精读 | Summer camps

Category: 留学考试 Date: 2019年3月27日下午12:08

Title: Summer camps

Subtitle: Mutually assured distraction

distraction 指“n.分散注意力的事，娱乐，消遣”

IN A classroom at Imperial College London, students sit hunched over laptops, typing lines of code. Just nine years old, they are attending Firetech, a British technology summer camp for children. Courses include “Junior Augmented Reality” and “Creating for YouTube”. Such programmes are proliferating in many countries. They pander to two common demands from well-off parents: to entertain children over the long summer holidays and to give them a leg-up over their peers.

翻译：在伦敦帝国理工学院的一间教室中，学生们对着电脑埋头打着一行行代码。年仅9岁的他们在参加名为Firetech的英国儿童科技夏令营。课程包括“初级增强现实”和“YouTube创作”。类似的项目在各个国家日渐增多。它们迎合了富裕父母的两个普遍需求：让孩子们在漫长的暑假中娱乐和让孩子领先于同龄人。

段落结构：本段每句层层递进。从描写学生在教师敲代码 -> 引出Firetech夏令营 -> 夏令营的内容 -> such衔接表示夏令营为普遍趋势 -> 夏令营流行的原因。总体上从个体现象出发，吸引读者。然后转而讨论原因，为后文的论述作铺垫。

proliferate 指“v.增殖，扩散，激增”
pander 指“v.迎合；勾引；怂恿；拉皮条”，pander to 表示“迎合”，下面还有同义的 cater to
well-off 指“adj. 富裕的；顺利的”，下面也有同义词 affluent。
new：site hunched over laptops 表示“学生埋头弓坐在笔记本电脑前”，常用于描绘学生刻苦学习的场景，突出其投入和专注。
the/a proliferation of sth 表示“...的激增，...的层出不穷”，用于描述某个趋势。例：The proliferation of private cars gives rise to severe traffic congestion.
give sb a leg-up 表示“助...一臂之力”

At most American summer camps children still commune with nature and sing around a campfire. But some camps cater to more niche interests, such as neuroscience, outer space or even atheism. Tom Rosenberg, chief executive of the American Camp Association, says a growing number focus on skills in demand at modern workplaces. The proportion offering science, technology, engineering or maths programmes, for instance, rose from less than a quarter in 2014 to almost a third in 2017.

翻译：在美国大多数夏令营中，孩子们仍然在亲近大自然或围着篝火唱歌。但一些夏令营迎合了较小众的兴趣，如以神经科学，外太空甚至无神论为主题。美国夏令营协会主席汤姆罗森博格(Tom Rosenberg)说越来越多夏令营注重于现代职场所需的技能。例如提供科学、技术、工程或者数学项目的夏令营比例从2014年的不到四分之一上升到2017年的近三分之一。

new: niche 指“针对特定小群体的”。根据牛津双语7版：“the development of niche marketing (= aiming products at particular groups)”针对某群体的产品营销开发。例：a niche product 小众产品。niche market 小众市场。
最后一句为现在分词短语 offering science, technology, engineering or maths programmes 作后置定语修饰 the proportion，相当于定语从句：The proportion (of camps) which offer science...，表示“提供科学等课程的夏令营所占的比例”

Students often have an eye on university. Alexandra Boyt and David Stephenson, who run a residential Latin camp in western England, say a lot of students come to prepare for interviews at Oxford and Cambridge. Princeton asks applicants how they spent their past two summers. Entry to the camps themselves can be competitive. Canada/USA Mathcamp accepts just 15% of applicants.

翻译：学生们往往是为了考大学而上夏令营。亚历山大博伊特(Alexandra Boyt)和大卫斯蒂芬斯(David Stephenson)在西伦敦运营一个寄宿拉丁语营地。他们说很多学生来到这里是为了准备牛津和剑桥的面试。普林斯顿大学会问道申请者过去的两个暑假他们如何度过的。申请参加夏令营本身也是充满竞争的。美加数学营仅接受15%的申请者。

new：have an eye on sth 表示“做另一件事时悄悄注意”，即以上大学为目的参加夏令营。
eye的一些用法：
have an eye for sth 表示“对...有鉴赏力，能够鉴赏”。例：I've never had much of an eye for fashion. 我对时尚从来都没多少鉴赏力。
keep an eye on sb/sth 表示“照看，留意”。例：We've asked the neighbours to keep an eye on the house for us while we are away.
with one's eyes shut/closed 表示“轻而易举”

In East Asia some parents use the summer to boost their children’s English skills. In a packed classroom at SNT Academy, a private language school in an affluent part of Seoul, the South Korean capital, a group of eight- and nine-year-olds practise debating (topic: should cosmetic surgery be banned?). Many wealthy Chinese parents go further, sending their children on study tours abroad. Ctrip, a Chinese travel agency, believes that 1m Chinese students will go on such trips this year, spending $4.5bn.

翻译：在东亚，一些父母利用暑假提高孩子的英语能力。在韩国首都首尔富人区的一座私人语言学校“SNT学院”的一个拥挤的教室中，一群八九岁的孩子在练习辩论（话题是：整容手术是否该禁止？）。许多富裕的中国家长走的更远，他们送孩子出国游学。中国旅行社携程认为今年将有100万中国学生参加这类旅行，花费15亿美元。

packed 指“adj.充满…的，塞满了…的, v.包装”
cosmetic surgery 表示“整容手术”。
其中cosmetic 指“adj. 美容的，化妆用的，n. 化妆品；装饰品” 过去式 cosmeticked 过去分词 cosmeticked 现在分词 cosmeticking
new：boost skills 表示“提升技能”，同义表达还有：sharpen skills, hone skill，当然还有improve skills。
go further 表示“更进一步”

The fanciest summer programmes can be expensive. Firetech charges £1,300 for week-long residential courses; a week at Space Camp, in Huntsville, Alabama, can cost up to $1,200. Mr Rosenberg says there is a camp for every budget. But as wealthier parents splash out on ever more specialised programmes, it is getting harder for the less well-to-do to keep up in the summer-camp arms race.

翻译：那些最时髦的夏令营可能收费不菲。Firetech一周的寄宿课程收费1300英镑；在美国阿拉巴马州亨茨维尔(Alabama, Huntsville)，为期一周的太空夏令营的费用可高达1200美元。罗森博格表示会有适合于不同预算的夏令营。但随着富裕家庭为更加专业的夏令营大笔花钱，家境一般的家庭将更难跟上这场夏令营学术活动。

budget 指“n.预算，v.做预算，adj. 廉价的”
Keep up 表示“保持，跟上”
arms race 原指“军备学术活动”，这里单指“竞争”（外刊很喜欢用这个词）
new：splash out on/for sth 表示“在...上花大笔钱”。例：He splashed out hundreds of pounds on designer clothes. 他花了几百英镑买名牌服装。