2017中級口譯考試考前練習試題（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.

　　【參考譯文】

　　讓我們來做個假設：現在一份職位面前有兩個候選人。從簡歷上看他們旗鼓相當不相上下，而且兩人都舉止得體、大方端莊。那么，你的判斷會受到兩人相貌的左右嗎?

　　就算你的決定的確受到了他們外貌的影響，那又算不算錯呢?在過去，我們總是把美貌等同于真善美，而把丑陋視作假惡丑。

　　即使時至今日，"丑如罪惡"這種表達也沒有被人遺忘。當然了，對美麗也有類似的說法，比如"情人眼里出西施"就能與之相對。的確，大多數人的審美觀都相似，而且現代生物學研究也證明了人在評定異性的美丑時標準都很一致。這并不是絕對真理，也沒有其它的深入研究能夠輔助證明。但無論如何，這都是種本能，基本上應歸結于人類的進化優(yōu)勢