roaring2002年考研英语阅读理解及解析

2002

年

Text 1

If

you

intend

using

humor

in

your

talk

to

make

people

smile,

you

must

know

how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the

audience

and

should

help

to

show

them

that

you

are

one

of

them

or

that

you

understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on

whom you are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to a group

of

managers,

you

may

refer

to

the

disorganized

methods

of

their

secretaries;

alternatively

if

you

are

addressing

secretaries,

you

may

want

to

comment

on

their

disorganized bosses.

如果你想在谈话中用幽默来使人发笑，

你就必须知道如何发现与听众享有的

共同经历和共同问题。

能够向他们显示你是他们的

< br>一员，

或者你了解他们的情况且赞同他们的观点。

根据与 你谈话对象的不同，

问

题也应有所不同。

如果你在和一群经理谈话，

你就可以评论他们秘书的工作方法

杂乱无章；

相反，

如果你在和一群秘书谈话，

< br>你就可以评论她们老板的工作方法

如何杂乱。

Here

is

an

example,

which

I

heard

at

a

nurses?

convention,

of

a

story,

which

works well because the audience all shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives

in

heaven

and

is

being

shown

around

by

St.

Peter.

He

sees

wonderful

accommodations,

beautiful

gardens,

sunny

weather,

and

so

on.

Everyone

is

very

peaceful,

polite

and

friendly

until,

waiting

in

a

line

for

lunch,

the

new

arrival

is

suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line,

grabs his food and stomps

over to a table by himself. “Who is that?” the new arrival

asked

St.

Peter.

“Oh,

that?s

God,”

came

the

reply,

“but

sometimes

he

thinks

he?s

a

doctor.”

下面举一个例子， 是我在一个护士大会上听到的故事。这个故事效果很好，

因为所有的听众对医生都有同样 的看法。

一个人到了天堂，

由圣彼得带领他四处

参观。他看到了豪华的住宅、美丽的花园、晴朗的天气等等。大家在排队用午餐

的时候，

都很安静、

礼貌和友善，

直到 这位新来天堂的人突然被一位穿白大褂的

人推到一旁。

只见这人 挤到了队伍的前面，

抓起他的食物，

噔噔地旁若无人地走

到一张餐桌旁吃起来。

“

这是谁啊？

”

新来的人问圣彼得。

“

哦，那是上帝，

”

他回

答说，

“

但有时他也觉得自己是一名医生。

”

If you are part of the group, which you are addressing, you will be in a position

to know the experiences and problems which are

common to all of you and it?ll be

appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the inedible canteen food or the

chairman?s notorious bad taste in ties. With other audiences

you mustn?t attempt to

cut in with humor as they will resent an outsider making disparaging remarks about

their canteen or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats

like the Post Office or the telephone system.

如果你与听众们来自同一个群体，你就能够了解你们所共有的经历和问题，

< br>你就可以顺带评论一下餐厅里令人难以下咽的伙食或者老总在选择领带方面众

所周 知的

低级趣味

。

而对于其他听众，

你就不能试图贸然地讲这种幽默，

因为他

们 也许不喜欢外人对他们的餐厅或老总作如此微词。

如果你

只拿< /p>

邮局或电话局这

样的替罪羊去调侃的话，那你就会更稳妥些。

注：

上下文中的说的是找稳妥的话题进行 调侃以达到幽默的效果。

stick

to

sth

的意思是

not abandon or change sth; keep to sth

不放弃或不改变某事

物

;

坚持或维持某事物。故此处意译为“只拿”。

If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more

natural.

Include

a

few

casual

and

apparently

off-the-cuff

remarks

which

you

can

deliver

in

a

relaxed

and

unforced

manner.

Often

it?s

the

delivery

which

causes

the

audience

to

smile,

so

speak

slowly

and

remember

that

a

raised

eyebrow

or

an

unbelieving look may help to show that you are making a light-hearted remark.

如果你在使用幽默时感到很别扭，

你可以

用轻松的 、

不做作的方式说一些很随便的、

看上去是即兴的话。

使听众发笑的往

往是你的说话方式，

因此要说慢 一些，

并且记住扬扬眉毛或者做出一种不相信的

表情，这些都会 向人们显示你正在说笑话。

Look for the humor. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar

quote “If at

first

you don?t

succeed,

give up” or a play on words

or on

a situation.

Search for exaggeration and understatements.

Look at

your talk and pick out

a few

words or sentences which you can turn about and inject with humor.

平时要留意幽默，

它常常是在出其不意的时候出现。

它可以是 对一句常言的

歪曲，比如“你要是一开始不成功，就放弃”，或者是戏谑语言和情景。留 意夸

大其词和轻描淡写的话。

考虑一下你的谈话，

选出一些词汇和句子来，

将它们颠

倒秩序反复揣摩， 并注入一些幽默。

2002

年

Text 2

Since

the

dawn

of

human

ingenuity,

people

have

devised

ever

more

cunning

tools

to

cope

with

work

that

is

dangerous,

boring,

burdensome,

or

just

plain

nasty.

That compulsion has resulted in robotics -- the science of conferring various human

capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version

of science fiction, they have begun to come close.

自从人类有了创造力开始，人们就发明了各种 日益精巧的工具来处理那些

危险、

枯燥、

繁重或者是十分令人讨厌的工作。

这种冲动导致了机器人学科的产

生

——

一门将人类的能力赋予机器的科学。

即使科学家们目前尚未研制出科幻小

说中的机械人版本，但他们也已经接近这个 目标了。

注：

have yet to

是固定短语，意思是“否定，还没有，尚未”

As

a

result,

the

modern

world

is

increasingly

populated

by

intelligent

gizmos

whose

presence

we

barely

notice

but

whose

universal

existence

has

removed

much

human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is

done

at

automated

teller

terminals

that

thank

us

with

mechanical

politeness

for

the

transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot-drivers. And thanks to

the

continual

miniaturization

of

electronics

and

micro-mechanics,

there

are

already

robot

systems

that

can

perform

some

kinds

of

brain

and

bone

surgery

with

submillimeter

accuracy

--

far

greater

precision

than

highly

skilled

physicians

can

achieve with their hands alone.

因此，现代世界日益充斥着各种智能装置，虽然 我们几乎都注意不到它们，

但它们的普遍存在已使人们摆脱了很多劳动。

工厂里轰鸣着机器手臂生产线的节

奏；

自动柜员机处理 银行业务，

并且用机器语言有礼貌地感谢你的惠顾；

地铁由

不知疲倦的机器人来驾驶。

由于电子器件和微观机械的结构不断小型 化，

现在已

有一些机器人系统能够进行精确到亚毫米的脑部和骨 髓手术，

其精确性远远超过

技术娴熟的医生仅仅用双手所能达到 的水平。

But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to

operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for

themselves --

goals that pose a real challenge. “While we know how to tel

l a robot to

handle a specific error,” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA,

“we can?t yet give a robot enough ?common sense? to reliably interact with a dynamic

world.”

但是如果机器人要进 入帮助人们节省劳力的下一个阶段，

它们的运行就应该

在更大程 度上无需受人监控，

并且至少能够独立地做一些决定。

这些目标 给我们

提出了真正的挑战。

“

虽然我们 知道如何让机器人去处理一个特定的错误，

”

美国

宇航局（

NASA

）的机器人项目经理

Dave Lavery

里说，

“

< br>我们仍然不能赋予机器

人以足够的

?

常识

?

，使它们能够与不断变化的动态世界进行可靠的交流 。

”

Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results.

Despite

a

spell

of

initial

optimism

in

the

1960s

and

1970s

when

it

appeared

that

transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human

brain

by

the

year

2010,

researchers

lately

have

begun

to

extend

that

forecast

by

decades if not centuries.

实际上对真正的人工智能的探索已经产生了诸多不同的效果。虽然在

20

世

纪

60

年代和

70

年代人们有过一段乐观的时期

——

那时候人们认为晶体管电路和

微处理器的发展似乎将使他 们在

2010

年能够模仿人类大脑的活动

——

但是最近

研究人员已经把这个预测延后数十年，甚至数百 年。

What

they

found,

in

attempting

to

model

thought,

is

that

the

human

brain?s

roughly

one

hundred

billion

nerve

cells

are

much

more

talented

--

and

human

perception far more complicated -- than previously imagined. They have built robots

that

can

recognize

the

error

of

a

machine

panel

by

a

fraction

of

a

millimeter

in

a

controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing

scene

and

immediately

disregard

the

98

percent

that

is

irrelevant,

instantaneously

focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious

face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can?t approach

that kind of ability, and neuros

cientists still don?t know quite how we do it.

在试图模拟人类思维模型的过程 中，研究人员发现，人类大脑中的近

1000

亿个神经细胞远比 以前想像的更聪明，人类的认知能力也比以前想像的更复杂。

他们制造的机器人在严格控 制的工厂环境里，

能够在仪表盘上识别毫米以下的误

差。但是人 的大脑能够扫描一个快速变化的场景，迅速排除

98

％的不相干 部分，

立即聚焦于森林中蜿蜒道路旁的一只猴子、

或者人群中的 一张可疑的脸。

地球上

最先进的计算机系统也达不到这种能力，

而且神经学科学家至今仍然不知道我们

是怎样做到这一点的。< /p>

2002

年

Text 3

Could

the

bad

old

days

of

economic

decline

be

about

to

return?

Since

OPEC

agreed

to

supply-cuts

in

March,

the

price

of

crude

oil

has

jumped

to

almost

$$26

a

barrel, up from less than $$10 last December. This near tripling of oil prices calls up

scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when

they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and

global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this

time?