1、考研英语（翻译）模拟试卷 15 及答案与解析Part CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. (10 points) 0 【F1】Breathing particulate-laden(aka smoggy)air may be hardening your arteries faster than normal, according to research published today in PLOS Medicine. W
2、hile everyones arteries harden gradually with age, a team of researchers led by epidemiologist Sara Adar of the University of Michigan School of Public Health discovered that higher concentrations of fine particulate air pollution were linked to a faster thickening of the inner two layers of the car
3、otid artery.【F2】Because the carotid artery feeds blood to the neck, head, and brain, a narrowing or blockage there can trigger strokes. And general atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, heart attack, and heart failure.【F3】Past research has
4、demonstrated that the rates of stroke and heart attack are higher in polluted areas, but experts havent been able to pinpoint just how polluted air is raising peoples risk for heart attack or stroke. This time, Adars team, along with Joel Kaufman, professor of environmental and occupational health s
5、ciences and medicine at the University of Washington, was able to directly measure carotid artery thickness and link it to air pollution data.The study involved 5, 362 people between the ages of 45 and 84 living in six different cities that are part of the MESA AIR(Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclero
6、sis and Air Pollution)research project, led by Joel Kaufman. Each participant underwent two carotid artery ultrasounds three years apart. These measurements were then correlated with data on fine particulate air pollution.【F4】While the artery walls of all participants increased by 14 micrometers per
7、 year, the arteries of those who were exposed to higher levels of fine particulate air pollution in their homes thickened faster than their neighbors in other parts of the city.【F5】Interestingly, the researchers also found the reverse effect to be true: reducing fine particulate air pollution levels
8、 slowed down atherosclerosis progression. Carotid artery measurements are considered by experts to be an indicator for arterial plaque and hardening throughout the body.1 【F1】2 【F2】3 【F3】4 【F4】5 【F5】5 【F1】Japan said Tuesday it had successfully extracted methane hydrate, known as “fire ice“, from its
9、 seabed, possibly unlocking many years worth of gas for the resource-starved country.In what they are claiming as a world first, a consortium is drilling for the hydrate, a fossil fuel that looks like ice but consists of very densely-packed methane surrounded by water molecules, one kilometre(3, 300
10、 feet)below sea level.【F2 】The solid white substance burns with a pale flame, leaving nothing but water. One of it is estimated to contain many times the equivalent volume of methane in gas form.The consortium, led by Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, began initial work in February las
11、t year and on Tuesday started a two-week experimental production, an economy, trade and industry ministry official said. “It is the worlds first offshore experiment producing gas from methane hydrate,“ the official said, adding that the team successfully collected methane gas extracted from the half
12、-frozen substance.【F3 】Under the government-led project, the consortium is to separate methanethe primary component of natural gasfrom the solid clathrate compound under the seabed using the high pressures available at depth, officials said. A huge layer of methane hydrate containing 1.1 trillion cu
13、bic metres(38.5 trillion cubic feet)in natural gasequivalent to Japans consumption of the gas for 11 yearsis believed to lie in the ocean floor off the coast of Shikoku island, western Japan, the officials said.【F4】“We aim to establish methane hydrate production technologies for practical use by the
14、 fiscal 2018 year ending March 2019.“ a consortium official said. “We want to consolidate technologies for its commercialisation,“ economy, trade and industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi also told a news conference, according to Jiji Press. “I hope we can make use of resources surrounding our country
15、 as soon as possible by clearing hurdles one by one,“ he added.【F5】The move comes as resource-poor Japan has struck out in search of new energy supplies after it shut down its stable of nuclear reactors in the wake of 2011 s tsunami-sparked nuclear crisis.6 【F1】7 【F2】8 【F3】9 【F4】10 【F5】10 This line
16、of inquiry did not begin until earlier this monthmore than three months after the accidentbecause there were “too many emotions, too many egos,“ said retired Adm. Harold Gehman, chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.Testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, Gehman said this pa
17、rt of his inquiry was in its earliest stages, starting just 10 days ago. But Gehman said he already has concluded it is “inconceivable“ that NASA would have been unable or unwilling to attempt a rescue for astronauts in orbit if senior shuttle managers and administrators had known there was fatal da
18、mage to Columbias left wing.【F1】Gehman told reporters after the hearing that answers to these important questions could have enormous impact, since they could place in a different context NASAs decisions against more aggressively checking possible wing damage in the days before Columbias fatal retur
19、n.Investigators believe breakaway insulating foam damaged part of Columbia s wing shortly after lift off, allowing superheated air to penetrate the wing during its fiery re-entry on Feb.l, melt it from inside.【F2】Among those decisions was the choice by NASAs senior shuttle managers and administrator
20、s to reject offers of satellite images of possible damage to Columbias left wing before the accident. The subject dominated the early part of Wednesday s hearing.Gehman complained managers and administrators “missed signals “when they rejected those offers for images, a pointedly harsh assessment of
21、 the space agencys inaction during the 16-day shuttle mission.【F3 】“We will attempt to pin this issue down in our report, but there were a number of bureaucratic and administrative missed signals here,“ Gehman told senators. “Were not quite so happy with the process.“【F4】The investigative board alre
22、ady had recommended that NASA push for better coordination between the space agency and military offices in charge of satellites and telescopes. The U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency in March agreed to regularly capture detailed satellite images of space shuttles in orbit.【F5】Still, Gehman sa
23、id it was unclear whether even images from Americas most sophisticated spy satellites might have detected on Columbias wing any damage, which Gehman said could have been as small as two inches square. The precise capabilities of such satellites proved to be a sensitive topic during the Senate hearin
24、g.11 【F1】12 【F2】13 【F3】14 【F4】15 【F5】15 【F1】GE, a large American conglomerate, is now proposing to make ultrasound transducers by “additive“manufacturingor three-dimensional printing, as it is also known. A new laboratory at the firm s research centre in Niskayuna, New York, is taking a hard-headed
25、look at the technique, which some see as a fad and others as the future, and working out which products might be made more efficiently by addition rather than subtraction.【F2】The GE process for making a transducer begins by spreading onto the print table a thin layer of ceramic slurry containing a l
26、ight-sensitive polymer. This layer is exposed to ultraviolet light through a mask that represents the required pattern. Wherever the light falls on the polymer it causes it to solidify, binding the particles in the slurry together. The print table is then lowered by a fraction of a millimetre and th
27、e process repeated, with a different mask if required. And so on. Once finished, the solidified shape is cleaned of residual slurry and heated in a furnace to sinter the ceramic particles together. More work will be needed to turn the process into a production-ready system. But Prabhjot Singh, who l
28、eads the project, hopes that it will be possible to use it to make not just cheaper ultrasound probes, but also more sensitive ones that can show greater detail.【F3】Although researchers have had new transducer designs in mind for years, it has been impractical to construct them subtractively. Additi
29、ve manufacturing could change that.The new laboratory will look at other forms of additive manufacturing, too.【F4】Some 3D printers spread metal powders on the print table and sinter the pattern with lasers or electron beams, rather than using masks. Others deposit thin filaments of polymer in order
30、to build structures up. GE is interested in how the technology could be used right across the firms businesses, from aerospace to power generation and consumer products, according to Luana Iorio, head of manufacturing technologies at GE Global Research.The gains include less waste and the ability to
31、 make bespoke parts more easily. But one of the most compelling advantages is freeing designers from the constraints of traditional production. Those constraints include having to design things not in their optimal shape but to be machined, often as a series of pieces. Additive manufacturing can com
32、bine parts into a single item, so less assembly is needed. That can also save weighta particular advantage in aerospace.【F5】These new production opportunities mean manufacturers, big and small, are about to become a lot more inventive.16 【F1】17 【F2】18 【F3】19 【F4】20 【F5】20 At the moment, there are tw
33、o reliable ways to make electricity from sunlight.【F1】You can use a panel of solar cells to create the current directly, by liberating electrons from a semiconducting material such as silicon. Or you can concentrate the suns rays using mirrors, boil water with them, and employ the steam to drive a g
34、enerator.Both work. But both are expensive. Gang Chen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Zhifeng Ren of Boston College therefore propose, in a paper in Nature Materials, an alternative. They suggest that a phenomenon called the thermoelectric effect might be used insteadand they have b
35、uilt a prototype to show that the idea is practical.In their view, three things are needed to create a workable solar-thermoelectric device. The first is to make sure that most of the sunlight which falls on it is absorbed, rather than being reflected. The second is to choose a thermoelectric materi
36、al which conducts heat badly(so that different parts remain at different temperatures)but electricity well.【F2】The third is to be certain that the temperature gradient which that badly conducting material creates is not frittered away by poor design.The two researchers overcame these challenges thro
37、ugh clever engineering. The first they dealt with by coating the top of the device with oxides of hafnium, molybdenum and titanium, in layers about 100 nanometres thick.【F3】These layers acted like the anti-reflective coatings on spectacle lenses and caused almost all the sunlight falling on the devi
38、ce to be absorbed.The second desideratum, of low thermal and high electrical conductivity, was achieved by dividing the bismuth telluride into pellets a few nanometres across.【F4 】That does not affect their electrical conductivity, but nanoscale particles like this are known to scatter and obstruct
39、the passage of heat through imperfectly understood quantum-mechanical processes.The third objective, efficient design, involved sandwiching the nanostructured bismuth telluride between two copper plates and then enclosing the upper plate(the one coated with the light-absorbing oxides)and the bismuth
40、 telluride in a vacuum. The copper plates conducted heat rapidly to and from the bismuth telluride, thus maintaining the temperature difference. The vacuum stopped the apparatus losing heat by convection. The upshot was a device that converts 4.6% of incident sunlight into electricity.【F5 】That is n
41、ot great compared with the 20% and more achieved by a silicon-based solar cell, the 40% managed by a solar-thermal turbine, or even the 18-20% of one of the new generation of cheap and cheerful thin-film solar cells. But it is enough, Dr Chen reckons, for the process to be worth considering for mass
42、 production.21 【F1】22 【F2】23 【F3】24 【F4】25 【F5】25 【F1】Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science, but their form and function, their dimensions and appearance, were determined by technologists, artisans, designers, inventors, and engineersusing nonscientific modes of thought.
43、Many features and qualities of the objects that a technologist thinks about cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in the mind by a visual, nonverbal process. In the development of Western technology, it has been nonverbal thinking, by and large, that has fixed the
44、 outlines and filled in the details of our material surroundings.【F2】Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture in the minds of those who built them.The creative shaping process of a technologist s mind can be seen in near
45、ly every artifact that exists.【F3】For example, in designing a diesel engine, a technologist might impress individual ways of nonverbal thinking on the machine by continually using an intuitive sense of rightness and fitness. What would be the shape of the combustion chamber? Where should be valves b
46、e placed? Should it have a long or short piston? Such questions have a range of answers that are supplied by experience, by physical requirements, by limitations of available space, and not least by a sense of form. Some decisions such as wall thickness and pin diameter, may depend on scientific cal
47、culations, but the nonscientific component of design remains primary.Design courses, then, should be an essential element in engineering curricula. Nonverbal thinking, a central mechanism in engineering design, involves perceptions, the stock-in-trade of the artist, not the scientist.【F4 】Because pe
48、rceptive processes are not assumed to entail hard thinking, nonverbal thought is sometimes seen as a primitive stage in the development of cognitive processes and inferior to verbal or mathematical thought. But it is paradoxical that when the staff of the Historic American Engineering Record wished
49、to have drawings made of machines and isometric views of industrial processes for its historical record of American engineering, the only college students with the requisite abilities were not engineering students, but rather students attending architectural schools.【F5】If courses in design, which in a strongly analytical engineering curriculum provide the background required for practical problem-solving are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costly errors occurring in advanced engineering systems. For example, early models of high-speed railro
