【令和7年度報道部入部試験問題】英語
注意事項
・東北大学の入学試験とは一切関係ありません。
Culture change is upon us, many fear, like a tsunami advancing rapidly to the shore threatening to engulf[1] whole populations, erasing them and all memory of what they once held dear. The watchword, then, is cultural preservation.
Consider the ludicrous notion that Italy
will look and smell and sound just like Germany after a given number of years
of shared membership in the European Union. The widely shared fear, often
mongered[2] by uninformed experts, that globalisation will extract the exotic
taste from all cultures so that people will be blended into the same bland
batch of cultural dough is groundless. In fact,
cultures manage to survive for hundreds of years despite the many mutations
they have undergone. A striking example of this is Japanese culture. What does
life in urban Tokyo today, with men and women in Western business dress
commuting to work by subway or bullet train, have in common with the days of
the sworded samurais? Not much. Yet they are all distinctively Japanese.
Many perceive culture to be the sum
total of the products of a people. Yet, culture is not about feathered
headdresses, shell belts, and paintings—found in a museum, relics of the past.
It should be the pattern of life, the design for community living, that is
found in a real people as they exist today. Thus, our emphasis on cultural
survival is perhaps misplaced. Instead of guarding the ramparts[3] against
breaches of culture, we should be encouraging adaptation as a means of
survival. The key to cultural survival, then, is not purely conservatism—but a
genuine sense of dynamism and a readiness to adapt to a changing world.
Therefore, some of what we have understood in the past as either-or
dichotomies[4] ought to be re-examined in the light of this new model of
culture. Some changes are necessary, even inevitable. We should not be afraid
to adopt and adapt.
[1]
engulf: 巻き込む
[2]
monger: (うわさ)を広める
[3]
rampart: 守備、防御
[4]
dichotomy: 対立
問1:段落1で、筆者が文化の変化を’Tsunami’にたとえて強調したいことを説明せよ[2]
問2:段落2の下線部で、筆者がどのような表現を使って自分の気持ちをどのように強めているのか。説明せよ。
問3:段落3の下線部が指していることを説明せよ。
問4:段落4の下線部で、筆者が我々に見つめ直してほしいことを説明せよ。