英译汉A few weeks back, I asked a 14-year-old friend how she was coping with school. Referring to stress, she heaved a big sigh and said: "Aiyah, anything bad that can happen has already happened." Her friends nearby then started pouring out their woes about which subjects they found hard, and so on. Pessimism again, in these all-too-familiar remarks about Singapore''s education system, widely regarded as too results-oriented, and I wonder why I even bothered to ask. The school system of reaching for A''s underlies the country''s culture, which emphasizes the chase for economic excellence where wealth and status are must-haves. Such a culture is hard to change. So when I read of how the new Remaking Singapore Committee had set one of its goals as challenging the traditional roads to success, encouraging Singaporeans to realize alternative careers in the arts, sports, research or as entrepreneurs, I had my doubts about its success in this area, if not coupled with help from parents themselves. The new Remaking Singapore Committee is a brainchild of the Singaporean Prime Minister, formed to make Singaporeans look beyond the five C''s: cash, condos, clubs, credit cards and cars, to help prepare the nation for the future. It is good that the government wants to do something about the country''s preoccupation with material success. But it will be a losing battle if the family unit itself is not involved because I believe the committee''s success is rooted in a revamp of an entire culture built from 37 years of independence. This makeover has to start with the most basic societal unit — the family. Parents should not drown their children in mantras of I-want-hundred-marks. Tuition lessons are not the be-all and end-all of life. And a score of 70 for a Chinese paper is definitely not the end of life. If ever I become a parent, I will bring my children camping. I will show them that cooking food in a mess tin over a campfire is fun. I will teach them that there is nothing dirty about lying on a sleeping bag over grass. In fact, it is educational because Orion is up there in the night sky with all the other bright stars whose shapes and patterns tell something more than a myth. For instance, they give directions to the lost traveler, I will say. And who knows, my child may become an astronomer years down the road. All because of the nights I spent with him watching the twinkles in the sky. That''s my point. Parents should teach their children that there''s more to life than studies. Better still if the nation''s leaders echo that idea as well. This way, when their children aspire to be the next Joscelin Yeo, they won''t feel like they are fighting a losing battle against a society that holds doctors and lawyers in awe. However, the culture that babysits economic excellence is deeply ingrained and so are the mindsets of many parents. But parents can take the cue from the new Remaking Singapore Committee and be aware of giving their children the right kind of education. It is now wait-and-see if, say, 10 years down the road, more would choose alternative careers. Hopefully, by then no one would think sportsmen or musicians as making too big a sacrifice in chasing their dreams.

英译汉The importance of agriculture cannot be overstated. More than 50 percent of the world''s labor force is employed in agriculture. The distribution in the early 1980s ranged from 67 percent of those employed in Africa to less than 5 percent in North America. In Western Europe, the figure was about 16 percent; in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, about 32 percent; and in Asia, about 68 percent. Farm size varies widely from region to region. Recently the average for Canadian farms was about 186 ha (about 460 acres) per farm, and for U.S. farms, about 175 ha (about 432 acres). The average size of a single landholding in the Philippines, however, may be somewhat less than 3.6 ha (less than 9 acres), and in Indonesia, a little less than 1.2 ha (less than 3 acres). Size also depends on the purpose of the farm. Commercial farming, or production for cash, is usually done on large holdings. The plantations of Latin America are large, privately owned estates worked by tenant labor. Single-crop plantations produce tea, rubber, cocoa. Wheat farms are most efficient when they comprise some thousands of hectares and can be worked by teams of people and machines. Australian sheep stations and other livestock farms must be large to provide grazing for thousands of animals. Individual subsistence farms or small-family mixed-farm operations are decreasing in number in developed countries but are still numerous in the developing countries of Africa and Asia. A "back-to-the-land" movement in the U.S. reversed the decline of small farms in New England and Alaska in the decade from 1970 to 1980. The conditions that determine what will be raised in an area include climate, water supply, and terrain. Over the 10,000 years since agriculture began to be developed, peoples everywhere have discovered the food value of wild plants and animals and domesticated and bred them. The most important are cereals such as wheat, rice, barley, corn and rye. Agricultural income is also derived from non-food crops such as rubber, fiber plants, tobacco, and oilseeds used in synthetic chemical compounds. Money is also derived from raising animals for pelt. Much of the foreign exchange earned by a country may be derived from a single commodity; for example, Sri Lanka depends on tea, Denmark specializes in dairy products, Australia in wool, and New Zealand and Argentina in meat products. In the U.S., wheat has become a major foreign exchange commodity in recent years. The importance of an individual country as an exporter of agricultural products depends on many variables. Among them is the possibility that the country is too little developed industrially to produce manufactured goods in sufficient quantity or technical sophistication. Such agricultural exporters include Ghana with cocoa, and Myanmar with rice. On the other hand, an exceptionally well-developed country may produce surpluses not needed by its own population; this has been true of the U.S., Canada, and some of the West European countries.

英译汉Stonehenge, England — The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge stands tall in the British countryside as one of the last remnants of the Neolithic Age. Recently it has also become the latest symbol of another era: the new fiscal austerity. Renovations — including a plan to replace the site’s run-down visitors center with one almost five times bigger and to close a busy road that runs along the 5,000-year-old monument — had to be mothballed in June. The British government had suddenly withdrawn ￡10 million, or $16 million, in financing for the project as part of a budget squeeze. Stonehenge, once a temple with giant stone slabs aligned in a circle to mark the passage of the sun, is among the most prominent victims of the government’s spending cuts. The decision was heavily criticized by local lawmakers, especially because Stonehenge, a Unesco World Heritage site, was part of London’s successful bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The shabby visitors center there now is already too small for the 950,000 people who visit Stonehenge each year, let alone the additional onslaught of tourists expected for the Games, the lawmakers say. Stonehenge is the busiest tourist attraction in Britain’s southwest, topping even Windsor Castle. But no major improvements have been made to the facilities there since they were built 40 years ago. For now, portable toilets lead from a crammed （拥挤的）parking lot, via a makeshift （临时的）souvenir（纪念品） shop in a tent, to a ticket office opposite a small kiosk that sells coffee and snacks. The overhaul was scheduled for next spring. Plans by the architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall would keep the stone monument itself unchanged. But the current ticket office and shop would be demolished and a new visitors center would be built on the other side of the monument, about two and a half kilometers, or 1.5 miles, from the stones. The center would include a shop almost five times the size of the current one, a proper restaurant, three times as many parking spots and an exhibition space to provide more information about Stonehenge’s history. A transit system would shuttle visitors between the center and the stones while footpaths would encourage tourists to walk to the monument and explore the surrounding burial hills. The closed road would be grassed over to improve the surrounding landscape. Last year, the ￡27 million project won the backing of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. After more than 25 years of bickering with local communities about how and where to build the new center, planning permission was granted in January. Construction was supposed to start next year and be completed in time for the Olympics — but the economic downturn has changed those plans. The new prime minister, David Cameron, has reversed many of his predecessor’s promises as part of a program to cut more than ￡99 billion annually over the next five years to help close a gaping budget deficit. The financing for Stonehenge fell in the first round of cuts, worth about ￡6.2 billion, from the budget for the current year, along with support for a hospital and the British Film Institute. English Heritage, a partly government-financed organization that owns Stonehenge and more than 400 other historic sites in the country, is now aggressively looking for private donations. But the economic downturn has made the endeavor more difficult. Hunched over architectural renderings of the new center, Loraine Knowles, Stonehenge’s project director, said she was disappointed that the government had withdrawn money while continuing to support museums in London, like the Tate and the British Museum. But Ms. Knowles said she was hopeful that English Heritage could raise the money elsewhere. Stonehenge, she said, could then also become “a shining example of how philanthropy could work.”

英译汉HIGUERADELASERENA，Spain—Itdidn’ttakelongforManuelGarcíaMurillo，abricklayerwhotookoverasmayorherelastJune，torealizethathistownwasintrouble.Itwas800，000euros，alittlemorethan$1million，inthered.Therewasnocashonhandtopayforanything—andtherewasworkthatneededtobedone. Butthenanamazingthinghappened，hesaid.Justasthehealthdepartmentwasabouttoclosedownthedaycarecenterbecauseitdidn’thaveaproperkitchen，BernardoBenítez，aconstructionworker，offeredtoputupthewallsandthetilesfree.Then，MariaJoséCarmona，anadulteducationteacher，steppedintocleantheplaceup. Andsomehow，thevolunteersjustkeptcoming.EverySundaynow，theresidentsofthistowninsouthwestSpain—youngandold—dowhatneedstobedone，whetheritiscleaningthestreets，rakingtheleaves，uncloggingculvertsorplantingtreesinthepark. “Itwasaninitiativefromthem，”saidMr.García.“Daytodaywetalkedtopeopleandwetoldthemtherewasnomoney.Ofcourse，theycouldseeit.Thegrassinbetweenthesidewalkswasuptomythigh.“ HigueradelaSerenaisinmanywaysamicrocosmofSpain’stroubles.JustasSpain’snationalandregionalgovernmentsarestrugglingwiththecollapseoftheconstructionindustry，overspendingonhugecapitalprojectsandapileupofunpaidbills，thesameproblemsafflictmanyofitssmalltowns. ButwhathasbroughtHigueradelaSerenaameasureoffameinSpainisthattheresidentshavesteppedupwheretheirgovernmenthasfailed.Mr.Garcíasayshisphoneringsregularlyfromothertownofficialswhowanttoknowhowtodothesamething.Heisservingwithoutpay，asarethetown’stwootherelectedofficials.Theyarealsoforgoingthecarsandphonesthatusuallycomewiththejob. “Welivedbeyondourmeans，”Mr.Garcíasaid.“Weinvestedinpublicworksthatweren’tsensible.Weareintechnicalbankruptcy.”EvensomemoneyfromtheEuropeanUnionthatwassupposedtobeusedforroutineoperatingexpensesandlastuntil2013hasalreadybeenspent，hesaid. HigueradelaSerena，aclusterofabout900housessurroundedbyfarmland，andtraditionallydependentonpigfarmingandolives，gotsweptupinthegiddydaysoftheconstructionboom.Itbuiltaculturalcenterandinvestedinasmallnursinghome.Buttheprojectswereplaguedbydelaysandcostoverruns. Theculturalcenterstillhasnobathrooms.Thenursinghome，awhitewashedbuildingsitsontheedgeoftown，stillunopened.Together，theyaccountforsome$470，000ofdebtowedtothebank.Buttherestofthedebtismostlytheunpaidbillsofatownthatwasnotkeepingupwithitsexpenses.Itowesformedicalsupplies，fordieselfuel，forroadrepair，forelectricalwork，formusicianswhoplayedduringholidays. HigueradelaSerenaisnotcompletelywithoutworkers.Itstillhasahalf-timelibrarian，twohalf-timestreetcleaners，someonepart-timeforthesportscomplex，asecretaryandanadministrator，allofwhomarepaidthroughvariousfinancingstreamsapartfromthetown.Butthetownoncehadaworkforcetwicethesize.Andwhensomeoneisill，volunteershavetostepinorthegymandsportscomplex—openfourhoursaday—mustclose.

英译汉LECCO, Italy — Each morning, about 450 students travel along 17 school bus routes to 10 elementary schools in this lakeside city at the southern tip of Lake Como. There are zero school buses. In 2003, to confront the triple threats of childhood obesity, local traffic jams and — most important — a rise in global greenhouse gases abetted by car emissions, an environmental group here proposed a retro-radical concept: children should walk to school. They set up a piedibus (literally foot-bus in Italian) — a bus route with a driver but no vehicle. Each morning a mix of paid staff members and parental volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests lead lines of walking students along Lecco’s twisting streets to the schools’ gates, Pied Piper-style, stopping here and there as their flock expands. At the Carducci School, 100 children, or more than half of the students, now take walking buses. Many of them were previously driven in cars. Giulio· Greppi, a 9-year-old with shaggy blond hair, said he had been driven about a third of a mile each way until he started taking the piedibus. “I get to see my friends and we feel special because we know it’s good for the environment,” he said. Although the routes are each generally less than a mile, the town’s piedibuses have so far eliminated more than 100,000 miles of car travel and, in principle, prevented thousands of tons of greenhouse gases from entering the air, Dario Pesenti, the town’s environment auditor, estimates. The number of children who are driven to school over all is rising in the United States and Europe, experts on both continents say, making up a sizable chunk of transportation’s contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions. The “school run” made up 18 percent of car trips by urban residents of Britain last year, a national survey showed. In 1969, 40 percent of students in the United States walked to school; in 2001, the most recent year data was collected, 13 percent did, according to the federal government’s National Household Travel Survey. Lecco’s walking bus was the first in Italy, but hundreds have cropped up elsewhere in Europe and, more recently, in North America to combat the trend. Towns in France, Britain and elsewhere in Italy have created such routes, although few are as extensive and long-lasting as Lecco’s.

问答题Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what at last I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. A little of this, but not much. I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward reward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberated in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.

问答题Human beings in all times and places think about their world and wonder at their place in it. Humans are thoughtful and creative, possessed of insatiable curiosity. 21 Furthermore, humans have the ability to modify the environment in which they live, thus subjecting all other life forms to their own peculiar ideas and fancies. Therefore, it is important to study humans in all their richness and diversity in a calm and systematic manner, with the hope that the knowledge resulting from such studies can lead humans to a more harmonious way of living with themselves and with all other life forms on this planet Earth. "Anthropology" derives from the Greek words anthropos "human" and logos "the study of". By its very name, anthropology encompasses the study of all humankind. Anthropology is one of the social sciences. 22 Social science is that branch of intellectual enquiry which seeks to study humans and their endeavors in the same reasoned, orderly, systematic, and dispassioned manner that natural scientists use for the study of natural phenomena. Social science disciplines include geography, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Each of these social sciences has a subfield or specialization which lies particularly close to anthropology. All the social sciences focus upon the study of humanity. Anthropology is a field-study oriented discipline which makes extensive use of the comparative method in analysis. 23 The emphasis on data gathered first-hand, combined with a cross-cultural perspective brought to the analysis of cultures past and present, makes this study a unique and distinctly important social science. Anthropological analyses rest heavily upon the concept of culture. Sir Edward Tylor"s formulation of the concept of culture was one of the great intellectual achievements of 19th century science. 24 Tylor defined culture as "...that complex whole which includes belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society". This insight, so profound in its simplicity, opened up an entirely new way of perceiving and understanding human life. Implicit within Tylor"s definition is the concept that culture is learned, shared, and patterned behavior. 25 Thus, the anthropological concept of "culture", like the concept of "set" in mathematics, is an abstract concept which makes possible immense amounts of concrete research and understanding.

问答题从技术角度讲，除食品外，任何能改变我们生理和心理机能的物质都是药物。许多人错误地认为“药物”这个词仅指某些药品或嗜毒者服用的违禁化学品。他们没有认识到像酒精、烟草这些熟悉的物质也是药物。这也就是为什么许多医生和心理学家现在使用了一个更为中性的词——物质，他们常用“物质滥用”而不是“药物滥用”来清楚表明滥用酒精和烟草这样的物质同滥用海洛因和可卡因一样有害。 在我们生活的社会里，物质(药物)被广泛地使用于社交和治疗：服阿斯匹林来缓解头痛，喝点儿酒来应酬，早晨喝咖啡来提神，吸支烟镇定一下情绪等。使用这些物质得到了社会认可，而且显然具有积极的一面，但什么时候变成滥用了呢?首先，大多数物质使用过量都会产生副作用，譬如中毒或反复使用一种物质可导致上瘾或对该物质(药物)的依赖。依赖的最初表现为耐受力增强，用量越来越大才能达到预期效果，一旦停用就会出现不舒服的停药症状。

问答题Most worthwhile careers require some kind of specialized training. Ideally, therefore, the choice of an occupation should be made even before the choice of a curriculum in high school. Actually, however, most people make several job choices during their working lives, partly because of economic and industrial changes and partly to improve their position. The "one perfect job" does not exist. Young people should therefore enter into a broad flexible training program that will fit them for a field of work rather than for a single job. Unfortunately many young people have to make career plans without benefit of help from a competent vocational counselor or psychologist. Knowing little about the occupational world, or themselves for that matter, they choose their lifework on a hit-or-miss basis Some drift from job to job. Others stick to work in which they are unhappy and for which they are not fitted. One common mistake is choosing an occupation for its real or imagined prestige. Too many high-school students—or their parents for them—choose the professional field, disregarding both the relatively small proportion of workers in the professions and the extremely high educational and personal requirements The imagined or real prestige of a profession or a "White-collar" job is no good reason for choosing it as life"s work, Moreove, these occupations are not always well paid. Since a large proportion of jobs are in mechanical and manual work, the majority of young people should give serious consideration to these fields. Before making an occupational choice, a person should have a general idea of what he wants out of life and how hard he is willing to work to get it. Some people desire social prestige, others intellectual satisfaction. Some want security, others are willing to take risks for financial gain. Each occupational choice has its demands as well as its rewards.

问答题Given that all countries other than the U.S. have universal health care systems in place, this may invite questions on why the U.S. remains the only wealthy, industrialized country without such a system.

问答题He said that this was a good suggestion, which he would look into.

问答题A look at the companies pursuing the technology gives a good indication of its potential.

问答题Most scientists agree this outpouring contributes to global warming, which could eventually lead to coastal flooding, extreme weather, and widespread crop loss.

问答题She would have blushed had she been told as much in plain, set terms, and next, she might have grown indignant and asserted that her sole interest lay in the man she loved and her desire for him to make t he best of himself.

问答题自查韦斯(Hugo Chavez)1999年就任总统以来，委内瑞拉与古巴两国间的经贸往来和文化交流日益增多。

问答题{{B}}Passage 2{{/B}} 美国人认为，向人借钱的是聪明人，借钱给人的是傻瓜。美国政府、企业和普通百姓都以此为准则，使资源丰富的美国成为欠债最多的国家。美国人用明天的钱，使今天的楼市一落千丈、通胀加剧。无论是美国政府还是企业和个人，总认为美国是世界最富裕的国家，可以为所欲为地借钱、用钱。然而，靠借钱过日子的国家，总不是一个健康的国家。“不用花一分钱可以成为豪宅业主”，终于引发了波及全球的金融危机；靠印钞票来掠取他国资产，会使自己的诚信彻底丧失。不负责任地“向人借钱的聪明人”，反被聪明所误，这已成为威胁美国安全的因素之一。

问答题The island continent of Australia offers an enormous array of scenic variety and you can take the opportunity of enjoying just about every adventure you've ever dreamed possible.

问答题For a person with inflammation from osteoarthritis, if they eat 35 cherries a day, that is going to give them the pain relief that they would get from getting a dose of aspirin.

问答题By the eighteenth century, the rise of industrialism in the west was accompanied by a decline of religion that cannot be seen as an accidental concurrence. And from then on the trend accelerates. As the average man becomes more enabled to live in comfortable houses, to escape most of the childhood diseases, to communicate rapidly through time and space, to move long distances with ease, his perception of Nature undergoes a startling alteration. 6 No longer does Nature seem quite so terrific and treacherous; for man is much less likely now to starve for want of food or perish from the heat or cold. His relation to the other animals and plants appears thickly veiled by air conditioning, frozen foods, automobiles and washing machines. 7 It has been said again and again that modern man"s comfortable life amidst the conveniences of technology has caused him to suffer a spiritual death and to feel empty, without purpose and direction. And that may well be the case. But nevertheless a radical distinction must be made here: the need for transcendence experienced by most human beings prior to modern times was a very different one from what is claimed to exist today. 8 For if the connection between the growth of industry and the decline of religion is a real one, the earlier spiritual lives appear as an escape from man"s vulnerable position in his battle with Nature. It was not that man"s sensitiveness to the idea of the good and the beautiful was any more developed in past history; rather, his need to escape from an intolerable physical life was greater than ours. When I speak of man"s previous need for transcendence, I do not refer to the needs of great creative people—artist, craftsmen—who can never be satisfied with the status. 9 I speak of the masses of people whose spiritual lives were necessary to make their physical lives endurable and who, had choice been possible, would certainly have preferred physical comforts over spirituality. This situation does not for the most part now exist: TV and toilet make the need for God unnecessary. Man does not generally live in fear of Nature except when earthquake strikes, for he is mostly unaware of a connection with nature concealed by modern technology. 10 The present need for spiritual lives is based on sufficiency and not on deprivation, and it does not seek a haven in another world but rather a more beautiful version of this one. What I am concerned is what has happened as a result of the Industrial Revolution to man"s conception of his relationship with Nature.

问答题要成为知名作家，对于他来说，是个遥远而曲折的目标。先把满口蹩脚的俚语改掉，才是个现实可及的正事。