大問１
Urban life is noisy. Traffic roars. Factory
machines clatter. Hammers pound. Escaping to more pleasant sounds, runners
stride to the beat of intense music on their headsets.
But the intensity of that sound may cause a
problem. Brief exposure to extremely intense sounds, such as gunfire near one's
ear, and prolonged exposure to intense sounds, such as amplified music, can
damage receptor cells and auditory nerves. Although rock and roll may be here
to stay, the sad truth for some rock musicians is that their hearing may not.
Prolonged exposure to sounds above 85 decibels produces hearing loss. (Decibels
are the measuring unit for sound energy. The absolute threshold for hearing is
arbitrarily defined as 0 decibels — see Figure 1 [Figure 1]
Noise affects not only our hearing but also
our behavior and mental state. On tasks requiring alert performance, people in
noisy surroundings work less efficiently and make more errors. People who live
with continual noise in factories, in homes near airports, and in apartments
next to trains and highways suffer elevated rates of stress-related disorders;
high blood pressure, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness are common.
But is it the noise that causes the stress?
Laboratory experiments on the psychological effects of noise suggest an answer.
In one such experiment, researchers recreated the noise of city life by
recording the chattering of office machines and of people speaking various
languages. While working at various tasks, people heard this noise, played
either loudly or softly, either at predictable or unpredictable intervals.
Regardless of the conditions, the people soon adapted to the noise and
performed well on most tasks. However, having coped with noise, those exposed
to the unpredictable loud sounds later made more errors on a proofreading task
and reacted more quickly to frustration.
The conclusion: Noise is especially
stressful when unanticipated or uncontrollable. That explains why the
unpredictable and uncontrollable blaring of someone else's stereo can be so
much more upsetting than the same decibels from your own. At such times we may
wish that, as our eyes have eyelids, our ears had earlids. (353 words
Myers, D. G. (1992).
Psychology (3rd ed.). Worth Publishers, p.
148, 1. 1 –1.46;
大問２
When should we
begin educating children about the environment? As early as preschool and
kindergarten? The answer is certainly "yes", as many attitudes and
values are shaped during the first few years of life. Young children who
develop respect and caring for nature, and a sensitivity to its beauty and
mystery, are more likely to behave in ways that are protective rather than
destructive of the natural environment. During the earliest years of a child's life,
environmental education should be based
on positive experiences in the outdoors under the guidance and with the
companionship of caring adults. Such experiences enhance learning and play a
critical role in shaping lifelong attitudes and behavior toward the natural
world. We know that young children learn primarily through their senses and
through hands-on manipulation and exploration. The elements of the natural
world not only offer the raw materials for manipulation but also inspire the
motivation to experiment and explore.
(155 words)
この英文ほぼ全ての和訳が問題。結構難しい英文なので，信大・教育の受験生であれば，結構苦しんで，意味不明な日本語を書いた受験生続出だったと思われます。
いずれにしろ，もう今年の担当は終わったと思っていた４月第２週の担当，少し驚きました。今年は国立が少なくまた問題量も少なかったので，あまり問題を解いた感じがしません。
【４月１８日】
大問５
There are more pets than children in Japan,
but troubling attitudes about the treatment of animals are also widespread. Pets are big business these days. Cat and dog cafes, animal accessory shops, dog
hotels and even beauty salons for animals are easy to find. On weekends, in the large park near my house,
I see people walking what appear to be entrants in a dog competition: poodles
in mini-sweaters are displayed alongside others wearing ribbons. Many a pet's lifestyle would be the envy of
most salarymen.
However, the park—like many others in Japan—is
also home to a number of animals who live a life far removed from those of the
beautified pets. After they have gone
home with their owners, dozens of stray cats' remain.
The
number of animals abandoned every year in Japan is high. An investigation conducted by the Environment
Ministry estimated that each year around 350,000 animals are killed at government-managed
control centers. Some owners see dumping
unwanted pets in a park as a better alternative to taking them to a control
center because no money needs to be paid nor reasons given.
Recently, in the local park I came across one
cat that was covered in sores,
scratching to get at the fleas that seemed to have eaten away half of an ear. A young boy approached the animal, but his
mother quickly pulled him
The cat
was clearly in distress,
and I decided to see if there was something I could do. A Web search and a phone call later, I was
talking to the ARK (Animal Refuge Kansai) representative in Tokyo, Briar
Simpson.
ARK
takes in abandoned animals and tries to find them new homes, but it also
focuses on promoting proper treatment of animals. In this area, the organization believes
widespread change is needed in Japan, all the way from the government through
to animal breeders, sellers, and pet owners.
ARK's
Tokyo branch, which started up in the spring of 2005, responded swiftly to my call.
They contacted the park keeper and
arranged a meeting to discuss the welfare of the strays. Also in attendance at the meeting was an
elderly woman who unofficially takes care of the cats in the park. She agreed to buy medicine for the cat (using
donated money) and promised to keep a close eye on "Shiro-chan. " It
turned out that the woman calls many of the strays by name.
Her
position is a difficult one, but increasingly common. Feeding cats in parks is generally
discouraged, as the authorities don't want the public to think that they can
easily abandon their unwanted pets. The
large number of strays in some parks, though, has led to volunteers being
allowed to at least ensure that the cats are fed.
(462 words)
今年度は３月１１日の震災もあり，解答も不定期。加えて個人的には異動もあり，ばたばたしました。おそらく今年度最後の問題は麗澤大学・経済，外国語学部。日本在住の外国人による日本の社会事情に関する英文。学生向け週刊英語新聞にありがちなテーマ。在日外国人が多くなって，その方たちが見たり，語ったりする日本観，というのはそれほど珍しいものでなくなりました。
大問６
An
elderly woman lost control of her shopping cart, spilling groceries down the
train station stairs near my home. I was
coming up the stairs on my way home that spring evening. People around me pretended not to notice the
accident. I had been in Japan long
enough to know that no one was going to stop and help the woman. Jumping in with assistance might injure
someone's pride—or so the average Tokyoite's hesitation to help others had been
explained to me.
A can
of tuna rolled near my shoe. I picked it
up. The frailty of the woman moved me to
help her. I collected her packets of nori,
noodles, takuwan, and other items. She
thanked me, but there was something complex in her eyes. I couldn't even imagine what that was then.
I left
the station and headed toward my apartment, stopping briefly at my neighborhood
fruit shop. Here, the nicest fruit was
arranged in an attractive display that was impossible to ignore, including a
single remaining box of high-grade Japanese cherries.
Cherries like these were a little bit too
expensive for me back then—but I could imagine the sweet and sour flavor. I thought, maybe just this once, I should
reward myself with a special treat. I
was about to say, "I will take this box of cherries," in my broken
Japanese when someone pushed me from behind. A thin arm reached out around me and grabbed
the last box of cherries.
I was
surprised to find the box in the hand of the same elderly woman I had just
helped. Without even looking at me, she
moved in front of me with money in her other hand. The shopkeeper shrugged' at me in apology—what
can you do about rude customers?
I had plenty
of time to consider the remaining, cheaper fruits because it was clear the woman
wanted her fruit gift-wrapped. "Oh,
no," I thought to myself because I already knew that wrapping could be
time-consuming in Japan. When the
shopkeeper finished gift-wrapping the box, the old woman looked back and smiled
at me. "Suimasen," she said,
slowly extending her arms that held the box of cherries toward me.
For the
next 15 minutes, I puzzled over the odd ways of the world as night fell and
streetlights flicked on. The cynical
saying, "No good deed goes unpunished," came to my mind. I was new to Japan, so I didn't suspect that
the woman was buying the cherries for me, nor did I realize until later how
much my kindness had cost her.
(430 words)
大問５と同じ傾向の英文。最後のところで少し救われました。また，「日本人は他人の親切を受けるのは自尊心を気づけ，そのお返しをしなければ，という義務感が生じる」が少しおもしろい観点。これほどの女性はあまりいないでしょうが。
大問７
Oberammergau, Germany (AFP-Jiji)—Once every 10
years, this Bavarian village crucifies Jesus all over again and local
hairdressers nearly go out of business.
That's
because nearly half the 5,300 villagers let both hair and beards grow for over
a year to better resemble the Jews they will interpret in the Passion play, which has been running
here for nearly 375 years.
The
tradition goes back to 1633 when the plague struck the Alpine village and
locals promised, if they were saved, to put on a play about the crucifixion and
reincarnation' of Jesus once every 10 years—forever.
"A lot of people, including about 600
children, stop having their hair cut from Ash Wednesday [February 25] 2009 to
October 3, 2010" when the play packs up for nine years, says Doris Renner,
51, who runs one of the village's three hairdressing shops. "That means a tremendous loss of business
and shorter working hours for some employees," she adds.
Frederik Mayet, 30, a marketing student, is
both "Jesus" and spokesman for the play. To take part in the Passion, "you have to
be born in the village, have lived here for 20 years, or been married to
someone from the village for over 10 years," he says.
The
Passion is the "social event of the decade," says play director
Christian Stueckl. "Some want to
take part because it's a tradition; others for religious reasons. Still others, who aren't at all religious, just
don't want to miss out," said Stueckl, a village native who usually runs
the Munich Volkstheater.
Villagers give up a lot of time to take part. They will be playing to packed audiences in a special
theater, which can seat nearly 5,000, for five hours a day, five times a week,
from May 15 to October 3—and that does not include rehearsals.
Nearly
1,000 villagers have acting roles—for crowd scenes, up to 900 at a time can
gather on stage—while others play in the orchestra, sing in the choir, sew
costumes, or work backstage.
The
Passion is very important for tourism and for the economy of the village,
according to Mayor Arno Nunn, a former police officer who has only lived here
for 12 years and is therefore excluded from the play.
"In 2000, we made earnings of about €25
million (about ¥2. 8 billion), and we hope for much the same this year,"
says the mayor, who hopes for half a million visitors despite the fact that
reservations are down because of the economic slump.
"Ordinary tickets are sold out, but only
75 percent of tickets sold in combination with hotel bookings have gone to
date, so we're hoping for a pick-up in the last-minute reservations," says
Nunn, who points to the importance of the foreign market as half the overseas
visitors are from Britain or the United States.
(474 words)
全く印象に残らない英文。なんといっても，ある日の新聞記事を問題にしてみました，という感じでの英文で。感想も持ちにくいです。
【2011年4月9日】
大問１
Public broadcasting began in the 1920s and
since then has developed significantly, becoming a national institution with
which most people are familiar. The overall variety of 'broadcasting' can be
divided into a number of distinctive categories, each with its own
characteristic features. Newsreaders, sports commentators, weather readers and
DJs all have distinctive styles which viewers and listeners can recognize.
Typical codes and conventions in each category allow broadcasters to organize
and transmit messages that viewers and listeners can interpret.
In the early period of broadcasting it was
possible to describe BBC English as the medium of communication. The BBC
originally adopted Received Pronunciation for its announcers because this was
thought to be the form of English most likely to be understood universally and less
likely to be criticized. From the 1990s, however, both television and radio
used a wider range of regional and social accents. As broadcast programs are
received by a vast audience, people have become increasingly familiar with
accents and dialects that would not be heard locally. The language of
broadcasting is now as diverse as its program schedule, and it is impossible to
define just one recognizable kind of language use — in each
case, the purpose and style of the communication dictate the nature of the language used. While
some welcome these developments, the frequency with which regional accents and
informal or colloquial language are now heard in broadcasts has inevitably attracted
complaints from people who believe this to be further evidence that the
standards of spoken English are slipping.
Because most viewers and listeners hear the
linguistic codes only once as a program is transmitted and cannot ask for
clarification, the language of broadcasting needs to be easily understandable. Utterances must be carefully organized and are
often made up of short, uncomplicated units. The language of broadcasting is
seldom completely spontaneous, although it may be presented as if it were.
People who work regularly in the medium of television or radio learn to speak
in a way that imitates the spontaneous spoken word, even if they are in fact
reading aloud. When ordinary people appear in programs, editing will often have
eliminated many of the false starts, hesitations and repetitions that are
characteristic of truly spontaneous informal conversation. In drama, the
writers and actors will actually 'write'
such non-fluency markers into the script in order to imitate the structures of normal interaction.
The language of broadcasting is an unusual
mix of spoken and written language — like written language it can be polished
and edited, yet it is usually delivered as though it were unprepared speech.
Because it is written to be 'read' aloud to a very diverse audience, the
language must be easy to articulate,
fluent and approachable.
Although each kind of program has its own distinctive lexical, grammatical and prosodic features,
certain characteristics can be identified as typical of broadcasting as a
whole. (478 words)
(Sara Thorne, Mastering
Advanced English Language )
東日本大震災の余波は収まりそうにありません。原発に関するニュースは減少しているか，その深刻さに麻痺しつつありますが，海外から見れば日本はかなり危険な状態にあることは確かでしょう。放射能漏れの影響も，放射能漏れ自体もこれからのこともあり，予断は許しません。
そんな中，個人的には９年ぶりの異動を控え，慌ただしい毎日を送っています。
大意は本当におおざっぱなものです。少しでも私の記憶に残るように，それから，100字要約のためにやっています。ずっと百字要約をやっているので，最近では一発で１００字の要約が収まることが多くなってきました。的確かどうかは不明ですが。
この題材は入試英文としては標準的なもの。放送英語を扱ったのが多少珍しいかもしれませんが，それでも，インパクトには欠けます。
大問２
In America, "recess time" or break
time is no longer a time for children to play freely. In more than 170 schools
across the country, "recess coaches" have been hired to oversee
students' play. Critics suggest such coaching is another example of the
over-programming of today's youth. It also reflects the current climate in
which children are increasingly spending more time indoors, playing in a
virtual world. In many ways, children today are more aware of the global
environment than they are of the natural world in their own backyards.
A recent study found children aged 6 to 11
spent more than 28 hours a week using computers and other electronic devices.
On the whole, the study found children lost 12 hours of playtime a week. A
result of this is the disappearance of what child-development experts call
"the culture of childhood." This culture, found all over the world,
was first documented by British researchers in the 1950s. They cataloged the
songs and games that were
passed on by oral tradition over hundreds of years. More recently,
however, this culture has disappeared. In the 1970s a Japanese photographer
began to compile a photo documentary of children's play on the streets of
Tokyo. But he gave up the project in 1996 because the free play and laughter
that once filled the city's streets was no more.
For children in past eras, the "culture
of childhood" was a socializing process. They learned to settle their own
quarrels, to make and break their own rules, and to respect the rights of others.
Now that most children no longer participate in this free-form experience, it
is difficult for children to learn how to socialize with their peers. While it
may not be the cause, it seems clear there is a link among the hours spent on computers and other
technology, the decline in peer-to-peer socialization and the ability of
children to get along with each other during free time at school. And while
computers have made our students more aware of the world around them, it is
important to recognize what is being lost.
If the "recess coaches" focus on
play, give children freedom of choice about what they want to do, and stay out
of the way as much as possible, then they are likely a good influence. But if
they are there to enforce rules, then they are not aiding the personal
development that children need. Friedrich Frobel, the inventor of kindergarten,
said children need to "learn the language of things" before they
learn the language of words. Today, we might paraphrase this and say children
need to learn the real social world before they learn the virtual one. (447
words)
(David Elkind, International
Herald Tribune, March 10, 2010)
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/do-you-socialize-more-virtually-than-in-reality/
こちらも典型的な入試ジャンル。子どもの発達。遊びの大切など，やはり標準的。ただ，「休み時間のために指導員を配置する」というのは，「ここまできたのか」と驚きを持って受け止められた，結構な話題になったようです。
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27elkind.html?_r=1
大問３
The concrete ping-pong table stands
invitingly in a paved court just inside London Fields Park in Hackney. It's the
first sunny day of spring, there are acres of sun warmed lawns—but it's the
table-tennis table that's attracting the crowds.
"We used to play at a youth center when
we were kids, and seeing this in the park brought it all back," says
39-year-old Darren Holding, pausing between matches against Miguel Barrett.
They have been friends since childhood. "The amount of people that use
this court and it hasn't been vandalized—it feels like everybody in the community knows they
need it," says Holding.
Others seem to agree, for dozens of table
tennis tables are popping up in parks across the UK. In Bristol, the city
council has put tables in three parks and more are on the way. "It's a bit
of a snow-ball effect," says Nicola Ferris, the council's sports
development officer. In London, 47 tables have arrived over the last month, as
part of a pilot program from the English Table Tennis Association. Table-tennis
tables in public spaces are a common sight in France, Germany, China and
Ethiopia. Now they are finally taking off here. "We're giving this a go,"
says Diccon Gray from the association.
Indeed, the number of places to meet for a
quick game will triple this summer with an initiative called Ping London, which will put 20
tables in Trafalgar Square in July, with a further 95 tables in busy areas. The
bats will read,
"Please put me back!" "Ping-pong is probably the only sport
where you can be an absolute beginner, pick up a bat, and have fun," says
Colette Hiller, from a non-profit arts organization which is arranging the
program. England's latest people survey indicated a 9,900-person increase in
adults who reported playing table tennis at least once a week.
Back in London Fields Park, a knot of hopeful players
clusters a respectful distance from the
table, admiring the click, click, thwop of a skilled rally. It's a diverse, congenial group — school kids, middle-aged men,
families and a few enthusiasts with
professional-grade bats.
"A little concrete slab like this
pulling so many people together," says Barrett. "It's got to be a
positive thing."
(370 words)
(Emily Cronin, The Guardian, May 3, 2010)
ちょっとしたニュース記事。卓球熱盛んなロンドン。「あら，そうなんだ」ぐらいの感想の英文。
今年は受験界でちょっとした事件がありました。全て大震災で吹き飛びましたが。それは京都大学受験中の浪人生が携帯電話を使って問題の解答を求めたという事件です。その手口，技術も大いに興味がありますが，それと同時に検索すると結構な頻度でトップに現れる「Yahoo知恵袋」の存在が気になりました。一体どういうものかと，参加してみました。いろいろなジャンルで質問と回答が飛び交い，回答した人はその回答数と，質問者が選ぶBest Answerの数でランクが上昇していくよう。このランクを上げるために先を競って回答が続き，一種の満足感を得ているようです。
そこで，私も専門の英語で回答に挑戦しました。現在回答数が175件。さしあたって，201件の回答をしてランク２になりたいと思っていますが，200件の回答をしようと思うと本当にばかげた質問にも答えなければなりません。さらに，質問者がある程度の力がないと，どの答が正しく，すぐれているのか判断できずに，目くそ，鼻くそレベルのやりとりが繰り広げられることになります。従って，150件を超えた頃から回答するのが億劫になったり，回答するに値しない低レベルの質問がやけに目につくようになりました。
「辞書を引きなさい」「過去の質問の答を見てから聞きなさい」といった本当に，「バカ」としかいいようのない愚かが質問のオンパレードです。京大を受験するような浪人生がこのような低レベルのサロンで質問しても，よほどの幸運に出会わなければ正答には出会えないでしょう。それでも，常連の回答者にはかなりの力のある人もいることも事実。こうした人はよくしたもので，「馬鹿な質問」には答えていません。
いずれにしろ，ちょっとした刺激をもらいました。
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/02/table-tennis-park-ping-pong
【３月２６日】
大問１
Millions of people all around the world are familiar
with the great detective, Sherlock Holmes. He is so famous that letters with only his
name on the envelope are delivered to 221B, Baker Street, London. At this address Holmes lived with his dearest
friend and companion, Dr. John Watson. His greatness as a fighter of crime is
well-known as well as his love of the violin. However, he is also often criticized for his
cold personality.
But what do we know about the young Sherlock
Holmes? The answer is, "very little.
" We know almost nothing about his early life. The few things mentioned in the Sherlock
Holmes stories account for the only facts we have about his childhood and
family. So what do we know for certain? Firstly, it is very likely that he was born in
the countryside, possibly in Yorkshire. Secondly, his family was quite wealthy, one of
his grandmothers was French and the sister of a famous painter, Horace Vernet. Lastly, Holmes had an older brother called
Mycroft Holmes who was always quick to point out that he was much cleverer than
Sherlock. Their relationship was not a
very close one.
That is all we learn about Holmes from his
creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Many
people have tried to guess more about the great detective's biography. Some believe that he was a student at
Cambridge University because Holmes talks about it a lot in one story and gives
many hints about the place. His mother
was probably called Violet because Conan Doyle often used that name in his
books. As for his father, some say that
his name was Siger Holmes and he served as a captain in the British navy.
Although we will never really know much more
about Sherlock Holmes, one thing is certain: people will be reading and
enjoying the adventures of the world's greatest detective for many, many years
to come. (320 words)
２週間後に大会を控えた英語部は「死刑制」の準備を。普通の日常が崩れました。生徒が携帯電話ですごいことが起きている，といい。テレビをつけたところ，その後何度も映し出されることになる津波が車をまるでおもちゃのように流し去る映像が映し出されました。全く持って信じられない光景でした。
首都圏の交通も麻痺。我がクラスの生徒は翌日から始まる国立・後期試験を受験すべく長野をあとにしていました。関東・東北圏に向かった生徒は６人。東北大学２名，岩手県立大，秋田大，茨城大，それに電気通信大。まだ，途中で，震源地から遠かった２人はそのまま引き返し，新幹線に乗っていた生徒はトンネル内で一夜を過ごしました。茨城，岩手県立の二人は，その晩はホテルに泊まったものの，翌日からは避難所暮らし。東京で足止めをくらった生徒はそのまま新宿で一夜を過ごしました。
そんなわけで，入試問題の配信も滞り，１週間お休みとなりました。
原発がどうなるか，現在でも不透明な状況での正解作り。平凡な日常が大変懐かしく思われます。
大問３
The story of The Beatles' rise to fame and
fortune is one of the best known in pop music. The "Fab Four", the four young men
from Liverpool — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr —
are even to this day loved the world over. Since their first record, "Love
Me Do", The Beatles have sold over 700 million records. Because of these
sales, they each became very rich and famous and so did many people who worked
with and for them.
But this story is about the people who did
not make money out of The Beatles. Before
they became successful, several people had the opportunity to work with or be a
part of the "Fab Four's" career but they missed their chance. Perhaps the unluckiest individual was Pete
Best. He played drums with The Beatles
before Ringo Starr and was a much better musician than Ringo. Best was also the most popular with the fans —
mainly girls — because he was easily the most handsome. It was probably because of jealousy that he
was finally replaced with the less talented Ringo. Pete Best later made a record on his own which
was called Best of The Beatles but it did not sell very well.
Another to miss out on the money was the
original bass player, Stuart Sutcliffe. He was more of a painter than a musician and
was frankly not a very good one. The only reasons he was in the band were that
he was good friends with John Lennon and actually owned an instrument. Sutcliffe left the band while they were doing
a series of concerts in Hamburg, Germany. Sadly, he died in 1962 just a few months
before The Beatles released their first record.
Probably the biggest ones to miss out on The
Beatles' millions was the recording company, Decca Records. Brian Epstein, the manager of the "Fab
Four", played them a tape of the band but they were not impressed. They believed that guitar bands were not going
to be popular for very long and so they did not give them a record contract.
Is anyone still missing out on all that
Beatles gold? The answer is
"yes", and the strange truth is that the ones who are, are The
Beatles themselves. Millions around the world buy music from iTunes, which is
owned by the computer company, Apple
Inc. But because The Beatles — who also have a company called Apple Corps. — are having legal problems with them, no
Beatles music is for sale through that website. So, finally even the "Fab Four" and
their families are missing out on the chance to make a great deal of money from
their own music. (449 words)
成渓の問題は何回か担当していますが，題材の選び方よくて，何回か長文問題集に採用しています。今回は「全学部」入試という，最近はやりの方式。これまでに比べると問題量が格段に多く，その英文はあまり難しくないものでした。というより，１番は大変易しく「基本」としました。この英文は作問教授世代というこべきか，ビートルズの周辺の人についての英文。ビートルズをカバーしていないとさっぱり分からないかもしれません。私には懐かしかったのですが。
大問５
I thought my father was afraid of Mr. Zakowski.
Who wouldn't be? He was a big man who bent
forward a little when he walked, as if he
were about to strike you.
He lived alone in a house surrounded by a
fence behind where we played baseball after school every day. Once or twice a game, Owen or Joe would foul
off a ball and it would fly backward, landing inside Mr. Zakowski's yard.
In spite of the many times it happened, I
don't recall a ball ever breaking a window or any other part of the house. But Mr. Zakowski never failed to emerge from
his house with such anger that we all felt ashamed. Then he'd walk to where our baseball was, pick
it up, and then shake it at us proudly, as he walked back to his empty house.
Nobody said anything when he stole a ball. Something about the scary way that Mr. Zakowski
always looked at us and the way he used dirty language made us afraid of him. One night I told my father about Mr. Zakowski,
after he had taken our last baseball in the middle of only the third inning. "The man probably doesn't want you
walking over his grass," he said. "Maybe move home plate farther out. Or play somewhere else. "
I didn't pass along my father's advice,
anticipating what my friends would think.
Instead I used up some money that I had saved
to buy a new baseball.
The next Saturday, Joe, the first batter up,
immediately fouled my new baseball into Mr. Zakowski's yard.
When nobody else moved, I ran to the fence,
and swung myself over it, landing in the
thick grass. With no sign of Mr. Zakowski, I quickly ran to where I thought the
ball had gone, but I couldn’t find it. "Hurry up!", shouted Joe.
It wasn't until I got down on my hands and
knees that I spotted the ball against the house's foundation. Just as my fingers touched it, Mr. Zakowski
grabbed me by the legs and pulled me backward so hard that my face hit the
ground. Blood was coming out from my
nose.
I could see the shock in my father's eyes
when he saw me that evening. He took me
back to our baseball field, where I waited. I watched him open the gate and approach Mr.
Zakowski, who was already waiting in the yard.
A shortstop in high school, my father, now a
salesman, was below-average height. Mr. Zakowski
looked down at him, with fists at his side.
Then, I saw Mr. Zakowski's fists suddenly
unclench". He stepped back, and
shook his head as though he couldn't
believe what he was hearing. He appeared
to take a deep breath. To my surprise,
he shrank —
somehow becoming less scary.
"And we thought . . . I thought you were scared of him, Dad," I
said later as we walked home. He shook
his head. "No. I guess I am afraid of a couple of things. One is God. The other is something bad ever happening to
you. "
"But what did you say, Dad? He's so mean. "
My father looked at me with tenderness.
"I asked him his name, Son. His first name. "
The next day, we found all of last season's
baseballs in a wooden basket set on home plate, my bright new one on top of the
pile. Nor would any more be taken away
that summer. Even when Owen fouled one
high onto the roof, Mr. Zakowski climbed his ladder and threw it back onto our
field from his roof.
More had been said between my father and Mr.
Zakowski, of course. But the idea that
most people would love to unclench their fists, only if somebody showed
they cared — that's what has stayed with me.
I have understood more about fathers since
then, how their words and strength stay with us after they're gone. The tenderness, too, which I realized later,
was for me and Mr. Zakowski. Leo, that
is. (678 words)
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_6393c040-1208-5080-b30f-e76a4c0a712d.html
ちょっといい話系。成渓では１題ぐらい出題されている内容。センターの第６問がこのような題材でなくなったので，今となっては貴重な存在です。父親の存在って大きいのだろうか？と自問しながら読みました。
大問６
People who are concerned about climate
change tend to worry about what would happen if the Antarctic ice sheet or the
glaciers of Greenland melt. And, as most
experts agree, these ice sheets are so huge that if they melt, it would mean
major environmental damage caused by sea level rise and other effects. By
contrast, the rest of the world's glaciers contain less water and their
disappearance would be a regional rather than a global disaster.
If the Earth is losing its glaciers, the
place where it matters most is in the
Himalayas. The Himalayas is the
grand mountain chain 2500km long, which runs across the Indian sub-continent
and up as far as Nepal and (Chinese-controlled) Tibet. They contain the world's highest mountains
including all fourteen that are more than 8,000m high.
Because giant glaciers surround all the
major Himalayan mountains, their melting
would greatly influence the Earth's climate. It is not likely that all this ice
is going to disappear in the next few decades. But there is every chance that these glaciers
will go on becoming smaller at a far faster rate than they have in recent
centuries.
Scientists supported by the British
government have looked at what this might mean for the Himalayan area. It turns out that the Indus, the major river
of Pakistan and of which the Himalayas are the source, could carry anything
from 14 to 90 percent more water in the next few decades. This would mean terrible increases in flooding
and erosion. But once a great enough percentage of the glaciers has melted, the
amount of water in the river would fall by 30 to 90 percent over the end of the century. As this water is the basis of all life and
agriculture in Pakistan, the effects hardly need explanation.
If the planet continues to warm, there could
be big shifts in the environment. Small
glaciers would simply disappear and larger ones would retreat. There are signs that this is already happening.
In the Garhwal Himalaya, the famous
Gangotri Glacier has been retreating since 1780, but the process has increased
since 1971. It has lost 850m of its
original 31km length since then.
In Tibet, the Meili Glacier has retreated by
about 25 meters a year since 2000. In
2003, scientists discovered that the average temperature in the area had risen
by only about one degree over 30 years, not much by the standards of global
warming. This may suggest that there are
other causes for the disappearance of the ice. One theory states that perhaps the water that
once fell as snow is now landing as rain, and is eroding the ice.
The same story applies to
many of the other 46,298 glaciers in the surrounding area. According to Japan's Asahi newspaper, the
amount of water coming off them has increased by 20 percent over the last 40
years and their total area has fallen by seven percent. (493 words)
大問７
Celebrities receive such an amazing amount
of attention these days, and so much emphasis and importance is placed on their
activities. Because of society's desire
to know anything and everything about the rich and famous, it seems that the
media give an incredible amount of coverage to share details with the public on every aspect of their lives — what they wear,
where they ate last night, who they are dating, why they got arrested, and who
they plan to vote for.
The media give celebrities way too much
attention, but because society is so interested and longs for an endless supply
of news about these public figures, the media satisfy that demand. There are so many other important things going
on in the world, but a good amount of it doesn't make the news. Often one has to dig deep to find out about
socially relevant things. Certainly, the
media will throw us bits of serious news in between celebrity reports, but
generally these sections aren't detailed enough. All too often, it appears as if the media
consider that serious news deserves far less attention than celebrities. Fortunately, with the rise of the Internet,
people have other options to get "real" news.
Frequently, an announcement will come on TV
informing us of "breaking news" and because we feel that we have to
know what's going on in the world, we automatically tune in expecting some
important event. We tune
in to the program to discover that it is no more than an event in the
life of some celebrity and this coverage continues over the next 45 minutes. Is it really relevant what Britney's done this
week? It's sad Michael Jackson died, but how much more than that do we really
need to know? Actually I don't really care what happens to celebrities or, for
that matter, what their political views are. Are their opinions truly worth more than
anyone else's? I still fail to see what exactly makes their views more valuable.
Perhaps this fascination with celebrities is
why they are often treated differently before the law compared to the rest of
us. Shouldn't celebrities who break the
law pay the same price as anyone else? They too, are human and can do wrong, so
they shouldn't be excused from punishment.
When celebrities get arrested, the media go
crazy with their coverage. Probably
because of this, the courts simply ignore their bad behavior or give them a light
sentence. Imagine the anger and reaction
which would occur if famous celebrities actually had to pay the price for
crimes they committed. If they had to
spend a large amount of time in prison, they wouldn't be seen at parties,
wearing the hottest brands or photographed dining with other celebrities. In the eyes of the law, wealth or status
should not offer a level of privilege. On the other hand, it's society's worshipping
of celebrities that has placed them in the very fortunate position in which
they find themselves. (992 words)
これも問題の一つになっていますが，新聞の投書欄から何かでの一般のもっともな意見。
ただ，海老蔵事件より前の英文選定でしょうから，そういう点ではタイムリー。その他にも芸能人の事件を大事件として扱う時があったので。しかし，東日本大震災と原発の恐怖では何もかも吹っ飛びます。大相撲の八百長も，国会内のちまちました政争も全て吹っ飛びました。今は，とにかく全てのことが落ち着きを取り戻し，将来への道筋ができること願うばかりです。この時点で数十万規模の避難者がいるのですから。
【2011年3月22日】
大問１
Who
counts as a scientist? Everyone has heard of great scientists such as Galileo, Newton,
Darwin, and Einstein. But besides such
*towering figures, there are lots of others who obviously count as scientists. Many thousands of people presently consider
themselves part of the scientific community in some way. Some of them, though hardly belonging to the
same class as Einstein, have made important contributions to scientific theory,
but many of them have not — if by important we mean "generally
acknowledged as significant by scientists in the relevant discipline. "
It has been claimed that more than 90 percent of all the scientists who
have ever lived are alive today. Whatever the exact definition of scientist,
this assertion points
up something
special about our age: Many more people are employed in some aspect of science
than ever before. If we were to include all
those whose occupations make use of scientific research in some way—computer
technologists, engineers, physicians, and laboratory workers, for example —
then the total could be as high as several million scientists in the United
States alone. But even though engineers
and physicians have to study science as part of their training, use science in
their work, and may make contributions to science, they do not commonly call
themselves scientists. Likewise, the
National Science Foundation in the United States classifies only a small
percentage of physicians and engineers as scientists. Laboratory technicians, who may or may not be
required to understand the theories behind the research to which they are
contributing, are not so much players in the game of science as they are
assistants on the sidelines. Science teachers,
who may have much scientific knowledge but are not themselves trying to add to
it, are also not usually considered scientists.
Thus,
we must remember the distinction between the millions of people whose work is
connected with science in some way and those who are scientists, doing research
that attempts to extend scientific knowledge and understanding. Having and using a store of scientifically
obtained knowledge, however accurate and useful it may be, is not sufficient to
make one a scientist. The very concept
of the scientist has evolved over time and may still be changing. Despite the blurring of the concept today,
with the industrialization of science and the closer association between
science and technology, we can usually single out clear cases of research work
that have contributed directly to new knowledge. (404 words)
Leslie Stevenson and Henry
Byerly, The Many Faces of Science, Westview Press, 2000, pp. 38-39. —aria)
農工大も何回か目の担当。今回は難しかったです。工学系にしてはがっちりした問題を出すとは思っていましたが，なかなか難しい。特によく分からなかったのに問題でしっかり聞かれた文 It has been claimed that more than 90 percent of all the scientists who have ever lived are alive today. 最初，私はこれを「これまで存在してきた全ての科学者の９０％が今日生きていると主張されている」と取りました。この日本語では意味不明ですが，これまで存在した９０％が現在生きている，というのはちょっと想像しにくかったので，「これまで存在した科学が今の科学者の中に生きている」ぐらいかなと思いました。しかし，これでは，この段落の主旨「科学に関わった人は一杯いるが，いずれも科学者の範疇に入らない」とはあいません。字句通りに意味を取ろうと思うとますます深みに。結局，「現在大変多くて，人類に存在した科学者全体の９０％以上が現在の世界に存在している」という意味だと解釈しました。そうすると全体の主旨，「科学者とそうでない人の垣根が曖昧になり，科学に関わっている人が激増している」と整合性が取れます。
しかし，この部分を40字以内でまとめる，という問題を見たときは冷や汗が出ました。ましては，受験生にはかなり難しかったでしょう。
大問２
Intuition suggests that small-brained
creatures like bats, moles, and mice are less intelligent, or at least less "cognizant"
of the many possible options and consequences of their activities, than are
large-brained creatures such as horses, lions, and elephants. The differences seem even more obvious when we
compare large mammals to lizards, amphibians, and fish whose brains are usually
smaller than the smallest mammal brains. And what about the tiny brains of
insects? It takes a very
big leap of imagination to extend to them even a fraction of the mental
representational abilities of the lowliest vertebrates. Very large differences in absolute brain size
seem to have an undeniable correlation with some aspects of mental ability that
we recognize as intelligence. But is the
number of neurons the only relevant factor, or is there more to it?
One
facet of the brain size/intelligence problem that has been almost universally
ignored is the fact that different-sized animals live in very different worlds.
Since the pioneering work of D'Arcy
Thompson on the effects of scale on organism design, it has been clear that
natural forms are subject to quite different types of forces and physical
constraints if they differ significantly in size. Change in geometric relationships of body parts in response
to size (e. g. , surfaces with respect to volumes, forces with respect to
support structures) is only one such expression of scale. The old adage about "fleas on the backs of fleas on the backs of fleas.
. . ad infinitum" is not strictly possible, because at each level
of scale totally different chemical and structural principles apply. Fleas must be designed very differently from
the dogs that they parasitize. Dog-size
fleas and flea-size dogs are impossible. Likewise, the bacterial microorganisms that
parasitize the fleas are totally different in design from either fleas or dogs.
Although the range in sizes is not so
extreme among different vertebrates as to require radically different body
structure, there is still a range of many orders of magnitude in scale — enough to make a
difference. Within mammals we find a
range of sizes that is nearly as extreme as that between dogs and fleas, and
yet the body plans of all mammals, including their brains, are surprisingly
similar. Nevertheless, the information-processing demands of being
large as compared to small almost certainly make very different sorts of
demands on large and small species' brains.
A telescoping of time
correlates with size. Small animals' reflexes
must be quicker in order to control much smaller limbs and respond to rapid
locomotor feedback. Further, decision
making must be streamlined in small species because their high metabolic rates
and minimal energy reserves offer little leeway in foraging activities,
defending against predators, or mating behaviors. And, perhaps most important, a short lifetime
offers little time for learning from experience. As a result, being short-lived puts a premium
on the effectiveness of preprogrammed behavior patterns that require little in
the way of environmental priming or fine-tuning. Large animals, in comparison, can get by with rather slower
reflexes, can afford to vary their sexual and foraging behaviors in an effort
to better optimize their behaviors, and may have a considerable opportunity to
learn by observation and trial and error. Being longer-lived puts a greater premium on
learning and memory, and less on automatic preprogrammed behaviors. In addition, living a long time or having the
capacity to travel for long distances (which are often though not always
linked) is more likely to expose an animal to significant changes in the
environment. Consequently, large, long-lived animals
must be able to assess the effects of and adapt their responses to changing
environmental conditions, whereas small, short-lived species don't face such changes within a
single lifetime. There will be correlated differences in
strategies of intergenerational information transfer. Large species will tend to do better by transferring learned
information from parent to offspring, and by focusing effort on just a few
malleable offspring, whereas small species will tend to do better to sample alternative adaptational
strategies by producing large numbers of offspring with different variants of preprogrammed
behavior patterns, and leaving the rest to natural selection.
(700 words)
(ffi : Terrence W. Deacon, The Symbolic Species, W. W. Norton & Company, 1997, pp. 159-160. --car. ,)
今年度初の「やや難」。「難」としてもいいです。〈脚注〉の多さにもその難解さが伺われます。慶応，早稲田とやりましたが，いずれもセンターレベルとしたので，久々に苦労しました。特にNevertheless, the information-processing demands of being large as compared to small almost certainly make very different sorts of demands on large and small species' brains. の文は未だに不明。内容は推測できますが，どのような構文なのかthe information-processing demands of being large as compared to smallの主語が分かりません。
内容は昔読んで，ベストセラーでもあった「ゾウの時間，ネズミの時間」
に似ています。書いてあることはそれほど難しくないのですが，単語が難しいこと，１文１文が長くて，理解が困難です。ちなみ注に出ている単語でもcognizant, ad infinitum locomotor streamline leeway malleableなどはどこかで聞いたことがあるか，記憶にない単語でした。いずれにしろ苦労しました。（というほど時間はかかりませんでしたが）
（３月８日）
学部共通
大問１
It's certainly a widespread belief that the
younger you are, the easier it is to learn something. It doesn't just apply to
language; I always think I'd have been a better swimmer, footballer, pianist (insert just about any
skill of your choice) if I could have started earlier. And it seems strikingly, almost
self-evidently, true of language acquisition: unless you start to learn a
second language early, you've
had it (and I didn't start French until 11, which I'm always telling
people is one reason for
my abominable* ability with it). The advantages of early learning aren't
restricted to humans. Young songbirds have to be exposed to song in their first
two weeks in order to be able to produce it properly later. The limited window
in which something has to happen if subsequent development is to proceed
normally is called the critical period*.
According to the critical period hypothesis, you need to start learning
language early on. What exactly is meant by "early" varies, some
thinking that the critical period ends as early as five, others arguing that it
goes on until
puberty*, although the ability to learn might decrease the older you get. And
to learn a language, you obviously have to be exposed to it. The idea of a
critical period for language acquisition fits in well with our intuitions about learning a second language;
unless we start to learn it early, in the critical period, we're always going
to struggle, and can never be as fluent as a native speaker. But our intuitions
aren't always right.
Given the importance of helping people to
learn a second language, it's not surprising that there's been a considerable
amount of research on whether timing matters. Is it really hopeless unless you
start learning another language very early? The results have been rather
inconclusive*. One thing to bear in mind is that for all their apparent linguistic supremacy*,
children spend a lot of time doing it. One might say that a child has little
else to do than learn language; it's their full-time job. Contrast that with an adult, who might
struggle to find a couple of free hours a week. Is it any surprise they're
relatively bad? If we're going to make any claim stronger than that children
spend more time on it, we have to control for this factor somehow. When we do this, it's far less
obvious that children are better than adults; indeed, adults, who have a wider
range of study skills and learning techniques, might do better. In a comparison
of English adults and English children in their first year in the Netherlands
learning Dutch, Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle
(1978)* found that the children aged three to four years did worst. The
one clear way in which children do better is that they less likely to be left
with a significant accent. (476 words)
Trevor A. Harley, Talking the Talk (Psychology Press,
2010), P. 77.
静岡県立は初めての担当。偶然指導している生徒の受験校であり，一緒に過去問を何回か解きました。特に長文の400字要約を添削したのですが，６０分で一題，という時間的制約が大きかったようです。内容はありがちですが，しかし，目新しい。それは，子どもはことばの学習に専念しているが，大人は違う。そのことを考慮に入れれば，大人だってまんざらではない。ちょっと新鮮さがあります。
大問２
For the first time in more than a month,
this kinetic* and crowded city was free of the toots* and blasts of the
vuvuzela*. The plastic horns fell silent a day after the World Cup final, and
the ubiquitous* vendors* who were selling Spanish flags at traffic lights and
orange Dutch scarves in parking lots took the day off Monday.
Since South Africa was awarded the 2010
World Cup in 2004, this was the first day there was no soccer to look forward to.
"South Africans are very proud of what
the country has achieved and everyone in South Africa is walking tall," said
Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the World Cup organizing committee.
"For years, many South Africans have been told that they are inferior,
that they are not good enough. The nation has crossed a huge psychological
barrier."
But it remains to be seen whether the
enthusiasm and unity fostered by the World Cup can be sustained, or whether a
national torpor* will overtake a fractious* country in which much of the
population lacks basic services. If the resolve that led to a successful
tournament can be marshaled* to provide needed services, it could be testament*
to the power of sport to improve lives. But South Africans fear that once the
enthusiasm of the tournament dissipates*, this country of 48 million people
will return to normal, which is to say 25 percent unemployment and wide
disparities* between the rich and the poor.
FIFA, soccer's world governing body,
estimates it will make about $ 3. 2 billion from this World Cup, which will
finance 95 percent of its operating budget for another four years. But the
tangible*, long-term benefits for South Africa are more uncertain.
(287 words)
Jeffrey
Marcus, "Cup over, South Africans wonder if good times will
continue," International Herald Tribune (July 14, 2010), p. 10.
こちらは語数も少なく，あまりにインパクトに欠けました。
大問３
give
away. 1 If you give something away, you give it to someone without taking money
in (1) return. EG She has given
away jewellery worth millions of pounds... I could not decide whether to keep
the money he left me or give it away. 'A
give-away is something which you are given free, for example a free gift that you get when you
buy something else. EG There was a
give-away calendar on the wall.
2 If you
give away information that is meant to be secret, you let other people know
about it, sometimes by mistake. EG I didn't feel like giving away more
information than I had to... Don't give the story away, silly!... He often
wondered what the twins thought of him, but they gave nothing away. *Reveal is a more formal word for give
away. ^A give-away is an action or
remark by someone which reveals something that they were trying to keep secret.
3 If you
give yourself away, your actions or words accidentally reveal something about
you which you wanted to keep hidden. If you give someone else away, you reveal
something about them.. EG I was too
afraid that I might give myself away by saying or doing something
incomprehensible... His hands were beginning to give him away. •Betray is a formal or literary word for give
away.
Collins
Cobuild Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs (Collins, 1989), pp. 130-131.
コウビルドのgive awayの項目を読ませる，というちょっと変わった出題でした。
【国際関係学科】
大問1
People by nature are curious about the world
around them. All you need to do is spend time with a 5-year-old child and you
will see this curiosity in flower. Why is the sky blue? How far is the moon?
Where is California? When is Christmas? Often as people get older, they lose
some of this spirit of inquiry; they stop asking the questions that curiosity
encourages. But this is not true of everyone. Sometimes people who maintain
their curiosity about the world become
researchers — people whose
vocation(or avocation) is to ask the why, how, where, when, and
under-what-circumstances questions. This book is about how social science
researchers operate. You will see, however, that the research process is not
limited to the world of the professional researcher. The research process is
made up of a series of steps, techniques, exercises, and events that can be
applied to every spheres of life. The
methods of research can be applied to investigate any curiosity — from
such mundane issues as where to select a
residence or a school, to such life-shaking questions as how to prevent disease or nuclear
accidents.
The world lies waiting for the curious to
observe, manipulate, make judgments
about, and understand. The fundamental question is how this will be done. There
are many ways of observing the world: up close through a microscope, with the
naked eye, from far away through a telescope. The approach we take will depend
in large part on the kinds of questions we want to ask and the tools at our
disposal. Learning which questions to ask and which tools to use is essentially
the business of research methods.
"Research methods" help us to
understand the world. They are an essential set of skills, insights, and tools
needed to answer intelligently any but the simplest questions. If you are
curious about the social world or plan to have such curiosity or had it once
and would like to get it back, then you are a good candidate for studying
research methods. Without such skills, insights, and tools you can easily be a
foolish consumer, a misinformed voter, a
poorer student than need be; the world may seem to be in a state of chaos to
you. It is the job of the well-informed researcher to reveal the order in the
chaos we call the world. It is the job of research methods to facilitates such
a revelation of order. (406 words)
Royce A. Singleton, Jr., Bruce C. Straits, and
Margaret Miller Straits, Approaches to Social Research, 2nd edition (Oxford
University Press, 1993), p. 3.
入試英文といえば，入試英文。典型的な英文と言えます。その分，記憶に残りにくい英文でした。
大問２
Ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, are
found in all societies, though they differ in their expression among different
peoples. What is held to be a human right in one society may be regarded as
anti-social by another people, or by the same people in a different period of
their history. The saint of one epoch would at a later time be confined' as a man not fitted to cope with
reality. Even the nature of the physical world, the colors we see, the sounds
we hear, are conditioned by the language we speak, which is part of the culture
into which we are born.
The problem of drawing up a Declaration of
Human Rights was relatively simple in the Eighteenth Century, because it was
not a matter of human rights, but of the rights of men within the framework of
the sanctions laid by a single society. Even then, so noble a document as the
American Declaration of Independence, or the American Bill of Rights', could be written by men who themselves
were slave-owners, in a country where
chattel' slavery was a part of the recognized social order. The
revolutionary character of the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
was never more apparent than in the struggles to implement it by extending it to the French
slave-owning colonies.
Today
the problem is complicated by the fact that the Declaration must be of
world-wide applicability. It must embrace and recognize the validity of many
different ways of life. It will not be convincing to the Indonesian, the
African, the Indian, the Chinese, if it lies on the same plane as like
documents of an earlier period. The rights of Man in the Twentieth Century
cannot be circumscribed& by the
standards of any single culture, or be dictated by the aspirations of any single people. Such a
document will lead to frustration, not realization of the personalities of vast
numbers of human beings. (322 words)
American
Anthropological Association, "Statement on Human Rights," American
Anthropologist, (n.s.) 49 (4)
1947, pp. 542-543.
こちらも出典と言い内容といい，出題意図が実はよく分かりませんでした。
（３月７日）
大問Ⅰ
The
three university roommates had one thing in common: their high school records. All had been excellent students, and their
Verbal and Mathematical test scores were within a few points of each other. Even their patterns of abilities were the
same: higher in verbal than in mathematics, and definitely weak in spatial
abilities. These were the kinds of
people who could never get the suitcase to fit into the trunk of the car.
Alex
got almost all As in high school and had excellent test scores as well. He was the kind of student every university wanted,
and on April 15th of the year of his application to universities, he received
many fat envelopes offering him acceptance. He went to a very good university.
Alex's
first three years at university were almost as good as his high school years
had been. He received mostly As with a
few Bs. He was considered one of the best.
But then, in his senior year, he had to
do an independent project in his major, politics. Alex liked to be given the structure within
which he would work; and throughout his entire school career he had been given
this structure. His teachers had told
him what to do, and he had done it, and done it well. Now, for the first time, there was no one to
tell him what to do, and he was confused. He was uncomfortable structuring the entire
task himself, and it showed in the work he produced. He only got a grade of C on the project.
Alex
has found a career that is a good match to his style of thinking. Today he is a contracts lawyer. Asked to describe his work, he explains that
the investment bankers draw up the deal and decide what is to be done. Alex's job is to take their deal and set it
down into a precisely written contract. Thus, whereas Alex once took direction from
his teachers, today he takes direction from the bankers. Alex explains that, to him, the ideal contract
is one that is so perfect, and detailed, that if the bankers want to change their
deal, they have to pay him to do it. In other words, tsihey have to pay Alex every time they change their ideas.
Little wonder that Alex has been so successful
in his career. He has found a way to
make his clients pay not only when they make up their minds about what to do,
but also every time they change their minds.
Bill
also had a strong high school record, although not as strong as Alex's. Bill liked to do things his own way, and so
came into conflict with the constraints that any school imposed. Bill recognized that, to succeed, he would have
to do well in school —and he did. But his
major energy was devoted to his favorite subject, biology. He was involved in summer programs in biology,
and did high-level research in biology even as a high school student. Moreover, his research was his own, not
someone else's.
Bill's
grades during his first three years at university were good, although not as
good as Alex's. But in his senior year,
he did better than Alex. Given the
opportunity to do an independent graduation thesis, Bill was very happy. He was now doing exactly what he had always
most liked to do. And he received an A
on the project, as well as an award for it.
Bill
went on to graduate school to become a biologist, and today he is a successful researcher.
His career is about as different from
Alex's as another career could be. Bill,
like Alex, loves his work, but for exactly the opposite reason. Whereas Alex likes translating the bankers'
ideas into contract language, Bill likes translating his own ideas into
language that is meaningful to biologists and non-biologists alike. He is a team leader, and gives rather than
takes direction.
Note
that both Alex and Bill are very successful at what they do, but for different
reasons. Neither would do very well in
the other's occupation, but not for lack of ability: Alex has the ability to be
a biologist, Bill to be a lawyer. Rather,
what makes them successful, given the basic ability to succeed, is that they
are in jobs that are good matches to their styles of thinking. The same is true for Corwin.
Corwin
went to the same university as Alex and Bill. He was quite critical of the university, as he
tends to be of almost everything and everyone, himself not excepted. Indeed, Corwin is difficult to be around for a
long time because he is so critical. And
because he is bright, his criticisms are usually on target. As a university student, Corwin wrote
critiques of student drama productions, a task that suited him admirably.
Corwin
was not only critical of his coursework at university. Whenever he would go out on dates, Corwin
would give his dates a test of values. The dates never knew they were taking a test,
because Corwin never told them that the questions he was asking were a test. But they were a test. If the woman passed, Corwin would go out with
her again; if not, that was the end of the relationship.
Perhaps
unsurprisingly, Corwin's relationships tended to last only a short time. No one quite met his standards. Today, Corwin is in his mid-fifties and still
unmarried. I don't know if he is still
giving the same test, or a variant
of it. What I do know is that he has
found a job that is a good match to his critical, judgmental style. Today, Corwin is a psychiatrist, and a good
one. He spends his days evaluating
patients and their problems, and suggesting and administering treatment for
them. He is very successful, as would be
expected for someone who likes nothing more in life than to evaluate people and
their problems.
The cases of Alex, Bill and Corwin
show us how styles can help us understand why, given equal abilities, one
person chooses one career and another person chooses some other career. People with different styles like to use their
abilities in different ways, and so they respond differently to the kinds of
thinking required in different occupations. Styles also help us understand why some people
succeed in their chosen careers and others do not. Put Bill in Alex's career, and he is likely
to find himself with no clients. He
wants to do things his way, not the way of his clients. Put Alex in Bill's career, and the match will
be equally bad: Alex prefers to be given direction. People need to find careers that match not
only their thinking abilities, but their thinking styles as well. (1134 words)
青山学院の担当する機会は多く。昔のイメージでは量が多くが，難解なイメージがありましたが，最近ではかなりやさしめ。文学部志望者が激減しています。今年の担当の３年生でも純粋な文学志望者はごくわずか。国際やら人文を加えてもそれほど多くありません。全体に理系にシフトし，女子生徒は圧倒的に医療系志望です。その比率は２０％～３０％。これは全国的な傾向で，人文系，特に文学系の地盤沈下が激しいことが予想されます。女子でも経済や法学志望者も少なくなく，総じて彼女らの方が学力的には優秀に思われます。
というわけで，この英文は1000語超という長さはありますが，英文の難易度としては「基礎」としたいところ。ただ，長いので一応「センターレベル」としましたが，その平易さだと本当は「基礎」が穏当。苦労しない分だけ，内容も残りそうにありません。「能力が同じでも職業の適性に向き，不向きがある」というのはあまりにあたりまえな主張であり，結論でありインパクトがありませんでした。
大問 ２
Some
years ago, an experimental psychologist at Harvard University set out to examine
the nonverbal aspects of good teaching. As the basis of her research, she used
videotapes of teaching fellows that had been made during a training program at
Harvard. Her plan was to have outside
observers look at the tapes with the sound off and grade the effectiveness of
the teachers by their expressions and gestures. She wanted to have at least a minute of film
to use in her analysis. When she looked
at the tapes, though, there was really only about ten seconds when the teachers
were shown apart from the students. "I didn't want students in the picture,
because obviously it would bias the grades," she says. "So I went to my adviser and told him
that it wasn't going to work. "
But it
did. The observers, presented with a
ten-second silent video clip, had no difficulty grading the teachers on a
fifteen-item checklist of personality traits. In fact, when the psychologist cut the clips
back to five seconds, the grades were the same. They were the same even when she showed the
observers just two seconds of videotape. That sounds unbelievable unless you actually
watch the teacher clips and realize that the eight seconds that distinguish the
longest clips from the shortest are unnecessary. When we make a snap judgment, it is made in a
snap. It's also, very clearly, a
judgment — we get a feeling that we have no difficulty describing.
The
psychologist's next step led to an even more remarkable conclusion. She compared those snap judgments of teacher
effectiveness with evaluations made, after a full semester of classes, by
students of the same teachers. The
correlation between the two, she found, was astonishingly high. A person watching
a two-second silent video clip of a teacher he has never met will reach
conclusions very similar to those of a student who sits in the teacher's class
for an entire semester. (327 words)
こちらは訳の問題。平均的な受験生だともしかししたら，それほどできないかもしれません。偏差値で６０ぐらい必要でしょう。昔の受験生で英語偏差値６０といえば，かなりの高学力ということになりますが，現在の偏差値６０はそれほどのことはありません。この程度の英文でもきちんと訳せる生徒は偏差値帯では，65以上だと思われます。信じがたいかもしれませんが，今年の２月に二次向け指導をした実感です。
さて，これは内容的には大変おもしろいのですが，おそらくかなり書き換えられ，簡略化されたために，その記事のおもしろみがなくなってしまった感じです。この原文はWhat Do Job Intervies Really Tell usという記事のようですが，心理学者の名前を不必要に削ってしまったために，かえって臨場感のないものなってしまいました。また，これが人を判断する場合の仕草の影響，ということも切り取られた英文だけは推測が難しいです。内容は大変おもしろいのに大変残念です。むしろこの英文の前の就職試験の面接の方がおもしろかったと思います。
【3月５日】
大問１ Text Ⅰ
[A] The role of scientists is to study nature.
They do not do this merely by passively
watching nature and writing down observations. While such an endeavor is important and may
yield fascinating results, it does not further our understanding of natural
phenomena. Scientists also expend great
effort in modeling: developing abstract models that explain the observations
they have made. The basic process of
observation and then modeling leads to models that are descriptively adequate: that is, models
that perfectly describe the observations. But even this is not quite all that scientists
do. The models they develop should also
be predictively accurate as well. Thus,
after developing a model of some phenomenon, the scientist should generate
predictions based on the model and then carry out tests to see if the
predictions come true. If they do not,
the scientist must revise the model and test it again. This cycle of observation, model construction,
testing of predictions, and model revision is what constitutes good science and
leads to the development of adequate scientific theories.
[B] The physical phenomenon of gravity
provides us with several illuminating
examples of modeling in scientific discovery. Sir Isaac Newton developed the idea that the
force of gravity between two objects is proportional to the product of their masses
divided by the square of the distance between them. This is a mathematical model that can be
readily tested. And so it was. And it has withstood the test of time such
that even more than three hundred years later, it remains a central tenet in our
understanding of physical phenomena. But
even in his own time, Newton was criticized by fellow scientists for not
providing a causal
model of gravity, that is, a mechanical model that explains the mechanism of
gravity. In response, he revised his
model and suggested that the earth was something like a large sponge, soaking
up ether—a mysterious invisible element thought at the time to pervade the
entire universe—and that objects were pushed down toward the earth by the ether.
[C] Some years before Newton, Galileo Galilei
had also studied gravity intensely
and developed early mathematical models of motion and gravitation. In particular, he demonstrated that two
objects of differing mass fall at the same speed. However, when faced with the problem of why a
hammer and a feather do not fall at the same speed, he revised his model: He
hypothesized that air was something interfering in the fall of the feather and
that if an experiment could be done where there is no air, then the hammer and
feather would fall at the same speed. This prediction could not be tested during
Galileo's lifetime,
but was finally shown to be correct by the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon.
[D] In his famous theory of relativity,
Einstein proposed the current dominant model of gravitation, which provides
both a mathematical model and a mechanical model to explain the phenomenon. In particular, he hypothesized that massive
objects warp space
around them, creating a gravitational well which attracts other objects: the
larger the mass, the larger the well, and hence, the gravitational force. Einstein's model, though, is currently
challenged by a revolutionary new model called string theory, which holds that
gravitational forces are translated through miniscule, invisible strings. This model is currently a hot area of research
undergoing a high degree of model formulation and testing.
[E] Examples of the failure to provide
appropriately testable models for evaluation can easily be found in the medical
world. One example of this is a
technique called Rolfing.
Founded by Ida Rolf (1896-1979), a
biochemist turned physical therapist, Rolfing involves various methods of
massage which are designed to bring the body in complete alignment with the force
of the Earth's gravity. Rolfers hold
that every part of the body must be aligned in order to enhance one's personal
energy and, therefore, develop a positive emotional state. While the model sounds interesting and perhaps
even promising, it fails to provide any objective means for measuring the
personal energy (sometimes referred to as "chi") which the technique
is supposed to enhance. Instead, Rolfers
point to what they say is a large number of patients who testify that “It
works!” Such evidence is anecdotal
and cannot validate
the model. In fact, even if it could be
shown that all Rolfing patients say that the method works, that would still not
provide evidence because there is a possible alternative explanation—the
placebo effect in which patients report health improvements (real or imagined)
because they were expected. The placebo
effect is well-documented and provides a better and simpler model for
explaining the apparent success of Rolfing. Yet, Rolfing persists as a pseudoscience. (783 words)
全体に英語力＋思考力を問う問題で，受験生がこの問題にどのくらい取り組むことができたのか。大変興味深いところです。
Text Ⅱ
Models of one of the most complex systems of
all intelligence—are developing rapidly in a sub-field of computer science
known as artificial intelligence, often referred to as 'Al', for short. AI researchers are not all of the same stripe, however. According to Russell and Norvig, the goals of
Al research can be seen as varying in two dimensions. The first dimension sees the goal of AI
research as modeling how humans think at one extreme versus how they act at the
other. The second dimension, on the
other hand, sees the goal of AI research as modeling human intelligence versus
some ideal, absolute intelligence. This
divides the world of AI research into four areas.
In the first area, researchers seek to develop
models that think like humans. This
overlaps with another area of research called cognitive science that is equally
concerned with modeling human thought.
AI researchers in the second area reject the
effort to model human thought (arguing, for example, that it's too complex or irrational to model) and
focus instead on developing models of how people actually behave. Even if the reasoning process is different
from humans, they are satisfied as long as the behavior is the same.
The third type of AI researcher tries to build
models that think rationally. These
researchers are trying to model idealized human thought. Although human thinking is largely rational,
much evidence has been offered to show that humans are capable of maintaining
simultaneous beliefs that contradict each other. It is models in this area that are often
portrayed in science fiction as concluding their human creators are flawed and
must be eradicated: for instance, the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space
Odyssey or the Skynet computers in the Terminator film series.
The final type of AI researcher builds models
that act rationally. Like the contrast
between the first and third areas, models in this area differ from those in the
second area above in that they attempt to model ideal human activity. In reality, humans occasionally act against
their own interest. The models in this
category thus seek to act rationally with respect to an ideal system of
intelligence.
(360 words)
AI研究を４つの視点から区分した英文。Text Ⅰで紹介された科学研究の基本的アプローチ。その目的，modelingをdescriptively adequateとpredictively accurateと２段階に定義した上で，その理解をこの英文で問う，という結構凝った問題。短時間で判断できるのかかなり疑問。
Text III
Anthropometry was a prominent field in the
19th and 20th centuries and held that there was a connection between the
dimensions of various parts of the human body and behavioral tendencies. For instance, among the many claims of
anthropometrists was that murderers have prominent jaws and pickpockets have
long hands. The Nazis of 1930s Germany
even required anthropometric exams in order to weed out undesirables in society.
Despite early evidence, researchers have
been unable to identify any reliable anthropometric correlations, though the
measurement techniques have proven useful in many other areas such as
ergonomics—the science of designing the workplace in ways that suit the worker.
身体測定学(anthropometry)を例にText Ⅰの最後に紹介したrolfing（ロルフ式マッサージ）と同じpseudoscienceの例として紹介。設問は同じくTextⅠ，Ⅱを参照して解答。
大問Ⅱ
Astronomy is the study of
the universe and the celestial bodies, gas, and dust within it. Astronomy includes observations and theories
about the solar system, the stars, the galaxies, and the general structure of
space. Astronomy is the oldest science, dating back to thousands of years when primitive people noticed objects in the sky overhead and watched the way
the objects moved. In ancient Egypt, the
visibility of certain starts for the first time each year marked the onset of the seasonal flood, an
important event for agriculture. In 17th-century
England, astronomy provided methods of keeping
track of time that were especially useful for accurate
navigation. Astronomy has a long
tradition of practical results, such as our current
understanding of the stars, day and night, the
seasons, and the phases of the Moon. Much of today's research in astronomy does not
address immediate practical problems. Instead, it involves basic research to satisfy
our curiosity about the universe and the objects in it. One day such knowledge may well be of practical use to humans.
<Bibliography>
"Astronomy. " Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. 2001.
出典はEncartaとなっていますが，ネットで検索すると様々なところで，断りもなく自分の英文かのように紹介していました。ちょっと不思議です。
大問Ⅲ
Guinea worms grow
up to a yard long inside the body and finally poke out through the skin. They cause excruciating pain and must be
pulled out slowly, an inch or two a day. Here in southern Sudan, people can have a
dozen Guinea worms dangling from their bodies. This district is, in fact, one of the last
places on earth with Guinea worms. If
all goes well, Guinea worms will be eradicated worldwide in the next couple of
years. For the last 24 years, former
President Jimmy Carter has led the global struggle against the disease. When he started the Carter Center, there were
3. 5 million cases annually in 20 countries. Last year, there were fewer than 3,200 cases
in four countries. The great majority of
the remaining cases are here in southern Sudan. Among the last sufferers of Guinea worm is
Anyak, a Sudanese boy living here. He
had a painful blister on his thigh—a sign that a worm was underneath and might
soon poke through. Guinea worms spread because
sufferers try to escape the burning pain by entering water. The worm then dumps its larvae into the water,
which other people drink. To detect
cases of the disease, the Carter Center has set up a network of Guinea worm
volunteers. One volunteer had reported
Anyak's blister, and a Carter Center field officer persuaded the boy to move
into a compound for treatment. This
ensures that a victim doesn't enter a pond. Anyak leapt at the opportunity to move into
the compound, partly because of the promise of a bed mat, a mosquito net and
three good meals a day. The campaign
against Guinea worm is succeeding because—unlike many foreign aid projects—it
puts villagers themselves in charge. Now
that they understand that it is contaminated water that causes the disease,
village elders have barred anyone with a dangling worm from entering a water
source. Elders also encourage families
to use a well drilled by Unicef. But
it's an uphill struggle.
When Anyak was in the compound, a nurse
dripped water on his blister to fool the worm into emerging. In the morning, it did, looking like spaghetti.
Anyak grimaced as the nurse carefully
pulled the worm out a bit, spooled it around gauze, and bandaged it to prevent
infection. In recent decades, the world
has learned that fighting poverty is harder than it looks. But the Guinea worm campaign underscores that a
determined effort, with local people playing a central role, can overcome a scourge that has plagued
humanity for thousands of years.
ちょっとした記事の空所補充。選択肢は冠詞，接続詞，ということで文法問題です。TOEICの新形式の問題に近いと思われます。
<Bibliography>
Kristof, Nicholas D. "Winning the
worm war. " The New York Dries. April
29, 2010.
Section B
[D] One thing about
evolution—you never know what's going to influence it. Take the European corn
borer, for instance. Researchers have just made a strong case that a certain aspect of its
behavior has evolved because of human harvesting of corn.
[E] The corn borer, Ostrinia
nubilalis, is a pest caterpillar that spends spring and summer feeding on its
host corn stalk before spinning a cocoon for the winter. It is almost identical
to a related species, 0. scapulalis— in fact, until recently the two were
thought to be one. But 0. scapulalis's host plant is not corn, but a weed known
as mugwort.
[B] In a paper in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences, Vincent Calcagno, a biologist now at McGill
University, and colleagues show that, behaviorally, that makes all the
difference in the world. For mugwort is neither
harvested nor grazed, while corn has been harvested for centuries.
[C] In harvesting, either
mechanically or by hand, the stalks are cut off some height—often 6 to 15
inches— above the ground. Any corn
borers above that height will surely not survive when the stalks are shredded,
burned or fed to animals.
[A](5) Through
field and laboratory tests, the researchers discovered that before it stops
eating and spins its cocoon, the corn borer travels down the stalk, usually reaching a height at
which it is safe. (2) 0.scapulalis does not exhibit this descending
behavior, called geotaxis.
(1) Dr. Calcagno said the likeliest explanation for the
behavior is the selection pressure of harvesting—over generations, those caterpillars that
did not descend, or did not go far enough, did not survive. (3) "There
could be other reasons that explain the tendency to move down, but we have no
evidence of what those reasons could be," he said. (4) This
harvesting-induced selection, he added, could be widespread in other pests.
(312 words)
これも凝った問題。まず，問題では最後の段落に当たる[A]の英文を意味の通じるように，並べ替えて，この段落を完成させた後で，他の４つを加えて段落を並べ替えさせ，さらにその段落構成について問う問題。これを正攻法で解こうとすると恐ろしく時間がかかります。かつ，文と文の結束性がそれほど強くないので，かなり考えます。ところが，この英文を並べ替えた選択肢が４つ用意されています。この選択肢を利用すると，たとえば，[A]のパラグラフでは(5)が文頭に来ることは明かで，選択肢a.b.を排除。次に来るのは(2)か(3)なので，これも(2)と(3)を比べれば(3)が来ることも明か。ようするに受験技術を使えばものの数分で解答可能。正攻法の解き方では難しいですが，選択肢と照合するだけならおそろしく単純な問題。小手先の問題といってもいいでしょう。少しはらが立ってきました。
<Bibliography>
Fountain, Henry. "Insect may make
moves to survive the harvest. " The New York Time. April 26, 2010.
大問４
Section A
Arguments might contain various types of
fallacies. This is when they are
logically mistaken or unfair. The
fallacy known as a hasty
generalization is a conclusion based on insufficient, or
unrepresentative evidence. Good
arguments must include claims, that is, statements of fact that are taken to be
true. An argument which leaves out a
claim that is clearly controversial is called an argument with a missing claim. Ad hominem is another example of a fallacy. This is where the arguer attacks the person
holding the opposing opinion rather than arguing the issue. An either/or fallacy is where the writer creates a false choice
between his or her preferred option and one that is clearly unsatisfactory. Finally, a red herring is where the author changes the
subject to distract the readers from the issue.
The text consisting of five
paragraphs below contains fallacies.
[A] It
happened on the campus of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. One of the largest sites for global climate
research is located on that campus. It
is known as the Climate Research Unit. 160 megabytes of confidential documents and e-mails
from the CRU's computer system became available to everyone with a computer,
and the biggest fraud
in the history of science was exposed.
[B] In
these documents and e-mails, scientists at the University of East Anglia have
admitted throwing away some of the raw temperature data on which their
predictions of global warming are based.
[C] The
documents show that global warming scientists were cooking the data. They've long known their global warming story
wasn't true, but they faked the data, defrauded us all, attacked their skeptics with vengeance, raked in
millions of dollars for additional "research," and became
international celebrities. Global
warming is simply a gigantic hoax.
[D] Like all good con men caught in the bright lights of
truth, America's proponents
of global warming hysteria including Al Gore, Barack Obama, and all the TV
networks except Fox, are trying to stick to the script, downplay these revelations. and continue to sell you the lie.
[E] You
must now join me in notifying Mr. Obama that we will not let him use the global
warming lie. If you do not, in just a
few days, Mr. Obama will be traveling to an international conference where he
and other leaders intend to commit you to a stringent energy rationing scheme that is based on
this fraud. All your energy consumption
will be limited and governed by U. N. bureaucrats.
<Bibliography> White, Dennis.
"Global warming fraud exposed. "
Grand Junction Free Press. http://www. gjfreepress.
com/artiele/20091202/OPINION/9120I9978.
昨年に続く問題。私立大学では作問者が数年おきに代わるのでしょう。その時の作問者の好みで題材が選ばれたり，選択肢が作られたり。昨年よりましですが，それでもこの種の英文で何を検定していようとするのか。どんな英語力を有した学生を求めているのか判然としません。過去問を解いた受験生はかなり頭を悩まして過去問にむかい，こんな問題出題されなければ，と願いつつ，今年もまた出たか？！というわけで，早稲田理工受験生は来年も格闘することになるのでしょう。なんか可愛そうです。
Section B
How can
you decide if you should make a certain investment or not? To address this
question, let's start with a basic concept called the time value of money. As an illustration, consider a case where
someone offered you an option of receiving $1 today versus $1 one year from
today. Which option would you take? If
you are like most people, you would take the money today because you could, for
instance, deposit the money with a bank and gain interest. So, if a bank offers you 10% interest per year
on your deposit of $1, you will, in a year, gain interest of $0. 10 and receive
the total amount of $1.1, which is obviously more than $1 one year from today. So, you can say that $1 today is worth more $1
one year from now.
Conversely, if you have $1 in your bank
account one year from today when the interest is 10% per year, you have $(1/1.1)
today. That is to say, $1 one year later
is worth less than $1 today. This idea
that the value of money is different depending on when you have it is called
the time value of money.
This
idea can be applied to the concept known as the present value (PV). The present value is defined to be the value
of cash to be received in the future expressed in today's dollars. PV is calculated as follows.
(i) PV = P1 /(1 + r) + P2/(1
+r)2 + P3 /(1+r)3 +... +Pn /(1 +r)n,
where
P1, . . . , Pn, = cash
receipts in years 1 through n, and
r =
the rate of return offered by a comparable investment such as bank interest
rate
If PV
is larger than the amount of initial investment, it is a good investment. If PV is smaller than the amount of initial
investment, it is not a good investment. If we have the same amount of money P coming
in each year indefinitely, we will have:
(ii) PV = P/(1 + r) + P/(1 + r)2+ P/(1
+ r)n+ ...
By multiplying (ii) by (1 + r),
we will have:
(iii) (1 + r)PV = P + P/(1 + r) + P/(1 + r)2 +... + P/(1 +r)n-1+ . . .
By subtracting (ii) from
(iii), we get:
(iv) (1 + r)PV — PV = P
Thus, we will have a very
simple formula as below.
(v) PV = P/r
Let's
now consider a day-to-day example. If
you want to buy an apartment as an investment, how can you decide if it is a
good investment? For the sake of simplicity, let's assume you can expect a
yearly rental income of $10,000 indefinitely when an interest rate is 5% per
year, and the apartment costs $150,000. You can say that it is a bad investment.
こちらも昨年度と同じ形式。実はこれは大変迷いました。私にはどうもⅳの式の出し方が判然としないのです。これはn年後には，計算式は(1 + r)PV — PV = P- P/(1 +r)nとなるのではないかと思われます。従って，PVの計算も代わってくるでしょう。もっとわからないのは素朴な問題として，15万ドル投資して毎年Ⅰ万ドルのリターンがあるとしても，１５万ドルを5%の複利で運用したら，どこかの時点で複利で運用した方がリターンが多くなるのではないかと思います。さらにこれは英文そのものには関係ありませんが，アパート経営では，アパートの価値は急激に落ちて，メインテナンスもしなければならないし，恒常的に住人を確保できるかも不明。少なくとも否かでのアパート経営はうまくいかないのではないか，というのが直感的な投資の是非です。とにかく式の変形でとまどって，問題にかなり苦労しました。
<Bibliography> Nohria,
Nitin. The Portable MBA Desk Reference,
Second Edition. John Wiley & Sons,
Inc. 1998. 263-264. Globis Management Institute. MBA Finance, First Edition. Diamond Publishing Co. Ltd. 1999.
32-41.
II .
David: Hello, Yoko. how’s it going?
Yoko: Hi, David. Well thanks. How about you?
David: Not so bad.
Yoko: It's lovely weather again today, isn't it?
David: Yes, but it can’t last! Say, have you cut and dyed your hair?
Yoko: What, this?
David: Well, honestly, I almost didn't recognize you just now.
Yoko: Really? It's fairly common for final-year university students to have their hair cut and to dye it black again when starting to look for work,
David: How come you do it so soon? You've only just begun your final year.
Yoko: Yes, but in Japan much of the final year of university is devoted to securing a job.
David: Doesn't that interfere with your final-year studies and exams?
Yoko: No, not really, You see, we complete most of our academic requirements by the end of the third year.
David: So is the entire fourth year spent looking for work?
Yoko: No, in many universities students are required to complete a graduation thesis.
David: I see. So, with the exception of that, the fourth year is largely spent searching for a job?
Yoko: Yes, You sound surprised. Isn't it the same in Britain?
David: Not really. For one thing, most undergraduate courses in Britain are only three years long, so students don't have enough time to search for jobs.
Yoko: Is that so?
David: Yes, and for another, British students generally begin their job seeking later than Japanese students do.
Yoko: Why is that?
David: Well, perhaps it's because whereas in Japan you have life-long employment, in Britain people tend to change jobs more often. Consequently, they don't feel the need to make the right choice of job the first time round.
Yoko: I see.
David: Going back to your new look, do companies in Japan still really care if your hair is black or not?
Yoko: Frankly, I'm not sure. But my thinking is, "why take the risk" ?
David: That's admittedly the safest way. . .
Yoko: And safety is important when it comes to such things as getting a good job, isn't it?
David: Yes, but conversely, playing it safe only perpetuates the practice.
Yoko: How do you mean?
David; Well, if no one challenges the practice, everyone will keep on doing the same "safe" thing.
Yoko: True, but who wants to be the first to risk it?
David: So it looks like black, shoulder-length hair is here to stay then.
Yoko: I guess so. What about in Britain?
David: Well, I think it is a little bit more relaxed. I mean, generally, your own hairstyle is your own personal affair, within reason of course.
Yoko: So who decides what's within reason? It all sounds a bit ambiguous. Isn't it rather an effort to have to decide "will this be acceptable or not"?
David: I've never really thought about it like that.
Yoko: Anyway, look at the time! I should get going.
David: Me, too! It was nice to run into you again though. Bye.
慶応は環境情報，総合政策の担当が多く，法学部は初めて。どうも英文はほぼオリジナルで，作問者が作成している感じ。それだけ，自身の英語に自信があるのでしょうが～
この会話は単に空所補充の問題。どうも通りで偶然会ったという設定。DavidとYokoの関係は不明。留学生で大学の同級生かな，とも思いますが，もしそうなら就職活動にそれほど無知ではないかもしれないし，通りでばったり会っての立ち話にしては，突然の文化論。なんか不思議な設定でした。
Ⅲ
A new study suggests that Englishmen aboard the Titanic were less likely to survive than their American counterparts because of their good manners. They may have implored crew members to give lifeboat places to "women and children first" and queued for a place while others made saving their own lives a priority, it is believed.
English people were seven percent less likely to survive the 1912 disaster than others on board, according to the study. By contrast, Americans were 8. 5 percent more likely to survive than the norm. Yet there was practically no difference in the survival rate among the two countries' women, indicating that English gentlemen gallantly sacrificed themselves.
English passengers were only 0. 3 percent less likely to survive and Americans only 0.9 percent more likely–––when men were removed from the equation, Australian researchers found. The study's results showed that among other factors, "cultural background matters" in a life-and-death situation. Irish passengers were five percent and Swedish two percent more likely to survive than the average, they found.
The study also examined whether social values such as "women and children first" survive in crises such as the Titanic disaster, or whether people revert to "every man for himself" and seek to save themselves. The ship struck an iceberg during its maiden voyage of April 14, 1912 and sank shortly after. There were only 1,178 lifeboat spaces to go around the 2,223 people on board. Only 706 survived the disaster, with 1,517 perishing in the icy Atlantic.
The study found that women were 52 percent more likely to survive compared to the average, while children aged 15 and below were 32 percent more likely to live through the experience than people aged 51 or more. Women aged between 15 and 35––prime child-bearing age––were even more likely to survive the disaster. The researchers said the findings supported the theory that people will act on a "reproductive instinct" to preserve their species by protecting mothers and young children.
They also discovered that the better a passenger's class of accommodation, the more likely they were to survive. "Being in first class as opposed to third class increases the probability of surviving by around 40 percentage points," the authors wrote. Six of the seven children in first class and all of the children in second class were saved, while only a third were saved in third class. Almost every first-class woman survived, compared with 86 percent of those in second class and less than half in third class. The researchers attribute this to passengers with more expensive tickets being given "preferential treatment" and "better access to information about imminent danger, and to persons in authority". (446 words)
空所補充と下線部の単語の意味を問う問題。１題できませんでした。
The researchers attribute this to passengers の言い換え。選択肢はput this down/ put this up / put this over / put this upの４つ。問題は私がこのコロケーションを知らなかったこと。実は最初電子辞書で調べたのですが，見逃してしまったことです。ライトハウスでみたら出ていて，その後電子辞書に入っているジーニアスでも確認できました。
(10)〈人･事〉を〔…の〕せいにする〔to〕∥～ it down to experience それを人生経験とみなす,
失敗に取り乱さないでそれから何かを学ぶ/～ down her unhappiness to her poverty 彼女の不幸を貧乏のせいにする.(ジーニアス英和）
知らなかったことも問題ですが，辞書ですぐに確認できなかったのも問題。
Ⅳ
(42) I was rather surprised when you contacted me about doing an interview. I had heard that you had perished at the hands of government troops or had succumbed to some tropical disease.
7. Let's just say, to
quote Mark Twain, "The reports of my death have been greatly
exaggerated."
(43) Some people are saying that, what with the fall of the Berlin Wall and "the end of history", leftwing activists are somewhat out of fashion and irrelevant.
9. Like social justice!
Look, all over the world the social conditions that give rise to those like us
are more appalling and more prevalent than ever.
(44) Perhaps, perhaps not, but there are many these days who think that your way—that of armed struggle—does not represent the best way to address them.
4. And yet, in many
places what's the alternative?
(45) Well, some would say that what is needed is the expansion of democracy to those areas.
6. Well, India is the
world's largest democracy and yet it suffers widespread, grinding poverty. It isn't as if democracies are
free from desperate social conditions. Even the so-called First-World
democracies experience considerable numbers of homeless, working poor and so
on.
(46) So, are you proposing that anyone who is poor and doesn't like his or her government should pick up a gun and start a revolution?
2. Let's turn that around
for a moment. Are you advocating that desperately impoverished people should
put up with their plight and trust to voting once every five years for one of a
handful of political parties? Don't forget, none of these parties truly
represent the poor.
(47) Well then, what about an expansion and deepening of capitalism as a means of solving these problems?
8. Well, I don't really
see that more of what has often caused the problem in the first place will
necessarily solve it! To my mind, capitalism is based on exploitation and
inequality, and wherever it has placed its foot it has intensified these
conditions.
(48) Yet isn't there such a thing as the "trickle-down effect" whereby as a society gets generally wealthier, some of the money eventually reaches the poor?
3. To tell the truth,
I've not seen the slightest evidence to support the notion that automatically,
almost as if by the pressing of a button, some of the wealth of the few ends up
in the pockets of the many. That is simply not my experience.
(49) But surely you wouldn't deny that some charitable individuals, such as Bill Gates, have contributed vast sums of money to the poor?
0. But we're talking
about two different things here! You're talking about individuals and I am
talking about a system. The system allows generous acts on the part of
individuals, but simultaneously impoverishes large sections of the population
in its drive to maximize profits by keeping wages extremely low.
(50) Much has been made recently of the connection between democracy and capitalism. Are you then denying the existence of such a link?
5. For my part, I see
absolutely no relationship between the two. Looking at the continent of Latin
America in the '70s and '80s, I certainly see no proof of capitalism
guaranteeing democracy...in fact, quite the reverse.
(51) However, what if we turn our gaze to countries with a longer history of democracy and capitalism? One thinks of the U.S. and Britain.
1. But in reality, in
one, two parties are meant to represent the political spectrum of hundreds of
millions of people. In the latter, there is, in theory, a three-party system,
but for the vast majority of the last one hundred years, only two parties have
been in power, I rest my case really.
この問題は結構難しかったと思います。レポーターの発言(42)～(51)に対する応答を提示された0～9から選ぶものですが，巧みにレポーターの発言に直接的に反応をすることを避けており，また，発言そのものが少しややこしいので，この１０個の対応を考えるのは，英語の力以上に，その煩雑な作業に時間を費やさなければならず，疲れます。
もっと素直な問題ができそうなものですが。
V .
Sarah Montaigne, a young woman who came to America years earlier as an orphaned child, returns to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her purpose is to collect her father upon his release from 18 years in the Maison Centrale jail. Miss Montaigne arrives at the Port-au-Prince wine shop of Mr. and Mrs. Debray. In the loft above the shop, sits an old, confused man, so traumatized by his years in prison that he cannot recognize his daughter. Sarah, aided by Mr. Debray, takes her father, Dr. Montaigne, back to Philadelphia.
Five years later, Mr. Gregory Hadley is being tried for treason in America. Sarah is present as a witness and testifies that five years earlier, when she was returning with her father from Haiti, the accused comforted them aboard the ship on which they crossed the ocean. He was an innocent passenger from Haiti who unfortunately has been arrested on suspicion of treason. Hadley's defense lawyer sows seeds of doubt in the mind of the main witness by presenting Justin Gibbins, who closely resembles Gregory Hadley. The witness is unable to swear that Hadley, and not Gibbins, was the man he thought a traitor, and so Hadley is ruled innocent.
In Haiti, the abuses of the aristocracy and the resentment of the poor grow. The Lord Francois, Gregory Hadley's uncle, runs over a boy with his carriage, killing him. Mrs. Debray looks on, knitting a scarf. She daily adds to the length of the scarf by knitting into it the family crests of those who are to be executed come the revolution. Later, Gregory Hadley visits his uncle, the Lord Francois. Hadley tells the Lord that he believes his family has wronged the people and that he wishes to compensate for these past wrongs. The Lord scorns Hadley's suggestions. Weeks later Francois is found stabbed to death in his bed.
Sarah and her father live in Philadelphia with their maid. Hadley works in Haiti but frequently visits America. He speaks of his love for Sarah to Dr. Montaigne, who gives his consent for them to marry. Justin Gibbins is a highly-gifted lawyer but is rather idle because of his pessimistic view of life. He also loves Sarah. He once proposed to her, but she turned him down. Nevertheless, he still loves Sarah, and tells her that he is "a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you. " Although Sarah marries Gregory Hadley and later bears him a daughter, Gibbins never forgets his words.
In Haiti, the poor are bordering on revolt. In the Debray's wine shop locals express their hostility toward Gregory Hadley, who, upon his uncle's death, has just become the new Lord Francois. The poor, joined by the Debrays, attack the Maison Centrale jail to free its unjustly imprisoned poor. They also burn down the Francois mansion. Three years later, the revolutionaries seize power in Haiti. On his way to Port-au-Prince on business, Hadley is arrested and accused of being an aristocrat. On hearing this, Sarah, her father, their maid, and Gibbins hasten there. Dr. Montaigne uses his influence as a former Maison Centrale prisoner to have the revolutionaries spare Hadley's life. Shortly after, however, Hadley is again arrested, this time accused by the Debrays and "one other".
This "other" turns out to be Dr. Montaigne himself! While in the Maison Centrale, he wrote a letter denouncing the Francois family. Though the doctor had concealed it in his cell, Mr. Debray found the letter when he attacked the Maison Centrale, and has now presented it as evidence. In it, Montaigne tells how he was once summoned by Francois to treat a dying peasant woman whom the Lord had severely beaten. Francois tried unsuccessfully to pay off Montaigne, and when Montaigne tried to inform the authorities of the crime, Francois had him jailed on false charges. Montaigne then cursed Francois and his descendants (and therefore Gregory Hadley). He is horrified to know his letter is now being used to condemn his son-in-law. Hadley is sentenced to die the next day.
While Dr.Montaigne tries unsuccessfully to secure Hadley's freedom, Gibbins visits Mrs. Debray, who reveals that the woman in Dr.Montaigne's story was her sister. Gibbins tells the Montaignes to leave Haiti the next day. Gibbins visits Hadley's cell, drugs him, and exchanges clothes with him. He then bribes the prison guard to help him carry out Hadley; Gibbins remains behind. Meanwhile, Mrs. Debray tries to assassinate Sarah and her daughter, but is confronted by the maid, and dies in the ensuing struggle. The Montaignes, Hadley and the maid all escape Haiti, Gibbins remains to be executed in Hadley's stead, willingly giving his life to ensure the happiness of the one he loves. (788 words)
これも不思議な問題。英文そのものは単語力と読解力をみるものですが，出所不明な物語の要約で，この短い英文に数多くの人物が登場。それぞれの関係は１文ぐらいでしか語られないので，よほど注意深く，記憶力の良い人でなければ，話について行くのが大変。一文一文は平易で，高２レベルかと思いますが，その情報量の多さに辟易。慶応の問題はトータルにつまらないというか，不自然というか。解いていて楽しくない英文でした。この問題に受験生がどのくらい対応しているか大変興味があります。
【2011年2月26日】