熊海虹主编《高等学校研究生英语综合教程-上》Unit7-Unit10课文翻译及课后练习答案

他会受到自己对以下两方

面认知的影响：

驾车的

风险和驾车的回报。他所考虑的东西可能包括：

能够

准时上班或准时赶赴朋友的饭局、让同伴对

< /p>

他的驾车

技术留下深刻印象、使自己作为熟练驾

< br>

车手的形象更

加巩固。他还可能考虑到自身的安

全问题、长命百岁

的愿望、对车上年幼乘客 的责

任感、撞毁自己的漂亮

新车或驾 驶证被没收的代

价。

Nor will these possible concerns exist in a vacuum.

He will be tak ing into acco unt the weather and the

con diti on of the road, the amount of traffic and the

capabilities of the car he is driv ing. But crucially,

says Adams, this driver will also be adjust ing his

behavior in

resp onse

to what he

perceives are cha nges in risks. If he is wearing a

seat belt and his car has front and

side air bags and anti-skid

brakes to boot,

he may in turn drive a bit more daringly.

这些可能的担心也不是孤立存在的。

他还要考虑

到天气和路况、交通拥挤的程度和所驾车子的性

能。

但亚当斯说，关键的是这个司机还将根据他

对风险变

化的判断来调整自己的行为。

系统，他驾起车来可能会更大胆。

如果他系

上了安全带，而他的车子带有前、侧气囊和防滑

刹车

4 The point, stresses Adams, is that drivers who

feel safe mayactually in crease the risk that they

pose to other drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians and

their own passengers (while an average of 80%of

drivers buckle up, only 68% of their rear-seat passe

ngers do). And risk compensation is hardly confined

to the act of driving a car. Think of a trapeze artist,

suggests Adams, or a rock climber or motorcyclist.

Add some safety equipme nt to the equation- a net,

rope or helmet

respectively- and the

person

may try

man euvers that he or she would otherwise

consider foolish. In the case of seat belts, in stead

of a simple, straightforward

reduction

in deaths, the end result is

actually a more complicated redistributio n of risk

and fatalities. For the sake of argument, offers

Adams, imagine how it might affect the behavior of

drivers if a sharp stake were mounted in the middle

of the steering wheel? Or if the bumper were

packed with explosives. Perverse, yes,

certainly

percepti on of risk could modify behavior.

4

亚当斯强调说，问题就在于自我感觉安 全的司

机们

实际上对其他司机、骑自 行车者、行人和自

己车上的

乘客来说 是更大的危险

（

平均

80

%

的司

机系安全带，

而同车后座的乘客只有

but it

provides a vivid example of how a

68

%

系安

全带

）

。风险补偿绝不仅限于驾车行为 。亚当斯

说，

类似的还有表演高空秋 千的艺人、攀岩者或

摩托车

手。如果 在他们的安全等式上增添某种安

全装置

比如

说分别给他们一张救生网、

一根

保险绳或一个头盔一一这个人可能就会试着做

些平时

认为很愚蠢的技巧性表演。因此，安全带

并非简 单、直截了当地减少死亡人数，而是对风

险和

死亡事故进行了更加复杂的再分配。

为了说

明其中

的道理，亚当斯提出人们可以想象一下，

如果在方向

盘中间安一个尖头的木桩，

司机开车

时会受到怎样

的影响

？

或者在保险杠上装满炸药

< br>

呢

？

这简直是丧

心病狂，是的，不过这确实提供

了一个生动的例子 ，

来说明人们如何根据对风险

的判断来调整行为。

5 In everyday life, risk is a moving target, not a set

number as statistics might suggest.

In additi on

in dividual

to exter nal

f

actors, each

has his or her own in ter nal comfort

level with risk- tak ing. Some are

daring while others are cautious by nature. And still

others are fatalists who may believe that a higher

power devises mortality schedules that fix a

predeterm ined time whe n our nu mber is up.

Con seque ntly,

any

sin gle

measureme nt

assigned to the risk of driving a car is

bound to be only the roughest sort of ben chmark.

5

日常生活中，风险是不断移动的靶子，而并不

像统

计数据那样是个固定数字。除了外部因素

外，每个人

对于冒险都有自己内在的安全尺度。

有些人天生大胆而有些人天生谨慎，还有些人是

宿命

论者，他们会认为，有一种更强大的力量设

计了死亡

时间表，预先确定了我们的死期。因此

,

对驾车风险

做任何单一的测算所得到的肯定只

是最粗略的基准数

据。

Adams cites, as an example the statistical fact that

a young man is 100 times more likely to be involved

in a severe crash than is a middle-aged woma n.

Similarly, some one driv ing at 3:00 a.m. Sun day is

more tha n 100 times more likely to die tha n some

one driv ing at 10:00 a.m. Sun day. Some one with

a personality disorder is 10 times more likely to die.

And let's say he's also drunk.

Tally up All these factors and consider them

independently says Adams, and you could arrive at.

a statistical predict on that a disturbed, drunken

young mandriving in the middle of the night is 2.7

million times more likely to be involved in a serious

accident than would a sober, middle-aged woman

driving to church seven hours later.

亚当斯引用了这样的统计事实作例子：青年男子

发生

严重撞车事故的概率比中年妇女高

100

倍。

同样，在星期天凌晨

3

点钟驾车的人比同一天上

午

10

点钟驾车的人死亡风 险高出

100

多倍，有

人格障

碍的人比一般人死亡风险高

10

倍。亚当

斯说，假如这个人还喝醉了，汇总所有这些因素

并分

别加以考虑，就会得到一个具有统计性的预

< /p>

测：一位

心理失常又喝醉酒的青年男子在午夜驾

< br>

车，

7

个小时

后一位头脑清醒的中年妇女驾车去

教堂，前者发生严

重交通事故的概率比后者高

270

万倍。

6 The bottom line is that risk does n't exist in a

vacuum and that there are a host of factors that

come into play, including the rewards of risk,

whether they are financial,

physical or emoti on al. It is this very huma n con

text which risk exists. That is key, says Adams, who

titled one of his recent blogs: What Kills You

Matters- Not Numbers. Our reacti on to risk very

much depe nds on the degree to which it is

voluntary (scuba div in g), un avoidable (public tran

sit) or

imposed (air quality), the degree to which we feel

we are in control (driving) or at the mercy of others

(plane travel), and the degree to which the source

of possible dan ger is benign (

indifferent

(nature) or malign, (murder and

terrorism). We make doze ns of risk calculati ons

daily, but you can book odds- that most of them are

so automatic or visceral- that we barely no tice

them.

6

问题的要点就在于风险 并不是孤立存在的，它

会受

到许多因 素的影响，包括承担风险所带来的

种种回报

< br>——无论是财产方面的、身体方面的，

还是情感方面< /p>

的。这正是风险赖以存在的真实的

人类 社会。亚当斯

说，这才是问题的关键，正如

他把近期的一篇博客题目定为

《关键的是置人于

死

地的东西，而不是数字》。我们对风险的反应

多半取

决于它在多大程度上是自发的行为

（

如戴

水肺 潜

水

）

、是不可避免的

（

如公共交通

）

、还是

强加给

我们的

（< /p>

如空气质量

）；

取决于我们认为在

多大程

度上是我们能控制的

（

如驾驶

）

或是由别

人控制的

（

如乘飞机

）；

还取决于这种潜在危险在

多大程度

上是出于好意

（

如医生的指令

）

、无意的

（

如自然

因素

）

或恶意的

（

如谋杀和恐怖活动

）

。我

们每天