世新大學八十六學年度碩士班招生考試

系所別	考試科目
會發展研究所	英文

※考生請在答案卷上作答

Ⅰ. Translate the following passages in to Chinese (50%):

Across Africa, nation-states are disintegrating under the pressures of economic, environmental, political, and social stress more acute than at any time since the slave trade. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, even inside stable countries such as Ghana. In the chronically unstable states such as Sudan, Somalia and Zaire, waves of desperate people pour over the borders into neighboring countries that lack the resources to feed or to care for them.

Now marginalized, Africa’s ongoing tragedies arouse only occasional interest outside the continent, when one of the waves of killings hits the TV screen with brief images of horror illuminated by a Western aid official handing out food. The stories of wholesale dispossession, rapes, and innumerable orphans remain the depersonalized tales of far away, evoking none of the media or public reaction that one sick European baby can generate. In the 1980s, 100,000 African professionals fled their continent for economic or political reasons, bleeding their countries of the talent, education, and energy that would offer a chance of reversing the trend of de-development.

The core of the problem is economic. Africa is virtually excluded from the world economy, which revolves increasingly around the three dominant poles of Western Europe, North America, and the Pacific Rim. The North now has little need for Africa’s primary products. In addition, competition from Asia and Latin America, encouraged by the World Bank, has taken the prices of African exports lower and lower.

Raw materials and commodities, which account for 94 percent of Africa’s exports, have seen their prices crash on the world market. In a decade, coffee and cocoa prices have dropped by 34 and 46 percent, respectively. Many countries have economies virtually dependent on these commodities. In Burundi, 80 percent of revenue comes from coffee alone. Meanwhile, since 1960, the population of Africa has doubled, and food production has slipped back to a level 20 percent lower than that in 1970. This fall in food production stems partly from the agricultural policies, mainly suggested by Northern experts and institutions, that gave priority to the export crops that have served Africa so badly.

Ⅱ. Composition: Write a short statement, approximately 500 words, explaining your reasons for applying to this graduate school, your research interest, and your likely contribution to a better Taiwan. (50%)