泽熙美文English Chinese Translation
1. What’s your earliest childhood memory? Can you remember learning to walk? Or talk? The first time you heard thunder or watched a television program? Adults seldom recall events much earlier than the year or so before entering school, just as children younger than three or four rarely retain any specific, personal experiences.
A variety of explanations have been proposed by psychologists for this “childhood amnesia”(儿童失忆症). One argues that the hippocampus, the region of the brain which is responsible for forming memories, does not mature until about the age of two. But the most popular theory maintains that, since adults do not think like children, they cannot reflect childhood memories. Adults think in words, and their life memories are like stories or narratives—one event follows another as in a novel or film. But when they search through their mental files for early childhood memories to add to this verbal life story, they don’t find any that fits the pattern It’s like trying to find a Chinese word in an English dictionary.
Now psychologist Annette Simms of the New York State University offers a new explanation for childhood amnesia. She argues that there simply aren’t any early childhood memories to recall. According to Dr. Simms, children need to learn to use someone else’s spoken description of their personal experiences in order to turn their own short-term, quickly forgotten impressions of them into long-term memories. In other words, children have to talk about their experiences and hear others talk about theirs—Mother talking about the afternoon spent looking for seashells at the beach or Dad asking them about their day at Ocean park. Without this verbal reinforcement, says Dr. Simms, children cannot form permanent memories of their personal experiences.
正确答案：
你最早的童年记忆是什么?你能记起学走路时的情形吗?或是学说话时的情形?你第一次听到雷声或看电视节目?成年人很少记得起比上学前那一年早得多的事情，正如小于三岁或四岁的儿童很少记得任何具体的、涉及个人的经历。
心理学家已经为这样的“儿童失忆症”提出了各种各样的解释。一种解释认为：海马状突起(人脑内负责形成记忆的区域)直到大约两岁时才成熟。但是，最流行的理论主张：由于成年人不像儿童那样思考，所以他们不能反射出童年的记忆。成年人用言语思考，他们有关生活的记忆就像故事或叙述——正如小说或电影中那样，一件事紧跟又一件。但是，当他们通过大脑中的文件搜寻早期的童年记忆以便补充这种用言语表达的生活经历时，他们发现，任何记录都适应不了这种方式。这就像人们试图在一本英语字典中查找一个汉字那样。
如今，纽约州立大学的心理学家安妮特·西蒙丝为儿童失忆症提出了一种新的解释。她认为：早期儿童记忆不能仅仅去回忆。根据西蒙丝博士的观点，儿童应该学会利用其他人关于他们个人经历的口头描述，以便把他们有关自己的短暂的、容易被忘记的印象转变成长期的记忆。换句话说，儿童必须谈论自己的经历，并且要倾听别人谈论他们的经历，妈妈谈论在海滩寻找贝壳的下午，或是爸爸询问他们在海洋公园度过的一天。西蒙丝博士说，没有口头上的这种强化，儿童不可能形成他们有关个人经历的永久的记忆。
2. The horse and carriage is a thing of the past, but love and marriage are still with us and still closely interrelated. Most American marriages, particularly first marriages involving young couples, are the result of mutual attraction and affection other than practical considerations.
In the United States, parents do not arrange marriages for their children. Teenagers begin dating in high school and usually find mates through their own academic and social contacts Though young people feel free to choose their friends from diverse groups, most choose a mate of similar background.
This is due in part to parental guidance. Parents cannot select spouses for their children, but they can usually influence choices by voicing disapproval of someone they consider unsuitable. However, marriages between members of different groups (interclass, interfaith, and interracial marriages) are increasing, probably because of the greater mobility of today’s youth and the fact that they are restricted by fewer prejudices than their parents. Many young people leave their home towns to attend college, serve in the armed forces, or pursue a career in a bigger city.
Once away from home and family, they are more likely to date and marry outside their own social group.
In mobile American society, interclass marriages are neither rare nor shocking. Interfaith marriages are on the rise particularly between Protestants and Catholics. On the other hand, interracial marriage is still very uncommon. It can be difficult for interracial couples to find a place to live, maintain friendships, and raise a family. Marriages between people of different national origin (but the same race and religion) have been commonplace here since colonial times.
正确答案：
马和马车已经成为过去之物，但是，爱情和婚姻还存在，并且与我们密切相关。大多数美国人的婚姻，特别是涉及到初次结婚的年轻夫妇，他们是由于彼此吸引和爱慕而结合的，而不是出于实际考虑。
在美国，父母不为其子女安排婚姻。青少年在中学时开始约会，他们一般通过其学业和社会交往来寻找伴侣。尽管年轻人觉得可以从不同群体中不受限制地选择伴侣，但是大多数人选择的伴侣与自己的背景相同。
这样做部分是因为父母的指导。父母不可能为其子女选择配偶，但是，他们通常可以通过表达他们不同意他们认为不合适的人这种做法来影响其子女的选择。然而，不同群体成员之间的婚姻(不同的阶层、不同的信仰以及不同的种族之间的婚姻)正在日益增多，可能是因为现在的年轻人流动性更大，也可能是因为这样的事实：现在的年轻人受偏见的限制比其父母更少。许多年轻人离开家乡去上大学，去军队服役，或者到更大的城市寻找工作。
一旦离开了家乡与家庭，他们更可能发生与其社会群体之外的人约会并结婚。
在美国这样的流动性社会，不同阶层的人们之间的婚姻既不是罕见的，也不令人惊奇。不同信仰的人们之间的联姻在增长，尤其是新教徒与天主教徒之间的联姻。另一方面，不同种族的人们之间的联姻仍然非常罕见。对于种族不同的夫妇来说，找一个地方生活、保持友谊以及抚养一个家庭仍然很艰难。在美国，自殖民时期以来，不同国家出身(但是种族和信仰相同)的人们之间的联姻已经很普遍。
3. The government has finally grown sick of claims that GCSEs and A-levels are being dumbed down, it seems. In his speech to the Labour Party conference on September 26th, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, said he would create a new watchdog to oversee exams. The current regulator is to be broken in two, with one bit continuing to develop new syllabuses and qualifications and reporting to ministers. The other bit, independent of government and reporting directly to Parliament, is to guard against grade inflation.
Mr. Balls draws parallels with Gordon Brown’s first big step when he became chancellor in 1997. Relinquishing the Treasury’s power to set interest rates to an independent body is still, ten years later, regarded as his finest hour. Mr. Balls, as his chief economic adviser at the time, was one of the architects of that decision. Both men hope that the new exams watchdog will lead to similar plaudits.
Britain’s secondary-school exam results have every reason to be upwardly mobile. The government wants voters to believe their children are getting a good education, so it is keen on high grades. Schools respond by shopping around among exam boards for the easiest syllabuses and tests, and directing pupils towards the softest subjects. Exam boards navigate between losing the trust of universities and losing the patronage of schools. And the individuals setting and marking exams know that harshness may mean fewer candidates in future.
The new arrangements may ensure that, in schools at least, bad exams do not drive out good. But they will have no effect on universities, where grade inflation is also rife. Three-fifths of all students now get at least an upper second, and between 2002 and 2006 the proportion of first-class honours degrees crept up from 9.7% to 11%.
There are also signs that the value of English degrees is being eroded on the international market. On September 25th the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), a think-tank, published the results of a survey of 15,000 English undergraduates. It turns out that they spend much less time studying than those elsewhere in Europe. The average English student puts in 26 hours a week: 14 taught hours and the rest on independent study, compared with 29 hours in Spain and 41 in Portugal. Nor is it that English students are skimping on their studies to run to paid jobs; students in other countries work harder outside university, too.
HEPI’s director, Bahram Bekhradnia, cautions against a simplistic interpretation. Hours taught do not equal hours spent learning, he says, pointing out that tailored tutorials for small groups are likely to transmit more knowledge than the lectures in enormous amphitheatres that are routine at some continental universities.
But neither can the results be brushed away, he says. Foreign students may go elsewhere if they think an English undergraduate degree is content-light and poor value for money. This would spell financial disaster for many cash-strapped English universities. In 2004-05, the last year for which figures are available, they received?
