最新考研英语(一)阅读理解全文翻译及解析

Text 1①Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.①It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. ②Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. ③To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.① We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War 2,at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared. ②In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. ③Theirs was a serious business. and even those reviews who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. ④These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. ⑤So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in ournalism,Newman wrote, "that I am tempted to define "journalism" as "a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are".①Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. ②Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. ③During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England's foremost classical-music critics, and a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. ④He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored.⑤Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.①Is there any chance that Cardus's criticism will enjoy a revival? ②The prospect seems remote.③Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly uphostered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. ④Moreover,the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.全文翻译：在过去的25 年英语报纸所发生的变化中，影响最深远的可能就是它们对艺术方面的报道在范围上毫无疑问的缩小了，而且这些报道的严肃程度也绝对降低了。

对于年龄低于40岁的普通读者来讲，让他们想象一下当年可以在许多大城市报纸上读到精品的文艺评论简直几乎是天方夜谭。

然而，在20世纪出版的最重要的文艺评论集中，人们读到的大部分评论文章都是从报纸上收集而来。

现在，如果读到这些集子，人们肯定会惊诧，当年这般渊博深奥的内容竟然被认为适合发表在大众日报中。

从20世纪早期到二战以前，当时的英国报纸上的评论主题广泛，包罗万象，我们现在离此类报纸评论越来越远。

当时的报纸极其便宜，人们把高雅时尚的文艺批评当作是所刊登报纸的一个亮点。

在那些遥远的年代，各大报刊的评论家们都会不遗余力地详尽报道他们所报道的事情，这在当时被视为是理所当然的事情。

他们的写作是件严肃的事情，人们相信：甚至那些博学低调不喜欢炫耀的评论家，比如George Bernard Shaw 和Ernest Newman也知道自己在做什么（即他们的文章会高调出现在报纸上）。

这些批评家们相信报刊评论是一项职业，并且对于他们的文章能够在报纸上发表感到很自豪。

“鉴于几乎没有作家能拥有足够的智慧或文学天赋以保证他们在新闻报纸写作中站稳脚跟” ，Newman 曾写道，“我倾向于把‘新闻写作’定义为不受读者欢迎的作家用来嘲讽受读者欢迎的作家的一个‘轻蔑之词’ ”不幸的是，这些批评家们现在实际上已被人们遗忘。

从1917 年开始一直到1975 年去世不久前还在为曼彻斯特《卫报》写文章的Neville Cardus，如今仅仅作为一个撰写关于板球比赛文章的作家被人们所知。

但是，在他的一生当中，他也是英国首屈一指的古典音乐评论家之一。

他也是一位深受读者青睐的文体家，所以1947 年他的《自传》一书就成为热销读物。

1967 年他被授予爵士称号，也是第一位获此殊荣的音乐评论家。

然而，他的书现在只有一本可以在市面上买到。

他大量的音乐批评，除了专门研究音乐评论的人以外，已鲜为人知。

Cardus 的评论有没有机会重新流行？前景似乎渺茫。

在他去世之前，新闻业的品味早已改变很长时间了，而且他所擅长的措词华丽的维多利亚爱德华时期的散文风格对后现代的读者没有什么用处。

何况，由业余爱好者作音乐批评的传统早已经成为昨日黄花了。

Text 2Over the past decade, thousands of patents have seen granted for what are called business methods. received one for its “one-click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lying a box.Now the nation’s top patent court appears completely-property lawyers abuzz the U.S. court of Appeals for the federal circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In the Bilski, as the case is known, is a “very big deal”, says Dennis’D Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the federal circuit itself that introduced such patents with is 1998 decision in the so-called state Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging internet companies trying to stake out exclusive pinhts to specific types of online transactions. Later, move established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might bent them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment films armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court’s judges, rather than a typical panel of three and that one issue it wants to evaluate isweather it should “reconsider” its state street Bank ruling.The Federal Circuit’s action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the supreme Count that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The judges on the Federal circuit are “reacting to the anti_patent trend at the supreme court”, says Harole C.wegner, a partend attorney and professor at aeorge Washington University Law School.Text 3①In his book The Tip ping Point, Malcolm Aladuell argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials, who are unusually informed, persuasive, or well connected. ②The idea is intuitively compelling, but it doesn’t explain how ideas actually spread.①The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible-sounding but largely untested theory called the “two-step flow of communication”: Informat ion flows from the mediato the influentials and from them to everyone else. ②Marketers have embraced the two-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials, those select people will do most of the work for them. ③The theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpected popularity of certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. ④In many such cases, a cursory search for causes finds that some small group of people was wearing, promoting, or developing whatever itis before anyone else paid attention. ⑤Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends.①In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed. ②In fact, they don’t seem to be required of all. ③The researchers’ argument stems from a simple observation about social influence, with the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey — whose outsize presence is primarily a function of media, not interpersonal, influence — even the most influential members of a population simply don’t interact with that many others. ④Yet it is precisely these noncelebrity influentials who, according to the two-step-flow theory, are supposed to drive social epidemics by influencing their friends and colleagues directly. ⑤For a social epidemic to occur, however, each person so affected, must then influence his or her own acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and so on; ⑥and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial influential. ⑦If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant, for example, the cascade of change won’t propagate very far or affect many people.①Building on the basic truth about interpersonal influence, the researchers studied the dynamics of social contagion by conducting thousands of computer simulations of populations, manipulating a number of variables relating to people’s ability to influence others and their tendency to be influenced.全文翻译：在《引爆流行》这本书中，作者Malcolm Gladwell 认为社会流行潮流在很大程度上是由一小部分特殊个体的行为引起的，这些人就是人们常说的影响者。