【愛媛・前期】

Ⅰ

  It has become commonplace to observe that Americans know little of the geography of their  country, that they are innocent of it as a landscape of  rivers, mountains, and towns.   They do not know, supposedly, the location of the Delaware Water Gap, the Olympic Mountains, or the Piedmont Plateau; and, the indictment continues, they have little conception of the way the individual components of this landscape are imperiled, from a human  perspective, by  modern farming practices or industrial pollution.  

    I do not know how true this is, but it is easy to believe that it is truer than most of us would wish.  A recent Gallup Organization and National Geographic Society survey found Americans woefully ignorant of world geography.  Three out of four couldn't locate the Persian Gulf.   The implication was that we knew no more about our own homeland, and that this ignorance undermined the integrity of our political processes and the efficiency of our business enterprises.  

( Barry Lopez, "The American Geographies")   (158 words)

Ⅱ

    The truth about getting a new dog is that it makes you miss the old one.   This reality hit me hard one spring day in 2009 when we arrived at Thistledown Golden Retrievers, near Boston, where my husband, Henry, and I had come to meet Donna Cutler, a breeder of English golden retrievers.  Because it was named Thistledown, and because I knew that the golden retriever breed was started by someone actually named Lord Tweedmouth, I was expecting the place to look like a country manor.

    Instead, we parked in front of a plain suburban ranch, and the only hint of the litter of the seven-week-old puppies we had been invited to inspect—though we knew it was really us who had to pass muster with the breeder—was a sign on the front door that showed two golden retrievers and said WIPE YOUR PAWS.  Why did I suddenly feel like wiping my eyes?

    My heart was still hurting over the loss of Buddy, our stone-deaf, feisty-to-the-end West Highland white terrier, who had died in March 2007 at age fourteen.  Our two children, Cornelia and Will, who grew up with him but flew the nest years before his demise, often mused that Buddy was my one perfect relationship in life.

    Buddy, like me, was a self-sufficient type, and despite his small size he was no lap dog.  Like many Westies, he was woefully stubborn and never once came when called.  He could be unpredictable and grouchy around small children and once bit my goddaughter's upper lip, He wasn't great with old people, either; years later, he bit the leg of an elderly woman who, for some inexplicable reason, was standing barefoot and dressed in her nightgown in our elevator when the doors opened on our floor.  (Happily, that incident triggered an unlikely friendship between Eve, Buddy's victim, and me. ) Nonetheless, I was madly in love and forgave Buddy all his sins.  I learned a lot from him, too; among other things, he taught me that even in stressful situations dogs have a unique way of steering you in unlikely and interesting directions.

    I confess that I spoiled Buddy beyond all reason.  Houseguests often awoke to the aroma of grilled chicken with a dusting of rosemary, which I liked to give him for breakfast.  Henry would sometimes note, without rancor, that when I took business trips and called home, my first question was always "How's Buddy?"

    Long after Cornelia and Will began to wriggle out of my embraces and find my made-up games annoying, Buddy was always happy to have me scratch his pink belly and play tug-of-war.   While my children filled their lives with school, scouting, and sports—and, later, college, work, and love—Buddy remained my steadfast companion.

  When Buddy was a puppy, we lived in Virginia, and together he and I would amble around our neighborhood for miles, discovering new side streets with interesting houses.

  Someone always stopped to admire him, which is how I met a lot of my neighbors.  During our walks I was also able to let go of some of the pressure of my job as an investigative reporter, back then for the Wall Street Journal.   Sometimes, with my mind wandering free as I pulled the leash this way and that, I would come up with a great story idea or reporting angle on the Washington scandals that were my frequent reporting targets.   Buddy, steadfast and true, was my loyal coconspirator.    (577 words)

( Jill Abramson, The Puppy Diaries)

Ⅲ

    It is unlikely, however, that there will ever be as much dialectal variation in Australia as there is in England.  This is because modern transport and communications conditions are very different from what they were 1,500 or even 100 years ago.  Even though English is now spoken in many different parts of the world many thousands of miles apart, it is very unlikely that English will ever break up into a number of different non-intelligible languages in the same way that Indo-European and Germanic did.  German and Norwegian became different languages because the ancestors of the speakers of these two languages moved apart geographically, and were no longer in touch and communicating with one another.  In the modem world, barring unforeseen catastrophes, this will not happen, at least in the near future.  As long as Americans and British people, for instance, are in touch with one another and want to communicate with one another, it is most unlikely that their dialects will drift so far apart as to become different languages.

    It is equally unlikely, however, that we will ever all end up speaking the same dialect.  From time to time, people who ought to know better predict that in fifty years' time all British people will be speaking American English just like the Americans.  This is clearly nonsense.  What is actually happening to the different varieties of English seems to be this.  At the moment, American and English English are diverging in their pronunciation.  In many respects, American and English accents are slowly getting more unlike one another.  This is because changes in pronunciation are  taking place in America which are not happening in England, and vice versa.

    It may well be, therefore, that in 100 years' time the different accents will take a little more getting used to, and a little more concentration, if we are to understand one another.   It must be borne in mind, though, that familiarity always breeds greater understanding.  When talking-films were first introduced into Britain from the United States, very many people complained that they could not understand them.  This may seem very strange to us now, but of course until the 1930s the vast majority of British people had never heard an American accent.  Now British people have no trouble in understanding the sort of American English that appears on television because it is so familiar to them.

    On the other hand, American and British English are probably getting more alike when it comes to vocabulary.   More and more words are crossing the Atlantic in both directions.  Until the 1950s, most British people said wireless.  Now most say radio.  Many scores of words now used quite naturally by all British speakers were formerly considered "Americanisms".  Twenty years ago Americans never used the British swear-word bloody.  Now increasing numbers of them are doing so.  And so on.   (482 words)  (Peter Trudgill, The Dialect of England)

【東京女子】

大問１

The  café provides a place for ordinary as well as extraordinary interactions, as it has since its arrival in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Coffee is foreign in origin, but by the early twentieth century it had become a part of Japanese culture, even though green tea continued to dominate. Japan is now the third largest coffee-consuming country in the world, which is evidence not only of its popularity but also of the success of the Japanese coffee industry. But from the beginning, the Japanese  café was more than a cup of coffee and a coffee maker. It has always been something more than the drink on the menu.

   The exclusive paneled rooms of the  Kahiichakan, Japan's famous first  café, gave way to today's casual kissaten, but their history is not a straight-line story. The places we call  cafés persist as their changeable forms continue to reflect the multiple personal, social, and spatial requirements of their times. They do so as thoroughly Japanese spaces but ones with no expectations of thoroughly "Japanese" behavior. Among many thoughts they offer is that 'Western" and  "modern"—concepts that were joined in the late nineteenth century—began to develop separately as  "modern" took on a Japanese identity. The  café began as Western and  modern and became Japanese  modern very quickly.

   There would be no  cafés without coffee and no coffee without the  cafés in Japan. The two have inseparably become one. Coffee now appears elsewhere, of course, in offices and homes and in the numerous drink machines, but the relation between the drink and the place is essential: coffee built the  café and did not arrive in teahouses.  Cafés in Japan have been centers for community life, for continuing relationships and for the creation of new ones.  Cafés are where the foreign and the domestic in art, literature, and ideas have been discussed and argued about, starting when Western influences arrived in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Back to  cafés came Japanese political activists, artists, writers, and musicians who had spent time in European and American cities. Soon after their introduction,  cafés in Japan became local, and though they hosted foreign ideas and arts, they lost any Western cultural feel they might have had. The café is itself changeable and can become what people want and need it to be. It is paradoxically a space for the performance of cultural habits as well as a place for relief from the demands of cultural performances. But, finally, a  café is also a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee, anyone can go.  (432 words)

大問　２

Something old, something new.

Something borrowed, something blue.

  This is a good-luck saying which dates back to the last century, and many brides will try to ensure that they have something of each in their wedding outfit.

   Something old is meant to represent the link with the bride's family and past, particularly mother or grandmother.  Something old is symbolic of the continuation from the past to the present. To symbolize this, brides may choose to wear a piece of antique family jewelry which belonged to a relative, or an accessory which contains a photograph of parents or grandparents. Alternatively, they may select something from the mother's or grandmother's wedding gown. Other things that may be chosen include a handkerchief, a scarf or a piece of lace.

   Something new represents good luck and success, and the bride's hopes for a bright future in her new married life. The wedding gown is often chosen as the new item, but it could be anything that is newly purchased for the wedding, such as the wedding flowers or the wedding rings. Wearing a new item on your wedding day conveys the message that you and your husband are creating a new union that will endure forever.

   Something borrowed is to represent to the bride that friends and family will be there for her on the special day and in the future when help is needed. "Borrowing" is especially important, since it has to come from a happily-married woman, thereby lending the bride some of her own happiness to carry into the new marriage. Anything can be borrowed, but it must be returned afterwards. One way to add a borrowed item to your wedding-day clothing is to borrow a friend's piece of jewelry. If you have a close friend who has worn the same necklace for as long as you have known her, you might consider borrowing this particular necklace for your wedding day as a reminder of your friendship. Perhaps she wore the necklace on her own wedding day.

   Something blue in ancient times was the symbol of faithfulness, purity , and loyalty. Often a blue item is the band used to hold up the bride's stockings, and in the past the couple wore blue bands on the border of their wedding clothes to symbolize love, modesty, and faithfulness.  Another way to wear something blue is to include a blue flower in your hair or to choose blue wedding flowers. Today some brides even wear blue nail polish or blue shoes. (417 words)

原文

大問　３

   How did  land snails from America first get to Hawaii? The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated island chain on earth, surrounded by more than 2,000 miles of ocean, and yet Hawaii has land snails that originally came from America. Scientists think that the first land snails from America were carried to Hawaii by birds about 3.7 million years ago. They were not land snails like the ones often found in Hawaii today, but were probably only a few millimeters long. Researchers have discovered that birds regularly carry tiny snails and sticky snail eggs attached to their feathers. One study conducted in 1965 found as many as ten land snails in the feathers of a single bird.  (117 words)

【４月２２日】

【首都大学東京・前期・理系】

   "The final assignment for this course is a group  project. . . "  This statement will invariably bring a mixture of reactions from a class of students.  Some typically feel relieved to share the burden of a large assignment.  Others worry about whether they will be teamed up with lazy people.  Still others are excited about the possibility of making friends as a result of working together.  Organizational work groups evoke the same diverse reactions among employees, along with a host of the same challenges.  Because of these challenges, organizations should carefully consider whether a team approach is desirable.

   Certainly, some activities must be performed by highly coordinated teams.  A pilot cannot fly a jet without a copilot and flight engineer, nor can a surgeon remove an appendix without the efforts of nurses and technicians.  However, in many instances organizations can decide whether a team approach is suitable for accomplishing a task.  For example, important decisions can either be made by one individual or by a group.  The decision whether to assign work to a team should take many factors into account.  As has no doubt been observed, some people work better together than do others.  This is the basic starting assumption of team composition research.  The key is to identify what mixture of individual characteristics results in the most effective team functioning.  Part of the answer depends on what the team is going to be required to do, and another part depends on what outcome really matters.  For example, having a highly diverse work group can have a very positive impact on creative problem solving, a task that is central to many organizational teams.  Unfortunately, highly diverse groups also tend to have trouble retaining members, with the person who stands out being the one most likely to quit.  What diverse teams gain in creativity they lose in stability.  However, this imbalance has a positive side effect.  When new team members are added to an existing team, the team becomes more creative.  Apparently, adding "new blood" not only brings in fresh ideas, but it can also add a spark that motivates existing team members to think more creatively.

   More generally, what appears to be most effective with regard to diversity is to have sufficient differences so that everyone can contribute something unique.  This is best accomplished by having functional diversity, differences that are based on training and experience.  This type of diversity also has the added benefit of allowing team members to learn from one another, something that can benefit team members over the long term.  In contrast, demographic diversity in teams (e. g. , age, sex, race) often has negative effects on team performance and team member satisfaction, posing unique challenges for organizations committed to creating a more diverse workplace.

   Another issue related to team composition is the question of how to hire "team players," those who can work effectively with a wide range of people.  This trend is gaining force in many team-based organizations, with consultants being awarded profitable contracts on the condition that they help recruiters identify top-quality employees.  These new hires are expected not only to be technically skilled, but also to be good at working with others.  Research on the selection of team members shows once again the relevance of the personality approach.  For example, teams with members who are diligent and sociable tend to be more effective.  Having highly agreeable group members is also related to team success.  Interestingly, this research has found evidence that even one highly disagreeable team member can have an adverse effect on an otherwise smoothly functioning group.  The saying "One bad apple can spoil the barrel" certainly seems to apply to teams.

   Another factor to consider is the ideal size of the team.  Here, the research on motivation in teams is quite specific.  According to this research, it is far better to slightly understaff a team than to make it too big.  Teams with too many members not only have more difficulties coordinating their efforts (e. g. , setting a common meeting time), but they also tend to reduce their efforts when working collectively.  Not surprisingly, when members of a team get to decide how big their team should be they often make it too large, because people understand that their own efforts can be reduced as the group gets bigger.  This tendency is something that organizations have to deal with as they try to create teams that are neither overstaffed nor understaffed.

(739 words)

【名古屋・前期】

大問１

 At the center of the nineteenth-century commercial world, Victorian London was perceived by Continental visitors as combining the extremes of urban life: it had fabulous squares and parks, yet appeared to be dominated by cold and mechanical industry.  The theme of industrial modernity captured the tourist imagination, sometimes overshadowing London's monuments and cultural accomplishments.  As London offered a vision of a potential industrial European future, the Continental visitor found London an unsettling experience.  Its conservatism, privacy and individuality were depicted as representative of the British political economy, the unique blend of free-market capitalism, governmental non-interference and personal liberty that was to be found nowhere else in nineteenth-century Europe.  Thus, Louis Enault could claim in 1859 that London was "the head and heart of the nation.  "

 A strong current of discontent is evident in the tourist writing between 1840 and 1900, centered on the theme of urban modernity.  Continental visions of the city therefore suggest a differentiation between types of urban modernity.  The more technologically orientated sites of progress — railways and gasworks, for instance — represented only the most obvious and intrusive results of this modernity.  On the other hand, London's cultural products — which were perceived as being influenced by the British Empire—were praised highly as indicators of civilization and splendor, being necessary to refresh and advance the city's pool of intellect. 

 The perception of modernity as being divided into "industrial" and "cultural" streams, and the rejection of the former in the case of Victorian London, has its roots within patterns emerging in nineteenth-century urban tourism.  As industrialization contributed to the death of the romantic landscape of the early nineteenth century, the idealized imagery of the sublime was replaced with rather brutal representations of urban life of the 1840s.  For Continental visitors, London ultimately signified the onset of an uncertain and anxious future of steam and steel.  In this respect, as Andrew Lees has argued, Britain was useful as a "social laboratory"; the country manifested "processes and problems already evident to a lesser degree or soon to make their appearance in other countries as well.  It was a vast experiment that might instruct and benefit foreign as well as domestic observers.  " Many of those who wrote about London were present there in order to represent the British capital to their own audiences, as a way of comprehending the coming changes.  It is no accident that they were journalists, authors, and travel writers, all of whom had an interest in understanding the human condition and the challenges of industrial modernity. 

 The shock of seeing for the first time "a city of factories" no doubt prompted many to react negatively.  Within a Continental context, industrial concentrations were markedly different from those within Britain.  Prior to 1875, an uneven urbanization rate coupled with a geographically diversified industrial base meant that many mid-century visitors would not have seen such a combination within their home countries.  In some instances, Continental visitors lacked the language to adequately describe their visions.  In 1862, the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for instance, thought London to be "some prophecy out of the *Apocalypse being fulfilled before your very eyes."　 Such phrases unintentionally echo Friedrich Engels' 1844 The Condition of the Working Class in England, which was itself centered on the failure of the British political economy to cope with the growing pains surrounding the country's industrialization.  Continental criticisms often parallel the themes found throughout Engels' work, *caricaturing London into a *synecdoche representing these same failed policies.  Yet, whereas Manchester slums were the result of a purposely imposed structural dynamic between the rich and the poor, which kept the city's discontent hidden behind the surface of clean streets, London's problems seemed to be the result of a lack of political will: the slums, the mess of railway lines and pipes, and bizarre and disjointed architecture are the chaotic emblems of individualism, coupled with the indifference of central government in reducing the effect of the worst of the excesses. 

 Despite such dark overtones, perceptions of London were not uniformly negative, and Continental visitors were often taken with specific sites.  Edmondo de Amicis, the Italian adventurer and travel writer, felt that Westminster presented one of the most sublime images: "The view enjoyed there is the most beautiful in London, and is worth all the views from the bridges of the Seine." Indeed, many of the visitors under consideration here travelled to London initially without criticism in their minds, and instead mixed professional activity with personal interest.  Whatever the motivation, it is clear that there existed in western Europe a certain fascination with the British capital. 

 What constitutes "modernity" is never fixed.  The term cannot be applied without a specific reference.  London is, or is not, modern only in comparison with other cities; on this basis, visitors construct and challenge many features of the British metropolis in relation to their own experiences.  British industrial technology is modern to cross-Channel visitors, yet Americans, for instance, often felt it to be backward or inefficient.  London's cultural and political economies are modern to imperial subjects, who imitate British examples, but the same forms do not impress French or German tourists very highly.  Urban tourism thus shows the "modern" city to be a somewhat subjective concept.  Modernity is ultimately, like many things that surround tourism, a product of the relationship between the mindset of tourists and their (usually superficial) experiences with the receiving culture.  It is not universally applicable, or constant even between contemporary writings.  (909 words)

大問２

 If you're looking for a creative solution to some problem at work, don't retreat into a chamber of solitude (or an office with the door closed) to ponder your dilemma in silence.  Instead, head to the nearest café — hopefully, one where people are chatting and the waiters are busily *scuttling about making cappuccinos and frappuccinos and generally making some noise.  A clever and, yes, creative new study suggests that moderate background noise is a better spur to innovative thinking than silence for some people.

 I've always been a bit puzzled as to why I sometimes get my most creative work done while sitting in a crowded, bustling café.  It turns out I’m not only the one.—and the effect is not entirely the result of the sudden charge of caffeine.  Ravi Mehta, a business administration professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and two colleagues set out to explore the effect of moderate *ambient noise on creative problem solving.  In a series of experiments, the researchers found that a certain level of noise actually made it easier for experimental subjects to come up with clever new ideas.  As the researchers put it, "For individuals looking for creative solutions to daily problems, such as planning a dinner menu based on limited supplies or generating interesting research topics to study, our research shows that instead of burying oneself in a quiet room trying to figure out a solution, walking out of one's comfort zone and getting into a relatively noisy environment (such as a café) may trigger the brain to think abstractly, and thus generate creative ideas.  "

 Isn't all that noise a bit, you know, distracting? Actually, yes—and that's the point, as Mehta and his colleagues explain in a new paper published in the journal of Consumer Research.  While a relatively quiet environment may make it easier to, say, plow through a book, a noisy environment can induce a certain degree of "disfluency" or "processing difficulty," which can disrupt your normal way of thinking in such a way that it actually enhances the sort of abstract thinking that can spur real creativity. 

 But it's not as simple as noise being equal to creativity.  Too much noise — like, say, someone with a *jackhammer tearing up pavement right outside your office — really can make it hard to hear yourself think.  The solution is to find a happy medium — a place that is pleasantly noisy rather than *jarringly loud.  (4) As the researchers put it, "A moderate level of ambient noise induces processing disfluency, which leads ( ) abstract cognition and consequently enhances creativity.  A high level of noise, however, impairs creativity by reducing the extent of information processing.”

 As you might expect from a paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, there's something here for marketers, too.  The researchers' experiments show that moderate levels of ambient noise can also spur consumers to consider buying more innovative products.  Indeed, the researchers suggest that "in order to encourage adoption of new and innovative products, marketers might consider filling their showrooms with a moderate level of ambient noise.  "

 The authors do have one major *caveat: the creativity-enhancing powers of moderate noise may only work fully with people who are naturally creative to begin with.  (532 words)

大問３

Andy: Have you ever seen a ghost or had some kind of experience like that?

Kate: Not that I can recall.  And I suppose I'd remember if that sort of thing had happened to me.  I thought I saw a UFO one night, which turned out to be a helicopter. Why do you ask?

Andy: The other day a friend was walking past a vacant room in an old restaurant where he works and he got a strange feeling like he was being watched.  Then, when he looked into the room he saw this weird image like smoke but roughly in the shape of a human sitting on one of  the chairs.  At first he couldn't believe what he was seeing.  He stopped and looked at it for about a minute but he couldn’t work out what it was.  Eventually, he decided it was a ghost. 

Kate: It was probably just floating dust or smoke.  I'd need to see some kind of evidence to back it up before I'd even start to consider the possibility that it was a ghost. 

Andy: He's got it.  He took a photo on his cell phone and I saw it for myself.  It's just like he described it. 

Kate: Maybe there was dirt or smoke on the lens of the camera. 

Andy: But that doesn't make sense.  He saw the ghost first, which is why he took the photo.  And there was no kind of fire in the room or even nearby. 

Kate: That still doesn't mean it was a ghost. 

Andy: Do you have a different explanation?

Kate: Well, there's plenty of research from medical science showing a correlation between certain types of disease and experiences of ghosts.  For example, I learned from a medical journal a while back that patients with Parkinson's disease or some age-related mental diseases are more likely to have extremely vivid hallucinations of ghosts or monsters. 

Andy: That's interesting.  But those are experiences reported by people with some kind of disease.  What about healthy people who say they've seen ghosts?

Kate: There are other types of hallucinations that anyone could experience under the right conditions.  For example, when people are drunk or exhausted or have sleep disorders they can have unusual experiences. And let's not forget what can happen when people take some kinds of  drugs. 

Andy: Okay, but let's get back to the ghost experience I was talking about.  Are you saying that my friend's experience was all in his mind?

Kate: Not completely in his mind.  It could be caused by just misinterpreting what is there in reality.  Have you ever heard of a "mirage"?

Andy: That's a type of illusion, like you're in a desert and you see water that isn't really there. 

Kate: That's it.  Naturally, you might be more likely to see water out in the desert if you're dying of thirst, but it's actually an illusion that can be experienced by anyone, healthy or not, if the atmospheric conditions are right.  And even a photo can create that type of misunderstanding. 

Andy: Fine.  Still, I don't think you've proven that what my friend saw and photographed wasn't a ghost. 

Kate: Well, I'm not saying that all experiences of ghosts are necessarily  mistaken.  I'm just saying lots of weird experiences can be given  scientific explanations.  I have to admit that some experiences, which  may include your friend's, are (4) scientific explanation right now. 
Andy: Fair enough.  Anyway, even if we can't explain something scientifically  at the moment, eventually we might be able to, so to be honest, I don't  know one way or the other what that was at the restaurant myself. 

【2013年3月２８日】【内視鏡検査で苦しみながら】

【同志社・２月５日】

大問１

    Many of us would love to believe that chocolate is a health food. Maybe you've heard or read about its potential benefits. Eating chocolate may have some health pluses, but the research is far from certain. The drawbacks*, on the other hand, are clear. Think twice before you reach for that  tempting treat.

  The idea that chocolate might be good for you stems from studies of the Kuna  Indians*, who live on islands off the coast of Panama. They have a low risk of  cardiovascular* disease or high blood pressure given their weight and salt intake. Researchers realized that genes weren’t protecting them, because those who moved away from the Kuna islands developed high blood pressure and heart disease at typical rates. Something in their island environment must have kept their blood

     "What was particularly striking about their environment was the amount of cocoa they consume, which was easily 10 times more than most of us would get in a typical day," says Dr. Brent M. Egan, a researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina who studies the effect of chocolate on blood pressure.

     But Kuna cocoa is a far cry from the chocolate that most Americans eat. The Kuna make a drink with dried and ground cocoa beans (the seeds of the cocoa tree) along with a little added sweetener. The chocolate we tend to eat, on the other hand, is made from cocoa beans that are roasted and processed in various other ways, and then combined with ingredients like whole milk.

     Processing can extract 2 main components from cocoa beans: cocoa  solids and cocoa  butter*. Powdered cocoa is made using the solids. Chocolate is made from a combination of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The color of the chocolate depends partly on the amount of cocoa solids and added ingredients, such as milk. In general, though, the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa solids it contains. Researchers think the solids are where the healthy compounds are. White chocolate, in contrast, contains no cocoa solids at all.

    The past decade has seen many studies into the health effects of chocolate. "We have good science on chocolate, especially about dark chocolate on blood pressure," says Dr. Luc Djousse of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research team found an overall drop in blood pressure among people who eat more chocolate. "The results suggest that chocolate may, in fact, lower blood pressure," Djousse says. "This effect was even stronger among people with high blood  pressure to begin with?'

     Laboratory studies have uncovered several mechanisms that might explain chocolate's heart-healthy benefits. However, it's hard to prove whether the chocolate that most Americans eat actually has those effects in the human body. Controlling how much chocolate people eat and tracking them for long periods of time is not an easy task.

    "The clinical trials that have been done in people have all been fairly short," says Dr. Ranganath Muniyappa, an  NIH* staff clinician who studies diabetes* and cardiovascular health. These studies, he explains, look at cardiovascular risk  "markers"— factors related to heart health, such as blood pressure — not long-term outcomes like heart disease and

    Studies looking into the long-term health effects of chocolate have relied on people to recall how much chocolate they ate. The researchers then compared those levels with health outcomes. While such studies can find associations, they can't prove the effects of a particular food.

     "People usually eat food in a pattern. A chocolate lover would eat chocolate with something else,"  Djousse explains. "It could be not so much the chocolate by itself, but chocolate in conjunction with, let's say, whole grain or exercise or not  smoking—the pattern of the  lifestyle habit in general. It's really hard to separate the effects of  individual components."

    Chocolate contains high levels of compounds thought to help prevent cancer, too. But Dr. Joseph Su, an NIH expert in diet and cancer, says that direct evidence here is similarly hard to come by. Since cancer can take many years to develop, it's difficult to prove whether eating chocolate can affect disease. Instead, researchers look to see if factors linked to cancer change when chocolate is consumed.

     "Right now, some studies show really a remarkable modification of those markers," Su says. But the evidence that chocolate can reduce cancer or death rates in people is still weak. "There are a few studies that show some effect," Su says, "but the findings so far are not consistent."

     Some research also suggests that chocolate might help prevent diabetes. However, the challenges in proving this link are similar to those of heart disease and cancer.

    Another thing that makes it hard to interpret these studies is that they often use different chocolates, and so their ingredients and health

     Compounds called  flavanols* are thought to be responsible for many of chocolate's beneficial effects. These compounds are also found in tea, wine, fruits and vegetables. Different chocolates can vary greatly in their  flavanol content. Cocoa beans naturally differ in their flavanol levels. A large portion of the flavanols can also be removed during processing. In fact, companies often remove these compounds intentionally because of their bitter taste. The end result is that there's no way to know whether the products you're looking at contain high flavanol levels. (881 words)

http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/issue/aug2011/Feature1

drawbacks不利な点  Kuna Indiansクーナ族  cardiovascular心臓または血管にかかわる  cocoa butterカカオ脂。カカオの種子からとれる脂肪。 NIH( the National Institutes of Health)　アメリカ国立衛生研究所  diabetes糖尿病  flavanols　フラバノールという物質（いわゆるカテキン）

大問２

    Little Franklin Delano Roosevelt sits primly* on a stool, his white skirt spread smoothly over his lap, his hands clasping a hat trimmed with a marabou feather. Shoulder-length hair and patent leather party shoes complete the  ensemble*.

    We find the look unsettling today, yet social convention of 1884, when FDR* was photographed at age  21/2, dictated that boys wore dresses until age 6 or 7, also the time of their first haircut. Franklin's outfit was considered gender-neutral.

     But nowadays people just have to know the sex of a baby or young child at first glance, says Jo B. Paoletti, a historian at the University of Maryland and author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America, to be published later this year. Thus we see, for example, a pink headband encircling the bald head of an infant girl.

    Why have young children's clothing styles changed so dramatically? How did we end up with two "teams" — boys in blue and girls in pink? "It's really a story of what happened to neutral clothing," says Paoletti, who has explored the meaning of children's clothing for 30 years. For centuries, she says, children wore  dainty* white dresses up to age 6.

     The march toward gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor rapid. Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the  mid-19th century, yet the two colors were not promoted as gender signifiers until just before World War  I  —  and even then, it took time for popular culture to sort things out. For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department said, "The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." 

    Today's color dictate wasn't established until the 1940s, as a result of Americans' preferences as interpreted by manufacturers and retailers. "It could have  gone  the  other  way," Paoletti says.

    So the baby boomers* were raised in gender-specific clothing. Boys dressed like their fathers, girls like their mothers. Girls had to wear dresses to school, though  unadorned* styles and  tomboy* play clothes were acceptable.

     When the women's liberation movement arrived in the mid-1960s, with its anti-feminine, anti-fashion message, the unisex look became the rage  — but completely reversed from the time of young Franklin Roosevelt. Now young girls were dressing in masculine  — or at least unfeminine  — styles, devoid of gender hints. Paoletti found that in the 1970s, the Sears Roebuck catalog pictured no pink  toddler* clothing for two years.

    Gender-neutral clothing remained popular until about 1985. Paoletti remembers that year ( Z ) because it was between the births of her children, a girl in '82 and a boy in '86. "All of a sudden it wasn't just a blue overall; it was a blue overall with a teddy bear holding a football," she says. Disposable diapers were manufactured in pink and blue.

 Prenatal* testing was a big reason for the change.  Expectant* parents learned the sex of their unborn baby and then went shopping for "girl" or "boy" merchandise. ("The more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell," Paoletti  says.  ----- Affluent parents could  conceivably decorate for baby No. 1, a girl, and start all over when the next child was a boy.

    Some young mothers who grew up in the 1980s deprived of pinks, lace, long hair and  Barbies*, Paoletti suggests, rejected the unisex look for their own daughters. "Even if they are still feminists, they are perceiving those things in a different light than the baby boomer feminists did," she says. "They think even if they want their girl to be a surgeon, there's nothing wrong if she is a very feminine surgeon."

     Another important factor has been the rise of consumerism among children in recent decades.  ----- They are the subjects of sophisticated and pervasive advertising that tends to reinforce social conventions. "So they think, for example, that what makes someone female is having long hair and a dress," says Paoletti. "They are so interested — and they are so adamant* in their likes and dislikes."

     In researching and writing her book, Paoletti says, she kept thinking about the parents of children who don't conform to gender roles: Should they dress their children to conform, or allow them to express themselves in their dress? "One thing I can say now is that I'm not real keen on the  gende binary — the idea that you have very masculine and very feminine things. The loss of neutral clothing is something that people should think more about. And there is a growing demand for neutral clothing for babies and toddlers now, too." (797 words)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html?c=y&page=2

primly　行儀よくensemb

primly行儀よく ensemble調和のとれた一組の婦人服（ここでは羽根つきの帽子、エナメル靴がその一部）FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt  dainty　華奢な、優雅な baby boomers 1946-1964年のベビーブーム期に生まれた人々  unadorned飾らない  tomboyおてんば（な）rage大流行toddler　よちよち歩きの子ども(の) prenatal出生前のexpectant　妊娠中の conceivably考えうる限りではBarbiesバービー人形(着せ替え人形)  adamant　譲らない

教科書に登場した英文ならば，yahoo 知恵袋で取り上げられている可能性があります。ただし，さすがに1０年ほど前の教科書ですので，ごくわずかしかヒットしませんでした。いずれにしろ，教科書に取り上げられるくらいのテーマなので，新味はありませんでした。

大問３

(Abdul and Keiko are international students in Davis, a small city in America. They talk to each other after their  class.)

Abdul: Hi Keiko! How are things going with your host family?

Keiko: Hi Abdul! My host family is  great ! Their house is incredibly spacious. It has so many rooms I almost feel like I could get lost in it. Why were you late for class? Did you get lost?

Abdul: I didn't get lost but it took longer than I thought it would to get here. Davis is more spread out than I'd  imagined it to be.  Besides, I'm not used to the bus system yet.

 Keiko: Oh, you came by bus. Guess how I came!

Abdul: Did your host mother give you a ride?

 Keiko: No, I came by bicycle.

Abdul: You got a bike already?

Keiko: Just a cheap one.

Abdul: Since we're only here one year, an inexpensive one is best. I remember my professor said, "When you get to Davis, buy a cheap bike and an expensive lock, so that it won't get stolen." How was it, riding your bike here?

Keiko: It was challenging, actually. The traffic was heavy this morning so I'm surprised I made it here without any injuries. I have so much to unlearn!

Abdul: Unlearn?

Keiko: Yes. In Kyoto, where I'm from, we sometimes ride our bikes on the sidewalk, but here in Davis we have to ride on the street and obey the traffic laws. I'm so used to riding alongside pedestrians, in any open space in any direction. Now I have to ride on the right-hand side of the road with the cars.  

Abdul: I see what “unlearning” means now. It means that breaking old habits is sometimes more demanding than learning new ones.  In my home in Dubai  I learned British English. You just reminded me: I should use the American word, "sidewalk" and unlearn the British  word, "pavement."

Keiko: Good idea. By the way, are you going to get a bike?

 Abdul: No, I never got used to riding a bicycle.  My neighborhood in my home country is full of tall buildings, busy people and crazy  traffic—much worse than here.  Except for the crowded roads you mentioned, Davis is refreshingly vast and open, so I prefer walking or taking the bus. On the first day here, however, all the extra space was almost making me dizzy.

Keiko: Oh, really? You're from Dubai, right? I remember seeing that giant tower from there in the latest Mission Impossible movie. Now that's my idea of dizzying.

Abdul: It's called Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, depending on the definition.

Keiko:  To tell the truth, I thought it was some kind of fake, digital invention.

Abdul: No, it's as real as I am.

Keiko: Well, Tokyo just got the world's second tallest tower.  Technically it's still shorter than the one in your country and doesn't look as futuristic. I think I would be too scared to look out the window from either of them, though.

Abdul: A lot of people would agree with that. Oh, what did you think of the new Mission Impossible? I had mixed feelings about it. [アクション映画は、ちょっと単純で展開を予想しやすいところはあるけど、うまく作られていて、満足のいく娯楽を提供してくれるよ。]

Keiko:  The hero survived without any major injuries.  The end. No surprise there. But it had me thrilled!

Abdul: As thrilled as riding a  bike  in Davis?

Keiko: Now that's a tough question.

Abdul: (Using words from the film) Well, "your mission impossible,

      should you decide to accept it," is to keep riding your bike safely!

Keiko:  I think that's possible.

 (658 words)

【3月21日】

【名城・法他】

大問１

   The word university comes from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which means, essentially, a community of teachers and students. It is a wonderfully simple and apt description, which sums up the spirit of universities right from the earliest days. Universities are not schools where pupils simply go to take instruction. They are communities, where learning is exchanged. Teachers pass their knowledge not only to students, but also to each other, and there is the sense that they are places where ideas are shared and loved.

   The first three universities, Bologna, Paris and Oxford, all date back to the eleventh or twelfth century. Bologna is the oldest university in Europe  and was founded in 1088, Oxford followed eight years later with Paris founded around 1160. This period of European history was when the *monastic tradition was at its height, and you can see the monastic links in the architecture of many of the older universities. It's partly this that gives universities their special quality. But the connection between universities and the Church runs deeper than that. Universities had an urgent mission of learning. They were set up by the Church, to save humanity with their learning. The perfect knowledge of the world that might have been mankind's was lost by *the Fall. It was the scholars' task to recover some of what was lost and bring *redemption to mankind before the believed coming end of the world. So it was not surprising that these early universities had a deep commitment to learning, and if the original purpose has been lost, some of the passion for knowledge continues on in universities today.

   Although they were financed by the Church, the learning the medieval universities undertook was essentially  *secular. The tone was set by the influential and scholarly priest, Hugh of St. Victor in Paris  in the early twelfth century. Although firmly in the monastic tradition, Hugh argued that secular learning and study of the natural world were a necessary basis for proper religious thinking. In other words, you needed to know about God's world before you imagined the heavens. 'Learn everything,' Hugh insisted, 'later you will see that nothing is unnecessary.'

   Students at the medieval universities did not study  *theological matters as in the monasteries, but the liberal arts — that is, the general knowledge meant to train a student's capacity for  *rational thought, rather than professional or *vocational training. The idea of liberal arts dates back to Roman times, when it was the education right for a free man, hence  'liberal' arts. In the medieval arts, there were seven liberal arts to be studied, divided into the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy). According to Hugh, learning these would help  `to restore God's image in us'. It was this higher purpose that inspired university scholars to write Summae, which were intended as encyclopaedias of the whole of reality.

   The medieval universities taught entirely in Latin, and students were expected to chat in Latin even outside classes. It made the universities entirely international. It was easy for an English student to go to Bologna or a German student to go to Salamanca in Spain and know they would have no language problems. So students did indeed study right across Europe. Europe was united intellectually as never since, yet while it helped the exchange of learning, it created a sense of elevation and remoteness from the ordinary people that has clung on to the universities ever since in the image of  'ivory towers' of learning.

   There is another fascinating strand to the origins of universities that is often forgotten. Visitors from the Middle East cannot fail to be struck by the similarity between the *quadrangles of the old European universities and the ancient Islamic schools set up in places like Baghdad, Cairo and Fez in Morocco in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Islamic school of Qayrawan in Fez, established in 859 AD, might, indeed, be called the world's first university.

   It seems likely that, before the divisive wars of *the Crusades, the cultural interchange between Islam and the West was significant. Certainly, Arab learning translated into Latin, with the authors given Latin names such as Avicenna, Geber, Averroes and Alhazen, played a key role in the early European universities seems to owe a lot to the early Muslim schools with their study groups or  halaqas, their special master/student relationships and so on. Even today, university professors occupy academic  'chairs' — a  1,  000-year hangover from the Muslim schools where only the professor sat on a chair or  hursi, and all his students sat on the  floor.

(769 words)

＊monastic  修道院の　　　＊the Fall 堕落，アダムとイヴの罪 ＊redemption　罪のあがない　　　＊secular世俗の，非宗教的な ＊theological 神学の　　　＊rational 合理的な　　　＊vocational 職業の＊quadrangles　四方を建物に囲まれた中庭　　　＊the Crusades 十字軍

【3月17日】

【熊本県立大】

大問２

   It is common for those who make generalizations about the Japanese to compare them to other peoples.  The Japanese are said to be like the English, for example, because both peoples, being islanders, exhibit a kind of  *insularism.  They are alike too in the high value they place on tradition, unlike young countries which are interested only in the present.  Some writers, however, compare the Japanese to Americans for precisely the opposite reason: both peoples are extremely fond of new things, and are ready to sacrifice almost any tradition in favor of convenience.  The Japanese are compared also to the French because of their artistic character and their natural talent for making beautiful things; but they are just as often compared to the Germans because of their love of efficiency.  Japanese who visit different regions of Asia, especially after first visiting Europe or America, are likely to be impressed, on the other hand, by the resemblances between themselves and the Chinese or various other Asian peoples, and at every cultural gathering of Japanese and Chinese it is customary for the Japanese to declare with modesty that their entire culture was derived from China.

   All these comparisons have some basis in reality, but they bring to mind the Buddhist story of the blind men and the elephant: depending on which part of the elephant a blind man touches he will have a correct, but incomplete, impression that an elephant resembles a tree, a rope, a wall, and so on.  People who attempt to examine the national characteristics of the Japanese, especially those who make their judgments on the basis of a few weeks' visit, are likely to seize upon some characteristic which they have accidentally noticed, and to proclaim it to be the key to the understanding of the Japanese people.

  It sometimes happens too that the people of one country will attribute to another people their own characteristics.  During the war I read an American manual describing the Japanese soldier, which stated that the Japanese soldier fought well when in a group, but badly when alone.  The Japanese soldier was excellent at night warfare, but was at a disadvantage when fighting during the daytime.  The Japanese were good at following orders, but tended to become confused when obliged to make their own decisions.  Such general statements seemed to make sense when I first read them, but later I read a captured document, a manual issued by the Japanese Army, on the subject of the American soldier.  I discovered, to my surprise, that the American soldier fought well when in a group, but badly when alone.  He excelled at night warfare, but not in daytime combat.  He was competent at following orders, but not in giving them.  In short, when I compared the two manuals the conclusion was inescapable that the Japanese and American soldiers were exactly alike.  This experience made me aware of the danger of making general statements, but I nevertheless tend to make them anyway, in my own mind, if not publicly.  Perhaps making generalizations is the only way we have of unifying different impressions.

(Adapted from Donald Keene, The Distinctiveness of the Japanese)

大問３

   What exactly is science?  The simplest definition is that science is knowledge.  It is knowledge gained through observation and study.   The scientific method is the use of rules and systems for gaining knowledge.  There are three parts to the scientific method.  The first part is recognizing and understanding problems.  The second is collecting information through observation and experiment.  The third part is developing and testing theories.

   For example, when scientists observe something happening, they try to develop a theory about how it happens and what causes it to happen.  A theory is a possible explanation for an event.  Scientists then test that theory by using experiments.  They hope to prove that their explanation is correct.  If the scientists can prove their theory, it becomes a fact.  A fact is something known or proved to be true.

   Scientists are like other investigators.  They try to gather as much evidence as possible to explain events.  This idea—that science can provide the answers—often brings science into conflict with religion.  People may separate the two by thinking of science as a process of gaining knowledge and religion as a system of beliefs.  There are people who believe in science like a religion.  But science and religion both seek to explain the mysteries of the universe, of nature, and of ourselves.

   In ancient times, many, many things in the world were great mysteries to people.  Ancient humans could explain these things only as the work of gods.  These explanations became part of religious beliefs.  As years passed and human knowledge expanded, many beliefs came to be explained scientifically.  Sometimes, solving the mysteries by scientific study showed that religious teachings were wrong.  This often angered religious leaders.  An example is how the Roman Catholic Church reacted to the idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

   Some people reject scientific ideas that conflict with their religious beliefs.  Some reject religious beliefs that conflict with their scientific ideas.  And some would agree with Wilton Robert Abbott, an aerospace engineer who is given credit for this saying: "To understand the place of humans in the universe is to solve a complex problem.  Therefore, I find it impossible to believe that an understanding based entirely on science or one based entirely on religion can be correct. "

   Probably the greatest scientist of the 20th century was Albert Einstein.  He had no problem mixing science and religion.  Einstein once said that the religious experience is the strongest and the most honorable force behind scientific research.

大問　４

   The strangest thing about my wife's return from the dead was how other people reacted.  We were strolling through Belvedere Square, for instance, on an early-spring afternoon when we met our old next-door neighbor, Jim Rust.  "Well, what a surprise to see you here!" he said to me.   "Aaron!" Then he noticed Dorothy beside me.  She stood looking up at him with one hand shielding her forehead from the sun.  His eyes widened and he turned to me again.

   I said, "How's it going, Jim?"

   Visibly, he pulled himself together.  "Oh. . .  great," he said.  "I mean. . .  or,  rather. . .  but of course we miss you.  The neighborhood is not the same without you!"

   He was focusing on me alone—specifically, on my mouth, as if I were the one who was talking.    He wouldn't look at Dorothy.  He had turned a few inches so as to exclude her from his line of vision.

   I took pity on him.  I said, "Well, tell everybody hello," and we walked on.  Beside me, Dorothy gave one of her dry laughs.

   Other people pretended not to recognize either one of us.  They would catch sight of us from a distance, and this sort of shock would alter their expressions and they would all at once hurry down a side street, pretending to be very busy.  I didn't hold it against them.  I knew this was a lot to adjust to.  In their position, I might have behaved the same way.  I like to think I wouldn't, but I   might have.

   The ones who made me laugh aloud were the ones who had forgotten she'd died.  Granted, there were only two or three of those—people who barely knew us.  In line at the bank once, we were recognized by Mr. von Sant, who had handled our mortgage application several years before.  He was crossing the lobby and he paused to ask, "You two still enjoying the house?"

"Oh, yes," I told him.

 Just to keep things simple.

 I pictured how the realization would hit him a few minutes later.  Wait! he would say to himself, as he was sitting back down at his desk.  Didn't I hear something  about ...

   Unless he never gave us another thought.  Or hadn't heard the news in the first place.  He'd go on forever assuming that the house was still undamaged, and Dorothy still alive, and the two of us still happily, unremarkably married.

(Adapted from Anne Tyler, The Beginner's Goodbye)

この問題を受け取ったのは３月１１日。最近，問題の受領がどんどん遅くなって，５月の連休でも問題が到着するくらい。したがって，私立大学も３月中ぐらいは続くことが多いので，３月上旬の公立大学の問題はちょっと虚をつかれた感じ。やはり，気持ちが忙しい中での解答で，このままでは印象に残らないまま，終わるでしょう。

担当した入試英文をこのホームページに載せるのはいわば，手順の一つで自分の備忘録としての役割を果たしていますが，今回は関学はともかく，上智，西南学院は放置。本日まとめてのアップとなりました。

【2013年3月14日】

西南学院・2月9日分

大問１

  We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures.  We watch our backs, weigh the odds, and pack an umbrella.  But science suggests that we are more optimistic than realistic.  On average, we expect things to turn out better than they actually do.  People hugely underestimate their chances of getting divorced, losing their job, or becoming sick with cancer.  Further, they expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted, see themselves achieving more than their fellow workers, and overestimate their likely life span (sometimes by twenty years or more). 

  The belief that the future will be much better than the past and the present is known as "the optimism  bias!' It appears in every race, region, and socio-economic class.  Schoolchildren playing "when-I-grow-up" games are extremely optimistic, but so are grown-ups.  A study in 2005 found that  (,) adults over sixty are just as likely as other adults to see the glass half full rather than half empty. 

  You might expect optimism to weaken because of so much news about violent conflicts around the world, high unemployment, tornadoes and floods, and all the threats and failures that shape human life.  As a society we can grow pessimistic— about the direction of our country or the ability of our leaders to improve education and reduce crime.  But private optimism about our personal future remains incredibly strong.  A survey conducted in 2007 found that while 70% of respondents thought that families in general were less successful than in their parents' day, 76% were optimistic about the future of their own family. 

  Overly positive assumptions can lead to disastrous miscalculations: make us less likely to get health checkups, apply sunscreen, or save money in the bank, and more likely to bet the farm on a bad investment.  But the optimism bias also inspires us: it keeps us moving forward rather than giving up and quitting.  Without optimism, our ancestors might never have ventured far from  their tribes and we might all be living in caves, still warming ourselves together and dreaming of light and heat. 

 Optimists, in general, also work longer hours and tend to earn more.  Economists at Duke University found that optimists even save more.  And although they are not less likely to divorce, they are more likely to remarry—an act that is, as Samuel Johnson wrote, "the triumph of hope over experience.  "

  Even if that better future is often an illusion, optimism has clear benefits in the present.  Optimism keeps our minds free from worry, lowers stress, and improves physical health.  Researchers studying patients found that optimistic patients were more likely than non-optimistic patients to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets, and exercise, thereby reducing their overall risk of heart disease.  A study of cancer patients revealed that pessimistic patients under sixty were more likely to die within eight months than non-pessimistic patients of the same initial health, socio-economic status, and age. 

    In fact, an increasing amount of scientific evidence points to the conclusion that optimism may be naturally occurring in the human brain.  The science of optimism, once scorned as intellectually suspect, is opening a new window on the workings of human consciousness.  What it shows could encourage a revolution in psychology, as the field comes to grips with the increasing evidence that  our brains aren't just stamped by the past.  They are constantly being shaped by the  future.  (559 words)

本年度から問題別に【基礎】【センター】【やや難】【難】のラベルをつけることになりました。この英文は私としては「やや難」（＝かなり難しい英文）と判断できます。ただし，英文が難しいから問題も難しいかというと，それは別。英文の難しさに比して，問題は普通。問題そのものは標準でした。内容も言われてみればもっともですが，それでも，「ほとんどの人は未来に対して楽観的」極端な例は「他の人はみんな死ぬかもしれないが，自分はしなないだろう」といった感じの楽観的な気分があるのだと思います。実際に不幸に見舞われるまでは。

この英文の出典を絞るべくサイトの検索を続けたところ次のサイトに辿り着きました。

http://timereaders.web.fc2.com/20117.html

これは「タイムを読む会」なるものが開催されており，その例会で取り上げた記事の対訳をホームページに載せているものです。大変見事な訳で，ほぼ意訳。最初の訳の段階で「まいった！」という感じ。

私の訳であれば，「私たちは自分のことを合理的な生物だと考えたがる」となりそうですが，こちらのサイトの訳は「人間は理性的動物だと考えたがる。」まったくもって，比較にならない感じ。このタイムの英文をほぼ省略，書き換えなしで英文の素材にしたのですから，英文が「やや難」はあたり前のことと思います。

大問３

  If you had studied history in the 19th century, you would have learned that civilization was born in the Middle East some 8,000 years ago, when people turned from a hunting-gathering economy and settled in villages to cultivate wheat and to tame animals.  By assuring a good supply of food, agriculture gave people leisure for other activities, leading to new cultural advances.  The first pottery was made in Mesopotamia around 5,000 B.C. and by 3,000 B.C. the Sumerians had developed the art of writing.  From the Middle Eastern heartland, knowledge of the new techniques spread eastward to India and China, southward to Egypt—whose 4,700-year-old pyramids were considered the oldest stone monuments on earth—and westward to Greece by 1,600 B.C.  This orderly sequence of civilization's march was supported by seemingly valid evidence and taught as fact.  Yet, practically all of the assumptions on which it was based turned out to be wrong.  Recent discoveries and more accurate scientific dating techniques now reveal, for instance, that cultivation of grain began independently in Thailand perhaps as early as in the Middle East, and only a short time later in Peru and Mexico. We also know now that the Japanese were making pottery before the people in the Middle East, and that the natives of Rumania may have invented a form of writing centuries before the Sumerians.  Equally confusing has been the discovery that the earliest stone tombs of Western Europe are about 2,000 years older than the Egyptian pyramids.

(248 words)

上智・理工学部の「最初のアメリカ人」と同じく結構ショックな内容。普通に勉強している人には当たり前でしょうが，「文明は世界各地で同時多発的に起こった」というのは，これまでの「定説」を覆すもの。その点では勉強になりました。内容は要チェックの可能性がありますが。

西南学院は文法問題をたっぷり出すので，中央，東京理科，明治学院，南山，立命館，関西学院と並ぶ，文法問題採取先のお得意先。ただ，誤文訂正の問題がいつも分かりにくいな，と思っていましたが，その理由がわかりました。

もともとの問題は次のようなもの。

この問題であれば，分詞もしくは動名詞３カ所のうち１カ所の間違えを確定し，直す，ということで，それほど難しくありません。ところが，この問題をテキストファイルに変換すると下線部がなくなるので，まったくヒントがないのと同じで，英文一つから間違いを探す，という難度の高い問題に変身してしまいます。また，そういう問題だと思い込んでいたので，今回，そうではなく，ある程度記述式の誤文訂正だとわかり多少安心。

今回も次回がないところでの解答。卒業式の後の採点日に英文を読みました。送付日は３月７日。

【上智・理工】

大問２

An established theory says the first Americans walked across the Bering Sea about 13,000～15,000 years ago, but stone tools found in the Atlantic near Virginia suggest an arrival from Europe about 20,000～22,000 years ago. The tools match those made by the mysterious Solutrean people of ice-age Iberia.  In 1970, the crew of a Virginia fishing boat hauled up a net containing a stone blade 20 cm long and still sharp. Forty-two years later, evidence that this knife is over 20, 000 years old has reopened debate about who the first Americans were and how they got there.

   Archeologists have long held that North America remained unpopulated until about 15,000 years ago, when Siberian people entered Alaska and walked down the West Coast, but the blade turned out to be 22,000 years old, a prehistoric relic. Whoever fashioned that blade was not supposed to be there. Its makers likely disappeared from Europe and arrived in America thousands of years ahead of the western migration, argues Smithsonian Institution anthropologist Dennis Stanford, making them the first Americans. (178)

上智大は大昔？から７５題の選択式。これはどの学部も共通。問題の量が圧倒的です。

この英文は結構おもしろいです。昔の教科書でも取り上げられていましたが，最初のアメリカ人はベーリング海峡の氷の上を渡ってきて，というのが定説。それに基づいた英文も結構よく見てきました。これはその想定は間違いだ，というもの。その昔，甲南大学の出題でマルコ・ポーロは実際には中国を訪問しておらず，途中まで行って見聞きしたものを書いたのだ，というのもありました。「トンデモ論」とは言いませんが，結構ショックです。

出典はMore on America discovered by Stone Age hunters from Europe?

(The Washington Post National   February 29, 2012)

この英文を書き換えたもので，英文そのものは空所補充問題です。

大問３

Japan's obsession with "cute" culture has the nation divided

Cute is cool in Japan. Look anywhere and everywhere: Cartoon figures dangle from cellphones, waitresses bow in frilly maid outfits, bows adorn bags, and even police departments boast cuddly mascots.

   These days, Japan  Inc, known in the past for more serious products like Toyota cars and the Sony Walkman, is busy exporting the epitome of  cute — bubble-headed Hello Kitty, Pokemon video games, the singing duo Puffy and the Tamagotchi virtual pet, just to name a few.

   But the obsession with things cute—or  kawaii (pronounced Ka-wuh-EEH) in Japanese—has the world's second biggest economy doing some soul-searching, wondering what exactly is making its people gravitate* so frantically toward cuteness. A big reason for the emerging debate: Cute-worship is gaining such overseas acceptance it's rapidly becoming  Japan's global image. American pop star Gwen Stefani often uses a Tokyo street-inspired look in her performances. Spirited Away, an adventure story of a doe-eyed girl by Hayao Miyazaki won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.

   Skeptics here say Japan's pursuit of cute is a sign of an infantile mentality and worry that Japanese culture—historically praised for exquisite understatement as sparse rock gardens and woodblock prints—may be headed toward doom. Hiroto Murasawa, an expert on the culture of beauty at Osaka Shoin Women's University, believes that cute proves the Japanese simply don't want to grow up. "It's a mentality that breeds non-assertion," he said.

    On the other hand, Tomoyuki Sugiyama, author of  Cool  Japan, believes cute  is rooted in Japan's harmony loving culture. Collecting miniatures such as mementos for cellphones can be traced back 400 years to the Edo Period, when  tiny carved netsuke charms were wildly popular, said Sugiyama, president of  Digital Hollywood, a Tokyo school for computer-graphics designers, video artists  and game creators. "Japanese are seeking a spiritual peace and an escape from  brutal reality through cute things," he said.

    Nobuyoshi Kurita, a sociology professor at Tokyo's Musashi University, says  cute is a  "magic term" that encompasses everything that's acceptable and  desirable—this nation's answer to the West. The cute concept, he said, could  determine Japan's cultural influence on the world. "Where cute goes determines the future of Japan," he said, adding that  Japan's cute offerings may one day  command the respect of European luxury goods. "If it succeeds, Japan's future will be bright," he said. (395)

これは結構古い英文。Japan’s obsession with ‘cute’ culture has the nation divided

AP電 2006年1月18日ハイライトした部分の単語補充問題。

「可愛い」については現在，多くの女子高校生と生活をしている身としては「もういい！」という感じ。

大問４

Montgomery, Alabama. December 1, 1955.  Early evening. A public bus pulls to a stop and a sensibly dressed woman in her forties gets on. She carries herself erectly, despite having spent the day over an ironing board in a dingy basement tailor shop at the Montgomery Fair department store. Her feet are swollen, her shoulders ache. She sits in the first row of the Colored section and watches quietly as the bus fills with riders. Until the driver orders her to give her seat to a white passenger.

   The woman utters a single word that ignites one of the most important civil rights protests of the twentieth century, one word that helps America finds its better self.

The word is "No."

The driver threatens to have her arrested.

"You may do that," says Rosa Parks.

A police officer arrives. He asks Parks why she won't move.

"Why do you all push us around?" she answers simply.

"I don't know," he says.  "But the law is the law, and you're under  arrest."

   On the afternoon of her trial and conviction for disorderly conduct, the Montgomery Improvement Association holds a rally for Parks at Holt Street Baptist Church, in the poorest section of town. Five thousand gather to support Parks's lonely act of courage. They squeeze inside the church until its pews can hold no more. The rest wait patiently outside, listening through loudspeakers. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd. "There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression," he tells them.

   He praises Parks's bravery and hugs her. She stands silently, her mere presence enough to attract the crowd. The association launches a city-wide bus boycott that lasts 381 days. The people trudge miles to work. They share cars with strangers. They change the course of American history.

(309)

英文そのものは結構新しく次のような出典でした。

http://blog.waterstones.com/2013/02/book-club-susan-cain-wants-a-quiet-revolution/

Book Club – Susan Cain wants a Quiet revolution

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Dan Lewis

Quietly) calling all introverts, Susan Cain reveals the true power you hold in a world of noise…

The North and South of Temperament

しかし，内容は有名なロザ・パークスのもの。教科書でも取り上げられたりしているので，目新しさは感じませんでした。

大問５

Pesky possums feed thriving fur industry in N.Z.

The brushtail possum*, a cute  marsupial** protected in its native Australia, became a hated wild pest in New Zealand, but its fur provides a lucrative sideline for hunters who supply a growing luxury goods industry. "It's a hard living and it's not for everyone," trapper Stu Flett said as he hanged dead possums from a clothesline at his home in the North Island to dry their fur before it is stripped  and sold.

   The possums, which have no natural predators in New Zealand, devastate native forest and eat the eggs of rare birds, including the famous kiwi, as well as spreading animal tuberculosis to livestock. The nocturnal marsupials were introduced in the 19th century, quickly spreading out of control to the point where officials estimate there are now 70 million of them, outnumbering humans almost 20-fold. "They're seen as a pest. People will swerve to hit them on the road," possum hunter Jake McLean said. "They tear up gardens, kill trees and destroy wildlife. They're vicious little animals, really, when you get close to them."

   A small but hardy group of trappers makes a living going into the bush to catch the animals, although most hunt them for weekend sport, earning beer money from the fur, which fetches around 100 New Zealand dollars ($82) per kilogram. "The ones that take it seriously can earn NZ$40,000 to NZ$50,000  ($ 32,500 to  $40,700) a year," McLean said. "They go and live in the bush—it's  rough.  .  .  . They go into the ranges, where there are up to 10 possums per hectare. You're not living the good life when you're doing that; they're sleeping in tents or under flies (fly-sheets) on a river bed. Most do it for four or five years, then look to buy themselves a house."

   McLean was a full-time possum hunter until last year, contracted by the local council at Masterton, just outside Wellington, to go out for 10-day stints and eliminate the animals. However, the demanding work proved too much, and he now works at a hunting shop in Masterton that buys the fur from trappers and sells it to companies that turn it into luxury jumpers, scarves and gloves. Dozens of such collection points operate throughout rural New Zealand, providing raw materials to an industry the New Zealand Fur Council estimates is worth NZ$100 million ($80 million) a year and employs 1,200 people.

   Possum fur is highly prized because its fibers are hollow, similar to that of polar bears, and when blended with merino wool creates a super-soft fiber that is lightweight, with excellent insulation properties. Greg Howard, whose company, Planet Green, makes golf gloves from possum hide, said the industry harvests only about 2 million possums a year and could increase dramatically if promoted properly in export markets. He said the ethical objections often raised against the fur trade do not apply to possums culled in New Zealand because they are a pest that causes enormous damage to the environment.

   "By doing this, we're helping to save the planet," he said. "So the market's sitting there and the government just needs to get in behind us. It's all there on our back doorstep, and no one's doing anything about it."

   McLean said hunters want to see possums wiped out in New Zealand but believe that they are so numerous they will continue to thrive for the foreseeable future, despite the best efforts of trappers and the government. "I don't think　they'll ever get rid of them—there's too many out there," he said.  (597)

これも出典としては新しく次のものでした。

Pesky possums feed thriving fur industry in N.Z.

by Neil Sands (AFP) April 19, 2012

動物保護と環境破壊，毛皮産業，入試らしい話題だと思います。

大問６

Alive—the hibernating man

A man who survived for more than three weeks lost and unconscious on a mountain is believed to have been saved after his body went into a form of hibernation.

   Mitsutaka Uchikoshi had enjoyed a barbecue with work colleagues in the popular hiking area of Mount Rokko, an 880m (2,887ft) peak near the port of  Kobe in western Japan, when he decided against joining the others for the cable-car ride back, opting to walk down on his own. After losing his way, he slipped, broke a bone and then lost consciousness. The autumn nights were chilly, around 100, low enough to cause hypothermia or loss of body heat. More than three weeks later he was discovered by a climber. He had almost no pulse and a body temperature of only 22C (72F). After almost two months of medical treatment, Mr. Uchikoshi finally returned home.

   Emergency medical teams said that the 35-year-old hiker had survived without food or water after his organs shut down, his pulse slowed and his body temperature fell by a third. They believe that his body functions all but ground to a halt as he lay on the mountainside, a response  that  saved him. "He fell into a state similar to hibernation and many of his organs slowed, but his brain was protected, Dr Shinichi Sato, head of the emergency unit that treated the man, said. During hibernation, activity in the body's cells slows to a near standstill, greatly cutting the need for oxygen, and lowering energy consumption. "I believe that his brain capacity has recovered 100 per  cent."

   Scientists have long speculated that human hibernation is possible, with potential benefits that include enabling astronauts to undertake longer missions in space. It is also hoped that the hibernation process could be used in medicine to slow cell death when treating otherwise fatal conditions such as bleeding in the brain.  (316)

こちらも題材としては結構古く2006年のもの。

私は認識していませんでしたが，大きくニュースで取り上げられた可能性があります。

Alive – the hibernation man

by Richard Kimber in Tokyo : 2006/12/21

また，内容もおもしろいです。どうして記憶にないか不思議。

大問７

W: Good morning, Mr Shaller and welcome. This is your office as Director of Senior Services. I am your Government secretary, Tom Woodside. I share the office out there.

S: Happy to meet you, Mr Woodside. What a wonderful office this is!  The building is big, too, yet Senior Services has only just begun.

W: Actually, this is the old Ministry of Welfare building. They just put a new name on the door. Welfare reminds everybody of the bankrupt government of  the 1960s.

S: The building's not so important, but we seem to have a huge staff.

W: Well you know, they still belong to the Ministry of Welfare, not to us.

 S: So, who does work for Senior Services?

W: You and me, sir. That's all. Oh, the Welfare tea girl and postman will drop in  here as a special favour.

 S: So that's the story, is it? I was happy to see that Parliament voted us a huge budget.

W: I'm sorry to disappoint you yet again. The money voted to us goes to the Ministry of Health. They wasted so much money that Parliament won't give them any more. The government got the health budget through Parliament as the budget for Senior Services. Old people use up most of the health budget, anyway.

 S: What sort of budget do we have, then?

W: We have enough to run this office and a generous travel allowance. The Prime Minister wants you to travel a lot.

 S: In other words, he wants me to stay as far from the Government for as long as possible. Why did he invite me to take this job, and create a new department of government?

W: Recently, every time a seat in Parliament has become vacant, the Government candidate has lost. The growing number of senior citizens is unhappy that the Government does so little for them. The Government claims it doesn't have the money to do more. The old people all point to you. As Mayor of Tyde, you not only set up excellent Senior Services, but you got them to pay for themselves. The only way the Government could think of helping their candidates to win elections was by removing you from Tyde. Welcome to the Government, sir.

 S: Oh, so that's the trick. Well then, we'll just have to repeat what I did when I became mayor.

W: What do you mean?

 S: When I became mayor, everybody in the town hall had their jobs fixed, so nobody listened to me. The budget was all set for two years. I had no budget except my salary and office expenses. Only old people would work for me at the rates I could pay.

W: And Tyde has the highest proportion of old people in the country.

S: They didn't have the energy to do a full-time job, and couldn't get their pensions if they had full-time jobs, so they made a time-share system. Several people took turns to do one person's job. We had retired lawyers, truck drivers, bank managers, nurses, the lot. They provided me with more professional help than any civil servant could. They got some of the local businesses to adopt the time-share plan for retired people, too. The businesses profited. Soon other businesses came to town to use our special pool of labour. In time, even the town hall staff started cooperating. They were afraid I would replace them with senior citizens and leave them out of work.

W: So, what do we do?

 S: The number of old people around the country is growing day by day. Make a list of the ten medium sized towns with the highest proportion of old people. Well see if we can get them to use the plan.

 W: I can see where this is going. If this succeeds, you'll have changed the Government. If it fails, the Government will fall at the next election. I can get the list from the Welfare files by lunch-time.

 S: Let's start using our travel budget on a trip to Hampton this evening for dinner.

W: That's where I live! But my wife will be annoyed if we suddenly go out for dinner without her.

 S: Call her up now and invite her along. I hear that Au Gamins is a fine restaurant. Reserve three seats for us.  (725)

合計 2520 words

今回，上智の問題ではこの問題を除いて全て出典を確認できました。これはいろいろ検索を試みましたが，ヒットせず。書き下ろしなのか，ネットで確認できないテキストからの引用なのか。ともかく，確定できませんでした。

今年の２，３月は大変忙しく，１月中旬から休みなし！この問題を受領したのは２月２５日，全く時間が無く，合間に読み込んで解いたもの。そんなわけでいつもなら書く訳も省略。最低限の仕事量で書きました。それで例年以上に印象がありません。この原稿を送付したのは３月２日のようですが，これをまとめているのは３月１３日です。

【関西学院大学・２月１日】

大問１

１

   Both men and women practice emotional control, in private life and at work.  But in emotional experience, is emotional control as important for men as it is for women? And is it important in the same ways? I believe that the answer to both questions is no.  The reason is the fact that women in general have far less independent access to money, power, authority, or status in society.   They are a subordinate social level, and this has four consequences.

   First, lacking other resources, women make a resource out of feeling and offer it to men as a gift in return for the more material resources they lack.  Thus their capacity to manage feeling and to do relational work is for them a more important resource.

   Second, emotional control is important in different ways for men and for women.  This is because each gender tends to be called on to do different kinds of relational work.  On the whole, women tend to specialize in the flight attendant side of emotional control, men in the bill collection side of it.  This specialization of emotional control in the workplace rests on the different childhood training of the heart that is given to girls and to boys.  Moreover, each specialization presents men and women with different emotional tasks.  Women are more likely to be presented with the task of mastering anger and aggression in the service of being nice.  To men, the socially assigned task of aggressing against those that break rules of various sorts creates the private task of mastering fear and weaknesses.

   Third, and less noticed, the general subordination of women leaves every individual woman in a weaker position against the displaced feelings of others.  For example, female flight attendants found themselves easier targets for verbal abuse from passengers so that male attendants often found themselves called upon to handle unexpected aggression against them.

  The fourth consequence of the power difference between men and women is that for each gender a different portion of the managed heart is secured for commercial use.  Women more often react to subordination by making defensive use of their beauty, charm, and relational skills.  For them, it is these capacities that become most open to commercial abuse.  For male workers in "male" jobs, it is more often the capacity to manage anger and make threats that is delivered over to the company.  Therefore, men and women come to experience emotional control in different ways.

  Middle-class American women, tradition suggests, feel emotion more than men do.  The definition of "emotional" in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language reflects a deeply rooted cultural idea.  Yet women are also thought to have the capacity to plan a sigh, an outburst of tears, or an expression of joy.  In general, they are thought to manage expression and feeling not only better but more often than men do.  And because the well-managed feeling has an outside resemblance to spontaneous feeling, it is possible to confuse the condition of being more easily affected by emotion with the action of purposely managing emotion when the occasion calls for it.

   Especially in the American middle class, women tend to manage feeling more because in general they depend on men for money, and one of the various ways of repaying their debt is to do extra emotional control: especially emotional control that affirms and enhances the well-being and status of others.  When the emotional skills that children learn and practice at home move into the workplace, the emotional control of women becomes more prominent because men in general have not been trained to make their emotions a resource and are therefore less likely to develop their capacity for managing feeling.   (619 words)

いっていることは簡単なのに分かりにくい，という典型的な英文。要するに女性は財力や権力がないので，かわいらしさや献身的な態度で相手を動かす。そのため感情表現が豊かであり，かつ，感情表現を制御できる，という。いわば「ブリッ子の態度」を解明した英文。

２

   Even before the founding of the United States, North America was filled with people speaking diverse languages, perhaps as many as 2,000 Native American tongues.  According to some language specialists, the first European settlers to the land that would later become the United  States arrived from Spain in the late fifteenth century.

   Then, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European immigrants from other countries increased, ultimately displacing the Native Americans.  The Spanish, English, French, and Dutch languages began to dominate in America.  A colonial American living in a big city like Boston or New Orleans might have heard as many as twenty different languages commonly spoken in daily life as a result of the interactions among European, African, and Native American inhabitants.  But sometimes new immigrants chose to live near others who spoke the same language and so did not interact with speakers of other languages.  For example, large numbers of Germans settled in Pennsylvania, and the Dutch communities were established in the state of New York.  Overall, though, the majority of settlers came from English-speaking countries, and so English became the dominant language of the New World.

   Although American English was dominant by the time of the American Revolution, the founders of the United States never identified it as the nation's official language in spite of several different opportunities to do so.  In 1780, John Adams proposed that the Continental Congress establish an official Academy to standardize American English and control language usage in the new United States.  The Congress rejected his proposal as being undemocratic.  During this period language usage was judged to be a matter of personal choice rather than an issue for national policy.  Recognizing this individual language usage, the government printed official documents in German and French, as well as in English.

   During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the federal government generally continued a policy of neutrality and acceptance toward a variety of European languages being used in the United States.  Local schools used the native language appropriate to their local populations rather than being required to use English.  States also met the needs of their various constituents by printing official documents in a wide range of languages, such as Welsh, Czech, and Norwegian, in addition to the more widely used Spanish, French, and German.  According to data from the 1890 US Census, 3. 62 percent of the entire United States population didn't speak English, and in some geographical areas the percentage was much higher.  In New Mexico, for example, non-English speakers comprised over 65 percent of the population.

 (424 words)

これも典型的な英文。まったく検索に引っかからないことから書き下ろされた英文と考えられます。英語はもともとアメリカの国語ではなく，19世紀後半までは他の言語に対しても寛容で，公文書は多言語で発表されていた，というちょっと目新しい情報。しかし，「それがどうした？」という感じでピンとは来ませんでした。

３

   The human race is made up of individuals, but each is born and for the most part lives his or her life in a group context.  Between various societies there can be great differences in the relative emphasis placed on the individual and the group.  Certainly no difference is more significant between Japanese and Americans, or Westerners in general, than the greater Japanese tendency to emphasize the group, somewhat at the expense of the individual.

   The Japanese are much more likely than Westerners to operate in groups or at least to see themselves as operating in this way.  Where Westerners may at least put on a show of independence and individuality, most Japanese will be quite content to conform in dress, conduct, style of life, and even thought to the norms of their group.  Maintaining "face," originally a Chinese term but one of universal applicability, is much on Japanese minds, but it is "face" before the other members of the group that most concerns them.

  Part of this difference between Japan and the West is myth rather than reality.  We have so idealized the concept of the independent individual, alone before God, the law, and society, that we see ourselves as free and isolated individuals far more than the facts warrant.  Prevailing Japanese attitudes have tended to make the Japanese do the reverse.  Group affiliations in Japan are very important, but the Japanese tend to emphasize these even beyond reality, attempting to interpret everything in terms of such things as personal factional alignments or habatsu in politics, family interrelationships, university provenance or gakubatsu, and personal support and recommendations.  They like to insist that what counts is not one's abilities but one's kone, an abbreviation of the English word "connections. " The actual situations in Japan and the West, however, are much less widely different than the American myth of the independent spirit, for example, or the traditional Japanese ideal of selfless merging with the group would lead one to believe.

   The balance between group and individual is also changing in Japan as elsewhere, and there are signs of coming together in this regard between Japan and the West.  Modern technology in the West clearly produced conditions in which more individuals could win economic and other forms of independence from their families or other groupings than in earlier ages.  In fact, the trend in this direction has become so extreme that the isolation of contemporary urban life is giving Westerners pause and is causing a sort of search for closer group relationships.  In Japan the effects of modern technology have by no means gone so far, but they have had the same general effect as in the West, deemphasizing the group somewhat in favor of the individual.   (465 words)

今年度からは各問題に難易度標示をするようになったようです。この英文自体は明らかに古くさく，わかりにくく，難易度は「やや難」ところが設問は穏当でこちらは「標準」要するに英文をきちんと読めなくとも解答はできる，という本当に読解力を検定しているのか怪しい問題。

内容的にはやはりゴチャゴチャ。これももしかしたら書き下ろしかもしれません。あるいは書き換えがよろしく無いのか，論理の一貫性という点では今一です。

集団に重きをおくとされる日本語が個人主義に，個人主義に重きを置く西欧（アメリカ）が集団のことを考えるようになっている，というこれもイマイチの内容。

６

Hikari: What do you think about the coming rise in consumption tax?

Tsubasa: I am totally against it.  I think I won't be able to afford to buy things that are         not absolutely necessary.  This country is putting more pressure on all of its citizens.  

Hikari: Maybe so.  But I support it.  The government debt is getting out of control, and raising tax is necessary to keep the country from going bankrupt.  Higher taxes are certainly better than turning into a financial disaster.  

Tsubasa: I was thinking of buying a new car, so I have to buy it before the tax rate goes up.  I also have to cut back on my travel after the rise in consumption tax.  

Hikari: Well, maybe you won't feel as rich because you won't be able to buy everything you want.  On the other hand, you may feel more secure if the rise in tax helps the national health insurance system and social welfare.  

Tsubasa: Yes, but I hardly ever get sick, and I plan to take care of myself when I'm old.  Anyway, I think they should set up a system where everyday necessities are tax-free.  

Hikari: Like what?

Tsubasa: Food and clothing are examples of things we need every day.  

Hikari: I think all goods should be taxed, and the tax money be used to help the socially deprived groups such as the elderly.  

Tsubasa: Well, I support my parents, who are retired.  The government will not support them further even if I pay more tax.  

Hikari: I am sorry to hear that.  Perhaps the increase in tax will enable the government to help you support your parents.  

Tsubasa: I certainly hope so.  Otherwide, I can't save enough money until retirement.  As I said before, the rise in consumption tax will definitely discourage me from buying anything.  It will cost me a lot to buy anything.  It is also a problem for a healthy economy.  

Hikari: This new law will certainly be an opportunity for all of us to think about our lifestyle.  Don't you think modern lifestyles have become quite wasteful and even thoughtless?　　(360 words)

消費税が決まった頃作問されたと思います。消費税増税に対する賛成，反対ということで，多少おもしろみのある英文でした。

今年の１月，２月は怒濤の月。ほぼ１ヶ月間休みなし。家にいてもちょっとした執筆活動があり，正確には年末から全く休みなし。家にいるほうが疲れる，というくらい，やってもやっても仕事が無くなりません！

（2013年2月24日　千葉海浜幕張から戻った夜)