最新考研英语(一)阅读理解全文翻译及解析

George Bernard Shaw

和

Ernest Newman

也知

道自己在做什么

（即他们的文章会高调 出现在报纸上）

。

这些批评家们相信报刊评论是一项

“

鉴于几乎没有作家能拥有足够

的智慧或文学天赋以保证他们在新闻报纸写作中 站稳脚跟

”

，

Newman

曾写道，

“

把

‘

新闻写作< /p>

’

定义为不受读者欢迎的作家用来嘲讽受读者欢迎的作家的一个< /p>

‘

轻蔑之词

’ ”

不幸的是，这些批评家们现在实际上已被人们遗忘。从

1917

年开始一直到

1975

年

去世不久前还在为曼彻斯 特《卫报》写文章的

Neville Cardus

，如今仅仅作为一个撰写关于

板球比赛文章的作家被人们所知。

但是，

在他的一生当中，

他也是英国首屈一指的 古典音乐

评论家之一。他也是一位深受读者青睐的文体家，

所以

1947

年他的《自传》一书就成为热

销读物。

1967

年他被授予爵士称号，也是第一位获此殊荣的音乐评 论家。

然而，

他的书现

在只有一本可以 在市面上买到。

他大量的音乐批评，

除了专门研究音乐评论的人 以外，

已鲜

为人知。

Cardus

的评论有没有机会重 新流行？前景似乎渺茫。在他去世之前，新闻业的品味早

已改变很长时间了，

读者 没有什么用处。何况，由业余爱好者作音乐批评的传统早已经成为昨日黄花了。

Text 2

Over

the

past

decade,

thousands

of

patents

have

seen

granted

for

what

are

called

business

methods. received one for its “one

-

click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got

legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lying a box.

Now the nation’s top patent court appears completely

-property lawyers abuzz the U.S. court of

Appeals

for

the

federal

circuit

said

it

would

use

a

particular

case

to conduct

a broad

review

of

business-

method patents. In the Bilski, as the case is known, is a “very big deal”, says Dennis’D

Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law.

It

“has the potential to eliminate an entire

class of patents.”

Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the federal

circuit itself that introduced such patents with is 1998 decision in the so- called state Street Bank

case,

approving

a

patent

on

a

way

of

pooling

mutual-fund

assets.

That

ruling

produced

an

explosion

in

business-method

patent

filings,

initially

by

emerging

internet

companies

trying

to

stake

out

exclusive

pinhts

to

specific

types

of

online

transactions.

Later,

move

established

companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that

might bent them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more

than 300 business-method patents despite the fact

that it questioned the legal basis

for granting

them.

Similarly,

some

Wall

Street

investment

films

armed

themselves

with

patents

for

financial

products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.

The

Bilski

case

involves

a

claimed

patent

on

a

method

for

hedging

risk

in

the

energy

market.

The Federal circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12

of the court’s judges, rather than a typical panel of three and that one issue it wants to evaluate is

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weather it should “reconsider” its state street Bank ruling.

The Federal Circuit’s action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the supreme

Count that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example the

justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The

judges

on

the

Federal

circuit

are

“reacting

to

the

anti_patent

trend

at

the

supreme

court”,

says

Harole , a partend attorney and professor at aeorge Washington University Law School.

Text 3

①

In his book The Tip

ping Point, Malcolm Aladuell argues that “social epidemics” are

driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials,

who are unusually informed, persuasive, or well connected.

②

The idea is intuitively compelling,

but it doesn’t explain how ideas actually spread.

①

The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible-sounding but largely

untested theory called the “two

-

step flow of communication”: Informat

ion flows from the media

to the influentials and from them to everyone else.

②

Marketers have embraced the two-step

flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials, those select people

will do most of the work for them.

③

The theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpected

popularity of certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods.

④

In many such cases, a cursory search for

causes finds that some small group of people was wearing, promoting, or developing whatever it

is before anyone else paid attention.

⑤

Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea

that only certain special people can drive trends.

①

In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that

influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed.

②

In fact, they

don’t seem to be required of all.

③

The researchers’ argument stems from a simple observation

about social influence, with the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey

—

whose

outsize presence is primarily a function of media, not interpersonal, influence

—

even the most

influential members of a population simply don’t interact with that many others.

④

Yet it is

precisely these noncelebrity influentials who, according to the two-step-flow theory, are supposed

to drive social epidemics by influencing their friends and colleagues directly.

⑤

For a social

epidemic to occur, however, each person so affected, must then influence his or her own

acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and so on;

⑥

and just how many others pay

attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial influential.

⑦

If people in the

network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant, for example, the

cascade

of change won’t propagate very far or affect many people.

①

Building on the basic truth about interpersonal influence, the researchers studied the

dynamics of social contagion by conducting thousands of computer simulations of populations,

manipulating a number of variables relating to people’s ability to influence others and their

tendency to be influenced.

全文翻译：

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