问答题{{B}}Ⅰ Sentence Tronslation{{/B}} Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 English sentences. 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.

问答题What is leadership? Its qualities are difficult to define. But they are not so difficult to identify. Leaders don"t force other people to go along with them. They bring them along. Leaders get commitment from others by giving it themselves, by building an environment that encourages creativity, and by operating with honesty and fairness. Good leaders aren"t "lone rangers." They recognize that an organization"s strategies for success require the combined talents and efforts of many people. Leadership is the catalyst for transforming those talents into results. Leaders provide answers as well as direction, offer strength as well as dedication, and speak from experience as well as understanding of the problems they face and the people they work with. Leaders are flexible rather than dogmatic. They believe in unity rather than yielding. And they strive to achieve agreements out of conflict. Leadership is all about getting people consistently to give their best, helping them to grow to their fullest potential, and motivating them to work toward a common good. Leaders make the right things happen when they"re supposed to.

问答题From sacred cow to white elephant is a short jump. Wind power, once seen as the eco-friendly cure-all for Britain"s energy problems, is attracting unprecedented criticism. The latest campaign, which unites veteran greens and the opposition Tories, opposes a proposed installation of 27 wind turbines next to Romney Marsh in Kent, a noted bird sanctuary and beauty spot. Hundreds more are planned elsewhere—many in beautiful bits of the countryside where some of Britain"s richest people happen to live. A bunch of media-savvy local organisations is now lobbying hard to stop them. The government remains unmoved. It calls wind power "the most proven green source of electricity generation" and cites Denmark as a role model. Renewables (mostly wind) account for 20% of electrical generation capacity there. Renewable energy is needed both to cut CO 2 emissions, promised under the Kyoto treaty, and to reach the government"s own target of generating 10% of British electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The cost of this to the taxpayer is likely to be ￡1 billion a year by 2020. But as well as Tories, toffs and country-lovers, many others think that wind power is seriously flawed. The first big problem is that it is too expensive. Although the British Wind Energy Association puts the cost of electricity from onshore wind farms at 2.5p per kilowatt-hour, only slightly more costly than other power sources, the Royal Academy of Engineering claims that on a more realistic view of construction costs it is much dearer (more expensive): 3.7p when generated onshore and 5.5p offshore. The government has tried to bridge this gap with tradable certificates. The wind-gatherers gain one of these for each megawatt-hour they generate. Power distribution companies then buy them as an alternative to paying the fines levied for failing to buy a set proportion (currently 4.9%) of renewable energy annually. But a recent House of Lords report noted a big snag: the nearer the industry gets to meeting the government"s targets, the less the value of the certificates; once the target is passed, their worth falls abruptly to zero. So the certificates, which will cost consumers a cool ￡ 500m this year and will be even more expensive next year, cap the supply of renewable energy instead of encouraging it. In effect, firms will buy only the minimum amount of renewable energy necessary to comply with the law. Then there are the engineering problems. Too light a breeze means no power; too strong a gale and the turbines shut down to prevent damage. Even the wind-lovers expect that the farms will manage only 30% of their full capacity on average. Worse, that output can fluctuate rapidly—by up to 20% of the total national wind capacity in the space of a single hour, according to Hugh Sherman, an energy consultant, who has studied Denmark"s wind industry. Furthermore, in a typical year like 2002, he says, there were 54 days when the air was so still that virtually no wind power was generated at all. But whereas Denmark can import power from Norway and Germany to keep the lights on during calm periods, Britain"s power grid is not set up for imports. So conventional coal-, oil- or gas-fired power stations would have to be kept running, ready to take up the load. That sharply raises the real cost of wind energy and means extra CO 2 emissions. Ministers may be right when they argue that wind power is the only renewable energy source that has even a theoretical chance of meeting the government"s targets. Given the costs and technical uncertainties, perhaps it would be better to abandon those targets altogether.

问答题News report: More Chinese cities have announced new restrictions on property purchases as the government tries to cool soaring home prices stoked by property speculators in second-and third-tier cities across the country. The measures in Chengdu, Jinan, Wuhan and Zhengzhou were the latest in a string of steps to tighten credit flowing into the property sector as the government tries to balance the need to prevent bubbles while stimulating economic growth. All across the country, over 20 cities launched cooling measures, including stricter regulations on buyers" qualifications to buy second or third homes and tightened credit for homebuyers in a bid to curb speculation. Topic: The Impact of Purchase Restrictions Policy on the Real Estate Market Questions for Reference: 1. What do you know about the restrictions on property purchases in China? Do you think they will be effective in controlling the house prices in big cities? 2. Are there bubbles in China"s real estate market? Why or why not7 3. What other measures do you think will be instrumental in stabilizing the real estate market? Cite examples to illustrate your point.

问答题News Report: Xu Ting could not believe his luck when he discovered the generous ATM in Guangzhou in April 2006. For every 1,000 yuan the migrant worker withdrew from the machine, he noticed that his bank account was only debited by I yuan. It was discovered that in nearly eight months Xu withdrew 175,000 yuan in 171 transactions through this malfunctioning ATM. He was arrested a year later, charged and sentenced to life imprisonment for larceny. The judgment, however, has sparked an outcry from the public. Topic: Should taking advantage of a malfunctioning ATM warrant a life sentence? Questions for Reference: 1. Do you think that life sentence is unfair and far too harsh? Why or why not? 2. Do you think what Xu Ting did is a crime of theft? You can explain either from the viewpoint of a specialist or that of a layperson. 3. What will you do if you face such a malfunctioning ATM?

问答题 For America's colleges, January is a month of reckoning. Most applications for the next academic year beginning in the autumn have to be made by the end of December, so a university's popularity is put to an objective standard, how many people want to attend. One of the more unlikely offices to have been flooded with mail is that of the City University of New York (CUNY), a public college that lacks, among other things, a famous sports team, bucolic campuses and raucous parties (it doesn't even have dorms), and, until recently, academic credibility. A primary draw at CUNY is a programme for particularly clever students, launched in 2001. Some 1,100 of the 60,000 students at CUNY's five top schools receive a rare thing in the costly world of American colleges, free education. Those accepted by CUNY's honours programme pay no tuition fees; instead they receive a stipend of $ 7,500 (to help with general expenses) and a laptop computer. Applications for early admissions into next year's programme are up 70%. Admission has nothing to do with being an athlete, or a child of an alumnus, or having an influential sponsor, or being a member of a particularly aggrieved ethnic group—criteria that are increasingly important at America's elite colleges. Most of the students who apply to the honours programme come from relatively poor families, many of them immigrant ones. All that CUNY demands is that these students be diligent and clever. Last year, the average standardized test score of this group was in the top 7% in the country. Among the rest of CUNY's students averages are lower, but they are now just breaking into the top third (compared with the bottom third in 1997). CUNY does not appear alongside Harvard and Stanford on lists of America's top colleges, but its recent transformation offers a neat parable of meritocracy revisited. Until the 1960s, a good case could be made that the best deal in American tertiary education was to be found not in Cambridge or Palo Alto, but in Harlem, at a small public school called City College, the core of CUNY. America's first free municipal university, founded in 1847, offered its services to everyone bright enough to meet its gruelling standards. City's golden era came in the last century, when America's best known colleges restricted the number of Jewish students they would admit at exactly the time when New York was teeming with the bright children of poor Jewish immigrants. In 1933—1954 City produced nine future Nobel laureates. But in the second half of the last century, CUNY once lost its glamour. What went wrong? Put simply, City dropped its standards. It was partly to do with demography, partly to do with earnest muddleheadedness. In the 1960s, universities across the country faced intense pressure to admit more minority students. Although City was open to all races, only a small number of black and Hispanic students passed the strict. That, critics decided, could not be squared with City's mission to "serve all the citizens of New York". At first the standards were tweaked, but this was not enough, and in 1969 massive student protests shut down City's campus for two weeks. Faced with upheaval, City scrapped its admissions standards altogether. By 1970, almost any student who graduated from New York's high schools could attend. The quality of education collapsed. At first, with no barrier to entry, enrolment climbed, but in 1976 the city of New York, which was then in effect bankrupt, forced CUNY to impose tuition fees. An era of free education was over, and a university which had once served such a distinct purpose joined the muddle of America's lower-end education. By 1997, seven out of ten first-year students in the CUNY system were failing at least one remedial test in reading, writing or maths (meaning that they had not learnt it to high- school standard). A report commissioned by the city in 1999 concluded that "central to CUNY's historic mission is a commitment to provide broad access, but its students' high drop-out rates and low graduation rates raise the question: 'Access to what?'". Using the report as ammunition, profound reforms were pushed through by New York's then mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, and another alumnus, Herman Badillo (1951), America's first Puerto Rican congressman. A new head of CUNY was appointed. Matthew Goldstein, a mathematician (1963), has shifted the focus back towards higher standards amid considerable controversy. For instance, by 2001, all of CUNY's 11 "senior" colleges (i.e., ones that offer full four-year courses) had stopped offering remedial education. Admissions standards have been raised. Students applying to CUNY's senior colleges now need respectable scores on either a national, state or CUNY test, and the admissions criteria for the honours programme are the toughest in the university's history. Contrary to what Mr. Goldstein's critics predicted, higher standards have attracted more students, not fewer: this year, enrolment at CUNY is at a record high. There are also anecdotal signs that CUNY is once again picking up bright locals, especially in science.

问答题What does Mr. Shultz mean by "I think we have the license from our customers to do more" ? (Para. 10). Give some examples.

问答题Shy people, having low self-respect, are likely to be passive and easily influenced by others. They need reassurance that they are doing "the right thing". Shy people are very sensitive to criticism. They feel it confirms their inferiority. They also find it difficult to be pleased by praise because they believe they are unworthy of praise. It is clear that, while self-awareness is a healthy quality, over-doing it is harmful. Can shyness be completely eliminated, or at least reduced? Fortunately, people can overcome shyness with determined and patient effort in building self-confidence. Since shyness goes hand in hand with lack of self-esteem, it is important for people to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Each one of us is a unique, worthwhile individual. We are interesting in our own personal ways. The better we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to live up to our fuI1 potential. Let"s not allow shyness to block our chances for a rich and fulfilling life.

问答题 I know a thing or two about what it's like when the well paid go on strike, because as a member of the Writers Guild of America—the Hollywood scriptwriters' union—I went on strike a few years back. I recall an awful lot of shouting and dramatics and walking around in a circle back then too. But there were doughnuts, which made the whole experience easier. If you have to picket, it's best to picket with a chocolate glazed. What there wasn't—and isn't, in the case of the Chicago teachers' strike—was a lot of sympathy from the general public. The average salary of a Chicago public-school teacher is about $75,000— well above the national average. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the pugilistic former chief of staff to President Obama, offered the Chicago teachers a 16% raise on top of that, but he made the impolitic demands to lengthen the workday and—here's the trouble—tighten job performance standards. That was enough to send Chicago's teachers out into the streets and onto front pages all cross the U.S.—a country, let's remember, where the unemployment rate stays rock steady at about 8% and employee evaluations are a quarterly event. It's not great optics, as the political fixers might put it, to be marching around, refusing to work, when millions of Americans are begging for a job. Not great optics, either, to dismiss a 16% raise and (slightly) stricter performance standards at the start of the school year. It's especially tough on Obama—this is his hometown, after all—and the rest of the Democratic Party, which has stood with teachers' unions for decades. The National Education Association is the largest teachers' union in the U.S.—it's actually the largest labor union of any kind—and major source of money and manpower for the Democrats. It would be so much easier for everyone if there were a Republican around, somewhere, to blame for this mess. Grab a cruller, pick up a sign—REPUBLICANS VS. EDUCATION! or BOOKS NOT BOMBS! —and wait for the compliant media to report that, as usual, the right wing is trying to hurt your children. Instead, awkwardness. A powerful ally of the Democratic Party battling a powerful Democratic mayor in the hometown of the incumbent Democratic President over work rules that any American worker with a job-which isn't an impressive number to begin with—would find utterly lenient isn't a great way to enter campaign season. Chicago, for Obama, is off-limits for the duration of the strike. On the day the strike erupted, the word from the White House was silence. This is ugly family business, it seemed to be saying, so let's keep it to ourselves. But in a surprising display of fleet-footed political sophistication, support for Emanuel came from Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. Real school reform is crucial, he said, and he cheered the mayor's resolve. Emanuel was compelled to issue a twisty pretzel of a statement that can be described only as not ungrateful for the Republicans' support. Hard to do, but Emanuel was trained as a ballet dancer, and he knows how to get himself into complicated shapes. Getting out of those shapes is another matter. The marching hordes of teachers don't seem to understand all that the Democratic Party has done for them—blocking school-choice movements, saddling charter schools with regulatory hurdles, standing in the way of meaningful and enforceable teaching standards. But the Democratic pols seem equally ungrateful for all the money the unions have poured into their campaigns. It was the same way a few years ago, when my union was on strike. Paralyzed by the battle between whining, entitled screenwriters and ruthless studio moguls, Hollywood shut down and stopped production. Both sides ended up losing. And when a winner emerged, it was... YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This time, with luck, the movie will turn out the same way.

问答题Passage 2: 　　On behalf of all the membership of the United Nations, I hereby reaffirm the role of this international organization. When ti was created more than 60 years ago, the United Nations reflected humanity’s greatest hopes for a just and peaceful global community. It still embodies that dream. We remain the only world institution with the legitinacy and scope that derive from global membership, and a mandate that encompasses development, secutiry and human rights as well as the envoronment.　 　　I restate that we are an organization without independent military capability, and we dispose of relatively modest resources in the economic realm. Yet our influence and impact on the world is far greater than many believe to be the case, and often more than we ourselves realize. This influence derives not from any exercise of power, but from the force of the values we represent. Among these values are the maintenance of the world order and the establishment of world harmony.

问答题News report: The General Administration of Press and Publication of China (GAPP) has recently issued a document, which demands further standardization of language usage. The document bans newspapers, publishers and website-owners from frequently using foreign abbreviations and acronyms, as well as the mix of English and Chinese. It forbids excessive use of slang and buzzwords, and non-standard spellings and grammatical order of foreign terms. Topic: Preserving the Purity of the Chinese Language Questions for Reference: 1. Some hold that language interweaving is becoming very common in the age of globalization, so this ban will undoubtedly trigger people's dissatisfaction. What do you think of this view? 2. Others hold that, as languages of all countries and regions have been imposing influence on one another since ancient times, so language purity has never existed in human history. Do you agree with this view? Why or why not? 3. What is the significance of preserving the purity of the Chinese language? What can we do to preserve the purity and standardization of Chinese?

问答题The way Americans plan for retirement is about to change—again. At the urging of President Obama, the Department of Labor is backing a rule that would alter who can offer financial advice on retirement funds. On its face, the idea seems superfluous: the rule, which would go into effect next year, requires that individuals providing advice on retirement savings put their clients" interests ahead of their own. Isn"t that what people hire advisers to do in the first place? "Anyone can call themselves a financial adviser," says David Certner, legislative policy director at AARP, the lobbying organization for seniors. Many consumers believe all financial advisers operate under uniform codes like doctors or lawyers. "But people don"t understand that there are different types, and they can act against your interest and in their own," says Certner. There are two standards brokers have to adhere to. There"s the fiduciary standard, which requires financial advisers—registered investment advisers and those appointed under existing law—to offer financial advice that takes their clients" best interests into consideration. But there"s also a less stringent "suitability" standard, which gives advisers leeway to offer advice that works for their client but can also help them earn a higher commission or some other financial incentive. According to the Department of Labor, that loophole causes Americans to lose out on making an additional $17 billion on their investments every year. They stakes have grown as the nature of retirement has shifted. Over the past four decades, for example, there has been a sharp decrease in the number of employer-provided retirement-benefit plans, or pensions, and a steep rise in the number of employees setting aside their own funds in 401(k) and 403(b) plans and individual retirement accounts, or IRAs. As a consequence, Americans have grown to rely more heavily on financial advisers and planners who can help them navigate the confusing or stress-inducing process of saving for retirement. According to a survey conducted by the Certified Financial Planners Board, which licenses fiduciary financial planners in the U.S., 40% of Americans now work with a financial adviser to secure their retirement, up from 28% in 2010. At the Garrett planning network, a national financial-planning firm, advisers often share stories from clients who found themselves on the receiving end of bad retirement advice. During an exchange last spring, one adviser recalled encountering a woman who was about to retire and had asked a nonfiduciary adviser for advice about her $1 million 401(k) rollover. She was advised to invest in an annuity and a trust, a move that earned her adviser a tidy 7% sales commission. Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network, claims her advisers see that kind of behavior all the time. Under the Department of Labor rule, which is expected to be finalized in early 2016, the standard will shift toward the consumer. Anyone offering financial advice on retirement accounts would be required to adhere to the fiduciary standard. The rule marks the biggest change to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which established minimum standards for pension plans, in 40 years. But many, including Republicans in Congress, argue that the Department of Labor"s rule is unworkable and will put unnecessary burdens on small-business owners. Because of how it governs IRAs and employer-provided plans, they argue, the rule would make it hard for small-business owners to help their employees get financial advice. They also say the change will adversely impact lower-and middle-income Americans, the same investors who are the most at risk. "All sides in this debate agree that advisers should work in their clients" best interests. But Americans" best interest will not be served by a regulatory scheme that directs small businesses and people to advisers too costly for Main Street America," Dirk Kempthorne, president and chief executive of the American Council of Life Insurers, wrote to the Washington Post. The Department of Labor found that insufficient or nonexistent investment advice led owners of IRAs and other retirement accounts to lose out on $114 billion in 2010. The split over the rule has fallen along party lines. Perhaps not surprisingly, harsh rhetoric on both sides has followed. The Republican-led Congress has drafted a bill that would block the Department of Labor from implementing the new rule. Obama has issued a veto threat. Either way, a great deal is at stake. Says Garrett: "When people have more faith and trust in our industry, they"ll start investing more."

问答题合营企业设董事会，其人数组成由合营各方协商，在合同、章程中确定，并由合营各方委派。董 事会是合营企业的最高权力机构，决定合营企业的一切重大问题。董事长由合营各方协商确定或 由董事会选举产生。董事长是合营企业的法定代表人。董事长不能履行职责时，应授权其他董事 代表合营企业。 董事会会议由董事长负责召集并主持。董事会会议应当有2/3以上董事出席方能举行。董事 不能出席的，可以出具委托书委托他人代表其出席和表决。董事会会议应用中文和英文作详细记 录，并在会议结束后14日内送交每位董事，由出席董事会会议的各位董事签字确认。

问答题

问答题燕子去了，有再来的时候；杨柳枯了，有再青的时候；桃花谢了，有再开的时候。但是，聪明的你告诉我，我们的日子为什么一去不复返呢?——是有人偷了他们吧：那是谁?又藏在何处呢?是他们自己逃走了吧：现在又到了哪里呢? 在逃去如飞的日子里，在千门万户的世界里的我能做些什么呢?只有徘徊罢了，只有匆匆罢了；在八千多日的匆匆里，除徘徊外，又剩些什么呢?过去的日子如轻烟，被微风吹散了，如薄雾，被初阳蒸融了；我留着些什么痕迹呢?我何曾留着像游丝样的痕迹呢?我赤裸裸来到这世界，转眼间也将赤裸裸的回去罢?但不能平的，为什么偏要白白走这一遭啊? 你聪明的，告诉我，我们的日子为什么一去不复返呢?

问答题U. S consumer prices climbed faster than expected in May, further fanning investor fears over inflation. Stock markets around the world have cracked sharply lower the past few weeks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing all the ground it had gained so far this year. Japan"s stock market is down 11% on the year; gold has had its biggest slide in a decade and a half; and many emerging markets are wobbling. After Wednesday"s Consumer Price Index report from the Labor Department, which showed a 0.4 percent increase in prices for May (core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3 percent), the stock market made a comeback. But with future interest rate hikes now starting to be priced into the market, investor fears that central bankers around the world will go overboard and continue to drive rates higher is set to further spook markets. This is no trading correction that investors have to absorb. The real risk of a jarring bear market has emerged. But while the trauma that inflation created for investors in the 1970s is still close to the surface, the sudden frenzy is misplaced. Powerful forces in the world economy continue to keep prices largely in check. Over the past decade, inflation has been a minor threat compared with brutal deflationary shocks. They started with the collapse of the Mexican peso in the mid-1990s. In 1997, much of eastern Asia"s flourishing economy was leveled. Next were Russia, Turkey and Argentina; Brazil teetered on the brink. By early 2001, Silicon Valley, the pride of the U. S. economy, was crashing, while entire sectors of the so-called New Economy disintegrated. The tech wreck may be over, but it has left a legacy of low prices. Tech companies had to dump on the market everything from fiberoptic networks to computer chips, as desperate investors struggled to raise cash. That slashed telecommunication costs at the very moment that emerging markets were producing a skilled and hungry generation of information workers. Result? The offshore outsourcing revolution and downward pressure on global production costs that keeps inflation under control. Equally powerful are the ultra-low-cost emerging-market manufacturing bases, led by China. With more than 1 billion people set to enter the urban labor markets of China, India, Brazil and Indonesia in the next 20 years, all those pressures on prices will only intensify. More immediate forces are also at work to keep prices from surging. Despite some wishful thinking, growth in Europe is slowing, not accelerating. A large part of U. S. growth has been driven by booming real estate prices. But in the past two years, the Fed has increased rates 16 times, so real estate-driven consumption is yesterday"s news. Tomorrow"s story will be the sharp fall in U. S. growth as consumers face higher mortgage costs. That dynamic could become particularly nasty, given the record level of U. S. household debt, government deficit and unequaled current-account shortfall. Investors are often caught flat-footed when markets slide. In 2001-02, deflation was the fear of the day, but few investors at the time saw the opportunity in commodities, which were going for a fraction of today"s prices. Today investors are obsessed with inflation, while government and toptier corporate bonds are shunned. That should be telling us something. What is it? In the past few years, the central banks of Japan, the U. S. and Europe have cut interest rates so aggressively that the real cost of borrowing fell to, effectively, below zero. That spurred extraordinary amounts of debt financing by governments and corporations. But now, as the global credit cycle tightens, some of the marginal investments will quickly become unsustainable. If central bankers keep raising interest rates, deeper cracks would open in the world economy. What is really troubling markets is not inflation. It is the fear that central banks may have tightened too much, and will tighten further. If that happens, the recent market shock would be merely the precursor to a still more dramatic quake.

问答题

问答题

问答题年届古稀的我，应该说是饱经风霜，世事洞明了，但依然时而明白，时而懵懂。孔子日：“七十而从心所欲，不逾矩。”大概已达到大彻大悟的思想境界了吧。吾辈凡夫，生存在功利社会，终日忙忙碌碌，为柴米油盐所累，酒色财气所惑，既有追求，又有烦恼。若想做到从心所欲，难矣哉! 老年人的从心所欲，不是说可以我行我素，倚老卖老。从心所欲，说白了，就是要有自己的活法，在心灵深处构筑独自的“自由王国”。海阔凭鱼跃，天高任鸟飞，悠悠然自得其乐。这种自由，既是无限的，又是有限的；无限的从心所欲寓于有限的生活空间。我想，这大概就是孔夫子所说的“不逾矩”吧。

问答题It is 15 years since Moises Naim coined the memoraible phrase "corruption eruption". But there is no sign of the eruption dying down. Indeed, there is so much molten lava and sulphurous ash around that some of the world's biggest companies have been covered in it. Siemens and Daimler have recently been forced to pay gargantuan fines. BHP Billiton has admitted that it may have been involved in bribery. America's Department of Justice is investigating some 150 companies, targeting oil and drugs firms in particular. The ethical case against corruption is too obvious to need spelling out. But many companies still believe that, in this respect at least, there is a regrettable tension between the dictates of ethics and the logic of business. Bribery is the price that you must pay to enter some of the world's most difficult markets (the "when in Rome" argument). Bribery can also speed up the otherwise glacial pace of bureaucracy (the "efficient grease" hypothesis). And why not? The chances of being caught are small while the rewards can be big and immediate. But do you really have to behave like a Roman to thrive in Rome? Philip Nichols, of the Wharton School, points out that plenty of Western firms have prospered in emerging markets without getting their hands dirty, including Reebok, Google and Novo Nor disk. IKEA has gone to great lengths to fight corruption in Russia. What is more, Mr Nichols argues, it is misguided to dismiss entire countries as corrupt. Even the greasiest-palmed places are in fact ambivalent about corruption: they invariably have laws against it and frequently produce politicians who campaign against it. Multinationals should help bolster the rules of the game rather than pandering to the most unscrupulous players. And is "grease" really all that efficient? In a paper published by the World Bank, the authors subjected the "efficient grease" hypothesis to careful scrutiny. They found that companies that pay bribes actually end up spending more time negotiating with bureaucrats. The prospect of a pay-off gives officials an incentive to haggle over regulations. The paper also found that borrowing is more expensive for corrupt companies. The hidden costs of corruption are almost always much higher than companies imagine. Corruption inevitably begets ever more corruption. Corruption also exacts a high psychological cost on those who engage in it. Mr Nichols says that corrupt business people habitually compare their habit to having an affair: no sooner have you given in to temptation than you are trapped in a world of secrecy and guilt. On the other hand, the benefits of rectitude can be striking. Oil giant Texaco had such an incorruptible reputation that African border guards were said to wave its jeeps through without engaging in the ritual shakedown. Moreover, the likelihood of being caught is dramatically higher than it was a few years ago. The internet has handed much more power to whistle-blowers. Every year Transparency International publishes its Corruption Perceptions Index, and its Global Corruption Barometer. The likelihood of prosecution is also growing. The Obama administration has revamped the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and is using it to pursue corporate malefactors the world over. The Department of Justice is pursuing far more cases than it ever has before. Recent legislation has made senior managers personally liable for corruption on their watch. They risk a spell in prison as well as huge fines. The vagueness of the legislation means that the authorities may prosecute for lavish entertainment as well as more blatant bribes. America is no longer a lone ranger. Thirty-eight countries have now signed up to the OECD's 1997 anti-corruption convention, leading to a spate of cross-border prosecutions. In February Britain's BAE Systems, a giant arms company, was fined $ 400m as a result of a joint British and American investigation. Since then a more ferocious Bribery Act has come into force in Britain. On April 1st Daimler was fined $185m as a result of a joint American and German investigation which examined the firm's behaviour in 22 countries. Companies caught between these two mighty forces--the corruption and anti-corruption eruptions--need to start taking the problem seriously. A Transparency International study of 500 prominent firms revealed that the average company only scored 17 out of a possible 50 points on "anti-corruption practices. " Companies need to develop explicit codes of conduct on corruption, train their staff to handle demands for pay-offs and back them up when they refuse them. Clubbing together and campaigning for reform can also help. This may all sound a bit airy-fairy given that so many companies are struggling just to survive the recession. But there is nothing airy-fairy about the $16 billion in fines that Siemens has paid to the American and German governments. And there is nothing airy-fairy about a spell in prison. The phrase "doing well by doing good" is one of the most irritating parts of the CSR mantra. But when it comes to corruption, it might just fit the bill.1.Explain the sentence "Indeed, there is so much molten lava and sulphurous ash around that some of the world's biggest companies have been covered in it. "(para. 1)