中级口译之英译汉模拟题03

There are about six billion people in the world. But every person is unique. Some people have black eyes; others have brown eyes. Some have dark hair, others have light hair. Besides humans, there are millions of other living creatures. Some are so tiny that we simply can't see them with our own eyes. Whatever it is, every living creature is different from every other.// Why is each living thing unique? Where do its characteristics come from? Do people receive characteristics from their mothers or fathers, or both? Which characteristics do they receive? How? These are some of the questions that biologists try to answer. The work of a man by the name Mendel a hundred years ago was especially important.//Mendel studied plants, especially pea plants. Mendel decided that pea plants carried factors, and parents passed these factors onto their offspring. Today we call these factors genes. Genes are tiny pieces of matter that carry information from parents to offspring. // Based on Mendel's work, biologists began to ask such questions as “Can we apply our information about genes to people?” they discovered that in a person genes told whether he would have brown eyes or blue eyes, whether he would have dark hair or light hair. Now we know that every person is unique.//

世界上约有60亿人。每个人都与众不同，有些人的眼睛为黑色，有些人的眼睛为褐色。有些人头发乌黑，有些人头发浅淡。除了人类之外，还有数以百万计的其他生物。有些生物微乎其微，是我们无法用肉眼看到的。无论何种生物，每一个都与众不同。//为什么每个生物都会与众不同呢？生物的特性又是从何而来？人们的特性是遗传自母亲，还是父亲，或是父母双亲？人们从父母所得到的又是哪些特性呢？他们又是如何得到那些特性的呢？生物学家试图找到这些问题的答案。一百年前一个叫做门德尔的人所作的研究工作具有特别重要的意义。//门德尔的研究对象是植物，他尤其注重对豌豆植物的研究。他断定，豌豆植物带有遗传因子，父辈植物将这些因子传给子代植物。今天我们讲这些遗传因子称为基因。基因是一种将遗传信息从父代传给子代的微小物质。//依据门德尔的试验结果，生物学家开始提出了许多问题，例如，我们能否将基因理论运用到人的身上？他们发现，一个人的基因可以告诉我们这个人的眼睛是褐色的还是蓝色的，他的头发是乌黑的还是浅色的。现在我们知道每个人都是一个与众不同的独特体。//

Passage 14

The human brain contains an average of ten billion neurons or nerve cells, each of which is linked with one thousand to ten thousand other neurons. These nerve cells participate in countless electrical microcircuits which make possible thought, perception, communication, and other types of mental activity.// The outside surface of the brain, which is known as the cortex, consists of a thin wrinkled mantleof gray tissue made up of millions of neurons. This layer of the brain represents man's relatively recent evolutionary step in neurological development and is not present to a comparable degree in any other species.// The brain is divided into two roughly symmetricalhemispheres, sometimes called right and left brains. The activity of the two hemispheres is coordinated by a number of interconnecting nerve pathways. The two sides of the brain, while fairly comparable in size and form, appear to specialize in handling various tasks.// Current evidence suggests that the left and right hemispheres differ in some way in their function. For example, specialized linguistic and perceptualskills are each associated with a particular hemisphere of the brain. In most individuals, the left hemisphere has primary responsibility for language, while the right hemisphere controls visual and spatialskills as well as the perception of nonlinguistic sounds and musical melodies.//

人的大脑平均有100 亿个神经元，或者叫做神经细胞。每个神经元与其它一千至一万个神经元相连。神经元从事着不可悉数的微电路脉冲活动，并由此产生思维，感觉，交流以及一些其他脑力活动。//大脑的外皮层叫做脑皮层，脑皮层很薄，有褶皱，是一层由数百万计的神经元组成的灰色组织。脑皮层代表着人类在其神经发展的历史长河中近期的进化，任何其他物质的脑皮层都无法和人类的脑皮层相提并论。// 整个大脑分为两个大致对称的半球，有时被称为右半脑和左半脑。一些互为联系的神经束对这两个脑半球活动进行协调。大脑两个半球虽然有着相似的尺寸和形状，却各司其职。//据目前所知，两个脑半球有着不同的功能。例如：语言能力和感知能力隶属于不同的半球。大多数人的左半球负责语言操作，而右半球则掌管与视觉和空间相关的技能，负责对非语言声音以及音乐的感知。//

Passage 15

For a woman, conventional beauty is her only attribute. She is supposed to have no lines or wrinkles, no scars or blemishes. She is thin, generally tall and long legged, and above all young. All beautiful women in television commercials conform to this norm. The image is artificial and can only be achieved artificially.// Many women go to great lengths to manipulate and change their faces and bodies. More than a million dollars is spent every hour on cosmetics in this country. A woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and more important than her real self.// Adolescentfemales are also discouraged from growing up and becoming adult. Growing older is the great taboo. Although boys are allowed and encouraged to become mature adults, girls are encouraged to remain little girls, to be passive and dependent, never to mature. Someone placed in a double bind, they are supposed to be sexy and virginal, experienced and naive, seductiveand pure.// Misleading advertisements and commercials depict a world in which love and passion are reversed solely for products, in which sexuality becomes a commodity, and in which young women are the worst victims.//

对一个女子来说，标准美是她的唯一标志。她的皮肤应该天生丽质，没有皱纹，没有疤痕，没有瑕疵。她的身材应该清瘦苗条，通常是个高挑个，双腿修长，而青春年少则是首要条件。所有在电视广告中出现的“花容月貌”的靓女都符合这个标准。这种形象被认为是人为的，也只有人为可以塑造。//许多妇女尽其所能来摆弄和修改自己的容貌体态。在该国每小时花费在化妆品上的钱超过一百万元。女子已习以为常的视自己的脸蛋为面具，视自己的身体为物品，像是一种脱离了原型而又高于原型的东西。//少女自然成长也不被看好，年龄上升是大忌。虽然男孩可以成为成熟的男子，并且还受到鼓励。但对女孩的要求确实必须妙龄永驻，唯唯诺诺，依附顺从，永不成熟。对她们的要求总有两面性，既要求他们性感多情，又冰清玉洁；既老道练达，又少不更事；既风骚冶艳，又质朴无华。// 在被误导性的广告所描绘的世界里，爱恋和激情只为产品存在，性也成了商品，其中年轻女子则成了最大的牺牲者。//