专八-翻译试题.doc

1997年E-C:Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable. But expensive things are inevitably the province（范围） of the rich unless we abdicate（退位、放弃） societys power of choice. We can choose to make opera and other expensive forms of culture, accessible（易接近的，可达到的） to those who cannot individually pay for it. The question is: why should we? No body denies the imperatives（必要的）of food, shelter, defence, health and education. But even in a prehistoric cave, man-kind stretched out a hand of not just to eat, drink or fight, but also to draw. The impulse（冲动） towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and representation（表述、陈述）is fundamental. In Europe, this desire has found fulfillment（完成、成就） in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and theatre. These masterpieces are the touchstones（标准、试金石） for all our efforts; they are the touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may aspire（立志、追求目标、渴望）; they carry the most profound （深厚的、深刻的）messages that can be sent from one human to another.1997年C-E：来美国求学的中国学生与其他亚裔学生一样，大多非常刻苦勤奋，周末也往往会抽出一天甚至两天的时间去实验室加班，因而比起美国学生来，成果出得较多。我的导师是亚裔人，嗜烟好酒，脾气暴躁。但他十分欣赏亚裔学生勤奋与扎实的基础知识，也特别了解亚裔学生的心理。因此，在他实验室所招的学生中，除有一名来自德国外，其余5位均是亚裔学生。他干脆在实验室的门上贴一醒目招牌：“本室助研必须每周工作7天，早10时至晚12时，工作时间必须全力以赴。”这位导师的严格及苛刻是全校有名的，在我所呆的3年半中，共有14位学生被招进他的实验室，最后博士毕业的只剩下5人。1990年夏天，我不顾别人劝阻，硬着头皮接受了导师的资助，从此开始了艰难的求学旅程。1998年E-C: I agree to some extent with my imaginary English reader. American literary historians are perhaps prone to view their own national scene too narrowly, mistaking prominence for uniqueness. They do over-phrase their own literature, or certainly its minor figures. And Americans do swing from aggressive over phrase of their literature to an equally unfortunate, imitative deference. But then, the English themselves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. Moreover, in fields where they are not pre-eminent e. g. in painting and music they too alternate between boasting of native products and copying those of the Continent. How many English paintings try to look as though they were done in Paris; how many times have we read in articles that they really represent an “English tradition” after all.To speak of American literature, then, is not to assert（断言、声称）that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step（同步）. At any given moment（在任何时候） the traveler could find examples in both of the same architecture, the same styles in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crossed the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandise, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of qualification（限制、限定、资格） to precede（领先、超前） the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree（唯一只是在程度上）, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence（分歧、差异） is a subtle （微妙的）affair, liable（有可能的） to perplex the Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important senses （重要的感觉）grew out of his own, which in several ways still resembles his own and which is yet a foreign country. There are odd overlappings and abrupt unfamiliarities; kinship(亲缘关系) yields to a sudden alienation（疏远关系）, as when we hail（打招呼） a person across the street, only to discover from his blank（没有表情的） response that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend. 1998年C-E：1997年2月24日我们代表团下榻日月潭中信大饭店，送走了最后一批客人，已是次日凌晨3点了。我躺在床上久久不能入睡，披衣走到窗前，往外看去，只见四周峰峦叠翠，湖面波光粼粼。望着台湾这仅有的景色如画的天然湖泊，我想了许多，许多这次到台湾访问交流，虽然行程匆匆，但是，看了不少地方，访了旧友，交了新知，大家走到一起，谈论的一个重要话题就是中华民族在21世纪的强盛。虽然祖国大陆、台湾的青年生活在不同的社会环境中，有着各自不同的生活经历，但大家的内心都深深铭刻着中华文化优秀传统的印记，都拥有着振兴中华民族的共同理想。在世纪之交的伟大时代，我们的祖国正在走向繁荣富强，海峡两岸人民也将加强交流，共同推进祖国统一大业的早日完成。世纪之交的宝贵机遇和巨大挑战将青年推到了历史前台。跨世纪青年一代应该用什么样的姿态迎接充满希望的新世纪，这是我们必须回答的问题。日月潭水波不兴，仿佛与我一同在思索1999年E-C： In some societies people want children for what might be called familial reasons: to extend the family line or the family name, to propitiate the ancestors; to enable the proper functioning of religious rituals involving the family. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularized society but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places.In addition, one class(一类) of family reasons shares a border（接壤、相近）with the following category, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy（使 忙（有事干） the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption（设想、假设 consumption 消费） that family happiness lies that way. The point is underlined（突出、显现） by its converse（反面、相反）: in some societies the failure to bear children（养孩子） (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce.Beyond all that（除了这些 ）is the profound（深刻的、深远的） significance of children to the very institution（结构） of the family itself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family（完整的） they need children to enrich the circle（丰富家庭生活、拓宽生活圈子）, to validate（使有效） its family character（家族的特征、风格）, to gather（增加、集合） the redemptive（赎回的, 用于补偿的）influence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, as the social institution（社会结构）uniquely（唯一） available, at least in principle, for （获得）security, comfort, assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile world. To most people, such a home base, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance（生计） and in generational extension（家族的繁衍）.1999年C-E：加拿大的温哥华1986年刚刚度过百岁生日，但城市的发展令世界瞩目。以港立市，以港兴市，是许多港口城市生存发展的道路。经过百年开发建设，有着天然不冻良港的温哥华，成为举世闻名的港口城市，同亚洲、大洋洲、欧洲、拉丁美洲均有定期班轮，年货物吞吐量达到8，000万吨，全市就业人口中有三分之一从事贸易与运输行业。温哥华（Vancouver）的辉煌是温哥华人智慧和勤奋的结晶，其中包括多民族的贡献。加拿大地广人稀，国土面积比中国还大，人口却不足3000万。吸收外来移民，是加拿大长期奉行的国策。可以说，加拿大除了印第安人外，无一不是外来移民，不同的只是时间长短而已。温哥华则更是世界上屈指可数的多民族城市。现今180万温哥华居民中，有一半不是在本地出生的，每4个居民中就有一个是亚洲人。而25万华人对温哥华的经济转型起着决定性的作用。他们其中有一半是近5年才来到温哥华地区的，使温哥华成为亚洲以外最大的中国人聚居地。2000年E-C：If people mean anything at all by the expression_r “untimely（不合时宜的，timely:适时的、及时的） death”, they must believe that some deaths run on（连续, 不分段, 流逝, 涉及）a better schedule than others. Death in old age is rarely called untimelya long life is thought to be a full one. But with the passing（= passing away 死亡）of a young person, one assumes（假定、设想） that the best years lay ahead and the measure（尺度、评价） of that life was still to be taken.History denies this, of course. Among prominent（卓越的、突出的）summer（壮年时期, 青春）deaths, one recalls those of Marilyn Monroe（马丽莲?梦露 ）and James Deans（詹姆士?迪恩斯）, whose lives seemed equally brief and complete. Writers cannot bear the fact that poet John Keats（约翰?济慈）died at 26, and only half playfully（开玩笑地） judge their own lives as failures when they pass that year. The idea that the life cut short is unfulfilled is illogical because lives are measured by the impressions they leave on the world and by their intensity（强度、亮度=achievements: 成就）and virtue（德行、品德）.2000年C-E：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。2001年E-C： Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreaus idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening ones 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（要点，主旨） of it. There is no happiness except as we take on(接纳) life-engaging（有魅力的、迷人的） 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（相同的表达、看法） when he spoke of “The pleasure of taking pains”. The mortal flaw （致命的缺陷）in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports（宣称、声称） to be effortless.We demand difficulty even in our games（体育比赛、游戏）. 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（武断的） imposition（强迫接受） 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. 2001年 C-E：乔羽的歌大家都熟悉。但他另外两大爱好却鲜为人知，那就是钓鱼和喝酒。晚年的乔羽喜爱垂钓，他说，“有水有鱼的地方大都是有好环境的，好环境便会给人好心情。我认为最好的钓鱼场所不是舒适的、给你准备好饿鱼的垂钓园，而是那极其有吸引力的大自然野外天成的场所。” 钓鱼是一项能够陶冶性情的运动，有益于身心健康。乔羽说：“钓鱼可分三个阶段：第一阶段是吃鱼；第二阶段是吃鱼和情趣兼而有之；第三阶段主要是钓趣，面对一池碧水，将忧心烦恼全都抛在一边，使自己的身心得到充分休息。”2002年E-C：The word “winner” and “loser” have many meanings. When they refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who makes some else lose. To us, a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genien, both as an individual and as a member of a society.Winners do not decide their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be; rather, they are themselves and so much do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence(伪装) and manipulating（操纵） 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 of to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinions and dont 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（毁坏、推翻）, bound, or awed（敬畏） by them. Winners do not play “helpless”, nor do they play the blaming game. Instead, they assume（假定、设想、采取） responsibility for their own lives. 2002年C-E: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，全都一直并深深地依赖着。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，除草和栽花；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。2003年E-C：In his classic novel, “The Pioneers”, James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, with his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a bustling metropolis（大城市，大都市）. But his cousin looks around bewildered（困惑、迷惑）. All she sees is a forest. “Where are the beauties and improvements（改造的地方）which you were to show me?” she asks. Hes astonished she cant see them. “Where! Why everywhere,” he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.Cooper was illustrating（讲述、描述、阐述）a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness（minded:有思想的，着眼未来的）: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered 【没有阻碍的, 不受妨碍的；cumber（n.）障碍encumber（v.）阻碍encumbered有阻碍的unencumbered没有阻碍的】by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, “Life for the American is always becoming(会变成什么样子), never being（现在是什么样子）.”2003年C-E: 得病以前，我受父母宠爱，在家中横行霸道，一旦隔离，拘禁在花园山坡上一幢小房子里，我顿感打入冷宫，十分郁郁不得志起来。一个春天的傍晚，园中百花怒放，父母在园中设宴，一时宾客云集，笑语四溢。我在山坡的小屋里，悄悄掀起窗帘，窥见园中大千世界，一片繁华，自己的哥姐，堂表弟兄，也穿插其间，个个喜气洋洋。一霎时，一阵被人摒弃，为世所遗的悲愤兜上心头，禁不住痛哭起来。2004年E-C：For me the most interesting thing about a solitary life, and mine has been that for the last twenty years, is that it becomes increasingly rewarding. When I can wake up and watch the sun rise over the ocean, as I do most days, and know that I have an entire day ahead, uninterrupted, in which to write a few pages, take a walk with my dog, read and listen to music, I am flooded with happiness.Im lonely only when I am overtired, when I have worked too long without a break, when from the time being I feel empty and need filling up. And I am lonely sometimes when I come back home after a lecture trip, when I have seen a lot of people and talked a lot, and am full to the brim(边缘) with experience that needs to be sorted out（挑选、选择）.Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty, and I wonder where my self（本性、本我）is hiding. It has to be recaptured slowly by watering the plants and perhaps, by looking again at each one（指代 plant植物）as though it were a person.It takes a while, as I watch the surf（水浪）blowing up in fountains（喷泉）, but the moment（ 指the lonely moment） comes when the worlds falls away, and the self emerges again from the deep unconscious（潜意识）, bringing back all I have recently experienced to be explored and slowly understood. 2004年C-E:在人际关系问题上我们不要太浪漫主义。人是很有趣的，往往在接触一个人时首先看到的都是他或她的优点。这一点颇像是在餐馆里用餐的经验。开始吃头盘或冷碟的时候，印象很好。吃头两个主菜时，也是赞不绝口。愈吃愈趋于冷静，吃完了这顿筵席，缺点就都找出来了。于是转喜为怒，转赞美为责备挑剔，转首肯为摇头。这是因为，第一，开始吃的时候你正处于饥饿状态，而饿了吃糠甜加蜜，饱了吃蜜也不甜。第二，你初到一个餐馆，开始举筷时有新鲜感，新盖的茅房三天香，这也可以叫做“陌生化效应”。2005年E-C：It is simple enough to say that since books have classes-fiction, biography, poetrywe should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred（模糊的，不明确的）and divided minds（分心）, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish(消除) all such preconceptions（偏见、成见） when we read, that would be an admirable（绝妙的、极好的） beginning. Do not dictate（口述、发号施令）to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow worker and accomplice（同谋、合作者）. If you hang back（迟疑、犹豫不决）, and reserve（保留、储备）and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible（觉察不到的）fineness（优良、出色）, from the twist and turn of the first sentences（换行的句子）, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep（沉浸、潜心、专心）yourself in this, acquaint（使熟知）yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite.2005年C-E:一个人的生命究竟有多大意义，这有什么标准可以衡量吗？提出一个绝对的标准当然很困难；但是，大体上看一个人对待生命的态度是否严肃认真，看他对待工作、生活的态度如何，也就不难对这个人的存在意义做出适当的估计了。古来一切有成就的人，都很严肃地对待自己的生命，当他活着一天，总要尽量多工作、多学习，不肯虚度年华，不让时间白白浪费掉。我国历代的劳动人民以及大政治家、大思想家等等都莫不如此。2006年E-C：I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal ofthe most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word, it is victory. Victory at all costsvictory in spiteof all terrors-victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.Let that be realized, no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that British Empire has stood for , no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that mankind shall more forward toward his goal. I take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, “Come then, let us go forward together with our unitedstrength. 2006年C-E:中国民族自古以来从不把人看作高于一切，在哲学文艺方面的表现都反映出人在自然界中与万物占有比例较为恰当的地位，而非绝对统治万物的主宰。因此我们的苦闷基本上比西方人为少为小：因为苦闷的强弱原是随欲望与野心的大小而转移的。农业社会的人比工业社会的人享受差得多，因此欲望也小的多。何况中国古代素来以不怠于物不为物役为最主要的人生哲学。2007年 E -C: Good bye and good luck Scientific and technological advances are enabling us to comprehend the furthest reaches of the cosmos, the most basic constituents of matter, and the miracle of life. At the same time, today, the actions, and inaction, of human beings imperil not only life on the planet, but the very life of the planet.Globalization is making the world smaller, faster and richer. Still, 9/11, avian flu, and Iran remind us that a smaller, fatster world is not necessarily a safer world.Our world is bursting with knowledge - but desperately in need of wisdom. Now, when sound bites are getting shorter, when instant messages crowd out essays, and when individual lives grow more frenzied, college graduates capable of deep reflection are what our world needs.For all these reasons I believed - and I believe even more strongly today - in the unique and irreplaceable mission of universities.2007年 C-E:暮色中，河湾里落满云霞，与天际的颜色混合一起，分不清哪是流云哪是水湾。也就在这一幅绚烂的图画旁边，在河湾之畔，一群羊正在低头觅食。它们几乎没有一个顾得上抬起头来，看一眼这美丽的黄昏。也许它们要抓紧时间，在即将回家的最后一刻再次咀嚼。这是黄河滩上的一幕。牧羊人不见了，他不知在何处歇息。只有这些美生灵自由自在地享受着这个黄昏。这儿水草肥美，让它们长得肥滚滚的，像些胖娃娃。如果走近了，会发现它们那可爱的神情，洁白的牙齿，那丰富而单纯的表情。如果稍稍长久一点端详这张张面庞，还会生出无限的怜悯。2008年E-C： But ,as has been true in many other cases, when they were at last married ,the most ideal of situations was found to have been changed to the most practical . instead of hacing shared their original duties, and as schol boys would say, going halves, they discovered that the cares of life had been doubled.This led to some distressing moments for both our friends; they understood suddenlu that instead of dwelling in heaven they were still upon earth ,and had made themselves slaves to new laws and limitations. Instead of being freer and happier than ever before, they had assumed new responsibilities; they had established a new household, and must fulfill in some way or another the obligations of it. They looked back with affection to their engagement; they had been longing to have each other to themselves, apart from the world, but it seemed that they never felt so keenly that they were still units in modern society.本文选自