人事部英语二级笔译历年真题
二级笔译考试样题答案
二级笔译考试样题答案一、词汇选择（每题1分，共10分）1. The company is currently undergoing a period ofsignificant ________.A. inflationB. transitionC. stagnationD. fluctuation答案：B2. The government has taken measures to ________ the spreadof the virus.A. containB. sustainC. accelerateD. mitigate答案：A3. The ________ of the project was delayed due to bad weather.A. implementationB. inaugurationC. executionD. commencement答案：D4. The new policy aims to ________ the gap between the rich and the poor.A. bridgeB. widenC. deepenD. ignore答案：A5. The company has decided to ________ its operations in the overseas market.A. expandB. contractC. suspendD. dissolve答案：A6. The ________ of the old factory will lead to the creation of new jobs.A. renovationB. demolitionC. relocationD. adaptation答案：B7. The team's ________ to the challenge was impressive.A. responseB. reactionC. acceptanceD. submission答案：A8. The ________ of the new law has been postponed due to political disagreements.A. enforcementB. establishmentC. formulationD. implementation答案：D9. The ________ of the old bridge was necessary for safety reasons.A. repairB. maintenanceC. replacementD. inspection答案：C10. The company is seeking to ________ its product line with more innovative items.A. diversifyB. specializeC. standardizeD. streamline答案：A二、阅读理解（每题2分，共20分）Passage 1In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of people choosing to work remotely. This trend has been driven by advancements in technology, which have made it easier for employees to connect with their colleagues and access company resources from anywhere. As a result, many companies have adopted flexible work policies, allowing employees to work from home or other locations outside the traditional office setting.11. What is the main reason for the increase in remote work?A. The need for more office spaceB. Technological advancementsC. The desire for a better work-life balanceD. The high cost of office rentals答案：B12. What is one benefit of remote work mentioned in the passage?A. Reduced commuting timeB. Increased job opportunitiesC. Improved office productivityD. Lower energy consumption答案：APassage 2The concept of a circular economy has gained traction in recent years as a way to address environmental concerns. In a circular economy, resources are kept in use for as long as possible, and waste is minimized by designing out waste and making sure that products can be reused, repaired, or recycled. This approach contrasts with the traditional linear economy, where resources are used once and then discarded.13. What is the primary goal of a circular economy?A. To increase consumer spendingB. To reduce waste and extend resource useC. To encourage the production of new productsD. To promote the use of renewable resources答案：B14. How does a circular economy differ from a linear economy?A. It focuses on resource conservationB. It emphasizes product innovationC. It relies on non-renewable resourcesD. It prioritizes economic growth over the environment答案：A三、翻译（英译汉，每题15分，共30分）15. The integration of artificial intelligence into various industries has the potential to revolutionize the way we work and live, offering new opportunities for innovation and efficiency.答案：人工智能在各个行业的融合有潜力彻底改变我们的工作和生活方式，为创新和效率提供新的机会。
人事部翻译资格证书(CATTI)2004 年 11 月英语二级《笔译实务》试题及参考答案
Section 1: English-Chinese Translation （英译汉）（ 60 point ）This section consists of two parts: Part A "Compulsory Translation" and Part B "Optional Translations" which comprises "Topic 1" and "Topic 2". Translate the passage in Part A and your choice from passage in Part B into Chinese. Write "Compulsory Translation" above your translation of Part A and write "Topic 1" or "Topic 2" above your translation of the passage from Part B. The time for this section is 100 minutes.Part A Compulsory Translation （必译题）（30 points）Until recently, scientists knew little about life in the deep sea, nor had they reason to believe that it was being threatened. Now, with the benefit of technology that allows for deeper exploration, researchers have uncovered a remarkable array of species inhabiting the ocean floor at depths of more than 660 feet, or about 200 meters. At the same time, however, technology has also enabled fishermen to reach far deeper than ever before, into areas where bottom trawls can destroy in minutes what has taken nature hundreds and in some cases thousands of years to build.Many of the world's coral species, for example, are found at depths of more than 200 meters. It is also estimated that roughly half of the world's highest seamounts - areas that rise from the ocean floor and are particularly rich in marine life - are also found in the deep ocean.These deep sea ecosystems provide shelter, spawning and breeding areas for fish and other creatures, as well as protection from strong currents and predators. Moreover, they are believed to harbor some of the most extensive reservoirs of life on earth, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 100 million species inhabiting these largely unexplored and highly fragile ecosystems.Yet just as we are beginning to recognize the tremendous diversity of life in these areas, along with the potential benefits newly found species may hold for human society in the form of potential food products and new medicines, they are at risk of being lost forever. With enhanced ability both to identify where these species-rich areas are located and to trawl in deeper water than before, commercial fishing vessels are now beginning to reach down with nets the size of football fields, catching everything in their path while simultaneously crushing fragile corals and breaking up the delicate structure of reefs and seamounts that provide critical habitat to the countless species of fish and other marine life that inhabit the deep ocean floor.Because deep sea bottom trawling is a recent phenomenon, the damage that has been done is still limited. If steps are taken quickly to prevent this kind of destructive activity from occurring on the high seas, the benefits both to the marine environment and to future generations are incalculable. And they far outweigh the short-term coststo the fishing industry.Part B Optional Translations （二选一题）（ 30 points ）Topic 1 （选题一）Most of the world's victims of AIDS live - and, at an alarming rate, die - in Africa. The number of people living with AIDS in Africa was estimated at 26.6 million in late 2003. New figures to be published by the United Nations Joint Program on AIDS （ UNAIDS ）， the special UN agency set up to deal with the pandemic, will probably confirm its continued spread in Africa, but they will also show whether the rate of spread is constant, increasing or falling.AIDS is most prevalent in Eastern and Southern Africa, with South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya having the greatest numbers of sufferers; other countries severely affected include Botswana and Zambia. AIDS was raging in Eastern Africa - where it was called "slim", after the appearance of victims wasting away - within a few years after its emergence was established in the eastern Congo basin; however, the conflicting theories about the origin of AIDS are highly controversial and politicized, and the controversy is far from being settled.Measures being taken all over Africa include, first of all, campaigns of public awareness and device, including advice to remain faithful to one sexual partner and to use condoms. The latter advice is widely ignored or resisted owing to natural and cultural aversion to condoms and to Christian and Muslim teaching, which places emphasis instead on self-restraint.An important part of anti- AIDS campaigns, whether organized by governments, nongovernmental organizations or both, is the extension of voluntary counseling and testing （ VCT ） .In addition, medical research has found a way to help sufferers, though not to cure them.Funds for anti- AIDS efforts are provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities around the world; the fund was launched following a call by the UN Secretary-General in 2001. However, much more is needed if the spread of the pandemic is to be at least halted.Topic 2 （选题二）As a leader of a least developed country, I speak from experience when I say that poverty is too complex a phenomenon, and the strategies for fighting it too diverse and dependent on local circumstances, for there is no single silver bullet in the war on poverty.We have learned the hard way over the years. We have experimented with all kinds of ideas.Yet a report recently released by the World Economic Forum shows that barely a third of what should have been done by now to ensure the world meets its goals to fight poverty, hunger and disease by 2015 is done. I am now convinced that the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000 can only be attained through a global compact, anchored in national policies that take into account local circumstances.Aid and trade are both necessary, but they are not enough on their own. Neither is good governance enough in itself. Above all, nothing can move without the direct participation of local communities. I fear that we lecture too much. This is not the best way.I will give an example of how such a compact worked in Tanzania to achieve universal basic schooling.In the mid-1990s, almost all indicators for basic education were in free fall. The gross enrollment rate had fallen from 98 percent in the early 1980s to 77.6 percent in 2000. The net enrollment rate had likewise fallen, from over 80 percent to only 58.8 percent.Then several things happened. We decided at the top political level that basic education would be a top priority, and adopted a five-year Primary Education Development Plan to achieve universal basic education by 2006 - nine years ahead of the global target.Good governance produced more government revenues, which quadrupled over the last eight years. In 2001, we received debt relief under the World Bank's enhanced HIPC （ heavily indebted poor countries ） Initiative. Subsequently, more donors put aid money directly into our budget or into a pooled fund for the Primary Education Development Program （ PEDP ） .The government's political will was evidenced by the fact that over the last five years the share of the national budget going to poverty reduction rose by 130 percent. We abolished school fees in primary schools.Then we ensured that all PEDP projects are locally determined, planned, owned, implemented and evaluated. This gave the people pride and dignity in what they were doing. After only two years of implementing PEDP, tremendous successes have been achieved.Section 2: Chinese- English Translation （汉译英）（ 40 point ）This section consists of two parts: Part A "Compulsory Translation" and Part B "Optional Translations" which comprises "Topic 1" and "Topic 2".Translation the passage in Part A and your choice from passage in Part B into English. Write "Compulsory Translation" above your translation of Part A and write "Topic 1" or "Topic 2" above your translation of the passage from Part B. The time for this section is 80 minutes.Part A Compulsory Translation （必译题）（ 20 points ）进入新世纪，国际形势继续发生深刻复杂的变化。
英语二级《笔译实务》样题
全国翻译专业资格（水平）考试英语二级《笔译实务》试卷Section1:English-Chinese Translation(50points)Translate the following two passages into Chinese.Passage1There they come,trudging along,straight upright on stubby legs,shoulders swinging back and forth with each step,coming into focus on the screen just as I’m eating my first bite of popcorn.Then Morgan Freeman’s voice informs us that these beings are on a long and difficult journey in one of the most inhospitable places on earth,and that they are driven by their“quest for love.”I’ve long known the story of the emperor penguin,but to see the sheer beauty and wonder of it all come into focus in the March of the Penguins,the sleeper summer hit,still took my breath away.As the movie continues, everything about these animals seems on the surface utterly different from human existence;and yet at the same time the closer one looks the more everything also seems familiar.Stepping back and considering within the context of the vast diversity of millions of other organisms that have evolved on the tree of life—grass,trees, tapeworms,hornets,jelly-fish,tuna and elephants—these animals marching across the screen are practically kissing cousins to us.Love is a feeling or emotion—like hate,jealousy,hunger,thirst—necessary where rationality alone would not suffice to carry the day.Could rationality alone induce a penguin to trek70miles over the ice in order to mate and then balance an egg on his toes while fasting for four months in total darkness and enduring temperatures of minus-80degrees Fahrenheit?Even humans require an overpowering love to do the remarkable things that parents do for their children.The penguins’drive to persist in behavior bordering 笔译实务（英语·二级）试卷第1页（共4页）on the bizarre also suggests that they love to an inordinate degree.I suspect that the new breed of nature film will become increasingly mainstream because,as we learn more about ourselves from other animals and find out that we are more like them than was previously supposed,we are now allowed to“relate”to them,and therefore to empathize.If we gain more exposure to the real—and if the producers and studios invest half as much care and expense into portraying animals as they do into showing ourselves—I suspect the results will be as profitable,in economic as well as emotional and intellectual terms—as the March of the Penguins.Passage2After years of painstaking research and sophisticated surveys,Jaco Boshoff may be on the verge of a nearly unheard-of discovery:the wreck of a Dutch slave ship that broke apart239years ago on this forbidding,windswept coast after a violent revolt by the slaves.Boshoff,39,a marine archaeologist with the government-run Iziko Museums, will not find out until he starts digging on this deserted beach on Africa’s southernmost point,probably later this year.After three years of surveys with sensitive magnetometers,he knows,at least, where to look:at a cluster of magnetic abnormalities,three beneath the beach and one beneath the surf,near the mouth of the Heuningries River,where the450-ton slave ship,the Meermin,ran aground in1766.If he is right,it will be a find for the history books—especially if he recovers shackles,spears and iron guns that shed light on how147Malagasy slaves seized their captors’vessel,only to be recaptured.Although European countries shipped millions of slaves from Africa over four centuries,archaeologists estimate that fewer than10slave shipwrecks have been found worldwide.If he is wrong,Boshoff said in an interview,“I will have a lot of explaining to do.”笔译实务（英语·二级）试卷第2页（共4页）He will,however,have an excuse.Historical records indicate that at least30 ships have run aground in the treacherous waters off Struis Bay,the earliest of them in1673.Although Boshoff says he believes beyond doubt that the remains of a ship are buried on this beach—the jagged timbers of a wreck are sometimes uncovered during September’s spring tide—there is always the prospect that his surveys have found the wrong one.“Finding shipwrecks is just so difficult in the first place,”said Madeleine Burnside,the author of Spirits of the Passage,a book on the slave trade,and executive director of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society in Key West, Florida.“Usually—not always—they are located by accident.”Other slave-ship finds have produced compelling evidence of both the brutality and the lucrative nature of the slave trade.Section2:Chinese-English Translation(50points)Translate the following two passages into English.Passage1改革开放27年来，中国发生了巨大变化。
翻译资格考试二级笔译综合能力及实务真题详解
2003年12英语二级《笔译综合能力》试题Part1Summary Writing1.Read the following English passage and then write a Chinese summary of approximately300words that expresses its main ideas and basic information(40points,50minutes)Deceptively small in column inches,a recent New York Times article holds large meaning for us in business.The item concerned one Daniel Provenzano,38,of Upper Saddle River,N.J.Here is the relevant portion:When he owned a Fort Lee printing company called Advice Inc.,Mr.Provenzano said he found out that a sales representative he employment had stolen$9,000.Mr.Provenzano said he told the man that“if he wanted to keep his employment,I would have to break his thumb.”He said another Advice employee drove the sales representative to Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, broke the thumb with a hammer outside the hospital,and then had a car service take the man home after the thumb was repaired.Mr.Provenzano explained that he“didn’t want to set an example”that workers could get away with stealing.The worker eventually paid back$4,500and kept his job,he said.I know that you’re thinking:This is an outrage.I,too,was shocked that Provenzano was being prosecuted for his astute management.Indeed,I think his“modest proposal”has a lot to teach managers as they struggle with the problems of our people-centered business environment.Problems such as….Dealing with the bottom10%.GE made the system famous,but plenty of companies are using it:Every year you get rid of the worst-evaluated workers.Many managers object that this practice is inhumane,but not dealing with that bottom10%leads to big performance problems.Provenzano found a kinder,gentler answer.After all,this employee would have been fired virtually anywhere else.But at Advice Inc.,he stayed on the job.And you know what?I bet he become a very,very—very —productive employee.For most managers Provenzano’s innovative response will be a welcome new addition to their executive tool kit.And by the way,“executive tool kit”is clearly more than just a metaphor at Advice Inc.Being the employer of choice.With top talent scarce everywhere,most companies now want to be their industry’s or their community’s most desirable.Advice Inc.understood.The employee in question wasn’t simply disciplined in his supervisor’s office and sent home.No,that’s how an ordinary employer would have done it.But at Advice Inc.,another employee—the HR manager,perhaps?—took time out his busy day and drove the guy right to the emergency room.And then—the detail that says it all—the company provided a car service to drive the employee home.The message to talented job candidates comes through loud and clear:Advice Inc.is a company that cares.Setting an example to others.An eternal problem for managers is how to let all employees know what happens to those who perform especially well or badly.A few companies actually post everyone’s salary and bonus on their intranet.But pay is so one-dimensional.At Advice Inc.,a problem that would hardly be mentioned at most companies—embezzlement—was undoubtedly the topic of rich discussions for weeks,at least until the employee’s cast came off.Any employee theft probably went way,way—way—down.When the great Roberto Goizueta was CEO of Coca-Cola he used to talk about this problem of setting examples and once observed,“Sometimes you must have an execution in the public square!”But of course he was speaking only figuratively.If he had just listened to his own words,Goizueta might have been an even better CEO.Differentiation.This is one of Jack Welch’s favorite concepts—the idea that managers should treat different employees very differently based on performance.Welch liked to differentiate with salary,bonus,and stock options,but now,in what must henceforth be known as the post-Provenzano management era,we can see that GE’s great management thinker just wasn’t thinking big enough.This Times article is tantalizing and frustrating.In just a few sentences it opens a whole new world of management,yet much more surely remains to be told.We must all urge Provenzano to write a book explaining his complete managerial philosophy. 2.Read the following Chinese passage and then write an English summary of approximately250words that expresses its central ideas and main viewpoints(40points,50minutes)越是对原作体会深刻，越是欣赏原文的每秒，越觉得心长力，越觉得译文远远的传达不出原作的神韵。
人事部翻译考试(二级)系列参考资料(1)
国家人事部翻译专业资格（水平）考试（二级笔译）系列参考资料李鹏编写译道探微博客：/lipeng只有开放兼容，国家才能富强——在新加坡国立大学的演讲中华人民共和国国务院总理温家宝（2007年11月19日）Only an Open and Inclusive Nation Can Be Strong Address at National University of Singapore by Wen Jiabao, Premier of the State Council, the People's Republic of Chinaon November 19, 2007【原文】尊敬的李光耀资政，尊敬的施春风校长，同学们、老师们，女士们，先生们，朋友们：今天，我有机会到新加坡国立大学同各界知名人士和师生代表见面，感到十分高兴。
首先，我向在座各位并通过你们向新加坡人民转达中国人民的诚挚问候和良好祝愿。
【译文】Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew,Mr. Shih Choon Fong, President of the National University of Singapore,Students and faculty members,Ladies and gentlemen,Friends,I am delighted to have this opportunity of meeting you, leading public figures in Singapore and representatives of faculty and students of the National University of Singapore (NUS). Let me begin by conveying the warm greetings and best wishes of the Chinese people to you, and through you, to the people of Singapore.【评点】1.第二部分值得背诵，口译和笔译工作中都能用得上。
2006-2013CATTI二级笔译实务真题及答案汉译英
2006-2013CATTI⼆级笔译实务真题及答案汉译英2013年5⽉⼆级笔译真题1. 英译汉第⼀篇：For more than a decade, archaeologists and historians have been studying the contents of a ninth-century Arab dhow that was discovered in 1998 off Indonesia’s Belitung Island.⼗多年来，考古学家和历史学家⼀直在精⼼研究1998年在印度尼西亚我勿⾥洞岛附近发现的⼀膄19世纪单桅三⾓帆船残骸。
The sea-cucumber divers who found the wreck had no idea it eventually would be considered one of the most important maritime discoveries of the late 20th century.发现这些残骸的深海潜⽔员们根本不会想到这终将成为20世纪末最重要的海洋发现之⼀。
The dhow was carrying a rich cargo — 60,000 ceramic pieces and an array of gold and silver works —and its discovery has confirmed how significant trade was along a maritime silk road between Tang Dynasty China and Abbasid Iraq.由发现的60,000块瓷器碎⽚与⼤量⾦银器可见，这膄三⾓帆船当时运载着沉重的货物。
这⼀发现还证实了海上丝绸之路对古中国唐朝与伊拉克阿巴斯王朝之间的双边贸易往来发挥的重要作⽤。
It also has revealed how China was mass-producing trade goods even then and customizing them to suit the tastes of clients in West Asia.同时也揭⽰了中国当时已经开始⼤批量⽣产贸易物资，并可订购满⾜西亚消费者需求的产品。
二级笔译历年真题整理第二版
《二级笔译历年真题整理第二版》2006年5月【英译汉必译题】For all the natural and man-made disasters of the past year, travelers seem more determined than ever to leave home. Never mind the tsunami devastation in Asia last December, the recent earthquake in Kashmir or the suicide bombings this year in London and Bali, among other places on or off the tourist trail. The number of leisure travelers visiting tourist destinations hit by trouble has in some cases bounced back to a level higher than before disaster struck."This new fast recovery of tourism we are observing is kind of strange," said John Koldowski, director for the StrategicIntelligence Center of the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association. "It makes you think about the adage that any publicity is good publicity."It is still too soon to compile year-on-year statistics for the disasters of the past 12 months, but travel industry experts say that the broad trends are already clear. Leisure travel is expected to increase by nearly 5 percent this year, according to the World Tourism and Travel Council.Tourism and travel now seem to bounce back faster and higher each time there is an event of this sort," said Ufi Ibrahim, vice president of the London-based World Tourism and Travel Council. For London, where suicide bombers killed 56 and wounded 700 on July 8, she said, "It was almost as if people who stayed away after the bomb attack then decided to come back twice." Early indicators show that the same holds true for other disaster-struck destinations. Statistics compiled by the Pacific Asia Travel Association, for example, show that monthly visitor arrivalsin Sri Lanka, where the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami left more than 30,000 people dead or missing, were higher than one year earlier for every month from March through August of this year.A case commonly cited by travel professionals as an early example of the trend is Bali, where 202 people were killed in bombings targeting Western tourists in October 2002. Visitor arrivals plunged to 993,000 for the year after the bombing, but bounced back to 1.46 million in 2004, a level higher than the two years before the bomb, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association.Even among Australians, who suffered the worst casualties in the Bali bombings, the number of Bali-bound visitors bounced back within two years to the highest level since 1998, according the Pacific Asia Travel Association.Bali was hit again this year by suicide bombers who killed 19 people in explosions at three restaurants.Visits are also on the upswing to post-tsunami Thailand, where the giant waves killed 5,400 and left more than 5,000 missing. Although the tsunami killed more than 500 Swedes on the Thai resort island of Phuket, the largest number of any foreign nationality to die, Swedes are returning to the island in larger numbers than last year, according to My Travel Sweden, a Stockholm-based group that sends 600,000 tourists overseas annually and claims a 28 percent market share for Sweden. "We were confident that Thailand would eventually bounce back as a destination, but we didn"t think that this year it would come back even stronger than last year," said Joakim Eriksson, director of communication for My Travel Sweden. "We were very surprised because we really expected a significant decline."Eriksson said My Travel now expects a 5 percent increase in visitors to both Thailand and Sri Lanka this season compared with the same season last year. This behavior is a sharp change from the patterns of the 1990s, Eriksson said. "During the first Gulf war we saw a sharp drop in travel as a whole, and the same after Sept. 11," Eriksson said. "Now the main impact of terrorism or disasters is a change in destination."【参考译文】尽管去年发生了许多自然灾害和人为的灾害，但是旅游者比以往更加坚决地出门旅行。
人事部二级笔译英汉互译练习题集
翻译资格考试英汉互译练习题翻译资格考试英汉互译练习题(1)Since Darwin, biologists have been-firmly convinced that nature works without plan or meaning, pursuing no aim by the direct road of design. But today we see that this conviction is a fatal error. Why should evolution, exactly as Darwin knew it and described it, be planless and irrational? Do not aircraft design engineers work, at precisely that point where specific calculations and plans give out, according to the same principle of evolution, when they test the serviceability of a great number of statistically determined forms in the wind tunnel, in order to choose the one that functions best? Can we say that there is no process of natural selection when nuclear physicists, through thousands of computer operations, try to find out which materials, in which combinations and with what structural form, are best suited to the building of an atomic reactor? They also practise no designed adaptation, but work by the principle of selection. But it would never occur to anyone to call their method planless and irrational.【参考译文】达尔文以后的生物学家们一直相信，大自然的运行是没有计划没有意义的，不会按照预先设定的途径实现任何目的。
- 1、下载文档前请自行甄别文档内容的完整性，平台不提供额外的编辑、内容补充、找答案等附加服务。
- 2、"仅部分预览"的文档,不可在线预览部分如存在完整性等问题,可反馈申请退款(可完整预览的文档不适用该条件!)。
- 3、如文档侵犯您的权益，请联系客服反馈,我们会尽快为您处理(人工客服工作时间：9:00-18:30)。
2004年5月英语二级笔译实务试题试题部分：Section 1: English-Chinese Translation (英译汉) (60 points) This section consists of two parts: Part A “Compulsory Translation” and Part B “Optional Translations” which comprises “Topic 1” and “Topic 2”. Translate the passage in Part A and your choice from passages in Part B into Chinese. Write “Compulsory Translation” above your translation of Part A and write “Topic 1” or “Topic 2” above your translation of the passage from Part B. The time for this section is 100 minutes.Part A Compulsory Translation (必译题)（30 points）The first outline of The Ascent of Man was written in July 1969 and the last foot of film was shot in December 1972. An undertaking as large as this, though wonderfully exhilarating, is not entered lightly. It demands an unflagging intellectual and physical vigour, a total immersion, which I had to be sure that I could sustain with pleasure; for instance, I had to put off researches that I had already begun; and I ought to explain what moved me to do so.There has been a deep change in the temper of science in the last 20 years: the focus of attention has shifted from the physical to the life sciences. As a result, science is drawn more and more to the study of individuality. But the interested spectator is hardly aware yet how far-reaching the effect is in changing the image of man that science moulds. As a mathematician trained in physics, I too would have been unaware, had not a series of lucky chances taken me into the life sciences in middle age. I owe a debt for the good fortune that carried me into two seminal fields of science in one lifetime; and though I do not know to whom the debt is due, I conceived The Ascent of Man in gratitude to repay it.The invitation to me from the British Broadcasting Corporation was to present the development of science in a series of television programmes to match those of Lord Clark on Civilisation. Television is an admirable medium for exposition in several ways: powerful and immediate to the eye, able to take the spectator bodily into the places and processes that are described, and conversational enough to make him conscious that what he witnesses are not events but the actions of people. The last of these merits is to my mind the most cogent, and it weighed most with me in agreeing to cast a personal biography of ideas in the form of television essays. Thepoint is that knowledge in general and science in particular does not consist of abstract but of man-made ideas, all the way from its beginnings to its modern and idiosyncratic models. Therefore the underlying concepts that unlock nature must be shown to arise early and in the simplest cultures of man from his basic and specific faculties. And the development of science which joins them in more and more complex conjunctions must be seen to be equally human: discoveries are made by men, not merely by minds, so that they are alive and charged with individuality. If television is not used to make these thoughts concrete, it is wasted.Part B Optional Translations（二选一题）（30 points）Topic 1 (选题一)It’s not that we are afraid of seeing him stumble, of scribbling a mustache over his career. Sure, the nice part of us wants Mike to know we appreciate him, that he still reigns, at least in our memory. The truth, though, is that we don’t want him to come back because even for Michael Jordan, this would be an act of hubris so monumental as to make his trademark confidence twist into conceit. We don’t want him back on the court because no one likes a show-off. The stumbling? That will be fun.But we are nice people, we Americans, with 225 years of optimism at our backs. Days ago when M.J. said he had made a decision about returning to the NBA in September, we got excited. He had said the day before, “I look forward to playing, and hopefully I can get to that point where I can make that decision. It’s O.K., to have some doubt, and it’s O.K. to have some nervousness.” A Time/CNN poll last week has Americans, 2 to 1, saying they would like him on the court ASAP. And only 21 percent thought that if he came back and just completely bombed, it would damage his legend. In fact only 28 percent think athletes should retire at their peak.Sources close to him tell Time that when Jordan first talked about a comeback with the Washington Wizards, the team Jordan co-owns and would play for, some of his trusted advisers privately tried to discourage him. “But they say if they try to stop him, it will only firm up his resolve,” says an NBA source.The problem with Jordan’s return is not only that he can’t possibly live up to the storybook ending he gave up in 1998 — earning his sixth ring with a last-second championship-winning shot. The problem is that the motives for coming back —needing the attention, needing to play even when his 38-year-old body does not —violate the very myth of Jordan, the myth of absolute control. Babe Ruth, the 20th century’s first star, was a gust of fat bravado and drunken talent, while Jordan endedthe century by proving the elegance of resolve; Babe’s pointing to the bleachers replaced by the charm of a backpedaling shoulder shrug. Jordan symbolized success by not sullying his brand with his politics, his opinion or superstar personality. To be a Jordan fan was to be a fan of classiness and confidence.To come back when he knows that playing for Wizards won’t get him anywhere near the second round of the play-offs, when he knows that he won’t be the league scoring leader, that’s a loss of control.Jordan does not care what we think. Friends say that he takes articles that tell him not to come back and tacks them all on his refrigerator as inspiration. So why bother writing something telling him not to come back? He is still Michael Jordan.Topic 2 (选题二)Even after I was too grown-up to play that game and too grown-up to tell my mother that I loved her, I still believed I was the best daughter. Didn’t I run all the way up to the terrace to check on the drying mango pickles whenever she asked?As I entered my teens, it seemed that I was becoming an even better, more loving daughter. Didn’t I drop whatever I was doing each afternoon to go to the corner grocery to pick up any spices my mother had run out of?My mother, on the other hand, seemed more and more unloving to me. Some days she positively resembled a witch as she threatened to pack me off to my second uncle’s home in provincial Barddhaman —a fate worse than death to a cool Calcutta girl like me —if my grades didn’t improve. Other days she would sit me down and tell me about “Girls Who Brought Shame to Their Families”. There were apparently, a million ways in which one could do this, and my mother was determined that I should be cautioned against every one of them. On principle, she disapproved of everything I wanted to do, from going to study in America to perming my hair, and her favorite phrase was “over my dead body.” It was clear that I loved her far more than she loved me —that is, if she loved me at all.After I finished graduate school in America and got married, my relationship with my mother improved a great deal. Though occasionally dubious about my choice of a writing career, overall she thought I’d shaped up nicely. I thought the same about her. We established a rhythm: She’d write from India and give me all the gossip and send care packages with my favorite kind of mango pickle; I’d call her from the United States and tell her all the things I’d been up to and send care packages with instant vanilla pudding, for which she’d developed a great fondness. We loved each other equally —or so I believed until my first son, Anand, was born.My son’s birth shook up my neat, organized, in-control adult existence in ways Ihadn’t imagined. I went through six weeks of being shrouded in an exhausted fog of postpartum depression. As my husband and I walked our wailing baby up and down through the night, and I seriously contemplated going AWOL, I wondered if I was cut out to be a mother at all. And mother love — what was that all about?Then one morning, as I was changing yet another diaper, Anand grinned up at me with his toothless gums.Hmm, I thought. This little brown scrawny thing is kind of cute after all. Things progressed rapidly from there. Before I knew it, I’d moved the extra bed into the baby’s room and was spending many nights on it, bonding with my son.Section 2: Chinese-English Translation (汉译英) (40 points) This section consists of two parts: Part A “Compulsory Translation” and Part B “Optional Translations” which comprises “Topic 1” and “Topic 2”. Translate the passage in Part A and your choice from passages in Part B into English. Write “Compulsory Translation” above your translation of Part A and write “Topic 1” or “Topic 2” above your translation of the passage from Part B. The time for this section is 80 minutes.Part A Compulsory Translation (必译题)（20 points）奥林匹克运动的生命力和非凡魅力在于在奥林匹克运动中居核心地位的奥林匹克精神。