英语二题库

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The last time she was recruiting for her export-sales team,Sarah Grain hired a Lithuanian who speaks...

The last time she was recruiting for her export-sales team,Sarah Grain hired a Lithuanian who speaks Russian,Polish and German.Her two previous hires for Eriez Magnetics,which makes in-dustrial equipment in South Wales,were an Italian who also speaks French,and a Venezuelan who speaks Spanish and Portuguese.All of them speak fluent English."There were no British applicants who had the requisite language skills,"she says.Ms Grain's conclusion is not unusual for a British company.In 2012 a European Commission survey tested the foreign-language proficiency of 54,000 students aged 14 and 15,in 14 nations.Sweden came top,with 82qo of pupils reaching an"independent"or"advanced independent"standard.The average for all 14 states was 42%.England came bottom,with just 9%.Part of the explanation is that many people's second language is English,while many Britons continue to believe that,as native speakers,they do not need to bother with foreign languages.They may be right-in tenns of commurucation.But it means that,not only are they missing out on much cultural interaction,they may also be harming their own job prospects.they have not been helped by the educational policies of successive govemments.In 2004 Tony Blair's hbour govemment abolished the requirement to learn a language after the age of 14,causing the numbers taking a language CCSE exam at 16 to fall by half in state schools over the next seven years.Concerned about this rapid decline,the coalition govemment brought in a new performance indicator called the English Baccalaureate,or EBacc,in 2011.A modern language was one of its five core disciplines.Language teachers-an embattled breed-rejoiced.The number of students ente-ring a GCSE language exam in 2013,the first year the changes took effect,rose by 20%.Now,however,those gains could be lost,as the govemment has seemingly loosened the re-quirement.From 2016,under a new initiative called Progress 8,it has extended the number of core subjects to eight,appearing to make learning a language voluntary.This has pleased some teachers,who felt the EBacc was too narrow,but linguists are shocking.The decline of languages at GCSE has inevitably had an effect higher up the academic food chain.Though the number of those studying languages to A Level will increase thanks to the GCSE cohort of 2013-2014,it is likely to fall back again.French and German are half as popular as they were 20 years ago.The number of universities offering language degrees has fallen,too:by 50%for Cerman and 40%for French since 1998.The number offering Spanish has also fallen.Degrees in other languages,such as Chinese and Arabic,are becoming more popular,but they are still rare.The economy and the labour market bear the consequences.In 2012 the British Chambers of Commerce found,in a survey of 8,000 BriLish companies,that 96%had no foreign-language speakers.First-lime exporters cited language as a barrier to entering intemational markets.Though Britain makes up 12%of the population of the EU,less than 5qo of EU civil servants in Brussels are British.Not enough Bricons can fulfil the language requirement of being able to work in French or Cerman.And even if monoglot Brits can get jobs at multinationals,claims Richard Hardie,non-executive chairman of the British arm of UBS,a bank,"the chances of getting to the top if you only have English are much lower than before".

European Commission showed that
  • A.most British candidates lacked language skills
  • B.native speakers didn't need to learn foreign languages
  • C.mastering only one language would be less competitive
  • D.English had lost its predominance as a foreign language
  • E.a majority of British firms had no foreign-language speakers.
  • F.the requirement for students to learn foreign language was unnecessary.
  • G.students'foreign-language proficiency differed greatly among countries.
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If there is one person to blame for economists'habit of commenting on everyhing,it is Gary Becker,who died on May 3rd.Not content with studying the world's economies,he was the first prominent economist to apply economic tools to all aspects of life.He revealed that people are often purposeful and rational in their decisions,whether they are changing jobs,taking drugs or divorcing their spouses.This insight,and the work that followed from it,eamed him a Nobel prize in 1992.No less an eminence than Milton Friedman declared in 2001 that Mr Becker was"the grealest social scientist who has lived and worked in the last half-century".At the heart of Mr Becker's work was the view that"individuals maximise welfare as they conceive it."Welfare need not mean income;it could derive from the pleasure of selflessness.
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  • A.take-up
  • B.send-off
  • C.make-up
  • D.turn-off
3 单选题 1分
Retrofitting houses to use less energy should be a no-brainer for homeowners.1 time,money spent on ways to reduce heat loss from drauShty houses should produce a 2 return in lower fuel bills.In practice,many are cauLious.Some improvements,such as solid-wall insulation and solar panels,can take over 25 years to 3 their initial cost.Few owners are willing to wait that long:by then many are likely to have.4 and moved on.Several governments have started finance schemes designed t0 5 this problem.Since 2008 PACE programmes have offered American homeowners loans to 6.improvements,repaid through higher local taxes on the property,7 it belongs to.In Brit.ain,Lhe Green Deal offers loans over a 25-year period,with repayments added to energy bills.Countnes including France and Canada have similar 8.In theory,these schemes should boost investment in common energy-saving measures,such as extra insulation and new boilers,9 the first owner does not have to pay all the costs in advance.But enrolment rates have 10,according to Sean Kidney at the Climate Bonds Initiative,a thinktank.In Britain,just 1%of those assessed for the Creen Deal have signed up.In Berkeley,California,home of the first PACE scheme,the 11 rate is similarly low.Homeowners are 12 chiefly because the interest raLes on the loans look high.The Green Deal charges 7%;some PACE schemes a hefty 8%.As these rates are fixed for decades,they will 13 look unattractive when（as now）short-term interest rates are low.Many people als0 14 they will save enough on their energy biUs to cover the repayments.For instance,15 in Britain that installing loft insulation can cut energy bills by 20%have been dented by a government study that found it 16 gas consumption by only 1.7%on average.Others fear that green loans may reduce the value of their home.In America,firms that undewrite mortgages are 17 PACE loans.Green loans have not been a failure everywhere.Around 250,000 households in Germany 18 for them each year.They do so 19 they need pay only 1%interest on them each yeu,thanks to an annual public subsidy of 1.5 billion.Whether that is a（an）20 use of taxpayers'money is another question.12选？
  • A.unhappy
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  • C.unsurprised
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4 单选题 1分
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  • A.indefinitely
  • B.extremely
  • C.inevitably
  • D.remarkably
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