剑桥雅思15Test3阅读Passage3原文及翻译

每年年中左右，国内“雅思图”都要翘首期盼一件重要大事的来临:雅思真题的发布。无论是备考初期、后期,甚至已经考过雅思的学生，也无论是学生还是老师,都会密切关注新题的发布。今年6月初,《剑15》如约而至、作为国内雅思培训的领军机构，新航道也时间为考生们带来了这太《剑桥雅思真题全解15:学术类》(以下简称《剑15全解》)。

本次我们盛情邀请了新航道全国冬分校最的学科带头人来组织编写这本《剑15全解》。其中，对于以客观选择题为主的听力与阅读部分，仍然请各校团队进行解题思路方面的指导;对于以主观题为主的写作与口语部分，我们则邀请了官方认证考官撰写地道的高分范文，作为官方范文之外的补充。下文中详细整理了剑桥雅思15Test3阅读Passage3原文及翻译，一起来看一下吧！

剑桥15电子版本，请扫描二维码，暗号“优化+剑桥15全解”，会有老师联系并发送资料。

1剑桥雅思15Test3阅读Passage3原文

Why fairy tales are really scary tales

Some people think that fairy tales are Just stories to amuse children, but their

universal and enduring appeal may be due to more serious reasons

People of every culture tell each other fairy tales but the same story often takes a variety of forms in different parts of the world. In the story of Little Red Riding Hood that European children are familiar with, a young girl on the way to see her grandmother meets a wolf and tells him where she is going. The wolf runs on ahead and disposes of the grandmother, then gets into bed dressed in the grandmother's clothes to wait for Little Red Riding Hood. You may think you know the story - but which version? In some versions, the wolf swallows up the grandmother, while in others it locks her in a cupboard. In some stories Red Riding Hood gets the better of the wolf on her own, while in others a hunter or a woodcutter hears her cries and comes to her rescue.

The universal appeal of these tales is frequently attributed to the idea that they contain cautionary messages: in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, to listen to your mother, and avoid talking to strangers. 'It might be what we find interesting about this story is that ifs got this survival relevant information in it,' says anthropologist Jamie Tehrani at Durham University in the UK. But his research suggests otherwise. 'We have this huge gap in our knowledge about the history and prehistory of storytelling, despite the fact that we know this genre is an incredibly ancient one,' he says. That hasn't stopped anthropologists, folklorists and other academics devising theories to explain the importance of fairy tales in human society. Now Tehrani has found a way to test these ideas, borrowing a technique from evolutionary biologists.

To work out the evolutionary history, development and relationships among groups of organisms, biologists compare the characteristics of living species in a process called 'phylogenetic analysis'. Tehrani has used the same approach to compare related versions of fairy tales to discover how they have evolved and which elements have survived longest.

Tehrani's analysis focused on Little Red Riding Hood in its many forms, which include another Western fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Kids. Checking for variants of these two tales and similar stories from Africa, East Asia and other regions, he ended up with 58 stories recorded from oral traditions. Once his phylogenetic analysis had established that they were indeed related, he used the same methods to explore how they have developed and altered over time.

First he tested some assumptions about which aspects of the story alter least as it evolves, indicating their importance. Folklorists believe that what happens in a story is more central to the story than the characters in it - that visiting a relative, only to be met by a scary animal in disguise, is more fundamental than whether the visitor is a little girl or three siblings, or the animal is a tiger instead of a wolf.

However, Tehrani found no significant difference in the rate of evolution of incidents compared with that of characters. 'Certain episodes are very stable because they are crucial to the story, but there are lots of other details that can evolve quite freely, ' he says. Neither did his analysis support the theory that the central section of a story is the most conserved part. He found no significant difference in the flexibility of events there compared with the beginning or the end.

But the really big surprise came when he looked at the cautionary elements of the story. 'Studies on hunter-gatherer folk tales suggest that these narratives include really important information about the environment and the possible dangers that may be faced there - stuff that's relevant to survival,' he says. Yet in his analysis such elements were just as flexible as seemingly trivial details. What, then, is important enough to be reproduced from generation to generation?

The answer, it would appear, is fear - blood-thirsty and gruesome aspects of the story, such as the eating of the grandmother by the wolf turned out to be the best preserved of all. Why are these details retained by generations of storytellers, when other features are not? Tehrani has an idea: 'In an oral context, a story won't survive because of one great teller. It also needs to be interesting when ifs told by someone who's not necessarily a great storyteller.' Maybe being swallowed whole by a wolf, then cut out of its stomach alive is so gripping that it helps the story remain popular, no matter how badly it's told.

Jack Zipes at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, is unconvinced by Tehrani's views on fairy tales. 'Even if they're gruesome, they won't stick unless they matter,' he says. He believes the perennial theme of women as victims in stories like Little Red Riding Hood explains why they continue to feel relevant. But Tehrani points out that although this is often the case in Western versions, it is not always true elsewhere. In Chinese and Japanese versions, often known as The Tiger Grandmother, the villain is a woman, and in both Iran and Nigeria, the victim is a boy.

Mathias Clasen at Aarhus University in Denmark isn't surprised by Tehrani's findings. 'Habits and morals change, but the things that scare us, and the fact that we seek out entertainment that's designed to scare us - those are constant,' he says. Clasen believes that scary stories teach us what it feels like to be afraid without having to experience real danger, and so build up resistance to negative emotions.

2剑桥雅思15Test3阅读Passage3原文翻译

为什么童话故事实际上是恐怖故事

一些人认为童话不过是取悦孩童的故事，

但其广泛流传和经久不衰的吸引力也许有着更深层次的原因

不同的文化中都有各自的童话故事，但同样的童话往往在世界各地有着不同的版本。欧洲儿童所熟知的《小红帽》讲述了这样一个故事：一个小女孩在去探望外婆的路上遇到了一只狼，她还告诉了狼自己要去哪里;于是狼抢先跑到外婆家，处理掉了外婆，然后穿上外婆的衣服躺在床上等待小红帽的到来。你可能觉得自己知道这个故事-但是是哪个版本呢?在某些版本中，狼活吞了外婆;而在其他版本中，狼把外婆锁进了橱柜。有的版本说小红帽独自打败了狼;而有的版本却说是猎人或是樵夫听到小红帽的哭声后赶来救了她。

这些童话故事广受喜爱往往要归功于其中的警示性内容，以《小红帽》为例-“听妈妈的话，避免和陌生人说话。”英国杜伦大学人类学家Jamie Tehrani说：“我们对这个故事感兴趣或许是因为它蕴含了与生存相关的内容。”然而他的研究表明情况并非如此。他说：“尽管我们清楚此类故事古老悠久，但我们对讲故事的历史和史前史的认识却很不足。”但这并没有阻止人类学家、民俗学家和其他专业学者们的脚步，他们想要建构理论来说明童话故事在人类社会中的重要性。目前，Tehrani借鉴进化生物学家的方式，已经找到了一种检验这些观点的方法。

为了并清生物群体之间的进化历史、发展和关系，生物学家通过一种称为“系统发育我”的方式比役现有物种的特征。

Tehrani也使用该方法比较了童话故事的相关版本，看是如的常变的，故事中哪些而分统修时同最Tehrani的分析以不同版本的《小红帽》为对象，其中包括另一个西方童话《狼和孩子们》。他研究了这两个故事的所有不同版本，还有来自非洲、东亚和其他地区的类似故事。最后，他得到了58个口述故事。当方法来探究它们是如何随着时间发展变化的。一旦他的系统发育分析确定它们确实有关系，他就用同样

首先，他检验了一些假说，即随着故事的发展，其中变化最小的部分就表明该部分最重要。民俗学家认为，故事中发生的事情比人物更重要。也就是说，探望亲戚结果却遇到了一只会伪装的可怕动物，这件事比拜访者是一个小女孩还是三个兄弟姐妹更重要。也比这动物是虎而非狼更重要。

然而，Tehrani发现，情节的演更速度与人物的变化速度没有显著差异。他说：“某些情故事的核心部分保留报多这样的理论。他发现核心情节的灵活性与并头和结尾相比没有显著差异。

但当他注意到故事中的警示性元素时大吃一惊。他说：“对狩猎采集者民间故事的研究表明，这些故事涵盖了所处的环境和可能面临的潜在危险的重要信息，而这些信息都与生有息息相关。”然而在他的分析中，这些元素就像看似琐碎的细节一样多变。那么，到底哪些东西才是重要到可以让人代代相传的呢?

答案似乎是恐惧，即故事中嗜血、阴森的一面。比如外婆被狼吃掉，这一情节是所有版本中保留最完整的。为什么这些细节能代代相传，而其他细节却没有呢?Tehrani有一个想法：“在口述情况下，一个故事能流传下来不是只靠一个伟大的讲述者。当故事讲述者不是一个很会讲故事的人时，故事也要有趣。”被狼整个吞下然后活着从狼被剖开的肚子中出来，或许这样的情节扣人心弦，让这个故事无论讲得多么糟糕都能经久不衰。

(美国)明尼阿波里斯市明尼苏达大学的Jack Zipes 不认同Tehrani关于童话故事的观点。他说：“哪怕再阴森，如果该情节不是十分重要，也不会长久流传。”他认为在《小红帽》这样的故事中，女性作为受害者这一永恒的主题解释了为什么这样的情节仍与现实息息相关。但是Tehrani指出，虽然在西方版本中经常是这样，但在其他地方并不总是如此。在中文和日文的版本《老虎外婆》中，大反派是一位女性;而在伊朗和尼日利亚版本中，受害者是一个男孩。

丹麦奥胡斯大学的Mathias Clasen 对 Tehrani的发现并不感到惊讶。他说：“习俗和道德会变迁，但是让我们恐惧的事情，以及我们寻求恐惧以资娱乐这一事实，都是不变的。”Clasen认为恐怖故事让我们不用经历真正的危险就能感受到恐惧，从而培养对负面情绪的抵抗力。