行動是成功的階梯，行動越多，登得越高。今天小編給大家帶來了2020下半年翻譯考試二級筆譯模擬題，希望能夠幫助到大家，下面小編就和大家分享，來欣賞一下吧。
2020下半年翻譯考試二級筆譯模擬題
美國的百萬富翁都住在哪里?
About 5.8 percent of the population – 7.2 million households – qualify as millionaires, meaning that they have at least $1 million laying around, excluding their real estate holdings, retirement plans and business partnerships.
Kiplinger, publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice, partnered with Phoenix Marketing International to figure out how many millionaires live in 933 urban areas with populations of at least 50,000 residents.
The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area of Connecticut takes the top spot. About 9 percent of its residents – 31,506 of the people who live there – can call themselves millionaires.
Not only is this part of Connecticut close to New York City, but the enclave is also home to a number of hedge funds and prominent companies, including Priceline’s parent company, and the Xerox Corporation. These attributes are enough to give this tony Connecticut locality an edge over Silicon Valley.
The California regions of San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, which includes Silicon Valley, comes in second with 61,264 millionaire households – 9 percent of all households. The area is home to some of the biggest tech companies in the world, and Google, Apple and Facebook are nearby.
The nation’s capital slides into the third spot. Washington, D.C., and its suburbs draw highly educated Americans looking for influential jobs. The 206,361 millionaire households in the region account for 8.9 percent of D.C.’s 2.3 million households.
2020下半年翻譯考試二級筆譯模擬題
美墨達成新貿易協定
U.S. President Donald Trump says the United States and Mexico have reached a trade agreement, leaving Canada as the odd man out in efforts to revise or replace the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Speaking Monday from the White House, Trump said the new deal will be called the United States-Mexico Trade Agreement.
Trump spoke to reporters as he spoke on the telephone to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Trump called it a big day for trade and a big day for the country. Trump said: “This is something that is very special for our manufacturers and for our farmers, from both countries, for all of the people that work for jobs. It is also great trade, and it makes it a much more fair bill, and we are very, very excited about it. We have worked long and hard, your representatives have been terrific, my representatives have been fantastic too. They have gotten along very well, and they have worked late into the night for months. It is an extremely complex bill, and it is something that I think will be talked about for many years to come.”
The Mexican leader expressed hope to “renew, modernize and update” NAFTA while Trump’s rhetoric indicated he sees that 24-year-old three-nation deal as dead.
Canada, an original member of NAFTA, is not part of this deal. Trump said the United States would start negotiating with Canada very shortly.
Trump said under the deal, Mexico has agreed to immediately begin purchasing as many U.S. agricultural products as possible. The White House is also expected to formally notify Congress by the end of this week of its intention to sign a new trade agreement within 90 days.
美墨達成新貿易協定
美國總統特朗普說，美國和墨西哥已經達成了一項貿易協定，這使加拿大在修訂或取代《北美自由貿易協定》(NAFTA)的努力中成了局外人。
特朗普周一在白宮發表講話說，這項新協議將被稱為《美墨貿易協定》。
特朗普在與墨西哥總統奧夫拉多爾通電話時對記者發表了講話。特朗普稱這對貿易和對國家來說都大日子。特朗普總統說：“這對我們兩國的制造商和農民以及所有為之工作的人來來說都是非常特別的。這也是一項偉大的貿易，它成為一個更公平的議案，我們非常非常興奮。我們工作了很長時間，也很努力，你們的代表人員棒極了，我的代表人員也棒極了。他們相處得很好，幾個月來一直工作到深夜。這是一項極其復雜的議案，我認為在未來許多年里人們都會談論它。”
墨西哥總統表示希望“延長、現代化和更新”《北美自由貿易協定》，而特朗普的言辭表明，他認為這項有24年歷史的三國協議已經死了。
作為《北美自由貿易協定》的原始成員國，加拿大未參與這項新協議。特朗普說，美國將很快與加拿大開始談判。
特朗普說，根據這項協議，墨西哥同意立即開始購買盡可能多的美國農產品。預計白宮還將在本周末正式通知國會行政當局計劃在90天內簽署一項新的貿易協定。
2020下半年翻譯考試二級筆譯模擬題
Robo-Advisers: Does Not Compute
The growth of firms selling computer generated financial advice is slowing
Given the many mistakes that human investors are prone to – selling after a market tumble, trading too often, believing they can beat the stockmarket – dealing with money is perhaps best left to computers. That is the premise behind a host of firms selling computer-generated financial advice, which assist savers tired of paying for pricey human counsel. The low cost of these “robo-advisers” had helped them grow rapidly, to the horror of conventional money-managers. But growth in assets under management (AUM) at the biggest outfits has sagged recently, and with it the upstarts’ prospects.
It used to be only those with hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest, if not millions, who could afford advice about where to put their money. Humans charge 1-3% of their clients’ portfolios every year, simply to rebalance among asset classes every so often and do clever things to minimise taxes. Robo-advisers, led by Wealthfront, a Californian outfit, and Betterment, based in New York, do much the same, but for a mere 0.25% or so a year.
Largely because they squash fees, robo-services do a good job for anyone bar the very rich with complex financial arrangements. A basic questionnaire – age, salary, investment aims and the like – helps establish risk appetite. Money is then allocated to low-cost funds provided by third parties. For those who believe, correctly, that fees and human error are the main pitfalls of investing, the approach is hard to beat.
Other features include snazzy smartphone apps (customers tend to be on the younger side), transparent pricing and low or no minimum investment. Wealthfront describes itself as the Charles Schwab of the millennial generation, widening access to investing by cutting costs, just as the discount stockbroker has done for baby-boomers since the 1970s.
But being very cheap means Betterment and Wealthfront need lots of assets to turn a profit. Their AUM of roughly $2.9 billion each, accumulated largely in the past two years, delivers revenues of $7m or so a year. That is not enough to sustain around 100 staff each as well as hefty marketing budgets. Total costs are likely to be $40m-50m a year, according to one fintech grandee (neither firm discloses the data).
Scale is vital, as every new client brings fresh revenue at little extra cost. AUM in the tens of billions of dollars, if not hundreds, will be needed to break even. The two firms’ venture-capital backers, which have poured over $100m into each, expect initial losses. But even they will hope for profits in years, not decades.
Last year the two firms’ AUM grew by over 10% a month, so doubling every seven months. Growth has since fallen to less than 5%. Wealthfront used to trumpet its AUM, but now reveals it only in regulatory filings. In August it was $2.6 billion; assuming it is now $2.9 billion (it says only that it is less than $3 billion), it will take a year and a half to double at its recent rate of growth. Betterment is faring only slightly better.
Adam Nash, Wealthfront’s boss, says AUM is a misleading measure, as it is affected by asset-price swings, such as the stockmarket slide of the late summer (largely reversed since). It might be that volatility has spooked potential investors. Both firms say customers are joining in big numbers, and that AUM will grow with their savings.
Competition from incumbent wealth managers will have hurt the robotic duo. Vanguard (which puts together many of the funds Betterment and Wealthfront recommend to clients) and Schwab have both recently launched robo-advisory services. These have grown quickly – Schwab’s now has $4.1 billion in AUM – if only by poaching existing customers. Robo-purists decry potential conflicts of interest.
In dollar terms, both Betterment and Wealthfront are still attracting over $100m a month – it is the second $100m that is proving elusive. Yet fintech firms usually count on their custom growing at exponential, not arithmetic, rates. If AUM growth does not pick up, both firms will have to raise prices, expand their offerings or put themselves up for sale. In August BlackRock, a giant asset manager, bought FutureAdvisor, a smaller robo-rival. That robots of the sort devised by Betterment and Wealthfront will direct an ever-larger chunk of investors’ cash seems inevitable. Whether such products can be sold profitably by startups remains in doubt.
機器人顧問：“算”不起來
一些公司銷售計算機生成的理財建議，它們的增長正在減緩
考慮到人類投資者容易犯許多錯誤，比如在市場暴跌后賣出、交易太過頻繁、相信自己能跑贏股市等等，把錢的事留給計算機處理可能是最好的選擇。由此出現了一批公司，它們銷售計算機生成的理財建議，為厭倦了付高價給人類顧問的理財客戶提供幫助。由于“機器人顧問”成本低廉，這類公司發展迅速，讓傳統的財富管理公司驚恐不已。但是，最大型機構的資產管理規模增速近來已經下降，后起之秀的前景也隨之黯淡。
在過去，即便不是百萬富翁，也得是手頭有幾十萬美元的人才能請得起理財顧問。人類顧問每年收取相當于客戶資產組合1%至3%的費用，所做的只是偶爾重新配置各資產類別、用聰明的法子交最少的稅。以加州機構Wealthfront和總部位于紐約的公司Betterment為首的機器人顧問公司所做的事大致相同，但每年只收取總資產0.25% 左右的費用。
機器人服務主要因為壓低了管理費，所以對于任何人來說都算干得不錯，除了那些需要復雜財務安排的巨富們。一份基本的問卷包括年齡、收入、投資目標等問題，就可以幫助確定客戶的風險偏好，然后把資金配置到第三方提供的低成本基金上。有些人相信費用和人為錯誤是投資的主要隱患，這是正確的，對于他們來說，其他方式很難與機器人顧問匹敵。
其他的特色包括新潮的智能手機應用(客戶傾向于年輕化)、定價透明，以及起投門檻很低或者完全沒有。Wealthfront形容自己是千禧一代的嘉信理財(Charles Schwab)，通過削減成本降低投資門檻，正如20世紀70年代折扣經紀人為嬰兒潮一代所做的一樣。
但是，收費很低意味著Betterment和Wealthfront需要管理大量資產才能盈利。這兩家公司的資產管理規模各為約29億美元，大部分是過去兩年中積累的，一年產生700萬美元左右的收入。這不足以負擔每家公司約100名員工的人力成本，還有高昂的營銷預算。據一位金融技術達人說，總成本可能達一年四千萬到五千萬美元(兩家公司均未公布數據)。
規模至關重要，因為每一位新客戶會帶來新收入，而產生的額外成本極低。若要收支平衡，即便不要數千億美元，也需要數百億美元的資產管理規模。這兩家公司的風險投資人已向每家投入超過1億美元，并做好了初期會虧損的準備。但即便如此，他們也希望在幾年內就能盈利，而不是幾十年。
去年這兩家公司的資產管理規模每月增長超過10%，每7個月翻一番。之后增長率降至5%以下。Wealthfront以前常大肆宣揚自己的資產管理規模，但現在只在給監管部門的備案中才會透露。8月其資產管理規模為26億美元;假設現在是29億美元(公司只說不到30億美元)，按照最近的增長速度，翻番需要一年半的時間。Betterment的發展也只是稍好一點。
Wealthfront的老板亞當·納什(Adam Nash)稱資產管理規模是一個有誤導性的指標，因為它受到資產價格波動的影響，比如夏末的股市下跌(之后已基本反彈)。可能是波動性嚇壞了潛在的投資者。兩家公司都說現在有大量新客戶加入，而資產管理規模將隨著他們的積蓄增加而擴大。
來自傳統財富管理公司的競爭將傷害到這兩家機器人公司。領航集團(Vanguard)(集合了Betterment和Wealthfront推薦給客戶的多支基金)和嘉信最近都推出了機器人咨詢服務。僅僅通過遷徙現有客戶，它們的業務已在迅猛增長：嘉信目前的資產管理規模為41億美元。機器人純化論者強烈反對潛在的利益沖突。
以美元計，Betterment和Wealthfront每月仍在吸引超過1億美元，但第二個1億美元才是困難所在。然而，金融技術公司通常都指望它們的客戶以指數級而非算術級增長。如果資產管理規模的增速不回升，兩家公司都將不得不提高價格、拓寬產品服務或尋求買家。8月，資產管理巨頭貝萊德集團(BlackRock)收購了一家較小的機器人對手FutureAdvisor。看來可以肯定的是，由Betterment和Wealthfront發明的這些機器人顧問將管理投資者資金中越來越大的一塊。但創業公司能否在這類產品上盈利則仍舊存疑。
2020下半年翻譯考試二級筆譯模擬題
達芬奇珍品以創紀錄價格拍賣成交
A 500-year-old masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci that once sold for a mere $60 smashed the world’s record for an art auction Wednesday.
有500年歷史、曾經僅以60美元成交的一幅達芬奇畫作星期三在一個藝術品拍賣會上以創世界紀錄的高價售出。
“Salvator Mundi,” which depicts Christ raising his hand in a blessing, sold for $450 million at Christie’s Auction House in New York.考生如果怕自己錯過考試成績查詢的話，可以 免費預約短信提醒，屆時會以短信的方式提醒大家報名和考試時間。
在紐約佳士得拍賣公司的拍賣會上，耶穌舉手祝福的《救世主》達芬奇畫作以4億5千萬美元的價格成交。
The buyer who was not identified, made his bid by telephone, sending the audience into a frenzy as the price climbed higher and higher.
買家通過電話參加拍賣會，沒有透露身份。一路升高的叫價令參加拍賣會的人瞠目結舌。
The seller is Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
賣家是俄羅斯億萬富翁雷博諾夫列夫。
Only about 20 da Vinci works are known to exist and “Salvator Mundi” is the only one in private hands. The others are in museums or part of large public collections.
據信全世界只有大約20幅達芬奇的真跡作品。《救世主》是唯一在私人手中的達芬奇作品，其它作品都在博物館或公共機構收藏。
Art experts believe da Vinci painted “Salvator Mundi” in about 1500. It was once owned by England’s King Charles I. It disappeared, resurfaced, and, at one time, was bought for just $60 by a collector who mistook it for a copy.
藝術專家認為，達芬奇大約在1500年創作了這幅《救世主》。這幅畫曾被英國國王查理一世收藏，一度隱沒，后來重新出現。一位收藏者曾認為它是贗品，以60美元的價格收購。
It took more than 50 years for art experts to restore it and authenticate it as a genuine da Vinci, although others still doubt it is the real thing.
藝術專家用了50多年的時間修復這幅畫，并認定它是達芬奇的真跡。不過，仍有人懷疑它不是真品。
Until Wednesday, the highest price paid for a painting at auction was $179 million for Pablo Picasso’s “The Women of Algiers” in 2015.
星期三的拍賣會之前，畫作的最高拍賣價是畢加索的《阿爾及爾女人》，2015年以1億7900萬美元拍賣成交。
