2006年考研英语命题预测题一(含答案)

Part B

Directions:
    In the following text, some sentences have removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into of the numbered blank there are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1. (10 points)

    AFTER its misadventures in 1993, when American marines were driven out of Somalia by skinny gunmen, America has used a long spoon in supping with Somalia's warlords. This, like so much else, changed on September 11th.(41)_____.

    Clandestine, up to a point: within hours of the arrival in Baidoa of nine closely cropped Americans sporting matching satellite phones and shades, their activities were broadcast. After meeting various warlords, the group inspected a compound that had apparently been offered to them as their future base. They also saw an old military depot. Neither can have been encouraging: the compound has been taken over by war-displaced families, and the depot by thorn-scrub.

    America was already convinced of al-Qaeda's presence in Somalia. It had listed a Somali Islamic group, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Islamic Unity), as a terrorist organisation. (42)_____.

    It fears that lawless Somalia could become a haven for escapes from Afghanistan. The American navy is currently patrolling the country's long coastline, while spy planes are said to be criss-crossing the heavens.

    (43)_____. With a little bit of help, he told his American visitors, he would be ready "to liberate the country from these evil forces". America had already heard as much through its embassies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, which maintain contact with the warlords, and from Ethiopia.

    The warlords are supported by Ethiopia, which has a historical fear of a strong Somalia, in a bid to oppose the government. But their differing views on where to strike at the "terrorists" reveal that their individual ambitions are even sharper than their dislike of the government.

    Mr Ismail says that Merca, which is claimed by his Rahanwein clan, is the capital of terror. (44)____. The UN says there is only an orphanage there now. But the island is close to Mr Morgan's home town of Kismaayo, which he failed to capture from a pro-government militia in July, and he is determined not to fail again.

    None of this looks good for Somalia's official president, Abdiquassim Salad Hassan, whose government is in control of about half the capital, Mogadishu. He has formed his own anti-terrorism unit, and invited America to send investigators, or even troops. America, armed with stories about the presence of al-Itihaad members held back, but on December 18th sent an envoy to Mogadishu.

    Both Mr Hassan and the UN say that al-Itihaad is not a terrorist organisation. It emerged as an armed force in 1991, battling for power in the aftermath of Siad Barre's fall. It had some early successes, briefly taking Kismaayo. But it was always dependent on the blessing of its members' clan elders. When the elders eventually called their fighters back, a hard core of Islamists fled to the Gedo border region where, in 1997, they were crushed by Ethiopian troops(45)_____.

    The Baidoa alliance plainly hopes to be supported as proxies in a fight against "terrorism" and the Mogadishu regime. But the latest intelligence leaks suggest that the first reports may have overestimated al-Qaeda's presence in Somalia. Nor would Mr bin Laden and his henchmen find it easy to lie low in an oral culture that considers rumour-mongering to be a form of manners. Even so, the warlords seem to believe that they have won some promise of help. Soon after the arrival of the American group, they pulled out of the peace talks they had been holding with their government in Nairobi.

[A] Al-Itihaad subsequently infiltrated Somalia's business class, and now runs Islamic schools, courts and clinics with the money it has accumulated.

[B] According to Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail, the acting chairman of the loose alliance of warlords who control most of Somalia and are based in Baidoa, there are "approximately 20,480 armed extremists" in Somalia and "85% of the government is al-Itihaad".

[C]  Muhammad Hersi Morgan, known as the "butcher of Hargeisa" because he once razed that town to the ground, says an al-Itihaad camp on Ras Kamboni island is still active.

[D]  But since September 11th 2001, western governments, anxious to prevent al-Qaeda from using Somalia as a base, have pressed the warlords to make peace.

[E]  American intelligence officers are working with two warlords to gather information about suspected al-Qaeda people in Somalia.

[F] On December 9th America
sent a clandestine mission to talk to a collection of Somali warlords, who like to claim that their country, in particular their UN-sponsored government, is overrun with terrorists.

[G] It had also forced the closure of Barakaat, Somalia's biggest banking and telecoms company, which handles most of the remittances that Somalis working abroad send back to their families.

Part C
Directions:
    Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET2. (10points)

    "My Early Life", by Winston Churchill. Eland, pounds 9.99

    Winston Churchill on peacekeeping among the Pathans

    Winston Churchill, who fought on the Afghan border in 1897, warned of the dangers of peacekeeping among the Pathans, and of mixing politics and war

    (46)"EXCEPT at harvest-time, when self-preservation enjoins a temporary truce, the Pathan tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian. Every large house is a real feudal fortress...with battlements, turrets [and] drawbridges. Every village has its defence. Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud.

    "The numerous tribes and combinations of tribes all have their accounts to settle with one another. Nothing is ever forgotten, and very few debts are left unpaid...(47)The life of the Pathan is thus full of interest; and his valleys, nourished alike by endless sunshine and abundant water, are fertile enough to yield with little labour the modest material requirements of a sparse population.

    "Into this happy world the nineteenth century brought two new facts: the breech-loading rifle and the British government. The first was an enormous luxury and blessing; the second an unmitigated nuisance. The convenience of the breech-loading, and still more of the magazine rifle, was nowhere more appreciated than in the Indian highlands.(48) A weapon which would kill with accuracy at fifteen hundred yards opened a whole new vista of delights to every family or clan which could acquire it. One could actually remain in one's own house and fire at one's neighbour nearly a mile away...

    "The action of the British government on the other hand was entirely unsatisfactory. The great organising, advancing, absorbing power to the southward seemed to be little better than a monstrous spoil-sport.

    "No one would have minded these expeditions if they had simply come, had a fight and then gone away again...But towards the end of the nineteenth century these intruders began to make roads through many of the valleys...All along the road people were expected to keep quiet, not to shoot one another, and, above all, not to shoot at travellers along the road. (49)It was too much to ask, and a whole series of quarrels took their origin from this source...

    "The Political Officers who accompanied the force...were very unpopular with the army officers...(50)They were accused of the grievous crime of 'shilly-shallying', which being interpreted means doing everything you possibly can before you shoot. We had with us a very brilliant political officer...who was much disliked because he always stopped military operations. Just when we were looking forward to having a splendid fight and all the guns were loaded and everyone keyed up, [he] would come along and put a stop to it."