2007年6月6级阅读理解逐句翻译

2007年6月

一、

Google is a world-famous company, with its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Google(谷歌）是一家享誉世界的公司，其总部位于加州山景区。

It was set up in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998, and inflated (膨胀) with the Internet bubble. 1998年始建于硅谷的一间车房里，随着互联网泡沫的膨胀发展。

Even when everything around it collapsed the company kept on inflating.

即使当与互联网相关的一切开始破裂的时候，它仍然飞速发展。

Google’s search engine is so widespread across the world that search became Google, and google became a verb.

Google的搜索引擎在全球范围内流传，以至于Google成了搜索的代名词，而google也成为一个动词。

The world fell in love with the effective, fascinatingly fast technology.

世界爱上了这项迷人而快捷的技术。

Google owes much of its success to the brilliance of S. Brin and L. Page, but also to a series of fortunate events.

Google的成功很大程度上归功于S.Brin和L.Page的才华，但同时也是一连串幸运事件的结果。

It was Page who, at Stanford in 1996, initiated the academic project that eventually became Google’s search engine.

1996年，Page在斯坦福大学作一个学术项目，最终成为google的搜索引擎。

Brin, who had met Page at a student orientation a year earlier, joined the project early on.

Brin在之前的一年的新生介绍会上认识了Page，随后加入了Google搜索引擎的项目。They were both Ph.D. candidates when they devised the search engine which was better than the rest and, without any marketing, spread by word of mouth from early adopters to, eventually, your grandmother.

当时他们都是博士研究生，但他们设计的搜索引擎要优于其他的，而且没有做任何市场推广，仅靠交口相传，就从最初的使用者最终传到了你祖母的耳中。

Their breakthrough, simply put, was that when their search engine crawled the Web, it did more than just look for word matches, it also tallied (统计) and ranked a host of other critical factors like how websites link to one another.

简单来说，他们的突破发生在搜索引擎在网络上慢慢传播的时候，引擎提供的不仅仅是找寻匹配的词语，还可以根据一些关键指标如网页如何相连对主页进行统计和排序。

That delivered far better results than anything else.

引擎得到的结果比其他的都好。

Brin and Page meant to name their creation Googol (the mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes), but someone misspelled the word so it stuck as Google.

Brin和Page用googol(数学术语，指前面有100个零的数字）命名他们的作品，但是有人把这个单词错拼成了Google。

They raised money from prescient (有先见之明的) professors and venture capitalists, and moved off campus to turn Google into business.

他们从有先见之明的教授和风险投资者那里筹集资金，让google从校园走向商业化。

Perhaps their biggest stroke of luck came early on when they tried to sell their technology to other search engines, but no one met their price, and they built it up on their own.

或许他们最大的运气是在早期，那是他们尝试出售自己的技术给其他引擎公司，但没有人能够满足他们的价位，于是他们决定自己创业。

The next breakthrough came in 2000, when Google figured out how to make money with its invention.

第二次突破是在2000年，当时google提出如何利用发明盈利。

It had lots of users, but almost no one was paying.

Google有众多用户，但几乎没有人付费。

The solution turned out to be advertising, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that Google is now essentially an advertising company, given that that’s the source of nearly all its revenue.

最终的解决方法是做广告，毫不夸张的说，Gooogle现在实际上就是一家广告公司，因为几乎其所有的收入都是源于广告。

Today it is a giant advertising company, worth $100 billion

现在Google是一家巨型广告公司，其市值达到一千亿美元。

二、

You hear the refrain all the time: the U.S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn’t feel good.

你一直重复听到：美国的经济从数据上看很不错，但实际上并不觉得很好。

Why doesn’t ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness?

为什么不断增加的财富却没有促进不断提高的幸福程度呢？

It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent(富裕的) Societyby John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97.

这个问题最早要追溯到1958年《富足社会》一书的出现，其作者John Kenneth Galbraith最近去世了，享年97岁。

The Affluent Society is a modern classic because it helped define a new moment in the human condition.

《富足社会》是一本现代名著，因为书中定义了人类境况的一个新时期。

For most of history, “hunger, sickness, and cold” threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote.

在历史上的大多数时期，“饥寒交迫和疾病”几乎威胁了每一个人。Galbraith写道：“Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours.”

“贫穷出现在那个世界的任何角落。但这显然与我们无关”

After World War II, the dread of another Great Depression gave way to an economic boom. In the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4.5 percent.

“二战”后，对于新的一次大衰退的恐惧让位于一次经济繁荣。在二十世纪三十年代，失业率高达18.2%，而在二十世纪五十年代，失业率为4.5%。

To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would breed discontent.

对于Galbraith而言，物质主义已经疯狂，并且会滋生不满。

Thro ugh advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn’t really want or need.

公司通过广告让消费者购买他们不需要或者不想要的东西。

Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unfulfilling.

如此多的花费是虚假的，所以肯定会有不满

Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people instinctively—and wrongly—labeled government only as “a necessary evil.”

同时，能让每个人生活得更好的政府开销却减少了，因为人们本能地、错误地为政府贴上了“必要的恶魔”的标签。

It’s often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is s tanding still or falling behind. 人们常说只有富人在前行，其他人都停留在原地或者落在后面。

Well, there are many undeserving rich—overpaid chief executives, for instance.

例如，是有很多人不应富有的人

But over any meaningful period, most people’s incomes are increasing.

工资过高的首席执行官。但是在经历了很多重要时期之后，大多数人的收入在上升。

From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted average family income rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200.

从1995年到2004年，针对通货膨胀进行调整的普通家庭收入上升了14.3%，达到了43，200美元。

P eople feel “squeezed” because their rising incomes often don’t satisfy their rising wants—for bigger homes, more health care, more education, faster Internet connections.

人们觉得“被压榨”，是因为他们增加的收入不能满足他们上升的欲望----更大的房子，更多医疗保健，更多教育，更快的网络连接。

The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity.

另外一大沮丧是不安全感并没有被消除。

People regard job stability as part of their standard of living.

人们把工作的稳定性看成生活标准的一部分。

As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded.

随着公司裁员的增加了，这部分被腐蚀了。

More workers fear they’ve become “the disposable American,” as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name.

更过的员工害怕自己会成为“被处理的美国人”，这一说法来自于LouisUchtelle的同名著作。Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the arrival of widespread affluence suggested utopian (乌托邦式的) possibilities.

因为前面提到的痛苦和社会冲突都来源于贫穷，大范围富裕的来临暗示了乌托邦式的可能。Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much les physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions.

从某种意义来说，富裕成功了。比起以前，身体上的痛苦大大减少。人们比以前更富于了。不幸的是，富足同样创造了新的抱怨和矛盾。

Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens.

现金的社会需要经济增长，以满足市民日益多样化的需要。

But the quest for growth lets loose new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order.

但是对增长的追求却产生了新的焦虑和经济冲突，扰乱了社会秩序。

Affluence liberates the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-fulfillment.

富裕解放了个人，承诺每个人可以选择独特方式来达成自己的愿望。

But the promise is so extravagant that it predestines many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown and obesity (肥胖症).

但是承诺是如此的奢侈，以至于注定会有失望，有时还会引起带来反社会的选择，包括家庭破裂和肥胖症。

Statistical indicators of happiness have not risen with incomes.

数据表明，幸福并没有随着收入的增长而增长。

Should we be surprised? Not really. We’ve simply reaffirmed an old truth: the pursuit of affluence does not always end with happiness.

我们是不是应该感到惊讶？不必。我们仅是重新印证了一句老话：对富裕的追求并不会总是以幸福为结局。