2022年上海高级口译必备练习题 (10)

2022年上海高级口译必备练习题 (10)

　　上海高级口译相对来说难度更大，对于基础和中级口译来说，上海高级口译考察大家英语知识点会更广泛。这对于大家来说是备考的难点。那么在实际的备考中，这部分内容应该如何进行积累学习呢?下面小编为大家整理了“2022年上海高级口译必备练习题 (10)”，让我们一起来看看吧!

　　In 1965, America’s big companies had a hell of a year. The stock market was

　　booming. Sales were rising briskly, profit margins were fat, and corporate

　　profits as a percentage of G.D.P. were at an all-time high. Almost half a

　　century later, some things look much the same: big American companies have had a

　　hell of a year, with the stock market soaring, margins strong, and profits

　　hitting a new all-time high. But there’s one very noticeable difference. In

　　1965, C.E.O.s at big companies earned, on average, about twenty times as much as

　　their typical employee. These days, C.E.O.s earn about two hundred and seventy

　　times as much.

　　从第二段开头的the huge gap可以看出第一段讲的是两种经济状况之间的差距。这里也正好是第一题的定位：The author makes a

　　comparison between today’s America with that of

　　1965______.既然第二段追究的是这种gap的原因，那么答案就在第一段结尾处：今天的CEO-雇员的收入差距比大大增加了。

　　That huge gap between the top and the middle is the result of a boom in

　　executive compensation, which rose eight hundred and seventy-six per cent

　　between 1978 and 2011, according to a study by the liberal Economic Policy

　　Institute. In response, we’ve had a host of regulatory reforms designed to curb

　　executive pay. The latest of these is a rule, unveiled by the S.E.C. last month,

　　requiring companies to disclose the ratio of the C.E.O.’s pay to that of the

　　median worker. The idea is that, once the disparity is made public, companies

　　will be less likely to award outsized pay packages.

　　Faith in disclosure has been crucial to the regulation of executive pay

　　since the nineteen-thirties, when companies were first required to reveal those

　　figures. More recently, rules have made companies detail the size and the

　　structure of compensation packages and have enforced transparency about the

　　kinds of comparisons they rely on to determine salaries. The business press,

　　meanwhile, now rigorously tracks executive pay. The result is that shareholders

　　today know far more about C.E.O. compensation than ever before. There’s only one

　　problem: even as companies are disclosing more and more, executive pay keeps

　　going up and up.

　　这一段开头黑体部分为我们提示了一个关键字：disclosure. 由此可以看出本文的话题是从收入差距说开去，转向CEO的收入披露机制。

　　This isn’t a coincidence: the drive for transparency has actually helped

　　fuel the spiralling salaries. For one thing, it gives executives a good idea of

　　how much they can get away with asking for. A more crucial reason, though, has

　　to do with the way boards of directors set salaries. As the corporate-governance

　　experts Charles Elson and Craig Ferrere write in a recent paper, boards at most

　　companies use what’s called “peer benchmarking.” They look at the C.E.O.

　　salaries at peer-group firms, and then peg their C.E.O.’s pay to the fiftieth,

　　seventy-fifth, or ninetieth percentile of the peer group—never lower. This leads

　　to the so-called Lake Wobegon effect: every C.E.O. gets treated as above

　　average. With all the other companies following the same process, salaries

　　ratchet inexorably higher. “Relying on peer-group comparisons, the way boards

　　do, mathematically guarantees that pay is going to go up,” Elson told me.

　　本段讲到越是披露高管们的收入，他们就越能要求更高的收入。

　　On top of this, peer-group comparisons aren’t always honest: boards can be

　　too cozy with C.E.O.s and may tweak the comparisons to justify overpaying. A

　　recent study by the labor economist Ron Laschever shows that boards tend to

　　include as peers companies that are bigger than they are and that pay their

　　C.E.O.s more. The system is also skewed by so-called “leapfroggers,” the few

　　C.E.O.s in a given year who, whether by innate brilliance or by dumb luck, end

　　up earning astronomical salaries. Those big paydays reset the baseline

　　expectations for everyone else.

　　段首句是主题句：高管们可能还会想方设法隐瞒自己高增长的收入。

　　This isn’t just an American problem. Elson notes that, when Canada

　　toughened its disclosure requirements, executive salaries there rose sharply,

　　and German studies have found something similar. Nor is it primarily a case of

　　boards being helplessly in thrall to a company’s executives. Boards are far more

　　independent of management than they used to be, and it’s notable that a C.E.O.

　　hired from outside a company—who therefore has no influence over the

　　board—typically gets twenty to twenty-five per cent more than an inside

　　candidate. The real issues are subtler, though no less insidious. Some boards,

　　in the face of much evidence to the contrary, remain convinced of what Elson

　　calls “superstar theory”: they think that C.E.O.s can work their magic anywhere,

　　and must be overpaid to stay. In addition, Elson said, “if you pay below

　　average, it makes it look as if you’d hired a below-average C.E.O., and what

　　board wants that?”

　　这个问题并不局限于美国，而是国际化的。

　　Transparent pricing has perverse effects in other fields. In a host of

　　recent cases, public disclosure of the prices that hospitals charge for various

　　procedures has ended up driving prices up rather than down. And the

　　psychological causes in both situations seem similar. We tend to be uneasy about

　　bargaining in situations where the stakes are very high: do you want the guy

　　doing your neurosurgery, or running your company, to be offering discounts?

　　Better, in the event that something goes wrong, to be able to tell yourself that

　　you spent all you could. And overspending is always easier when you’re spending

　　someone else’s money. Corporate board members are disbursing shareholder funds;

　　most patients have insurance to foot the bill.

　　收入披露在其他领域中也会引起一系列不良反应。

　　Sunlight is supposed to be the best disinfectant. But there’s something

　　na?ve about the new S.E.C. rule, which presumes that full disclosure will

　　embarrass companies enough to restrain executive pay. As Elson told me, “People

　　who can ask to be paid a hundred million dollars are beyond embarrassment.” More

　　important, as long as the system for setting pay is broken, more disclosure

　　makes things worse instead of better. We don’t need more information. We need

　　boards of directors to step up and set pay themselves, instead of outsourcing

　　the job to their peers. The rest of us don’t get to live in Lake Wobegon.

　　C.E.O.s shouldn’t, either.

　　本文得出的结论是，SEC的规则的潜台词是，完全披露收入将会是各大公司不愿提高高管的薪水。

　　以上就是为大家整理的“2022年上海高级口译必备练习题 (10)”，希望大家能够更好的学习上海高级口译，取得理想的成绩。