2012外国语翻译大赛试题及答案

2012 National English Contestfor College Students(Level C - Preliminary)参考答案及作文评分标准Part I ListeningComprehension (30 marks)Part II Vocabulary andStructure (15 marks)31—35 BDABC 36—40 BDDAB 41—45 CADBCPart III Cloze (10 marks)46. likelihood 47.fortune 48. take 49. with 50. knowing补充回答：51. dozens 52. least 53. burning 54.easy/simple 55. realizePart IV Reading Comprehension (40 marks) Section A (10 marks)56. describe 57. opportunity 58. honeymoon 59. transition 60. characterized Section B (10 marks)61. F 62. T 63. T64. The special depth that true friendship is about.65. They need to get over fear of confrontation and rejection. Section C (10 marks)66. High fatality 67. thrill seeking; risk taking 68. pushing out personal boundaries 69. C 70. A Section D (10 marks)71.“Linguistic”intelligence and“Logical mathematical”intelligence.72. The ability to gauge one蒺s own mood, feelings and mental states, and the ability to gauge it in others anduse the information.73.“Logical mathematical”intelligence and the“bodily-kinesthetic”intelligence.74. 他的观点引发了激烈的讨论，应如何定义智力。

Chasing Riches From Africa to Europe and Finding Only SqualorPALOS DE LA FRONTERA, Spain — Back home in Gambia, Amadou Jallow was, at 22, a lover of reggae who had just finished college and had landed a job teaching science in a high school.But Europe beckoned.In his West African homeland, Mr. Jallow‟s salary was the equivalent of just 50 euros a month, barely enough for the necessities, he said. And everywhere in his neighborhood in Serekunda, Gambia‟s largest city, there was talk of easy money to be made in Europe.Now he laughs bitterly about all that talk. He lives in a patch of woods here in southern Spain, just outside the village of Palos de la Frontera, with hundreds of other immigrants. They have built their homes out of plastic sheeting and cardboard, unsure if the water they drink from an open pipe is safe. After six years on the continent, Mr. Jallow is rail thin, and his eyes have a yellow tinge.“We are not bush people,” he said recently as he gathered twigs to start a fire. “You think you are civilized. But this is how we live here. We suffer here.”The political upheaval in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa has opened the way for thousands of new migrants to make their way to Europe across the Mediterranean. Already some 25,000 have reached the island of Lampedusa, Italy, and hundreds more have arrived at Malta.The boats, at first, brought mostly Tunisians. But lately there have been more sub-Saharans.Experts say thousands more — many of whom have been moving around North Africa trying to get to Europe for years, including Somalis, Eritreans, Senegalese and Nigerians — are likely to follow, sure that a better life awaits them.But for Mr. Jallow and for many others who arrived before them, often after days at sea without food or water, Europe has offered hardships they never imagined. These days Mr. Jallow survives on two meals a day, mostly a leaden paste made from flour and oil, which he stirs with a branch.“It keeps the hunger away,” he said.The authorities estimate that there are perhaps 10,000 immigrants living in the woods in the southern Spanish province of Andalusia, a region known for its crops of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, and there are thousands more migrants in areas that produce olives, oranges and vegetables. Most of them have stories that echo Mr. Jallow‟s.From the road, their encampments look like igloos tucked among the trees. Up close, the squalor is clear. Piles of garbage and flies are everywhere. Old clothes, stiff from dirt and rain, hang from branches.“There is everything in there,” said Diego Cañamero, the leader of the farm workers‟ union in Andalusia, which tries to advocate for the men. “You have rats and snakes and mice and fleas.”The men in the woods do not call home with the truth, though. They send pictures of themselves posing next to Mercedes cars parked on the street, the kind of pictures that Mr. Jallow says he fell for so many years ago. Now he shakes his head toward his neighbors, who will not talk to reporters.“So many lies,” he said. “It is terrible what they are doing. But they are embarrassed.”Even now, though, Mr. Jallow will not consider going back to Gambia. “I would prefer to die here,” he said. “I cannot go home empty-handed. If I went home, they would be saying, …What have you been doing with yourself, Amadou?‟ They think in Europe there is money all over.”The immigrants — virtually all of them are men — cluster by nationality and look for work on the farms. But Mr. Cañamero says they are offered only the least desirable work, like handling pesticides, and little of it at that. Most have no working papers.Occasionally, the police bring bulldozers to tear down the shelters. But the men, who have usually used their family‟s life savings to get here, are mostly le ft alone — the conditions they live under are an open secret in the nearby villages.The mayor of Palos de La Frontera did not return phone calls about the camp. But Juan José Volante, the mayor of nearby Moguer, which has an even larger encampment, issued a statement saying the town did not have enough money to help the men. “The problem is too big for us,” he said. “Of course, we would like to do more.”On a warm spring night, some of the men play cards sitting on the plastic pesticide containers and broken furniture they have collected from the trash. Some drift into town to socialize and buy supplies, if they have money. But they are not welcome in the local bars. During the World Cup last year, the farm workers‟ union arranged for a truck to set up a giant television screen in the forest so the men could watch it.“The bars don‟t want them,” Mr. Cañamero said. “They say the men smell bad and they are not good for business. Most of them are Muslim, and they don‟t buy alcohol.”Mr. Jallow had his mother‟s blessing but had not told his father about his plans when he left home on his bicycle in 2002, heading for Senegal, where he hoped to find a boat to the Canary Islands.He ended up in Guinea-Bissau, where, one night two years later, he got word that a boat for Europe would leave in a few hours. There were so many people aboard — 131 — that he was barely able to move for the 11 days he spent at sea. The last five days were without food and water.Passengers were vomiting constantly, he said. The young man sitting next to him died one night, though no one noticed until the morning. His body was thrown overboard.“A lot of us could not walk when they took us off the boat,” he recalled. “I could still walk, but it was like I was drunk. I put myself in God‟s hands that he would take care of me.”After 40 days in a detention center in the Canary Islands he was brought to the mainland and released with a standard order to leave the country. “I thought I was going to be a millionaire,” Mr. Jallow said.His mother managed to get an uncle on the phone who said he would meet him at a train station. But when he arrived there, his uncle‟s phone rang and rang. Later, he learned his uncle lived nowhere near the station. Soon, he was steered to the forest by other immigrants.In the six years he has lived in Spain, Mr. Jallow has found temporary work in restaurants or in the fields, sometimes making 30 euros, or about $42, for 10 hours of work. He says he has made about 12,000 euros, close to $17,000, since coming to Europe, and sent maybe a third of it home. He has not talked to his family in months because he has no money.“Times are bad for everyone here,” he said. “Not long ago, I saw my uncle in the woods. But I told him he was nothing to me.”从非洲到欧洲—难民们的富翁梦西班牙，帕洛斯港—Amadou Jallow是一位瑞格舞爱好者，22岁的他大学毕业不久后，便在自己家乡冈比亚找到了一份工作—在一所高中教科学。

英译汉第一题The runaway success of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy suggests that when it comes to contemporary literature in translation, Americans are at least willing to read Scandinavian detective fiction. But for work from other regions, in other genres, winning the interest of big publishing houses and readers in the United States remains a steep uphill struggle.Among foreign cultural institutes and publishers, the traditional American aversion to literature in translation is known as “the 3 percent problem.” But now, hoping to increase their minuscule share of the American book market — about 3 percent — foreign governments and foundations, especially those on the margins of Europe, are taking matters into their own hands and plunging into the publishing fray in the United States.Increasingly, that campaign is no longer limited to widely spoken languages like French and German. From Romania to Catalonia to Iceland, cultural institutes and agencies are subsidizing publication of books in English, underwriting the training of translators, encouraging their writers to tour in the United States, submitting to American marketing and promotional techniques they may have previously shunned and exploiting existing niches in the publishing industry.“We have established this as a strategic objective, a long-term commitment to break through the American ma rket,” said Corina Suteu, who leads the New York branch of the European Union National Institutes for Culture and directs the Romanian Cultural Institute. “For nations in Europe, be they small or large, literature will always be one of the keys of their cultural existence, and we recognize that this is the only way we are going to be able to make that literature present in the United States.”For instance, the Dalkey Archive Press, a small publishing house in Champaign, Ill., that for more than 25 years has specialized in translated works, this year began a Slovenian Literature Series, underwritten by official groups in Slovenia, once part of Yugoslavia. The series’s first book, “Necropolis,” by Boris Pahor, is a powerful World War II concentration-camp memoir that has been compared to the best of Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, and has been followed by Andrej Blatnik’s “You Do Understand,” a rather absurdist but still touching collection of sketches and parables about love and intimacy.Dalkey has also begun or is about to begin similar series in Hebrew and Catalan, and with Switzerland and Mexico, the last of which will consist of four books yearly for six years. In each case a financing agency in the host country issubsidizing publication and participating in promotion and marketing in the United States, an effort that can easily require $10,000 or more a book.英译汉第二题Just east of Argentina’s Andean foot hills, an oil field called the Vaca Muerta —“dead cow” in English — has finally come to life.In May, the Argentine oil company YPF announced that it had found 150 million barrels of oil in the Patagonian field, and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner rushed onto national television to praise the discovery as something that could give new impetus to the country’s long-stagnant economy.“The importance of this discovery goes well beyond the volume,” said Sebastián Eskenazi, YPF’s chief executive, as he announced the find. “The important thing is it is something new: new energy, a new fu ture, new expectations.”Although there are significant hurdles, geologists say that the Vaca Muerta is a harbinger of a possible major expansion of global petroleum supplies over the next two decades as the industry uses advanced techniques to extract oil from shale and other tightly packed rocks.Oil experts caution that geologists have only just begun to study shale fields in much of the world, and thus can only guess at their potential. Little seismic work has been completed, and core samples need to be retrieved from thousands of feet below the surface to judge how much oil or gas can be retrieved.Skeptics also say that even if oil is found in many of these fields, some may not be recoverable using current technology.Argentina certainly has high hopes for shale oil from the southern Patagonian province of Neuquén. The 150 million barrels of recoverable shale oil found in the Vaca Muerta represents an increase of 8 percent in Argentina’s reserves, and the find was the biggest discovery of oil in the country since the late 1980s.Oil experts say the Vaca Muerta is probably just a start for Argentina, long a middle-ranked oil producer. Mr. Lynch noted that YPF had explored only 100 square miles out of 5,000 square miles in the whole shale deposit, and other oil companies working in the area had not announced any discoveries yet.So far, nearly all of the oil exploration in the shale fields in Argentina and elsewhere has been pursued with traditional vertical wells. Plans are just beginning for horizontal drilling.Some experts caution that the fast advance of oil production from shale in the United States is no guarantee of similar successes abroad, at least not in the near future.汉译英第一段和平稳定是发展的前提和基础。

2012年天津外国语大学英语翻译基础真题试卷(题后含答案及解析) 题型有：1. 词语翻译 2. 英汉互译词语翻译英译汉1．plain prose正确答案：晓畅易懂的文字2．orientalism正确答案：东方主义3．theory of games正确答案：博弈论4．text typology正确答案：文本类型学5．localization正确答案：本地化6．exoticism正确答案：异国情调7．cultural pluralism正确答案：文化多元主义8．lingua franca正确答案：通用语9．stage fright正确答案：怯场10．functional equivalence正确答案：功能对等11．PUGS正确答案：笨猪五国；欧猪五国；欧洲五国(Portugal，Ireland，Italy，Greece and Spain；是国际债券分析家、学者和国际经济界媒体对欧洲五个主权、债券、信用评级较低的经济体的贬称)12．Obama-mess正确答案：奥巴马困境13．seckill正确答案：秒杀14．Chindonesia正确答案：亚洲铁三角(中国、印度、印度尼西亚)15．intexticated正确答案：一边开车一边发短信16．broken society正确答案：道德沦丧的社会17．defriend正确答案：解除好友关系18．ghost estate正确答案：鬼宅，因经济衰退停工、未建成的住宅区19．copycatting正确答案：山寨20．great recession正确答案：大萧条汉译英21．翻译能力正确答案：translation ability22．翻译标准正确答案：criteria of translation23．典故正确答案：allusions24．汉化英语正确答案：Chinglish25．陪同口译正确答案：escort interpretation26．跨文化交际正确答案：intercultural communication27．模拟国际会议口译正确答案：simulated international conference interpreting 28．典籍英译正确答案：English translation of Chinese Classics 29．学术翻译正确答案：academic translation30．翻译专业硕士正确答案：Master of Translation and Interpreting(MTI)31．建设中国特色社会主义正确答案：build socialism with Chinese characteristics 32．加强政治文化建设正确答案：strengthen political and cultural construction 33．敲门砖正确答案：a stepping stone to success34．偏方正确答案：folk prescription35．富二代正确答案：rich second generation36．恶搞正确答案：hoax37．房奴正确答案：mortgage slave38．蜗居正确答案：humble abode39．农家乐正确答案：agritainment40．隐婚族正确答案：fake singles英汉互译英译汉41．When the world was a simpler place, the rich were fat, the poor were thin, and right-thinking people worried about how to feed the hungry. Now, in much of the world, the rich are thin, the poor are fat, and right-thinking people are worrying about obesity.Evolution is mostly to blame. It has designed mankind to cope with deprivation, not plenty. People are perfectly tuned to store energy in good years to see them through lean ones. But when bad times never come, they are stuck with that energy, stored around their expanding bellies.Thanks to rising agricultural productivity, lean years are rarer all over the globe. Modern-day Mal-thusians(马尔萨斯主义者), who used to draw graphs proving that the world was shortly going to run out of food, have gone rather quietly lately. Mankind has won what was, for most of his time on this planet, his biggest battle: to ensure that he and his offspring had had enough to eat. But every silver lining has a cloud, and the consequence of prosperity is a new plague that brings with it a host of interesting policy dilemmas.As a scourge of the modern world, obesity has an image problem. It is easier to associate with Father Christmas than with the four horses of the apocalypse(《启示录》)，but it has a good claim to lumber along beside them, for it is the world’s biggest public-health issue today—the main cause of heart disease, which kills more people these days than AIDS, malaria, war; the principle risk factor in diabetes ; heavily implicated in cancer and other diseases. Since the World Health Organization labeled obesity an “epidemic” in 2000, reports on its fearful consequences have come thick and fast.Will public-health warnings, combined with media pressure, persuade people to get thinner, just as they finally put them off tobacco? Possibly. In the rich world, sales of healthier foods are booming and new figures suggest that over the past year Americans got very slightly thinner for the first time in recorded history. But even if Americans are losing a few ounces, it will be many years before the country solves the health problems caused by half a century’s dining to excess. And everywhere else in the world, people are still piling on the pounds. That’s why there is now a consensus among doctors that governments should do something to stop them.正确答案：这个世界还不是很富裕的时候，富人胖穷人瘦，有识之士开始思考怎样喂饱穷人的肚子。

2012年河南省翻译竞赛翻译竞赛英译中参赛原文Over-regulated AmericaThe home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulationAmericans love to laugh at ridiculous regulations. A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there. The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end is which. Bureaucratic busybodies in Bethesda, Maryland, have shut down children’s lemon ade stands because the enterprising young moppets did not have trading licences. The list goes hilariously on.But red tape in America is no laughing matter. The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd. It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively. America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire. Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse. Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal.Consider the Dodd-Frank law of 2010. Its aim was noble: to prevent another financial crisis. Its strategy was sensible, too: improve transparency, stop banks from taking excessive risks, prevent abusive financial practices and end “too big to fail” by authorising regulators to seize any big, tottering financial firm and wind it down. This newspaper supported these goals at the time, and we still do. But Dodd-Frank is far too complex, and becoming more so. At 848 pages, it is 23 times longer than Glass-Steagall, the reform that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929. Worse, every other page demands that regulators fill in further detail. Some of these clarifications are hundreds of pages long. Just one bit, the “Volcker rule”, which aims to curb risky proprietary trading by banks, includes 383 questions that break down into 1,420 subquestions.Hardly anyone has actually read Dodd-Frank. Those who have struggle to make sense of it, not because so much detail has yet to be filled in: of the 400 rules it mandates, only 93 have been finalised. So financial firms in America must prepare to comply with a law that is partly unintelligible and partly unknowable. Flaming water-skisDodd-Frank is part of a wider trend. Governments of both parties keep adding stacks of rules, few of which are ever rescinded. Republicans write rules to thwart terrorists, which make flying in America an ordeal and prompt legions of brainy migrants to move to Canada instead. Democrats write rules to expand the welfare state. Barack Obama’s health-care reform of 2010 had many virtues, especially its attempt to make health insurance universal. But it does little to reduce the system’s staggering and increasing complexity. Every hour spent treating a patient in America creates at least 30 minutes of paperwork, and often a whole hour. Next year the number of federally mandated categories of illness and injury for which hospitals may claim reimbursement will rise from 18,000 to 140,000. There are nine codes relating to injuries caused by parrots, and three relating to burns from flaming water-skis.Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to believe that they can lay down rules to govern every eventuality. Examples range from the merely annoying (eg, a proposed code for nurseries in Colorado that specifies how many crayons each box must contain) to the delusional (eg, the conceit of Dodd-Frank that you can anticipate and banevery nasty trick financiers will dream up in the future). Far from preventing abuses, complexity creates loopholes that the shrewd can abuse with impunity.The other force that makes American laws complex is lobbying. The government’s drive to micromanage so many activities creates a huge incentive for interest groups to push for special favours. When a bill is hundreds of pages long, it is not hard for congressmen to slip in clauses that benefit their chums and campaign donors. The health-care bill included tons of favours for the pushy. Congress’s last, failed attempt to regulate greenhouse gases was even worse.Complexity costs money. Sarbanes-Oxley, a law aimed at preventing Enron-style frauds, has made it so difficult to list shares on an American stockmarket that firms increasingly look elsewhere or stay private. America’s share of initial public offerings fell from 67% in 2002 (when Sarbox passed) to 16% last year, despite some benign tweaks to the law. A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in costs per employee. It’s a wonder the jobless rate isn’t even higher than it is.A plea for simplicityDemocrats pay lip service to the need to slim the rulebook –Mr Obama’s regulations tsar i s supposed to ensure that new rules are cost-effective. But the administration has a bias towards overstating benefits and underestimating costs (see article). Republicans bluster that they will repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and abolish whole government agencies, but give only a sketchy idea of what should replace them.America needs a smarter approach to regulation. First, all important rules should be subjected to cost-benefit analysis by an independent watchdog. The results should be made public before the rule is enacted. All big regulations should also come with sunset clauses, so that they expire after, say, ten years unless Congress explicitly re-authorises them.More important, rules need to be much simpler. When regulators try to write an all-purpose instruction manual, the truly important dos and don’ts are lost in an ocean of verbiage. Far better to lay down broad goals and prescribe only what is strictly necessary to achieve them. Legislators should pass simple rules, and leave regulators to enforce them.Would this hand too much power to unelected bureaucrats? Not if they are made more accountable. Unreasonable judgments should be subject to swift appeal. Regulators who make bad decisions should be easily sackable. None of this will resolve the inevitable difficulties of regulating a complex modern society. But it would mitigate a real danger: that regulation may crush the life out of America’s economy.选自The Economist, Feb 18th-24th, p8翻译竞赛中译英参赛原文“悦读”的“姿势”从一定意义说，一个民族的发展史就是它的阅读史，一个人亦如此。

20122012CATTICATTI 翻译考试笔译综合能力测试Section 1:English –Chinese Translation (英译汉)This section consists of two parts,Part A —“Compulsory Translation”and Part B —“Choice of Two Translations”consisting of two sections “Topic I”and “Topic 2”.For the passage in Part A and your choice of passage in Part B,translate the underlined portions,including titles,into Chinese.Above your translation of Part A,write “Compulsory Translation”and above your translation from Part B,write “Topic I”or “Topic 2”(60points,100minutes)Part A Compulsory Translation (必译题)(30points)Nowhere to GoFor the latest on the pursuit of the American Dream in Silicon Valley,all you have to do is to talk to someone like “Nagaraj”(who didn’t want to reveal his real name).He’s an Indian immigrant who,like many other Indian engineers,came to America recently on an H-1B visa,which allows skilled workers to be employed by one company for as many as six years.But one morning last month,Nagaraj and a half dozen other Indian workers with H-1Bs were called into a conference room in their San Francisco technology-consulting firm and told they were being laid off.The reason:weakening economic conditions in Silicon Valley,“It was the shock of my lifetime,”says Nagaraj.This is not a normal bear-market sob story.According to federal regulation,Nagaraj and his colleagues have two choices.They must either return to India,or find another job in a tight labor market and hope that the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS)allow them to transfer their visa to the new company.And the law doesn’t allow them to earn a pay-check until all the paperwork winds its way through the INS bureaucracy.“How am I going to survive without any job and without any income?”Nagaraj wonders.Until recently,H-1B visas were championed by Silicon Valley companies as the solution to the region’s shortage of programmers and engineers.First issued by the INS in 1992,they attract skilled workers from other countries,many of whom bring families with them,lay down roots and apply for the more permanent green cards.Through February 2000,more than 81,000worker held such visas —but with the dot-com crash,many have been getting laid off.That’s causing mass consternation in U.S.immigrant communities.The INS considers a worker “out of status”when he loses a job,which technically means that he must pack up and go home.But because of the scope of this year’s layoffs,the ernment has recently backpedaled,issuing a confusing series of statements that suggest workers might be able to stay if they qualify for some exceptions and can find a new company to sponsor their visa.But even those loopholes remain nebulous.The result is thousands of immigrants now face dimming career prospects in America,and the possibilities that they will be sent home.“They are in limbo.It is the greatest form of torture,”says Amar Veda of the Silicon Valley-based Immigrants Support Network.The crisis looks especially bad in light of all the heated visa rhetoric by Silicon Valley companies in the past few st fall the industry won a big victory by getting Congress to approve an increase in the annual number of H-1B visas.Now, with technology firms retrenching,demand for such workers is slowing.Valley heavyweights like Intel,Cisco and Hewlett-Packard have all announced thousands of layoffs this year,which include many H-1B workers.The INS reported last month that only16,000new H-1B workers came to the United States in February—down from32,000in February of last year.Last month,acknowledging the scope of the problem,the INS told H-1B holders “not to panic,”and that there would be a grace period for laid-off workers before they had to leave the United States.INS spokeswomen Eyleen Schmidt promises that more specific guidance will come this month.“We are aware of the cutbacks,”she says.“We’re trying to be as generous as we can be within the confines of the existing law.”Part B Choice of Two Translations(二选一题)(30points)Topic1(选题一)What Is the Force of Gravity?If you throw a ball up,it will come down again.What makes it come down?The ball comes down because it is pulled or attracted towards the Earth.The Earth exerts a force of attraction on all objects.Objects that are nearer to the Earth are attracted to it with a greater force than those that are further away.This force of attraction is known as the force of gravity.The gravitational force acting on an object at the Earth’s surface is called the weight of the object.All the heavenly bodies in space like the moon,the planets and the stars also exert an attractive force on objects.The bigger and heavier a body is,the greater is its force of gravity.Thus,since the moon is a smaller body than Earth,the force it exerts on an object at its surface is less than that exerted by the Earth on the same object on the Earth’s surface.In fact,the moon’s gravitational force is only one-sixth that of the Earth.This means that an object weighing120kilograms on Earth will only weigh20 kilograms on the moon.Therefore on the moon you could lift weights which are six times heavier than the heaviest weight that you can lift on Earth.The Earth’s gravitational force or pull keeps us and everything else on Earth from floating away to space.To get out into space and travel to the moon or other planets we have to overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull.Entry into SpaceHow can we overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull?Scientists have been working on this for a long time.It is only recently that they have been able to build machines powerful enough to get out of the Earth’s gravitational pull.Such machines are called space rockets.Their great speed and power help them to escape from the Earth’s gravitational pull and go into space.RocketsThe powerful space rocket works along the same lines as a simple firework rocket.The firework rocket has a cylindrical body and a conical head.The body is packed with gunpowder which is the fuel.It is a mixture of chemicals that will burn rapidly to form hot gases.At the base or foot of the rocket there is an opening or nozzle.A fuse hangs out like a tail from the nozzle.A long stick attached along the body serves to direct the rocket before the fuse is lighted.When the gunpowder burns,hot gases rush out of the nozzle.The hot gases continue to rush out as long as the gunpowder burns.When these gases shoot downwards through the nozzle the rocket is pushed upwards.This is called jet propulsion.The simple experiment,shown in the picture,will help you to understand jet propulsion.Topic2(选题二)Basketball DiplomacyCHINA”S TALLEST SOLDIER never really expected to live the American Dream.But Wang Zhizhi,a7-foot-1basketball star from the People’s Liberation Army,is making history as the first Chinese player in the NBA.In his first three weeks in America the23-year-old rookie has already cashed his first big NBA check, preside over“Wang Zhizhi Day”in San Francisco and become immortalized on his very own trading cards.He’s even played in five games with his new team,the Dallas Mavericks,scoring24points in just38minutes.Now the affable Lieutenant Wang is joining the Mavericks on their ride into the NBA playoffs—and he is intent on enjoying every minute.One recent evening Wang slipped into the hot tub behind the house of Mavericks assistant coach Donn Nelson.He leaned back,stretched out and pointed at a plane moving across the star-filled sky.In broken English,he started singing his favorite tune:“I believe I can fly.I believe I can touch the sky.”Back in China,the nation’s other basketball phenom,Yao Ming,can only dream of taking flight.Yao thought he was going to be the first Chinese player in the NBA. The7-foot-5Shanghai sensation is more highly touted than Wang:the20-year-old could be the No.1overall pick in the June NBA draft.But as the May13deadline to enter the draft draws near,Yao is still waiting for a horde of business people and apparatchiks to decide his st week,as Wang scored13points in the Dallas season finale,Yao was wading through a stream of bicycles on a dusty Beijing street. Yao and Wang are more than just freaks of nature in basketball shorts.The twin towers are national treasures,symbols of China’s growing stature in the world. They’re also emblematic of the NBA’s outsize dreams for conquering China.The NBA,struggling at home,sees salvation in the land of1.3billion potential hoop fans. China,determined to win the2008Olympics and join the World Trade Organization, is eager to make its mark on the world—on its own terms.The two-year struggle to get these young players into the NBA has been a cultural collision—this one far removed from U.S.-China bickering over spy planes and trade liberalization.If it works out,it could be—in basketball parlance—the ultimate give-and-go.“This is just like Ping-Pong diplomacy,”says Xia Song,a sport-marketing executive who represents Wang.“Only with a much bigger ball.”Two years ago it looked more like a ball and chain.Wang’s Army bosses were miffed when the Mavericks had the nerve to draft their star back in1999.Nelson remembers flying to Beijing with the then owner Ross Perot Jr.—son of the eccentric billionaire—to hammer out a deal with the stone-faced communists of the PLA.“You could hear them thinking:‘What is this NBA team doing,trying to lay claim to our property?’”Nelson recalls.“We tried to explain that this was an honor for Wang and for China.”There was no deal.Wang grew despondent and lost his edge on court.This year Yao became the anointed one.He eclipsed Wang in scoring and rebounding,and even stole away his coveted MVP award in the Chinese Basketball Association league.It looked as if his Shanghai team—a dynamic semicapitalist club in China’s most open city—would get its star to the NBA first.Then came the March madness.Wang broke out of his slump to lead the Army team to its sixth consecutive CBA title—scoring40in the final game.A day later the PLA scored some points of its own by announcing that Wang was free to go West. What inspired the change of heart?No doubt the Mavericks worked to build trust with Chinese officials(even inviting national-team coach Wang Fei to spend the 1999-2000season in Dallas).There was also the small matter of Chinese pride.The national team stumbled to a10th-place finish at the2000Olympics,after placing eighth in1996.Even the most intransigent cadre could see that the team would improve only if it sent its stars overseas to learn from the world’s best players.keys：Part A无家可归这不是正常的有市场疲软而引发的悲剧故事。

2012 National English Contest forCollege Students(Level C – Preliminary)(总分：150分时间：120分钟)Part I listening Comprehension (30 marks)Section A (5 marks)In this section, you will hear five short conversations. Each conversation will be read only once .After each conversation, there will be a twenty-second pause. During the pause, read the question and the three choices marked A, B and C, and decide which is the best answer .Then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre.1.What does the man say we can do to deal with oil crisis?A. To make full use of oil.B. To use as little oil as possibleC. To find alternative energy.2. Where does this conversation most probably take place?A. In an insurance company.B. In a bank.C. In a supermarket.3. According to the man, who is going to take over the position they are talking about?A. Janice.B. Someone else.C. Meryl.4. What does the woman say about the man’s report for the meeting?A. He has to get it ready before tomorrow noon.B. He has done well enough.C. He has enough time to prepare it.5. How many people will be on the earth by the year 2020 according to the professor?A. Some 5.8 billion.B. Nearly 7 billion.C. Over 8.5 billion.Section B (10 marks)In this section, you will hear two long conversations. Each conversation will be read only once. At the end of each conversation, there will be a one-minute pause. During the pause, read the questions and the three choices marked A, Band C, and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centreConversation One6. What’s the main job of Simon’s organization?A. They send out radio signals to communicate with other planets.B. They look for life and intelligence on other planets.C. They study stars that have planets orbiting around them.7. Why does the organization search for radio signals from space?A. Their presence may prove the existence of aliens.B. They may help scientists find out how the universe started.C. They convey messages about life on the earth.8. Does Simon believe those stories about aliens visiting our planet?A. No, he doesn’t believe them at all.B. Yes, he does believe those stories because of his study.C. Yes, he believes them although he has no evidence.9. Which of the following factor is considered to be important in forming life according to the passage?A. Gravity.B. Minerals.C. Water.10. When did the “big bang” occur?A. No one knows.B. 12 billion years ago.C. 20 billion year ago.Conversation Two11. Why did Bob make the news last month?A. Because he criticized traditional jobsB. Because he earned a lot of money.C. Because he tried new strategies in finding a job.12. In which way do the bestsellers like “The Brand Called You” and “The Personal BrandingPhenomenon” help people?A. They advise people to promote themselves as brands.B. They teach people how to be a perfect partner.C. They give people tips for job interview.13. When did Bob come up with the idea of using the internet to find a job?A. Ten years ago when he was a college student.B. When he began to do research between jobs.C. After he launched the campaign “Give Bob a Job”.14. What was the purpose of Bob’s making the video?A. To fulfill his ambition as a director.B. To sell his products like Teddy bears and T-shirts.C. To advertise his skills and talents.15. How can the internet help Bob in his job search exactly?A. By helping him make friends.B. By passing on the video he made.C. By providing job information for him.Section C (5 marks)In this section, you will hear five short news items. After each item, which will be read only once, there will be a pause. During the pause, read the question and the three choices marked A, B and C, and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre.16. How many troops are going to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of next year?A. 43,000.B. 10,000.C. 33,000.17. What is the finding of the study?A. Low-calorie foods may lead to more weight.B. High-calorie foods may lead to more weight.C. High-calorie foods may lead to less weight.18. What do the conflicting reports show about radiation?A. The radiation level given by Tokyo Electric is much smaller than that given by othertests.B. The radiation level given by other tests is smaller than that given by Tokyo Electric.C. The radiation level is close to 10,000 times the normal level.19. Why are Caribbean Service and Europe Today shut down by BBC?A. Because of their outdated services.B. Because of cuts in government funding.C. Because of lack of target audience.20. What’s the cause of demonstrations in cities and towns across Syria?A. They are calling for more freedom.B. Workers demand higher pay.C. Some thirty people were killed by the police.Section D (10 marks)In this section, you will hear a short passage. There are 10 missing words or phrases. Fill in the blanks with the exact words or phrases you hear. The passage will be read twice. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet.Recovery from jetlag can take as long as a day for every time zone crossed. So if you’re flying east-west for your holiday or on business, it is likely to mean a few days of feeling tired or even unwell.Jetlag is the (21)__________ of the body’s natural cycle and some factors make it worse. The artificial atmosphere inside a plane can affect the body in a number of ways and add to the effects of jetlag.Exercising before flights helps to offset the effects on the body of reduced (22) _________, and aerobic exercise afterwards helps to reoxygenate it. Drink plenty of water. Children may need more. Drinking carrot juice before flying overcomes oxygen deficiency.Eat light, frequent meals. Heavy meals (23) __________ the blood circulation, which can lead to dizziness and fainting. For two weeks before you fly, eat plenty of food containing vitamins A and E; they will build up your (24) __________ and help to keep you fit. Sleep as much as you can before the flight and on it. On board, wear earplugs and eye pads because darkness (25) __________ secretion of the hormones that enhance sleep.Avoid alcohol, which restricts the brain’s oxygen intake. Like tea and coffee, alcohol increases the dehydration effect of flying. If you need to drink to relax, (26) __________ that the cabin environment intensifies the effect of alcohol.Wear loose, comfortable, warm clothes and limber up during flight. Sitting down for several hours slows down the (27) _________, leading to local stiffness, cramps and dizziness. Re-adjustto local time as soon as you can. Bright light helps the body stay alert, so if you are going somewhere sunny, stay outside.Do not smoke before or during the flight since smoking (28) ___________ the blood oxygen level. If you need to calm your nerves, try aromatherapy oils which have a sedative effect.(29) _________ your doctor before flying if you are on medication. The effects of some drugs are strengthened at high altitudes and some may produce (30) _________.Part II Vocabulary and Structure (15 marks)There are 15 incomplete sentences in this section. For each blank there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that best completes the sentence. Then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre.31. What we all work for is to free ________ time for the things we really want to do.A. offB. upC. asideD. in32. You _________ his words seriously. He was talking nonsense.A. won’t takeB. may not takeC. mustn’t have takenD. needn’t have taken33. Never hesitate to _________ the first opportunity that comes along.A. seizeB. drawC. who; thatD. obtain34. His mother ________ hated city life longed to return to the village in _______she grew up.A. that; whereB. who; whichC. who; thatD. who; where35. All things _______, I think I’d better take your advice.A. consideringB. to be consideredC. consideredD. have been considered36. Twelve European countries ________ over to the Euro on January 1st, 2002.A. transformedB. switchedC. reversedD. altered37. She isn’t anything ________ unpleasant as people say she is.A. as likeB. likeC. asD. like as38. Stop complaining. You really ________ my nerves.A. get downB. get alongC. get offD. get on39. There wasn’t _______ truth in what he said.A. a grain ofB. a ray ofC. a point ofD. a drop of40. ________ for my savings, I wouldn’t be able to survive these miserable days.A. Was it notB. Were it notC. Had it been notD. Hadn’t it been41. There was a power cut this morning. ________, I couldn’t do anything with my computer.A. SupposedlyB. PresumablyC. ConsequentlyD. Essentially42. Alarm clocks needlessly wake ______ households. I want to design something targeted atthe individual sleeper.A. wholeB. totalC. fullD. high43. _______ both parties agree on these issues will a contract be signed soon.A. If onlyB. UnlessC. ShouldD. Only if44.—I’ve run out of cash. Could you lend me a few pounds this evening?—_____ I’ll just have to find time to get to the bank and make a withdrawal.A.I can lend you some now.B. I’m not sure I’ve got any either.C. Sorry, I haven’t got a penny in my account.D. My credit card must be left home.45. —We’re all going to the New Skyline Restaurant for our end-of-year get-together. Canwe count you in?—Oh, thanks, Sara, but _____A. I didn’t find you then.B. I’ve been to the restaurant once.C. I’ll pass this time.D. I’ll meet you there at 5:00.Part III Cloze (10 marks)Read the following passage and fill in each blank with one word. Choose the correct word in one of the following three ways: according to the context, by using the correct form of the given word, or by using the given letters of the word. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet.Did you know that for every 20,000 novels written, only one gets published? So the (46) ____ (likely) that I’ll ever fulfill my ambition of becoming a professional mystery writer doesn’t seem very high. But the prospect of turning my lifelong passion into my livelihood and achieving fame and (47) for ______ at the same time is just too exciting for me to be put off by dull statistics.So what does it (48) t_______ to become a writer? Reading is important—all writers need to research their genre thoroughly to familiarize themselves (49) _______ its codes and conventions. My bookshelves at home are stacked with the novels of all the great mystery writers, which I’ve read and in many cases, re-read, despite (50) _______ (know) all the time “who’d done it”.Of course, being a writer requires imagination. You have to develop your own personal style rather than simply copy the work of “the greats”. I’ve turned out (51) d________ of short crime stories for my university student magazine—some have been published, some not, but I’ve always aimed to produce original and imaginative material.Last but not (52) ________, successful writers possess enormous self-discipline. I’ve often sacrificed my social life in order to devote the necessary time and effort to producing a good quality story. And more than once that has meant (53) _______ the midnight oil.We’ve got a novel inside us. Getting it out in anywhere near publishable form is no (54) ______ task, but with imagination and determination, and the help of an expert on “master class”, who could possibly fail to (55) re_______ their ambition?Part IV Reading Comprehension (40 marks)Read the following passages. Each passage is followed by several questions. Respond to the questions using information from the passage. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet.Section A (10 marks)Questions 56—60 are based on the following passage.The term culture shock was introduced forthe first time in 1958 to describe the anxietyproduced when a person moves to a completelynew environment. This term expresses thefeeling of not knowing what to do or how to dothings in a new environment. This termexpresses the feeling of not knowing what todo or how to do things in a new environment. We can describe culture shock as the physical and emotional discomfort a person suffers when coming to live in a place different from the place of origin.Often, the way that we live before is not accepted or considered as normal in the new place. Everything is different, for example, not speaking the language, not knowing how to use banking machines, not knowing how to use telephones, and so forth.The symptoms of culture shock can appear at different times. Although a person can experience real pain from culture shock, it is also an opportunity for growing and learning new perspectives. Culture shock can help people develop a better understanding of themselves and stimulate personal creativity.Culture shock has many stages. Each stage can be ongoing, or appear only at certain times. In the first stage, the new arrival may feel very happy about all of the new experience. This time is called the honeymoon stage. Afterward, the second stage presents itself. A person may encounter some difficulties in daily life. For example, communication difficulties may occur, such as not being understood. In this stage, there may be feelings of impatience, anger and sadness. Transition between the old methods and those of the new country is a difficult process and takes time to complete. The third stage is characterized by gaining some understanding of the new culture. A new feeling of pleasure and sense of humor may be experienced. A person may start to feel a psychological balance. The individual is more familiar with the environment and wants to belong. This starts an evaluation of the old ways versus those of the new. In the fourth stage, the person realizes that the new culture has goodand bad things to offer. This stage can be one of double integration or triple integration, depending on the number of cultures that the person has to process. This integration is characterized by a more solid feeling of belonging. The person starts to define himself or herself and establish goals for living. The fifth stage is the stage that is called the reentry shock. This occurs when a person returns to the newly acquired customs are considered improper in the old culture.Questions 56—60Complete the summary with words from the passage, changing the form where necessary, with only one word for each blank.Introduced in 1958, culture shock is a term used to (56) __________ physical and emotional discomfort people experience when they come to or live in a new place. Although many people suffer a lot from culture shock, it is an (57) _________ for personal improvement. The five stages of culture shock may last for a long time or show up once in a while. In the first stage, the (58) __________ stage, the new arrival might be OK with everything. Afterward, (59) ________ from old methods to the new one calls for time and energy. During the third and fourth stage, people may gain more understanding of the new culture and possess objective views. The double or triple integration is (60) __________ by a feeling of belonging. The last stage, called reentry shock, refers to the feeling people have when returning to their home country.Section B (10 marks)Questions 61-65 are based on the following passage.For some people, it would be unthinkable. But Gabe Henderson is finding freedom in a recent decision; he canceled his MySpace account. The 26 years old graduate student stopped his account after realizing that a lot of his online friends were really just acquaintances. “The superficial emptiness clouded the excitement I had once felt,” Henderson wrote in an article. “It seems we have lost, to some degree, the special depth that true friendship is about.”Journalism professor Michael Bugeja, who is a strong supporter of face-to-face communication, read Henderson’s column and saw it was a sign of hope. Though he’s not anti-technology, Bugeja often lectures students about “interpersonal intelligence”—knowing when, where, and for what purpose technology is most appropriate. He points out the studentshe’s seen walking across campus, holding hands with each other while talking on cell phones to someone else He’s also seen them in coffee shops, surrounded by people, but staring instead at a computer screen. “True friends,” he says, “need to learn when to stop blogging and go across campus to help a friend.”These days, young people are more wired than ever—but they’re also getting more worried. Increasingly, they’ve had to deal with online bullies, who are posting anything from embarrassing photos to online threats. And increasingly, young people also are realizing that things they post on their profiles can come back to hurt them when applying for schools or jobs.Social networking can be an “extremely effective”way to publicize events to large groups. It can even help build a sense of community on campus. People joined Facebook as a way to meet others. However, it has limitations. A good Internet pro make even the most boring person seem some what interesting. People are also not always happy with text messages on the cell phones. Cell phones can be a quick way to say “have a good day”. But friends can also cancel a night out with a text message to avoid having to explain. “Our generation needs to get over this fear of confrontation and rejection.” Henderson says. “The focus needs to be on quality communication, in all ways.”Back in his life, Henderson is enjoying spending more face-to-face time with his friends and less with his computer. He says his decision to quit his social-networking Internet accounts was a good one. “I’m not sacrificing friends,” he says, “because if a picture, some basic information about their life and a Web page is all my friendship has become, then there was nothing to sacrifice to begin with.”Questions 61—63Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F) according to the passage.61. Although Henderson quit MySpace, most of his online friends are actually close friends.62. According to Bugeja, young people should know when to use technology and when to stop using it.63. Social networking helps build a sense of community but has a negative effect on young people’s life if it is used inappropriately.Questions 64—65Answer the following questions briefly according to the passage.64. What does Henderson lose by using social networking websites like Myspace?65. What do young people need to overcome in order to focus on quality communication?Section C (10 marks)Questions 66—70 are based on the following passage.“Five …Four …Three …Two …One …See ya! ”and Chance McGuire,twenty-five, is airborne off a 600 –footconcrete dam in Northern California. Inone second he falls 15 feet, in two seconds60 feet, and after three seconds and 130feet, he is flying at 66 miles an hour.McGuire is a practitioner of what hecalls the king of all extreme sports. BASE—an acronym for building, antenna, span (bridge) and earth (cliffs)—jumping has one of the sporting world’s highest fatality rates: inits 18-year history, forty –six participants have been killed. Yet the sport has never been more popular, with more than a thousand jumpers in the United States, and more seeking to get into it every day. It is an activity without margin for error. If your chute malfunctions, don’t bother researching for a reserve—there isn’t time. There are no second chances.Still, the sport may be a perfect fit with the times. Americans may have more in common with McGuire than they know or care to admit. America has embarked on a national orgy of thrill seeking and risk taking. The rise of adventure and extreme sports such as BASE jumping, snowboarding, ice climbing, skateboarding, and paragliding is merely the most vivid manifestation of this new national behavior.The rising popularity of extreme sports speaks of an eagerness on the part of millions of Americans to participate in activities closer to the edge, where danger, skill, and fear combine to give weekend warriors and professional athletes alike a sense of pushing out personal boundaries. According to American Sports Data Inc., a consulting firm, participation in so-called extreme sports is way up. Snowboarding has grown 113 percent in five years and now boasts nearly 5.5 million participants. Mountain hiking, skateboarding, scuba diving—their growth curves reveal a nation that loves to play with danger. Contrast that with activities such as baseball, touch football, and aerobics, all of which were in steady decline throughout the 1990s.The pursuits that are becoming more popular have one thing in common: the perception that they are somehow more challenging than a game of touch football. “Every human being with two legs and two arms is going to wonder how fast, how strong, how enduring he or she is,” says Eric Perlman, a mountaineer and film maker specializing in extreme sports. “We are designed to experience or die.”Questions 66—68Complete the following sentences with information given in the passage in a maximum of 4 words for each blank.66. _______ rates doesn’t stop people from getting into BASE jumping every day.67. The rise of extreme sports manifests the national behavior of _______ and ________.68. The combination of fear, skill and danger gives both amateurs and professionals a sense of______.Questions 69—70Choose the best answer according to the passage.69. Which of the following activities reveals a nation that loves to play activities closer to the edge?A. Touch football.B. Baseball.C. Scuba diving.D. Aerobics.70. What does Eric mean by saying “We are designed to experience or die”?A. Life with great challenges is a meaningful one.B. Life without great experiences is very common.C. People may die while doing extreme sports.D. Extreme sports are essential parts of human life.Section D (10 marks)Questions 71—75 are based on the following passage.Albert Einstein was one of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known. He formulated theories of relativity, successfully described the nature of the universe and came up with the most famous equation in the world. David Beckham is the footballer whose skills and precision have made him one of the most gifted sportsmen of his generation. Who is more intelligent?How Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (MI) dares us to put these two men on neighboring pedestals. Instead of regarding intelligence as a single quantity measurable by pen-and-paper tests, Gardner, an education professor at Harvard University, divides human intelligence into no fewer than eight separate categories ranging from mathematical tomusical competence. (74)His ideas have provoked vigorous debate about how one defines intelligence. Gardner’s point is that quantity measures only one capacity, the sort of mental agility that is valued in academic achievement, and that this single number does not do justice to human potential. So he has created his own spheres of achievement. Some categories are easily reconcilable with general perceptions about IQ. For example, “linguistic” intelligence confers a mastery of language, and is the preserve of such people as poets, writers and linguists. “Logical mathematical”intelligence marks out people who take a reasoning approach to physical things, and seek underlying principles. Einstein is the standard –bearer of this group, which also includes philosophers. These two categories are the main components of what we generally think of as “intelligence”.“Musical”intelligence characterizes musicians, composers and conductors. “Spatial”intelligence is about being able to picture perspective, to visualize a world in one’s head with great accuracy. Chess players, artists and architects would rate highly in this category. Dancers, athletes and actors are lumped under the “bodily-kinesthetic”heading; these individual, like Beckham, are able to control their bodies and movements very carefully.Then come two types of “personal” intelligence-intrapersonal, the ability to gauge one’s own mood, feelings and mental states, and interpersonal, being able to gauge it in others and use the information. These two categories could be interpreted as emotional intelligence. Psychiatrists are particularly adept at the former, while religious leaders and politicians are seen as people who can exploit the latter.Charles Darwin is perhaps the perfect embodiment of the eighth intelligence –“naturalist”. This label describes people with a deep understanding of the natural world and its objects. Zoologists and botanists can count themselves among this group.(75)These eight categories certainly reflect the fact that, in these areas, there is a spectrum of human ability ranging from the hopeless to the brilliant. But are these really intelligences, or could these competences be more accurately described as gifts or talents?Questions 71—73Answer the following questions briefly according to the passage.71. What are the main components of “intelligence” we generally think of?72. What kind of abilities does emotional intelligence involve?73. Which intelligences are represented by Einstein and Beckham respectively?Questions 74—75Translate the underlined sentences in the passage into Chinese.74. His ideas have provoked vigorous debate about how one defines intelligence.75. These eight categories certainly reflect the fact that, in these areas, there is a spectrum of human ability ranging from the hopeless to the brilliant.Part V Translation (10 marks)Translate the following sentences into English, using the hints given in brackets. Remember to write the answer on the answer sheet.76. 既然没有退路了，我们不妨试试他的方法。

2012年上海外国语大学英语翻译基础真题试卷(题后含答案及解析) 题型有：1. 词语翻译 2. 英汉互译词语翻译英译汉1．Austerity measures正确答案：财政紧缩措施2．UNESCO正确答案：(United Nations Educational Science and Cultural Organization)联合国教科文组织3．The US Senate正确答案：(美国)参议院4．APEC正确答案：(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation)亚太经济合作组织亚太经合组织5．The Washington Post正确答案：(美国)《华盛顿邮报》6．NATO正确答案：(North Atlantic Treaty Organization)北大西洋公约组织7．Arab Spring正确答案：阿拉伯之春8．Gary Locke正确答案：骆家辉(原美国驻华大使)9．Reuters正确答案：(美国)路透社10．The Wall Street Journal正确答案：(美国)《华尔街日报》汉译英11．十二五规划正确答案：Twelfth Five-Year Plan12．十七届三中全会正确答案：the Third Plenary Session of the seventeenth Central Committee 13．全国人大正确答案：NPC(National People’s Congress)14．新华社正确答案：the Xinhua News Agency15．软实力正确答案：Soft Power16．中美战略经济对话正确答案：China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue17．上海合作组织正确答案：SCO(Shanghai Cooperation Organization)18．珠江三角洲正确答案：Pearl River Delta19．西气东输正确答案：project of natural gas transmission from West to East China;West-East Gas Pipeline20．北京共识正确答案：Beijing Consensus英汉互译英译汉21．Reforming Education —The great schools revolution Education remains the trickiest part of attempts to reform the public sector. But as ever more countries embark on it, some vital lessons are beginning to be learned Sep 17th 2011|DRESDEN, NEW YORK AND WROCLAW| from the print edition From Toronto to Wroclaw, London to Rome, pupils and teachers have been returning to the classroom after their summer break. But this September schools themselves are caught up in a global battle of ideas. In many countries education is at the forefront of political debate, and reformers desperate to improve their national performance are drawing examples of good practice from all over the world. Why now? One answer is the sheer amount of data available on performance, not just within countries but between them. In 2000 the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) at the OECD, a rich-country club, began tracking academic attainment by the age of 15 in 32 countries. Many were shocked by where they came in the rankings. (PISA’s latest figures appear in table 1.) Other outfits, too, have been measuring how good or bad schools are. McKinsey, a consultancy, has monitored which education systems have improved most in recent years. Technology has also made a difference. After a number of false starts, many people now believe that the internet can make a real difference to educating children. Hence the success of institution like America’s Kahn Academy (see article). Experimentation is also infectious; the more governments try things, the more others examine, and copy, the results. Above all, though, there has been a change in the quality of the debate. In particular, what might be called “the three great excuses”for bad schools have receded in importance? Teachers’union have long maintained that failures in Western education could be blamed on skimpy government spending, social class and cultures that did not value education. All these make a difference, but they do not determine outcomes by themselves. The idea that good schooling is about spending money is the one that has been beaten back hardest. Many of the 20 leading economic performers in the OECD doubled or tripled their education spending in real terms between 1970 and 1994, yet outcomes in many countries stagnated—or went backwards. Educational performance varies widely even among countries that spend similar amounts per pupil. Such spending is highest in the United States—yet America lags behind other developed countries on overall outcomes in secondary education. Andreas Schleicher, head of analysis at PISA, thinks that only about 10% of the variation in pupil performance has anything to do with money. Many still insist, though, that socialclass makes a difference. Martin Johnson, an education trade unionist, points to Britain’s “inequality between classes, which is among the largest in the wealthiest nations” as the main reason why its pupils under perform. A review of reforms over the past decade by researchers at Oxford University supports him. “Despite rising attainment levels,” it concludes, “there has been little narrowing of long standing and sizeable attainment gaps. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds remain at higher risks of poor outcomes.” American studies confirm the point; Dan Goldhaber of the University of Washington claims that “non-school factors”, such as family income, account for as much as 60% of a child’s performance in school.Yet the link is much more variable than education egalitarians suggest. Australia, for instance, has wide discrepancies of income, but came a creditable ninth in the most recent PISA study. China, rapidly developing into one of the world’s least equal societies, finished first. Culture is certainly a factor. Many Asian parents pay much more attention to their children’s test results than Western ones do, and push their schools to succeed. Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea sit comfortably at the top of McKinsey’s rankings (see table 2). But not only do some Western countries do fairly well; there are also huge differences within them. Even if you put to one side the unusual Asians, as this briefing will now do, many Western systems could jump forward merely by bringing their worst schools up to the standard of their best. So what are the secrets of success? Though there is no one template, four important themes emerge: decentralisation (handing power back to schools); a focus on underachieving pupils; a choice of different sorts of schools; and high standards for teachers. These themes can all betraced in three places that did well in McKinsey’s league: Ontario, Poland and Saxony.正确答案：教育改革——教育大改革教育改革始终是社会改革中最棘手的一部分，但随着越来越多的国家着手进行改革，人们逐渐学到一些重要的经验教训。

2012年河南省翻译竞赛翻译竞赛英译中参赛原文Over-regulated AmericaThe home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulationAmericans love to laugh at ridiculous regulations. A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there. The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end is which. Bureaucratic busybodies in Bethesda, Maryland, have shut down children’s lemon ade stands because the enterprising young moppets did not have trading licences. The list goes hilariously on.But red tape in America is no laughing matter. The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd. It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively. America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire. Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse. Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal.Consider the Dodd-Frank law of 2010. Its aim was noble: to prevent another financial crisis. Its strategy was sensible, too: improve transparency, stop banks from taking excessive risks, prevent abusive financial practices and end “too big to fail” by authorising regulators to seize any big, tottering financial firm and wind it down. This newspaper supported these goals at the time, and we still do. But Dodd-Frank is far too complex, and becoming more so. At 848 pages, it is 23 times longer than Glass-Steagall, the reform that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929. Worse, every other page demands that regulators fill in further detail. Some of these clarifications are hundreds of pages long. Just one bit, the “Volcker rule”, which aims to curb risky proprietary trading by banks, includes 383 questions that break down into 1,420 subquestions.Hardly anyone has actually read Dodd-Frank. Those who have struggle to make sense of it, not because so much detail has yet to be filled in: of the 400 rules it mandates, only 93 have been finalised. So financial firms in America must prepare to comply with a law that is partly unintelligible and partly unknowable. Flaming water-skisDodd-Frank is part of a wider trend. Governments of both parties keep adding stacks of rules, few of which are ever rescinded. Republicans write rules to thwart terrorists, which make flying in America an ordeal and prompt legions of brainy migrants to move to Canada instead. Democrats write rules to expand the welfare state. Barack Obama’s health-care reform of 2010 had many virtues, especially its attempt to make health insurance universal. But it does little to reduce the system’s staggering and increasing complexity. Every hour spent treating a patient in America creates at least 30 minutes of paperwork, and often a whole hour. Next year the number of federally mandated categories of illness and injury for which hospitals may claim reimbursement will rise from 18,000 to 140,000. There are nine codes relating to injuries caused by parrots, and three relating to burns from flaming water-skis.Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to believe that they can lay down rules to govern every eventuality. Examples range from the merely annoying (eg, a proposed code for nurseries in Colorado that specifies how many crayons each box must contain) to the delusional (eg, the conceit of Dodd-Frank that you can anticipate and banevery nasty trick financiers will dream up in the future). Far from preventing abuses, complexity creates loopholes that the shrewd can abuse with impunity.The other force that makes American laws complex is lobbying. The government’s drive to micromanage so many activities creates a huge incentive for interest groups to push for special favours. When a bill is hundreds of pages long, it is not hard for congressmen to slip in clauses that benefit their chums and campaign donors. The health-care bill included tons of favours for the pushy. Congress’s last, failed attempt to regulate greenhouse gases was even worse.Complexity costs money. Sarbanes-Oxley, a law aimed at preventing Enron-style frauds, has made it so difficult to list shares on an American stockmarket that firms increasingly look elsewhere or stay private. America’s share of initial public offerings fell from 67% in 2002 (when Sarbox passed) to 16% last year, despite some benign tweaks to the law. A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in costs per employee. It’s a wonder the jobless rate isn’t even higher than it is.A plea for simplicityDemocrats pay lip service to the need to slim the rulebook –Mr Obama’s regulations tsar i s supposed to ensure that new rules are cost-effective. But the administration has a bias towards overstating benefits and underestimating costs (see article). Republicans bluster that they will repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and abolish whole government agencies, but give only a sketchy idea of what should replace them.America needs a smarter approach to regulation. First, all important rules should be subjected to cost-benefit analysis by an independent watchdog. The results should be made public before the rule is enacted. All big regulations should also come with sunset clauses, so that they expire after, say, ten years unless Congress explicitly re-authorises them.More important, rules need to be much simpler. When regulators try to write an all-purpose instruction manual, the truly important dos and don’ts are lost in an ocean of verbiage. Far better to lay down broad goals and prescribe only what is strictly necessary to achieve them. Legislators should pass simple rules, and leave regulators to enforce them.Would this hand too much power to unelected bureaucrats? Not if they are made more accountable. Unreasonable judgments should be subject to swift appeal. Regulators who make bad decisions should be easily sackable. None of this will resolve the inevitable difficulties of regulating a complex modern society. But it would mitigate a real danger: that regulation may crush the life out of America’s economy.选自The Economist, Feb 18th-24th, p8翻译竞赛中译英参赛原文“悦读”的“姿势”从一定意义说，一个民族的发展史就是它的阅读史，一个人亦如此。