AUGUST was once a time for dreaming, wandering the empty streets of this city, reading silly-season newspaper stories after a leisurely lunch washed down with Sancerre, gazing at squares where fountains plashed and the pregnant or the old chatted on benches at dusk. Then something happened. The world speeded up. Stress levels soared. Idle moments evaporated. Egos expanded. Devices became hand-held. Money outpaced politics. August aborted this year. It morphed into the serious season. The beach lost out to the barricades. A time of outrage is upon us.

八月曾經是一個適合做夢的季節，漫步在空闊的街道上，悠閑地 享受午飯，然后喝點桑塞爾白葡萄酒 ，讀讀在七八月這樣的淡季新聞報紙上的小道故事，或是盯著廣場上的噴泉發發呆，旁邊長椅上有孕婦和老人在閑談。然后，突然發生了一些事情。世界開始加快了它的步伐，壓力日益劇增。悠閑的時光一去不復返了。人們的自我意識不斷膨脹，每個人手中都拿著各種設備，金錢勝過了政治。悠閑的八月已成為了一個嚴酷的季節，路障取代了長椅。我們正面臨著一個憤怒的時期。

A feeling has grown in Western societies that uncontrollable forces are at work shrinking possibility. History has never seen a global power shift as radical as the current one that managed to be peaceful.

一股不可控的力量正在發揮作用，不斷的減少各種可能性，這種感覺正在西方社會蔓延滋長。歷史從未見證過這樣一種全球力量變化是如此激進卻又試圖趨于平靜。

Growth, jobs, expansion, excitement — and, yes, possibility — lie in the great non-Western arc from China through India to South Africa and Brazil. The world has been turned upside-down. What we are witnessing is how shaken Western societies are by such inversion.

經濟增長，充分的就業機會，迅速的發展，成功的喜悅，哦，是的，還有無限的可能性，都存在于那些非西方的國度，從中國到印度、南非和巴西。整個世界都被顛倒了，我們正在見證西方社會是如何因這些變化而受到動搖。

As new powers emerge, globalization has altered the relationship between capital and labor in the former’s favor. The only people who walked away unscathed from the great financial binge that preceded this mess were its main architects and greatest beneficiaries: bankers, financiers. This, too, is fueling a time of outrage that has left Western politicians chasing shadows.

當一種新力量產生的時候，全球化必將導致資本與勞動之間的關系發生改變，而往往會對前者有利。唯一能從這場金融風暴中全身而退且毫發無傷的人，就是它的主導者和受益者：銀行家和金融家。這也刺激了一個憤怒時代的出現，讓那些西方政客在那里捕風捉影。

點評：這篇散文評論摘自2011年8月的New York Times ， 題目為The Age of Outrage 《憤怒的時代》。Roger Cohen散文般的時評，是否讓你在考試時感到一陣輕松呢？

首先這篇這段220字的文章的話題我們并不陌生，討論的是全球化的影響。這段話的難點在第一段，話題切入以及短句的羅列，如果沒有看到后面的內容，考生很容易不知所云。所以，閱讀前首先掃讀，預判文章大意，不確定的地方再根據大意來展開。翻譯的時候注意把握三點：短句的翻譯；詞語的翻譯；生詞的翻譯。

第一段從“Then something happened.”一直到結束都是主謂或主謂賓組成的短句，間或有比喻出現，如August aborted this year.考生注意本題材話題切入，準確翻譯各短句所指，即理解經濟類話題的內涵和外延。這也是下面一點要提到的，詞語的翻譯。第三段段首的Growth, jobs, expansion, excitement — and, yes, possibility也是可以翻譯出彩的地方，翻譯成名詞還是偏正短語，視個人水平而定，但是意思一定不要出錯。

第三點就是生詞的翻譯，第一段出現了Sancerre，法國白葡萄酒，這種詞語雖然在考試中出現的幾率不大，翻譯時稍微注意一下即可。其他難詞，比如第一段的abort, morph into，最后一段unscathed ，architects，chasing shadows；這些詞語在經濟類話題中出現，注意平時的積累，或者考生根據上下文判斷出大意進行翻譯。