编辑点评：2013年秋季上海中高级口译考试于今日9月15日开考，沪江英语在考后第一时间提供真题、解析、答案信息，本文为2013年9月中级口译英译汉答案部分。

　　原文：

　　American are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy, i.e. Government by people selected according to merit. But this self-image is a fantasy: America actually stands out as a the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climing to the top or even to the middle。

　　And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the Western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity。

　　The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the afflent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education。

　　参考译文：

　　美国人可能比任何其他国家的人都更相信他们生活在一个崇尚精英体制国家，比如他们坚信有能力的人才会被人民选为政府的一份子。但他们这个自我的认识可说是一种幻觉。虽然美国发达强大，傲视群雄，但在那里家庭背景却极其重要，若一个人出生在无权无势的家庭，他成为精英甚至中产阶级的机会则是微乎其微的。

　　如果你要问为什么实际上美国比其他西方国家都要阶级分明，政府在创造公平机会这件事情上的失职从很大程度上来说是罪魁祸首。

　　这种失职从很早就开始了， 社会的安全网存在着漏洞，这就意味着低收入的母亲和儿童将遭受营养不良和医疗不利之苦。这个趋势将会继续下去---等小孩到了上学的年纪，富人可以送小孩上优质的、资金充足的学校，如果他们愿意，甚至可以去私立学校，而家境贫寒的人只能委身于水准低得多的教育。