2010春季中級口譯考試閱讀第三、四篇解析

　　此篇文章選自英國報紙《衛(wèi)報》，是一篇典型的科技說明文。

　　A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act. The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future. The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way.

　　文章的第一句便開章明義，直提主題，即英國的一些神經(jīng)科老師率先發(fā)明了一種科技，從而可以使人們透析大腦的工作原理。同時后面也介紹了這項研究的重要意義。

　　"Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall," said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University.

　　第二段為老師進一步闡述科學(xué)發(fā)現(xiàn)，對推動情節(jié)向前發(fā)展沒有決定意義，可省掉不讀。

　　The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain imaging has been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying, violent behaviour and racial prejudice.

　　If brain-reading can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to assist interrogations of criminals and terrorists, and even usher in a "Minority Report" era (as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science fiction film of that name), where judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan.

　　"These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about the implications, so that one day we're not surprised and overwhelmed and caught on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are going to come to us in the next few years and we should really be prepared," Professor Haynes told the Guardian. The use of brain scanners to judge whether people are likely to commit crimes is a contentious issue that society should tackle now, according to Prof Haynes. "We see the danger that this might become compulsory one day, but we have to be aware that if we prohibit it, we are also denying people who aren't going to commit any crime the possibility of proving their innocence."

　　接下來的三個段落結(jié)構(gòu)較為零散，很難判斷其結(jié)構(gòu)。在這種情況下，就利用我們在課堂上講的尋找強轉(zhuǎn)并比的策略，略掉次要細節(jié)，只讀主要細節(jié)。

　　During the study, the researchers asked volunteers to decide whether to add or subtract two numbers they were later shown on a screen. Before the numbers flashed up, they were given a brain scan using a technique called functional magnetic imaging resonance. The researchers then used a software that had been designed to spot subtle differences in brain activity to predict the person's intentions with 70% accuracy.

　　此段在具體介紹研究過程，當然也是次要細節(jié)，因為我們在課堂上一再強調(diào)，結(jié)構(gòu)比過程更重要。

　　Because brains differ so much, the scientists need a good idea of what a person's brain activity looks like when they are thinking something to be able to spot it in a scan, but researchers are already devising ways of deducing what patterns are associated with different thoughts.

　　文章最后段段落模式仍舊模糊，但我們不難判斷最后一句的強轉(zhuǎn)折正預(yù)示著重要細節(jié)，也是答案出處。