英语专四专八经典翻译真题

1. The American economic system is, organized around a basically private-enterprise, market- oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. [参考译文] 美国的经济是以基本的私有企业和市场导向经济为架构的，在这种经济中，消费者很大程度上通过在市场上为那些他们最想要的货品和服务付费来决定什么应该被制造出来。

2. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.

[参考译文] 因此，在美国的经济体系中，个体消费者的需求与商人试图最大化其利润的欲望和个人想最大化其收入效用的欲望相结合，一起决定了什么应该被制造，以及资源如何被用来制造它们。

3. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product.

[参考译文] 另一方面，如果大量制造某种商品导致其成本下降，那么这就有可能增加卖方和制造商能提供的供给，而这也就会反过来降低价格并允许更多的消 费者购买产品。

4. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.

[参考译文] 在美国经济中，私有财产的概念不仅包含对生产资源的所有权，也指其他一些特定的权利，如确定一个产品价格和与另一个私人个体(经济单位) 自由签定合同的权利。

5. At the same time these computers record which hours are busiest and which employers are the most efficient, allowing personnel and staffing assignments to be made accordingly. And they also identify preferred customers for promotional campaigns.

[参考译文] 同时这些计算机记录下哪些时间是最忙的，哪些员工工作效率最高，这样就能相应地做出人员人事安排。而且它们(计算机)也能为促销活动找到那些拥有优先权的顾客。

6. Numerous other commercial enterprises, from theaters to magazine publishers, from gas and electric utilities to milk processors, bring better and more efficient services to consumers through the use of computers.

[参考译文] 不计其数的其他商业企业，从剧院到杂志出版商，从公用燃气电力设施到牛奶处理厂，都通过计算机的使用给消费者带来更好、更有效率的服务。

7. Exceptional children are different in some significant way from others of the same age For these children to develop to their full adult potential, their education must be adapted to those differences.

[参考译文] 残疾儿童在许多关键方面都与其同龄人不同。为了让这些孩子发展其全部的成人后的潜能，他们的教育必须适应这些不同。

8. The great interest in exceptional children shown in public education over the past three decades indicates the strong feeling in our society that all citizens, whatever their special conditions, deserve the opportunity to fully develop their capabilities.

[参考译文] 在过去的30年中，公共教育中显示的对残疾儿童的巨大关注表明了我们社会中的一种中强烈的情绪，那就是所有的公民，不管其情况有多特殊，都应享有充分发展其能力的机会。

9. It serves directly to assist a rapid distribution of goods at reasonable price, thereby establishing a firm home market and so making it possible to provide for export at competitive prices.

[参考译文] 它(广告)能够直接帮助货物以比较合理的价格被迅速分销出去，因此可以(使公司)建立一个坚固的国内市场，同时也使以具有竞争力的价格提供出口变得可能。

10. Apart from the fact that twenty-seven acts of Parliament govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dare promote a product that fails to live up to the promise of his advertisements.

[参考译文] 除去议会有27件法案来规范广告的条件，没有任何一个正式的广告商敢于推销一种商品却不能兑现其在广告中的承诺。

11. If its message were confined merely to information and that in itself would be difficult if not impossible to achieve, for even a detail such as the choice of the color of a shirt is subtly persuasive-advertising wound be so boring that no one wound pay any attention.

[参考译文] 如果其信息只被局限于告知一一就广告而言，如果这不是完全不可能达到的，也是非常难做的，因为即便是一个诸如衬衫的颜色的选择这样的细节都会具有微妙的说服意味，那么广告就会如此地乏味以至于没有人 会关注它。

12. The workers who gets a promotion, the student whose grades improve, the foreigner who learns a new language-all these are examples of people who have measurable results to show for there efforts.

[参考译文] 得到了升迁的工人们，成绩进步的学生，学会了一门新语言的外国人一 一这些都是那些有可衡量的结果宋显示其努力的人们的例证。

13. As families move away from their stable community, their friends of many years, their extended family relationships, the informal flow of information is cut off, and with it the confidence that information will be available when needed and will be trustworthy and reliable.

[参考译文] 随着家庭离开他们原来稳定的社区，离开他们多年的朋友和扩展的家庭关系，非正式的信息流动被切断了，随之而去的是对在需要时能获得可靠和值得信赖的信息的信心。

14. The individual now has more information available than any generation, and the task of finding that one piece of information relevant to his or her specific problem is complicated, time--consuming, and sometimes even overwhelming.

[参考译文] 现在每个人能够得到的信息比任何时代的人都多，而找到与他/她的特定问题相关的那一点信息的任务不仅复杂、耗时，有时甚至令人难以招 。

15. Expertise can be shared world wide through teleconferencing, and problems in dispute can be settled without the participants leaving their homes and/or jobs to travel to a distant conference site.

[参考译文] 通过远程会议，专家知识可以在全世界范围内被分享，而争论的问题能够得到解决，同时相关人员也不必离开他们的家庭或工作跑到一个遥远的开会地点。

16. The current passion for making children compete against their classmates or against the clock produces a two-layer system, in which competitive A-types seem in some way better than their B type fellows.

[参考译文] 现在这种让孩子们和其同学或时间竞争的热情导致了一个双层结构，在这个结构里面善于竞争的A类好像在某个方面要比他们B类的同辈更胜一筹。

17. While talking to you, your could-be employer is deciding whether your education, your experience, and other qualifications will pay him to employ you and your "wares" and abilities must be displayed in an orderly and reasonably connected manner.

[参考译文] 在跟你谈话的时候，可能成为你的雇主的人就一直在衡量你的教育、经 验和其他资格是不是值得他雇用你，而你的"商品"和能力一定要以一种有条不紊而且合情合理的相互关联的方式被展示出来。

18. The Corporation will survive as a publicly funded broadcasting organization, at least for the time being, but its role, its size and its programs are now the subject of a nation wide debate in Britain.

[参考译文] 英国广播公司将作为一个公共基金支持的广播组织存在下来，至少目前会这样，但是它的角色、它的规模和它的节目现在在英国成了全国上下的讨论话题。

19. The debate was launched by the Government, which invited anyone with an opinion of the BBC--including ordinary listeners and viewer to say what was good or bad about the Corporation, and even whether they thought it was worth keeping.

[参考译文] 这场辩论是由政府发动的，政府请任何一个对英国广播公司有意见的人一包括普通的听众和观众一来说说这个公司好在哪里或坏在哪里，甚至要说说他们是否认为这个公司值得被保留下来。

20. The change met the technical requirements of the new age by engaging a large profess signal element and prevented the decline in efficiency that so commonly spoiled the fortunes of family firms in the second and third generation after the energetic founders.

[参考译文] 这种变化通过引入许多的专业因素从而适应了这个新时代的技术要求， 并且它(这种变化)防止了效率的降低。这种效率的降低在精力充沛的创业者之后的第二代和第三代人(领导公司)的时候，经常会毁掉那些家族公司的财富。

21. Such large, impersonal manipulation of capital and industry greatly increased the numbers and importance of shareholders as a class, an element in national life representing irresponsible wealth detached from the land and the duties of the landowners: and almost equally detached from the responsible management of business.

[参考译文] 这样巨大而非个人的对资金和产业的操纵极大地增加了股东的数量和他 们作为一个阶级的重要性，这是国家生活中代表不负责任的财富的一个因素，这种财富不但远离了土地和土地拥有者的责任，而且几乎同样与公司的负责任的管理毫无关系。

22. Towns like Bournemouth and Eastbourne sprang up to house large "comfortable" classes who had retired on their incomes, and who had no relation to the rest of the community except that of drawing dividends and occasionally attending a shareholders’ meeting to dictate their orders to the management.

[参考译文] 像伯恩茅斯和伊斯特本这样的城镇的涌现是为了给那些数量很多的"舒 适"阶级提供居住场所。这些人依赖于其丰厚收入而不工作，他们除了 分红和偶尔参加一下股东大会，向管理层口授一下自己的命令之外，跟社会的其他阶层毫无瓜葛。

23. The "shareholders" as such had no knowledge of the lives, thoughts or needs of the workmen employed by the company in which he held shares, and his influence on the relations of capital and labor was not good.

[参考译文] 这样的"股东"对他拥有股份的公司所雇用的工人们的生活、思想和需求一无所知，而且他们对劳资双方的关系都不会产生积极的影响。

24. The paid manager acting for the company was in more direct relation with the men and their demands, but even he had seldom that familiar personal knowledge of the workmen which the employer had often had under the more patriarchal system of the old family business now passing away.

[参考译文] 代表公司的花钱雇来的经理与工人及其需求的关系更加直接，但是就连 他对工人们也没有那种熟识的私人之间的了解。而在现在正在消失的古老家族公司的那种更加家长式的制度下的雇主们却常常对他们的工人有 这样的私人关系。

25. Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country’s excellent elementary schools: a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal, "spatial" thinking about things technological.

[参考译文] 在许多形成因素当中，我将挑选出这些：这个国家优秀的小学教育：欢 迎新技术的劳动者们：奖励发明者的做法;而且最重要的是美国人在对 那些技术性事物的非言语的、"空间性的"思考方面的天赋。

26. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, "A technologist thinks about objects that can not be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions: they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process...The designer and the inventor.., are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist".

[参考译文] 正如尤金•弗格森所指出的那样："一个技术专家思考那些不能被简化成 能被清楚的语言描述的东西。这些东西在他的思维中是通过一种视觉的、 非语言表述的过程宋处理的……设计者和发明者……能够在他们的脑中装配并操作那些还不存在的装置。"

27. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheel, etc, like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea".

[参考译文] 罗伯特•法欧特曾经这样写到："一个技师会坐在杠杆、螺丝钉、楔子、 轮子等等当中，就像一个诗人沉浸在字母表的字母中，把这些字母看成自己思想的展示，在这样的展示中，每种新的次序安排都传达了--种新 的思想。"

28. In the last three chapters, he takes off his gloves and gives the creationists a good beating. He describes their programs and, tactics, and, for those unfamiliar with the ways of creationists, the extent of their deception and distortion may come as an unpleasant surprise.

[参考译文] 在最后三章中，他脱下手套，将神造论者好好地揍了一顿。他描述了他 们的活动和战术，而且，对于那些对神造论者的做事方式刁;熟悉的人来说，神造论者的欺骗和扭曲事实的程度可能会令这些人有一种不快的诧异。

29. On the dust jacket of this fine book, Stephen Jay Gould says: "This book stands for reason itself." And so it does-and all wound be well were reason the only judge in the creationism/evolution debate.

[参考译文] 在这本杰出的书的外纸封面上，史蒂芬•杰伊•古尔德写道："这本书本 身就代表理性。"而它确实是这样的--而且如果理性成为神造论/地化论之间的辩论中的惟一评判标准的话，一切就都好办了。

30. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia’s Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die.

[参考译文] 经过了六个月的争论以及最后16个小时激烈的议会辩论，澳大利亚北 部地区成了世界上第一个允许医生终止希望死去的绝症病人生命的立法当局。

31. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back.

[参考译文] 一些机构终于松了一口气，但是其他一些机构，包括教堂，倡导生命之 权的团体和澳大利亚医学协会，尖锐地抨击这个法案，指责法案的通过过于匆忙。但是大势已定，不可逆转。

32. In Australia- where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their part other states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia.

[参考译文] 在澳大利亚--人口老龄化，延长寿命的技术和变化看的社会态度，这 些因素都在发挥作用一一其他的州也会考虑制定相似的关于安乐死的法律。

33. There are, of course, exceptions. Small--minded officials, rude waiters, and ill mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment.

[参考译文] 当然，例外是存在的。在美国，心胸狭窄的官员，粗鲁的传者，和没有 礼貌的出租车司机也并不少见。然而人们常常得出这样的观察意见，这使得它值得被讨论一下。

34. We live in a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances (drugs) is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves.

[参考译文] 我们生活在一种药品(毒品)的医学用途和社会用途都很广泛的社会里： 一片用来止头痛的阿斯匹林，一些用来社交的葡萄酒，早上自己提提神所喝的咖啡，一支用来定神的香烟。

35. Dependence is marked first by an increased tolerance, with more and more of the substance required to produce the desired effect, and then by the appearance of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the substance is discontinued.

[参考译文] 对药品的依赖性首先表现为不断增长的耐药量，要产生想得到的效果所 需要的药品剂量越来越大，然后表现为当停止用药后，令人不快的停药症状的出现。

36. "Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers?" Senator Robert Dole asked Time Warner executives last week. "You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well?"

[参考译文] 上星期参议员罗博特多尔质问时代华纳公司的高级管理人员们："难道这 就是你们希望能够成就的事业?你们已经出卖了自己的灵魂，但是难道你们还非要腐化我们的国家，威胁我们的孩子们吗?"

37. "The test of any democratic society, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column’, "lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be..."

[参考译文] "对任何一个民主社会的考验，"他在《华尔街杂志》的一个专栏文章中 写到，"不在于它能够多有效地控制各种意见的表达，而在于这个社会是否能给予思考和表达的尽可能广泛的自由，不管有时候这种结果是多么的富有争议或令人不快…"

38. During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month’s stockholders’ meeting, Levin asserted that "music is not the cause of society’s ills" and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students.

[参考译文] 在-上个月的股东大会上关于摇滚歌词的讨论中，莱文宣称说："音乐不是 社会问题的原因"，他甚至还以他的儿子为例。他的儿子是纽约州布朗克斯的一个教师，并用说唱音乐与学生们进行沟通。

39. Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as "steering the economy to a soft landing" of "a touch on the brakes" , makes it sound like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[参考译文] 有很多用于描述货币政策的词汇，例如"轻踩刹车"以"操纵经济软着 陆"，使货币政策听起来像是一门精确的科学。没有什么比这更远离实际情况的了。

40. Economists have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since, conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America’s, have little productive slack.

[参考译文] 经济学家们对英国和美国的有利的通货膨胀数据尤其感到惊讶，因为传 统的计量方法显示两国的经济，特别是美国的经济，几乎没有生产萧条的时候。

41. The most thrilling explanation is, unfortunately, a little defective. Some economists argue that powerful structural changes in the world have upended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation.

[参考译文] 很不幸，这最令人震惊的解释有一点缺陷。一些经济学家认为世界经济 结构的强有力的变化已经结束了那个以经济增长和通货膨胀的历史关联为基础的旧的经济模式。

42. 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.

[参考译文] 例如，阿斯旺大坝使得尼罗河不再洪水泛滥，但是它也夺去了埃及以前 所享有的洪水留下的肥沃淤泥--这些换到的就是这么个疾病滋生的水库，现在这个水库积满了淤泥，几乎不能发电了。

43. 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,

[参考译文] 企业重组的新方法--所有那些重新设计、缩小规模的做法--只是对一个经济的整体生产力做出了一方面的贡献。这种经济还受许多其他因素的驱动，比如结合设备和机械上的投资、新技术，以及在教育和培训 上的投资。

44. 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.

[参考译文] 他的同事迈克尔?比尔说，有太多的公司已经用一种机械的方式实行公 司内部的重新设计，在没有充分考虑长期赢利的能力下削减了成本。

45. 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.

[参考译文] 科学卫士们在会议上也表述了他们的关注，比如1995年在纽约市举行的 "逃离科学与理性"会议，以及去年6月在布法罗附近召开的"(错误) 信息时代的科学"会议。

46. 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.

[参考译文] 一项关于1996年新闻报道的调查显示，反科学的标签还可以贴在许多其 他团体身上，从提倡消灭最后存留的天花病毒的权威机构，到鼓吹削减基础研究经费的共和党人(都被贴上了反科学的标签)。

47. The ’true enemies of science, argues Paul Ehrllch 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.

[参考译文] 环境研究的先驱、斯坦福大学的保罗•厄尔里西认为，科学真正的敌人 是那些对支持全球变暖、臭氧层损耗以及工业发展的其他后果的证据提出置疑的人。

48. This development--and its strong implication 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.

[参考译文] 这种发展--以及其对美国政治、经济在未来几年的潜在的强有力的影 响一一使得南部在全国人口普查中有史以来首次成为美国人口最密集的地区。

49. Often they choose--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.

[参考译文] 他们常常选择--现在依然这样选择--居住在那些气候较为寒冷的地 区， 比如俄勒冈、爱达荷，还有阿拉斯加，为的是逃避烟雾、犯罪，以及"金州"(加利福尼亚)城市化进程中的其他问题。

50. As a result, California’s growth rate dropped during the 1970’s, to 18.5 percent--little more than two thirds the 1960’s growth figure and considerably below that of other Western states.

[参考译文] 结果，加利福尼亚的人口增长率在20世纪70年代时下降到了18.5%一 一稍高于60年代增长率的三分之二，大大低于西部其他各州。