1998

1998年Text 1 (2009-03-07 00:08:33) 转载▼ 标签： 真题 翻译 分类： 考研阅读 Few creations of big technology capture the imagination like giant dams. Perhaps it is humankind’s long suffering at the mercy of flood and drought that makes the idea of forcing the waters to do our bidding so fascinating. But to be fascinated is also, sometimes, to be blind. Several giant dam projects threaten to do more harm than good. 在重大技术工程中，很少能像巨型水坝这样令人心驰神往的。可能正是因为人类长期听任旱涝灾害的摆布才使得人们如此痴迷于治理江河、使洪水听从人类调遣的理想。但使人着迷的同时也就造成了人们的盲目。有几个巨型大坝项目就颇有弊大于利的危险。   The lesson from dams is that big is not always beautiful. It doesn’t help that building a big, powerful dam has become a symbol of achievement for nations and people striving to assert themselves. Egypt’s leadership in the Arab world was cemented by the Aswan High Dam. Turkey’s bid for First World status includes the giant Ataturk Dam. 建造大坝的教训是：大的未必总是美好的。但这个教训也无法阻止以下事实，即修建高大雄伟的大坝已成为那些努力得到自我肯定的国家和人民的伟大成就的象征。埃及由于建造了阿斯旺大坝而巩固了其在阿拉伯世界的领导地位。土耳其在力图跻身于第一世界的努力中也包括修建阿塔特克大坝。   But big dams tend not to work as intended. The Aswan Dam, for example, stopped the Nile flooding but deprived Egypt of the fertile silt that floods left -- all in return for a giant reservoir of disease which is now so full of silt that it barely generates electricity. 但一些大坝不会像预期的那样发挥功效。以阿斯旺大坝为例，它阻止了尼罗河洪水泛滥，但也使埃及失去了洪水冲击过后留下的肥沃土壤，换回来的是这么一个疾病滋生的水库。现在这个水库里积满了淤泥，几乎已经无法发电了。   And yet, the myth of controlling the waters persists. This week, in the heart of civilized Europe, Slovaks and Hungarians stopped just short of sending in the troops in their contention over a dam on the Danube. The huge complex will probably have all the usual problems of big dams. But Slovakia is bidding for independence from the Czechs, and now needs a dam to prove itself. 不过，制服洪水的神话仍在继续。本周，在欧洲文明的腹地，斯洛伐克人和匈牙利人就为了多瑙河上建一处水坝发生争执，差点动用了军队。这个大型工程可能会引起建大坝出现过的所有常见问题。但斯洛伐克正在努力脱离捷克而独立，因此现在他们需要修建一个大坝来证明自己的实力。   Meanwhile, in India, the World Bank has given the go-ahead to the even more wrong-headed Narmada Dam. And the bank has done this even though its advisors say the dam will cause hardship for the powerless and environmental destruction. The benefits are for the powerful, but they are far from guaranteed. 与此同时，世界银行已经贷款给印度来那个问题诸多的纳尔马达大坝。尽管世界银行的顾问说，该大坝将给平民带来苦难，而且也会不可避免地破坏那里的环境，但世界银行仍然一意孤行。大坝会给有权势的人带来巨大利益，但却不考虑任何保障。   Proper, scientific study of the impacts of dams and of the cost and benefits of controlling water can help to resolve these conflicts. Hydroelectric power and flood control and irrigation are possible without building monster dams. But when you are dealing with myths, it is hard to be either proper, or scientific. It is time that the world learned the lessons of Aswan. You don’t need a dam to be saved. 对于建造水坝的影响以及对水坝控制水流的成本和收益进行恰当的科学论证能够有助于解决这些矛盾。水利发电，治理洪水以及灌溉并一定非要靠建大型水坝才能实现。但如果你相信神话，那就很难做到合理或科学。现在是全世界吸取阿斯旺大坝教训的时候了。人类并不需要建一座大型水坝来拯救自己。 1998年Text 2 更新08-06 (2009-03-07 00:10:19) 转载▼ 标签： 李剑真题翻译 分类： 考研阅读   Well, no gain without pain, they say. But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are presiding over is for real.  人们说，不劳无获。但是，如果劳而无获又会怎样呢？在美国，无论你走到哪里都会听到关于企业复苏的故事。（但）让人更加难以确定的是商家自认为他们领导的这场生产率革命是否真的名副其实。       注：preside over sth 的英文解释：be head or director of sth 掌管或领导某事物。   The official statistics are mildly discouraging. They show that, if you lump manufacturing and services together, productivity has grown on average by 1.2% since 1987. That is somewhat faster than the average during the previous decade. And since 1991, productivity has increased by about 2% a year, which is more than twice the 1978-87 average. The trouble is that part of the recent acceleration is due to the usual rebound that occurs at this point in a business cycle, and so is not conclusive evidence of a revival in the underlying trend. There is, as Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, says, a “disjunction” between the mass of business anecdote that points to a leap in productivity and the picture reflected by the statistics. 官方的统计数字却有点不容乐观。这些数据表明，如果把制造业和服务业加起来，那么自1987年以来，生产力平均每年增长1.2%。这比前10年的平均增长速度要略快。自1991年来，生产力每年上升约2%。这比1978年—1987年的平均增长速度高出两倍以上。而问题在于，近年出现的生产力快速增长部分是由于商业周期通常到了这时候常出现的反弹造成的，因而还不能以此作为最终的证据来证明这种趋势预示出经济复苏的姿态。正如财政部长Robert Rubin所说的那样，生产力发生大幅提高的商业传奇与官方的统计数字所反映的情况之间存在着一种“脱节”。   Some of this can be easily explained. New ways of organizing the workplace —— all that re-engineering and downsizing —— are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machinery, new technology, and investment in education and training. Moreover, most of the changes that companies make are intended to keep them profitable, and this need not always mean increasing productivity: switching to new markets or improving quality can matter just as much. 其中有些事情是很容易解释的。重新组织工作场所 —— 企业重组以及精简机构 —— 只是对一个经济的整体生产力做出了一方面的贡献。许多其他因素能促进经济整体生产力的发展，比如设备、机械上的联合投资，新技术，以及教育和投资等。另外，公司的大部分改革以赢利为目的，而达到赢利的目的不一定总是要提高生产力：转入新的市场或改善产品质量也可以达到同样的效果。   Two other explanations are more speculative. First, some of the business restructuring of recent years may have been ineptly done. Second, even if it was well done, it may have spread much less widely than people suppose. 另外两种解释更让人深思熟虑。一种解释认为，近年来一些公司进行的重组也许并未奏效。另一种则认为，即使有所成效，效果也不像人们所设想的那样得到了广泛的推广。   Leonard Schlesinger, a Harvard academic and former chief executive of Au Bong Pain, a rapidly growing chain of bakery cafes, says that much “re-engineering” has been crude. In many cases, he believes, the loss of revenue has been greater than the reductions in cost. His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied re-engineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitability. BBDO’s Al Rosenshine is blunter. He dismisses a lot of the work of re-engineering consultants as mere rubbish —— “the worst sort of ambulance chasing.”        Leonard Schlesinger是哈佛大学学者，是一家迅速发展的名为Au Bong Pain的面包咖啡连锁店的前任总裁。他说，许多“公司重组”都很粗糙。他认为很多情况下，企业在效益上的损失远远超出了成本的降低。他的同事Michael Beer说，太多的公司用简单机械的方式进行重组，在没有充分考虑到长期赢利能力的情况下降低了成本。BBDO的Al Rosenshine更加直率，他把许多重组咨询专家所做的工作视为垃圾 —— “最卑劣的趁火打劫”。  注：根据韦氏字典，ambulance chaser的定义是: a lawyer or lawyer's agent who incites accident victims to sue for damages，即指那些怂恿事故受伤者起诉从中得益的律师，或专办交通伤害案件以图利的律师。现在比喻那些乘人之危谋利的人，趁火打劫者。 1998年Text 3 更新2011-07-03 (2009-03-07 00:17:12) 转载▼ 标签： 李剑真题翻译 分类： 考研阅读 Science has long had an uneasy relationship with other aspects of culture. Think of Gallileo’s 17th-century trial for his rebelling belief before the Catholic Church or poet William Blake’s harsh remarks against the mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton. The schism between science and the humanities has, if anything, deepened in this century. 长期以来，科学与文化的其它领域关系一直不好。试想，17世纪Gallileo为他离经叛道的信仰而遭受天主教会的审判，还有诗人William Blake 也尖锐地批判了Isaac Newton的机械世界观。（自然）科学与人文科学之间的这种分歧，如果说在本世纪有什么变化的话，那就是变得更深了。   Until recently, the scientific community was so powerful that it could afford to ignore its critics -- but no longer.  As funding for science has declined, scientists have attacked “anti-science” in several books, notably Higher Superstition, by Paul R. Gross, a biologist at the University of Virginia, and Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers University; and The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. 在前些年，科学界势力强大，可以对批评者置之不理——但现在不同了。由于科研经费的减少，科学家出了几本书来抨击“反科学”势力。其中值得注意的有弗吉尼亚大学生物学家Paul R. Gross和拉特格斯大学的数学家Norman Levitt合著的《高级迷信》及康奈尔大学的Carl Sagan 撰写的《鬼怪世界》。   Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as “The Flight from Science and Reason,” held in New York City in 1995, and “Science in the Age of (Mis) information,” which assembled last June near Buffalo. 科学的捍卫者们也在一些会议上表达了他们的担忧。例如，1995年在纽约城举行的“远离科学和理性”大会，以及去年6月在布法罗附近召开的“（伪）信息时代的科学”大会。   Anti-science clearly means different things to different people. Gross and Levitt find fault primarily with sociologists, philosophers and other academics who have questioned science’s objectivity. Sagan is more concerned with those who believe in ghosts, creationism and other phenomena that contradict the scientific worldview. 显然，反科学对不同的人有不同的含义。Gross 和 Levitt 主要挑那些质疑科学客观性的社会学家、哲学家和其他学者的毛病。而Sagan则更关注那些相信鬼怪、上帝造物论以及其他与科学世界观相左现象的人。   A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the anti-science tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research. 1996年对新闻报道的调查表明，反科学的标签也贴在了许多其他群体上，从提倡消灭所有现存的天花病毒的权威机构到鼓吹削减基础研究基金的共和党人士。   Few would dispute that the term applies to the Unabomber, whose manifesto, published in 1995, scorns science and longs for return to a pre-technological utopia. But surely that does not mean environmentalists concerned about uncontrolled industrial growth are anti-science, as an essay in US News & World Report last May seemed to suggest. 将该词用在 Unabomber上也不会引起多大争议，其宣言于1995年发表，该宣言蔑视科学、渴望回到前技术时代的完美社会。但，这显然并不意味着，对不加控制的工业发展表示担忧的环保主义者也是反科学的，尽管去年5月份刊登在《美国新闻和世界报导》的一篇文章似乎有此暗示。   The environmentalists, inevitably, respond to such critics. The true enemies of science, argues Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, a pioneer of environmental studies, are those who question the evidence supporting global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and other consequences of industrial growth. 环保主义者不可避免要对这些批评做出反应。作为环境研究的先驱者，斯坦福大学的Paul Ehrlich 认为，科学的真正的敌人是那些对全球变暖、臭氧层空洞和工业增长带来的其他后果的证据提出质疑的人。   Indeed, some observers fear that the anti-science epithet is in danger of becoming meaningless. “The term ‘anti-science’ can lump together too many, quite different things,” notes Harvard University philosopher Gerald Holton in his 1993 work Science and Anti-Science. “They have in common only one thing that they tend to annoy or threaten those who regard themselves as more enlightened.” 的确，一些观察者担心反科学这个词会失去意义。“‘反科学’一词可以涵盖太多截然不同的东西”，哈佛大学的哲学家Gerald Holton 在其1993年的著作《科学和反科学》中写道：“它们惟一的共同点就是会激怒或威胁那些自以为比别人更高明的人。” 1998年Text 4 更新2011-11-11 (2009-03-07 00:19:27) 转载▼ 标签： 李剑真题翻译 分类： 考研阅读   1---Emerging from the 1980 census is the picture of a nation developing more and more regional competition, as population growth in the Northeast and Midwest reaches a near standstill. 1980年美国人口普查表明：随着东北部和中西部人口增长近乎停止，地区间的竞争越来越激烈了。   2---This development -- and its strong implications for US politics and economy in years ahead -- has enthroned the South as America’s most densely populated region for the first time in the history of the nation’s head counting. 这一发展趋势以及它对今后几年在美国政治和经济的重大影响使南部在美国人口普查史上首次成为人口最密集的地区。   3---Altogether, the US population rose in the 1970s by 23.2 million people -- numerically the third-largest growth ever recorded in a single decade. Even so, that gain adds up to only 11.4 percent, lowest in American annual records except for the Depression years. 20世纪70年代，美国人口总共增长了2320万——从数字上看，这是有纪录以来10年期人口增长的第三高峰。即使如此，人口总数也只增加了11.4％，除了大萧条时期，这是美国最低的年度增长率。   4---Americans have been migrating south and west in larger numbers since World War II, and the pattern still prevails. 自从第二次世界大战以来，美国人口一直大量向南部和西部迁移，而且至今这种趋势仍然盛行。   5---Three sun-belt states -- Florida, Texas and California -- together had nearly 10 million more people in 1980 than a decade earlier. Among large cities, San Diego moved from 14th to 8th and San Antonio from 15th to 10th -- with Cleveland and Washington. D. C., dropping out of the top 10. 佛罗里达、得克萨斯和加利福尼亚这三个阳光充沛的州，1980年的人口比10年前增加了近1000万。在大城市排行榜上，圣地亚哥从第14位上升到第8位，圣安东尼奥从第15位升到第10位，而克利夫兰和华盛顿特区却被挤出了前10位。   6---Not all that shift can be attributed to the movement out of the snow belt, census officials say. Nonstop waves of immigrants played a role, too -- and so did bigger crops of babies as yesterday’s “baby boom” generation reached its child bearing years. 人口普查官员说，所有这些排名的变化并非都起源于人们是为了离开寒冷地区。不断涌入的（外国）移民潮，还有以前在“婴儿潮”期间出生的那些人到了生育年龄后又生育了更多的孩子，这些因素（对于这些排位的变化）也有一定的作用。        注：1. that shift应该指上段的排名变化。            2. 第四段本国的移民叫migrate，而这里用immigrant，指的是外国移民。   7---Moreover, demographers see the continuing shift south and west as joined by a related but newer phenomenon: More and more, Americans apparently are looking not just for places with more jobs but with fewer people, too. Some instances— 此外，人口统计学家发现，向南部和西部的不断迁移还伴随着一种与此相关却又与以往不同的现象：越来越多的美国人显然不再仅仅寻找有更多就业机会的地方，他们也在寻找人口稀少的地方。请看以下例子：   ■Regionally, the Rocky Mountain states reported the most rapid growth rate -- 37.1 percent since 1970 in a vast area with only 5 percent of the US population. 从区域上看，洛基山脉附近各州上报了自1970年以来最高的人口增长率——37.1％，而以前这片广袤土地上的人口仅占美国总人口的5％。   ■Among states, Nevada and Arizona grew fastest of all: 63.5 and 53.1 percent respectively. Except for Florida and Texas, the top 10 in rate of growth is composed of Western states with 7.5 million people -- about 9 per square mile. 从各州情况看，内华达和亚利桑那是增长率最高的两个州：其增长率分别为63.5％和53.1％。除了佛罗里达州和得克萨斯州外，处于人口增长率前10位的都是西部各州，共有750万人——每平方英里约9个人。   8---The flight from overcrowdedness affects the migration from snow belt to more bearable climates. 离开人口过度稠密区的做法影响了以前那种离开寒冷地带去气候宜人之地的趋势。   9---Nowhere do 1980 census statistics dramatize more the American search for spacious living than in the Far West. There, California added 3.7 million to its population in the 1970s, more than any other state. 1980年的人口普查统计显示出：遥远西部的美国人最追求宽敞的生存空间。西部的加利福尼亚州在70年代人口增加了370万，比其他任何州都多。 注：本句子nowhere属于倒装，应该放在than前面。可还原为： 1980 census statistics dramatize more American search for spacious living nowhere than in the Far West. 但是nowhere ... more ... than这个句型的真正意思是= everywhere else ... less ... than；即“than”后面的内容是最高级的（the most）； 再比如： Nowhere did the Jewish people suffer more pain than in Natzi's concentration camp. = Jewish people suffered less pain in everywhere else than in Natzi's concentration camp. = Jewish people suffered the most pain in Natzi's concentration camp.    10---In that decade, however, large numbers also migrated from California, mostly to other parts of the West. Often they chose -- and still are choosing -- somewhat colder climates such as Oregon, Idaho and Alaska in order to escape smog, crime and other plagues of urbanization in the Golden State. 70年代也有大量的人离开加利福尼亚，大多数去了西部其他各州。他们当时常常选择——现在依然这样选择——一些气候较冷的地区，如俄勒冈、爱达荷和阿拉斯加，为的是躲开“金州”加利福尼亚的烟雾、犯罪和其他城市化进程中的问题。   11---As a result, California’s growth rate dropped during the 1970s, to 18.5 percent -- little more than two thirds the 1960s’ growth figure and considerably below that of other Western states. 结果，加利福尼亚的人口增长率在70年代降到了18.5％——略高于60年代增长率的2/3，但明显大大低于西部其他各州。 1998年Text 5 更新08-19 (2009-03-07 00:21:10) 转载▼ 标签： 李剑真题翻译 分类： 考研阅读 Scattered around the globe are more than 100 small regions of isolated volcanic activity known to geologists as hot spots. Unlike most of the world’s volcanoes, they are not always found at the boundaries of the great drifting plates that make up the earth’s surface; on the contrary, many of them lie deep in the interior of a plate. Most of the hot spots move only slowly, and in some cases the movement of the plates past them has left trails of dead volcanoes. The hot spots and their volcanic trails are milestones that mark the passage of the plates. 地球上散落分布着100多个互不相连、面积不大的火山活动区，被地质学家称为热点。和世界上大多数火山不同的是，它们并不总是位于地球表面的巨大漂流板块之间的连接处；相反，许多热点处于板块较深的内部。大多数热点移动非常缓慢，有时，板块滑过这些热点，就会留下死火山的痕迹。热点及其火山痕迹是板块移动的标志。   That the plates are moving is now beyond dispute. Africa and South America, for example, are moving away from each other as new material is injected into the sea floor between them. The complementary coastlines and certain geological features that seem to span the ocean are reminders of where the two continents were once joined. The relative motion of the plates carrying these continents has been constructed in detail, but the motion of one plate with respect to another cannot readily be translated into motion with respect to the earth’s interior. It is not possible to determine whether both continents are moving in opposite directions or whether one continent is stationary and the other is drifting away from it. Hot spots, anchored in the deeper layers of the earth, provide the measuring instruments needed to resolve the question. From an analysis of the hot-spot population it appears that the African plate is stationary and that it has not moved during the past 30 million years. 板块漂移这一理论现在是无可争辩的了。以非洲和南美洲为例，由于有新的物质嵌入二者之间的海底，两个大洲之间的距离越来越远。但互相吻合的海岸线和某些似乎跨越海洋的地质特征会使人想到这两个大陆曾经是连成一片的。带着两个大陆板块漂移的相对运动已经能够被详细地阐述出来，但一个板块相对另一板块的运动还不能轻易地解释为它们相对于地球内部的运动。人们还不能确定两个大陆是在朝相反的方向运动，也不能确定是否一个大陆停止不动而另一个离它而去。位于地球更深层的热点提供了解决该问题的测量仪器。从热点的数量来看，非洲板块似乎是固定的，在过去3000万年里也没有移动过。   The significance of hot spots is not confined to their role as a frame of reference. It now appears that they also have an important influence on the geophysical processes that propel the plates across the globe. When a continental plate come to rest over a hot spot, the material rising from deeper layers creates a broad dome. As the dome grows, it develops deep fissures (cracks); in at least a few cases the continent may break entirely along some of these fissures, so that the hot spot initiates the formation of a new ocean. Thus just as earlier theories have explained the mobility of the continents, so hot spots may explain their mutability (inconstancy). 热点的重要意义不仅在于它们作为参照体系起到的作用。现在看来，它们还对推动板块在地球表面漂移这一地球物理过程有重要影响。当大陆板块漂移到热点上方，来自地球深层涌出的物质便形成了巨大的圆顶状隆起物。随着这个圆顶的增长，板块出现深深的裂缝。至少有几次，大陆可能会沿着其中的一些裂缝完全裂开了，因此这个热点就引发了一个新海洋的形成。这样，正像早期的理论解释了大陆的可移动性一样，热点理论或许能解释大陆板块的不稳定性。