考研英语专业英汉互译分类真题14

考研英语专业英汉互译分类真题14 英译汉

1. Defining the meaning of \"happiness\" is a perplexing proposition: the best one can do is to try to set some extremes to the idea and then work towards the middle. To think of happiness as achieving superiority over others, living in a mansion made of marble, having a wardrobe with hundreds of outfits, will do to set the greedy extreme. To think of happiness as the joy of a holy man of India will do to set the spiritual extreme. He sits completely still, contemplating the nature of reality, free even of his own body. If admirers bring him food, he eats it; if not, he starves. Why be concerned? What is physical is trivial to him. To contemplate is his joy and he achieves complete mental focus through an incredibly demanding discipline, the accomplishment of which is itself a joy to him.

Is he a happy man? Perhaps his happiness is only another sort of illusion. But who can take it from him? And who will dare say it is more false than happiness paid for through an installment plan? Although the holy man's concept of happiness may enjoy considerable prestige in the Orient, I doubt the existence of such motionless happiness. What is certain is that his way of happiness would be torture to almost anyone of Western temperament. Yet these extremes will still serve to define the area within which all of us must find some sort of balance. Thoreau had his own firm sense of that balance: save on the petty in order to spend on the essential.

答案：对“幸福”的含义作出明确的界定，这个要求令人难以把握。最恰当的做法就是，先给这个观点划定极限，而后取其中庸。如

果把幸福看成是优人一等，那么身居大理石豪宅，藏百服于橱间，可谓贪婪。如果把幸福理解为印度圣人的愉悦，可谓脱俗之极。他一动不动地坐在那里，冥思存在的本质，甚至达到了忘我的境地。有仰慕者递上食物，他便吃；没有，他便不吃。有形的东西在他眼里微不足道。静思就是他的愉快，通过极其微妙的自我调整，他达到了意念的高度入定，如此境界已然令他喜不自禁了。

他算是个幸福的人吗?可能他的幸福不过是又一种虚幻。可谁又能把这幸福从他身上抢走呢?谁敢说这种幸福不如通过分期付款买来的幸福来的真实呢?

虽然印度圣人的幸福观在东方可能备受推崇，我却怀疑这种无所作为的幸福的真实性。可以肯定的是，他那种获得幸福的途径对于西方性情的人来说几乎无一例外的是种折磨。可是这些极端的情形对于界定幸福的含义还是很有帮助的，因为这样我们就可以在两者中间找到某种平衡。关于这种平衡，梭罗有其独到的见解：舍小节，保大节。

2. How appreciative are you of your lot in life? Because in a recent study, 60 percent of the British households surveyed agreed that \"they cannot afford to buy everything they really need\and this included 40 percent of households with an income of 50,000 pounds or more. Though in real purchasing power we earn on average three times what people earned in the Fifties, there is good evidence that we rate ourselves not one jot happier.

For some time now, we've been working longer than is good for us, often in a misguided attempt to acquire the luxuries that we think will make life better. But the feelings of dissatisfaction that drive our overwrought ambitions are not just about ownership and consumption; they are also about personal attributes. For instance, on the one hand many parents and schools expect ever more A grades from their teenagers, while media messages exert pressure on those same students to excel

in physical attractiveness, sporting prowess and sparkling character. Such inflated and often incompatible goals may help to explain why eating disorders, depression and alcoholism have all risen dramatically since the Fifties, as people of all ages feel anything between shamed and angry about not having lived up to expectations——theirs or someone else's.

So how can we temper our appetite to consume, and enjoy what we have instead'?. Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff of Loyola University in California suggest we learn to savor more expertly, that is, to better appreciate who we are and what we have, rather like when we close our eyes to relish the taste of something, instead of teeing up the next mouthful.

答案：你对自己的命运有几分感激呢?最近一项研究表明，60%被调查的英国家庭认为“他们不能支付他们真正需要的所有的东西”，而这些家庭里面40%的收入有五万英镑或者更高。虽然我们的平均购买力是五十年代人们的三倍，但是事实证明我们并没有认为自己更快乐一些。

现在，我们工作的时间更长，这对我们并不好。我们经常被一种思想所误导：认为得到一些奢侈品会让生活变得好一些。这种不满足感总是驱使着我们的雄心壮志而计我们疲于奔命，但是，它不仅只表现在占有和消费方面，还有个人的品质。比如说，一方面很多家长和学校都希望孩子可以得A，而各种媒体信息又要求这些学生要形体优美、擅长运动和有朝气。这些夸大的、不调和的目标也许就是为什么H五十年代以来进食失调、压抑、酗酒等现象迅速增长的原因，因为各个年龄段的人都因为辜负了自己的抑或是他人的期望而感到又羞又恼。

因此，我们如何才能重拾信心，好好享受我们所拥有的呢?加利福尼亚州罗耀拉大学的Fred Bryant 和Joseph Veroff建议我们应该学会好好品味，也就是说，要更好地欣赏我们白己和我们所拥有的，就如我们要闭上双眼来细品而不是急忙地又吃一大口。

3. Many matters, however, are less easily brought to the test of experience. If, like most of mankind,

you have strong convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own prejudices. If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you subconsciously are aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If someone maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about difference of\" opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination that your belief is going beyond what the evidence justifies.

For those who have enough psychological imagination, it is a good plan to imagine an argument with a person having a different opinion. This has one advantage, and only one, as compared with actual conversation with opponents: this one advantage is that the method is not subject to the same limitations of time and space. Mahatma Candhi considered it unfortunate to have railways and steamboats and machinery; he would have liked to undo the whole of the industrial revolution. You may never have an opportunity of actually meeting anyone who holds his opinion, because in Western countries most people take the advantage of modern technology for granted. But if you want to make sure that you are right in agreeing with the prevailing opinion, you will find it a good plan to test the arguments that occur to you by considering what Gandhi might have said in refutation of them. I have sometimes been led

actually to change my mind as a result of this kind of imaginary dialogue. Furthermore, I have frequently found myself growing more agreeable through realizing the possible reasonableness of a hypothetical opponent.

答案：然而，很多问题用经验来检验会比较困难。即使你像大多数人那样，在此类事情上执迷不悟，还是有方法让你意识到自己的偏见。如果与你相左的观点激怒了你，这恰恰说明了你已经下意识地认识到自己还没法给自己的想法以合适的理由。如果有人坚称二加二等于五，或者冰岛位于赤道，你更多的是感到同情而非愤怒，除非你对算术或地理一无所知，以致他的观点动摇了你的立场。最残酷的争论是，双方都无法给自己的观点提出合理的证据。所以无论发现自己对不同的意见有多么气恼，一定要保持警惕；你很有可能会发现，经过检验，你的信念并无足够的依据。

对那些想象力丰富的人，想象着同与自己观点相异的人交锋是项不错的计划。与实际的正面交锋相比，这种方式有一个——可以说是惟一的——好处：它无需受时间与空间的限制。圣人甘地认为拥有铁路、轮船和机器是不幸的，他宁愿整个工业革命未曾发生过。你可能永远也不会遇到一个跟他持有相同观点的人，因为在西方国家，绝大部分人都认为现代科技具有诸多好处。但如果你想证实你赞同时下盛行的观点，这一行为是正确的，你可以通过考虑甘地可能给出的拒绝高科技的理由来检验你所