GRE準備心得

GRE準備心得

成績: V 580, Q 800, AWA 4.5

很高興有此機會跟各位考生們分享我的經驗。先談談背景：我只是一般的資工系學生，或許在幾年前的大學聯考有考過不錯的英文成績，但也僅只於此。和大部份的學生一樣，自從進入大學後，就再也沒有針對性地進修英文。雖然學校教材以原文書為主，但專業教科書裡的詞彙量相當有限，對GRE這項考試來說，實在沒什麼幫助。其實正如方老師上課時提到的，「在GRE面前，人人平等」（大家都一樣弱），所以我的準備過程應該挺具參考價值。下文將先分析應考目標與策略，再依GRE的三個考試項目分別介紹其準備方法。

目標與策略

如果沒有假想敵，那要如何練習戰鬥技巧？如果沒有明確的目標，那又能如何制定準備方向與考試策略呢？在決定要不要補習、要買那本書、要背多少字之前，應該先認清楚自己的目標為何。以台灣學生的一般水平來說，字彙（Verbal）部份應該把目標定在500分（此為理工農醫等科系的標準，文科的話可能得以600分為目標），數學（Quantitative）部份應該儘量取得800分，分析寫作（Analytical Writing）則力求4.5分。當然，每個人的程度與想申請的學校也有所不同，請參考上述數據自行稍加調整，定出符合自己需要的成績。但別忘了「取乎其上，得乎其中；取乎其中，得乎其下；取乎其下，則無所得矣」這句話，如果給自己定個過低的目標，不但會阻礙學習的決心與動力，往往也只會考得更糟而已。

接著，讓我用科學一點的方式來分析成績的取得方法。首先，字彙該怎麼考到500分呢？以一般的GRE紙筆測驗來說，字彙部份一共有兩大段，各38題（分別是反義11題、類比9題、填充7題、短篇閱讀4題、長篇閱讀7題），共計有76題。如果想考到500分，大約容許答錯30題，差不多是一題10分。（這個數字是我參考來欣的模考測驗與ETS官方版Big Book所提供的數據來推估的。）而在單一段落裡的答錯題數大致上應依下列方式分配：反義答錯3–4題，類比答錯2–4題，填充答錯1–2題，短閱答錯0–1題，長閱答錯5–6題。這樣平均一份考題下來，答錯題數約為22–34題。至於能不能衝破500分，就看是否能在基本盤之外另外多答對幾題了。數學部份較為簡單，詳見後文分析。分析寫作則該以Issue得4分，Argument得5分為目標，這樣便能取得4.5分的平均分數。只要知道準備方法，並且勤加練習，上述的分數絕非遙不可及。

字彙（Verbal）

字彙部份的準備方式，說穿了，就是拼命背單字。你的單字量愈大，你的成績就愈高。在這個簡單的邏輯背後，其實還有四點值得討論的細節。
首先是背多少字才夠。在大陸的網站（如太傻、寄托等）上常常可以看到有人推薦各種不同顏色的X寶書，真是令人感到眼花撩亂。我自己一本都沒看過，也建議大家，除非你想跟對岸的「牛人」（大陸用語，相當於台灣所講的「強者」或「神人」）拼個高下，不然最好還是別去碰那些有色書籍，把多出來的時間拿去幫王哥哥加油還比較實在。如果你已經是來欣方老師的學生，你只需把老師上課所用的11張講義背得滾瓜爛熟，再輔以CAT的反義與類比兩本各2000餘條的機考題目，我認為就相當夠用了。此外，最好也能夠參加字首字根的課程，因為字首字根就跟我們中文字的部首類似，熟練的話，不但對於學習其他GRE單字有事半功倍之效，而且更能舉一反三，終生受用，根本是「你買釣竿，我不但教你吊魚，還請你吃魚排」。此外，如果希望考試結束後仍能有本好用的參考書、工具書，我建議再買本方老師編的粉紅書，裡面的解釋與例句都滿能幫助理解與記憶的。

你可能會懷疑，按照上面的做法，所背的單字量會不會太少？答案是，一點也不會。粉紅書裡有2500–3000字，大陸X寶書們最多則是收錄到5000字左右，乍聽之下好像矮人一截，但其實粉紅書已經全面含括GRE的重點單字，只要能掌握這些重點字就足以對付GRE考試了。相較之下，X寶書們只是收錄更多冷門刁鑽的形容詞與亂七八糟的物質名詞，不但佔據我們的大腦空間，花掉我們的寶貴時間，也會壓低我們的投資報酬率。說真的，如果以500分作為目標，核心單字大約只需1500字（對照粉紅書來看，分別是字首字根300字、形容詞500字、動詞300字、名詞400字。）但要提醒大家的是，這1500字已經是極為精簡，不容許再有任何閃失了。

再來是該花多少時間去背單字。我自己的經驗是上方老師一堂三小時的課，回家後要花六個小時左右來複習講義與粉紅書上對應的部份。如果你能分排時間與補習的進度同步，那樣效果當然最好。如果打算全部補完後再來總複習，也請記得留下至少六週以上的時間，因為一個星期能夠背頌、消化的單字量就是那麼多，硬要強迫壓縮只會讓效果變差。除了背單字，另一件重要的事就是參加模考。每周練習加上講解與整理筆記也得花上六個小時左右。

第三點則是應考技巧。近年來ETS取消了台灣、大陸、南韓地區的電腦考試，針對上述地區的GRE考生另行設計試題，而且很明顯地會在考題中加入許多新字。最為惡劣的是便在反義題中給出無法以字首字根解析的單字，讓考生連一點掙扎的機會都沒有。在美帝主義如此惡質的打壓之下，我們能做的，除了加強自身單字實力，便是熟悉命題方式和答題技巧，以應付ETS日益翻新的整人手法。方老師上課會不厭其煩地教大家填充題的同反義分析方法以及閱讀測驗的文章結構和答題要領（雖然他都說他已經教得很煩了）。此外，我覺得方老師整理的類比九條公式真的很好用。認真背熟，多加練習，在考場上一定會用得到。有人或許會覺得九條公式過於繁瑣，不妨參考一下我的作法。我大致上把類比題分為兩大類：同義題型（包括完全同義、程度、種類、功用、造成等關係）與反義題型（包括完全反義、移除、減少、避免、反對等關係），如何一來，不但能跟以邏輯為主的填充題整合在一起，在背單字時也會格外留意該字與其他相關字的正反義關係，更能鞏固腦海中的單字架構。考試時，先快速判斷該題是屬於同義類或反義類（光是這道程序往往就能先刪除一兩個選項），下一步再確認是何種關係（至此可能答案已經出來，或是剩下二選一）。最近的GRE考題有變難的趨勢（ETS似乎有意在舊制考試的最後幾回把反義、類比這兩種不再復見的考題難度提升到另一波高潮），妥善運用字首字根技巧與公式法是對付反義與類比的最好辦法。

最後要談的是答題順序與時間。一般人都是先從反義開始寫，其次是類比，再來是填充，最後才是短閱與長閱。如果你有某個項目特別強（比如說有九成的答對率），或許可以調換一下答題順序，否則就依照上面的做法吧。考試時間的安排就因人而異了，請自行在練習模考時為各個段落計時，以了解自己所需要的時間。值得注意的是，在正式考試時，一定會覺得時間過得比模考時快。原因不外乎是題目變難，壓力變大，偏偏膽子卻變小了。（舉例來說，如果類比題刪除到剩下二選一卻不知道該選誰，模考時可能可以硬著頭皮選C，或是相信「直覺就是答案」，但在正式考試時你敢如此率性而為嗎？你甘心犧牲先前刪除三個選項所花掉的時間嗎？）所以模考成績離真正能考到的分數還有一段不小的落差（50–80分左右），尤其是方老師提供的「九九乘法表」裡的考題絕對有100分以上的落差（主要原因是上課單字大多從那裡整理出來），考前用來增強信心、複習單字是可以，但拿那個分數來自欺欺人就不好了。另外，在正式考試時，長篇閱讀測驗恐怕是連讀第一段的機會都沒有。我自己的情形是兩篇長閱只做了一題，其他都是用猜的。所以平常在算模考成績時最好直接把兩篇長閱算成14題錯11題（不要管到底是答對幾題、猜對幾題），這樣的計分方式比較能符合正式考試時的情形。

數學（Quantitative）

數學部份，我想對大多數的理工科學生來說都不成問題。文科學生如認為自己數學能力較弱，不妨花點時間複習高一高二的數學就夠了。平常有機會還是要練幾回數學的模考題，熟悉一下數學方面的英文單字。考試時一定要細心，尤其是圖表題通常題目都挺長的，還會暗藏陷阱，記得一定要多花點時間檢查。

分析寫作（Analytical Writing）

分析寫作部份，我是參加謝忠理老師的作文班。除了基礎文法、修辭、句型、寫作技巧等，甚至連標點符號的使用都包含在教學範圍內，除了足以應付GRE的分析寫作，對於日後其他方面的英文寫作也有相當大的幫助。此外，謝老師也建議大家多閱讀高品質的英語讀物（如Time Magazine、New York Times等）以學習美國人的寫作句型和單字用法。

Issue的寫作時間是45分鐘，Argument的寫作時間是30分鐘。如何在這麼短的時間內寫出有料的英文作文呢？有幾件事情一定要在考前就準備妥當。

所謂「知彼知己，百戰不殆」，首先要做的當然就是把ETS公開出來的題庫先看過一遍。當然，一共四、五百題的題庫不是一下子就能應付得了的。解決辦法可以是分工合作，組個讀書會，大家各負責其中一部份，或是參考方老師的分析寫作題目頻率統計表，抓出重點來對付。
其次是準備自己的作文模版（template）。Argument因為題型較為固定，再加上作答時間相當短，準備好自己的Argument模版絕對是必需的。注意千萬不要使用網路上所流傳的「萬用模版」。與其冒著被抓作弊的風險去背別人寫的模版，還不如從上述的高品質英語讀物中去尋找自己喜愛的遣詞用字，寫出一份有個人特色的模版。

此外，最好也準備一些名人事例與佳言錦句，這對Issue的寫作尤其重要。說真的，誰能夠在短短的45分鐘之內想出什麼了不起的高見？與其一味在平凡至極的論點與見解上打轉，還不如舉些新穎的事例或佳句，反倒能讓閱卷者眼睛為之一亮。謝老師上課提供的Time百大人物介紹是很好的材料，另外也有許多網站可以查詢到相關資料（如 www.wikipedia.org/ 與 www.quotationspage.com/ 等）。但切記要儘量舉出美國人較為熟悉的人、事、物。台灣學生常犯的毛病便是動輒抬出孔老夫子、國父孫中山先生、與先總統蔣公等老人家，如果能講點新鮮故事也就罷了，偏偏提到孔子就是「有教無類」、「因材施教」，講到國父就是「十一次革命建立中華民國」，更甚至有人寫到蔣公小時後看魚兒逆流而上的故事！
最後要提醒大家，在正式上機考試前，一定要先用ETS的pp軟體練習寫過幾篇作文。pp的簡陋難用是出了名的，如果你從前最常使用的文書編輯軟體是Word的話，肯定會需要一段適應期。其中差別最大的便是pp不提供錯字更正功能。我自己最常犯的錯誤便是把「the」拼成「hte」，以及句首大寫字母因為忘了按shift鍵而變成小寫字母。在Word中，軟體都能自動幫我更正（而且是直接更正，連紅線都不畫了），但這也讓我在使用pp時感覺格外不順手。建議大家可以用pp練習寫，然後把整段文章全部複製下來，貼到Word上再檢查一遍，以了解自己常犯的拼字或文法錯誤。

結語

準備GRE當然是一件辛苦的事，不但耗時耗力，而且也不一定能得到滿意的分數。但就算抱著厭惡、害怕等負面心態，只要想出國讀書，就一定得先過GRE這關。倒不如調整心態，以積極、正面的心情來學習GRE字彙。只要有努力付出，一定會有所收穫的。以我自己來說，從前連讀空中英語教室都覺得念沒幾句就被卡住。Time Magazine就更不用講，翻翻廣告、看看圖片之後就整本丟在旁邊當裝飾品了。在準備考試的期間，因為字彙量的增加與寫作的需要，我才再度拿起Time Magazine來讀，而且愈讀愈有信心，愈讀愈有感覺，到現在還是繼續這個閱讀計劃，這也算是準備GRE的一項附加價值吧？
最後祝福大家都能從準備過程中充實英語與邏輯能力，並且取得理想的成績！

書香再傳

因為準備要出國念書,趁著過年期間把家裡的東西整理一下,找出不少書籍打算捐出去.但要捐書還得找個收書的單位呢! 前陣子花了不少時間尋尋覓覓,在 ptt 的 charity 版上有人列了一大張表,但滿多都是短期計劃,只收個百來本就終止了.後來無意間在交大圖書館的門口看到"書香再傳"的活動,剛好解決我的困難!(雖然是李家同主辦的,不過...還是去共襄勝舉一下吧,畢竟是美事一樁)
書香再傳
電子郵件: enjoy@book.nctu.edu.tw
電話: 03-5131474 (若無人接,請改打03-5731947)
傳真: 03-5731759
手機: 0922-123-583
網址: http://book.nctu.edu.tw/
總館: 國立交通大學博愛校區[書香再傳總館](實驗二館後面)
地址: 新竹市博愛街75號
郵寄地址: 新竹市博愛街75號 交通大學博愛校區[書香再傳總館]

English Quiz 205

(English Quiz 205)

1. Just looking at the numbers, these should be halcyon days for Vietnam's fledgling banking industry. The country's economy is booming—GDP surged 8.2% last year—and there's a vast pool of potential customers: only 8% of Vietnam's 85 million people even have bank accounts. At Sacombank, one of Vietnam's private commercial lenders, profits shot up 50% last year, and depositors doubled to 350,000. But Nguyen Quang Trung, Sacombank's deputy director, is anything but complacent. "We have to expand quickly throughout the country," Trung says. "We need to build capital. Our whole banking sector must grow up very fast." If Trung seems in a hurry, it's because Vietnam's financial-services industry is in for a year of tectonic change. To meet commitments Vietnam made in January upon joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), Hanoi this month is lifting restrictions on multinational banks operating in the country that prevented them from competing on an equal footing with domestic lenders. Previously, foreign banks were limited in their ability to acquire depositors and were allowed only one branch per city, among other constraints. But to get into the WTO, Hanoi promised to open its financial-services sector to the world faster than almost any other member. (China, which joined the WTO in 2001, had five years to open its banking market.) Already, eight foreign banks have applied to establish wholly owned Vietnam branches. Among them are UK-based HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand Banking Group); both are planning to open 10 new branches each within three years so they can expand services such as credit cards, home mortgages and personal loans. "Definitely, the growth will be high," says Thuy Dam, ANZ's general manager for Vietnam.
Q: 試翻 "Just looking at the numbers, ... fledging backing industry."
Q: 試翻 "Hanoi this month ... with domestic lenders."

2. Multinational bankers are upbeat about their prospects because there is plenty of low-hanging fruit in this woefully underdeveloped market. Vietnam, which is modernizing parts of its communist economy through China-style free-market reforms, has no credit bureau and only a rudimentary system of deposit insurance. Consumer lending is nearly nonexistent. Banking has been dominated by five state-owned institutions—including the largest, the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank (Agribank)—which traditionally focused on financing large, government-owned factories and other enterprises. The country's burgeoning private businesses were virtually ignored. Because of these factors, "You have a pent-up demand for very basic banking services," says Patrick Winsbury, senior vice president for Moody's Investors Services. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Q: 試翻 "Multinational bankers are ... woefully developed market."

3. Indeed, deposits are currently growing at rates unheard of in more mature economies. Out of a total of 7 million bank accounts held by Vietnamese, 6 million were opened in just the past two years. Up to now, the biggest beneficiaries have been Vietnam's 34 small private banks such as Sacombank that, unlike the state-owned banks, are relatively unburdened by government directives aimed at managing the economy. Catering to individual depositors and small-business borrowers, private lenders have powered much of the industry's recent growth. Among their target customers are people like Nguyen Thi Tuyet. Four years ago, the 30-year-old Hanoi travel agent became the first person in her family to open a bank account when she made a deposit in Agribank. Recently, she opened a second account with Techcombank, one of the country's private banks, and applied for her first Visa debit card. Tuyet says she prefers doing business with the latter because "the service is faster and more modern."
Q: 試翻 "Indeed, ... more mature economies."

English Quiz 204

(English Quiz 204)

1. On the morning of April 19, the private-equity firm Apollo Management acquired Realogy--the company behind real estate brokerages Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and ERA. It was not, by modern standards, a huge transaction: the sale price was $8.5 billion, nowhere near the $39 billion that private-equity titan Blackstone Group recently paid for Equity Offices Trust. Realogy's passage into private ownership was nonetheless a landmark--because it marked the end of chief executive Henry Silverman's career as boss of a publicly traded corporation. Silverman, 66, is no household name, but he may be one of the iconic figures of modern American capitalism. Either that or "the Zelig of the corporate world," as he once called himself, evoking Woody Allen's cipher of a character who shows up at major historical moments.
Q: 試翻 "silverman, 66, ... at major historical moments."

2. Silverman really has been a player in just about every important business trend of the past three decades. He has watched the rise, fall and resurgence of private equity--what used to be called leveraged buyouts, or LBOs--from inside and out. "There are certainly cycles," Silverman said, when I talked to him a few days after Realogy went private. "And in the current iteration of the capital markets, clearly the private-equity guys are sitting in the catbird seat." Two leading catbirds, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman and Apollo's Leon Black, happen to be old pals of Silverman's. In the 1980s, Silverman too was an LBO artist, working alongside corporate raider Saul Steinberg and funding his exploits with Michael Milken's Drexel junk bonds. Then, as a partner at Blackstone in the early 1990s, he sniffed a change in the financial winds, cobbled together a few struggling hotel chains (starting with Ramada and Howard Johnson) into Hospitality Franchise Systems (HFS), took the company public and stayed on as CEO.
Q: 試翻 "Then, as a partner ... stayed on as CEO."

3. While private equity plodded along, Silverman built HFS into one of the stars of the 1990s stock-market boom. The company expanded into real estate, then rental cars (Avis). Its share price rose almost 2,000% in four years, and Silverman's net worth rocketed toward $1 billion. He was hailed as a genius. Then, in 1997, he merged HFS with direct-marketer CUC to form Cendant. CUC was an e-commerce pioneer, giving Silverman a tangential link to the Internet bubble. Under CEO Walter Forbes, now awaiting jail, CUC was also a pioneer at fabricating earnings, Silverman later discovered. This was the first of the big end-of-the-century accounting scandals, and though Silverman and Cendant survived it, the disaster cost him both his genius certification and most of his net worth. His paychecks remained large enough to attract criticism though, and even as Silverman steered Cendant to a profit peak of $2 billion in 2004, investors were unimpressed. So he heeded their grumbling and broke up the company. The hotels became Wyndham Worldwide, rental cars the Avis Budget Group, travel distribution (Orbitz, Galileo) Travelport, and real estate Realogy. Blackstone bought Travelport last year, and now Realogy belongs to Apollo. This trip from private equity to public conglomerate and back wasn't pointless. According to company calculations, if you count every spinoff and asset sale--plus a $2.8 billion shareholder lawsuit payout in the wake of the CUC mess--a dollar invested in HFS when it went public in 1992 would be worth more than $14 now--a 22% annual return, or more than double the performance of the S&P 500. Which means Silverman is probably worth listening to on one of the great questions of our day: Is it better for a company to be traded on a stock exchange or privately held? "I was asked by the CEO of one of the private-equity firms what my advice would be as to whether to stay private or go public," Silverman said. "My answer was, 'When your stock is going up, being public is great. When your stock is not going up, it's not so great.'"
Q: 試翻 "His paychecks remained large enough ... broke up the company."
Q: 試翻 "Which means Silverman is ... or privately held?"

English Quiz 203

(English Quiz 203)

1. "Chili beef," says Big Lin, ticking off the English words he can say with ease after a decade in Britain. "Lemon chicken. Garlic chicken." After that, the 32-year-old's voice trails off. There's not much more he can rattle off fluently. Life as an illegal immigrant has deflated the dreams he once had. Still, he must keep up appearances for his family back home. His brother thinks Big Lin owns his own restaurant. In reality, he sweats over a wok at someone else's takeout joint, six days a week. Nor does he own a house, as Little Lin believes. Instead, Big Lin lives in a small room in a Cambridge boarding house along with other migrants from Indonesia, Malaysia and Poland. But he can't admit any of this. "I tell my little brother not to come," says Big Lin. "But I can't really tell him why." For every tale that burnishes the myth of immigrant success, there are many others that speak, if not of failure, then of drudgery, loneliness and a future in a land that will never quite be home. Back in Fujian, Big Lin had a decent job with a construction firm. He made enough to play games of pool with his friends and occasionally treat himself to a seafood feast. Still, Fujian is a place which young men leave, so Big Lin made preparations in 1997 to go abroad, too. More than anything, he recalls, he wanted to see more than the rice paddies, potato fields and squat factories of his hometown. "I wanted to make lots of money," he says, "but I also wanted to have fun and see the world."

Q: 試翻 "Chili beef. ... rattle off fluently."

Q: 試翻 "For every tale ... never quite be home."

2. Big Lin says his journey was easy. First, he took an economy-class flight to Prague — Big Lin's sister already lived in the Czech Republic, where she ran an import-export clothing company. She pulled the right strings and procured him a business visa. Then, all Big Lin had to do was invest $10,000 in a Prague business venture. It's not clear who pocketed that money, but less than six months later, Big Lin says he received a Czech residence permit. The Czech document enabled him to get a tourist visa to England, which he overstayed. Six years ago, Big Lin cut his final link to home by "losing" his passport. Many other Chinese do the same to ward off deportation — it's hard to send someone home if their nationality is not clear — despite a British law mandating up to two years' imprisonment for illegals who destroy their ID.

Q: 試翻 "Many other Chinese ... destroy their ID."

3. For the last decade, Big Lin's life has involved little more than the peanut oil, soy sauce and cornstarch that coagulates British Chinese food into indistinguishable glop. "The food I cook isn't really Chinese," he says in Mandarin. "It's English food with soy sauce." With his broken English and shy demeanor, Big Lin has never graduated beyond stirring the wok. In 2005, as his relationship with his common-law wife, another illegal Chinese, disintegrated, Big Lin moved from London to Cambridge. Wages, he had heard, were slightly better there, and for a man who slept during the day and worked at night, Cambridge or London or Liverpool — it was all interchangeable. His wife remained in London with their young daughter. "Because we're illegal, our lives don't feel real," she says. "[Big Lin] felt like he could start another life. But that life won't be real, either. Everything feels fake here."

Q: 試翻 "with his broken English, ... beyond stirring the wok."

4. If he had to do it all over again, Big Lin says he never would have left. "Most of my friends from Fujian want to go home," he says, "but they don't know how to do it." His routine — sleep, work, nightcap, perhaps a spot of gambling — isn't so different from that of thousands of people eking out quiet lives in Britain. But for a Chinese, for whom family is everything, the separation must feel like an amputation. "You get numb," he says. "You can't think about it too much or you will go crazy." Yet if the family bonds are what keep Big Lin tied to Fujian after a decade away, they are also what have stopped him returning. "If you go back to Fujian, people expect you to return in a glorious way," he says. "You have to have lots of money and success." Today, sitting in his cramped room, watching his goldfish, Big Lin wonders about all his classmates who went overseas and never returned. People at home said they must have been leading such wonderful lives abroad. But Big Lin knows better now. Early last year, Big Lin says he thought seriously about going back to Fujian. But the urge to return passed. Big Lin has heard that his hometown is now filled with lavish villas from all the overseas money. He shakes his head. How can he go back and see how magnificent his village is when it's not his money that has contributed to the development? "Maybe one more year," he says. "Then I can go home."

English Quiz 202

(English Quiz 202)

1. The first thing the snakehead wants to say is that he isn't some slave driver or gangster. He is, he says, a respectable businessman from Fujian's interior who settled in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s and started a textile import company. That was just after the Berlin Wall had fallen, and it was easy for an enterprising Fujianese to sell cheap cloth to Czechs. Today, he has upgraded his trading from cloth to people. Willing people, he insists. "There are too many people in China, so we have to go abroad to make money," he says. "And in Europe, the people are old or lazy, so they need to import cheap labor." For the past seven years the snakehead has been searching for the equilibrium between supply and demand. This time, he's back in Sanming to shore up old contacts and size up new customers, sitting in a private room in one of the city's many tea houses. The call from Little Lin was like any other. Little Lin had heard from friends that the snakehead didn't cheat his customers. Could he please help him, too? The snakehead agreed. "It's a dangerous business," says the 36-year-old. "But in the end you can make people happy, so that's a good end to the story."
Q: 試翻 "Today, he has upgraded ... , he insists."

2. Governments and law enforcement agencies don't view the snakehead's activities so favorably. Illegal immigrants have little recourse should the snakehead make off with their deposit, and are vulnerable to Dickensian conditions in the places where they must work long hours to pay off their debt. Knowing the snakehead or his family personally diminishes such risks, and most Fujianese migrants are only one degree removed from the person they will pay to get them abroad. "This isn't like cocaine, where there's one boss in Colombia who directs the whole business," says Frank Pieke, the director of the Institute for Chinese Studies at Oxford University, who has written a book on Fujianese migration to Europe. "Instead, you have a very loose network of independent people with close local connections. This creates a sense of trust that results in stable commercial transactions."
Q: 試翻 "Illegal immigrants have little recourse ... pay off their debt."

3. The odyssey begins in Fujian, where the snakehead's contacts in the local Public Security Bureau help the customer get a Chinese passport. Then it's on to Beijing to apply for a visa to Russia, which easily grants visas to Chinese. The trip to Moscow is the simple part of the journey. The snakehead then takes the person's passport. He says it's for safety — it's harder to deport someone without ID — but, clearly, holding the document gives him power over his clients. From Russia, the Fujianese cross the forested and poorly patrolled Ukrainian and Slovakian borders by foot at night. Then they are stuffed into a minivan — with up to 12 Chinese crouched in the back — for the trip into the Czech Republic. Passage through Eastern Europe is secured by Ukrainian and Vietnamese gangsters. "These routes used to be for drugs and weapons," says the snakehead, who does not accompany his clients on their journey. "Now they're for Chinese people, too." On average, the snakehead can sneak three people through the Czech Republic a month, but he says a network of traffickers from Sanming brings in a total of 1,400 Fujianese a year, in addition to 600 others from Zhejiang, another coastal Chinese province. "It's a good business, more lucrative than textiles," he says. "But if the people get caught, then I lose all the money I paid in advance."
Q: 試翻 "The odyssey begins ... get a Chinese passport."

4. Often, along their way from Eastern and Western Europe, the migrants — sometimes 50 at a time — are herded into safe houses where they must wait for the right conditions to continue their trip. Besides packets of instant noodles and a rice cooker, there's not much in the way of furnishings. "Staying there is the toughest part," says the snakehead. "When you're in the house, it's easy to get depressed because you have time to think about your family and the things that might go wrong." He estimates that 10% of people crack. They are taken to an area near the Chinese embassy or consulate and told to find their own way there. The fee, in this case, is not collected. "I try to pick people who are young and strong in character," he says. "Otherwise, I lose out." From the Czech Republic into Germany and beyond — the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Britain — the migrants are switched from minivans to sedans. The Dover disaster alerted police to bigger vehicles, says the snakehead, so it's wise to opt for small cars. The drivers he uses are German, and not a single one, he says, has ever been stopped. The journey takes about two months door-to-door. Once the customer gets to his destination, he calls his family, who then hand over to the snakehead's local contact the smuggling fee — usually a combination of savings and money borrowed from underground banks. The immigrant will then begin slowly working off the debt through poorly paid labor — a process that can take from two to 10 years. "Most people pay off their debts," says the snakehead. "It's not because we threaten them. It's because we know their family and their friends back home. People don't want to lose face in front of them."
Q: 試翻 "He estimates that ... is not collected."

English Quiz 201

(English Quiz 201)

1. Ocean waves dance around Little Lin's toes before the water is pulled back out by a distant force. That faraway energy is tugging at him, too, drawing him away from this muddy beach in China's eastern Fujian province toward Europe, to a better life he is sure will one day be his. Last year, the 29-year-old told a snakehead, as traffickers who help smuggle Chinese abroad are known, that he was ready. Many of his friends and family members have already gone. Now it is his turn. He wants to follow his older brother to England, where he's heard that the need for cheap labor is so great that the police don't crack down on illegal immigration. Little Lin, who doesn't want his full name used, knows the journey will take months and cost at least $28,000, and that he will be in debt for years. But he can't wait to own a real English home, as he believes his brother living in Cambridge does. He will buy an suv, he says, red like the Chinese flag. One day, he will even open a Chinese restaurant, just like his brother has. "I cannot wait for my new life to begin," he says, pacing the beach and looking toward the sea. "I'm not afraid of the journey." Little Lin is not alone. Tens of thousands of Chinese from his home province of Fujian alone have traveled from China to Britain in recent years. A coastal region with a booming middle class, Fujian produces a disproportionate number of China's overseas migrants. Back in the mid-1800s, Fujian released its first major wave of migrants, men bound for the Americas to build railroads, can fish and pan for gold. Other coolies, as they were known, headed for European colonies in Asia. Those who left have helped those who stay behind; today, Fujian's annual per-capita income of $1,300 is one of the highest among China's provinces, courtesy not just of its early embrace of private enterprise but also of remittances from overseas.
Q: 試翻 "A costal region ... China's overseas migrants."
Q: 試翻 "today, Fujian's annual per capita income ... remittance from overseas."

2. Why do so many middle-class Chinese risk a perilous crossing, mountains of debt and years of grueling labor to start over in a strange land? Life in Fujian is not one of mass starvation or political persecution. But the lure of overseas gold remains great. When his restaurant in England is busy, Little Lin's brother, Big Lin, can make $600 a week, tax free, and despite his underground status, his life is hardly a misery. Big Lin does not know anyone who has been held hostage by a snakehead or enslaved in a factory. Nor has he ever been stopped by the police or threatened with deportation, despite an official 2005 U.K. study that estimated there are up to 570,000 illegal immigrants there. True, when he takes time to reflect, Big Lin admits he is lonely, and not quite the success he imagined he'd be. But the specter of social alienation means little for those back in Fujian, who are nourished by stories of riches made from manning a wok. Even the tragedy of the 58 Fujianese who suffocated to death while being smuggled in a truck to Dover in 2000 did not dent interest in a passage to Britain, according to Fujian locals. "If you're from Fujian, everyone expects you to go overseas," Little Lin says. "Fortune only comes from leaving home."
Q: 試翻 "True, ... from manning a wok."

3. Many Chinese would consider Little Lin's life plenty fortunate already. His construction job near the city of Fuzhou earns him $375 a month in peak season. With that salary, he can afford Levis and Internet sessions to learn about his future home. He prefers David Beckham to Wayne Rooney, and knows the pound-yuan exchange rate. Often, Little Lin talks with his friends in England through icq or text messages. "There is not so much distance between Fujian and England," he says. If only that were true. The number and nature of countries between China and England are a bit fuzzy to Little Lin. But it's through these places that he will have to travel. The snakehead has promised Little Lin a real tourist visa to Russia, then a clandestine overland trip through Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany and onward to England. Little Lin knows he will have to hide in vans and safe houses and subsist on rice gruel. But he is optimistic. Someone from his village recently arrived safely in England after using the same snakehead he has contacted. "It's very safe," he insists. "Bad things can happen here, too." Little Lin has heard from friends in England that it will take about three years to repay the snakehead's fee, but hopes he'll be able to work off the debt more quickly. Then perhaps he and his brother will start a chain of restaurants together. It doesn't matter that Little Lin doesn't know how to cook. English people, his brother has told him, aren't too particular about what they eat. "Maybe when I return, I'll own three restaurants," he says. "Then my family will be proud of me, just like we are of my big brother."
Q: 試翻 "If only that were true. ... a bit fuzzy to Little Lin."

English Quiz 200

(English Quiz 200)

1. As these factors accumulate, killers in the making remain surprisingly cool, all the while strolling toward the edge. That is what makes mass murder especially chilling. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned the Columbine assault for months, buying guns, practicing their aim, even designing their own shabby bombs that were intended to blow up the building. Cho bought the first of the two pistols he used in his killings on March 13, then bought the second just days before the murders--decorously observing the 30-day waiting period the state of Virginia requires between handgun purchases. Throughout the slow, deliberate smolder that leads up to the shootings, all mass killers also tend to disengage from the people around them. More and more of their emotional energy becomes consumed with planning their assault and, tellingly, with what often appears to be a newfound fascination with firearms and other weapons. "The quiet is the problem," says Welner. "The anger and rage just get bigger and bigger and seep into a fantasy life, and the person becomes increasingly alienated and isolated and contemptuous."
Q: 試翻 "As these factors accumulate, ... toward the edge."
Q: 試翻 "Throughout the slow, ... people around them."

2. The fully annealed killer who emerges from this process is a cold and deliberate thing. The time he's spent rehearsing his carnage is a big part of what causes the actual execution of it to appear so disciplined and free of emotion--or even pleasure. That, however, does not mean that mass murder is conducted entirely without feeling. For the killer, the powerlessness that came from a sense of victimization has been replaced by its perfect opposite--a heady experience that may produce an implacable serenity on the one hand, or the eerily jocular banter that surveillance tapes picked up between Harris and Klebold in Columbine on the other. Making the gunman calmer still is the fact that he has long since convinced himself that the world brought the carnage on itself. Because nobody is exempt from membership in that world, nobody's exempt from the line of fire either. "You forced me into a corner. The decision was yours," were among the most disturbing lines in the suicide videos that Cho left behind, but they may also have been the least original.
Q: 試翻 "For the killer, ... on the other."

3. People like Cho are indeed only seemingly powerful. In an open culture with cheap and plentiful guns, any fool can kill a lot of people. For all the loss and suffering such a shooting sparks, it is in fact a weak and furtive act, one that masquerades as a gesture of sublime power but is really an act of confusion and cowardice. The very purpose of the murders, Welner explains, is to give the shooter the last word. Unfortunately, what he says when he at last has that chance to be heard is: "I surrender."
Q: 試翻 "People like Cho are ... a lot of people."
Q: 試翻 "For all the loss and suffering ... an act of confusion and cowardice."

English Quiz 199

(English Quiz 199)

1. Of course, plenty of people fail tests and end romances and even suffer unspeakable abuse as children. And while there are a lot of narcissists in the world, many of whom crash and burn in their personal and professional lives, only an infinitesimal fraction of even the most unstable people lash out in remotely as violent a way as mass killers do. So what should we look for in people for whom such a homicidal rage is a real risk?
Q: 試翻 "And while there are ... mass killers do."

2. Age is an indicator, but an imperfect one. Adolescents and people in their early 20s are not famous for good judgment and sober reflection. Indeed, recent neurological studies reveal that the brain doesn't even finish laying down all its wiring until deep into the second decade of life--far beyond the babyhood years in which scientists once believed this basic work got done. "Adolescents tend to take more risks in general and tend to be more impulsive," says psychologist William Pollack, of McLean Hospital in Boston. "Boys [especially] are socialized into the idea that such behavior is O.K."
Q: 試翻 "Adolescents and people ... sober reflection."

3. While teens lack wisdom, however, they're generally spared the long lifetime of frustrations and setbacks that can contribute to murderous rampages in older killers--the fired post-office employee or office worker who suddenly reappears and guns down his former colleagues. "We see people with a job or a relationship that defines them," says Dr. Anthony Ng, assistant professor of psychiatry at George Washington University. "When that is shattered, they decide that they have nothing else." Opportunity and unlucky serendipity play a big role too. People with ready access to guns are likelier to use them than people who have to work to get their hands on a weapon. A household in which problems are settled violently, or at least in a volatile fashion, makes acting out less alien as well. What your culture--national, ethnic, religious--teaches you about how to handle rejection or, worse, humiliation can be critical too.
Q: 試翻 "While teens lack wisdom, ... in older killers."

English Quiz 198

(English Quiz 198)

1. In many ways, the profile of the mass killer looks a lot like the profile of the clinical narcissist, and that's a very bad thing. Never mind the disorder's name, narcissism is a condition defined mostly by disablingly low self-esteem, requiring the sufferer to seek almost constant recognition and reward. When the world and the people in it don't respond as they should, narcissists are not just enraged but flat-out mystified. Cho's multimedia postmortem package exuded narcissistic exhibitionism, and the words he spoke into the camera left no doubt as to what he believed--or wanted to believe--was his own significance. "Thanks to you," he said in one of his many indictments of his victims, "I die like Jesus Christ." Narcissism is not the only part of the psychic stew that leads to mass murder. Among the additional risk factors experts look for is a history of other kinds of emotional turmoil, such as depression, substance abuse or some kind of childhood trauma. After the Columbine killings in 1999, the Federal Government commissioned a study of 37 incidents of school violence from 1974 to 2000 in an attempt to sketch some kind of profile of likely campus killers. In general, the investigators found that more than half of all attackers had documented cases of extreme depression, and 25% had had serious problems with drugs and alcohol. "People will often say that the killer was such a quiet boy," says Follingstad. "Then you talk to the family and find out he's had three previous hospitalizations and was mumbling something he was angry about for weeks."
Q: 試翻 "Cho's multimedia postmortem package ... was his own significance."

2. A less well-documented percentage of mass killers have also been physically or sexually abused. Just a day after the Virginia Tech killings, Cho's graphically awful writings--playlets that deal with the molestation of young boys--began appearing on websites. The writings are not proof that he experienced similar mistreatment, but they certainly raise questions. "These things can percolate for years," says N.G. Berrill, a forensic psychologist and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. "Quite often there is an early event where they are submitted to violence or are marginalized." That last feeling can be the real problem. Where there's marginalization, there's a profound sense of powerlessness, and powerless people tend to hit back. More worryingly, it doesn't take grave abuses like molestation to leave people feeling so minimized. Parental or spousal indifference or dismissal--or at least the belief that it exists--can have a similar effect. If the world outside the home seems to be conspiring in the mistreatment, the sense of invalidation grows worse still. It may be true that none of us suffer a lost job, a busted romance or a failed exam easily, but to someone already highly sensitized to such setbacks, they can be intolerable. "These are people who are already angry," says Samenow, "and when things don't go the way they want them to, they personalize it. They take out their rage not on the person who hurt them last, but on the whole world."
Q: 試翻 "Quite often there is ... can be the real problem."
Q: 試翻 "Parental or spousal indifference ... grows worse still."

3. Something like this is what appears to have happened with Cho. When he blew, he blew savagely. Not only was the sheer body count on the campus horrific, but so was the relish with which the victims were killed. Doctors in the hospital where the survivors were treated described their injuries as "brutal," with each of the victims sustaining at least three bullet wounds.
Q: 試翻 "When he blew, ... victims were killed."

English Quiz 197

(English Quiz 197)

1. That does not seem to be the case with a mass murderer who kills at once. Few people who are in a position to observe a Dahmer at work survive to talk about it, but plenty of people present at shootings like those at Virginia Tech or Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 make it out alive. And what they describe about the killer's mien as the shooting is taking place sounds nothing like a person who's thrilled by--or even much enjoying--what he's doing. There is, survivors report, a cold joylessness to the proceedings, something that in its own way is a lot harder to parse than the perverse pleasure of a serial killer.
Q: 試翻 "There is, survivors report, ... of a serial killer."

2. What makes mass murderers do it? Trying to find the much-looked-for snapping moment--the one inciting incident that pushes a killer over the edge--rarely gets you very far. Cho's lethal outburst, by all accounts, may have been simmering for months, if not years. In 2005, after Cho sent harassing messages to two female students, a Virginia court ruled him a danger to himself and others. His package of angry, self-pitying videos, stills and text, sent to NBC News on the day of the killings, probably took days to prepare. "Snapping is a misnomer," says Dr. Michael Welner, associate professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. "These people plan to carry out a mass killing without any indication of when they will do it. Instead of snapping, imagine a cage that someone has the capacity to unhinge. They simply decide that today is the day."
Q: 試翻 "Trying to find ... rarely gets you very far."

3. Mass murder, in short, is not a random act. There are things that explain it. Psychosis, for one, can never be ruled out. Russell Weston, a 41-year-old killer who went on a shooting spree in the Capitol Building in Washington in 1998, was a paranoid schizophrenic. Brain injury in an otherwise healthy person can lead to similar violence. Damage to the frontal region of the brain, which regulates what psychologists call the observing ego, or the limbic region, which controls violence, reflection and defensive behavior, can shut down internal governors and trigger all manner of unregulated behavior. "Somebody who had damage to both regions would be a bad player for sure," says forensic psychiatrist Neil Kaye, a faculty member at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. From everything we know so far, however, Cho was suffering from none of these things. Any wounds that he carried were deeper, psychic ones--and in all likelihood, he shared them with most of the mass shooters who have gone before him.
Q: 試翻 "Damage to the frontal region ... unregulated behavior."

English Quiz 196

(English Quiz 196)

1. IF YOU WANT A SENSE OF JUST HOW terrible Monday's crimes were, here's something to try: imagine yourself committing them. It's easy enough to contemplate what it would feel like to rob a bank or steal a car; you might even summon a hint of the outlaw frisson that could make such crimes seem appealing. But picture yourself as Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old student responsible for the Virginia Tech bloodbath, walking the halls of the school, selecting lives to extinguish and then ... extinguishing them. It is perhaps a measure of our humanity that we could sooner imagine ourselves as the killed than as the killer, and find it easier to conjure up what it would feel like to plead for our lives than to take someone else's.
Q: 試翻 "It is perhaps ... to take someone else's."

2. That is where the hard work of trying to make sense of a crime like that at Virginia Tech always hits a wall. We can debate, as we predictably do in these cases, what an incident like this means for our endless national argument about guns and violence and the coarsening of the culture. That's well-mapped ground. What remains uncharted is the unlit places in the minds of the people who are capable of doing these things--and, by extension, in all our minds. What is it that makes individual members of a usually empathetic species turn rogue? How does one of our most primal faculties--the ability to understand that things that cause me pain or fear would do the same to you and that I therefore ought not do them--get so completely shut down? Is empathy optional, at least in some people, and if so, how does that emotional decoupling take place? More important, if we can figure out that part of the question, can we figure out how to prevent such things from happening? "We always ask ourselves, 'Is this a person who has no conscience at all?'" says Stanton Samenow, a forensic psychologist and author of the 2004 book Inside the Criminal Mind. "They seem to have an unfathomable ability to shut off knowledge of the consequences, of the difference between right and wrong. It's critical for us to try to understand that worldview and mental makeup."
Q: 試翻 "That's well-mapped ground. ... in all our minds."
Q: 試翻 "Is empathy optional, ... take place?"

3. For all the ink and airtime that follow an attack like the one at Virginia Tech, mass murder is an exceedingly rare crime. The rate of killings in the U.S. involving five or more victims--one generally accepted definition of a mass killing--represented less than 1% of all homicides 25 years ago, and still does today. Among kids, the overall violence figures are actually plummeting, with the number of children under 17 who commit murder falling 65% between 1993 and 2004. Mass killing, says Diane Follingstad, a professor of clinical and forensic psychology at the University of South Carolina, "is a low-rate-base thing. It just does not happen very often." When it does happen, the people likeliest to commit the crime fall into a drearily predictable group. They're 95% male, and 98% are black or white--not a big surprise since more than 87% of the population is made up of those two races. Cho, a native of South Korea, is a rare exception. If the killers' profiles are all more or less the same, however, their crimes aren't. The best known--or at least most lurid--of the mass killers are the Ted Bundys and Jeffrey Dahmers, the serial murderers whose crimes often play out over decades. In most cases, people who commit such murders are driven by a dark, even sexual pleasure, and while remorse is often associated with the acts--which accounts for the long lapses that can occur between them--those tuggings of conscience are quickly overcome by the impulse to kill again. "There is a charge and a thrill associated with the murders," says Samenow.
Q: 試翻 "In most cases, ... to kill again."

Note: In memorial of the victims in the Virginia Tech slaughter.

English Quiz 195

(English Quiz 195)

1. When Japanese Self-defense Forces (SDF) troops departed for Iraq in 2004, they carried with them the fears of a divided nation, the historical burden of Japan's wartime actions—and Prince Pickles. The Prince, one of the SDF's cartoon mascots, is a cutesy manga character with saucer eyes and an oversized helmet who is supposed to soften the image of the Japanese military. Although the Prince seems unfit for service in a war zone, he's probably a perfect symbol for the SDF, which by law cannot use force beyond the minimum needed to defend itself and the nation. Japanese soldiers can find themselves in awkward situations because of these restrictions. While on duty policing Iraq as part of coalition forces, the SDF at times had to be guarded by Australian troops so that no one from Japan would be forced to fire a shot in anger. This is a military more kawaii than kamikaze.

Q: 試翻 "Although the prince ... defend it and the nation."

2. I like to keep Prince Pickles in mind as Japan inches closer to revising its pacifist constitution, adopted during the American occupation after World War II. On April 13, the ruling coalition, led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), pushed through legislation in the Diet's lower house that set ground rules for updating Japan's basic laws to reflect 21st century realities. The bill now resides in the upper house; passage could eventually lead to a national referendum on the future of the constitution's Article 9, which prohibits Japan from waging war. Constitutional change would open the door for the normalization of Japanese forces, allowing greater participation in international peacekeeping operations, closer cooperation with the U.S., and perhaps the acquisition of offensive weapons such as cruise missiles. It would also fulfill a goal the LDP has held since it was established in 1955. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made constitutional amendment the cornerstone of his young administration, declaring that Japan must "slough off the postwar regime." That kind of talk sets off alarm bells for critics who view any easing of military limits as the beginning of a backslide into wartime aggression. (Former Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew memorably summed up these fears years ago when he said that allowing Japanese participation in peacekeeping operations was akin to giving liquor-flavored chocolates to a recovering alcoholic.) But despite the LDP's legislative success, constitutional revision is far from certain—and even if it does happen, the role of Japan's military is unlikely to change in a threatening way. Pacifism is too entrenched and too convenient for Japan to abandon it now.

Q: 試翻 "Former Singaporean leader ... a recovering alcoholic."

Q: 試翻 "But despite the ... in a threatening way."

3. Nor has there been a great push to increase defense spending. Confronted with a massive budget deficit and increasing demands for benefits from an aging society, Tokyo has held fast to an unofficial rule of diverting no more than 1% of gdp to defense—the U.S. spends about 4%—and this year spending will actually fall 0.2% to $40 billion, the fifth straight year of decline. Remilitarization simply isn't in the budget. "If the Cubans tested a nuclear bomb, you can bet American politicians would have to increase the defense budget," says Robert Dujarric, a security analyst with Temple University in Tokyo. "But there is no pressure from any segment of Japanese politics to spend more." And there won't be, as long as Japan rests snugly beneath the U.S. security umbrella as it has for over 60 years. The country is defended not so much by the SDF as it is by American jets, ships and nukes. Tokyo bears some of the financial burden, and Washington has begun to make noises about Japan picking up more of the tab—U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer told a group of reporters last month "we would hope they would be able to spend more." But this is unlikely. Even as staunch a conservative as Hisahiko Okazaki, a former diplomat and an Abe foreign-policy adviser, says that Japan should focus on cementing the U.S. alliance, not on pursuing its own military destiny. Constitutional revision would allow greater military cooperation between the two countries. The result would be a safer Japan, and one with a stronger voice in regional affairs. But it won't mark a return to the imperial ideology of World War II. To the rest of the world, a post-Article 9 Japan should be about as scary as Prince Pickles in arms.

Q: 試翻 "But it won't mark ... Prince Pickles in arms."