2000年全国硕士研究生入学考试英语试题

　　But that may have more to do with Japanese life-styles. "In Japan,"says educator Yoko Muro, "it's never a question of whether you enjoy your job and your life, but only how much you can endure."With economic growth has come centralization; fully 76 percent of Japan's 119 million citizens live in cities where community and the extended family have been abandoned in favor of isolated, two-generation households. Urban Japanese have long endured lengthy commute （travel to and from work） and crowded living conditions, but as the old group and family values weaken, the discomfort is beginning to tell. In the past decade, the Japanese divorce rate, while still well below that of the United States, has increased by 50 percent, and suicides have increased by nearly one-quarter.

　　63.In the westerners' eyes, the postwar Japan was .

　　[A]under aimless development[B]a positive example

　　[C]a rival to the West[D]on the decline

　　64.According to the author, what may chiefly be responsible for the moral decline of Japanese society?

　　[A]Women's participation in social activities is limited.

　　[B]More workers are dissatisfied with their jobs.

　　[C]Excessive emphasis has been placed on the basics.

　　[D]The life style has been influenced by western values.

　　65.Which of the following is true according to the author?

　　[A]Japanese education is praised for helping the young climb the social ladder.

　　[B]Japanese education is characterized by mechanical learning as well as creativity.

　　[C]More stress should be placed on the cultivation of creativity.

　　[D]Dropping out leads to frustration against test taking.

　　66.The change in Japanese life-style is revealed in the fact that .

　　[A]the young are less tolerant of discomforts in life

　　[B]the divorce rate in Japan exceeds that in the U.S.

　　[C]the Japanese endure more than ever before

　　[D]the Japanese appreciate the present life

　　Passage5

　　If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition—wealth, distinction, control over one's destiny—must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices made on ambition's behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it must be widely shared; and it especially must be highly regarded by people who are themselves admired, the educated not least among them. In an odd way, however, it is the educated who have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal. What is odd is that they have perhaps most benefited from ambition—if not always their own then that of their parents and grandparents. There is a heavy note of hypocrisy in this, a case of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped—with the educated themselves riding on them.

　　Certainly people do not seem less interested in success and its signs now than formerly. Summer homes, European travel, BMWs—the locations, place names and name brands may change, but such items do not seem less in demand today than a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot confess fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar. Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical spectacles, which now more than ever seem in ample supply: the critic of American materialism with a Southampton summer home; the publisher of radical books who takes his meals in three star restaurants; the journalist advocating participatory democracy in all phases of life, whose own children are enrolled in private schools. For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional, the proper formulation is, "Succeed at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious."