英语四级之大学英语四级翻译练习（二）

　Directions: Read the underlined sentences carefully, and then translate them into Chinese. You may check your answers after you finish them.
　　Passage One
　　In the warm enclosed water of farm ponds, conditions are very likely to be lethal for fish when insecticides are applied in the neighbourhood. As many examples show, the poison is carried in by rains and runoff from surrounding lands. Sometimes the ponds receive not only contaminated runoff but also a direct dose as crop-dusting pilots neglect to shut off the duster in passing over a pond. Even without such complication, normal agricultural use subjects fish to far heavier concentrations of chemicals than would be required to kill them. In other words, a marked reduction in the poundages used would hardly alter the fatal situation, for application of over 0.1 pound per acre to the pond itself are generally considered hazardous. And the poison, once introduced, is hard to get rid of. One pond that had been treated with DDT to remove unwanted shiners remained so poisonous through repeated draining and flushings that it killed 94 percent of the sunfish with which it was later stocked. Apparently the chemical remained in the mud of the pond bottom.
　　In some parts of the world the cultivation of fish in ponds provides an indispensable source of food. In such places the use of insecticides without regard for the effects on fish creates immediate problems. In Rhodesia, for example, the young of an import food fish, the Kafue bream, are killed by exposure to only 0.04 parts per million of DDT in shallow pools. Even smaller die, of many other insecticides would be lethal. The shallow waters in which these fish live are favorable mosquito-breeding places. The problem of controlling mosquitoes and at the same time conserving a fish important in the Central African diet has obviously not been solved satisfactorily.
　　Passage Two
　　There have been many great inventions, things that changed the way we live in. The first great invention was one that is still very important today___ the wheel. This made it easier to carry heavy things and to travel long distances. For hundreds of years after that there were few inventions that had ass much effect as the wheel. Then in the early 1800’s the world started to changed. There was little unknown land left in the world. People did not have to explore much anymore. They began to work instead to make life better. In the second half of the 19th century many great inventions were made. Among them were the camera, the electric light and the radio. These all became a big part of our life today.
　　The first part of the 20th century saw more great inventions. The helicopter in 1909. Movies with sound in 1926. The computer in 1928. And jet planes in 1930. This was also a time when a new material was first made. Nylon came out in 1935. It changed the kind of clothes people wear. The middle part of the 20th century brought new ways to help people get over disease. They worked very well. They made people healthier and let them live longer lives. By the 1960’s most people could expect to live to be at least 60. By this time most people had a very good life. Of course new inventions continued to be made. But man now had a desire to explore again. The world was known to man but the stars were not. Man began looking for ways to go into space. Russia made the first step. Then the United States took a step. Since then other countries, including China and Japan, have made their steps into space. In 1969 man took his biggest step away from earth. Americans first walked on the moon. This is certainly just a beginning though. New inventions will someday allow us to do things we have never yet dreamed of.