1. I am quite often asked: How do you feel about having ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)? The answer is not a lot. I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many.
2. It was a great shock to me to discover that I had motor neuron disease. I had never been very well co-coordinated physically as a child. I was not good at ball games, and my handwriting was the despair of my teachers. Maybe for this reason, I didn’t care much for sport or physical activities. But things seemed to change when I went to Oxford, at the age of 17. I took up coxing and rowing. I was not boat race standard, but I got by at the level of inter-college competition.
3. In my third year at Oxford, however, I noticed that I seemed to be getting clumsier, and I fell over once or twice for no apparent reason. But it was not until I was at Cambridge, in the following year, that my father noticed, and took me to the family doctor. He referred me to a specialist, and shortly after my 21st birthday, I went into hospital for tests. I was in for two weeks, during which I had a wide variety of tests. They took a muscle sample from my arm, stuck electrodes into me, and injected some radio opaque fluid into my spine, and watched it going up and down with x-rays, as they tilted the bed. After all that, they didn’t tell me what I had, except that it was not multiple sclerosis, and that I was an atypical case. I gathered, however, that they expected it to continue to get worse, and that there was nothing they could do, except give me vitamins. I could see that they didn’t expect them to have much effect. I didn’t feel like asking for more details, because they were obviously bad. 4. The realization that I had an incurable disease, that was likely to kill me in a few years, was a bit of a shock. How could something like that happen to me? Why should I be cut off like this? However, while I had been in hospital, I had seen a boy I vaguely knew die of leukemia, in the bed opposite me. It had not been a pretty sight. Clearly there were people who were worse off than me. At least my condition didn’t make me feel sick. Whenever I feel inclined to be sorry for myself I remember that boy.
【解析】
1. despair: loss of hope, hopeless 绝望，失望
2. variety: several different sorts of the same thing 多样;种类
3. injected: to put a drug into a person’s body 给…注射
4. incurable: that cannot be cured 不能治愈的
5. shock: a strong feeling of surprise as a result of sth happening, especially sth unpleasant; the event that causes this feeling 震惊;惊愕;令人震惊的事
6. leukemia: a serious disease in which too many white blood cells are produced, causing weakness and sometimes death 白血病
7. inclined: wanting to do sth 想(做某事)
四、翻译题
文章选自【第36课 青少年犯罪(第二部分)】2-8段
1. Tragically, the number of violent teens has grown in recent years, even as the population of teenagers has contracted. But the teen population has bottomed out and is now on the upswing. If current rates of offending remain unchanged, the number of teens who commit murder and other serious violent crimes shall increase, if only because of the demographic turnaround in the population at risk.
2. The hopeful news is that there is still time to stem the tide---to prevent the next wave of youth crime. But we must act now---by reinvesting in schools, recreation, job training, support for families, and mentoring.
3. One of the most compelling easy solutions is the “three strikes you’re out” movement for repeat offenders that has swept across America, from Washington State, where it began, to Washington. D. C., where our congressmen and congresswomen are eager to show their constituents that they can strike out the side on crime.
4. Besides the inevitable miscarriages of justice when certain petty felons get sent up the river inappropriately, why do we need this kind of automatic provision?
【答案】除了不可避免的误用公正而把一些小的重罪犯送进监狱以外，我们为什么需要这些自动的条款规定?
5. The same concern over the elimination of judicial discretion applies to the national movement toward the automatic waiver of violent juveniles to the adult court. Undeniably, certain repeat violent juvenile offenders have demonstrated through recidivism that they are not amenable to treatment. These offenders can and should be transferred to the adult system. But this is not the case with all juvenile violent offenders, even though they may commit an adult-like crime such as murder or rape. The inspiration for their vicious crimes often stems from their immaturity---for example, kids committing murder in order to impress their peers.
6. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not opposed to punishment (except capital punishment). However, we cannot deal effectively with teen violence through the threat of the criminal justice system. The threat of punishment, no matter how harsh, cannot deter kids who face the threat of violence every day in their classrooms and their neighborhoods.
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