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北 京 外 国 语 大 学
2004 年 硕 士 研 究 生 入 学 考 试 基 础 英 语 试 卷
Please w rite all the answ ers on the answ er sheets.
Time Limit: 3 hours
1. R eading C omprehension
This section contains two passages. Read each passage and then answer the questions given at
the end of each passage.
Passage One
Some powerful organizations are headed by a cabinet, others by a supreme council or board
of management. The 20 commissioners who run the European Commission however, are called
“the college”. This title, with its academic and ecclesiastical flavour, capture s the outfit‟s
self-image. The commission, part executive and part civil service, sees itself as far more than a
mere branch of government. It is the embodiment of the “ European idea” and the disinterested
guardian of European law. W hile the countries of the EU vulgarly battle to promote their national
interests, the commission stands above the fray and identifies the general good. A nd while national
governments are riven by internal rivalries and political infighting, the multinational college sails
on serenely in a spirit of good-fellowship.
There is an element of truth to this saccharine self-image. Commissioners are free from many
of the pressures of national politics: they are not elected, very seldom reshuffled and almost never
fired. In such circumstances, they can afford to be high-minded and collegiate. A ppropriately, the
commission is headed by a real live former professor, Romano Prodi, an Italian.
But like many a college head in the academic world. M r. Prodi‟s management style is an
infuriating m ixture of vagueness and guile. Even those of his colleagues who retain some affection
for the man, despair of his inability to stick to an agenda and of his tendency to fall asleep in
meetings. (O r do his closed eyes simply mean he is thinking deeply?) M r. Prodi has also alienated
many of the other commissioners by his habit of making damaging off-the –cuff remarks and by
his colleagues‟ work. Pedro Solbes, the commissioner for economic affairs, was left looking like a
chump after M r. Prodi described the euro zone‟s fiscal rules, which M r. Solbes has stoutly
defended, as “stupid”. The commissioners taking part in Europe‟s constitutional convention
discovered that a group of Prodi advisers had written an entire draft in secret. Such incidents have
taken their toll on collegiate spirit.
M r. Prodi‟s two vice-presidents do not made up for his deficiencies. N eil Kinnock from Britain is
quietly despised in multicultural Brussels for speaking only one language. H is volubly expressed
interests in Welsh rugby and British Labour Party politics of the 1980s are not widely shared by
his colleagues. Loyola de Palacio, a Spaniard who is the other vice-president, is guilty of another
grave sin against Brussels piety: overt nationalism. A ll commissioners promise never to fight their
country‟s corner. A ll violate this promise from time to time. But M s de Palacio does it w ith a
regularity and crassness that grates on some colleagues. She and M r. Kinnock get on badly. A nd
there are other rivalries in the college. Chris Patten, th e foreign-affairs commissioner, and Poul
N ielson, in charge of aid, are constantly battling over turf. M argot Wallstrom, w ho oversees
environment, and Erkki Liikanen, the enterprise commissioner, snipe at each other over business
regulation. She wants more of it; he wants less. A fter four years of their five-year mandate, far
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