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M: Is this a good thing, do you think?
男：你认为这是件好事吗？
W: I think that it's an excellent arrangement.
女：我认为这是一个很好的安排。
W: We all like to keep part of our lives private, even from those we love dearly.
女：我们都喜欢有一部分生活自己独享，即使是那些我们深爱的人也不能涉足。
W: I certainly don't think that it's a sign of the increased loneliness of old age.
女：我当然不认为这是老年阶段愈加孤独的标志。
M: Are people's mental abilities affected by old age?
男：人们的心智能力会受年老的影响吗？
W: Certain changes do take place as we grow older, but this happens throughout life.
女：随着年龄的增长，某些变化必然会发生，但这些变化一生都在发生。
W: These changes are very gradual and happen at different times with different people,
女：这些变化是渐进的，不同的人发生这些变化的时间也不同，
W: but, in general, if you know a person well in his middle age and have seen how he deals with events and problems, you will easily recognize him in old age.
女：但是，总的来说，如果你在中年时很了解一个人，并且知道他是如何处理事件和问题的，你很容易分辨他是不是老了。
M: So that someone who enjoys new experiences, travel, education, and so on in his middle years will usually continue to do so into old age?
男：那么，一个人如果在中年时期，喜欢新经历、旅行、教育等，到了老年通常会继续喜欢吗？
W: Exactly. We have carried out some very interesting experiments in which a group of people aged 60-70 and a group aged 30-40 had to learn the same things.
女：没错。我们进行了一些非常有趣的实验，其中60-70岁的人群和30-40岁的人群必须学习同样的东西。
W: The first thing we discovered was that the young group tends to be quicker at learning than the old group.
女：我们发现的第一件事是，年轻人在学习上往往比老年人更快。
W: However, although the old group took longer to learn, eventually, they performed as well as the young group.
女：然而，尽管老年组花了更长的时间去学习，最终，他们还是表现得和青年组一样。
W: And when we tested the two groups several weeks later, there was again no difference between the two groups.
女：几周后我们对两组进行了测试，两组之间还是没有差别。
M: That's very interesting indeed. What else did your experiments show?
男：这确实很有趣。你的实验还发现了什么？
W: Well, one group of old people agreed to attend evening classes for a year to study English and mathematics.
女：一群老年人同意参加一年的夜校去学习英语和数学。
W: In fact, most of this group became so interested in their studies that they continued them for another year.
女：事实上，这个小组的大多数人对他们的研究非常感兴趣，因此他们继续研究了一年。
W: Anyway, we discovered that they did best in the English classes and that most of them steadily improved their ability to communicate in both the written and the spoken language.
女：无论如何，我们发现他们在英语课上表现最好，而且他们中的大多数人都在不断提高书面和口头交流能力。
M: What about the group who studied mathematics?
男：那组学数学的呢？
W: Well, that's a different story. There seems to be no doubt that people find maths more difficult as they grow older. Though, why this is so, I cannot say.
女：那是另一回事了。毫无疑问，随着年龄的增长，人们学数学会更难。但是，我不清楚为什么会这样。
M: Perhaps pocket calculators will solve this problem.
男：也许袖珍计算器能解决这个问题。
W: I think you're right. In fact, I'm sure that you are.
女：我想你是对的。事实上，我确定你说的很对。
M: Okay. Time for a commercial. Stay tuned; we'll be right back.
男：好。广告时间到。不要走开，马上回来。
