中级口译之英译汉模拟题03

Passage 11

Today, we pioneers and leaders of electronic commerce, are meeting here to call for changes in US patent law. We believe such changes are needed to deal with new business models related to the growth of the Internet.// I share the same view with Jeff Bezos, chief executive of online bookseller . Mr. Bezos argued in an open letter that current patent laws could end up harming all kinds of businesses if the laws were not adapted to new business methods used in e-commerce.// I think U.S. Patent laws are designed to protect the commercial rights of people who have invested in new products, systems or methods. Hereby I propose that the period of protection offered by patents should be cut from 17 years to about 4 years. I also propose a one-month period of public consultation before patents are issued.// If changes in the patent laws are going to have any real impact, they must be made soon, before too many more new business method patents are issued. Some of my colleagues in the industry have already begun lobbying lawmakers to make the changes. But we have to be a little bit more patient because it will take at least two years for any changes proposed now to be approved by lawmakers and established as law.//

今天我们这些电子商务的创始人和领导人在此集会，共同呼吁修改美国专利法。我们认为互联网的发展已形成了一些新商业模式，专利法必须经过修改才能应付这些新情况。//我同在线书店亚马逊电子商务公司的首席执行官杰夫.贝索斯特有相同的观点。贝索斯先生在一封公开信中指出，现行的专利法若不加以修正以适应电子商务的新模式最终将影响所有的商务活动。//我认为，制定美国专利法的根本出发点是为了保护那些投资开发新产品、新系列新方法者的权益。我在这里提议，专利权的保护期应该由原来的17年缩短为4年。同时我也建议，专利发布前应该有一个月的公示咨询期。//如果想让专利法的修改真正起到作用，那就必须加快修订步伐，不然的话，等越来越多的商务模式新专利颁布后再进行修改，为时已晚。电子商务产业的一些同行已开始有立法人修改法律。但是我们还得耐心等待，现在提出的修改建议至少要等上两年才能被立法部门确定为正式的法律。//

Passage 12

From recorded time, man has been fascinated and delighted with music. Bone whistles, used as a type of flute, have been found dating back to 5,000 BC. Paintings from the Stone Age show early musical instruments. In modern times, man has further developed his interest in music and in recorded sound with the hardware of sound reproduction.// American inventor Thomas Edison, who was considered the father of sound recording, developed the phonographin 1877, the first device to record music in the world. While Edison concentrated at first mainly on the reproduction of voice, it was not long before the musical uses of his invention were recognized and marketed.// The widespread use of electricity in the post-World War Two period led to the invention of the modern, portable record player. It was, however, “mono”. The real enthusiastic listener to music wanted a realistic reproduction of music with “hi-fidelity” or “hi-fi”.// The 1980s saw an even greater series of developments in sound reproduction hardware. The examples are the Sony Corporation's invention and development of the tiny portable tape players known as the “Walkman”, and the compact disc, or CD, system based on the technology of computers with music information stored and reproduced digitally.//

有史记载以来，人类一直痴迷于音乐，为音乐所陶醉。用作笛子的骨哨早已出现在公元前5，000年。从石器时代的画中我们可以见到早期乐器的模样。现代人进一步发展了对音乐的兴趣，十分钟情于用声音复制设备来录音的方式。//被誉为录音之父的美国发明家托马斯·爱迪生于1877年发明了留声机，这是世界上第一台录音设备。爱迪生最初的精力主要放在对说话声音的复制上，然而时隔不久，爱迪生这项发明的音乐应用价值便为世人所认识，并被推向了市场。//第二次世界大战之后，电的广泛使用使现代便携式点唱机面世。不过这种点唱机只能单声道放音。而真正的音乐发烧友想要的是一种给人以身临其境感觉的高保真音响设备。//到了80年代，声音复制设备的发展迈出了一系列更大的步伐。例如，推出了由索尼首创开发的被称之为“随身听”的袖珍便携式磁带放音机，以及采用电脑技术以数码储存与再现音乐信息的CD激光唱片音响。//Passage 13

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。//