英译汉指导：大学英语四级考试翻译练习9

　　练习六

　　Directions: Read the underlined sentences carefully, and then translate them into Chinese. You may check your answers after you finish them.

　　Passage One

　　Water on the earth is being recycled continuously in a process known as the hydrologic (水) cycle. The first step of the cycle is the evaporation of water in the oceans. Evaporation is the process of water turning into vapor, which then forms clouds in the sky. The second step is the water returning to the earth in the form of precipitation ：either rain, snow or ice. When the water returning to the earths surface, it runs off into the rivers, lakes, and the ocean, where the cycle begins again.

　　Not all water, however, stays on the surface of the earth in the hydrologic(水)cycle. Some of it sinks slowly into the ground through infiltration and collects under the earths surface as groundwater. This groundwater is extremely important to life on earth, since 95 percent of the earths water is in the oceans and is too salty for human beings or plants. Of the 5 percent on land, only .05 percent is above ground in rivers or lakes. The rest is underground water. This underground water is plentiful and dependable, because it doesnt depend on seasonal rain or snow. It is the major source of water for many cities. But as the population increases and the need for water also increases, the groundwater in some areas is getting dangerously low. Added to this problem is an increasing amount of pollution that seeps into the groundwater. In the future, with a growing population and more poisonous waste, the hydrologic cycle we depend on could become dangerously unbalanced.

　　Passage Two

　　Advertising in America offers some great advantages to consumers. For example, in order to keep prices low through mass production, companies must have a mass market for their products. Mass advertising creates mass markets. Producers cannot afford to develop new products, put them on the market and wait for customers to discover them. This would take too long. Demand for some products must be created. This is done through advertising.

　　But advertising sometimes makes it difficult for consumers to make wise decisions. The fact is that when people are constantly flooded with messages through the mass media(大众媒体)persuading them to buy particular products, many respond by buying them.

　　Advertising is designed to influence an individual to buy a product. Sellers often study human behavior to discover what will convince consumers to buy a certain item. This reason for buying is called a buying motive.

　　Buying motives are usually broken down into two categories: rational and emotional. Rational buying motives include the desire to save money, the desire for comfort, or the desire for good workmanship. Emotional buying motives include buying out of fear, wanting to be liked, and wanting to have something better than your friends have.

　　Emotional appeals are found in most consumer advertising today. Certain cars promise to make the driver feel younger and freer. Shoes promise to make the buyers whole life springier. Life insurance policies promise to take the care out of living.

　　Most consumers believe that they are not easily influenced by emotional appeals. However, corporations that sell consumer products obviously think differently. They spend may millions of dollars every day on radio, television, newspaper and magazine ads that use these appeals.

　　Passage Three

　　We find that bright children are rarely held back by mixed-ability teaching. On the contrary, both their knowledge and experience are enriched. We feel that there are many disadvantages in streaming(把按能力分班)pupils. It does not take into account the fact that children develop at different rates. It can have a bad effect on both the bright and the not-so-bright child. After all, it can be quite discouraging to be at the bottom of the top grade!

　　Besides, it is rather unreal to grade people just according to their intellectual ability. This is only one aspect of their total personality. We are concerned to develop the abilities of all our pupils to the full, not just their academic ability. We also value personal qualities and social skills, and we find that mixed-ability teaching contributes to all these aspects of learning.

　　In our classrooms, we work in various ways. The pupils often work in groups: this give them the opportunity to learn to co-operate, to share, and to develop leadership skills. They also learn how to cope with personal problems as well as how to think, to make decisions, to analyze and evaluate, and to communicate effectively. The pupils learn from each other as well as from the teacher.

　　Sometimes the pupils work in pairs; sometimes they work on individual tasks and assignments, and they can do this at their own speed. They 　also have some library, and we teach them the skills they need in order to do this effectively. An expect our pupils to do their best, not their least, and we give them every encouragement to attain this goal.

　　Passage Four

　　Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be walking, cycling or swimming, or in winter, skating or skiing. It may be a game of some kind of football, hockey, golf, or tennis. It may be mountaineering.

　　Those who have a passion for climbing high and difficult mountains are often looked upon with astonishment. Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and hardship, and to take risk on high mountains? This astonishment is caused probably by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity to which men give their leisure.

　　Mountaineering is a sport and not a game. There are no man-made rules, as there are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of a different thing that it would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering attractive to many people. Those who climb mountains are free to use their own methods.

　　If we compare mountaineering and other more familiar sports, we might think that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a team game. We should be mistaken in this. There are, it is true, no matches between teams of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is obviously teamwork.

　　The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that are stronger and more powerful than men. He has to fight the forces of nature. His sport requires high mental and physical qualities.

　　A mountain climber continues to improve in skill year after year. A skier is probably past his best by the age of thirty, and most international tennis champions are in their early twenties. But it is not unusual for a man of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they probably climb with more skill and less waste of efforts, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.