）
Ⅰ
Most managers spend most of their time at
work doing things that are urgent but relatively unimportant. Responding to
what appear to be small emergencies, taking calls, writing memos, attending
unimportant meetings---all can use up a manager's day but add little lasting
value. These activities seem to have an immediate urgency but lack importance.
The experts say the need people have to keep busy comes in part from a lack of
self-esteem. This means people have a desire to feel they are playing an
important role in the company or organization. Managers tend to think, "If
I'm this busy, I must be important." Another reason some managers think
they need to be busy all the time may have arisen from experiences of people
working in factories. In factory work, everyone contributes their part in
making a final product. To keep a factory running smoothly, everyone needs to
work at the same pace. Anyone working too slowly and not keeping up would slow
down the whole production process. This may have led people to think that to be
effective means to be busy all the time, and being busy becomes an end in
itself.
Experts emphasize that to be most effective
our efforts must be given clear direction. What this means to us is that the
efforts we make should be focused on specific purposes. The goal of enlightened
time management is to allow you to spend most of your time on work that is
truly important, but not really urgent. One of the very practical ways of
focusing on key work is to put aside some time each day in which you neither
take phone calls nor allow yourself to be interrupted in any other way. During
this time, work on your most important task. Move into another office if
necessary. But do not leave unless you are needed in a genuine emergency.
Try to schedule this period of focused work
at a time in the day that falls within your biological "prime time"---whether
you’re a morning person or a night owl, give yourself an hour during your peak
energy period to work on your most important activity. By practicing more
effective time management, you can decrease the need to feel busy.
By scheduling your time more effectively you
can accomplish two things, both beneficial for your organization and for
yourself. Firstly, you will become a
more effective manager by focusing on the truly important things that really
need to be done. An added benefit of this is that you will, through better time
management, be more available to take care of important things that come up
unexpectedly. Secondly, by being less busy doing unimportant things you should
experience less workplace related stress, especially when you will have the
satisfaction of knowing that yours is a job well done.
(470
words)
西南学院，文学部は２回目です。前回もそうでしたが，おおよそ文学部らしくない話題でちょっと驚きます。
今年の英文は明らかに，ビジネス実用書。ハウツー本であることは確かですが，残念ながら出典を確認できませんでした。
時間の管理，時間をかける仕事の本質を見きわめよ，受験生にはあまり身近ではないような内容。おそらくあまり印象に残らず忘れてしまいそうな内容です。
Ⅱ
A sea breeze blows off San Francisco Bay. A
boy's kite soars and spins in a wild circle. A little girl barely old enough to
walk flies a tiny butterfly-shaped kite with the help of her mom and dad. A
polar bear kite and a green-frog kite make it look like a little zoo in the sky
overhead.
The Berkeley Marina is one of the best city
kite-flying spots in the United States. Winds from the Pacific Ocean sweep past
the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline, sending kites soaring
over this grassy park. The marina even has a local expert, kite designer Tam
McAlister. He is usually here selling his kites from a van. He also gives
advice, answering questions like: What if my kite gets stuck in a tree?
"Try to find a better place to fly," Mr. McAlister says. "The
ideal kite site would be absolutely flat. Nothing in the way, particularly from
the direction the wind is blowing." Wind flows straight and steadily over
flat areas. Things like trees or houses break up the wind just as rocks in a
river break up flowing water. "Kites fly best where the wind is steady and
straight.'
McAlister says the best kite-flying wind is
about 5 to 12 miles per hour. At those wind speeds, tree leaves move and you
can hear bushes moving. If a wind is strong enough to make small trees bend and
swing, the wind is too strong for most types of kites.
A kite flies in much the same way as an
airplane does. Both depend on a flow of air to create enough aerodynamic lift
to overcome the downward force of gravity. The difference in pressure between
the air beneath the kite and the air above it produces this lift.
Getting a kite up should be easy, McAlister
says. "You should be able to just hold a kite up and let the wind take
it." If it doesn't go up, you may need to adjust the bridle point. The
bridle is a short string attached to the top and bottom of the kite. The
control string is tied to the bridle at the bridle point. The bridle point
determines the angle of the kite to the wind. Finding the right angle gives the
kite balance in the air. "Adjust the bridle point toward the top of the
kite for light winds," he says, "and closer to the tail for stronger
winds."
So you don't need to run with a kite to launch it. McAlister says, "If
you have to run to get a kite started, you don't have enough wind."
But there is a simple way of launching a kite in light wind that has the
same effect as running---only safer. It's called "longlining."
The kite flyer unwinds about 100 feet of string while a helper holds the
kite downwind. The helper lets go of the kite, and the flyer, with the
spool of string on the ground, quickly pulls the line in. It "does
the same thing as running---it creates wind," McAlister says. "It
will get the kite up where the winds are stronger."
Kites are enjoyed by young and old alike.
Look around the marina and you can see young boys and girls, and people whose
grey hair clearly suggests this is not the first time they have been around
kites. It must be something about seeing kites soaring in the air that has kept
these simple toys popular for so many centuries. (593 words)
こちらもおもしろい題材。文学部としてはやはり異色です。凧の揚げ方というのは面白かったです。ただ，中身に新たな知見があったわけではないので，印象は，アメリカの凧揚げ，というだけ。洋式凧も普及しているので，この英文を読むことの意味があまり感じられませんでした。
ひとつ問題がありました。
The kite flyer unwinds about 100 feet of string while a helper holds the kite downwind.
この英文と同じ内容の英文を選べ。という問題です。
1. The person flying the kite lets out 100 feet of string while the other person hold the kite in the direction the wind is blowing.
2. The kite flyer goes 100 feet in thedirection of the wind while the other person holds the kite string.
２の英文は最後がthe other person holds the kite string.「もう一方が凧の糸を持つ」がおかしいので，１が正解となりますが，in the direction the wind is blowingが曖昧。「風が吹いていく方向」ということで，風下と同意なのでしょうが，「風が吹いてくる方向」とはならないでしょうか？大昔に north windは「北に吹く」のか「北から吹くのか」で結構議論されていたことをなつかしく思い出します。
（３月４日）
Ⅳ
Superstitions are very interesting. In
Britain and some other countries it is thought to be unlucky, for example, to
walk under a ladder or to spill salt. Not walking under a ladder is just common
sense, because it is a way of avoiding having things dropped on your head but
the reason that spilling salt is thought to be unlucky goes back to the Middle
Ages. In those days salt was the only way that people had of preserving fish
and meat for long periods of time. Salt
was also very expensive and spilling it was considered to be a great waste.
This led people to say that spilling it would bring bad luck.
There is an expression in English that we
sometimes use, which shows how valuable salt used to be in the old days, and
this is "He is "not worth his salt." This is used today to mean that someone is not
worth the money he is paid to do his job. This phrase comes from the days when
a workman lived with his employer and received his food, including salt, as
part or full payment for his labor.
One thing that can cause problems when
talking about superstitions is that the same thing may be considered unlucky by
some people yet lucky by others. Black cats are a good example. It is said that coal miners in England will
turn around and go straight back home if they see a black cat on their way to
work. To them a black cat is a sign of disaster, and they will do anything to
avoid going down the mine immediately after seeing one.
Yet, on the other hand, there is the phrase
"lucky black cat" in English. Sometimes brides will carry a cut-out
paper black cat with their bouquet of flowers to bring them good luck. Possibly
one reason why black cats are thought to be lucky by some people and unlucky by
others is that traditionally they were considered to have magic powers because
they were often kept as pets by witches, and they could use them either for
good or for evil. (359 words)
典型的な入試英文。難易度も標準以下。センターレベルとしましたが，「基礎的」というのとほぼ同じ感じです。
テーマがテーマだけに，目新しさは感じません。ただ，炭坑夫は黒猫を見ると，鉱山に入らないとか，花嫁は黒猫の紙を持ち歩くとか，未聞でした。でも，すぐ忘れます。
Ⅴ
Many years ago I went back to England for a
holiday and returned to Japan via Russia. This was at a time when the Cold War
was at its height. The whole trip from London to Tokyo took about a week and
involved traveling by ship, train and plane. The first stage of my journey was
the short sea trip from Dover in England to Ostend in Belgium. This was
followed by the two-day journey to Moscow.
I boarded the train at about five o’clock on
a Saturday evening and was due to arrive in Moscow at four in the afternoon on
the following Monday. The train passed through Belgium, West and East Germany
(as it was at that time) and Poland, and at about three o'clock on the Monday
morning we crossed the Russian frontier at Brest.
A Russian Customs official came along the
train and said that from now on we would only be able to use Russian rubles and
that, if we did not have any, we should get out and change some money at the
station. Since I had no Russian money, I went into the station to do as he
said. It was summer and quite warm, so I did not take my-jacket with me, but
got off the train in my shirt-sleeves.
The platform was very long and the station
building was spacious, but at last I found the money-exchange counter and
joined the long line of waiting people. My turn came eventually and, having
changed some money, I made my way back to the platform. You can imagine how I
felt when I found that the line in front of the platform was empty. The train
had gone. All my luggage and even my jacket was on the train. All I had was my
wallet and my passport.
I rushed up to a porter and asked him what
had happened to the train. He said that it was now on the other side of the
station. I thanked him and dashed through the station building to the opposite
platform. The train was not there either. I asked another porter where the
train was. She laughed and told me not to worry, the train was having its
wheels changed and would be back soon.
I went back into the station, bought a glass
of Russian tea and a piece of cake and waited. I waited for about two hours.
Just when I decided that the train had gone on to Moscow without me, it pulled
into the platform. I have never in my life got on a train more quickly or with
a greater sense of relief than I did on that one. (449 words)
やはり，基本的。センターレベルそのもの。話の内容は少し笑い話ぽいのかもしれません。
実はこの英文に１０個の内容理解の質問がついていました。基本的に３択なのですが，４番目の選択肢に「そのどちらでもない」というのがあり，これが難物。たとえば，「ポーターが二人，男性と女性がいた」という英文があります。たしかにポーターが登場しますが，男性と女性のポーターが。しかし，「ポーターが二人いた」というとなんとなく引っかかります。それから，最後の英文で，「あんなに急いで汽車に乗って，あんなにほっとしたことはなかた」とありますが，「汽車に乗ったとき筆者は幸せだった」と言えるのか，あるいは言えないのか。幸せ＝安堵感は，他に選択肢がなければ，正解ですが，「これは当てはまらない」と言われれば，確かに「安心」＝「幸福感」は成立しないような。なかなか，ずさんな問題でした。
【３月２日】
Ⅰ
Nothing prepares you for the Grand Canyon. No matter how many times you read about it or see it pictured, it still takes your breath away. Your mind, unable to deal with anything on this scale, just shuts down and for many long moments you are a human vacuum, without speech or breath, but just a deep, inexpressible awe that anything on this earth could be so vast, so beautiful, so silent.
Even children are stilled by it. I was a particularly talkative child, but it stopped me cold. I can remember rounding a corner and standing there silently. I was seven years old and I’m told it was only the second occasion in all that time that I had stopped talking, apart from short breaks for sleeping and television. The one other thing to silence me was the sight of my grandfather dead in an open coffin. It was such an unexpected sight --- no one had told me that he would be on display --- and it just took my breath away. There he was all still and silent, dusted with powder and dressed in a suit. I particularly remember that he had his glasses on (what did they think he was going to do with those where he was going?) and that they were sideways. I think my grandmother had knocked them that way during her tearful embrace and then everyone else had been too shy to push them back into place. It was a shock to me to realize that never again in the whole of eternity would he laugh over television comedy shows or repair his car or talk with this mouth full (something for which he was widely noted in the family). I was in awe.
But not nearly as much as when I saw the Grand Canyon. Since, obviously, I could never hope to relive my grandfather’s funeral, the Grand Canyon was the one vivid experience from my childhood that I could hope to relive, and I had been looking forward to it for many days. I had spent the night at Winslow, Arizona, fifty miles short of Flagstaff, because the roads were becoming almost impossible to travel on. In the evening the snow had eased to a scattering of flakes and by morning it had stopped altogether, though the skies still looked dark. I drove through a snow-whitened landscape towards the Grand Canyon. It was hard to believe that this was the last week of April. Mists and fog covered the road. I could see nothing at the sides and ahead of me except the occasional oncoming headlights. By the time I reached the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park, and paid the five-dollar-admission, snow was dropping heavily again, thick white flakes so big that their undersides carried shadows.
The road through the park followed the southern lip of the canyon for thirty miles. Two or three times I stopped and went to the edge to peer hopefully into the silent darkness knowing that the canyon was out there, just beyond my nose, but I couldn’t see anything. The fog was everywhere --- among the trees, on the roadsides, rising steamily off the pavement. It was so thick I could kick holes in it. I drove on to the Grand Canyon village, where there was a visitors’ center and a hotel and a scattering of administrative buildings. There were lots of tour buses and recreational vehicles in the parking lots and people hanging around in entranceways or picking their way through the snow, going from one building to another. I went and had an overpriced cup of coffee in the hotel cafeteria and felt damp and disappointed. I had really been looking forward to the Grand Canyon. I sat by the window and watched the snow pile up.
Afterwards, I walked slowly towards the visitors’ center, perhaps 200 yards away, but before I got there I came across a snow-spattered sign announcing a lookout point half a mile away along a trail through the woods, and impulsively I went down it, mostly just to get some air. The path was slippery and took a long time to travel, but on the way the snow stopped falling and the air felt clean and refreshing. Eventually I came to a platform of rocks, marking the edge of the canyon. There was no fence to keep you back from the edge, so I walked cautiously over and looked down, but could see nothing but gray soup. A middle-aged couple came along and as we stood chatting about what a disappointment experience this was, a miraculous thing happened. The fog parted. It just silently drew back, like a set of theater curtains being opened, and suddenly we saw that we were on the edge of a drop of at least a thousand feet. “Jesus!” we said and jumped back, and all along the canyon edge you could hear people saying, “Jesus!” like a message being passed down a long line. And then for many moments all was silence, except for the tiny shiftings of the snow, because out there in front of us was the most awesome, most silencing sight that exists on earth.
The scale of the Grand Canyon is almost beyond comprehension. It is ten miles across, a mile deep, 180 miles long. You could set the Empire State Building down in it and still be thousands of feet above it. Indeed you could set the whole of Manhattan down inside it and you would still be so high above it that buses would be like ants and people would be invisible, and not a sound would reach you. The thing that gets you ---that gets everyone---is the silence. The grand Canyon just swallows sound. The sense of space and emptiness is overwhelming. Nothing happens out there. Down below you on the canyon floor, far, far away, is the thing that carved it: the Colorado River. It is 300 feet wide, but from the canyon’s lip it looks thin and insignificant. It looks like an old shoelace. Everything is dwarfed by this mighty hole.
And then, just as swiftly, just as silently as the fog had parted, it closed again and the grand canyon was a secret once more. I had seen it for no more than twenty or thirty seconds, but at least I had seen it. Feeling half satisfied, I turned around and walked back towards the car, content now to move on. On the way, I encountered a young couple coming towards the edge. They asked me if I’d had any luck and I told them all about how the fog had parted for a few seconds. They looked crushed. They said they had come all the way from Ontario. It was their honeymoon. All their lives they had wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Three times every day for the past week they had put on their moon boots and honeymoon winterwear and walked hand in hand to the canyon’s edge, but all they had seen so far was an unshifting wall of fog.
Trying to help them look at the bright side, I just made sympathetic noises and said what a shame it was about the weather and wished them luck. I walked on in a reflective mood to the car, thinking about the poor honeymooners. As my father always used to tell me, “You see, son, there’s always someone in the world worse off than you.”
And I always used to think, “So?”
(1257 words)
この英文の冒頭部分は結構有名な一節のようです。http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/grandcanyon.html
"The Lost Continent - Travels in Small-town America" (HarperPerennial Publishers, 1990)
という本のようです。http://www.diewiegels.de/Urlaub/Nordwesten/bryson.html
グランドキャニオンには今をさかのぼること１８年前にかみさんと二人で行ってきました。まだ生まれたばかりの長女を今は亡くなってしまった義母に預けてのアメリカ旅行でした。ロスアンゼルス→ラスベガス→サンフランシスコと１０日間ほど旅行しました。ラスベガスからフーバーダムまでレンターカーで行ったのもいい思い出です。グランドキャニオンにはセスナ機で行きました。搭乗員数はわずか７，８名。体重を事前に聞いて，座る位置を決めるといった飛行機で，グランドキャニオンを案内してもらいました。乗る前は大変元気だったドイツ人の青年が，降りたあとでは，ふらふらしていたのが印象的でした。それから，食事はシカゴから来た中年夫婦と食べました。２月ということもあり，人もあまりいませんでした。しかし，雪は降っていなかったし，天候は曇っていたのかもしれませんが，よく見えました。この英文のように１週間もよく見えないなんて少し不思議。
難易度は「センターレベル」でもいいのですが，訳そうとすると結構大変。一応，やや難としました。とにかく私の中では「センターレベル」＝すごく易しい，という感じですので。
Ⅱ
The creation of St. Andrews University allowed young Scots (men only, of course) to extend their education without having to go abroad. They would go up about the age of 15 and enter one of the faculties---theology, cannon (that is, Church) law, civil law, medicine and the liberal arts, which ranged across a broad spectrum from philosophy, rhetoric and logic to music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Within 18 months, if they were lucky, they would gain their bachelor’s degree; two further years of study would get them their master’s licence. The numbers graduating were nowhere near as large as today, about 10 a year in the first half of the fifteenth century, rising to 30 by 1500. Most then went into the Church, where they put their skills to good use both spiritually and temporally, serving as secretaries in the households of the nobility.
But in addition to all the worthy reasons for establishing his university, Bishop Henry Wandlaw of St Andrews, its first chancellor, had another ---the need to stamp out heresy in the Church. By 1410 western Chritendom had endured years of division, with two rival popes holding court in different places. Heresy was widespread and it was reaching Scotland.
Bishop Wardlaw’s creation showed the way. In 1451, Bishop Turnbull of Glasgow did likewise in his cathedral city. Glasgow was intended to complement rather than duplicate St Andrews by specializing in legal studies. And when Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen created King’s College in February 1495, two more landmarks were reached. Firstly, laymen as well as clerks were admitted as students. Secondly, Scotland now had one more university than England.
Since then, a further eleven universities have joined the ranks ---Edinburgh(1583), Strathclyde(1964) Heriot-Watt(1966), Stirling (1967), Dundee(1967), Paisley (1992), Robert Gordon’s, Aberdeen(1992), Glasgow Celedonian(1993) as well as the Open University(196) and the innovative University of the Highlands and Islands linking on-line colleges as far apart as Sto, Lerwick and Perth. These institutions of advanced learning have changed out of all recognition since those exciting early days --- they even started letting women in after the passing of the Universities Act in 1889. But all owe a debt to the vision of Bishop Wardlaw and the speaking skills of those opening lectures who addressed Scotland’s first students six centuries ago. (382 words)
問題は通例faxで送信されてきますが，B4→A4と縮小がかかり，文字の鮮明度が落ちます。今回は文字の判別が大変でした。一見難しそうですが，ほとんど固有名詞の羅列。入試問題でスコットランドの大学の紹介というのは，すこし出題者の趣味に走っているような…。このいずれかの大学に留学なり研修に行ってきたばかりだとか。数年前の青山では戦後のヨーロッパ復興という極めて政治的な問題であったり，ちょっとくせがある，という感じです。
【３月１日】
Corporations that produce genetically
modified foods claim that the technology has many advantages. Crops can be made
resistant to pesticides* and diseases. Fruit and vegetables can be grown in
poor climates or soil conditions. They even claim that fish can grow to twice
their normal size at twice the speed. All this sounds great, but it is
important to ask who really benefits and what the risks are. Critics say that
the gene-food industry is driven by corporations for profit-not for the benefit
of consumers or the world's poor. They argue that consumers could be at risk
from genetically modified foods.
Genetic engineering involves the joining and transferring
of genes between different plants. This process can create toxic substances in
our food. It can also introduce known and unknown allergens into common foods.
For example, when one leading food company wanted to increase the amount of
protein in their soybeans they used genes from the Brazil nut. The new product
could not be sold, however, because scientists discovered that anyone who was
allergic to Brazil nuts (and many people are) would also be allergic to the
genetically modified beans.
Despite these risks, genetically modified
foods are entering our supermarkets at
a rapid rate. A major concern is that current testing cannot detect all
the possible health risks of genetic
engineering. Most tests are conducted on laboratory animals for short periods
of time and so do not provide adequate answers for the long-term impact on
human beings. Another problem is that most of the tests are carried out by the
same companies that make the products. Since it is not in the interests of
these companies to find fault with their own products, the objectivity of these
tests is questionable.
Labeling is one way to make consumers aware of
what they are eating. In some countries all genetically modified food is
supposed to be labeled. In practice, however, this is not easy achieve. It
requires food producers and suppliers to separate genetically modified crops
and foods from unmodified crops and foods. Many food producers and suppliers
have been slow to do this because of the high costs involved. Major food
corporations argue that labeling pushes up the price of products, making them
unattractive to consumers.
These issues are yet to be resolved. It is
important that consumers are informed of the possible risks and that they make
known their concerns about genetically modified foods. Are the benefits of
longer-lasting foods, pesticide resistance and faster growth worth the risks?
２００６年度入試１校目は摂南大学。初めての担当です。第１問を除くとTOEICの影響を強く受けた問題構成です。長文は定番の遺伝子組み換え食品について。遺伝子組み換えについてディベートをやったのはもう６年も前のこと。その当時と議論が同じということで，ちょっと，新鮮みにかけます。話題が遅れがちな教科書でも同じ程度の記述ですから，英文としてはちょっとおもしろみがかけます。受験生にとっては，どこかでやったことがある，ということで取り組みやすかったでしょう。
【２月１７日】
Ⅰ
Like clouds floating in the sky, the war was already there when I was born. I did not have to get to know it; instead, it had to come to terms with my birth. Every day for fifteen years, I looked up to see the war floating slowly by. I was not an unlucky child: most of those clouds were pink. When storm clouds appeared, they only made the ones that came after seem a lovelier rose-color.
I was born and raised in northern Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s, and experienced the war as a natural, even a colorful part of life. It remained this way even when it meant that we had nowhere to escape from the bombing and even when I could no longer recognize friends and schoolmates who had lost their arms and legs. During the war, death sparkled and winked at me, as if to say "see you tomorrow.” It seemed to me that, unless there were some unexpected change, the war might continue forever, like clouds in the sky.
The color red was everywhere. It swept through the south so quickly that I worried I would not get my turn. On 27 April, I cried like everyone else. But mine were not tears of victory. I knew nothing of the price of victory. My tears were tears of farewell. The war had known me. Now it was my turn to get used to its departure. Who would replace it to wink at me? What would remain after the war?
The post-war decade was marked by a continuation of the wartime subsidy system, the strict organization of our daily lives, and the reign of hard-line ideology. It was also marked, in 1978-79, by military conflict on the western border with Cambodia and on the northern border with China. This and the continuation of the cold war turned our newly-achieved national independence into international isolation, and drove our recently unified country -north and south alike into a state of poverty, backwardness, and repression.
The mid-1980s saw the introduction of doi moi (renovation policy). It had taken the winners ten years to realize that victory was not something that could be eaten. In 1994, the rules against trade with Vietnam were lifted and the normalization process between Vietnam and the United States began to accelerate. It took the United States 20 years to make a peace treaty with its past. For the US today, the Vietnam War belongs to history. It is only used once every four years as a fruitless test of the morality and patriotic spirit of presidential candidates, or as a point of comparison with other wars that the United States is fighting, or ones that it will likely fight in the future.
Thirty years after the war, people often say that history has formed its scar, and that we should let it rest in peace. 'There is no reason to revisit issues unrelated to the present. Let's look to the future!" I belong to a small group of people ---a minority, most likely --- who cannot say that with ease.
Thirty years later, the death of 4 million people and 1 million soldiers who died in the war belong to history, as do the physical and psychological wounds of tens of millions, the seventy-six million liters of chemical poison and the thirteen million tons of bombs and bullets.
And this terrible war has left behind another, even more stubborn problem, as well, one that lives on simply because it has never been included in the usual list of war-related problems that must be overcome. After thirty years, the country has still never once acknowledged the painful loss of almost 1 million southern Vietnamese, the "boat people" who left their country to live in foreign lands. It is as if they are no longer Vietnamese and have no more connection to the unified nation. It is as if the country belongs to one group of Vietnamese but not to another. It is as if they believed that national feeling can grow naturally from out of a deep hole of division and hatred, like a rice plant growing out from a trench.
It is easy to say, "The wound left by the war has begun to heal, don't dig too deeply into it." But it is not a wound. It is a tumor for which time is not the needed miracle cure. The war originated from national division. Should such division continue to endure thirty years after the war? How is it that Vietnamese and Americans can now shake hands, but Vietnamese continue to refuse to offer a hand to other Vietnamese? Thirty years on, the darkest shadows of the Vietnam war are still with us. They are still floating slowly and unceasingly, like clouds in the sky, and they will continue to do so unless something changes. (815 words)
総語数８００超とかなりの長文。内容はベトナム戦争と戦後処理，ボートピーピルの存在，とかなり政治的。受験生にどのくらいの背景知識があるのか…。問題そのものは穏当。
出典がわかりました。→http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/article_2464.jsp
Ⅱ
A clear example of the application of "simple, everyday science" to sustainable development is provided by the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, which pioneered the extension of small amounts of credit to the poor. The bank was the brainchild of Muhammad Yunus, a professor of economics in Bangladesh. Yunus began by reversing the traditional relationship between the poor and large lending institutions: Instead of asking how to make the poor more creditworthy, he asked how banks could be made more responsive to their needs.
While the assumption in so-called "poverty reduction" programs was (and often still is) that the poor cannot be trusted with money, Yunus assumed that they could, and that society was at fault for their not having been given the chance to show themselves to be so. At the heart of the Grameen Bank's solution to this problem is the "lending circle," typically a group of five women who jointly manage and guarantee their loans. Through these circles, the bank first educates borrowers about money management and small-scale economic development and then makes small loans to them, usually no more than $ 20 (US) per household the first time. When the borrowers have repaid these loans, they become eligible for larger and larger ones, until, finally, they receive housing loans of several hundred dollars. In all cases, however, borrowers proceed at a pace determined by their own capacity, not by the needs of the lender.
The combination of the Grameen Bank's trust in people, its education program, and its reliance on lending circles has resulted in an extraordinarily high 98 percent loan repayment rate, which exceeds the rate attained by commercial banks, even those in developed countries. In fact, the Grameen Bank's approach to reducing poverty has been one of the most successful in contemporary development history. While the bank began with loans of no more than $50 each to some 20 families, it now operates in one-half of Bangladesh's 30, 000 villages, making loans of $400 million annually. Furthermore, the bank's approach has been imitated in many other developing (as well as some developed) countries. Grameen's basic strategy is now being extended beyond banking, to provide a new model for development. Yunus and his colleagues are planning to adapt the concept of collective resource management to meet a variety of needs, including the need of the poor for access to modern telecommunications technology (cellular phones and the Internet, for example) and, in isolated or neglected communities, for infrastructures to support the use of solar and wind energy. Such projects. of course, are met with doubt, just as the Grameen Bank's lending policies initially were. Indeed, the traditional banks in Bangladesh have never stopped doubting the long-term practicality of Grameen's methods. Over time, however, their doubts have become increasingly irrelevant. Grameen's expansion of the technology market to include the poor will make it even easier for them to obtain such technology. Historically, very time sales of high-tech devices have doubled, unit prices have fallen roughly 20 percent. Grameen has opened the door to technologies and services among the poor, which, combined with improved access to credit, will stimulate locally controlled development and, ideally, will also stimulate local commercial activities.
(553 words)
バングラディッシュの銀行の貧民対策。かなり経済的。政経学部の英文としては歓迎すべき傾向でしょう。
やはり英文の出典がわかりました。こちらは，http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1076/is_n6_v39/ai_19897095
Environmentという雑誌の匿名記事のようです。
設問に一部誤りがあります。
Grameen has opened the door to technologies and services among the poor, which, combined with improved access to credit, will stimulate locally controlled development and, ideally, will also stimulate local commercial activities.
whichを選択肢から選ぶ問題ですが，whichの前のカンマがありませんでした。カンマがないと，whichは限定用法となり，「地元手動の開発を刺激し，地元の商業活動を刺激するだろう技術やサービスにドアを開いた」となります。しかし，カンマが入ると，「グラミーン銀行が～に門戸を開き，そのことが融資状況の改善と相まって，～を刺激するだろう」となります。先行詞が違ってきます。原文があるので，作問ミスであることはあきらか。他にも第１問で突然 On 27 Aprilと出てきますが，省略される前の英文では1975の年に言及されています。この情報を何らかのかたち残す配慮がないのも，作問者の不注意といえるでしょう。
Ⅲ
Student
: I keep on hearing the word globalization, but I'm not sure what it really
means.
Teacher
: Actually, it's one of those hard-to-define words that can have as many
definitions as they have users. Most social scientists would define
globalization as the efficient transnational flow of capital, labor, assets,
financial markets, and resources.
Student
: From the way that you've described it, globalization sounds like a good
thing.
Teacher
: That would depend on your point of view. From an economic point of view, it
has definite advantages, but from a cultural point of view, there are potential
problems.
Student
: Why? Money goes around the world... so does culture. What could be better?
Teacher
: Well, it's not that easy. There are many people around the world who feel
that, by replacing local businesses with multi-national corporations,
globalization has brought on too much uniformity, and that local languages and
customs have suffered.
Student
: Can't you have globalization without creating those problems? Can't you have
the best of both worlds?
Teacher
: That sounds good, looks good, feels good ... , but it's difficult to
accomplish in actual practice. Huge corporations have already strangled small
businesses. The use of English is increasing, and many of the world's languages
have already become extinct.
Student
: What's wrong with just using English?
Teacher : Nothing is wrong, in itself, with the use of English. English can be a beautifully expressive and eloquent language. But a problem does arise when the use of a single language proliferates so much that it begins to crowd out other languages, languages that are vital to the health of local cultures.
こちらも会話形式をとっていますが，およそ考えられないような，グローバリゼーションに関する先生と生徒の会話。政経学部としてはふさわしいでしょうが，会話が不自然。加えて，問題は下線部の語句の同意表現を選ぶものであり，長い会話である必要は余りありません。一部，文脈が必要なものもありますが…普通の４択で十分です。
【２月２６日】
