2008年考研英语翻译试题来源、答案和简单分析

试题来源和标准答案

    该试题来源于Mayo W. Hazeltine写的一篇关于达尔文的叙述性评论。原文长达8686个英语词。经过命题专家的改编之后，成为了一篇经典的考研翻译文章。以下是原文和试题原文的简单比对，以及我给的一个比较合理的译文。大概用了10分钟翻译完，或许还有一点点瑕疵，请大家参考。

in his autobiography. He points out that he always experienced much difficulty in expressing himself clearly and concisely, but he opines (命题专家改写为believes)that this very difficulty may have had the compensating advantage of forcing him to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus enabling him to detect errors in reasoning and in his own observations,

他相信，正是这种困难或许能够扬长避短，以使他能长时间专注的思考每一个句子；因此，使他能在推理中和自己的观察中发现自己的缺点。

or in those of others. He disclaimed the possession of any great quickness of apprehension or wit, such as distinguished Huxley. He protested（命题专家改写为asserts）, also, that his power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought was very limited, for which reason he felt certain that he never could have succeeded with metaphysics or(命题专家把这两个单词给删除了，使试题不超出大纲)  mathematics.

他还断言，在深入理解冗长且完全抽象的一系列观点上，他的能力受到了局限。有鉴于此，他曾确信自己在数学方面本来就不该获得成功。

His memory, too, he described as extensive, but hazy. So poor in one sense was it that he never could remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry. On the other hand, he did not accept as well founded the charge made by some of his critics that, while he was a good observer, he had no power of reasoning.

另一方面，批评家指责他尽管善于观察，但却不能推理，对此，他并不接受且认为毫无依据。

This, he thought, could not be true, because the "Origin of Species" is one long argument from the beginning to the end, and has convinced many able men. No one, he submits, could have written it without possessing some power of reasoning. He was willing to assert that "I have a fair share of invention, and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not, I believe, in any higher degree." He adds humbly that perhaps he was "superior to the common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully."

他谦卑地补充道，或许他“和普通人比起来，更能够注意到那些别人不容易注意到的细节，更能够对此加以详细地观察”。

Writing in the last year of his life, he expressed the opinion that in two or three respects his mind had changed during the preceding twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty or beyond it poetry of many kinds gave him great pleasure. Formerly, too, pictures had given him considerable, and music very great, delight. In 1881, however, he said: "Now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry; I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically of what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did."