Part A: Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following text. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)
Text 4
Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the “unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions.” Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should be profit and the market. But “it’s us, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit.”
Driving her point home, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and freedom.” This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.
As the hacking trial concludes-finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the same charge-the wider issue of dearth of integrity still stands. Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people. This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking. Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.
In many respects, the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.
In today’s world, it has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organisations that they run. Perhaps we should not be so surprised. For a generation, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit. The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealth generation, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.
The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instructions-nor received traceable, recorded answers.
36. According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by
37. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that
38. The author believes that Rebekah Brooks’s defence
39. The author holds that the current collective doctrine shows
40. Which of the following is suggested in the last paragraph?
全文翻译
这起被称为手机黑客案的事件似乎已经尘埃落定。本周一，新闻国际集团及其母公司默多克帝国已就电话窃听达成和解。但除了等待判决外，还有更广泛的启示。
当然，定罪的数量意味着许多编辑和记者心中残存的一丝体面已经消亡。非法窃听的广泛性——从娱乐界到王室成员，再到各级别政客——表明，冷漠渗透到了媒体文化的核心。至少有一位二线记者因非法手段被送进监狱；新闻国际前首席执行官丽贝卡·布鲁克斯于2014年6月被判无罪。
《世界新闻报》的前编辑安迪·库尔森因密谋窃听电话而被定罪，他声称窃听是记者的一种标准行业工具，称其为"小报惯例"而非犯罪。但更广泛的电话窃听审判明确表明，尽管仍有一些人相信新闻业曾经拥有由共享的集体道德支撑的共同价值观，但今天的新闻编辑室是一个不折不扣的弱肉强食的世界。
在很多方面，与上一个时代相比，今天英国新闻业的道德沦丧带来了更大的危险。在互联网出现之前，明智的编辑们——那些管理新闻编辑室并制定行为标准的人——可以充当读者在一个复杂世界中穿行的把关人。但网络实际上打破了他们执行标准和阻止劣质材料的能力。这使得该行业所剩无几的道德纤维变得至关重要。
在过去，媒体集团用于公益事业。新闻国际在20世纪90年代发起了一场运动，在新工党人士和名人成为时尚之前就反对恋童癖。默多克旗下的《太阳报》在2011年推动政府部长公布了囚犯的投票权。但今天的新闻业中很少标志着一种持续致力于公民抱负的道德或政治进程。
我们必须学会不被内容所蒙蔽。现在，我们消费的所有新闻中只有大约一半来自像BBC这样的主要媒体集团的记者。但更重要的是，在线上获取的可靠性线索很少。政治可能会通过像特朗普先生这样的讨厌人物来试验信任的崩溃。但从长远来看，真正重要的可能是媒体权威和能力的消亡。
Answers & Explanations (答案与深度解析)
试题精解
36. [A] the consequences of the current sorting mechanism.
【解析】细节原因题。第一、二段中，Elisabeth 抱怨了我们机构中“令人不安的诚信匮乏”，她认为其原因在于社会共同接受了“利润和市场”作为唯一的“筛选机制（sorting mechanism）”。第二段指出，这种道德目的的缺失（即筛选机制带来的后果）可能成为资本主义最危险的“乌龙球”，并且正在“伤害（wounding）”新闻国际等公司。因此，让她感到不安的正是当前筛选机制所带来的“后果（consequences）”。
37. [B] more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking.
【解析】段落推理题。第三段提到，除了已被定罪的前编辑，已知记者窃听了多达 5500 人的电话，这是工业规模的窃听。而且“Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.（其他人正在等待审判。这个长篇故事仍在展开）”。由此可以推断，随着审判的进行，可能会有“更多的记者被判犯有窃听电话罪（more journalists may be found guilty）”。
38. [A] was hardly convincing.
【解析】观点态度题。第四段中，作者使用了强烈的讽刺语调：“令人震惊的启示之一是 Rebekah Brooks 对自己新闻编辑室里发生的事知道得少之又少... 她成功辩护的核心竟是她什么都不知道（she knew nothing）”。作者用“astonishing revelations（令人震惊的启示）”来形容这一现象，显然认为一个高管对自己部门发生的大规模窃听案一无所知是极其荒谬的，即她的辩护是“难以令人信服的（hardly convincing）”。
39. [C] generally distorted values.
【解析】细节推断题。第五段指出，我们这一代人的“集体信条（collective doctrine）”是社会的筛选机制应该是利润。因此，“效率、灵活性、股东价值、销售额”等词语变得重要，而“正义、公平、宽容、问责”等词语却被“贬低到了边缘（degraded to the margin）”。这清楚地表明，当前社会的信条展现出了一种“普遍扭曲的价值观（generally distorted values）”。
40. [B] Moral awareness matters in editing a newspaper.
【解析】段落推理题。最后一段指出，《世界新闻报》编辑的目的不是为了促进读者理解，不是为了公平，甚至不惜违背任何共同的人性（betray any common humanity）。其目的是“为了追求发行量和影响力而毁掉别人的生活（ruin lives）”。作者通过强烈批判这种丧失道德底线的办报目的，从反面暗示了：在编辑报纸时，“道德意识至关重要（Moral awareness matters）”。
考研核心句型与长难句
【长难句剖析】
1. 精彩的体育隐喻：
"It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and freedom."
【解析】句中的 own goals 是一个绝佳的隐喻，原指足球比赛中的“乌龙球”，在这里引申为资本主义和自由因为自身道德约束的缺失而“搬起石头砸自己的脚”。
"It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and freedom."
【解析】句中的 own goals 是一个绝佳的隐喻，原指足球比赛中的“乌龙球”，在这里引申为资本主义和自由因为自身道德约束的缺失而“搬起石头砸自己的脚”。
2. 并列宾语与讽刺语调：
"One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived."
【解析】was 后面接了三个并列的表语部分：两个由 how little 引导的从句，以及一个名词短语 the fact (后面带 that 引导的同位语从句)。作者连用三个长句排比，将身为高管却以“无知”来逃避责任的荒谬感推向高潮。
"One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived."
【解析】was 后面接了三个并列的表语部分：两个由 how little 引导的从句，以及一个名词短语 the fact (后面带 that 引导的同位语从句)。作者连用三个长句排比，将身为高管却以“无知”来逃避责任的荒谬感推向高潮。
3. 被动语态与价值错位：
"Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability."
【解析】这是一个主语被很长后置定语修饰的句子，正常语序是 Justice, fairness... have been words (which are) degraded to the margin。作者故意把 Words degraded to the margin 放在句首，与上一句的 The words that have mattered 形成工整的对仗，凸显了当今社会金钱至上、道德边缘化的严重错位。
"Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability."
【解析】这是一个主语被很长后置定语修饰的句子，正常语序是 Justice, fairness... have been words (which are) degraded to the margin。作者故意把 Words degraded to the margin 放在句首，与上一句的 The words that have mattered 形成工整的对仗，凸显了当今社会金钱至上、道德边缘化的严重错位。