2017中级口译考试考前练习试题（23）

　　IMAGINE you have two candidates for a job. They are both of the same sex-and that sex is the one your own proclivities incline you to find attractive. Their CVs are equally good, and they both give good interview. You cannot help noticing, though, that one is pug-ugly and the other is handsome. Are you swayed by their appearance?

　　If you were swayed by someone's looks, however, would that be wrong? In a society that eschews prejudice, favouring the beautiful seems about as shallow as you can get. But it was not always thus. In the past, people often equated beauty with virtue and ugliness with vice.

　　Even now, the expression "as ugly as sin" has not quite passed from the language. There is, of course, the equally famous expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", to counter it. But the subtext of that old saw, that beauty is arbitrary, is wrong. Most beholders agree what is beautiful-and modern biology suggests there is a good reason for that agreement. Biology also suggests that beauty may, indeed, be a good rule of thumb for assessing someone of either sex. Not an infallible one, and certainly no substitute for an in-depth investigation. But, nevertheless, an instinctive one, and one that is bound to redound to the advantage of the physically well endowed.

　　【参考译文】

　　让我们来做个假设：现在一份职位面前有两个候选人。从简历上看他们旗鼓相当不相上下，而且两人都举止得体、大方端庄。那么，你的判断会受到两人相貌的左右吗?

　　就算你的决定的确受到了他们外貌的影响，那又算不算错呢?在过去，我们总是把美貌等同于真善美，而把丑陋视作假恶丑。

　　即使时至今日，"丑如罪恶"这种表达也没有被人遗忘。当然了，对美丽也有类似的说法，比如"情人眼里出西施"就能与之相对。的确，大多数人的审美观都相似，而且现代生物学研究也证明了人在评定异性的美丑时标准都很一致。这并不是绝对真理，也没有其它的深入研究能够辅助证明。但无论如何，这都是种本能，基本上应归结于人类的进化优势