1、翻译 2 / 32 第一部分 考研翻译 真题（ 1990年 2014年） 1990 年英译汉试题 People have wondered for a long time how their personalities， and behaviors are formed. It is not easy to explain why one person is intelligent and another is not， or why one is cooperative and another is competitive. Social scientists are， of course，
2、 extremely interested in these types of questions. (61)They want to explain why we possess certain characteristics and exhibit certain behaviors. There are no clear answers yet， but two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed. As one might expect， the two approaches are very differe
3、nt from each other. The controversy is often conveniently referred to as nature vs. nurture. (62)Those who support the nature side of the conflict believe that our personalities and behavior patterns are largely determined by biological factors. (63)That our environment has little，if anything， to do
4、 with our abilities， characteristics and behavior is central to this theory. Taken to an extreme， this theory maintains that our behavior is predetermined to such a great degree that we are almost completely governed by our instincts. Those who support the nurture theory， that is， they advocate educ
5、ation， are often called behaviorists. They claim that our environment is more important than our biologically based instincts in determining how we will act. A behaviorist， B.F. Skinner， sees humans as beings whose behavior is almost completely shaped by their surroundings. The behaviorists maintain
6、 that，like machines， humans respond to environmental stimuli as the basis of their behavior. Let us examine the different explanations about one human characteristic， intelligence，offered by the two theories. Supporters of the nature theory insist that we are born with a certain capacity for learnin
7、g that is biologically determined. Needless to say， they dont believe that factors in the environment have much influence on what is basically a predetermined characteristic. On the other hand， behaviorists argue that our intelligence levels are the product of our experiences. (64)Behaviorists sugge
8、st that the child who is raised in an environment where there are many stimuli which develop his or her capacity for appropriate responses will experience greater intellectual development. The social and political implications of these two theories are profound. In the United States，blacks often sco
9、re below whites on standardized intelligence tests. This leads some nature proponents to conclude that blacks are biologically inferior to whites. (65)Behaviorists， in contrast，say that differences in scores are due to the fact that blacks are often deprived of many of the educational and other envi
10、ronmental advantages that whites enjoy. Most people think neither of these theories can yet fully explain human behavior. 1991 年英译汉试题 The fact is that the energy crisis， which has suddenly been officially announced， has been with us for a long time now， and will be with us for an even longer time. W
11、hether Arab oil flows freely or not， it is clear to everyone that world industry cannot be allowed to depend on so fragile a base. (71)The supply of oil can be shut off unexpectedly at any time， and in any case， the oil wells will all run dry in thirty years or so at the present rate of use. 翻译 3 /
12、32 (72)New sources of energy must be found， and this will take time， but it is not likely to result in any situation that will ever restore that sense of cheap and plentiful energy we have had in the times past. For an indefinite period from here on， mankind is going to advance cautiously， and consi
13、der itself lucky that it can advance at all. To make the situation worse， there is as yet no sign that any slowing of the worlds population is in sight. Although the birthrate has dropped in some nations， including the United States， the population of the world seems sure to pass six billion and per
14、haps even seven billion as the twenty-first century opens. (73)The food supply will not increase nearly enough to match this， which means that we are heading into a crisis in the matter of producing and marketing food. Taking all this into account， what might we reasonably estimate supermarkets to b
15、e like in the year2001? To begin with， the world food supply is going to become steadily tighter over the next thirty yearseven here in the United States.By2001， the population of the United States will be at least two hundred fifty million and possibly two hundred seventy million， and the nation wi
16、ll find it difficult to expand food production to fill the additional mouths. (74)This will be particularly true since energy pinch will make it difficult to continue agriculture in the high energy American fashion that makes it possible to combine few farmers with high yields. It seems almost certa
17、in that by2001the United States will no longer be a great food exporting nation and that， if necessity forces exports， it will be at the price of belt tightening at home. In fact， as food items will end to decline in quality and decrease in variety， there is very likely to be increasing use of flavo
18、uring additives. (75)Until such time as mankind has the sense to lower its population to the point where the planet can provide a comfortable support for all， people will have to accept more unnatural food. 1992 年英译汉试题 Intelligence at best is an assumptive constructthe meaning of the word has never
19、been clear. (71)There is more agreement on the kinds of behavior referred to by the term than there is on how to interpret or classify them. But it is generally agreed that a person of high intelligence is one who can grasp ideas readily， make distinctions， reason logically， and make use of verbal a
20、nd mathematical symbols in solving problems. An intelligence test is a rough measure of a childs capacity for learning the kinds of things required in school. It does not measure character， social adjustment， physical endurance， manual skills， or artistic abilities. It is not supposed toit was not d
21、esigned for such purposes. (72)To criticize it for such failure is roughly comparable to criticizing a thermometer for not measuring wind velocity. The other thing we have to notice is that the assessment of the intelligence of any subject is essentially a comparative affair. (73)Now since the asses
22、sment of intelligence is a comparative matter we must be sure that the scale with which we are comparing our subjects provides a valid or fair comparison. It is here that some of the difficulties which interest us begin. Any test performed involves at least three factors: the intention to do ones be
23、st， the knowledge required for understanding what you have to do， and the intellectual ability to do it. (74)The first two must be equal for all who are being compared， if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made. In school populations in our culture these assumptions can be made fair a
24、nd reasonable， and the value of intelligence 翻译 4 / 32 testing has been proved thoroughly. Its value lies， of course， in its providing a satisfactory basis for prediction. No one is in the least interested in the marks a little child gets on his test; what we are interested in is whether we can conc
25、lude from his mark on the test that the child will do better or worse than other children of his age at tasks which we think require general intelligence. (75)On the whole such a conclusion can be drawn with a certain degree of confidence， but only if the child can be assumed to have had the same at
26、titude towards the test as the others with whom he is being compared， and only if he was not punished by lack of relevant information which they possessed. 1993 年英译汉试题 (71)The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind; it is s
27、imply the mode by which all phenomena are reasoned about and given precise and exact explanation. There is no more difference， but there is just the same kind of difference， between the mental operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary person， as there is between the operations and meth
28、ods of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his goods in common scales， and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means of his balance and finely graded weights. (72)It is not that the scales in the one case， and the balance in the other， differ in the princip
29、les of their construction or manner of working; but that the latter is much finer apparatus and of course much more accurate in its measurement than the former. You will understand this better， perhaps， if I give you some familiar examples. (73)You have all heard it repeated that men of science work
30、 by means of induction（归纳法） and deduction， that by the help of these operations， they， in a sort of sense， manage to extract from Nature certain natural laws， and that out of these， by some special skill of their own， they build up their theories. (74)And it is imagined by many that the operations o
31、f the common mind can be by no means compared with these processes， and that they have to be acquired by a sort of special training. To hear all these large words， you would think that the mind of a man of science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men; but if you will not be fr
32、ightened by terms， you will discover that you are quite wrong， and that all these terrible apparatus are being used by yourselves every day and every hour of your lives. There is a well-known incident in one of Molieres plays， where the author makes the hero express unbounded delight on being told t
33、hat he had been talking prose（散文） during the whole of his life. In the same way， I trust that you will take comfort， and be delighted with yourselves， on the discovery that you have been acting on the principles of inductive and deductive philosophy during the same period. (75)Probably there is not
34、one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion a complex train of reasoning， of the very same kind， though differing in degree， as that which a scientific man goes through in tracing the causes of natural phenomena. 1994 年英译汉试题 According to the new school of scientists,
35、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 techniques and tools. (72) In short, a leader of the new school contends,
36、 the scientific revolution, as we call it, 翻译 5 / 32 was largely the improvement and invention and use of a series of instruments that expanded the reach of science in innumerable directions. (73) Over the years, tools and technology themselves as a source of fundamental innovation have largely been
37、 ignored by historians and philosophers of science. The modern school that hails technology argues that such masters as Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and inventors such as Edison attached great importance to, and derived great benefit from, craft information and technological devices of differ
38、ent kinds that were usable in scientific experiments. The centerpiece of the argument of a technology-yes, genius-no advocate was an analysis of Galileos role at the start of the scientific revolution. The wisdom of the day was derived from Ptolemy, an astronomer of the second century, whose elabora
39、te system of the sky put Earth at the center of all heavenly motions. (74)Galileos 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 around the sun rather than around the Earth. But the real hero of the story
40、, 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 should increase the financing of pure science at the expense of technolog
41、y or vice versa often depends on the issue of which is seen as the driving force. 1995 年英译汉试题 The standardized educational or psychological tests that are widely used to aid in selecting, classifying, assigning, or promoting students, employees, and military personnel have been the target of recent
42、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 themselves are merely tools, with characteristics that can be measured with re
43、asonable 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 performance are based upon some knowledge of relevant past performance: school grades
44、 research productive, sales records, or whatever is appropriate. (72) How well the predictions will be validated by later performance depends upon the amount, reliability, and appropriateness of the information used and on the skill and wisdom with which it is interpreted. Anyone who keeps careful s
45、core 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 some kids of information about what a person learned, the skills he has deve
46、loped, or the kinds 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 particular situation depends, therefore, upon the evidence from experience conc
47、erning comparative validity and upon such factors as cost and availability. (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 to be measured or predicted cannot be well defined. Properly used, they provi
48、de 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, they do not compensate for gross 翻译 6 / 32 social inequality, and thus do not te
49、ll how able an underprivileged youngster might have been had he grown up under more favorable circumstances. 1996 年英译汉试题 The differences in relative growth of various areas of scientific research have several causes. (71)Some of 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 to take, by persons in authority,
