CET-6英译汉专练

Passage One

(1)Policymakers must, of course, respond to changes in society that reflect the needs and wishes of their constituents. In the United States, one vehicle which brings about important changes in domestic policies is the constitutional amendment. (2)One of the GREatest strengths of the US Constitution has been its flexibility; it was written to accommodate changes. But owing to the basic soundness of the original document and constant clarifications by the judiciary(司法部, 司法官), relatively few amendments have been added to the Constitution since it was adopted almost 200 years ago.

The framers of the Constitu-tion made the amendment process a long and difficult one. (3)Those amendments which do survive the procedure usually involve hard-fought issues that have been debated extensively in the U.S. ConGREss and in the state legislatures(立法机关,立法机构). Before an amendment becomes law, legislators must have expressed strong arguments supporting its passage. Usually the amendment which does become a law has a great impact on the American citizen.

The Constitution provides two methods of proposing an amendment. One is by vote of  two-third  of  the  members  present  in both houses of ConGREss; the other is by a convention summoned by Congress at the request of the legislature of two-third of the states. Only the first of these methods has ever been used.

One striking feature of the amendments that have been ratified(批准,认可), is that the majority—18 out of 26—are devoted to protecting or extending the right of citizens. (4)Most of the remaining amendments deal with the mechanics of government, either correcting flaws that became evident after the Constitution went into effect or changing some aspects of government to respond to changing perceptions of government’s role.

Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1816 about a proposed change in the constitution of the State of Virginia, epitomized the value of the amending process. His statement applies equally to the Constitution of the United States; (5)“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with...But I know also, that laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the process of the human mind.”

Translate the underlined sentences into Chinese.

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Passage Two

(1)A hundred years ago it was assumed and scientifically “proved” by economists that the laws of society made it necessary to have a vast army of poor and jobless people in order to keep the economy going. Today, hardly anybody would dare to voice this principle. (2)It is generally accepted that nobody should be excluded from the wealth of the nation, either by the laws of nature or by those of society. The opinions, which were current a hundred years ago, that the poor owed their conditions to their ignorance, or lack of responsibility, are outdated. In all Western industrial countries, a system of insurance has been introduced which guarantees everyone a minimum of subsistence(生活维持费)in case of unemployment, sickness and old age. I would go one step further and argue that, even if these conditions are not present, everyone has the right to receive the means to subsist(维持生活). In other words, he can claim this subsistence minimum without having to have any “reason”. (3)I would suggest, however, that it should be limited to a definite period of time, let’s say two years, so as to avoid the encouraging of an abnormal attitude, which refuses any kind of social obligation.

This may sound like a fantastic proposal, but so, I think, our insurance system would have sounded to people a hundred years ago. (4)The main objection to such a scheme would be that if each person were entitled to receive minimum support, people would not work. This assumption rests on the fallacy(谬误,谬论)of the inherent laziness in human nature. Actually, aside from abnormally lazy people, there would be very few who would not want to earn more than the minimum, and who would prefer to do nothing rather than work.

However, the suspicions against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not groundless from the standpoints of those who want to use ownership of capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer. If nobody were forced to accept work in order not to starve, work would have to be sufficiently interesting and attractive to induce one to accept it. Freedom of contract is possible only if both parties are free to accept and reject it; in the present capitalist system this is not the case.

(5)But such a system would not only be the beginning of real freedom of contract between employers and employees, its principal advantages would be the improvement of freedom in interpersonal relationships in every sphere of daily life.

Translate the underlined sentences into Chinese.

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参考答案:

Passage One

(1) 当然,制定政策的人一定要对社会上的变化做出反应,因为这些变化反映了选民们的需求和愿望。

(2) 美国宪法最大的优点在于它的灵活性。起草时,该宪法就具有了包容变化的特点。

(3) 那些经过这一程序而做出的修正案,通常是美国国会和州立法机构就一些论题唇枪舌剑,广泛论证的结果。

(4) 其他的修正案涉及政府统治的一般手段,要么是纠正宪法实施后就显现出来的错误,要么是改变政府的某些形象,以适应(国民)对政府角色新的认识。

(5) 我当然不支持经常未经检验就去修订法律和宪法。我认为最好还是接受适度的不完美……但我也知道,法律和宪法必须与(国民的)思维同步发展。

Passage Two

(1) 一百年前,经济学者科学地“证明”了这样的臆断:根据社会法则,经济赖以持续发展的前提是一大批贫穷和失业者。

(2) 人们普遍认为,不管是自然规律还是社会法则,都不能剥夺任何人享受国家财富的权力。

(3) 然而,我建议应该有时间限制,比如说两年,这样就可以避免鼓励滋生拒绝承担任何社会义务的这一不良态度。

(4) 反对这一方案的主要理由是,如果人人都有权享受最低生活补贴,人们就不愿意去工作了。

(5) 这一体系不但可以开始使雇主与雇工签署合同时享受到真正的自由,它的主要优点还在于增加了日常生活中每一方面的人际关系的自由度。