翻译考试历年中级口译真题(6)_第6页

Questions 11-15

Our visit to the excavation of a Roman fort on a hill near Coventry was of more than archaeological interest. The year's dig had been a fruitful one and had assembled evidence of a permanent military camp much larger than had at first been conjectured. We were greeted on the site by a group of excavators, some of them filling in a trench that had yielded an almost complete pot the day before, others enjoying the last-day luxury of a cigarette in the sun, but all happy to explain and talk about their work. If we had not already known it, nothing   would   have   suggested   that   this   was   a   party   of prisoners from  the nearby prison. This is not the first time that prison labour has been used in work of this kind, but here the experiment, now two years old,has proved outstandingly satisfactory. 

From the archaeologists' point of view, prisoners provide a steady force of disciplined labour throughout the entire season, men to whom it is a serious day's work, and not the rather carefree holiday job that it tends to be for the amateur archaeologist. Newcomers are comparatively few, and can soon be initiated by those already trained in the work. Prisoners may also be more accustomed to heavy work like shovelling and carting soil than the majority of students, and they also form a fair cross-section of the population and can furnish men whose special skills make them valuable as surveyors, draughtsmen of pottery restorers. When Coventry's Keeper of Archaeology went to the prison to appeal for help, he was received cautiously by the men, but when the importance of the work was fully understood, far more volunteers were forthcoming then could actually be employed. When they got to work on the site, and their efforts produced pottery and building foundations in what until last year had been an ordinary field, their enthusiasm grew till they would sometimes work through their lunch hour and tea break, and even carry on in the rain rather than sit it out in the hut. This was undoubtedly because the work was not only strenuous but absorbing, and called for considerable intelligence. The men worked always under professional supervision, but as the season went on they needed less guidance and knew when an expert should be summoned.

Disciplinary problems were negligible: the men were carefully selected for their good conduct and working on a party like this was too valuable a privilege to be thrown away. 
 
The Keeper of Archaeology said that this was by far the most satisfactory form   of   labour   that   he   had ever had,  and that it had produced results, in quantity and quality, that could not have been achieved by any other means. A turf and timber fort built near the Roman highway through the   middle   of England in the first century A.D. had been excavated over an area of 14,000 square feet, and a section of turf rampart and palisade fully reconstructed by methods identical to those employed by the Roman army.

The restoration of the Roman fort is being financed by Coventry Corporation as part of a plan to create a leisure amenity area. To this project prisoners have contributed work which otherwise would not have been performed and which benefits the whole community.

11.The visit to the excavation site was ______.
     (A) of purely archaeological interest
     (B) fruitful because a complete pot was discovered
     (C) interesting in more than one way
     (D) made by a group of prisoners
12.It can be assumed that archaeologists ______.
     (A) found that the prisoners worked far better than students
     (B) did not like the prisoners' carefree attitude to work
     (C) were willing to take only a few prisoners to work on the site
     (D) were often forced to discipline the prisoners
13.Prisoners demonstrated their attitude to work by ______.
     (A) spending most of their time sitting in a hut
     (B) insisting on professional guidance
     (C) taking no initiative
     (D) working voluntarily
14.When prisoners were selected for the work ______.
     (A) many of them refused to co-operate
     (B) their previous behaviour was taken into account
     (C) they were told they must work in all weathers
     (D) they were warned that there would be no privileges
15.The Keeper of Archaeology said that ______.
     (A) he had expected more of the fort to be revealed
     (B) the palisade was very primitive
     (C) only prison labour could produce such good results
     (D) the methods to construct the Roman fort were proved identical