翻译三级笔译实务2009年05月(含答案).doc

2009年5月三级笔译考试真题及参考译文 Part 1 Translation from English into Chinese Read the following two passages. Translate them into Chinese. Write your answers on the answer sheets. You may use the additional paper for your draft but you must copy your answers onto the answer sheets. Passage 1Why Is it So Difficult to Swat a Fly? The brains of flies are wired to avoid the swatter, US researchers said on Thursday. At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their preflight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies can so easily evade swipes from their human foes. These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming and activates a set of movements to position its legs and wings, Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement. This illustrates how rapidly the flys brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response, said Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology. Dickinsons team studies this process in fruit flies using high-speed digital imaging equipment and a fancy fly swatter. In response to a threat from the front, the fly moves its middle legs forward, leans back and raises its back legs for a backward takeoff. If the threat is from the side, the fly leans the other way before takeoff. The findings offer new insight into the nervous system of the fly, and lends a few clues on how to outsmart them. Dickinson, a bioengineer, has devoted his lifes work to the study of insect flight. He has built a tiny robotic fly called Robofly and a 3-D visual flight simulator called Fly-O-Vision. Passage 2The Truth about the Environment For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and that the planets air and water are becoming ever more polluted. But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the book The Limits to Growth was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per head of the worlds population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are temporary-associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollutionthe release of greenhouse gases that causes global warmingdoes appear to be a phenomenon that is going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem. Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and many factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality. Part 2 Translation from Chinese into English Read the following two passages. Translate them into English. Write your answers on the answer sheets. You may use the additional paper for your draft but you must copy your answers onto the answer sheets. Passage 1 森林里住着三只蜥蜴1，觉得身体和周围的环境大不相同，没有安全感。其中一只说：“这里实在不安全，得想办法改变环境。”说完，这只蜥蜴便开始大干起来。森林之大，要使之改变谈何容易。不久这只蜥蜴便活活累死了。 另一只蜥蜴说：“看来想要改变这个地方非我辈能力所及，不如另寻安全的地方。”说完，便爬出了这片森林。只是它还没有找到梦中的乐土，就饿死了。 第三只蜥蜴看了看四周，说：“为什么一定要改变环境，而不改变自己来适应环境?”说完，它便借着阳光和阴影，慢慢地改变自己的肤色。于是它渐渐地在树干上隐没了。这只蜥蜴就成了变色龙2，从此在森林里安居繁衍。 * 蜥蜴：lizard 变色龙：chameleon Passage 2 美国人认为，向人借钱的是聪明人，借钱给人的是傻瓜。美国政府、企业和普通百姓都以此为准则，使资源丰富的美国成为欠债最多的国家。美国人用明天的钱，使今天的楼市一落千丈、通胀加剧。无论是美国政府还是企业和个人，总认为美国是世界最富裕的国家，可以为所欲为地借钱、用钱。然而，靠借钱过日子的国家，总不是一个健康的国家。“不用花一分钱可以成为豪宅业主”，终于引发了波及全球的金融危机；靠印钞票来掠取他国资产，会使自己的诚信彻底丧失。不负责任地“向人借钱的聪明人”，反被聪明所误，这已成为威胁美国安全的因素之一。 英译汉参考译文 Passage 1苍蝇为何如此难打? 上周四美国的研究员们称，苍蝇能够躲过苍蝇拍，这与其大脑反应直接相关。 即使是很微小的危险信号，苍蝇在察觉后也能迅速调整好起飞姿势，然后朝相反方向逃之夭夭，逃脱得干净利索。研究人员的这一发现有助于解释为何苍蝇能如此轻易地逃脱其人类敌人的拍打。 加州理工学院的迈克尔迪金森在一份报告中说：“这一系列动作完成得非常迅速，只需要大约 200毫秒的时间，而仅在这段时间，苍蝇就判断出了威胁来自何处，然后启动一套动作，调整好腿和翅膀的姿势。” 迪金森说：“这就说明苍蝇的大脑能够非常迅速地将感官信息转化为相应的动作反应指令。”他的这一研究报告在当代生物学期刊上发表。 迪金森的研究小组借助高速数码成像设备和一个奇特的苍蝇拍在果蝇身上就此过程展开了研究。 遇到来自正面的威胁时，苍蝇会向前移动中足，身体后倾，抬起后足朝后面飞走。如果威胁来自侧面，苍蝇则会将身体倾向另一侧，然后逃离。 这一发现为我们对苍蝇的神经系统的研究提供了新的认识，也为我们如何智胜苍蝇给出了一些线索。 作为一位生物工程学家，迪金森已将他毕生的精力致力于昆虫飞行的研究上。他研发了一款名叫Robofly的微型机器人苍蝇，以及一种名叫Fly-O-Vision的三维可视飞行模拟器。 Passage 2环境的真相 在许多环境保护者看来，这个世界正越变越糟。他们为人类担心的事列了一个黑名单：自然资源在枯竭，人口在增长，食物在变少，物种在大量灭绝，地球的空气和水受到前所未有的污染。 然而，看看周围的事实，会发现事情并非如此。首先，自1972年科学家们出版了增长的极限一书后，能源和其他自然资源变得丰富了，而非稀少了。第二，如今，世界人均粮食产量高于历史上任何时期。遭受饥荒的人变少了。第三，虽然物种确实在不断灭绝，但在未来50年内，预计只有大约0.7%的物种会消失，而非人们总是在预测的25-50%。最后，大多数污染现象，要么被夸大了，要么就是由处于初级阶段的工业化造成，是暂时现象，因而缓解污染要通过加速经济增长，而非限制增长。温室效应气体的排放作为一种引起全球变暖的污染，似乎确实是会影响到人类未来的现象，但其综合影响却不太可能带来灾难性的问题。 民意投票调查显示，许多人相信，环境标准在下滑，似乎有很多因素会造成认识与现实的分离。 汉译英参考译文 Passage 1 There lived three lizards in the forest. They suffered from a sense of insecurity due to their distinctiveness from the surrounding environment. One of them said, Its really unsafe here. Weve got to figure out a way to change the surroundings. Then the lizard set out to work. The forest was too big to be easily changed. Soon the lizard died of hard labor. Another lizard said, It seems beyond us lizards to change this place. We might as well look for some other safe place to live in. And then it crawled out of the forest. However, it was starved to death before getting to its dreamland. The third lizard looked around and said, Why not change myself to adapt to the surroundings, rather than the other way round? Having said so, it gradually changed its skin color via light and shadow, and little by little it immerged on the trunk. Therefore the lizard became a chameleon, happily living and multiplying in the forest ever after. Passage 2 The Americans believe that borrowing money from others is smart, while lending money to others is foolish. The U.S. government, companies and common people all regard this as a guideline, which renders this resourceful nation the most indebted one in the world. With tomorrows money,