英语翻译真题答案及评分细则.docx

1、英语翻译真题答案及评分细则第一部分 英译汉全真试题（1996-2008年）Passage1The differences in relative growth of various areas of scientific research have several causes. 71) Some of these causes are completely reasonable results of social needs. Others are reasonable consequences of particular advances in science being to some

2、extent self-accelerating. Some, however, are less reasonable processes of different growth in which preconceptions of the form scientific theory ought to take, by persons in authority, act to alter the growth pattern of different areas. This is a new problem probably not yet unavoidable; but it is a

3、 frightening trend. 72) This trend began during the Second World War, when several governments came to the conclusion that the specific demands that a government wants to make of its scientific establishment cannot generally be foreseen in detail. It can be predicted, however, that from time to time

4、 questions will arise which will require specific scientific answers. It is therefore generally valuable to treat the scientific establishment as a resource or machine tomb kept in functional order. 73) This seems mostly effectively done by supporting a certain amount of research not related to imme

5、diate goals but of possible consequence in the future.This kind of support, like all government support, requires decisions about the appropriate recipients of funds. Decisions based on utility as opposed to lack of utility are straightforward. But a decision among projects none of which has immedia

6、te utility is more difficult. The goal of the supporting agencies is the praisable one of supporting good as opposed to bad science, but a valid determination is difficult to make. Generally, the idea of good science tends to become confused with the capacity of the field in question to generate an

7、elegant theory. 74) However, the world is so made that elegant systems are in principle unable to deal with some of the worlds more fascinating and delightful aspects. 75) New forms of thought as well as new subjects for thought must arise in the future as they have in the past, giving rise to new s

8、tandards of elegance. Passage 2 Do animals have rights? This is how the question is usually put. It sounds like a useful, ground-clearing way to start. 71) Actually, it isnt, because it assumes that there is an agreed account of human rights, which is something the world does not have. On one view o

9、f rights, to be sure, it necessarily follows that animals have none. 72) Some philosophers argue that rights exist only within a social contract, as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements. Therefore, animals cannot have rights. The idea of punishing a tiger that kills somebody is absurd; for

10、 exactly the same reason, so is the idea that tigers have rights. However, this is only one account, and by no means an uncontested one. It denies rights not only to animals but also to some people for instance, to infants, the mentally incapable and future generations. In addition, it is unclear wh

11、at force a contract can have for people who never consented to it: how do you reply to somebody who says I dont like this contract? The point is this without agreement on the rights of people, arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. 73) It leads the discussion to extremes at the outset: it

12、 invites you to think that animals should be treated either with the consideration humans extend to other humans, or with no consideration at all. This is a false choice. Better to start with another, more fundamental, question: is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all? Many deny it. 74) Arg

13、uing from the view that humans are different from animals in every relevant respect, extremists of this kind think that animals lie outside the area of moral choice. Any regard for the suffering of animals is seen as a mistake a sentimental displacement of feeling that should properly be directed to

14、 other humans. This view, which holds that torturing a monkey is morally equivalent to chopping wood, may seem bravely logical. In fact it is simply shallow: the confused centre is right to reject it. The most elementary form of moral reasoningthe ethical equivalent of learning to crawl is to weigh

15、others interests against ones own. This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: without which there is no capacity for moral thought. To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. 75) When that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankinds instinct for moral reasoning in action

16、, an instinct that should be encouraged rather than laughed at. Passage 3 They were, by far, the largest and most distant objects that scientists had ever detected: a strip of enormous cosmic clouds some 15 billion light-years from earth. 71) But even more important, it was the farthest that scienti

17、sts had been able to look into the past, for what they were seeing were the patterns and structures that existed 15 billion years ago. That was just about the moment that the universe was born. What the researchers found was at once both amazing and expected; the US National Aeronautics and Space Ad

18、ministrations Cosmic Background Explorer satellite Cobe had discovered landmark evidence that the universe did in fact begin with the primeval explosion that has become known as the Big Bang (the theory that the universe originated in an explosion from a single mass of energy.) 72) The existence of

19、the giant clouds was virtually required for the Big Bang, first put forward in the 1920s, to maintain its reign as the dominant explanation of the cosmos. According to the theory, the universe burst into being as a submicroscopic, unimaginable dense knot of pure energy that flew outward in all direc

20、tions, emitting radiation as it went, condensing into particles and then into atoms of gas. Over billions of years, the gas was compressed by gravity into galaxies, stars, plants and eventually, even humans. Cobe is designed to see just the biggest structures, but astronomers would like to see much

21、smaller hot spots as well, the seeds of local objects like clusters and superclusters of galaxies. They shouldnt have long to wait. 73) Astrophysicists working with groundbased detectors at the South Pole and balloon-borne instruments are closing in on such structures, and may report their findings

22、soon. 74) If the small hot spots look as expected, that will be a triumph for yet another scientific idea, a refinement of the Big Bang called the inflationary universe theory. Inflation says that very early on, the universe expanded in size by more than a trillion trillion trillion trillionfold in

23、much less than a second, propelled by a sort of antigravity. 75) Odd though it sounds, cosmic inflation is a scientifically plausible consequence of some respected ideas in elementary-particle physics, and many astrophysicists have been convinced for the better part of a decade that it is true. Pass

24、age 4 71) While there are almost as many definitions of history as there are historians, modern practice most closely conforms to one that sees history as the attempt to recreate and explain the significant events of the past. Caught in the web of its own tune and place, each generation of historian

25、s determines anew what is significant for it in the past. In this search the evidence found is always incomplete and scattered; it is also frequently partial or partisan. The irony of the historians craft is that its practitioners always know that their efforts are but contributions to an unending p

26、rocess. 72) Interest in historical methods has arisen less through external challenge to the validity of history as an intellectual discipline and more from internal quarrels among historians themselves. While history once revered its affinity to literature and philosophy, the emerging social scienc

27、es seemed to afford greater opportunities for asking new questions and providing rewarding approaches to an understanding of the past. Social science methodologies had to be adapted to a discipline governed by the primacy of historical sources rather than the imperatives of the contemporary world. 7

28、3) During this transfer, traditional historical methods were augmented by additional methodologies designed to interpret the new forms of evidence in the historical study. Methodolgy is a term that remains inherently ambiguous in the historical profession. 74) There is no agreement whether methodolo

29、gy refers to the concepts peculiar to historical work in general or to the research techniques appropriate to the various branches of historical inquiry. Historians, especially those so blinded by their research interests that they have been accused of tunnel method, frequently fall victim to the te

30、chnicist fallacy. Also common in the natural sciences, the technicist fallacy mistakenly identifies the discipline as a whole with certain parts of its technical implementation. 75) It applies equally to traditional historians who view history as only the external and internal criticism of sources,

31、and to social science historians who equate their activity with specific techniques. Passage 5 Governments throughout the world act on the assumption that the welfare of their people depends largely on the economic strength and wealth of the community. 71) Under modern conditions, this requires vary

32、ing measures of centralized control and hence the help of specialized scientists such as economists and operational research experts. 72) Furthermore, it is obvious that the strength of a country s economy is directly bound up with the efficiency of its agriculture and industry, and that this in tur

33、n rests upon the efforts of scientists and technologists of all kinds. It also means that governments are increasingly compelled to interfere in these sectors in order to step up production and ensure that it is utilized to the best advantage. For example, they may encourage research in various ways includi