As Priscilla looks back on her years of struggle to make her dream come true, she is cautiously encouraging toward others working their way through school. \have to know yourself,\You need a lot of discipline, and you have to stay focused, even when you run into barriers and distractions and delays. But mostly you need determination. If you get put down once, just get back up there and keep fighting.\
当普丽西拉回顾自己几年来使自己梦想成真的奋斗历程时她对其他靠打工挣钱完成学业的人既是鼓励又是提醒。“要平衡工作与学习的关系你必须了解自己”她说。“你必须知道哪些自己能承受哪些不能承受。你需要很多的磨练而且必须专心致志持之以恒即使遇到重重障碍、种种困惑也要如此。但你最需要的是坚定的决心。一旦被击倒就要重新站起来继续奋斗下去。” Text B、软式推销
1 One of the problems with today?s economy is that it?s very hard to find young people who are good salesmen. Many students coming out of college are more interested in a customer?s
motivation than they are in closing a sale. They also have a tendency to be too honest, which can play havoc in the retail business. 当今经济中的问题之一就是很难找到年轻能干的售货员。 许多跨出校门的大学生更感兴趣的不是使买卖成交，而是顾客的购物动机。他们还往往过于诚实，这有时会给零售业造成严重破坏。
2 A friend of mine has a dress shop here in Georgetown, and she told me of the problems she had with a young lady, a psychology major, whom she had hired as a salesgirl. This, in essence, is what happened: 我的一位朋友在乔治敦这儿有一家服装店， 她给我讲述了一位年轻女士给她带来的许多麻烦。这位小姐是一个主修心理学的学生，被她雇来当售货员。事情的经过大体是这样的：
3 The first day a lady came in the store, and the salesgirl (let us call her Miss Brampton) asked if she could be of help. 第一天，有位女士来到店里，这位女售货员(让我们称她为布莱姆顿小姐吧)问她想买什么。
4“I’d like a suit for the fall,” the lady said.“我想买一套秋装，”这位女士说。5“What price range?” Miss Brampton asked.“什么价位的?”布莱姆顿小姐说。6“It doesn’t make any difference,” the lady replied.“无所谓，”女士回答说。
7“Well, let me ask you this question: Do you want the suit because you need it? Or have you just had a fight with your husband and are trying to get even by making a very expensive purchase?” “那么，请让我问你这样一个问题：你是因为需要才想买秋装呢? 还是因为你刚跟先生吵了一架才想买件非常昂贵的东西进行报复呢?”
8“I beg your pardon?” the lady said.“你说什么?”那位女士说。
9“Perhaps you suspect he has a girlfriend, and you think this is the only way you can get back at him.”“也许你怀疑他有个女友，而你认为这是能对他进行报复的唯一方式。”
10“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the customer said.“我不懂你在说些什么，”那位顾客说。
11“Spending money in anger is a very expensive form of hostility. My advice to you is to think it over for a few days. Try to patch up your differences. Buying a new suit won’t save your
marriage.”“在气头上花钱是一种代价昂贵的敌对方式。我建议你还是考虑几天再说。尽力想法消除你们之间的分歧。买一套新装挽救不了你们的婚姻。”
12“Thank you very much,” the customer said coldly and left the store.“不胜感谢，”那顾客冷冷地说了一句就离开了商店。
13“She’s angry with me now,” Miss Brampton told the dress shop owner, “but in a week she’ll be grateful I talked her out of it.” “她现在对我很生气，”布莱姆顿小姐对服装店老板说，“但是不出一个礼拜，她就会感激我劝她放弃了这个念头。”
14My friend the shop owner decided to let the incident pass;but that afternoon another customer came in, and Miss Brampton asked if she could be of help. 我那位服装店老板朋友决定让这件事过去就算了；但是那天下午，又有一位顾客走了进来， 布莱姆顿小姐问她要买些什么。 15The lady said, “I need something really exciting. I’m going to the Kennedy Center, and I
want a dress that will knock everyone dead.”那位女士说：“我需要一样真正令人激动的东西。我要去肯尼迪中心，所以想买一件能把所有人都镇住的礼服。”
16Miss Brampton said, “We have some lovely evening dresses over here for insecure people.”布莱姆顿小姐说：“我们这儿有一些漂亮的夜礼服适合不太自信的人穿。” 17“Insecure people?”“不太自信的人?”
18“Oh, yes. Didn’t you know that clothes are one of the main ways women compensate for
insecurity?”“哦，是的。你难道不知道衣着是女人用来弥补缺乏自信的主要方式之一吗?” 19“I’m not insecure,” the lady said angrily.“我可不是那种没有自信的人!”女士气愤地说。 20“Then why do you want to knock them dead at the Kennedy Center? Why can\
accepted for yourself instead of what you wear? You are a very attractive person, and you have an inner beauty you try to disguise. I can sell you a new dress that will attract attention, but then you would never know if it was you or the dress that made people stop and stare.”“那你为什么想在肯尼迪中心镇住他们呢? 你为什么不能让别人接受你自己而不是你的穿着呢? 你是个很有魅力的人，你还有一种内在的美，而你却想掩盖它。我可以卖给你一件令人注目的新礼服，但那样你就永远也不会知道究竟是你本人还是你的礼服使人们驻足凝望了。 21By this time the dress shop owner decided to step in. 这时候店主决定插手干预了。 22“Miss Brampton, if the lady wants an evening dress, let her see our evening dresses.”“布莱姆顿小姐，如果这位女士想买一件夜礼服，那就让她看看我们的夜礼服吧。”
23“No,” the customer said. “Your girl is right. Why spend five hundred dollars to get a few compliments from people who really don?t care what I wear? Thank you for helping me, young
lady. It?s true I?ve been insecure all these years and didn?t even know it.”“不用了，”顾客说，“你的售货小姐说得对。为什么要花500美元去博取那些并不真正在乎我穿着的人的几句恭维话呢? 谢谢你帮助了我，小姐。 这些年来我确实不很自信，而我甚至没有意识到这一点。”
24The customer walked out of the store. 那顾客走出了商店。
25The last straw for the dress store owner took place an hour later when a college student came in to buy a miniskirt, and Miss Brampton gave her thirty minutes on women’s lib and then said, “All you do when you buy miniskirts is to become a sex object.”最终让服装店老板忍无可忍的一幕发生在一个小时之后， 当时一位女大学生走进来要买一条迷你裙，而布莱姆顿小姐却花了30分钟对她大谈了一通妇女解放运动，然后说道：“你买迷你裙的唯一结果就是变成一个性感女郎。
26That night the dress shop owner put a sign in the window: HELP WANTED—NO
PSYCHOLOGY MAJORS NEED APPLY. 当天晚上服装店老板便在橱窗上贴了一张告示：“招工--心理学专业的学生无需申请。”
第六单元 Text A、A Brief History of Stephen Hawking
He has been proclaimed \\Hawking is a star scientist in more ways than one. His gift for revealing the mysteries of the
universe in a style that non-scientists can enjoy made Hawking an instant celebrity and his book a bestseller in both Britain and America. It has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for spending 184 weeks in The Sunday Times \copies worldwide — virtually unheard-of success for a science book.
他被称为“活着的最有才华的人”“20世纪后期最伟大的天才”以及“爱因斯坦的传人”。因《时间简史》一书而闻名遐迩为众人所知的斯蒂芬?霍金是一个多重意义上的明星科学家。 霍金擅长于用一种非科学工作者乐于接受的文体揭示宇宙的奥秘这种天赋使他声誉鹊起也使他的书在英国和美国都成了畅销书。该书因在《星期日泰晤士报》十大畅销书名单上持续了184周并在全世界销售了500多万册而在《吉尼斯世界纪录大全》上赢得了一席之地──对一本科学书籍来说这简直是前所未闻的成功。
How did all this happen? How has a man who is almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through a computer overcome these incredible obstacles and achieved far more than most people ever dream of?
这一切是如何发生的呢？一个几乎全身瘫痪通过电脑说话的人只能是如何克服这些令人难以置信的障碍 获得了远远超过大多数人所梦想过的成就的呢？
Stephen William Hawking was a healthy baby, born to intellectual, eccentric parents. His father Frank, a doctor specialising in tropical diseases, and his mother Isobel, a doctor's daughter, lived in a big old house full of books. Carpets and furniture stayed in use until they fell apart; the wallpaper hung peeling from old age. The family car was a London taxi, bought for ￡50. 斯蒂芬?威廉?霍金出生时是一个健康的婴儿父母都是知识分子，但脾气古怪。 他的父亲弗兰克是一个专治热带疾病的医生 母亲伊泽贝尔是一个医生的女儿。 他们居住在一幢堆满书籍的大而旧的房子里。 地毯和家具一直要用到破烂不堪才更换墙纸因年长月久而脱落。 家里的汽车是一辆花50英磅买来的伦敦出租车。
Hawking has always been fascinated by his birth date: January 8,1942. It was the 300th
anniversary of the death of Galileo, the Italian mathematician and astronomer who revolutionised astronomy by maintaining that the Sun is the centre of the Solar System — not the Earth, as ancient astronomers believed.
霍金一直对他的生日1942年1月8日迷恋不已。那是意大利数学家和天文学家伽利略逝世300周年的纪念日。伽利略坚信太阳系的中心是太阳而非古代天文学家所认为的地球从而使天文学发生了革命性的变革。
\literally. In a sense, he was responsible for the age of science we now enjoy.\
“无论从比喻意义还是从字面意义上讲”霍金说“伽利略都是第一个开始利用其眼睛的科学家。从某种意义上说我们现在享有的科学时代应归功于他。”
Hawking attended St. Albans School, a private school noted for its high academic standards. He was part of a small elite group, the brightest of the bright students. They hung around together, listened to classical music and read only such \hero, Bertrand Russell, at once an intellectual giant and liberal activist.
霍金进了圣?奥尔本斯学校读书这是一所以学业标准高而著名的私立学校。他属于一个小小的精英集团即聪明学生中最聪明的一群。他们聚在一起听古典音乐读书只读“聪明睿智”的作家如奥尔德斯?赫胥黎和伯特兰?罗素的作品。罗素是霍金崇拜的英雄他既是一位知识的巨人又是一位自由主义激进分子。
Hawking spent very little time on maths homework, yet got full marks. A friend recalls: \would be struggling away with a complicated problem, he just knew the answer. He didn't have to think about it.\
霍金在数学作业上花的时间很少却仍然得满分。一个朋友回忆道“我在绞尽脑汁做一道复杂的题目时他已经知道答案了。他连想都不用想。”
This instinctive insight also impressed his teachers. One of Hawking's science teachers, for example, recalls the time he posed the question: \
temperature more quickly if you put the milk in first, or add the milk after pouring?\rest of the class struggled over how to even begin approaching the problem, Hawking almost instantly announced the correct answer: \tea initially, the faster it will cool.) Another teacher relates how Hawking and his friends built a simple computer—and this was in 1958, a time when only large research centres had any computers at all.
这种本能的悟性也给他的老师们留下了深刻的印象。例如霍金的一位理科老师回忆起有一次他提出这样一个问题“在哪种情况下一杯热茶会更快地达到可以喝的温度是先倒入牛奶呢还是斟完茶后再加牛奶”当班上其他同学甚至还在苦思冥想如何着手回答这个问题时霍金几乎立即就大声讲出了正确答案“当然是斟完茶后再加牛奶。”一开始茶越热冷得就越快。另一位老师讲述了霍金和他的朋友们如何建造了一台简单的电脑──那是在1958年 当时只有一些大的研究中心才有电脑。
Hawking the schoolboy was a typical grind, underweight and awkward and peering through eyeglasses. His grey uniform always looked a mess and he spoke rather unclearly, having
inherited a slight lisp from his father. This had nothing to do with early signs of illness; he was just that sort of kid—a figure of classroom fun, respected by his friends, avoided by most. 中、小学时代的霍金是个典型的书呆子他体重不足笨手笨脚眼镜后的一双眼睛老是眯缝着。他的灰色制服看上去总是邋里邋遢而他说起话来则口齿不清──他轻微的咬舌儿是他父亲遗传给他的。这和他疾病的早期症状无关他就是那种孩子──教室里的笑柄朋友们尊敬他大多数人则避开他。
Hawking went on to study at Oxford, winning a scholarship to read Natural Science, a course which combines mathematics, physics and astronomy, at University College. He found much of the work easy and averaged only one hour's work a day. Once, when his tutor set some physics problems from a textbook, Hawking didn't even bother to do them. Asked why, he spent 20 minutes pointing out errors in the book. His main enthusiasm was the Boat Club. Many times he returned to shore with bits of the boat knocked off, having tried to guide his crew through an
impossibly narrow gap. His rowing trainer suspects, \his head in the stars, working out mathematical formulae.\
霍金进了牛津大学继续学习 他获得了在大学学院攻读自然科学的奖学金这是一门融数学、物理和天文学于一体的课程。他发现大多数功课都很简单平均每天只学习一个小时。有一次他的老师根据一本教科书布置了几道物理题霍金甚至连做也不做。当问他为什么不做时他用了20分钟时间指出书中的错误。他最热衷的是划船俱乐部的活动。许多次他回到岸边船被撞落下几块碎片原来他曾试图带领他的船员穿越一个窄得难以穿过的峡口。他的划船教练疑或地说道“他有一半时间人坐在船尾而脑子却到了星球上演算着数学公式。”