泽熙美文English Chinese Translation
England and France are separated by twenty-two miles of open sea at their closest point. 1 Attempts to swim the English Channel have been made by people of all ages and from various walks of life. Each swimmer is drawn to the famous channel for different reasons, but each has the same goal—to conquer the channel.
The English Channel was first crossed in 1875 by Mathew Webb, an Englishman, who swam breaststroke from Dover, England, to Calais, France. 2 Since then, over 3,700 people have made approximately 4,500 attempts on the channel. Only 297 people, however, have successfully duplicated Webb’s remarkable achievement.
Cold water, rough seas, strong currents, heavy winds and jellyfish are among the many reasons why the success rate is so low.
Swimmers and escort crews must wait for periods of calm seas and light winds, lasting 10-20 hours. 3 Much to the frustration of the athletes and their coaches and crews, the weather may only cooperate a few days each year.
Once in the channel, swimmers are always at the mercy of the elements since temperatures, winds and currents can change houdy. 4 Quite often, luck and good timing play as important a role in a swimmer’s success as proper physical training and mental preparation.
Channel swimmers come in all ages, abilities and backgrounds. 5 But swimming the English Channel will always be the same to all its challengers—an incredible adventure that tests the limit of human endurance, courage and perseverance.
1.
正确答案：
不同年龄和不同职业的人都曾经试图游过英吉利海峡。游泳爱好者被吸引到这个著名的海峡来的原因各不相同，然而他们的目标是一致的——征服海峡。
2.
正确答案：
从那时起，有3700多人进行了大约4500次横渡海峡的尝试，然而，只有297人成功地再现了韦布的惊人成就。
3.
正确答案：
让运动员、教练员和护卫人员颇为泄气的是，一年当中老天爷乐意配合的日子只有几天。
4.
正确答案：
运气的好坏和时机的选择对游泳者的成功所起到的作用常常和适当的体能训练和心理准备所起到的作用相当。
5.
正确答案：
但是，游过英吉利海峡对所有的挑战者来说一直具有同样的意义——它是向人类的耐力、勇气和韧性的极限的挑战，是一次令人难以置信的冒险。
By the eighteenth century, the rise of industrialism in the west was accompanied by a decline of religion that cannot be seen as an accidental concurrence. And from then on the trend accelerates. As the average man becomes more enabled to live in comfortable houses, to escape most of the childhood diseases, to communicate rapidly through time and space, to move long distances with ease, his perception of Nature undergoes a startling alteration. 6 No longer does Nature seem quite so terrific and treacherous; for man is much less likely now to starve for want of food or perish from the heat or cold. His relation to the other animals and plants appears thickly veiled by air conditioning, frozen foods, automobiles and washing machines.
7 It has been said again and again that modern man’s comfortable life amidst the conveniences of technology has caused him to suffer a spiritual death and to feel empty, without purpose and direction. And that may well be the case. But nevertheless a radical distinction must be made here: the need for transcendence experienced by most human beings prior to modern times was a very different one from what is claimed to exist today. 8 For if the connection between the growth of industry and the decline of religion is a real one, the earlier spiritual lives appear as an escape from man’s vulnerable position in his battle with Nature. It was not that man’s sensitiveness to the idea of the good and the beautiful was any more developed in past history; rather, his need to escape from an intolerable physical life was greater than ours.
When I speak of man’s previous need for transcendence, I do not refer to the needs of great creative people—artist, craftsmen—who can never be satisfied with the status. 9 I speak of the masses of people whose spiritual lives were necessary to make their physical lives endurable and who, had choice been possible, would certainly have preferred physical comforts over spirituality. This situation does not for the most part now exist: TV and toilet make the need for God unnecessary. Man does not generally live in fear of Nature except when earthquake strikes, for he is mostly unaware of a connection with nature concealed by modern technology.
10 The present need for spiritual lives is based on sufficiency and not on deprivation, and it does not seek a haven in another world but rather a more beautiful version of this one. What I am concerned is what has happened as a result of the Industrial Revolution to man’s conception of his relationship with Nature.
6.
正确答案：
大自然不再显得那样恐怖和凶险，因为人类现在不大可能因为缺少粮食而挨饿，或者因炎热或寒冷而丧生。
7.
正确答案：
许多人认为，现代人舒适地生活在技术带来的便利之中，这使他感到精神危机和生活空虚，人生没有目的和方向。
8.
正确答案：
如果工业发展与宗教衰落有必然联系的话，早期人类的精神生活好像是对人与自然的斗争中所处脆弱地位的逃避。
9.
正确答案：
我说的是人民大众，为了忍受物质生活的艰辛，他们的精神生活是必要的。而且，如果有选择的可能，他们一定会选择物质上的舒适，而非精神信仰。
10.
正确答案：
当今人们对精神生活的需求，是建立在富足、而不是贫乏的基础上的，它不是寻求来世的庇护所，而是想把今生变得更美好。
This is supposed to be an enlightened age, but you wouldn’t think so if you could hear what the average man thinks of the average woman. Women won their independence years ago. After a long, bitter struggle, they now enjoy the same educational opportunities as men in most parts of the world. They have proved repeatedly that they are equal and often superior to men in almost every field. 11 The hard-fought battle for recognition has been won, but it is by no means over. It is men, not women who still carry on the sex war because their attitude remains basically hostile. Even in the most progressive societies, women continue to be regarded as second-rate citizens. To hear some men talk, you’d think that women belonged to a different species!
On the surface, the comments made by men about women’s abilities seem light-hearted. The same tired jokes about women drivers are repeated day in day out. 12 This apparent light-heartedness does not conceal the real contempt that men feel for women. However much men sneer, at women, their claims to superiority are not borne out by statistics. Let’s consider the matter of driving, for instance. 13 We all know that women cause far fewer accidents than men. They are too conscientious and responsible to drive like maniacs. But this is a minor quibble. Women have succeeded in any job you care to name. As politicians, soldiers, doctors, factory-hands, university professors, farmers, company directors, lawyers, bus-conductors, scientists and presidents of countries they have often put men to shame. And we must remember that they frequently succeed brilliantly in all these fields in addition to bearing and rearing children.
14 Yet men go on maintaining the fiction that there are many jobs women can’t do. Top-level political negotiation between countries, business and banking are almost entirely controlled by men, who jealously guard their so-called “rights”. Even in otherwise enlightened places like Switzerland women haven’t even been given the vote. This situation is preposterous! The arguments that men put forward to exclude women from these fields are all too familiar. Women, they say, are unreliable and irrational. They depend too era
