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英语专业八级考试翻译试题连载-4
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    资料提示:1、原文   Although the American economy has transformed itself over the years, certain issues have persisted since the early da...

1、原文
  Although the American economy has transformed itself over the years, certain issues have persisted since the early days of the republic. One is the continuing debate over the proper role for government in what is basically a marketplace economy. An economy based on free enterprise is generally characterized by private ownership and initiative, with a relative absence of government involvement. However, government intervention has been found necessary from time to time to ensure that economic opportunities are fair and accessible to the people, to prevent flagrant abuses, to dampen inflation and to stimulate growth.

  Ever since colonial times, the government has been involved, to some extent, in economic decision-making. The federal government, for example, has made huge investments in infrastructure, and it has provided social welfare programs that the private sector was unable or unwilling to provide. In a myriad of ways and over many decades, the government has supported and promoted the development of agriculture.

(参考译文)
  虽然美国经济在过去几年中已实现了转型,但某些问题自美国建国之初以来一直持续至今,依然悬而未决。其中之一便是围绕着政府在一个基本上属于市场性质的经济中的恰当角色所展开的持久争论。以自由企业为基础的经济体制,其普遍特征便是私有制和个人创新精神,政府介入应相对微弱。然而,人们发现,政府的干预时不时地也是必要的,以确保经济机会人人均等,能为全部民众所获得,并防范肆无忌惮的权力滥用,平抑通货膨胀,刺激经济增长。 自殖民地时期以来,美国政府或多或少地参与到经济决策中来。例如,联邦政府曾在基础设施方面进行过巨额投资,它也提供了私营业主们没有能力或不愿意提供的社会福利项目。在过去数十年中,政府也以无数的方式支持并促进农业发展。

2、原 文
  中国科技馆的诞生来之不易。与国际著名科技馆和其他博物馆相比,它先天有些不足,后天也常缺乏营养,但是它成长的步伐却是坚实而有力的。它在国际上已被公认为后起之秀。 

  世界上第一代博物馆属于自然博物馆,它是通过化石、标本等向人们介绍地球和各种生物的演化历史。第二代属于工业技术博物馆,它所展示的是工业文明带来的各种阶段性结果。这两代博物馆虽然起到了传播科学知识的作用,但是,它们把参观者当成了被动的旁观者。 

  世界上第三代博物馆是充满全新理念的博物馆。在这里,观众可以自己去动手操作,自己细心体察。这样,他们可以更贴近先进的科学技术,去探索科学技术的奥妙。 

  中国科技馆正是这样的博物馆!它汲取了国际上一些著名博物馆的长处,设计制作了力学、光学、电学、热学、声学、生物学等展品,展示了科学的原理和先进的科技成果。

(参考译文)
  The first generation of museums are what might be called natural museums which, by means of fossils, specimens and other objects, introduced to people the evolutionary history of the Earth and various kinds of organisms. The second generation are those of industrial technologies which presented the fruits achieved by industrial civilization at different stages of industrialization. Despite the fact that those two generations of museums helped to disseminate / propagate / spread scientific knowledge, they nevertheless treated visitors merely as passive viewers.

  The third generation of museums in the world are those replete with / full of wholly novel concepts / notions / ideas. In those museums, visitors are allowed to operate the exhibits with their own hands, to observe and to experience carefully. By getting closer to the advanced science and technologies in this way, people can probe into their secret mysteries.

  The China Museum of Science and Technology is precisely one of such museums. It has incorporated some of the most fascinating features of those museums with international reputation. Having designed and created exhibits in mechanics, optics, electrical science, thermology, acoustics, and biology. Those exhibits demonstrate scientific principles and present the most advanced scientific and technological achievements.

3、原 文
  If people mean anything at all by the expression "untimely death", they must believe that some deaths run on a better schedule than others. Death in old age is rarely called untimely---a long life is thought to be a full one. But with the passing of a young person, one assumes that the best years lay ahead and the measure of that life was still to be taken.

  History denies this, of course. Among prominent summer deaths, one recalls those of Marilyn Monroe and James Deans, whose lives seemed equally brief and complete. Writers cannot bear the fact that poet John Keats died at 26, and only half playfully judge their own lives as failures when they pass that year. The idea that the life cut short is unfilled is illogical because lives are measured by the impressions they leave on the world and by their intensity and virtue.
(参考译文)
  如果人们藉"英年早逝"这一字眼真的意欲表达什么含义的话,他们必然相信某些人的辞世可以算是寿终正寝,而另一些人则"死不逢时" 。死于年迈很少被冠以"死不逢时"之名,因为能度过漫长的一生被认为是甚为圆满的。反之,如果所碰到的是一位年轻人之死,人们会以为这位年轻人风华正茂,前途无可限量,生命的倒计时尚未真正开始。

  当然,历史否定这一切。在诸多较为著名的"英年早逝"的情形中,我们会忆起玛丽莲.梦露与詹姆斯.迪恩斯之死,其生命并不因其短暂而有损其圆满。对于约翰.济慈年方26便溘然长逝这一事实,文人墨客们皆痛不欲生,但他们中仅有半数人诙谐地认为,设若他们也死于这一年龄,其一生可视为失败。视英年早逝为不圆满,这一观念有悖于逻辑,因为衡量生命的尺度乃是留给世界的印记,是生命的力度及其美德。

4、原 文
  Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau’s idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one’s perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.

  Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of "The pleasure of taking pains". The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.

  We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.

(参考译文)
  梭罗所理解的"低层次",即为了拥有而去拥有,或与所有的邻居明争暗斗而致拥有。他心目中的"高层次",则是这样一种积极的人生戒律,即要使自己对自然界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。对于他从低层次上节省下来的时间和精力,他可将其致力于对高层次的追求。勿庸置疑,梭罗不赞成忍饥挨饿,但他在膳食方面所投入的精力仅果腹而已,只要可确保他能去从事更为重要的事务,他便别无所求。

  殚精竭虑,全力以赴,便是其精髓所在。除非我们愿意直面那些需要我们全身心投入的艰难困苦,否则便不会有幸福可言。正如叶芝所言,除却某些不可能的情形,我们于人生中所获取的满足皆取决于我们在多高的境界中选择我们所愿意面对的艰难困苦。当罗伯特·弗罗斯特言及"以苦为乐"时,他内心所思,大体如此。商业广告中所宣扬的那种幸福观,其致命的缺陷就在于这样一个事实,即它宣称,一切幸福皆唾手可得,不费吹灰之力。

  即便于游戏之中,我们也需要有艰难困苦。我们之所以需要它,因为设若没有困难,便断无游戏可言。游戏即是这样一种方式,为了享受其中的情趣而人为地使事情变得不那么轻而易举。游戏中的种种规则,便是将困难武断地强加于人。当有人将情趣摧毁殆尽时,他总是因为拒不按游戏规则行事而使然。这犹如下棋;如果你随心所欲、心血来潮地去更改那些全然武断的游戏规则,这样去赢棋当然会更加容易。但下棋的情趣则在于,应在规则的限定范围内赢取胜利。一言以蔽之,没有艰难,断无情趣。

5、原 文
  大自然对人的恩赐,无论贫富,一律平等。所以人们对于大自然,全都一致并深深地依赖着。尤其在乡间,上千年来人们一直以不变的方式生活着。种植庄稼和葡萄,酿酒和饮酒,喂牛和挤奶,锄草和栽花;在周末去教堂祈祷和做礼拜,在节日到广场拉琴、跳舞和唱歌;往日的田园依旧是今日的温馨家园。这样,每个地方都有自己的传说,风俗也就衍传了下来。

(参考译文)
  Equal are the generous gifts granted/distributed (endowed) by Nature to (on) all human individuals, whether they are wealthy or impoverished (be they wealthy or impoverished). Therefore, all human individuals have become unanimously and profoundly indebted to (obliged to, attached to, dependent on) Nature. This is particularly true in rural areas where ways of life have remained intact and unchanged for people for thousands of years-sowing crops and grapes, brewing and drinking wines, grazing and milking cows, hoeing grasses and planting flower-trees, going to churches for religious prayers and services on weekends, playing musical instruments, dancing and singing on squares. The fields in former times are still their present-day homes glowing with human warmth. In such a way, each locality has evolved its own unique folk tales and has transmitted its distinctive habits and customs.

6、原 文
  The word "winner" and "loser" have many meanings. When we refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who makes someone else lose. To us, a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genuine, both as an individual and as a member of a society.

  Winners do not dedicate their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be; rather, they are themselves and as such do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence, and manipulating others. They are aware that there is a difference between being loving and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. Winners do not need to hide behind a mask.

  Winners are not afraid to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinions and don’t pretend to have all the answers. They listen to others, evaluate what they say, but come to their own conclusions. Although winners can admire and respect other people, they are not totally defined, demolished, bound, or awed by them.

  Winners do not play "helpless", nor do they play the blaming game. Instead, they assume responsibility for their own lives.

(参考译文)
  "胜者"与"败者"这两个字眼含有众多的意思。当我们将某人称作胜者时,我们并非指他是一个致使他人一败涂地的人。对我们来说,胜者乃这样一位君子,他无论是作为一个个人抑或是作为社会的一份子,一切反应均能由衷而发,做到诚信,可靠,乐善好施,且绝不伪善。

  胜者不会穷其毕生之精力,去拘泥于某个他们所想象的为人之道;相反,他们会保持其真我本色,并且,作为这种追求真我的仁者,他们不会耗费精力来装腔作势,维持一种自命不凡的姿态,或去操纵他人。他们深知,在爱戴他人和装作爱戴他人之间,在愚顽不化和大智若愚之间,在学识渊博和佯装学富五车之间,实质上存在着天壤之别。胜者断无必要去藏匿于面具背后。

  胜者无畏于独立的思维和运用其自己的知识。他们能够在事实与舆论之间明辨是非,不会僭称自己无所不晓。他们会倾听他人的见解,对他人所言作出鉴别,而最终所得出的却是其自己的结论。虽然胜者可能会钦佩并敬重他人,但他们不会受制于他人,惧悚于他人,为他人所囿,或被他人所摧垮。

  胜者绝不耍"凄惨无助"之把戏,也决不玩"委过于人" 之游戏。相反,他们会毅然肩负起对自身人生的责任(忍辱负重, 无怨亦无悔)。
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