人事部三级笔译(CATTI)2007.11英译汉真题

人事部三级笔译（CATTI）2007.11英译汉真题

One of the biggest decisions Andy Blevins has ever made, and one of the few he now regrets, never seemed like much of a decision at all. It just felt like the natural thing to do.

安迪布莱文思曾做过的最大的、同时也是他现在极少为之后悔的决定之一，看起来一点也不像个决定。倒像是自然而然做的事。

In the summer of 1995, he was moving boxes of soup cans, paper towels and dog food across the floor of a supermarket warehouse, one of the biggest buildings here in southwest Virginia. The heat was brutal. The job had sounded impossible when he arrived fresh off his first year of college, looking to make some summer money, still a skinny teenager with sandy blond hair and a narrow, freckled face.

1995年夏天，他在一家超市的仓库上班，把汤罐头、纸巾和狗粮箱子在地板上搬来搬去，这家超市是弗吉尼亚西南部最大的建筑物之一。天气酷热。他刚到这开始第一个学年时，希望在暑期挣点外快，这份工作在那时显得不可思议。当时他还是个瘦得皮包骨的十几岁的小伙子，有着沙质金发和瘦削的布满雀斑的脸。

But hard work done well was something he understood, even if he was the first college boy in his family. Soon he was making bonuses on top of his $6.75 an hour, more money than either of his parents made. His girlfriend was around, and so were his hometown buddies. Andy acted more outgoing with them, more relaxed. People in Chilhowie noticed that.

但是，他明白应该把坚苦的工作干好，即使他是他家族的第一个大学生。很快，他挣的钱高达6.75美元一小时，比他父母挣得都多。他有女友和同乡作伴。安迪待他们更友好宽容。芝尔豪伊镇的人注意到了。

It was just about the perfect summer. So the thought crossed his mind: maybe it did not have to end. Maybe he would take a break from college and keep working. He had been getting C’s and D’s, and college never felt like home, anyway.

这只是个完美的夏天。于是一丝念头闪过他的脑海，兴许这一切不必结束，兴许他可以暂时休学继续工作。他的学业成绩得了一些C和D，无论如何，大学从来不像家里。

"I enjoyed working hard, getting the job done, getting a paycheck," Mr. Blevins recalled. "I just knew I didn’t want to quit."

“我喜欢努力干活，完成工作，挣一份薪水，”布莱文思回忆说。“我只知道我不想离开。”

So he quit college instead, and with that, Andy Blevins joined one of the largest and fastest-growing groups of young adults in America. He became a college dropout, though nongraduate may be the more precise term.

于是他反而退了学，随之加入了美国最大和成长最快的年轻人群体之一。他成了辍学生，尽管未毕业也许是更准确的定义。

Many people like him plan to return to get their degrees, even if few actually do. Almost one in three Americans in their mid-20’s now fall into this group, up from one in five in the late 1960’s, when the Census

Bureau began keeping such data. Most come from poor and working-class families.

很多像他那样的人计划重新取得学位，即使实际上很少人那么做。20岁左右的美国人几乎有三分之一成为这个群体中的一员，高于20世纪60年代的五分之一，那时人口调查局开始保存这一数据。其中大部分人出生于穷人和工薪阶层家庭。

That gap had grown over recent years. "We need to recognize that the most serious domestic problem in the United States today is the widening gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor," Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, said last year when announcing that Harvard would give full scholarships to all its lowest-income students. "And education is the most powerful weapon we have to address that problem."

最近几年这种差距已扩大。“我们必须意识到，美国今天最严重的国内问题是日益分化的贫富孩子之间的差距，”哈佛校长劳伦斯.H夏默尔在宣称哈佛应给所有收入最低的学生颁发全额奖学金时说。“教训是解决这一问题的最强有力的武器。”

Andy Blevins says that he too knows the importance of a degree. Ten years after trading college for the warehouse, Mr. Blevins, 29, spends his days at the same supermarket company. He has worked his way up to produce buyer, earning $35,000 a year with health benefits and a 401(k) plan. He is on a path typical for someone who attended college without getting a four-year degree. Men in their early 40’s in this category made an average of $42,000 in 2000. Those with a four-year degree made $65,000.

安迪布莱文思说他也知道学位的重要性。在拿大学生涯换仓库工作的十年后，已29岁的布莱文思先生，仍在同一家超市工作。他干到了产品采购，年薪35000美元，有健康保险和一份401（k）计划。他走的路，是那些进入大学却未取得4年学位的人走的一条典型的路。2000年，40多岁的此类人平均年薪为42000万美元。而那些取得了4年学位的人年薪则为65000美元。

Mr. Blevins says he has many reasons to be happy. He lives with his wife, Karla, and their year-old son, Lucas, in a small blue-and-yellow house in the middle of a stunningly picturesque Appalachian valley.

布莱文思先生说他有很多理由高兴。他同他的妻子卡拉及周岁的儿子卢卡斯，住在风景如画的阿巴拉契亚山谷中部的一座蓝黄相间的小房子里。

"Looking back, I wish I had gotten that degree," Mr. Blevins said in his soft-spoken lilt. "Four years seemed like a thousand years then. But I wish I would have just put in my four years."

“回想起来，我希望我已经取得了那个学位，”布莱文思先生轻快地说。“那时4年似乎像1000年。但是我希望自己只是投入了4年。”

Why so many low-income students fall from the college ranks is a question without a simple answer. Many high schools do a poor job of preparing teenagers for college. Tuition bills scare some students from even applying and leave others with years of debt. To Mr. Blevins, like many other students of limited means, every week of going to classes seemed