[英语学习]北外基础英语_同声翻译试题98-04.pdf

1998年基础英语试卷Readthe followingpassage: ARCHIBALD MACLEISH: Bicentennial ofWhat? An address at the Bicentennial commemoration of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia It is a common human practice to answer questions without truly asking them and the American bicentennial is merely the latest instance. Everyone knows what the Bicentennial celebrates: the 200th anniversary of the adoption, by the Continental Congress, of the Declaration of Independence. But no one asks what the Bicentennial is because no one asks what the Declaration was. The instrument of announcing American independence from Great Britain? Clearly that: but isthat allitwas? IsitonlyAmericanindependence from GreatBritainwearecelebratingon July4, 1976——only the instrument which declared our independence? There have been other declarations of unilateral independence from Great Britain which no one is likely to remember for 200years,much lesstocelebrate. “All men” are said in that document to be created equal and to have been endowed with certain unalienable rights. All governments are alleged to have been instituted among men to secure those rights —— to protect them. Are these, then, American rights? Doubtless——but only American? Is it the British Government which is declared to have violated them? Unquestionably——but the British Government alone?Andthe revolution against tyranny andarrogance which is here implied ——is it a revolution whichAmerican independence from the mediocre majesty of George III will winor isthere somethingmore intended? ——somethingforallmankind? ——foralltheworld? In the old days when college undergraduates still read history, any undergraduate could have told you that these are not rhetorical questions: that they were, from the beginning, two opinions about the Declaration and that they were held by (among others) the two great men who had most to do with itscomposition anditsadoption bythe Congress. John Adams, who supported the Declaration