2012翻译资格考试笔译综合能力模拟练习(2)
　　Section 1: English – Chinese Translation (英译汉)

　　This section consists of two parts, Part A — “Compulsory Translation” and Part B — “Choice of Two Translations” consisting of two sections “Topic I” and “Topic 2”. For the passage in Part A and your choice of passage in Part B, translate the underlined portions, including titles, into Chinese. Above your translation of Part A, write “Compulsory Translation” and above your translation from Part B, write “Topic I” or “Topic 2” (60 points, 100 minutes)

　　Part A Compulsory Translation (必译题) (30 points)

　　Nowhere to Go

　　For the latest on the pursuit of the American Dream in Silicon Valley, all you have to do is to talk to someone like “Nagaraj” (who didn’t want to reveal his real name). He’s an Indian immigrant who, like many other Indian engineers, came to America recently on an H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to be employed by one company for as many as six years. But one morning last month, Nagaraj and a half dozen other Indian workers with H-1Bs were called into a conference room in their San Francisco technology-consulting firm and told they were being laid off. The reason: weakening economic conditions in Silicon Valley, “It was the shock of my lifetime,” says Nagaraj.

　　This is not a normal bear-market sob story. According to federal regulation, Nagaraj and his colleagues have two choices. They must either return to India, or find another job in a tight labor market and hope that the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) allow them to transfer their visa to the new company. And the law doesn’t allow them to earn a pay-check until all the paperwork winds its way through the INS bureaucracy. “How am I going to survive without any job and without any income?” Nagaraj wonders.

　　Until recently, H-1B visas were championed by Silicon Valley companies as the solution to the region’s shortage of programmers and engineers. First issued by the INS in 1992, they attract skilled workers from other countries, many of whom bring families with them, lay down roots and apply for the more permanent green cards. Through February 2000, more than 81,000 worker held such visas — but with the dot-com crash, many have been getting laid off. That’s causing mass consternation in U.S. immigrant communities. The INS considers a worker “out of status” when he loses a job, which technically means that he must pack up and go home. But because of the scope of this year’s layoffs, the U.S. government has recently backpedaled, issuing a confusing series of statements that suggest workers might be able to stay if they qualify for some exceptions and can find a new company to sponsor their visa. But even those loopholes remain nebulous. The result is thousands of immigrants now face dimming career prospects in America, and the possibilities that they will be sent home. “They are in limbo. It is the greatest form of torture,” says Amar Veda of the Silicon Valley-based Immigrants Support Network.

　　The crisis looks especially bad in light of all the heated visa rhetoric by Silicon Valley companies in the past few years. Last fall the industry won a big victory by getting Congress to approve an increase in the annual number of H-1B visas. Now, with technology firms retrenching, demand for such workers is slowing. Valley heavyweights like Intel, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard have all announced thousands of layoffs this year, which include many H-1B workers. The INS reported last month that only 16,000 new H-1B workers came to the United States in February — down from 32,000 in February of last year.

　　Last month, acknowledging the scope of the problem, the INS told H-1B holders “not to panic,” and that there would be a grace period for laid-off workers before they had to leave the United States. INS spokeswomen Eyleen Schmidt promises that more specific guidance will come this month. “We are aware of the cutbacks,” she says. “We’re trying to be as generous as we can be within the confines of the existing law.”
　　Part B Choice of Two Translations (二选一题) (30 points)

　　Topic 1 (选题一)

　　What Is the Force of Gravity?

　　If you throw a ball up, it will come down again. What makes it come down? The ball comes down because it is pulled or attracted towards the Earth. The Earth exerts a force of attraction on all objects. Objects that are nearer to the Earth are attracted to it with a greater force than those that are further away. This force of attraction is known as the force of gravity. The gravitational force acting on an object at the Earth’s surface is called the weight of the object.

　　All the heavenly bodies in space like the moon, the planets and the stars also exert an attractive force on objects. The bigger and heavier a body is, the greater is its force of gravity. Thus, since the moon is a smaller body than Earth, the force it exerts on an object at its surface is less than that exerted by the Earth on the same object on the Earth’s surface. In fact, the moon’s gravitational force is only one-sixth that of the Earth. This means that an object weighing 120 kilograms on Earth will only weigh 20 kilograms on the moon. Therefore on the moon you could lift weights which are six times heavier than the heaviest weight that you can lift on Earth.

　　The Earth’s gravitational force or pull keeps us and everything else on Earth from floating away to space. To get out into space and travel to the moon or other planets we have to overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull.

　　Entry into Space

　　How can we overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull? Scientists have been working on this for a long time. It is only recently that they have been able to build machines powerful enough to get out of the Earth’s gravitational pull. Such machines are called space rockets. Their great speed and power help them to escape from the Earth’s gravitational pull and go into space.

　　Rockets

　　The powerful space rocket works along the same lines as a simple firework rocket. The firework rocket has a cylindrical body and a conical head. The body is packed with gunpowder which is the fuel. It is a mixture of chemicals that will burn rapidly to form hot gases.

　　At the base or foot of the rocket there is an opening or nozzle. A fuse hangs out like a tail from the nozzle. A long stick attached along the body serves to direct the rocket before the fuse is lighted.

　　When the gunpowder burns, hot gases rush out of the nozzle. The hot gases continue to rush out as long as the gunpowder burns. When these gases shoot downwards through the nozzle the rocket is pushed upwards. This is called jet propulsion. The simple experiment, shown in the picture, will help you to understand jet propulsion.

　　Topic 2 (选题二)

　　Basketball Diplomacy

　　CHINA”S TALLEST SOLDIER never really expected to live the American Dream. But Wang Zhizhi, a 7-foot-1 basketball star from the People’s Liberation Army, is making history as the first Chinese player in the NBA. In his first three weeks in America the 23-year-old rookie has already cashed his first big NBA check, preside over “Wang Zhizhi Day” in San Francisco and become immortalized on his very own trading cards. He’s even played in five games with his new team, the Dallas Mavericks, scoring 24 points in just 38 minutes. Now the affable Lieutenant Wang is joining the Mavericks on their ride into the NBA playoffs — and he is intent on enjoying every minute. One recent evening Wang slipped into the hot tub behind the house of Mavericks assistant coach Donn Nelson. He leaned back, stretched out and pointed at a plane moving across the star-filled sky. In broken English, he started singing his favorite tune: “I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky.”

　　Back in China, the nation’s other basketball phenom, Yao Ming , can only dream of taking flight. Yao thought he was going to be the first Chinese player in the NBA. The 7-foot-5 Shanghai sensation is more highly touted than Wang: the 20-year-old could be the No.1 overall pick in the June NBA draft. But as the May 13 deadline to enter the draft draws near, Yao is still waiting for a horde of business people and apparatchiks to decide his fate. Last week, as Wang scored 13 points in the Dallas season finale, Yao was wading through a stream of bicycles on a dusty Beijing street.

　　Yao and Wang are more than just freaks of nature in basketball shorts. The twin towers are national treasures, symbols of China’s growing stature in the world. They’re also emblematic of the NBA’s outsize dreams for conquering China. The NBA, struggling at home, sees salvation in the land of 1.3 billion potential hoop fans. China, determined to win the 2008 Olympics and join the World Trade Organization, is eager to make its mark on the world — on its own terms. The two-year struggle to get these young players into the NBA has been a cultural collision — this one far removed from U.S.-China bickering over spy planes and trade liberalization. If it works out, it could be — in basketball parlance — the ultimate give-and-go. “This is just like Ping-Pong diplomacy,” says Xia Song, a sport-marketing executive who represents Wang. “Only with a much bigger ball.”

　　Two years ago it looked more like a ball and chain. Wang’s Army bosses were miffed when the Mavericks had the nerve to draft their star back in 1999. Nelson remembers flying to Beijing with the then owner Ross Perot Jr. — son of the eccentric billionaire — to hammer out a deal with the stone-faced communists of the PLA. “You could hear them thinking: ‘What is this NBA team doing, trying to lay claim to our property?’” Nelson recalls. “We tried to explain that this was an honor for Wang and for China.” There was no deal. Wang grew despondent and lost his edge on court.

　　This year Yao became the anointed one. He eclipsed Wang in scoring and rebounding, and even stole away his coveted MVP award in the Chinese Basketball Association league. It looked as if his Shanghai team — a dynamic semicapitalist club in China’s most open city — would get its star to the NBA first.

　　Then came the March madness. Wang broke out of his slump to lead the Army team to its sixth consecutive CBA title — scoring 40 in the final game. A day later the PLA scored some points of its own by announcing that Wang was free to go West. What inspired the change of heart? No doubt the Mavericks worked to build trust with Chinese officials (even inviting national- team coach Wang Fei to spend the 1999-2000 season in Dallas). There was also the small matter of Chinese pride. The national team stumbled to a 10th-place finish at the 2000 Olympics, after placing eighth in 1996. Even the most intransigent cadre could see that the team would improve only if it sent its stars overseas to learn from the world’s best players.

　　keys：

　　Part A

　　无家可归

　　这不是正常的有市场疲软而引发的悲剧故事。根据联邦政府的规定，纳加拉吉和他的同事有两个选择：要么立即回印度，要么在供过于求的劳动市场找到一份新工作，然后寄希望与移民规划局把他们的签证转到他们的新公司去。在法律上，他不能有收入，除非他办完移民局所有的手续之后。“没有工作，没有收入，我怎么生存呀?” 纳加拉吉愁眉不展。

　　不久前，H-1B签证还是硅谷各公司解决当地程序员和工程师短缺问题的香饽饽。H-1B签证始于1992年，移民局希望通过签发这种签证来吸引其他国家的熟练工人来美工作。他们中的许多人带着妻儿，落地生根，并申请有永久居住权的绿卡。截止到2000年2月，大约有8.1万名工人持有这种签证。但随着网络经济的崩溃，许多人遭到解雇。这导致了在美国移民社区的很大不安。当一个工人丢了饭碗，移民局就认为他“没有身份乐”，在理论上，你可以认为他必须卷起行李回家了。由于今年工人被解雇幅度太大，美国政府近来有所让步，宣布了一系列模糊不清的政策，暗示如果他们符合某些特例并能找到一个公司为他们担保签证的话，他们还可以留下来。这一政策的结果就是数以千计的移民在美国面临着暗淡的不确定的前景，甚至被突然遣送回家。“他们生活在地狱的边缘，这也许是最痛苦的。”坐落在硅谷的移民互助网络组织的阿玛·维达这样认为。

　　在过去的几年里，硅谷的公司对这种H-1B的作用大肆吹捧，导致现在的情况更加糟糕。不久前，它们刚刚成功说服国会增加每年的H-1BQ签证的签发数量。但现在技术公司的紧缩使这一需求减慢。今年，硅谷的大公司如英特尔﹑思科和惠普都宣布裁员上千人，其中有许多H-1B签证持有者。移民局上个月声称今年2月份有大约16，000名H-1B工人来到美国，大大低于去年2月份的32，000人。

　　上个月，了解到问题的严重性的美国移民局通知H-1B签证持有者“不要惊慌”，在他们被迫离开美国之前，会有一个宽限期。移民局的女发言人埃仑·史密斯表示：“我们对裁员很清楚，这个月将有更多的导向性的政策出台。我们将在现有法律允许的范围里采取更宽容的政策。”

2012翻译资格考试笔译综合能力模拟练习(2)来源：考试大 【考试大：中国教育考试第一门户】 2012年8月2日
　　Part B 选题一

　　什么是重力?

　　假如你把一个球往上抛，它还会掉下来。球为什么会掉下来呢?球掉下来是因为球被吸引或拉向地球。地球对所有物体都施加吸引力。离地球较近的物体所受的吸引力，比远离地球的物体所受的吸引力大。这种吸引力通常叫做重力。作用于地球表面上物体的引力，叫做物体的重量。

　　空间所有的天体，如月球﹑行星和星星，对物体也都有吸引力。物体越大﹑越重，其引力也就越大。既然月球比地球小，因此，月球对月球表面上一物体施加的力，将比地球对地球表面上同一物体施加的力要小。实际上，月球的引力只有地球引力的六分之一。这就是说，地球上一个重120公斤的物体，在月球上会只重20公斤。因此，在月球上你能举起的重量，将是你在地球上所能举起的最大重量的六倍。

　　地球的引力或拉力，使我们和地球上别的任何东西都不致漂浮到空间中。要飞向空间并到月球或其他行星去旅游，就必须克服地球的引力。

　　进入空间

　　怎么才能克服地球的引力呢?科学家们为此进行了长期的研究。直到最近，他们才能够制造出足以克服地球引力的强有力的机器。这种机器就称为宇宙火箭。宇宙火箭的巨大速度和强大的动力，帮助它挣脱地球的引力而进入空间。

　　火箭

　　强大的宇宙火箭的工作原理和简单的烟火火箭是一样的。烟火火箭有一圆柱形壳体和一锥形头部。壳体内充填黑色火药作为燃料。它是一种化学品的混合物，能迅速燃烧形成炽热的气体。

　　火箭的底部有一个通道，即喷口。从喷口伸出一根尾巴似的引信。沿壳体装着一根长棍，用以在引信点着以前确定火箭发射的方向。

　　当黑色火药燃烧时，炽热的气体，即燃气从喷口急速排出。只要黑色火药还在燃烧，燃气就不断急速排出。当这些燃气通过喷口往下喷出时，火箭就被向上推进。这就叫做喷气推进。图中所示的简单实验，可以帮助你了解喷气推进。

　　选题二

　　篮球外交

　　姚和王不仅仅是篮球队员中的奇人。这两座塔是国家的财富，是中国在世界上地位提高的象征。他们也是NBA梦想征服中国的象征。NBA，还在国内争斗的时候，就看到了在13亿潜在篮球迷的国土上的前景。中国——志在夺取2008年奥运会主办权和加入世界贸易组织——正急于在世界上留下标记，当然是按照自己的条件。两年来，让这些年轻球员加盟NBA的斗争已经演变成一场文化冲突——这种冲突被美中之间关于侦察飞机和贸易自由化的争吵大大淡化了。如果成功的话，它可能是——用一句篮球术语来说——最终的二人配合。“这就像乒乓外交，”夏松，一个代表王的体育市场经理人说，“只不过球个大些。”

　　两年前，这件事情更像是锁链。当小牛队早在1999年要挑选他们的明星时，王所在部队的头头们非常恼火。尼尔森仍记得与当时(小牛队)的拥有人罗斯·小皮劳特——那个行为古怪的亿万富翁的儿子——一块飞往北京，同面孔古板的人民解放军干部敲定一项交易的情景。“你能听见他们所想的：‘这个NBA球队在干什么，想对我们的财产提出要求吗?’” 尼尔森回忆道。“我们试图解释这对王和中国都是一件光荣的事。”交易没达成。王变得十分沮丧，失去了场上锋芒。

　　这年，姚成为选定球员。他在得分和挣抢蓝板球方面超过了王，甚至在中国篮球协会联赛中夺走了他垂涎已久的MVP(最有价值球员)奖。表面看来，似乎他所在的上海队——一个中国最开放城市中充满活力的半资本主义俱乐部——将首先把它的球星送进NBA。

　　后来，3月巅峰来临。王打破消沉，率领八一队连续第六次摘取联赛桂冠——他在决赛中独得40分。一天以后，人民解放军宣布王可以自由地去西方，又为自己赢了不少分。是什么因素导致了这种变化?毫无疑问，与小牛队致力于与中国官员建立信任的努力密不可分(甚至邀请国家队教练王飞在达拉斯度过1999-2000赛季)。当然还有一些小小的中国人的自尊心因素。国家队在2000年奥运会结束时踉踉跄跄地挤到第10位，而在1996年列第8位。即使是最顽固的干部也会明白，只有把自己的球星派到海外向世界最优秀的球员学习，才能提高球队的水平。