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1．以下の英文を読み，各設問に答えなさい。 Imagine a living, breathing organism still alive after 600 years. A miniature tree, preciously tended over the centuries by a succession of owners, for whom more beauty was to be found in the toad-like calluses of gnarled bark and shrivelled roots, the extended silhouette of twisted branches, the sudden efflorescence of spring buds and their dying autumnal blaze, （ A ）in all the gold in China. There was such a tree, or bonsai - literally "tree in a pot" - in an auction at Sotheby's, last June. Estimated by the auction house to be worth £40,000-60,000, it failed to reach its reserve price and was bought in by the house for £28,000. Sotheby's has since blamed the current restrictions on importing live flora into Japan and the US, the two largest markets for bonsai in the world, (イ)for the sale result. In those countries, the experts argue, the same tree would have easily fetched its asking price. Away from Sotheby's, a small group of bonsai fans arrive for their monthly meeting in the Becorp Social Club, in south-east London. They come bearing their precious cargo for inspection by the club's master of ceremonies, Mike Paice, a man whose brusqueness fails to mask a genuine passion for all things bonsai. They are quiet people, individuals whose idea of a good evening's entertainment at the club consists of impressing each other with long (ロ)Latin plant names in between staring long and hard at a 12in-high tree, their concentration broken by the occasional, daring snip at the odd twig here and there. "Most people are frightened to prune," explains Paice. "(ハ)It takes confidence."
(1) 空欄( A )には英語1語が入る。その語を書きなさい。 2．あなたが案内している観光客が果物を買いたいというのでスーパーに連れていったところ、"Why is every piece of fruit completely unblemished? I also wonder why every strawberry is identical to every other strawberry in shape and size." という質問をされました。この質問に対する答えを英語で書きなさい。語数は指定しないが，与えられたスペースに納めること。 3．次の英文を読んで以下の問いに答えなさい。 For those of us who don't fully grasp global economic complexities, Bangkok is like (ア)an idiot's guide to the tiger economies. From a hotel balcony high above the city, it looks like a gleaming first-world forest of hi-tech skyscrapers, emblazoned in neon with the names of multi-nationals. （イ）Down at the street level, the shiny hauteur gives way to an anarchy of dust and rubbish and food stalls and stinking slums - but the slums aren't sultry ponds of lifelessness, they're frenzies of industry. It is a bewilderment of enterprise - clothing sweatshops crammed in next to computer shops, then a jewellery emporium next door to a store selling safes - and (ウ)the traffic is a judder of congestion and mayhem, steered by drivers in face masks, cheeks smudged with oily pollution.
（1）下線部（ア）の内容を具体的に日本語で書きなさい。
4．次の各文の（ ）に入る最も適切な語を1つ選び，その番号を丸（○）で囲みなさい。
（1）However much it goes against the （ ）, we are compelled to concede that their methods may succeed. 5．次の英文を読んで以下の問いに答えなさい。 New lamps for old: this is the world's favorite investment strategy for the new millennium. The dot.com mania that has gripped American investors for the past year or two has now spread to stock markets everywhere.（ A ）precipitate has been the rush out of the "old economy" shares and into "new economy" ones that there are now, in effect, two different equity markets. In one, for most technology stocks, share prices are still rising; in the other, for all other shares, however, there is almost a （ B ）market.Investors are taking a huge gamble with tech stocks, based increasingly on fear as much as optimism: fear of rising interest rates, fear of missing out on the new thing, and fear of underperforming. (1)And with so much nervousness around, if their prices show any signs of faltering, the fallout would hit out-of-favor and dot.com shares alike. Mary Meeker, of Morgan Stanley, the doyenne of Wall Street's dot.com share analysts, recently estimated that 70% of the Internet companies that have already (2)gone public will never make any money - and over 90% are "fully priced" by investors. In past stockmarket bubbles, the end stages have often been characterized by a narrowing of the market, and a growing reliance on a shrinking number of spectacularly overvalued shares. When the bubble bursts, it is these shares that fall hardest - but (3)their demise typically knocks other prices down, too. Ironically, the recent tough talks by Allan Greenspan about capping the growth of the American economy and its share prices by raising interest rates have, if anything, made investors even keener on tech stocks. Since their revenues are growing by 40-50% or more a year and their cost of capital is nearly zero, they are perceived (rightly or wrongly) as fairly ( C ) to interest rates. Some Wall Street analysts even claim that, in a world of rising interest rates, technology shares are a "safe haven." Don't bet on this fairy tale having a happy ending.
(1) 空欄（A）内に適切な1語を入れなさい。
6．次の表現を英語に訳しなさい。ただし，筆記体を使わずブロック体で表記し，略語を用いないこと。
7．次の文章を英語に訳しなさい。ただし，筆記体を使わずブロック体で表記し，与えられた枠を超えないこと。
世界各国から日本を訪れる外国人旅行者にとって，「食べる」ことは何ものにもかえがたい旅の楽しみの一つであります。最近では，海外においても，日本料理店が主要都市に進出しており，日本の味に親しんでいる外国人も増えています。 |