英语四级篇章翻译训练及答案(3)

students and white collars. At present, the great majority of netizens have the experience of shopping online. In the last decade, the numoer of shopping websites has increased tremendously and the commodities sold online become more colorful by the day. Some people hold that convenience and low price are important reasons for the rapid development of online shopping.

⑥Table tennis, the national ball game of China, is a sport event popular around the world. Since the 1960s, Chinese players have won a great majority of champions in the world table tennis competitions. Thus China plays a dominant role in the event. There are various versions concerning the origin of table tennis, among which the most popular and widest accepted is that it originated in Britain in 1900. Table tennis is also called as “Ping Pong” in English because of the sound of “Ping Pong” in hitting the ball. In the 1988 0lympics, table tennis became a formal Olympic event.

⑦Chopsticks, which originated in China, are mainly made of wood or bamboo. The earliest chopsticks were made of bone or jade. During the Spring and Autumn Period, copper and iron chopsticks came into being. In ancient times, the rich used jade or gold chopsticks to display their wealth, while many emperors used silver chopsticks to see if their food was poisoned. Chopsticks are traditionally placed in brides’ dowries, too，for the pronunciation of “Chopsticks” in Chinese sounds quite like “get a son soon”.

⑧Chinese characters began in ancient time as simple drawings of natural objects-trees, rivers, mountains and hills, human beings, etc. These drawings are actually the buds of “pictograms”. Oracles, the ancient characters carved onto tortoise shells and beast bones, are the earliest form of Chinese characters. The creation and use of the Chinese characters have played a significant role not only in the development of Chinese civilization, but in that of the world civilization. For example, the characters of some countries, like Japan and Korea, were created on the basis of the Chinese characters.

⑨The Craze for civil servant jobs refers to the social phenomenon that an increasing number of Chinese take part in recruitment examinations of government institutions. It is reported that the number of registered applicants each year is over one million, with 5060 candidates competing for one vacancy on average. The ratio of the hottest position can arrive at 5000:1. The registered applicants are mainly university graduates. They think the civil servant jobs are rather easy and stable with high income and social status. In addition, another reason for their choice is the difficulty in finding jobs.

⑩Embroidery, one of the traditional folk arts and crafts in China, has a history of more than 2,000 years. It is made by embroidering various decorating patterns on fabrics with needle and thread. Chinese embroidery is closely connected with sericulture, as China is the first country in the world to use silk. Embroidery is mainly used in life and art decoration, such as clothes, bedclothes, table cloth and stage decoration. As one of the outstanding representatives of Chinese culture and art, embroidery enjoys a high reputation overseas.