英汉段落翻译试题
netantPassage 1
Kunitz, who own work has a simple elegance, es great value in the innovations of slam and hip-hop poets. “The various and diver populations of the earth contribute to mainstream poetry,” he says, “and this contribution needs to occ ur generation after generation in order to invigorate the tradition itlf.” Otherwi, “certain styles, techniques, even meanings tend to consolidate and perpetuate.” The poet’s life, he explains, is a process of transformation. “One must build a new imag e of lf, out of which comes new styles, new leaps in one’s work.”
benzamidePassage 2
So, should we be concerned about the current spasm of extinction, which has been accelerated by the inexorable expansion of agriculture and industry? Is it necessary to try to slow down a process that has been going on forever? I believe it is. We know that the well-being of the human race is tied to the well-being of many other species, and we can’t be sure which species are most important to our own survival. But dealing with the extinction crisis is no simple matter, since much of the world’s biodiversity resides in its poorest nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America Can such countries justify t
ting aside national parks and nature rerves where human encroachment and even access is forbidden? Is it legitimate to spend large sums of money to save some species-be it an elephant or an orchid—in a nation in which a sizable percentage of the people are living below the poverty line?
Passage 3
American culture is not conrvative; it is democratic. Given their strong suspicion of inherited authority and their almost infinite faith in an individual’s right to shape his own destiny, Americans have trouble accepting social customs who provenance is unclear and who authority they never connted to. This do not mean that Americans are always comfortable with diversity, for as we know there have been periods of stifling conformity and moralism in American history. What it does mean is that Americans e cultural changes as matters of principle that need to be publicly debated, and tho debates can be polarizing. Americans have a reputation abroad for being pragmatic, which in economic and technical matters might be true. But on large political issues, and almost all cultural ones, Americans tend to be dogmatic and uncompromising becau they e democratic principles at stake in them.
Passage 4
it girl
period是什么意思
But last August, she was fired—for refusing to wear makeup. Earlier this moth, Ms. Jespern filed suit against her former employer in US district court, saying that being forced to wear mascara, lipstick, blush, and face powder to keep her job was not only humiliating but also gender discrimination. Her ca is tting up the latest test of how far companies can go in mandating what employees should look like on the job. From men suing for the right to sport goatees, to airline stewardess tired of company-mandated dieting, to TV news anchors being replaced becau of encroaching wrinkles, the past quarter century has been filled with lawsuits by employees demanding their rights to look and be who they are.
提供劳务Passage 5
By the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, however, the image of the entrepreneur as an American ideal had lost much of its luster. The crucial change came w ith the ri of corporation. Few business barons remained. They were replaced by “technocrats” as the heads of corporations. The executives, expert in every pha of corporate activity, became the indispensable cogs in the
industrial machine. The high-salaried manager replaced the swaggering tycoon. The big business leaders today are often involved in many areas of public life. They not only direct the fate of corporati
ons, they also rve on boards in their community and as university trustees. The new corporate leaders fly to Washington to confer with government officials on national policy. They are concerned about the state of the national economy and America’s relationship with other nations.
Passage 6
Rising prices prompted many labor unions to demand higher wages, and in 1946, when their demands were not met, more than 4,500,000 workers engaged in strikes. This demonstration of strength by labor alarmed a large gment of the public, and so the following year a republican-controlled Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act. This measure was strongly oppod by labor leaders—it required a 60-day notice before either a union or an employer could end a contract, permitting management to sue union officials for violation of contract and limiting certain union privileges contained in existing contracts. Although labor continued to win higher wages along with incread curity through retirement pensions and health insurance financed by employers, they viewed the Taft-Hartley restrictions as a deliberated attempt to eliminate much of their ability to bargain with industry. During the election of 1948, President Truman and the Democratic Party pledged to repeal the act.
Passage 7
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The new administration sought legislative remedies for the conditions. An Area development Act gave the federal government power to help depresd communities start new industries and build needed public facilities. Another law provided retraining, with pay, for workers either unemployed or in low-paying jobs through lack of needed skills. In addition, states were given emergency authority to extend unemployment－insurance payments for 13 weeks beyond the standard 26-week period. Following the examples of his two predecessors, President Kennedy requested Congress to liberalize some of the existing social legislation. As a result, the Social Security Act provided workers the option to retire at age 62 instead of 63; the minimum wage was incread to $1.25 an hour; and the federal housing program was stepped up to help elderly persons and families with low or moderate incomes find homes at a reasonable cost.
Passage 8
It reminds us of what we believe and what we do not believe, what we need and what we want as a group. By portraying the enemy as the other, the threat, the danger to our stability and to our n of order and value, we willingly come together to resist and to reasrt our oneness with the group we belong to. We cooperate in order to rid ourlves of the threat from the unfamiliar, the different—them. In the process, we share our ideas, feelings, resources and willingly face threats we would nor
mally avoid. Our enemy has made us human and civilized by forcing us to suppress our narcissistic urges and desires for the good of all. We become involved in our community of hate and, like good soldiers, obey orders by persuading ourlves that unless we do so ,our way of life-our values and beliefs—will be destroyed and we will have to embrace the values, beliefs, practices of tho we have just made unfamiliar, unlike ourlves—the enemy. This will require change and we all know how utterly disruptive that can be to a well-ordered, habitual way of life. No wonder we are so angry and so eager to remove this threat.
Passage 9
Adolescence and age are the two stages in lives when the need for friendship is crucial. In the
former stage, teens are plagued by uncertainty and mixed feelings. In the lat4ter stage, older people are upt by feelings of ulessness and insignificance. In both instances, friends can make a dramatic difference. With clo friends in their lives, people develop courage and positive attitudes. Teenagers have the moral support to asrt their individuality; the elderly approach their advanced years with optimism and an interest in life. The positive outlooks are vital to cope successfully with the cris inherent in the two stages of life.
Passage 10
It’s going to be a nervous year. The nabob of nerves at the moment surely has to be Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Microsoft clod out 1994 by announcing that the long－awaited Windows 95 would not now hit the streets until August-almost two years after the first projected relea date. The expected bounty, as millions of urs upgrade to the new system, may now not roll in until early 1996. The announcement saw Microsoft’s stock price drop $2.75 to $59.87 (it has already bounced back) and the shares of some software developers sagged, too. The problem for the developers is that Windows 95 catches up with improvements in hardware to become a 32-bit system (i.e., able to handl e any combination of 32 bits of data simultaneously). They can’t relea 32-bit versions of their applications until the new system is available and, in the meantime, customers aren’t upgrading their old 16-bit applications
Passage 11
While our neighbors Venus and Mars would reflect a fairly even glow, Earth would put on a little show. Earth’s light would brighten and dim as it spins, becau oceans, derts, forests and clouds—which are all too small to be en from such a distance—reflect varying amounts of sunlight. The v
ariations, it turns out, are so strong and distinctive that a surprising amount of information could be taken from a simple ebb and flow of light. Scientists at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study conducted a detaile d study of Earth’s reflections not for insights into an alien’s view of our home planet, but as a way for human scientists to learn about distant planets that may be like our own. They are participating in the early planning for a NASA mission known as the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a space probe that will scan the skies for planets hospitable to life.
Passage 12
It was tempting to say that Sept.11 changed all that, just as it is tempting to say that every hero needs a villain, and good needs evil as its grinding stone. But try looking a widow in the eye and talking about all the good that has come of this. It may not be a coincidence, but neither is it a partnership: good does
喝彩的意思not end evil, we owe no debt to demons and the attack did not make us better. It was an occasion to discover what we already were. “Maybe the purpo of all this,” New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliami said at a funeral for a friend, “is to find out America today is as strong as when we fought for our independence or when we fought for ourlves as a union to end slavery of as strong as our fathers
when you believe
and grandfathers who fought to rid the world of Nazis m.” The terrorists, he argues, were counting on our cowardice. They’ve learned a lot about us since then. And so have we.
Passage 13
grow是什么意思
It involves, in the first place, the historical n, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical n involves a perception, not only the pastness of the past, but of its prence; the historical n compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and compos a simultaneous order. This historical n, which is a n of the timeless as well as the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.
Passage 14
No English language central authority guards the purity of the language; therefore, many dialects have developed; American, British, Canadian, Indian, and Australian, to name a few. There is no sta
ndard pronunciation. Btu within this diversity is a unity of grammar and one t of core vocabulary, thus, each country that speaks the language can inject aspects of its own culture into the usage and vocabulary. There is no reason to believe that any one other language will appear within the next 50 years to replace English. However, it is possible that English will not keep its monopoly in the 21st
erar怎么读century. Rather a small number of languages may form an oligopoly-each with a special area of the Latino population in the United States. This could create a bilingual English-Spanish region.
Passage 15
But A mericans are a restless people who are always ready to move. So, although they enjoy the life in the suburbs, they will by no means end their pursuit there. When his income ris as his career makes progress, he soon looks for a better hou, in a better district, with more land, a better view, a bigger and finer swimming pool. He may be attached to the hou which is home for the time being but this does not mean that he will put his roots there. Today’s job, today’s income, today’s friends and neighborhood: all the are part of an A merican’s (and his family’s) identity. Instant coffee, instant friends—but nothing is en as permanent; an American hopes and expects to exchange them all for something better; and he finds no difficulty in identifying himlf with the new.
Passage16
There has been nothing more without a definition, than excellence; although it is what we are more concerned with, than anything el whatsoever; yet, we are concerned with nothing el. But what is this excellence? Wherein is one thing excellent, and another evil; one beautiful, and another deformed? Some have said that all excellence is harmony, symmetry, or proportion; but they have not yet explained it. We would know, why proportion is more excellent than disproportion; that is, why proportion is pleasant to the mind, and disproportion unpleasant? Proportion is a thing that may be explained yet further. It is an equality or likeness of ratios; so that it is the equality, which makes the proportion. Excellency therefore ems to consist in equality.
Passage 17
Outside on the deck with my younger sister, Ann, and sister-in-law, Candace, I watch the distant night li ght s shimmer against the dark folds of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. I am fine, certainly
