難関大学を目指し、英文記事を読む！

2017年度 大学入試出典情報 2 [The New York Times]

まだ拾いきっていませんが、NYTはやはりダントツの出題。

岡山の「トカゲの睡眠の段階」、慶応（医）のageismをまず読んでみるといいでしょう。

（NYTの記事を読むには登録が必要なのでリンクをはってありません）

The New York Times

慶応大学(文学部)
Attached on Technology and Paying a Price(2010,6,6)

慶応大学（看護）
The secret to a good screem, July 16, 2014
Sorilary octopuses' strong statements, July 13, 2015
Why Finland's newborns sleep in cardboard cribs, July 6, 2016
Scales, feathers, and hair have a sommon ancesters, June 24, 2016

慶応大学（医学）
You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch
By ASHTON APPLEWHITE　SEPT. 3, 2016

早稲田大学（理）
Contamination our bodies with everyday products, November 28, 2015

早稲田大学（教育）
12,000 Years Ago, Humans and Climate Change Made a Deadly Team
Trilobites, JUNE 17, 2016

早稲田大学（商）
Sorry, You Can't Speed Read Gray Matter
By JEFFREY M. ZACKS and REBECCA TREIMAN , APRIL 15, 2016

岡山大学（前期）
Lizards, Too, May Sleep in Stages
By ERICA GOODE, APRIL 28, 2016

06年京都大学前期

しばらく休んでしまいました。今後週２回の位のペースで更新してゆくつもりです。

以下は今年の京大の問題です。一部の英語教師の間では、悪い入試問題として槍玉に挙げられます。しかし、この程度の英文は余裕で「処理」できるくらいの力は付けたいものです。[なお、この部分は平易です。これ以下の部分はちょっと考えないと意味の通る訳にはなりません]

まず、読んでみましょう。

   In the Greek peninsula early in the fifth century B.C., there emerged a group of individuals, many of them with beards, who were singularly free of the anxieties about status that tormented their contemporaries. These philosophers were untroubled by either the psychological or the material consequences of a humble position in society; they remained calm in the face of insult, disapproval and poverty. When Socrates saw a pile of gold and jewellery being borne in procession through the streets of Athens, he exclaimed, "Look how many things there are which I don't want." When Alexander the Great passed through Corinth, he visited the philosopher Diogenes and found him sitting under a tree, dressed in rags, with no money to his name. Alexander, the most powerful man in the world, asked if he could do anything to help him. "Yes," replied the philosopher, "if you could step out of the way. You are blocking the sun." Alexander's soldiers were horrified,expecting an outburst of their commander's famous anger. But Alexander only laughed and remarked that if he were not Alexander, he would certainly like to be Diogenes. Antisthenes was told that a great many people in Athens had started to praise him. "Why," he answered, "what have I done wrong?" Empedocles had a similar regard for the intelligence of others. He once lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went around, "I am looking for someone with a mind." Having watched Socrates being insulted in the market place, a passer-by asked him, "Don't you worry about being called names?" "Why? Do you think I should resent it if a stupid horse kicked me?" replied Socrates.
[06京都大学（部分）]

◎文法・語法
１．there emergedは、there is 構文の変形。there livesなどと同様主語は動詞の後にある名詞。

２．Socrates saw a pile of gold and jewellery being borne in procession through the streets of Athens
は、S+V+O+C（現在分詞）の文型。意味合いとしてはCがbeingが書かれていること。
a.I heard  the song being sung by Nancy.
b.I heard  the song sung by Nancy.
のニュアンスの違い。

３．"Yes," replied the philosopher, "if you could step out of the way. You are blocking the sun."
couldは「仮定法過去」。

４．Having watched Socrates being insulted in the market place, a passer-by asked him, ...
分詞構文

５．"Why? Do you think I should resent it if a stupid horse kicked me?"
「仮定法過去」

◎言葉　name
１．... he visited the philosopher Diogenes and found him sitting under a tree, dressed in rags, with no money to his name.

２．Don't you worry about being called names?

nameがどんな意味合いで使われているかまず類推し、その後辞書で確認してみよう。

◎設問は、下線部訳。

extraterrestrial life

   The question of whether or not mankind is alone in the universe is one of the oldest problems of philosophy, and has deep implications for our world view. In recent years, the subject has become increasingly important to science too. Advances in biochemistry and molecular biology have begun solving the mystery of the origin of life. Discoveries in astronomy are casting light on the existence of other planets and their chemical and physical structures, while the space programme has provided the opportunity to search for life directly on our neighbouring planets. In addition, a major new project has begun which sets as its goal the detection of radio signals from advanced technological communities elsewhere in the galaxy. It is therefore very timely to consider in detail what the discovery of extraterrestrial life would mean for our view of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.
   There is little doubt that even the discovery of a single extraterrestrial microbe, if it could be shown to have evolved independently of life on Earth, would drastically alter our world view and change our society as profoundly as the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. It could truly be described as the greatest scientific discovery of all time. In the more extreme case of the detection of an alien message, the likely effects on mankind would be highly significant.[2003年、東京農工大]

biochemist生化学　　　
molecular biology分子生物学
detection発見　
extraterrestrial地球外の　
microbe　微生物

上記の文章を踏まえて、"extraterrestrial life"について、考えて見ましょう。

if名詞節

[その２]

"This process of reasoning and analysis can continue in other directions. For example, you might investigate to see if perhaps you have contributed in some way to the situation that made you angry. Also, when you are in the midst of anger, your tendency is to perceive the person who harmed you as 100% bad. But if you analyze further, you will realize that every human heing is composed of both ( 　 ) and negative characteristics, andyou can try to get a more realistic view of the person by attempting to find some positive aspects of the person.
"So, with practice, various lines of reasoning and investigation can be used to reduce the force of your anger. This doesn't mean you shouldn't respond, or try to do something if someone tries to harm you. On the contrary, one should take measures to prevent harm to oneself and others, even strong measures. But using analytic methods such as these can help reduce the intensity of your anger, which can have destructive effects, and instead allow you to respond to the situation without a feeling of hatred arising."
[２００２年　北海道大学]

◎other directionsの例を文にそってまとめてみましょう。

◎you might investigate to see if perhaps you have contributed in some way to the situation that made you angry.
この文章の文章構造を考えてみましょう。

◎（　　）内に入る語を文中から探してみましょう。

◎A. On the contrary,B。AとBの内容をまとめてみましょう。

analytic meditation

[その１]
   As a psychiatrist, I was struck by the parallels between analytic meditation and modern cognitive therapy. Analytic meditation may have potential application in reducing a broad range of destructive emotions. So in several of my discussions with the Dalai Lama(Buddhist monk), I asked him to illustrate how this particular method can be applied to overcome a harmful emotion like anger.
   "One begins by learning about the destructive effects of anger," he explains. "One should systematically investigate and reflect upon the destructive effects of anger on one's physical health, one's family relationships and in society. One should analyze this and reflect upon it not just once or twice, but repeatedly until it becomes part of one's deeper understanding.
   "Then, let's say that someone does you harm. Your immediate response might be to become angry, but then you reflect upon the destructive nature of anger, and ,,,that immediately makes you more cautious of giving in to the anger and letting it escalate. Then you continue your analysis, investigating whether responding with anger is ultimately constructive or destructive, whether it will improve the situation or not, and so on.
[２００２年北海道大学]

◎the Dalai Lama(Buddhist monk)の指摘を段落ごとにまとめてみましょう。

◎次の文の文脈にそった意味を考えてみましょう。
let's say that someone does you harm.

語句
analytic meditation[meditation＝瞑想]
cognitive therapy[cognitive＝認知的]
destructive nature of anger[この場合のnatureの意味]
constructive or destructive

[その２]に続く。

identityとterrorist

   The destruction of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon, Timothy McVeigh's brutal act in Oklahoma, the deadly bombings in Saudi Arabia and Africa in 1997 and 1998, and the attack on the United States Ship Cole in 2000 further clarified a frightening reality. It is abundantly clear that we, as a country, must accept that the ever-increasing struggles for power and identity by dissident groups and individuals will directly affect us. Terrorist actions are no longer made up of threats or isolated incidents involving government officials or United States citizens traveling by choice in areas of high risk --- they are a fact of everyday life on the streets of America.
   While we have focused billions of dollars on countering terrorism in recent years, we are quite obviously still at risk. [2005　成蹊大学(法[部分]）]

１．identityについて考えて見ましょう。terroristとidentityとはどう関連しているでしょうか。

２．下線部について、代名詞が指すものについて具体的に説明しつつ、わかりやすく日本語にしてください。

＜確認すべき単語＞
destruction
brutal
clarify
frightening
reality
abundant
struggle
power
identity
dissident
individual
made up of
threat
isolated
incident
involving
official
choice
focuse
counter
recent
obvious
at risk

以上、文脈からしっかり意味を捉え、単語だけ切り出すことはぜず、文章のまま覚えてします。カードに書いて覚える場合は、カードの片面英語だけを書き、それを見てそれを含む一文全体を口に出して言ってみる。カードの裏に日本語訳を書くことはしないこと。

要約

どう「要約」するかで、思考の習慣が身についているかどうかがわかります。毎年東大では平易な英文を要約させる問題が出題されます。ずいぶん以前になりますが、highlight markerを利用することの問題点を論じた文があり、今でも教材として、また学習のあり方を伝えるために取り上げています。

以下の英文をまず読んでください。

What specifically makes us human? The complexity of our language? Our problem-solving strategies? You may be shocked by my suggestion that, in some very deep sense, language and some aspects of human problem solving are  no more or less complex than the behaviors of other species. Complexity as such is not the issue. Spiders weave complex webs, bees transmit complex information about sources and quality of nectar, ants interact in complex colonies, beavers build complex dams, chimpanzees have complex problem-solving strategies, just as humans use complex language. Nor are our problem-solving skills so remarkable: there are human beings who have perfectly normal human mental abilities, but who nevertheless are unable to solve certain problems that a chimpanzee can solve.  There is, however, one extremely important difference betweed human and non-human intelligence, a difference which distinguishes us from all other species. Unlike the spider, which stops at web weaving, the human child---and, maintain, only the human child---has the potential to take its own representations as objects of cognitive attention. Normally, human children not only become efficient users of language ; they also have the capacity to become little grammarians. By contrast, spiders, ants, beavers, and probably even chimpanzees do not have the potential to analyze their own knowledge.
[2000 Tokyo] 

下線部について、文章にそくして分かりやすく説明してください。（実際の問いは「次の英文の内容を４０～５０字の日本語で要約せよ」です。こちらもやってみてください。）