华南理工大学211翻译硕士英语考研真题及辅导用书

考研真题

1. 华南理工大学外国语学院《211翻译硕士英语》[专业硕士]历年考研真题

2. 2026年翻译硕士《211翻译硕士英语》考研真题与模拟题

考研指导书

1. 2026年翻译硕士《211翻译硕士英语》专用教材

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华南理工大学外国语学院《211翻译硕士英语》[专业硕士]历年考研真题AI讲解

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2011年华南理工大学外国语学院211翻译硕士英语考研真题及详解

Part Ⅰ.  Vocabulary

and Grammar (30 points, 1 point for each)

Directions: After each

statement there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the only one

choice that best completes the statement. Write your answers on your ANSWER

SHEET.

1. Please explain your statement. I have no

_____ what you are talking about.

A. contemplation

B. norm

C. notion

D. imagination

【答案】C

【解析】句意：请解释一下你的声明。我不明白你在说些什么。contemplation沉思。norm标准。notion概念。imagination想象。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

2. On August 18^th the president

announced a general _____ for political exiles.

A. yoga

B. ado

C. quartet

D. amnesty

【答案】D

【解析】句意：8月18日，总统对政治流亡者颁布了一条特赦令。yoga瑜伽。ado忙乱。quartet四重唱。amnesty大赦。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

3. When two straight lines meet, _____ an

angle.

A. formed

B. it is formed

C. they form

D. to form

【答案】C

【解析】句意：两条直线相交，就形成了一个夹角。该句中主句缺少主语与谓语动词，由从句可知，主语是指two straight lines，则主语用they，form用复数形式。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

4. It is not _____ much the language as the

background that makes the novel difficult to understand.

A. that

B. that

C. so

D. very

【答案】C

【解析】句意：与其说语言不通，不如说是背景造成这部小说难以理解。not

so much A as B为固定短语，意为“与其说是A，不如说是B”。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

5. The machine got somewhat eroded, but

this oil will _____ it well.

A. extinct

B. decorate

C. illuminate

D. lubricate

【答案】D

【解析】句意：这个机器有点劳损，但是这种油有很好的润滑效果。extinct灭绝的。decorate装饰。illuminate照亮。lubricate润滑。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

6. The digestive enzyme pepsin breaks down

proteins into components _____ readily absorbed by the human body.

A. that can be

B. and are

C. which they

D. are to be

【答案】A

【解析】句意：胃蛋白消化酶能分解蛋白质，以便人体很快吸收。这里括号内的单词为先行词，引导的后面的句子为定语从句，用来修饰前面的components，又因为“被人体吸收”是被动语态，因此，本题的正确答案选A。

7. _____ the precise qualities of the hero in literary works may

vary over time, the basic exemplary function of the hero seems to remain

constant.

A. Whatever

B. Even though

C. In spite of

D. Regardless

【答案】B

【解析】句意：尽管随着时间的推移，文学作品中的英雄本色有所改变，但是其所起的模范作用恒久不变。whatever无论怎样。even though即使。in spite of sth.尽管。regardless (of sth.)尽管。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

8. The baby monkey _____ to its mother all

day.

A. held

B. grasped

C. clung

D. stuck

【答案】C

【解析】句意：这只小猴子整天紧偎在母亲身边。hold拿着。grasp抓着。cling to紧偎，挨着。stick to坚持，粘着。其中stick指一个人或一个物体依附于另一个，也指互相依存，而cling一般指依附另一个人或另一物体，暗示必须受到支持、支撑。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

9. _____ at in this way, the situation does

not seem so desperate.

A. Looked

B. Looking

C. To look

D. Being looked

【答案】A

【解析】句意：这样看来，情况并没有那么让人绝望。句子主语是the

situation，则look与主语之间的关系是被动关系，又因为当过去分词作伴随状语时，前面的be动词可以省略，则D选项排除。因此，本题的正确答案选A。

10. Because caricature tends to emphasize

the peculiarities of a subject, _____ an effective vehicle for pictorial

satire.

A. which is

often

B. and often

seen as

C. it is often

D. many of which are

【答案】C

【解析】句意：由于漫画着重强调一个物体的特点，因此它常常是用于图片讽刺的有效工具。because引导的是从句，后句是主句，因此只有C选项可以构成一个完整的句子。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

11. It is absolutely essential that Mary

_____ her study in spite of some leaning difficulties.

A. will

continue

B. continued

C. continue

D. continues

【答案】C

【解析】句意：尽管困难重重，但玛丽继续学习仍是非常重要的。It is

essential that sb. (should) do sth.从句中应该用虚拟语气。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

12. Please _____ the staff that the

inspectors will be here on Monday and let them make good preparations.

A. modify

B. ratify

C. rectify

D. notify

【答案】D

【解析】句意：检察人员将于周一到达，请通知全体员工做好准备。modify修改。ratify批准。rectify改正。notify通知。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

13. The meeting took on a different _____

after his moving speech.

A. presage

B. posture

C. travesty

D. trauma

【答案】B

【解析】句意：在他激动人心的演讲之后，会议上出现了不同的立场。presage预示。posture立场。travesty歪曲，曲解。trauma心灵创伤。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

14. In the nineteenth century, Samuel Gridley Howe founded the

Perkins School for the blind, _____ for children in Boston, Massachusetts.

A. that

institutes

B. while

instituted

C. was an

institution

D. an institute

【答案】D

【解析】句意：19世纪，塞穆尔·格里德利·豪尔建立了帕金斯盲童学校。这所学校位于马萨诸塞州的波士顿。括号内引导的句子是the Perkins School for the blind的同位语从句，用于对其作进一步的解释说明，不作主句中的成分。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

15. People in prehistoric times created

paints by grinding materials such as plants and clay into powder _____.

A. water to be added

B. for adding

water then

C. and water

added

D. and then adding water

【答案】D

【解析】句意：史前人类将植物、粘土等磨成粉末并添加水制成颜料。adding

water与grinding

materials是by后面的并列动词。and then于是，然后。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

16. While she had the fever, she ______ for

hours.

A. raved

B. sniggered

C. perforated

D. tittered

【答案】A

【解析】句意：她发烧时，胡言乱语了好几个小时。rave胡言乱语。snigger窃笑。perforate穿孔于……。titter傻笑。因此，本题的正确答案选A。

17. Seeing the General coming his way, the

soldier stopped and gave him a smart _____.

A. toast

B. salute

C. tribute

D. solution

【答案】B

【解析】句意：看见将军朝他走过来，士兵停下来敬了一个漂亮的军礼。toast敬酒。salute敬礼。tribute哀悼。solution解决方法。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

18. Often very annoying weeds, _____ and

act as hosts to many insect pests.

A. that crowd

out less hardy plants than goldenrods

B. crowding out

less hardy plants by goldenrods

C. the

goldenrods crowding out of less hardy plants

D. goldenrods crowd out less hardy plants

【答案】D

【解析】句意：麒麟草会排挤其他植物并给害虫提供生长环境，通常十分惹人讨厌。划线处所在句子为主句，主句缺少主语。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

19. If you spill hot liquid on your skin it

will _____ you.

A. scale

B. scald

C. shun

D. shunt

【答案】B

【解析】句意：热水撒到皮肤上会烫伤。scale衡量。scald烫伤。shun避开。shunt使分流。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

20. Starting around 7000 B.C., and for the next four thousand years,

much of the Northern Hemisphere _____ temperatures warmer than at present.

A. with

experience of

B. experienced

C. experiencing

D. experience

【答案】B

【解析】句意：从公元前7000年开始，在接下来的四千年中，北半球大部分地区经历的温度比现在要高。从语境上分析可知，括号内所填单词为主句谓语动词，且时态是过去时。因此本题的正确答案选B。

21. Did you get any _____ when you are

dismissed from your job?

A. fund

B. loan

C. bonus

D. compensation

【答案】D

【解析】句意：你失业时有没有拿到补偿金？fund基金。loan贷款。bonus奖金。compensation补偿金。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

22. When you are suffering from _____ you

have red spots on your skin and you feel as if you have a cold.

A. apathy

B.

schizophrenia

C. impotence

D. measles

【答案】D

【解析】句意：得了麻疹的感觉跟感冒一样，而且皮肤上会长小红点。apathy漠然，冷淡。schizophrenia精神分裂症。impotence阳痿。measles麻疹。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

23. He was _____ on the telephone so I

asked him to speak more clearly.

A. muttering

B. grumbling

C. groping

D. shuddering

【答案】A

【解析】句意：他在电话里轻声低语，所以我让他说清楚一点。mutter轻声低语，喃喃自语。grumble抱怨，嘟囔。grope摸索，探索。shudder发抖，战栗。因此，本文的正确答案选A。

24. Now, with the _____ and popularity of the home computer, its

advantages and disadvantages have been a subject of discussion.

A. adventure

B. advance

C. advent

D. adult

【答案】C

【解析】句意：如今，随着家庭电脑的出现和普及，它的利弊已成为了人们讨论的主题。adventure冒险。advance发展。advent出现。adult成年人。因此，本题的正确答案选C。

25. They _____ evidence and threatened

witnesses not to tell the truth to anyone else.

A. produced

B. fabricated

C. created

D. manipulated

【答案】B

【解析】句意：他们伪造了证据，并恐吓目击者，不许他向任何人讲实话。produce生产。fabricate伪造。create创造。manipulate操纵。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

26. Is there any possible _____ explanation

for his bad health since he seems to have no obvious disease?

A. psychiatric

B.

psychological

C. surgical

D. physical

【答案】B

【解析】句意：因为他看起来没有明显的疾病，能否从心理学的角度解释他的健康问题？psychiatric精神病学的。psychological心理学的。surgical外科的。physical身体的。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

27. Many animals display _____ instincts

only while their offspring are young and helpless.

A. cerebral

B. imperious

C. rueful

D. maternal

【答案】D

【解析】句意：许多动物只会在他们孩子年幼无助时才会显现出他们的母性。cerebral重理智的。imperious专横的。rueful悲伤的。maternal母性的。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

28. _____ the bad weather has delayed the

flight, so it would be several hours before they could arrive.

A. Presumably

B. Respectively

C. Imaginably

D. Plausibly

【答案】A

【解析】句意：大概因为恶劣的天气致使飞机晚点，因此还有几个小时他们才能抵达。presumably大概。respectively分别地。imaginably可想象地。plausibly似真地。因此，本题的正确答案选A。

29. They send information every week, _____

whether it is useful or not.

A. in

consideration of

B. irrespective

of

C. with the

exception of

D. with regard to

【答案】B

【解析】句意：他们每星期都发来信息，不管那些信息有没有用。in

consideration of考虑到。irrespective of不管。with the exception of除了……以外。with regard to关于。因此，本题的正确答案选B。

30. Children of poor health are very _____

to colds in winter and should be taken care of particularly.

A. willing

B. ready

C. reluctant

D. prone

【答案】D

【解析】句意：身体差的孩子在冬天很容易就感冒，他们需要得到特别的关照。be

willing to乐意做……。be

ready to准备做……。be

reluctant to不情愿做……。be

prone to易于……。因此，本题的正确答案选D。

Part Ⅱ.  Reading

Comprehension (50 points)

Section 1  Multiple

choice questions (30 points, 3 points for each)

Directions: In this

section there are 2 reading passages followed by multiple-choice questions.

Read the passages and then write your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.

Passage 1

Given the lack

of fit between gifted students and their schools, it is not surprising that

such students often have little good to say about their school experience. In

one study of 400 adults who had achieved distinction in all areas of life,

researchers found that three-fifths of these individuals either did badly in

school or were unhappy in school. Few MacArthur Prize fellows, winners of the

MacArthur Award for creative accomplishment, had good things to say about their

pre-collegiate schooling if they had not been placed in advanced programs.

Anecdotal

reports support this. Pablo Picasso, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Oliver Gold

smith, and William Butler Yeats all disliked school. So did Winston Churchill,

who almost failed out of Harrow, an elite British school. About Oliver

Goldsmith, one of his teachers remarked, “Never was so dull a boy.” Often these

children realize that they know more than their teachers, and their teachers

often feel that these children are arrogant, inattentive, or unmotivated.

Some of these

gifted people may have done poorly in school because their gifts were not

scholastic. Maybe we can account for Picasso in this way. But most fared poorly

in school not because they lacked ability but because they found school

unchallenging and consequently lost interest. Yeats described the lack of fit

between his mind and school: “Because I had found it difficult to attend to

anything less interesting than my own thoughts, I was difficult to teach.” As

noted earlier, gifted children of all kinds tend to be strong-willed

nonconformists. Nonconformity and stubbornness (and Yeats level of arrogance

and self-absorption) are likely to lead to Conflicts with teachers.

When highly

gifted students in any domain talk about what was important to the development

of their abilities, they are far more likely to mention their families than

their schools or teachers. A writing prodigy studied by David Feldman and Lynn

Goldsmith was taught far more about writing by his journalist father than his

English teacher. High-IQ children, in Australia studied by Miraca Gross had

much more positive feelings about their families than their schools. About half

of the mathematicians studied by Benjamin Bloom had little good to say about

school. They all did well in school and took honors classes when available, and

some skipped grades.

31. The main point the author is making

about schools is that _____.

A. they should

satisfy the needs of students from different family backgrounds

B. they are

often incapable of catering to the needs of talented students

C. they should

organize their classes according to the students ability

D. they should enroll as many gifted students as possible

32. The author quotes the remarks of one of

Oliver Goldsmiths teachers _____.

A. to provide

support for his argument

B. to

illustrate the strong will of some gifted children

C. to explain

how dull students can also be successful

D. to show how poor Oliver’s’ performance was at school

33. Pablo Picasso is listed among the many

gifted children who _____.

A. paid no

attention to their teachers in class

B. contradicted

their teachers much too often

C. could not

cope with their studies at school successfully

D. behaved arrogantly and stubbornly in the presence of their

teachers

34. According to the passage author, the

development of highly gifted students is attributed _____.

A. mainly to

parental help and their education at home

B. both to

school instruction and to their parents coaching

C. more to

their parents’ encouragement than to school training

D. less to their systematic education than to their talent

35. The root cause of many gifted students

having bad memories of their school years is that _____.

A. their

nonconformity brought them a lot of trouble

B. they were

seldom praised by their teachers

C. school

courses failed to inspire or motivate them

D. teachers were usually far stricter than their parents

【答案与解析】

31.B  作者在文中表达的观点是，天才学生经常觉得他们比老师知道的多，以及学校的功课没有挑战性。他们不循规蹈矩，而且很容易与老师发生冲突。由此推测，学校通常不能满足天才学生的需要。故选B。

32.A  推断题。由第一段以及第二段的第一句可知，作者引用名人轶事证明许多有成就的人对学校经历评价不高。因此，作者在文中第二段提及Oliver Goldsmiths的名言是为了证明自己的观点。故选A。

33.C  事实细节题。由第三段的第一、二句话可知，毕加索属于第一句话中所提到的，在学校里表现不好、天赋不是学术方面的天才。也就是说，毕加索不能很好地适应学校的学习。故选C。

34.A  事实细节题。由第四段的第一句话可知，天才学生认为相较于学校教育而言，他们在家所受到的教育对他们能力的发展更加重要。故选A。

35.C  全文主旨题。结合语篇分析和前面几道题可知，天才学生与学校之间锚段的焦点不在老师，而在于学校没能满足天才学生的需求，不能引起他们的兴趣。也就是说，学校不能给他们灵感，不能激励他们。故选C。

Passage 2

It came as

something of a surprise when Diana, Princess of Wales, made a trip to Angola in

1997, to support the Red Cross’s campaign for a total ban on all anti-personnel

landmines. Within hours of arriving in Angola, television screens around the

world were filled with images of her comforting victims injured in explosions

caused by landmines. “I knew the statistics,” she said. “But putting a face to

those figures brought the reality home to me; like when I met Sandra, a 13-

year-old girl who had lost her leg, and people like her.”

The Princess

concluded with a simple message: “We must stop landmines”. And she used every

opportunity during her visit to repeat this message. But, back in London, her

views were not shared by some members of the British government, which refused

to support a ban on these weapons. Angry politicians launched an attack on the

Princess in the press. They described her as “very ill-informed” and a “loose

cannon”. The Princess responded by brushing aside the Criticisms: “This is a

distraction we do not need. All I’m trying to do is help.” Opposition parties,

the media and the public immediately voiced their support for the Princess. To

make matters worse for the government, it soon emerged that the Princess’s trip

had been approved by the Foreign Office, and that she was in fact very

well-informed about both the situation in Angola and the British government’s

policy regarding landmines.

The result was a

severe embarrassment for the government. To try and limit the damage, the Foreign

Secretary, Malcolm Rifkidnd, claimed that the Princess’s views on landmines

were not very different from government policy, and that it was “working

towards” a worldwide ban. The Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, claimed the

matter was “a misinterpretation or misunderstanding.”—For the Princess, the

trip to this war-torn country was an excellent opportunity to use her

popularity to show the world how much destruction and suffering landmines can

cause. She said that the experience had also given her the chance to get closer

to people and their problems.

36. Princess Diana paid a visit to Angola

in 1997 _____.

A. to clarify

the British government’s stand on landmines

B. to establish

her image as a friend of landmine victims

C. to

investigate the sufferings of landmine victims there

D. to voice her support for a total ban of landmines

37. What did Diana mean when she said “… putting a face to those

figures brought the reality home to me” (Paragraph 1)?

A. Meeting the

landmine victims in person made her believe the statistics.

B. She just

couldn’t bear to meet the landmine victims face to face.

C. The actual

situation in Angola made her feel like going back home.

D. Seeing the pain of the victims made her realize the seriousness

of the situation.

38. Some members of the British government

criticized Diana because _____.

A. she had not

consulted the government before the visit

B. she was

ill-informed of the government’s policy

C. they were

actually opposed to banning landmines

D. they believed that she had misinterpreted the situation in Angola

39. How did Diana respond to the

criticisms?

A. She made

more: appearances on TV.

B. She paid no

attention to them.

C. She rose to

argue with her opponents.

D. She met the 13-year-old girl as planned.

40. What did Princess Diana think of her

visit to Angola?

A. It had

caused embarrassment to the British government.

B. It had

greatly promoted her popularity.

C. It had

brought her closer to the ordinary people.

D. It had affected her relations with the British government.

【答案与解析】

36.D  事实细节题。由第一段第一句话可知，戴安娜王妃是去支持禁止地雷的运动的。故选D。

37.D  语义理解题。由第一段最后一句话可知，尽管戴安娜王妃早就从数据上知道了因地雷伤亡的人数，但是当她亲眼见到了人们的情况后，她才真正地感受到了现实的残酷。故选D。

38.C  语义推断题。由文章的第二段的第三句话可知，戴安娜王妃的言论被议会一些成员所反对，也因此他们指责戴安娜王妃“very ill-formed”。故选C。

39.B  语义推断题。根据关键词“criticism”，可以定位到文章的第二段的中间部分“The Princess responded by brushing aside the Criticisms”，其中“brushing aside”意为“漠视、忽视”。故选B。

40.C  事实细节题。由最后一段的最后一句话可知，戴安娜王妃认为这次安哥拉之行使她能够有机会接近人们以及了解他们的困难。故选C。

Section 2  Answering

questions (20 points, 4 points for each)

Directions: Read the following

passages and the answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions following each

passage. Use only information from the passage you have read and write your

answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER SHEET.

Passage 3

At the

University of Virginia in Charlottesville, psychology professor Bella DePaulo

got 77 students and 70 townspeople to volunteer for an unusual project. All

kept diaries for a week, recording the numbers and details of the lies they

told.

One student and

six Charlottesville residents professed to have told no falsehoods. The other

140 participants told 1,535.

The lies were

most often not what most of us would call earth-shattering. Someone would

pretend to be more positive or supportive of a spouse or friend than he or she

really was, or feign agreement with a relative’s opinion. According to DePaulo,

women in their interactions with other women lied mostly to spare the other’s

feelings. Men lied to other men generally for self-promoting reasons.

Most strikingly,

these tellers-of-a-thousand-lies reported that their deceptions caused them

“little preoccupation or regret”. Might that, too, be a lie? Perhaps. But there

is evidence that this attitude toward casual use of prevarication is common.

For example,

20,000 middle-and-high-schoolers were surveyed by the Josephson Institute of

Ethics—a nonprofit organization in Marina de Rey, Calif., devoted to character

education. Ninety-two percent of the teenagers admitted having lied to their

parents in the previous year, and 73 percent characterized themselves as

“serial liars”, meaning they told lies weekly. Despite these admissions, 91

percent of all respondents said they were “satisfied with my own ethics and

character”.

Think how often

we hear the expression “I’ll call you” or “The check is in the mail” or “I’m

sorry, but he stepped out”. And then there are professions—lawyers, pundits, PR

consultants—whose members seem to specialize in shaping or spinning the truth

to suit clients’ needs.

Little white

lies have become ubiquitous, and the reason we give each other for telling fibs

are familiar. Consider, for example, a Southern California corporate executive

whom I’ll call Tom. He goes with his wife and son to his mother-in-law’s home

for Thanksgiving dinner every year. Tom dislikes her “special” pumpkin pie

intensely. Invariably he tells her how wonderful it is, to avoid hurting her

feelings.

“What’s wrong

with that?” Tom asked Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute.

It’s a question we might all ask.

Josephson

replied by asking Tom to consider the lie from his mother-in-law’s point of

view. Suppose that one day Tom’s child blurts out the truth, and she discovers

the deceit. Will she tell her son-in-law, “Thank you for caring so much?” Or is

she more likely to feel hurt and say, “How could you have misled me all these

years?”

And what might

Tom’s mother-in-law now suspect about her own daughter? And will Tom’s boy lie

to his parents and yet be satisfied with his own character?

How often do we

compliment people on how well they look, or express our appreciation for gifts,

when we don’t really mean it? Surely, these “nice lies” are harmless and well

intended, a necessary social lubricant. But, like Tom, we should remember the

words of English novelist Sir Walter Scot, who wrote, “What a tangled web we

weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

Even seemingly

harmless falsehoods can have unforeseen consequences. Philosopher Sissela Bok

warns us that they can put us on a slippery slope. “After the first lies,

others can come more easily,” she wrote in her book Lying: Moral Choice in

Public and Private Life. “Psychological barriers wear down; the ability to make

more distinctions can coarsen; the liar’s perception of his chances of being

caught may warp.”

Take the

pumpkin-pie lies. In the first place, it wasn’t just that he wanted his

mother-in-law to feel good. Whether he realized it or not, he really wanted her

to think highly of him. And after the initial deceit he needed to tell more

lies to cover up the first one.

Who believes it anymore

when they’re told that the person they want to reach by phone is “in a

meeting”? By itself, that kind of lie is of no great consequence. Still, the

endless proliferation of these little prevarications does matter.

Once they’ve

become common enough, even the small untruth that are not meant to hurt

encourage a certain cynicism and loss of trust. “when (trust) is damaged,”

warns Bok, “the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed,

societies falter and collapse.”

Are all white

lies to be avoided at all costs? Not necessarily. The most understandable and

forgivable lies are an exchange of what ethicists refer to as the principle of

caring, “like telling children about the tooth fairy, or deceiving someone to

set them up for a surprise party,” Josephson says. “Still, we must ask

ourselves if we are willing to give our friends and associates the authority to

lie to us whenever they think it is for our own good.”

Josephson

suggests a simple test. If someone you lie to finds out the truth, will he

thank you for caring? Or will he feel his long-term trust in you has been

undermined?

And if you’re

not sure, Mark Twain has given us a good rule of thumb. “When in doubt, tell

the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.”

41. Identify other 4 corresponding synonyms

or near-synonyms for the word “lie” in the passage.

42. Please comment on Mark Twain’s rule of thumb: “When in doubt,

tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.”

【答案与解析】

41. The four corresponding synonyms or

near-synonyms are falsehood, prevarications, fib and untruth.

（falsehood“说谎，假话”；prevarication“搪塞，撒谎”；fib 撒小谎”；untruth“虚假，谎言”。）

42. In my part, the saying from Mark Twain really makes sense in the

real life. Through the passage, telling the lies, even harmless falsehoods,

could cause some unforeseen consequences, while little white lies could make

the relationships more harmonious. Thus, when we’re not sure, we should remember

that the harmonious combination of these different ideas may be the best choice.

Under such condition, telling the truth would be a better way to get a closer

relationship.

（Mark Twain这句话的意思是“拿不定主意时，就实话实说。这样会让你的敌人不知所措，让你的朋友惊叹不已”。）

Passage 4

On the whole,

books are less limited than ourselves. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing

dust long after the writer has turned into a handful of dust—and it is

precisely the appetite for this posthumous dimension that sets one’s pen in

motion.

So as we toss

and turn these rectangular objects in our hands we won’t be terribly amiss if

we surmise that we fondle, as it were, the urns with our returning ashes. After

all, what goes into writing a book is, ultimately, a man’s only life. Whoever

said that to philosophize is an exercise in dying was right in more ways than

one, for by writing a book nobody gets younger.

Nor does one

become any younger by reading one. Since this is so, our natural preference

should be for good books. The paradox, however, lies in the fact that in

literature “good” is defined by its distinction from “bad”. What’s more, to

write a good book, a writer must read a great deal of pulp—otherwise he won’t

be able to develop the necessary criteria. That’s what may constitute bad

literature’s best defense at the Last Judgment.

Since we are all

moribund, and since reading books is time-consuming, we must devise a system

that allows us a semblance of economy. Of course, there is no denying the

pleasure of holding up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; but in the end,

we read not for reading’s sake but to learn. Hence the need for the works that

bring the human predicament into its sharpest possible focus. Hence, too, the

need for some compass in the ocean of available printed matter.

The role of that

compass, of course, is played by literary criticism, by reviewers. Alas, its

needle oscillates wildly. What is north for some is south for others. The

trouble with a reviewer is threefold: (a) he can be a hack, and as ignorant as

ourselves; (b) he can have strong predilections for a certain kind of writing

or simply be on the take with the publishing industry; and (c) if he is a

writer of talent, he will turn his review writing into an independent art

form—George Luis Borges is a case in point—and you may end up reading reviews

rather than the books.

In any case, you

find yourselves adrift in the ocean, clinging to a raft whose ability to stay

afloat you are not so sure of. The alternative, therefore, would be to develop

your own taste, to build your own compass, to familiarize yourself, as it were,

with particular stars and constellations—dim or bright but always remote. This,

however, takes a hell of a lot of time and you may easily find yourself old and

grey, heading for the exit with a lousy volume under your arm.

So where is one’s

terra firma, even though it may be but an uninhabitable island? Where is our

good man Friday? Before I come up with my suggestion, I’d like to say a few

words about my humble self—not because of my personal vanity, but because I

believe that the value of an idea is related to the context in which it

emerges. Indeed, had I been a publisher, I’d be putting on my books’ covers not

only their author’s names but also the exact age at which they composed this or

that work, to enable their readers to decide whether they care to reckon with

the views contained in a book written by a person so much younger—or so much

older—than themselves.

The source of

the suggestion to come belongs to the category of people for whom literature

has always been a matter of some hundred names; to the people who feel awkward

at large gatherings, do not dance at parties, tend to find metaphysical excuses

for adultery, and are finicky about discussing politics; the people who dislike

themselves far more than their detractors do; who still prefer alcohol and

tobacco to heroin or marijuana—those who, in W.H. Auden’s words, “one will not

find on the barricades and who never shoot themselves or their lovers”. If such

people occasionally find themselves swimming in their blood on the floor of

prison cells or speaking form a platform, it is because they object not to some

particular injustice but the order of the world as a whole.

They have no

illusion about the objectivity of their views; on the contrary, they insist on

their unpardonable subjectivity. They act in this fashion, however, not for the

purpose of shielding themselves form possible attack. Taking the stance

opposite to Darwinian—they consider vulnerability the primary trait of living

matter. This has less to do with masochistic tendencies than with their

instinctive knowledge that extreme subjectivity, prejudice, and indeed

idiosyncrasy are what help art to avoid cliché. And the resistance to cliché is

what distinguishes art from life.

Now that you

know the background of what I am about to say, I may just as well say it; The

way to develop good taste in literature is to read poetry. If you think that I

am speaking out of professional partisanship, you are mistaken: I am no union

man. The point is that being the supreme form of human locution, poetry is not

only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the

highest possible standards for any linguistic operation—especially one on

paper.

The more one

reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity. A child

of epitaph and epigram, poetry is a great disciplinarian to prose. It teaches

the latter not only the value of each word but also the mercurial mental

patterns of the species, alternatives to linear composition, the knack of

omitting the self-evident, emphasis on detail, the technique of anticlimax.

Above all, poetry develops in prose that appetite for metaphysics which

distinguishes a work of art from mere belles letters.

Please, don’t

get me wrong: I am not trying to debunk prose. The truth of the matter is that

literature started with poetry, with the song of a nomad that predates the scribbling

of a settler. All I am trying to do is to be practical and spare your eyesight

and brain cells a lot of useless printed matter. Poetry, one might say, has

been invented for just this purpose.

All you have to

do is to arm yourselves with the works of poets in your mother tongue,

preferably form the first half of this century, and you will be in great shape.

If your mother

tongue is English, I might recommend to you Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy, W. B.

Yeats, T. S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop.

If, after going

through the works of any of these, you drop a book of prose picked from the

shelf, it won’t be your fault. If you continue to read it, that will be to the

author’s credit: that will mean that this author has something to add to the

truth about our existence. Or else, it would mean that reading is your incurable

addiction. As addictions go, it is not the worst.

43. According to the passage author, what

sets one’s pen in motion?

44. The passage author suggests that the

way to develop good taste in literature is to read poetry. Why?

45. Paraphrase the sentence “Since we are all moribund, and since

reading books is time-consuming, we must devise a system that allows us a

semblance of economy.” (Line 1, Paragraph 4)

【答案与解析】

43. The appetite for books can remain long after the author’s death.

In other word，after

the writer dead, his books still have its influence on the world.

（由第一段可知，是为了死后著作仍然可以在书架上供后人览阅的欲望促使人们笔耕不缀。）

44. Because the author deems that the supreme form of human

locution, poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human

experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic

operation—especially one on paper.

（在第十段中，作者最后讲述了为什么认为培养良好文学品味的方法是读诗的原因。)

45. Now that we are all moribund and that reading books is elapsing

time, we need a compass in the ocean of books. If we do not have such a

compass, it is difficult for us to find the right books to read.

（原句的意思是“既然我们精力不济，读书又耗费时间，那么我们就必须找出一个省时省力的方法。”）

Part Ⅲ.  Writing

(20 points)

46. Please write an

essay of about 400 words on the following topic. Write your essay in your ANSWER

SHEET.

What Translation Means to

Me

【参考范文】

What Translation Means to Me

Nowadays, currently thinking suggests that translation is not

properly planned as a profession due to the advent

and development of the technical translation. Others go so far as to say that translation,

this career, would disappear in the foreseeable future. However, for my part,

translation is not only something irreplaceable but also a challenge, an art

and a lifelong career.

Translation is a

challenge that brings me the pleasure of success. Most people do think that translation

is just about translating each word in a sentence from one language to another

or translating the general ideas in the source language. In fact, the

translation should also convey the writer’s original meaning, tone and style,

including the translation of instructions. To do this, the cultural background

and groups of words or even pages of a book must be taken into consideration in

translation. The most direct purpose of translation is to convey information

correctly by translating one language into another. A deeper level can be seen

as a process of cognizing

another national thought and culture.

The process of

translation makes us more concentrated and makes our life more colorful. In a

world of social communication, our attention is always drawn in several staffs

at once. When translating texts, all of our attention is focused on the context,

and we can immerse in every fine detail. No matter how much stress we have at

work or in our personal relationships, it all just slips away when we lose ourselves

in translation. It can transport us to other realms, while an engaging article

will distract us, letting tensions go away. In addition

to the relaxation, it’s possible that the subject you translate can bring us

inner peace and tranquility, which is very valuable in the tumultuous society.

Translation

drives us to keep learning. Translation is about language exchange, but it is

not easy to reach the mutual understanding between the two languages. It takes

a lot of efforts to cross cultural barriers and to make it work as a bridge.

Language is a kind of cultural phenomenon. Translators can let mechanical words

radiate vitality only by fully understand its cultural background. To be a good

translator, we have to make ourselves like a sponge, which is ready to absorb

and learn at any time.

For me,

translation means a lot. It is always an assignment which needs much effort, relative

knowledge and concentration. We need always fully understand the culture and

master proper expressions. For knowledge needs to be refreshed, we can get

improved by translating.

【范文点评】

本题要求以“What Translation Means to Me”为题写一篇400字左右的文章。

范文第一段提出，对于作者来说，翻译是一件不可取代的事，其是一种挑战也是一种艺术。第二段提出了翻译的种种挑战。第三段提出，翻译可以让我们集中注意力，能够让我们忘记烦恼。第四段提出，翻译可以使我们不断学习与进步。最后一段作者简要总结并概括了全文。

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