Simone
Those College Finals 那些学院决赛 I was sitting around downtown the other night.我坐在市中心周围的晚上。 The wind was blowing; the temperature was frigid; the atmosphere was depressing.清风拂面;温度是寒冷的气氛是令人沮丧的。 I knew that the combination of these things reminded me of something, and soon enough我知道这些东西的核轿组合，我想起了什么，很快 [1] I realized what that something was. [1]我知道的东西是什么。 Final exams.期末考试。 The most miserable moments of a college student's life come during final exam week during the winter.在冬季，一个大学生的生活最悲惨的时刻，在期末考试周。 It is a horror that stays with a person for the rest of his life: the desperation, the frustration, the realization that one has to cough up mounds of knowledge that one does not even possess这是一个恐怖的，一个人的余生保持绝望，挫折，实现一个有咳嗽改行肆土堆，人们甚至不具备的知识 [2]. [2]。 And that one's future career may depend on how well one does the coughing.和一个人的未来的职业生涯可能会取决于一个人的咳嗽。 I checked the calendar.我查了日历。 Sure enough, it was just about time for the end of the term at Northwestern University, just up the road from me果然，只是时间的任期结束在美国西北大学，只是在路上我 [3]. [3]。 I knew that thousands of students were up there at that very moment, bending over textbooks and notes and trying against all odds to memorize arcane facts and figures that they really cared nothing about.我知道，数千名学生，在那一刻，弯腰课本和笔记，并努力克服一切困难，熟记晦涩难懂的事实和数字，他们真正关心什么。 I couldn't help myself.我控制不住自己。 [4] [4] I headed for the campus.我为首的校园。 In the first building where I stopped, a light was burning brightly in a classroom.我停下来的地方在建设中，一盏灯燃烧明亮的教室。 I walked in; two young men had papers spread all over the room.我走进去，两个年轻人有满屋子都是传播的论文。 Class was not in session; the two were alone.类是不是在会议;两个人单独。 "Hi, fellows," I said. “嗨，研究员，”我说。 They looked up.他们抬起头来。 Their eyes were filled with pain.他们的眼睛里充带唤满了痛苦。 They appeared to have gone without sleep for three or four days.他们似乎已经不睡觉了三四天。 [5] [5] "What's up “这是怎么回事 [6], guys?" I said. [6]，伙计？“我说。 "Please leave us alone,"one of them said softly. “”请离我们而去，其中一人轻声说。 "Leave you alone?"I said.我说：“你独自一人离开呢？”。 "Finals," the other one gasped. “决赛”，另一种喘息。 I walked out of the room and began a leisurely stroll around campus.我走出房间，并开始在校园里悠闲地散步。 Men and women looked as if they were about to sob as they staggered toward the library.男性和女性看起来好像他们是抽泣，因为他们对图书馆交错。 They muttered to themselves.他们对自己喃喃自语。 They lifted their eyes in silent prayer.他们解除了他们的眼睛在默默祈祷。 They walked into trees, steadied their bodies, and kept walking.他们走进树，收了他们的尸体，并继续往前走。 I felt great.我觉得很好。 I had been one of them, and now I wasn't.我是其中之一，现在我是不是。 There probably is no feeling in this world more exhilarating than being on a college campus during final exams, and knowing that you don't have to take them.有可能是没有在这个世界上比在期末考试期间，大学校园和了解，你不必把他们更令人振奋的感觉。 I spent most of the evening wandering from building to building, watching the students get ready for the next day's finals.我花了大部分流浪晚上从建设到建设，看着学生们准备第二天的决赛。 It was all so familiar.这一切都是那么熟悉。 They gathered around long tables, spiral-bound notebooks他们围着长条桌，螺旋结合的笔记本电脑 [7] open, and they shot [7]打开，他们开枪 [8] questions at one another. [8]在彼此的问题。 There were lengthy periods of silence, and then a series of tentative answers.有长时间的沉默，然后一系列初步的答案。 Cursing was common.咒骂是共同的。 Moans broke out.呻吟声爆发了。 They stomped on the floor, and gazed out the window, and seemed to be ready to weep.他们在地板上跺着脚，凝视着窗外，似乎是准备哭。 Once in a while they glanced over at me.曾经在一段时间他们扫视了我。 Under normal circumstances they probably would have been curious about my presence, but on this night their eyes were so glazed over that they couldn't even think straight.正常情况下，他们可能会一直好奇我的存在，但在这个夜晚，他们的眼睛就这么多，他们甚至不能认为直釉面。 [9] [9] I just read the sports section and winked at them.我刚才读的体育节，他们眨眨眼睛。 If I would have been in a charitable mood, I would have told them one of the great secrets of the real world.如果我有一个慈善的心情，我会告诉他们对现实世界的伟大的秘密之一。 It is a secret that all of us who have been to college learned only after we got out; a secret that, if college students knew it, would ease their minds and make them calm.这是一个秘密，我们大家都已经大学只学会后，我们得到了一个秘密，如果大学生都知道它，将缓解他们的头脑，使他们冷静。 The secret is this: There are no final exams in real life.秘密是这样的：在现实生活中有没有期末考试。 It's true.这是真的。 In the real world, you don't have to know anything.在现实世界中，你不知道什么。 There are no cases in which you have to sit down in a crowded room, scrunch your eyes up in concentration and regurgitate obscure and ridiculous facts from memory.有没有案件中，你必须在一个拥挤的房间坐下，揉皱你的眼睛的浓度和反刍从内存中的模糊和荒谬的事实。 In real life, you get to bring the book along.在现实生活中，你的书带来了一起。 Believe it, college students: Real life is an open-book test.相信，大学生：现实生活中是开卷测试。 If you've forgotten something, you get to go look it up如果你忘了的东西，你去看看它 [10], or ask someone who's smarter than you. [10]，或问别人谁是比你更聪明。 It's easy; much easier than college.这很容易，比大学要容易得多。 The only place you'll ever encounter something as bizarre and frightening as a final exam is at college.唯一的地方，你会遇到一些离奇，可怕的期末考试是在大学。 The college administrators fool the students by making them believe that final exams are only a mild precursor of what is going to happen every day in the big, mean大学管理者愚弄学生，使他们相信，期末考试，只有在大是怎么回事，每天都在发生轻微的易制毒化学，意味着 [11]world. [11]世界。 But it's not true.但事实并非如此。 If the real world were as bizarre and rotten as final exams, you'd see everyone on the street walking around in the same demented, pathetic state as college students during exam week.如果在现实世界离奇和期末考试烂，你会看到每个人都在街上走在相同的痴呆症，可怜的状态，在考试期间的大学生。 No, it's all downhill不，这是所有下坡 [12] after college finals. [12]后大专决赛。 Real life is a coast现实生活中是一个海岸 [13], a glide. [13]，滑翔。 No one is ever going to ask you to compare and contrast the works of the Elizabethan authors从来没有人要问你，伊丽莎白女王的作者的作品进行比较和对比 [14]; [14]; no one is ever going to demand that you trace the battles of the Boer War从来没有人会要求你追踪的布尔战争的战斗 [15]. [15]。 If someone did come up to you at work and ask you something like that, he'd soon be locked up in an institution如果有人来给你工作，并要求您这样的事情，他会很快被锁定在一个机构 [16]somewhere. [16]的地方。 I could have told the students that.我可以告诉学生。 I could have soothed their minds and made things simple for them.我可以安慰他们的思想和作出的事情为他们简单。 I could have asked them to join me for a beer and forget about finals week.我可以要求他们加入了啤酒，我忘记决赛周。 Look at the top executives of the Fortune 500在“财富”500强企业的高层管理人员 [17]companies, I could have told them. [17]的公司，我可以告诉他们。 Do you think anyone would ever dare ask them how they did on their college final exams?你认为没有人会永远不敢问他们，他们是如何做到对自己的大学期末考试？ I could have filled the students' mind with comforting thoughts like that.我可以这样安慰思想充满了学生的心灵。 But I didn't.但我没有。 And why should I have?为什么要我？ I went through finals many times; finals made me crazy, and now it was time for these students to be made crazy.我多次经历了总决赛，总决赛，我疯了，现在是时间为这些学生作出疯狂。 I watched them in their despair, and I smiled the smile of the truly contented我观看了他们的绝望，我笑了，真正心满意足的微笑 [18]. [18]。 I stayed on campus until nearly midnight, and then I wandered off.我住在校园，直到将近午夜，然后我走丢了。 On a path between some classroom buildings, something tumbled across the sidewalk, blowing in the wind.一些教学楼之间的道路上，东西横跨人行道下跌，在风中飘零。 I knelt to pick it up.我跪下把它捡起来。 It was a blue book这是一个蓝色的书 [19], the dreadful, chilling symbol of finals week. [19]，决赛周的可怕，令人不寒而栗的象征。 A blue book that some poor student had carried out of his exam and then discarded on the ground.一个蓝色的书，一些贫困学生进行了他的考试，然后丢弃在地面上。 I stuck it in my pocket and laughed a mechanical laugh.我坚持我的口袋里笑了机械的笑。 The lights still glowed in the campus building, as they would all night, but I got to go home.灯仍然闪耀在校园建设，他们整夜，但我要回家。 K:\text\read\11R1.htm K教授：\文本\读\ 11R1.htm
