翻译考试历年中级口译真题(7)_第10页

Questions 26~30
      Most towns up to Elizabethan times were smaller than a modern village and each of them was built around its weekly market where local produce was brought for sale and the towns fold sold their work to the people from the countryside and provided them with refreshment for the day. Trade was virtually confined to that one day even in a town of a thousand or so people. On marlet days craftsmen put up their stalls in the open air whilst on one or two other days during the week the townsman would pack up his loaves, or nails, or  cloth, and set  out  early to do a day s trade in the market of an adj oining town where, however, he would be charged a heavy toll for the privilege and get a less favourable spot  for his stand than the local craftsmen. Another chance for him to make a sale was to the congregation gathered for  Sunday morning worship. Although no trade was allowed anywhere during the hours of the service (except at annual fair times), after church there would be some trade at the church door with departing country folk.

      The trade  of  markets was almost  wholly  concerned with  exchanging the products  of the nearby countryside and the goods sold in the market but particularly in food retail dealing was distrusted as a kind of profiteering. Even when there was enough trade being done to afford a livelihood to an enterprising man ready to buy wholesale and sell retail, town authorities were reluctant to allow it.

     Yet there were plainly people who were tempted to “forestall the market” by buying gogds outside it, and to “regrate” them, that is to resell them, at a higher price. The constantly repeated rules against these practices and the endlessly recurring prosecutions mentioned in the records of all the larger towns prove that some well- informed and sharp- witted people did these things.

      Every  town made its own laws and if it was big enough to have craft guilds, these associations would regulate the business of their members and tried to enforce a strict monopoly of their own trades.Yet while the  guild  leaders,as craftsmen,  followed  fiercely  protectionist policies, at the same time, as leading townsmen, they wanted to see a big, busy market yielding a handsome revenue in various dues and tolls.Conflicts of interest led to endless,minute regulations,changeable, often inconsistent, frequently absurd. There was a time in the fourteenth century, for  example, when London fishmongers were not allowed to handle any fish that had not already been exposed for sale for three days by the men who caught it.

26. Craftsmen might prefer to trade in their own town because there they could _________.
   (A) easily find good refreshment                       (B) work in the open air
   (C) start work very early                                 (D) have the well- placed stalls
27. A tradesman was not allowed to sell his goods only ________________.
   (A) on special market days                                (B) at the annual fairs
   (C) during Sunday morning services                   (D) by the end of the services
28. In medieval markets there was little retail trade because ___________.
   (A) money was never used in sales
   (B) producers sold directly to consumers
   (C) there were no fixed positions for shops
   (D) authorities were unwilling to make a profit
29. The expression “forestall the market” (Paragraph 3) means “______________”.
   (A) buy from a stall outside the market place
   (B) acquire goods in quantity before the market 
   (C) have the best and the first stall in the market
   (D) sell at a higher price than competitors
30. It can be concluded from the passage that the regulations enforced by craft guilds were often ______________.
   (A) unfair and unreasonable                               (B) in the interest of the customers
   (C) too complicated to comply with                   (D) disapproved by the local authorities