历年六级阅读理解逐句翻译：2009年12月（1）

　　一、

　　There is nothing like the suggestion of a cancer risk to scare a parent, especially one of the over-educated, eco-conscious type.

　　没有什么事情比有得癌症的迹象更让父母感到害怕的了，尤其对于受到过度教育、对生态环境敏感的那种人来说。

　　So you can imagine the reaction when a recent USA Today investigation of air quality around the nations schools singled out those in the smugly(自鸣得意的)green village of Berkeley, Calif., as being among the worst in the country.

　　所以当《今日美国》在近期公布的一份全国范围内的学校周边空气质量调查中，把加州伯克利的绿色环保小镇列为全国最差时，你可以想象到那些自鸣得意的人的反应。

　　The citys public high school, as well as a number of daycare centers, preschools, elementary and middle schools, fell in the lowest 10%. Industrial pollution in our town had supposedly turned students into living science experiments breathing in a laboratorys worth of heavy metals like manganese, chromium and nickel each day.

　　该市的公立高中以及为数众多的日间看护中心、学前教育机构、小学和中学都在最差的10%之列。我们镇上的工业污染大概把学生置于活体科学实验之中，学生们以等值于实验室的剂量每天吸入锰、镉和镍等重金属。

　　This in a city that requires school cafeterias to serve organic meals. Great, I thought, organic lunch, toxic campus.

　　这发生在一个要求学校的餐厅提供有机饭菜的城市中。太伟大了，我想，有机午餐，有毒校园。

　　Since December, when the report came out, the mayor, neighborhood activists(活跃分子)and various parent-teacher associations have engaged in a fierce battle over its validity: over the guilt of the steel-casting factory on the western edge of town, over union jobs versus childrens health and over what, if anything, ought to be done.

　　自12月份报告公布以来，市长，社区活跃分子和各种家长---教师联合会都参与到一场关于报告的可信度的激烈斗争中：关于位于小镇西北角上的钢铁铸造厂的罪责、有关孩子们的健康VS工会职责，以及应该去做的事，如果还有事能做的话。

　　With all sides presenting their own experts armed with conflicting scientific studies, whom should parents believe?

　　每一方都有代表他们的专家，手头上的科学研究结果相互矛盾，父母究竟应该相信谁?

　　Is there truly a threat here, we asked one another as we dropped off our kids, and if so, how great is it?

　　我们在让孩子下车时会相互询问，这儿是不是真的存在危险?如果真有危险的话，有多大?

　　And how does it compare with the other, seemingly perpetual health scares we confront, like panic over lead in synthetic athletic fields?

　　和其他危险相比怎么样?比如像综合运动场上铅含量这样我们似乎要面临的永久性的健康恐慌。

　　Rather than just another weird episode in the town that brought you protesting environmentalists, this latest drama is a trial for how todays parents perceive risk, how we try to keep our kids safewhether its possible to keep them safein what feels like an increasingly threatening world. It raises the question of what, in our time, safe could even mean.

　　这不仅仅是发生在城镇中的又一个奇特事件 ，引来一群游行抗议的环保主义者，这场最新的闹剧是对现在的父母如何看待风险的试金石，我们如何在一个看起来日益危机四起的世界里尽量保证我们孩子的安全----无论能否保证他们的安全。这引起的问题是，在我们的时代安全究竟意味着什么。

　　Theres no way around the uncertainty, says Kimberly Thompson, president of Kid Risk, a nonprofit group that studies childrens health. That means your choices can matter, but it also means you arent going to know if they do.

　　没有办法解决不确定的问题，金伯利汤普森说，她是一个研究儿童健康问题的非盈利性组织孩子的危险的主席。这意味着你的选择很重要，但这也意味着如果你的选择真的很重要的话，你也没有办法知道。

　　A 2004 report in the journal Pediatrics explained that nervous parents have more to fear from fire, car accidents and drowning than from toxic chemical exposure.

　　一份2004年发表在学术期刊《儿科》上的报告解释了不安的父母们对火灾、车祸和溺水的恐慌要更甚于接触有毒化学物质。

　　To which I say: Well, obviously. But such concrete hazards are beside the point.

　　对此我认为：嗯，很明显。但是这些具体的危险并非重点。

　　Its the dangers parents cantand may neverquantify that occur all of sudden. Thats why Ive rid my cupboard of microwave food packed in bags coated with a potential cancer-causing substance, but although Ive lived blocks from a major fault line for more than 12 years, I still havent bolted our bookcases to the living room wall.

　　正式父母们不能----可能永远也不能-----量化危险会突然发生。这正是我已经把所有包装袋上涂有可能致癌物质的微波食品全部扔掉的原因，但是尽管我住在一个距离大地质断层几街区远的地方已经12年了，我仍然没把我们的书架固定在客厅的墙上。