北外基础英语.docVIP

北京外国语大学2004年基础英语试题 I. Reading Comprehension 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 flavor, captures 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. While the countries of the EU vulgarly battle to promote their national interests, the commission stands above the fray and identifies the general good. And while national governments are riven by internal rivalries and political infighting, the multinational college sails on serenely 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. Appropriately, the commission is headed by a real live former professor, Romano Prodi, an Italian. But like many a college head in the academic world, Mr. Prodi’s management style is an infuriating mixture 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. (Or do his closed eyes simply mean he is thinking deeply?) Mr. Prodi has also alienated many of the other commissiones by his habit of making damaging off-the cuff remarks and by his penchant for secretively compiled reports that undermine his colleagues’ work. Pedro Solbes, the commissioner for economic affairs, was left looking like a chump after M