Part B: Listening and Translation

1. Sentence Translation

Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 sentences in English. You will hear the sentences ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each sentence, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

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(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

2. Passage Translation

Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 passages in English. You will hear the passages ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each passage, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. You may take notes while you are listening.

(1)

(2)

SECTION 5: READING TEST (30 minutes)

Directions:Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

Questions 1～3

Every four years, beginning in 1984, the artists Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese have collected political ads from the Presidential election, adding a dozen or so particularly striking new spots to their project, “Political Advertisement.” On a recent evening, they met at Goldcrest studios, in the meatpacking district, to work on the seventh edition of the film, which has become what Reese calls “the longest-running video art project in the world.” The artists would be screening the film—now a seventy-five-minute compilation of a hundred and two ads, spanning fifty-six years—at the Museum of Modern Art, on October 30th.

Reese, at the keyboard of an Avid editing workstation, called up ads, while Muntadas looked over his shoulder and made comments. They viewed ads featuring telephones—Clinton’s 3 A.M. ad, Obama’s response, and a McCain phone ad—and discussed which one they should use. Several days of watching political commercials had left them feeling a little dazed. Muntadas seemed somewhat weary, but Reese was animated, almost punchy. Muntadas, who is sixty-six, grew up in Spain under Franco, an experience that sharpened his awareness of the dangers of political propaganda. Reese, fifty-two, watched political ads as a kid in Washington, D.C., and he views the medium with nostalgia, even affection. “One of my first experiences was waiting in line in my elementary school and seeing a classmate with a can of Goldwater ginger ale,” he said.

Reese explained that, in making their selections, they hoped both to spotlight innovative ads and to show how certain motifs return again and again. The politician’s desk, which Nixon used to considerable effect in 1960, is one such trope; the testimonial, such as Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama, dates to the earliest political ads, like those in the Eisenhower-Stevenson race, in 1952.

This year, in addition to hundreds of ads produced by the campaigns and the national committees, there are ads made by political-action committees and special-interest groups. And there are the straight-to-YouTube videos, like “Obama Girl,” and all the smashups and parodies these videos inspired. “The campaign can no longer control its messaging—that’s the big change this year,” Reese said. “But Obama does well in that environment,” he added, calling up the Senator’s smiling face. “He’s an empty screen, on which people project what they want him to be.” Their potential selections included the Phil de Vellis “Vote Different” mashup of Ridley Scott’s 1984 Apple ad, with Hillary Clinton as the Big Brother figure on the screen, and the California Nurses Association’s anti-Palin ad, “One Heartbeat Away,” which is a remake of an anti-Dan Quayle ad from 1988.

Watching “Political Advertisement” in its entirety is a powerful but disorienting experience. Time hurtles forward with each Presidential election, but there is no clear progress on the fundamental issues. Jobs, better schools, tax relief, help for small businesses, change, peace through strength, and out-of-touch Washington insiders ebb and flow in importance. It’s morning again in America in 1984, with the Reagan ads, but soon it’s nighttime, with the darkening sky of a 1992 Ross Perot spot on the national debt. Tonally, the film is a perfect hybrid of its creators’ sensibilities. It’s funny and nostalgic, and has an innocent quality, while at the same time offering a bleak view of a specifically American form of propaganda, born in 1952, that has grown to shape our political process—not just the way we sell our politicians but the nature of the political discourse itself.

The film will close, Reese said, with an excerpt from the music video that Jesse Dylan and Will.i.am made from Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech. It points the way toward a new kind of user-made political advertising, in which it is impossible to say where personal expression leaves off and propaganda begins.

“This edit’s still going to end ‘To Be Continued,’ same as every other,” Reese said. “We’ll be back.”

1. Describe Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese's art "Political Advertisement."

2. Why do they make these selections?

3. Explain the sentence "Watching “Political Advertisement” in its entirety is a powerful but disorienting experience."