徐绽考研英语翻译课讲义.docx

《徐绽考研英语翻译课讲义.docx》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《徐绽考研英语翻译课讲义.docx（39页珍藏版）》请在淘文阁 - 分享文档赚钱的网站上搜索。

1、第一章英译汉全真试题Unit 1 （94 年）According to the new school of scientists, technology is an overlooked force in expanding the horizons of scientific knowledge. (71) Science moves forward, they say, not so much through the insights of great men of genius as because of more ordinary things like improved techni

2、ques and tools. (72) “In short M , a Ieader of the new school contends, “the scientific revolution, as we cal 1 it, was largely the improvement and invention and use of a series of instruments that expanded the reach ol science i n innumerable d i rec i ons. ”(73) Over the years, tools and technolog

3、y themselves as a source of fundamental innovation have largely been ignored by historians and philosophers of science. The modern school that haiIs technology argues that such masters as Galileo, Newton, Maxwel1, Einstein, and inventors such as Edison attached great importance to, and derived great

4、 benefit from, craft information and technological devices of different kinds that were usable in scientific experiments.The centerpiece of the argument of a technology-yes, genius-no advocate was an analysis of Galileo* s role at the start of the scientific revolution. The wisdom of the day was der

5、ived from Ptolemy, an astronomer of the second century, whose elaborate system of the sky put Earth at the center of al1 heavenly motions. (74) Galileo, s greatest glory was that in 1609 he was the first person to turn the newly invented telescope on the heavens to prove that the planets revolve aro

6、und the sun rather than around the Earth. But the real hero of the story, according to the new school of scientists, was the long evolution in the improvement of machinery for making eyeglasses.Federal policy is necessarily involved in the technology vs. genius dispute. (75) Whether the Government s

7、hould increase the financing of pure science at the expense of technology or vice versa (反N) often depends on the issue of which is seen as the driving force.Unit 2 (95 年)The standardized educational or psychological tests that are widely used to aid in selecting, classifying, assigning, or promotin

8、g students, employees, and military personnel have been the target of recent attacks in books, magazines, the daily press, and even in Congress. (71) The target is wrong, for in attacking the tests, critics divert attention from the fault that lies with ill informed or incompetent users. The tests t

9、hemselves are merely tools, with characteristics that can be measured with reasonable precision under specified conditions. Whether the results will be valuable, meaningless, or even misleading depends partly upon the tool itself but largely upon the user.All informed predictions of future performan

10、ce are based upon some knowledge of relevant past performance: school grades, research productivity, sales records, or whatever is appropriate.(72) How wel1 the predictions will be validated by later performance depends upon the amount, reliability, and appropriateness of the information used and on

11、 the skill and wisdom with which it is interpreted. Anyone who keeps careful score knows that the information available is always incomplete and that the predictions are always subject to error.Standardized tests should be considered in this context. They provide a quick objective method of getting

12、some kinds of information about what a person learned, the skills he has developed, or the kind of person he is. The information so obtained has, qualitatively, the same advantages and shortcomings as other kinds of information. (73) Whether to use tests, other kinds of information, or both in a par

13、ticular situation depends, therefore, upon the evidence from experience concerning comparative validity and upon such factors as cost and availabi1i ty.(74) In general, the tests work most effectively when the qualities to be measured can be most precisely defined and least effectively when what is

14、to be measured or predicated can not be well defined. Properly used, they provide a rapid means of getting comparable information about many people. Sometimes they identify students whose high potential has not been previously recognized, but there are many things they do not do. (75) For example, t

15、hey do not compensate for gross social inequali ty, and thus do not tel 1 how able an underprivileged youngster might have been had he grown up under more favorable circumstances.Unit 3 (96 年)The differences in relative growth of various areas of scientific research have several causes. (71) Some of

16、 these causes are completely reasonable results of social needs. Others are reasonable consequences of particular advances in science being to some extent self-accelerating. Some, however, are less reasonable processes of different growth in which preconceptions of the form scientific theory ought t

17、o take, by persons in authority, act to alter the growth pattern of different areas. This is a new problem probably not yet unavoidable; but it is a frightening trend. (72) This trend began during the Second World War, when several governments came to the conclusion that the specific demands that a

18、government wants to make of its scientific establishment cannot generally be foreseen in detail. It can be predicted, however, that from time to time, questions will arise which will require specific scientific answers. It is therefore generally valuable to treat the scientific establishment as a re

19、source or machine to be kept in functional order. (73) Thi s seems mostly effectively done by supporting a certain amount of research not related to immediate goals but of possible consequence in the future.This kind of support, like all government support, requires decisions about the appropriate r

20、ecipients of funds. Decisions based on utility as opposed to lack of utility are straight forward. But a decision among projects none of which has immediate utility is more difficult. The goal of the supporting agencies is the praisable one of supporting good as opposed to bad science, but a valid d

21、etermination is difficult to make. Generally, the idea of good science tends to become confused with the capacity of the field in question to generate an elegant theory. (74) However, the world is so made that elegant systems are in principle unable to deal with some of the worlds more fascinating a

22、nd delightful aspects. (75) New forms of thought as well as new subjects for thought must arise in the future as they have in the past,giving ri so to new standards of elegance.Unit 4 (97 年)Do animals have rights? This is how the question is usually put. It sounds 1 ike a useful, ground-clearing way

23、 to start. (71) Actual 1 y, it isnt, because it assumes that there is an agreed account of human rights, which is something the world does not have.On one view of rights, to be sure, it necessarily follows that animals have none. 72) Some philosophers argue that rights exist only within a social con

24、tract, as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements. Therefore, animals cannot have rights. The idea of punishing a tiger that kills somebody is absurd, for exactly the same reason, so is the idea that tigers have rights. However, this is only one account, and by no means an uncontested one. It

25、 denies rights not only to animals but also to some people - for instance, to infants, the mentally incapable and future generations. In addition, it is unclear what force a contract can have for people who never consented to it: how do you reply to somebody who says I dont like this contract?The po

26、int is this wi thout agreement on the rights of people, arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. (73) It leads the discussion to extremes at the outset: it invites you to think that animals should be treated either with the consideration humans extend to other humans, or with no considerati

27、on at all. This is a false choice. Better to start wi th another, more fundamental question: is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all?Many deny it. (74)Argui ng from the view that humans are di ff erent from animal s i n every relevant respect, extremists of this kind think that animals 1 ie

28、 outside the area of moral choice. Any regard for the suffering of animals is seen as a mi stake -a sentimental displacement of feeling that should properly be directed to other humans.This view, which holds that torturing a monkey is morally equivalent to chopping wood, may seem bravely logical. In

29、 fact it is simply shallow: the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl - is to weigh others interests against one s own. This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: without which there is no capacity for moral thought. To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. (75) When

30、that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankind, s instinct for moral reasoning in action, an instinct that should be encouraged rather than laughed at.Unit 5 (98 年)They were by far, the largest and most distant objects that scientists had ever detected: a strip of enormous cosmic clouds some 15 bi

31、llion light years from earth.(71) But even more important, it was the farthest that scientists had been able to look into the past, for what they were seeing were the patterns and structures that existed 15 billion years ago. That was just about the moment that the universe was born. What the resear

32、chers found was at once both amazing and expected: the US National Aeronautics and Space Administrations Cosmic Background Explorer satellite -Cobe - had discovered landmark evidence that the universe did in fact begin with the primeval explosion that has become known as the Big Bang (the theory tha

33、t the universe originated in an explosion from a single mass of energy).(72) The existence of the giant clouds was virtually required for the Big Bang, first put forward in the 1920 s, to maintain its reign as the dominant explanation of the cosmos. According to the theory, the universe burst into b

34、eing as a submicroscopic, unimaginably dense knot of pure energy that flew outward in all directions, emitting radiation as it went, condensing into particles and then into atoms of gas. Over billions of years, the gas was compressed by gravity into galaxies, stars, plants and eventually, even human

35、s.Cobe is designed to see just the biggest structures, but astronomers would 1 ike to see much smaller hot spots as well, the seeds of local objects like clusters and superclusters of galaxies. They shouldnt have long to wait. (73) Astrophysicists working with ground-based detectors at the South Pol

36、e and balloon-borne instruments are closing in on such structures, and may report their findings soon.(74) It the small hot spots look as expected, that will be a triumph for yet another scientific idea, a refinement of the Big Bang called the inflationary universe theory. Inflation says that very e

37、arly on, the universe expanded in size by more than a trillion trillion trillion trillion fold in much less than a second, propelled by a sort of antigravity. (75) Odd though it sounds, cosmic inflation is a scientifically p 1 aus i b 1 e consequence of some respect ed i deas in elementary-part, i c

38、l e phys i cs, and many astrophysicists have been convinced for the better part of a decade that it is true.Unit 6 (99 年)(71) While there are almost as many definitions of history as there are historians, modern pract ice most closely conforms to one that sees history as the attempt to recreate and

39、explain the significant events of the past. Caught in the web of its own time and place, each generation of historians determines anew what is significant for it in the past. In this search the evidence found is always incomplete and scattered; it is also frequently partial or partisan. The irony of

40、 the historians craft is that its practitioners always know that their efforts are but contributions to an unending process.(72) Interest in historical methods has arisen less through external chailenge to t he vaI i di ty of h i story as an intel I ectual di sc ipl i ne and more from i nternal quar

41、re 1 s among historians themselves. While history once revered its affinity to literature and philosophy, the emerging social sciences seemed to afford greater opportunities for asking new questions and providing rewarding approaches to an understanding of the past. Social science methodologies had

42、to be adapted to a discipline governed by the primacy of historical sources rather than the imperatives of the contemporary world.(73) During this transfer, traditional historical methods were augmented by additional methodologies designed to interpret the new forms of evidence in the historical stu

43、dy.Methodology is a term that remains inherently ambiguous in the historical profession.(74) There is no agreement whether methodology refers to the concepts peculiar to historical work in general or to the research techniques appropriate to the various branches of historical inquiry. Historians, es

44、pecially those so blinded by their research interests that they have been accused of tunnel method, “ frequently fall victim to the technicist fallacy. Also common in the natural sciences, the technicist fallacy mistakenly identifies the discipline as a whole with certain parts of its technical impl

45、ementation.(75) It app 1 ies equally to traditional historians who view history as only the external and internal criticism of sources. And to social science historians who equate their act ivi ty with specific techniques.Unit 7 (00 年)Governments throughout the world act on the assumption that the w

46、elfare of their people depends largely on the economic strength and wealth of the community. (71) Under modern condi t ions, this requires varying measures of central ized control and hence the help of special ized scientists such as economists and operational research experts. (72) Furthermore, i t

47、 is obvious that the strength of a country, s economy i s directly bound up wi th the ef f i c i ency of i ts agriculture and i ndust ry, and that this in turn rests upon the efforts of scientists and technologists of al 1 kinds. It also means that governments are increasingly compelled to interfere

48、 in these sectors in order to step up production and ensure that it is utilized to the best advantage. For example, they may encourage research in various ways, including the setting up of their own research centers; they may alter the structure of education, or interfere in order to reduce the wast

49、age of natural resources or tap resources hitherto unexploited; or they may cooperate directly in the growing number of international projects related to science, economics any industry, In any case, all such interventions are heavily dependent on scientific advice and also scientific and technological manpower of all kinds.(73) Owing to the remarkable development in mass-communications, people everywhere are feeling new wants and are being exposed to new customs and ideas, while governments are often forc