Section 1: English – Chinese Translation (英譯漢)

　　This section consists of two parts, Part A — “Compulsory Translation” and Part B — “Choice of Two Translations” consisting of two sections “Topic I” and “Topic 2”. For the passage in Part A and your choice of passage in Part B, translate the underlined portions, including titles, into Chinese. Above your translation of Part A, write “Compulsory Translation” and above your translation from Part B, write “Topic I” or “Topic 2” (60 points, 100 minutes)

　　Part A Compulsory Translation (必譯題) (30 points)

　　Nowhere to Go

　　For the latest on the pursuit of the American Dream in Silicon Valley, all you have to do is to talk to someone like “Nagaraj” (who didn’t want to reveal his real name). He’s an Indian immigrant who, like many other Indian engineers, came to America recently on an H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to be employed by one company for as many as six years. But one morning last month, Nagaraj and a half dozen other Indian workers with H-1Bs were called into a conference room in their San Francisco technology-consulting firm and told they were being laid off. The reason: weakening economic conditions in Silicon Valley, “It was the shock of my lifetime,” says Nagaraj.

　　This is not a normal bear-market sob story. According to federal regulation, Nagaraj and his colleagues have two choices. They must either return to India, or find another job in a tight labor market and hope that the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) allow them to transfer their visa to the new company. And the law doesn’t allow them to earn a pay-check until all the paperwork winds its way through the INS bureaucracy. “How am I going to survive without any job and without any income?” Nagaraj wonders.

　　Until recently, H-1B visas were championed by Silicon Valley companies as the solution to the region’s shortage of programmers and engineers. First issued by the INS in 1992, they attract skilled workers from other countries, many of whom bring families with them, lay down roots and apply for the more permanent green cards. Through February 2000, more than 81,000 worker held such visas — but with the dot-com crash, many have been getting laid off. That’s causing mass consternation in U.S. immigrant communities. The INS considers a worker “out of status” when he loses a job, which technically means that he must pack up and go home. But because of the scope of this year’s layoffs, the U.S. government has recently backpedaled, issuing a confusing series of statements that suggest workers might be able to stay if they qualify for some exceptions and can find a new company to sponsor their visa. But even those loopholes remain nebulous. The result is thousands of immigrants now face dimming career prospects in America, and the possibilities that they will be sent home. “They are in limbo. It is the greatest form of torture,” says Amar Veda of the Silicon Valley-based Immigrants Support Network.

　　The crisis looks especially bad in light of all the heated visa rhetoric by Silicon Valley companies in the past few years. Last fall the industry won a big victory by getting Congress to approve an increase in the annual number of H-1B visas. Now, with technology firms retrenching, demand for such workers is slowing. Valley heavyweights like Intel, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard have all announced thousands of layoffs this year, which include many H-1B workers. The INS reported last month that only 16,000 new H-1B workers came to the United States in February — down from 32,000 in February of last year.

　　Last month, acknowledging the scope of the problem, the INS told H-1B holders “not to panic,” and that there would be a grace period for laid-off workers before they had to leave the United States. INS spokeswomen Eyleen Schmidt promises that more specific guidance will come this month. “We are aware of the cutbacks,” she says. “We’re trying to be as generous as we can be within the confines of the existing law.”

　　Part B Choice of Two Translations (二選一題) (30 points)

　　Topic 1 (選題一)

　　What Is the Force of Gravity?

　　If you throw a ball up, it will come down again. What makes it come down? The ball comes down because it is pulled or attracted towards the Earth. The Earth exerts a force of attraction on all objects. Objects that are nearer to the Earth are attracted to it with a greater force than those that are further away. This force of attraction is known as the force of gravity. The gravitational force acting on an object at the Earth’s surface is called the weight of the object.

　　All the heavenly bodies in space like the moon, the planets and the stars also exert an attractive force on objects. The bigger and heavier a body is, the greater is its force of gravity. Thus, since the moon is a smaller body than Earth, the force it exerts on an object at its surface is less than that exerted by the Earth on the same object on the Earth’s surface. In fact, the moon’s gravitational force is only one-sixth that of the Earth. This means that an object weighing 120 kilograms on Earth will only weigh 20 kilograms on the moon. Therefore on the moon you could lift weights which are six times heavier than the heaviest weight that you can lift on Earth.

　　The Earth’s gravitational force or pull keeps us and everything else on Earth from floating away to space. To get out into space and travel to the moon or other planets we have to overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull.

　　Entry into Space

　　How can we overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull? Scientists have been working on this for a long time. It is only recently that they have been able to build machines powerful enough to get out of the Earth’s gravitational pull. Such machines are called space rockets. Their great speed and power help them to escape from the Earth’s gravitational pull and go into space.

　　Rockets

　　The powerful space rocket works along the same lines as a simple firework rocket. The firework rocket has a cylindrical body and a conical head. The body is packed with gunpowder which is the fuel. It is a mixture of chemicals that will burn rapidly to form hot gases.

　　At the base or foot of the rocket there is an opening or nozzle. A fuse hangs out like a tail from the nozzle. A long stick attached along the body serves to direct the rocket before the fuse is lighted.

　　When the gunpowder burns, hot gases rush out of the nozzle. The hot gases continue to rush out as long as the gunpowder burns. When these gases shoot downwards through the nozzle the rocket is pushed upwards. This is called jet propulsion. The simple experiment, shown in the picture, will help you to understand jet propulsion.

　　Topic 2 (選題二)

　　Basketball Diplomacy

　　CHINA”S TALLEST SOLDIER never really expected to live the American Dream. But Wang Zhizhi, a 7-foot-1 basketball star from the People’s Liberation Army, is making history as the first Chinese player in the NBA. In his first three weeks in America the 23-year-old rookie has already cashed his first big NBA check, preside over “Wang Zhizhi Day” in San Francisco and become immortalized on his very own trading cards. He’s even played in five games with his new team, the Dallas Mavericks, scoring 24 points in just 38 minutes. Now the affable Lieutenant Wang is joining the Mavericks on their ride into the NBA playoffs — and he is intent on enjoying every minute. One recent evening Wang slipped into the hot tub behind the house of Mavericks assistant coach Donn Nelson. He leaned back, stretched out and pointed at a plane moving across the star-filled sky. In broken English, he started singing his favorite tune: “I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky.”

　　Back in China, the nation’s other basketball phenom, Yao Ming , can only dream of taking flight. Yao thought he was going to be the first Chinese player in the NBA. The 7-foot-5 Shanghai sensation is more highly touted than Wang: the 20-year-old could be the No.1 overall pick in the June NBA draft. But as the May 13 deadline to enter the draft draws near, Yao is still waiting for a horde of business people and apparatchiks to decide his fate. Last week, as Wang scored 13 points in the Dallas season finale, Yao was wading through a stream of bicycles on a dusty Beijing street.

　　Yao and Wang are more than just freaks of nature in basketball shorts. The twin towers are national treasures, symbols of China’s growing stature in the world. They’re also emblematic of the NBA’s outsize dreams for conquering China. The NBA, struggling at home, sees salvation in the land of 1.3 billion potential hoop fans. China, determined to win the 2008 Olympics and join the World Trade Organization, is eager to make its mark on the world — on its own terms. The two-year struggle to get these young players into the NBA has been a cultural collision — this one far removed from U.S.-China bickering over spy planes and trade liberalization. If it works out, it could be — in basketball parlance — the ultimate give-and-go. “This is just like Ping-Pong diplomacy,” says Xia Song, a sport-marketing executive who represents Wang. “Only with a much bigger ball.”

　　Two years ago it looked more like a ball and chain. Wang’s Army bosses were miffed when the Mavericks had the nerve to draft their star back in 1999. Nelson remembers flying to Beijing with the then owner Ross Perot Jr. — son of the eccentric billionaire — to hammer out a deal with the stone-faced communists of the PLA. “You could hear them thinking: ‘What is this NBA team doing, trying to lay claim to our property?’” Nelson recalls. “We tried to explain that this was an honor for Wang and for China.” There was no deal. Wang grew despondent and lost his edge on court.

　　This year Yao became the anointed one. He eclipsed Wang in scoring and rebounding, and even stole away his coveted MVP award in the Chinese Basketball Association league. It looked as if his Shanghai team — a dynamic semicapitalist club in China’s most open city — would get its star to the NBA first.

　　Then came the March madness. Wang broke out of his slump to lead the Army team to its sixth consecutive CBA title — scoring 40 in the final game. A day later the PLA scored some points of its own by announcing that Wang was free to go West. What inspired the change of heart? No doubt the Mavericks worked to build trust with Chinese officials (even inviting national- team coach Wang Fei to spend the 1999-2000 season in Dallas). There was also the small matter of Chinese pride. The national team stumbled to a 10th-place finish at the 2000 Olympics, after placing eighth in 1996. Even the most intransigent cadre could see that the team would improve only if it sent its stars overseas to learn from the world’s best players.

　　Section 2: Chinese-English Translation (漢譯英)

　　This section consists of two parts, Part A — “Compulsory Translation” and Part B —“Choice of Two Translations” consisting of two sections “Topic 1” and “Topic 2”. For the passage in Part A and your choice of passage in Part B, translate the underlined portions, including titles, into English. Above your translation of Part A, write “Compulsory Translation” and above your translation from Part B, write “Topic 1” or “Topic 2” (40 points, 80 minutes)

　　Part A Compulsory Translation (必譯題)(20 points)

　　民族歷來(lái)尊重人的尊嚴(yán)和價(jià)值。還在遙遠(yuǎn)的古代，我們的先人就已提出“民為貴”的思想，認(rèn)為“天生萬(wàn)物，唯人為貴” ，一切社會(huì)的發(fā)展和進(jìn)步，都取決于人的發(fā)展和進(jìn)步，取決于人的尊嚴(yán)的維護(hù)和價(jià)值的發(fā)揮。中國(guó)共產(chǎn)黨領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人民進(jìn)行革命、建設(shè)和改革，就是要實(shí)現(xiàn)全中國(guó)人民廣泛的自由、民主和人權(quán)。今天中國(guó)所煥發(fā)出來(lái)的巨大活力，是中國(guó)人民擁有廣泛自由、民主的生動(dòng)寫(xiě)照。中國(guó)在公元一世紀(jì)人口就已達(dá)到過(guò)六千萬(wàn)左右，眾多人口的衣食住行，幾千年來(lái)一直是中國(guó)歷代政府所要解決的首要人權(quán)問(wèn)題。今天的中國(guó)是一個(gè)有十二億多人口的發(fā)展中大國(guó)，仍然必須首先保障最廣大人民的生存權(quán)和發(fā)展權(quán)，不然一切其他權(quán)利都無(wú)從談起。中國(guó)確保十二億多人的生存權(quán)和發(fā)展權(quán)，這是對(duì)世界人權(quán)進(jìn)步事業(yè)的重大貢獻(xiàn)。

　　Part B Choice of Two Translation (二選一題) (20 points)

　　Topic 1 (選題一)

　　艾滋病

　　艾滋病是一種威脅生命的疾病，它侵襲人體內(nèi)的自然免疫系統(tǒng)，破壞人體的自衛(wèi)能力。

　　艾滋病本身并不致命，但是，由于人體的免疫系統(tǒng)遭到破壞，病人幾乎沒(méi)有能力低于其他許多疾病的侵襲，例如，肺炎、癌癥、致盲性疾病和精神錯(cuò)亂。

　　艾滋病毒存在于人的體液中。這種病毒可以通過(guò)性生活或共用靜脈注射器傳播，也可以通過(guò)血制品傳播，并且可以從患艾滋病的孕婦身上傳播給她的妊娠嬰兒。

　　有關(guān)艾滋病傳播的許多說(shuō)法是錯(cuò)誤的。與艾滋病患者一起工作或上學(xué)不會(huì)傳染上艾滋病，觸摸他們用過(guò)的飲水杯或其他東西也不會(huì)傳染上艾滋病。專(zhuān)家們說(shuō)：沒(méi)有人因?yàn)榕c艾滋病患者一起生活、照料艾滋病患者或觸摸艾滋病患者而染上艾滋病。

　　Topic 2 (選題二)

　　時(shí)間之謎

　　如果你能夠看懂時(shí)鐘，你就可以知道一天的時(shí)間。但是誰(shuí)也不知道，時(shí)間本身究竟是什么。時(shí)間是看不到、摸不著、聽(tīng)不見(jiàn)的，我們只能記錄時(shí)間消逝的辦法才知道時(shí)間的存在。雖然我們成功的測(cè)量了時(shí)間的分分秒秒，但時(shí)間仍然是宇宙間及其神秘的現(xiàn)象之一。

　　思考時(shí)間的一個(gè)方法是設(shè)想一個(gè)沒(méi)有時(shí)間的世界。那樣，就不可能有運(yùn)動(dòng)了，因?yàn)闀r(shí)間和運(yùn)動(dòng)是不可分開(kāi)的。一個(gè)沒(méi)有時(shí)間的世界只有在沒(méi)有變化的情況下才能存在。因?yàn)闀r(shí)間和變化是聯(lián)系在一起的。當(dāng)某件事發(fā)生變化時(shí)，你知道時(shí)間已經(jīng)流逝。在現(xiàn)實(shí)世界里，變化是永無(wú)止境的，有一些變化，如月食，只發(fā)生在瞬間，而另一些變化則反復(fù)出現(xiàn)，比如日出和日落。人們一直注意那些反復(fù)出現(xiàn)的自然現(xiàn)象，在人們開(kāi)始計(jì)算這些現(xiàn)象時(shí)，他們就開(kāi)始測(cè)定時(shí)間了。