英語翻譯也是要講究技巧的，關鍵是要多練習，下面是小編整理的大學英語精度3課文翻譯，希望對你有幫助。
A Brush with the Law
與警察的一場小衝突
I have only once been in trouble with the law. 我平生只有一次跟警方發生糾葛。
The whole process of being arrested and taken to court was a rather unpleasant experience at the time, but it makes a good story now. 被捕和出庭的整個過程在當時是一件非常不愉快的事，但現在倒成了一篇很好的故事。
What makes it rather disturbing was the arbitrary circumstances both of my arrest and my subsequent fate in court. 這次經歷令人可惱之處在於圍繞著我的被捕以及隨後庭上審訊而出現的種種武斷專橫的情況。
It happened in February about twelve years ago. 事情發生在大約12年前，其時正是2月。
I had left school a couple of months before that and was not due to go to university until the following October. 幾個月前我中學畢業了，但上大學要等到10月。
I was still living at home at the time. 當時我還在家中居住。
One morning I was in Richmond, a suburb of London near where I lived. 一天早晨，我來到里士滿。這裡是倫敦的一個郊區，離我住的地方不遠。
I was looking for a temporary job so that I could save up some money to go travelling. 我在尋找一份臨時工作，以便積些錢去旅遊。
As it was a fine day and I was in no hurry, I was taking my time, looking in shop windows, strolling in the park, and sometimes just stopping and looking around me. 由於天氣晴朗，當時又無急事，我便慢悠悠看看櫥窗，逛逛公園。有時乾脆停下腳步，四處張望。
It must have been this obvious aimlessness that led to my downfall. 現在看來，一定是這種明顯的毫無目的的遊逛，使我倒了黴。
It was about half past eleven when it happened. 事情發生在11點半鐘光景。
I was just walking out of the local library, having unsuccessfully sought employment there, when I saw a man walking across the road with the obvious intention of talking to me. 我在當地圖書館謀職未成，剛剛走出來，便看到一個人穿越馬路，顯然是要來跟我說話。
I thought he was going to ask me the time. Instead, he said he was a police officer and he was arresting me. 我以為他要問我時間，不料他說他是警官，要逮捕我。
At first I thought it was some kind of joke. But then another policeman appeared, this time in uniform, and I was left in no doubt. 起先我還以為這是在開玩笑，但又一個警察出現在我的面前，這次是位身著警服的，這一下使我確信無疑了。
‘But what for?’ I asked. “為什麼要抓我?”我問道。
“Wandering with intent to commit an arrestable offence,’ he said. “到處遊蕩，企圖作案，”他說。
‘What offence?’ I asked. “作什麼案?”我又問。
‘Theft,’ he said. “偷竊，”他說。
‘Theft of what?’ I asked. “偷什麼?”我追問。
‘Milk bottles,’ he said, and with a perfectly straight face too! “牛奶瓶，”他板著面孔說道。
‘Oh,’ I said. “噢，”我說。
It turned out there had been a lot of petty thefts in the area, particularly that of stealing milk bottles from doorsteps. 事情原來是這樣的，在這一地區多次發生小的扒竊案，特別是從門前臺階上偷走牛奶瓶。
Then I made my big mistake. 接著，我犯了一個大錯誤。
At the time I was nineteen, had long untidy hair, and regarded myself as part of the sixties’ youth countercultrue.
其時我年方19，留一頭蓬亂的長髮，自認為是60年代”青年反主流文化”的一員。
As a result, I want to appear cool and unconcerned with the incident, so I said, ‘How long have you been following me?’ in the most casual and conversational tone I could manage. 所以我想裝出一副冷漠的、對這一事件滿不在乎的樣子。於是我儘量用一種漫不經心的極其隨便的腔調說，”你們跟蹤我多久啦?”
I thus appeared to them to be quite familiar with this sort of situation, and it confirmed them in their belief that I was a thoroughly disreputable character. 這樣一來，在他們眼裡，我就像是非常熟悉這一套的了，也使他們更加確信我是一個地地道道的壞蛋。
A few minutes later a police car arrived. 幾分鐘後，開來了一輛警車。
‘Get in the back,’ they said. ‘Put your hands on the back of the front seat and don’t move them.’ “坐到後面去，”他們說。”把手放到前排座位的靠背上，不準挪動。”
They got in on either side of me. It wasn’t funny any more. 他們分別坐在我的兩邊。這可再也不是鬧著玩的了。
At the police station they questioned me for several hours. 在警察局，他們審訊了我好幾個小時。
I continued to try to look worldly and au fait with the situation. 我繼續裝成老於世故、對這種事習以為常。
When they asked me what I had been doing, I told them I’d been looking for a job. 當他們問我在幹什麼時，我告訴他們在找工作。
‘Aha,’ I could see them thinking, ‘unemployed’. “啊，”我可以想象他們在想，”果然是個失業的傢伙。”
Eventually, I was officially charged and told to report to Richmond Magistrates’ Court the following Monday. Then they let me go. 最後，我被正式起訴，並通知我下週一到里士滿地方法庭受審。隨後他們讓我離開。
I wanted to conduct my own defence in court, but as soon as my father found out what had happened, he hired a very good solicitor. 我想在法庭上作自我辯護，但父親知道這事後，馬上請了一位高明的律師。
We went along that Monday armed with all kinds of witnesses, including my English teacher from school as a character witness. 我們星期一出庭的時候，帶了各種各樣的證人，其中包括我中學的英語老師，做我人品的見證人。
But he was never called on to give evidence. My ‘trial’ didn’t get that far. 但結果法庭沒有叫他作證。我的”審判”沒有進行到那一步。
The magistrate dismissed the case after fifteen minutes. 開庭15分鐘，法官就駁回了對我的指控。
I was free. The poor police had never stood a chance. 我無罪獲釋。可憐的警方一點兒贏的機會都沒有。
The solicitor even succeeded in getting costs awarded against the police. 我的律師甚至讓法庭責成警方承擔了訴訟費用。
And so I do not have a criminal record. 這樣，我的履歷上沒有留下犯罪的記錄。
But what was most shocking at the time was the things my release from the charge so clearly depended on. 但當時最令人震驚的，是那些顯然導致宣佈我無罪的證據。
I had the ‘right’ accent, respectable middle-class parents in court, reliable witnesses, and I could obviously afford a very good solicitor. 我講話的口音”表明我教養良好”，到庭的有體面的中產階級的雙親，有可靠的證人，還有，我顯然請得起一名很好的律師。
Given the obscure nature of the charge, I feel sure that if I had come from a different background, and had really been unemployed, there is every chance that I would have been found guilty. 從對我指控的這種捕風捉影的做法來看，我肯定，如果我出身在另一種背景的家庭裡，並且真的是失了業的話，我完全可能被判有罪。
While asking for costs to be awarded, my solicitor’s case quite obviously revolved around the fact that I had a ‘brilliant academic record’. 當我的律師要求賠償訴訟費時，他公然把辯護的證據建立在我”學業優異”這一事實上。
Meanwhile, just outside the courtroom, one of the policemen who had arrested me was gloomily complaining to my mother that another youngster had been turned against the police. 與此同時，就在審判室外面，一位抓我的警察正在沮喪地向我母親抱怨，說是又一個小夥子要跟警察作對了。
‘You could have been a bit more helpful when we arrested you,’ he said to me reproachfully. 他帶著責備的口氣對我說，”我們抓你的時候，你本可以稍微幫點忙的。”
What did he mean? 他說這話什麼意思?
Presumably that I should have looked outraged and said something like, ‘Look here, do you know who you’re talking to? I am a highly successful student with a brilliant academic record. How dare you arrest me!’大概是說我本該顯出憤憤不平的樣子，並說，”喂，留神點，你知道你在跟誰說話?我是學業出眾的高材生。你敢抓我!”
Then they, presumably, would have apologized, perhaps even taken off their caps, and let me on my way. 那樣一來，他們或許會向我道歉，說不定還會脫帽致意，讓我走開呢。
Fruitful Questions
獲益匪淺的問題
The other night at the dinner table, my three kids--ages 9,6 and 4--took time out from their food fight to teach me about paradigm shifts, and limitations of linear thinking and how to refocus parameters. 不久前的一個晚上在餐桌旁，我的三個孩子--年齡分別為9歲、6歲和4歲--暫時停止爭搶食物，騰出時間教我認識什麼是正規化變換、什麼是線性思考的侷限以及如何重新看待相關的各種因素。
Here’s how it happened: We were playing our own oral version of the Sesame Street game, “What Doesn’t Belong?,” where kids look at three pictures and choose the one that doesn’t fit. I said, “OK, what doesn’t belong, an orange, a tomato or a strawberry?” 事情是這樣的：當時我們在玩自己那套只動嘴的”哪個不是同一類？”的芝麻街遊戲。本來玩這遊戲時，孩子們要看三張畫並挑出那張不屬同一類的畫。我說：”來吧，哪個不是同一類，桔子，西紅柿，還是草莓？”
The oldest didn’t take more than a second to deliver his smug answer: “Tomato because the other two are fruits.”I agreed that this was the right answer despite the fact that some purists insist a tomato is a fruit. To those of us forced as kids to eat them in salads, tomatoes will always be vegetables. 老大很快就說出了自以為非常得意的答案：”西紅柿，因為其他兩種是水果。”我承認這是正確答案，儘管有些純粹主義者堅決認為西紅柿是一種水果。對我們這些從小就被迫吃拌在色拉里的西紅柿的人來說，西紅柿永遠是蔬菜。
I was about to think up another set of three when my 4-year-old said, “The right answer is strawberry because the other two are round and a strawberry isn’t.” How could I argue with that?我正準備再出一道三種東西為一組的題目時，我4歲的孩子說：”正確答案是草莓，因為另外兩種是圓的，草莓卻不圓。”我怎麼能駁斥這種論點呢？
Then my 6-year-old said, “It’s the orange because the other two are red.” Not to be outdone by his younger siblings, the 9-year-old said, “It could also be the orange because the other two grow on vines.” 接著，我6歲的孩子說：”不屬同一類的是桔子，因為另外兩種是紅色的。”9歲的孩子不想讓弟妹佔上風，說道：”不是同一類的也可以是桔子，因為其他兩種長在藤上。”
The middle one took this as a direct challenge. “It could be the strawberry because it’s the only one you put on ice cream.” 老二把這看作對他發出的挑戰。”可以是草莓，因為只有草莓會放在冰淇淋上。”
Something was definitely happening here. 毫無疑問，這裡正發生著什麼事兒。
It was messier than a food fight and much more important than whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable. 這事兒比爭搶食物還亂，比西紅柿是水果還是蔬菜重要得多。
My kids were doing what Copernicus did when he placed the sun at the center of the universe, readjusting the centuries-old paradigm of an Earth-centered system. 哥白尼把太陽視為宇宙中心，重新調整了地心說這一長達數世紀的正規化，我的孩子們正做著哥白尼當年做的事。
They were doing what Reuben Mattus did when he renamed his Bronx ice cream Hagen-Dazs and raised the price without changing the product. 魯賓·馬修斯把他的布朗克斯冰淇淋改名為哈根達斯，在不改變產品的情況下提高了價格，我的孩子們正做著魯賓·馬修斯做過的事。
They were doing what Edward Jenner did when he discovered a vaccination for smallpox by abandoning his quest for a cure.愛德華·詹納放棄了尋找治療天花的特效藥，從而發現了能預防這一疾病的'疫苗，我的孩子們正做著愛德華·詹納做過的事。
Instead of studying people who were sick with smallpox, he began to study people who were exposed to it but never got sick. He found that they’d all contracted a similar but milder disease, cow pox, which vaccinated them against the deadly smallpox. 他不去研究得了天花的患者，而去研究接觸天花卻從未染上此病的人。他發現他們都患了一種類似天花但比較輕微的疾病：牛痘；牛痘使他們得以防止染上致命的天花。
They were refocusing the parameters. They were redefining the problems. 他們在重新看待相關的各種因素。他們在重新認識他們的問題。
They were reframing the questions.他們在重新表述他們的問題。
In short, they were doing what every scientist who’s ever made an important discovery throughout history has done, according to Thomas Kuhn, in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: They were shifting old paradigms.總之，據托馬斯·庫恩在他的《科學革命的結構》一書中所言，他們正做著歷史上有過重大發現的科學家都曾做過的事：他們在改變舊的正規化。
But if this had been a workbook exercise in school, every kid who didn’t circle tomato would have been marked wrong. 但假若我們的遊戲是學校裡做在作業本上的練習，那麼沒有把西紅柿圈出來的孩子全都會被批為答錯。
Every kid who framed the question differently than “Which is not a fruit?” would have been wrong. 凡是沒有把問題解讀為”哪個不是水果”的孩子都是錯的。
Maybe that explains why so many of the world’s most brilliant scientists and inventors were failures in school, the most notable being Albert Einstein, who was perhaps this century’s most potent paradigm-shifter.也許這種情形說明了為什麼世界上最傑出的科學家和發明家中有那麼多的人讀書時是不及格的學生。其中最引人注目的是阿爾貝特·愛因斯坦，他也許是本世紀最有影響的正規化改變者。
This is not meant to be a critique of schools. Lord knows, that’s easy enough to do. 這樣說，並不是想對學校評頭品足。天知道，發一通議論太容易了。
This is, instead, a reminder that there are real limits to the value of information. 這樣說，不過是想提醒大家資訊的價值實在是有限的。
I bring this up because we seem to be at a point in the evolution of our society where everyone is clamoring for more technology, for instant access to ever-growing bodies of information. 我提出這一點，是因為我們的社會似乎發展到了這樣一個階段，人人都大聲要求得到更多的技術，大聲要求即刻享用不斷增多的資訊。
Students must be online. Your home must be digitally connected to the World Wide Web. 學生們必須聯機。你們家必須用數碼與環球資訊網連通。
Businesses must be able to download volumes of data instantaneously. But unless we shift our paradigms and refocus our parameters, the super information highway will lead us nowhere.企業必須能即時下載大量資料。但是，除非我們改變正規化、重新看待相關的各種因素，否則，資訊高速公路就不會給我們帶來什麼結果。
We are not now, nor have we recently been suffering from a lack of information. Think how much more information we have than Copernicus had four centuries ago. 無論是現在還是最近，我們都不缺資訊。試想我們擁有的資訊比四百年前的哥白尼多了多少。
And he didn’t do anything less Earth-shattering (pun intended) than completely change the way the universe was viewed. 但他作出了足以震撼地球的（權作雙關語）驚人之舉，完全改變了人們對宇宙的看法。
He didn’t do it by uncovering more information--he did it by looking differently at information everyone else already had looked at. 他作出此舉不是靠發現更多的資訊，而是靠用不同的眼光來看大家都看到過的資訊。
Edward Jenner didn’t invent preventive medicine by accumulating information; he did it by reframing the question. 愛德華·詹納不是靠積累資訊發明預防藥物，而是靠重新表述問題。
What we need as we begin to downshift onto the information highway is not more information but new ways of looking at it. 當我們開始駛入資訊高速公路時，我們所需要的不是更多的資訊，而是看資訊的新方法。
We need to discover, as my kids did, that there is more than one right answer, there is more than one right question and there is more than one way to look at a body of information. 我們應該像我的孩子所做的那樣，去發現有一個以上的正確答案、有一個以上正確的問題、有一個以上看一堆資訊的方法。
We need to remember that when you have only a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
我們應該記住：當你只有一把錘子時，你往往把每個問題都看作釘子。
