句子译文：紧接着就传来了热点议题：报道说，有一系列的措施来支持银行的资本基础，其中就有来自新加坡和中东的君主财富基金的投资。

② The change of approach may be on the advice of auditors and regulators but it is more likely to reflect a desire by UBS's bosses to avoid months of speculation about the bank's exposure, something that Marcel Rohner, the chief executive, described as “distracting”.

主体句式：The change of approach may be... but...

结构分析：这是一个并列句，but引导的分句比较复杂，不定式短语to avoid...作前面a desire的定语，而something that...是a desire的同位语，该同位语中又包含了一个定语从句。

句子译文：改变方法可能是审计员或调节员建议的，但更反映了UBS的高层要避免数月来对银行曝光的猜测——这被首席执行官Marcel Rohner形容为“转移注意力（的方案）”。





题目分析


1. The author uses the metaphor “hot iron” to imply that _____.

[A] UBS again becomes a victim of America's mortgage market

[B] UBS's capital base has obtained adequate financial support to digest is debt

[C] those measures will forcefully stop UBS from further loss

[D] good news from those measures would prevent UBS from bankruptcy

1. 作者用“热烙铁”这个比喻来暗示 _____.

[A] UBS再次成为了美国抵押贷款市场的受害者

[B] UBS的资本基础已经得到了足够的财政支持，用以消化其债务

[C] 这些措施会强行让UBS避免遭受进一步的损失

[D] 这些措施带来的好消息会防止UBS破产

答案：C　难度系数：☆☆☆

分析：细节题。作者将一系列的措施比喻为“热烙铁”，而这些措施又是在为UBS提供资金，是一些好的措施，这个比喻让人费解。但结合第一段的上下文就可以理解，文章第一段开头就摆出UBS面临的抉择，是有控制地“流血”还是“被灼伤”，UBS选择了后者，先是将伤口裸露出来，接着就来了“热烙铁”。联系前后文可以想到，热烙铁可以灼伤伤口，但也可以让伤口马上止血，也就是可以让UBS避免进一步的损失。因此，答案C最为符合。

2. Compared with the mark-to-market valuations, the mark-to-model approach could _____.

[A] slow down the worsening in credit quality

[B] prevent the effect of crystallization of all expected future loss

[C] show data against a worsening of the credit quality

[D] accelerate the deterioration in credit quality

2. 与市场估量方法相比，模式方法可以 _____.

[A] 减缓信用质量的恶化

[B] 防止公布所有未来可能有的损失产生的影响

[C] 显示与信用质量恶化状况相反的数据

[D] 加快信用质量的恶化

答案：A　难度系数：☆☆☆

分析：细节题。题干是关于估量方法mark-to-model的，这在文章第三段中有所提及。关键的一句话就是，和mark-to-market方法相比，采用这种方法产生的恶化速度要慢一些，因为市场方法可迅速估算出未来所有可能有的损失。要注意的是，which have the effect of instantly crystallising all expected future losses是修饰mark-to-market方法的定语从句，这一点读者容易混淆。

3. The reason that Marcel Rohner thought the change of approach was “distracting” is _____.

[A] this change was unexpected to take place in such a situation

[B] this change was result of the advice of auditors and regulators

[C] this change was not favorite to UBS's speculation about the bank's exposure

[D] this change was taken to make people dispel their guess

3. Marcel Rohner认为这种转变是“转移注意力的”是因为 _____.

[A] 在当时的情形下出现这种转变是出人意料的

[B] 这种转变是审计员和调解员建议的结果

[C] 这种转变对于UBS银行曝光的猜测是不利的

[D] 采取这种转变是为了打消人们心中的猜测

答案：D　难度系数：☆☆

分析：推理题。题干中提到的“转变”是指UBS的评估方法由模式方法转变为将市场结合进来的方法，Marcel Rohner认为这种转变是“转移注意力的”，由上文可知，这种转变是UBS的高层为了避免数月来对银行曝光的猜测。因此，所说的“转移注意力”是避免人们的各种猜测，那么答案D最为符合。另外需要注意的是，选项C的内容只是对原文内容作了很小的修改，但意思却与原文相反。

4. The phrase “the white knights” (Line 4, Paragraph 5) most probably means _____.

[A] rich people

[B] wealthy saviors

[C] generous investors

[D] brave fighters

4. 短语“白衣骑士”（第五段第四行）最有可能指 _____.

[A] 有钱人

[B] 富裕的救星

[C] 慷慨的投资者

[D] 勇敢的斗士

答案：B　难度系数：☆☆

分析：猜词题。根据上下文，绝大部分的救助基金来自君主财产基金，这个基金对于许多身处困境的银行来说就像是白衣骑士，由此可以推断，“白衣骑士”可能代表救助他人的人，答案B和C都有这层意思。根据其救助对象是身处困境的银行，且更侧重于危难时的救助，对银行来说仿佛就是救世主。因此，答案B更为符合题意。而选项C无法体现其资助的重要性。

5. The author's attitude towards UBS's future is _____.

[A] optimistic

[B] pessimistic

[C] uncertain

[D] none of the above

5. 作者对于UBS未来的态度是 _____.

[A] 乐观的

[B] 悲观的

[C] 不确定的

[D] 以上都不是

答案：C　难度系数：☆☆☆☆

分析：态度题。这篇文章比较客观地描述了UBS目前面临的困境和其为了摆脱这个困境要采取的方法，作者虽然在前面几次提到UBS得到了一些资助，有望转好，但文章最后一段提出，UBS目前也面临众多问题，所以结局还有待观望。文章的最后一句明确表明了作者不确定的态度。





参考译文


有控制地流血还是被灼伤？这是UBS，一家因美国的抵押信贷市场受到重挫而陷入困境的瑞士银行所要面对的尴尬选择。而这家银行选择了后者——先是在公开次级感染债务之际宣布高达100亿资产价值缩水，从而裸露出伤口。UBS目前预计，第四季度也将亏损，本月就能见分晓。紧接着就传来了热点议题：报道说，有一系列的措施来支持银行的资本基础，其中就有来自新加坡和中东的君主财富基金的投资。

也应该会有些坏消息。10月，UBS第三季度的资产价值缩水超过40亿瑞士法郎，这与其他银行（如花旗银行和美林银行）更为严重的状况相比而言还是较为乐观的。第三季度末开始，次级债务市场价值的急剧下滑将会使得UBS面临更多的苦痛，它将承担巨额附属债务责任。花旗银行的分析师在11月预言，可能会有多达140亿瑞士法郎的损失。

那么为什么这一组新的赤字还是让人们大吃一惊呢？答案并不在于亏损的总规模，而是UBS决定一次性地承担损失。银行估量其与次级债务相关的股票价值所用的按模型定价的方法，是以第一担保抵押贷款的支付数据为基础的。尽管这些数据显示信用质量有所降低，但比起用按市值计价的估量方式来说，其恶化速度要慢一些，具有迅速明确所有未来损失的作用。

正是由于采取了这个缓和的方式，UBS可望在几个季度内，将资产账面价值的增长控制在20到30亿瑞士法郎。目前显示出，该银行已经将市场价值纳入其模式中，从而将第四季度的资产账面价值控制在一定范围内。改变方法可能是审计员或调节员建议的，但更反映了UBS的高层要避免数月来对银行曝光的猜测——这被首席执行官Marcel Rohner形容为“转移注意力（的方案）”。

一个长期以保守见称的银行如今却受到这种侮辱，对于UBS的资本率的担心也就逐渐出现了。因此UBS就采取措施，加强了第一层资金约194亿瑞士法郎，该数额比资产账面的损失要多许多，这是增加银行信用的重要方法。大部分资金将来源于君主财富基金，这是当今处于困境的银行的“白衣骑士”。新加坡GIC掌握着这个城市国家的外汇储备，它承诺要购买UBS价值110亿瑞士法郎的可转债。一个匿名的中东投资者又将投入20亿瑞士法郎。UBS也会售卖债券，并以股票的形式发行2007年的红利来募集现金。其资本率有望在第四季度达到12%以上，这样的处境就很不错了。

从9月份以来，银行的季度报告会的一大特色就是，讨论如何将额度控制在次级风险之下。把大于预期的资产账面降低程度和大于预期的资本增长相结合，好像是这种氛围下一个正确的处理方案。但是UBS还是不能确保问题都已解决。有可能出现次级资产价值的继续恶化，而且由信用创伤引起的更广泛的经济冲击造成的影响也不很明确，对公司名誉的损害程度也还没有确定。情况还有待观察。





TEXT FOUR


Just as Norman Mailer, John Updike and Philip Roth were at various times regarded as the greatest American novelists since the Second World War, John Ashbery and Robert Lowell vied for the title of greatest American poets. Yet the two men could not be more different. Lowell was a public figure who engaged with politics—in 1967 he marched shoulder-to-shoulder with Mailer in protest against the Vietnam war, as described in Mailer's novel The Armies of the Night. Lowell took on substantial themes and envisioned himself as a tragic, heroic figure, fighting against his own demons. Mr. Ashbery's verse, by contrast, is more beguilingly casual. In his hands, the making of a poem can feel like the tumbling of dice on a table top. Visible on the page is a delicately playful strewing of words, looking to engage with each other in a shyly puzzled fashion. And there is an element of Dada-like play in his unpredictability of address with its perpetual shifting of tones.

Lowell, who died in 1977 at the age of 60, addressed the world head on. By contrast, Mr. Ashbery, who celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this year, glances wryly at the world and its absurdities. In this edition of his later poems, a substantial gathering of verses selected from six volumes published over the past 20 years, his poetry does not so much consist of themes to be explored as comic routines to be improvised. He mocks the very idea of the gravity of poetry itself. His tone can be alarmingly inconsequential, as if the reader is there to be perpetually wrong-footed. He shifts easily from the elevated to the work-a-day. His poems are endlessly digressive and there are often echoes of other poets in his writings, though these always come lightly at the reader, as though they were scents on the breeze.

Lowell wrote in strict formal measures; some of his last books consisted of entire sequences of sonnets. Mr. Ashbery can also be partial to particular forms of verse, though these tend to be of a fairly eccentric kind—the cento (a patchwork of other poets' works), for example, and the pantoum (a Malaysian form, said to have been introduced to 19th-century Europe by Victor Hugo). Often he writes in a free-flowing, conversational manner that depends for its success upon the fact that the ending of lines is untrammeled by any concern about whether or not they scan. Within many of his poems, there often seems to be a gently humorous antagonism between one stanza and the next. Mr. Ashbery likes using similes in his poetry. This is often the poet's stock-in-trade, but he seems to single them out in order to send up the very idea of the simile in poetry, as in “Violets blossomed loudly/like a swear word in an empty tank”.

Life, for Lowell, was a serious matter, just as he was a serious man. Mr. Ashbery's approach, as evinced by his poetry, is more that of a gentle shrug of amused bewilderment. Unlike Lowell's, his poems are neither autobiographical nor confessional. He doesn't take himself that seriously. “Is all of life a tepid housewarming?” For a poet this is a tougher question to answer than you might think.

1. The word “substantial” (Line 5, Paragraph 1) most probably means _____.

[A] philosophical

[B] grand

[C] indispensable

[D] authentic

2. The last words of Lowell mean that _____.

[A] the world should go forward endlessly

[B] the world should move on without absurdities

[C] the world should function as well without his existence

[D] the world should go on its path for a bright future

3. Which one of the following is NOT the characteristics of Ashbery's poetry?

[A] Some lines are borrowed from the other poets' works.

[B] Stanzas are different from each other in one poem.

[C] Words are scattered casually in his poetry.

[D] Tones are continuously changing from the highbrow to the common.

4. Mr. Ashbery's similes in poetry are different from those of the other poets in that _____.

[A] he likes to single them out as the very essence of poetry's technique

[B] he uses them in an eccentric way that can hardly be imitated by other poets

[C] he uses simile to make fun of simile

[D] he uses simile to express his complex definition of the idea of simile

5. Why the author thinks the question Ashbery raised is a tougher one for a poet than we might think?

[A] Because as a matter of fact Ashbery is most focused on tough matters.

[B] Because Ashbery turns out to be a more serious poet than Lowell.

[C] Because Ashbery is able to better discern the dilemma of being a poet.

[D] Because the theme of life is worth thinking for a poet.





文章剖析


这篇文章介绍了美国诗人Ashbery和其诗歌的特点。文章虽然是以将两个诗人作对比的形式写作的，但是却对Ashbery着墨偏多，另外一个诗人Lowell只是一个陪衬而已。第一段讲述了两个诗人竞争“美国最伟大的诗人”称号；第二段和第三段都是对两位诗人作品特点的描述；第四段讲述他们对生活的不同态度。





词汇注释


vie v. 竞争

envision vt. 想象，预想

dice n. 骰子

strew vt. 散播，点缀，撒满

wryly adv. 挖苦地，表情冷漠地

improvise v. 临时准备，即兴创作

digressive adj. 离题的

cento n. 摘录

pantoum n. 潘顿诗体

untrammeled adj. 自由自在的，无阻碍的

tepid adj. 微温的，温热的；不太热烈的





难句突破


① In this edition of his later poems, a substantial gathering of verses selected from six volumes published over the past 20 years, his poetry does not so much consist of themes to be explored as comic routines to be improvised.

主体句式：His poetry does not so much consist of...

结构分析：本句为简单句，作状语的介词短语成分比较复杂，a substantial gathering of verses是edition的同位语，该同位语带有作定语的分词短语。在主句中，不定式短语to be explored...用来修饰themes，而不定式短语to be improvised又用来修饰comic routines。

句子译文：他这本后期出版的诗集选编了其在过去20年间出版的6本诗集中的诗歌，其主题不再是像那种临时准备的老套的滑稽节目，他戏谑诗歌本身具有严肃性这个说法。

② This is often the poet's stock-in-trade, but he seems to single them out in order to send up the very idea of the simile in poetry, as in “Violets blossomed loudly/like a swear word in an empty tank”.

主体句式：This is... but he...

结构分析：这是一个并列句，后面分句的成分较为复杂，带有一个不定式短语作目的状语；as引导的成分修饰整个分句。

句子译文：虽然这是诗人惯用的写作手法，但他却把这些比喻单独挑出来，以突出诗内明喻这个概念，比如“紫罗兰纵情开放/宛如空桶里的一句毒誓”。





题目分析


1. The word “substantial” (Line 5, Paragraph 1) most probably means _____.

[A] philosophical

[B] grand

[C] indispensable

[D] authentic

1. substantial这个词（第一段第五行）最有可能的意思是 _____.

[A] 哲学的

[B] 宏大的

[C] 必要的

[D] 真实的

答案：B　难度系数：☆☆☆

分析：猜词题。要根据上下文来断定该词的意思，这个词是用来形容Lowell诗歌主题的特点的。由第一段中所说的Lowell喜欢参与政治，在诗歌中经常将自己视为悲剧的英雄人物这一点可以看出，他的主题选择应该是比较宏大的。这一点在后面的几个段落中也可以发现。选项A也容易造成干扰，但要从tragic和heroic这两个词中推导出正确答案，因为这些就是宏大叙事主题中常见的特征。因此，B为正确答案。

2. The last words of Lowell mean that _____.

[A] the world should go forward endlessly

[B] the world should move without absurdities

[C] the world should function as well without his existence

[D] the world should go on its path for a bright future

2. Lowell的临终遗言的意思是 _____.

[A] 世界应该继续前行，不要停止

[B] 世界应消除荒谬、继续前行

[C] 世界没有了他也应该继续运行

[D] 世界应该继续沿通往美好未来的道路行进

答案：D　难度系数：☆☆

分析：推理题。Lowell临终时addressed the world head on，意思是让世界继续前行，但其深层次的意思要结合Lowell的性格来判断。根据整篇文章，Lowell是比较正统的一位诗人，他对待世界的态度是严肃的，他这句话的深层意思是，世界应该一直努力向前，最终能够走到光明的未来。因此，选项D最为符合题意。

3. Which one of the following is NOT the characteristics of Ashbery's poetry?

[A] Some lines are borrowed from the other poets' works.

[B] Stanzas are different from each other in one poem.

[C] Words are scattered casually in his poetry.

[D] Tones are continuously changing from the highbrow to the common.

3. 以下哪个不是Ashbery诗歌的特点？

[A] 有些句子是借用其他诗人的。

[B] 诗中节与节之间差异颇大。

[C] 诗中的词都是随意设置搭配的。

[D] 语调不停地变化，有时是阳春白雪，有时是下里巴人。

答案：A　难度系数：☆

分析：细节题。题干要求选出不属于Ashbery诗歌特点的一项。文章通篇都有对其诗歌特点的描述，因此就要细心查找每一选项是否在文章中提及。选项A，文章第二段最后一句提到，there are often echoes of other poets in his writings（中间常夹杂有其他诗人的一词半调），但并没有说直接借用别人作品中的句子，可能只是模仿其风格或语调，因此，答案A 不一定正确。选项B，关于诗歌节的特点，文章第三段提到there often seems to be a gently humorous antagonism between one stanza and the next，关键要知道 antagonism的意思是“对抗的”，说明节与节之间是截然不同的对立的风格，选项B是其诗歌的特点。选项C 是关于诗歌用词的特点的，第一段提到他诗歌中的词就像散落在桌上的骰子一样，那么C也是其特点。D是关于诗歌语调的，文章有两处提及，第一段提到its perpetual shifting of tones，第二段有更为详细的描述：He shifts easily from the elevated to the work-a-day. D也是其特点。因此，答案应为A。

4. Mr. Ashbery's similes in poetry are different from those of the other poets in that _____.

[A] he likes to single them out as the very essence of poetry's technique

[B] he uses them in an eccentric way that can hardly be imitated by other poets

[C] he uses simile to make fun of simile

[D] he uses simile to express his complex definition of the idea of simile

4. Ashbery先生诗歌中的比喻和其他诗人所用的比喻不同点在于 _____.

[A] 他喜欢把比喻单独列出来，作为诗歌的一种基本性技巧

[B] 他使用比喻的方式很奇怪，他人无法模仿

[C] 他为了戏谑比喻而使用比喻

[D] 他用比喻来表达自己对于比喻的复杂定义

答案：C　难度系数：☆☆☆☆

分析：细节题。文章第三段提到，Ashbery喜欢在诗歌中运用比喻手法，但和一般诗人不同的是，他喜欢把比喻单独列出来，好像要戏谑诗歌中的比喻似的。然后作者举了一个例子，是个非常奇怪的比喻：“紫罗兰纵情开放/宛如空桶里的一句毒誓”。这个题目有一定难度，send up这个短语的意思考生不一定熟悉，但考生可以根据Ashbery一贯游戏人生的态度分析出来。选项A和B表达的只是表层的现象，C才是真正的实质。