问答题
One thing that distinguishes the online world from the real one is that it is very easy to find things. To find a copy of The Economist in print, one has to go to a newsstand, which may or may not carry it. Finding it online, though, is a different proposition. Just go to Google, type it in" economist" and you will be instantly directed to economist.com. (46) Indeed, until Google, now the world's most popular search engine, came on to the scene in September 1998, searching online was a hit-or-miss affair. Google was vastly better than anything that had come before: so much better, in fact, that it changed the way many people use the web. (47) Almost overnight, it made the web far more useful, particularly for non-specialist users, many of whom regard Google as the Internet's front door. It's now a worldwide phenomenon. Not only has it made the Internet into an extremely fast and valuable research tool, it's become a common word and has even created a new verb" to google." (48)The recent fuss over Google's stock market flotation obscures its far wider social significance: few technologies, after all, are so influential that their names have become a household verb such as the cloning technology creates the verb" to clone". Google began in 1998 as an academic research project by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, who were then graduate students at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It was not the first search engine, of course. (49) Existing search engines were able to scan a large portion of the web, build an index, and then find pages that matched particular words, but were less good at presenting those pages, which might number in the hundreds of thousands, in a useful way. Mr. Brin's and Mr. Page's accomplishment was to devise a way to sort the results by determining which pages were likely to be most relevant. They did so by using a mathematical program, called PageRank. (50) This program is at the heart of Google's success, distinguishing it from all search engines and accounting for its apparently magical ability to find the most useful web pages. With this powerful ability. Google distinguished itself from among all the search engines and became an established standing research tool in the online world.
【答案解析】[要点分析] 此题目有两处难点。一是插入语now the world's most popular search engine的位置问题；二是名词词组a hit-or-miss affair的翻译。如果将插入语仍然放在原位，翻译成“在1998年9月谷歌这个目前世界上最受欢迎的搜索引擎出现之前……”，则非常拗口，读起来费力。将插入语放在什么位置需要从全局的角度来考虑。题目这两句总体是指谷歌出现之前网络搜索比较困难。因此，我们将插入语放在最前面，根据汉语的习惯，就可以突出后面句子的主体性，突出整体意思。由于我们把插入语放在最前面，根据后面句子的语义，必须在后面句子之前加上表示转折的连接词“而”，即理顺了前后句的语义关系，又可以达到突出后面句子的效果。名词词组a hit-or-miss affair字面意思是“要么打着，要么没打着”，是指射击时不看目标，随意开枪。这里我们根据其引申义，将它翻译成“碰运气(的事)”。考查点：插入语翻译之后的位置；对词的本义的理解及其引申义的翻译。
【答案解析】[要点分析] 此句包含一个非限定性定语从句，并且这个定语从句的时态与主句不同。由于非限定性定语从句many of whom regard Google as the Internet's front door表示对先行词non-specialist users的补充说明或修饰，并不是必要成份，因此，我们可以将其翻译成独立的句子，让其脱离所修饰的先行词。另外，此从句的时态是现在时，与主语不一致，翻译时在特别注意两部分时态的差异。从整体分析，主句说明谷歌让非专业人员使用网络更加方便，从句是说这些非专业人员中许多人(随着使用习惯的形成)目前把谷歌看成是互联网的门户。因此，我们在翻译时加上了时间状语“现在”已显示出英语原句时态的差异。考查点：非限定性定语从句的翻译；同一句子中不同时态的翻译。
【答案解析】[要点分析] 此题目句子中的谓语部分较长，并包含一个非限定性定语从句。后半部分句子的表语成分were less good at和其主语existing search engine隔开，因此，翻译为汉语时应该部分重复这个表语的主语“现有的搜索引擎”。另外，名词短语those pages指前面出现过的名词短语pages that matched particular words，因此，也需要翻译时重复这个名词短语。考查点：长句子被拆分翻译后，有必要重复句子重要成分。
【答案解析】[要点分析] 此题的难点是两个伴随状语的翻译。从语法上看，distinguishing it．．．．和accounting for．．是两个伴随状语，但是从语义上分析，它们是谷歌成功的原因。因此，我们可以把它们翻译成表示原因状语。另外，从两个伴随状语的顺序上看，后一个(its apparently magical ability to find the most useful web pages)是前一个(distinguishing it from all search engines)的基础和条件，因此，在翻译时，可以把后一个状语放在前面，把主句(This program is at the heart of Google's success)放在最后面。这样，参考译文的语义上更通顺，更符合汉语习惯。最后，介词词组at the heart of从语义上翻译成“关键(因素)”是意译，译文简明扼要。考查点：伴随状语的理解其及翻译后的顺序如何处理。