【第一题】
It’s not that we are afraid of seeing him stumble, of scribbling a mustache over his career. Sure, the nice part of us wants Mike to know we appreciate him, that he still reigns, at least in our memory. The truth, though, is that we don’t want him to come back because even for Michael Jordan, this would be an act of hubris so monumental as to make his trademark confidence twist into conceit. We don’t want him back on the court because no one likes a show-off. The stumbling? That will be fun.
But we are nice people, we Americans, with 225 years of optimism at our backs. Days ago when M.J. said he had made a decision about returning to the NBA in September, we got excited. He had said the day before, “I look forward to playing, and hopefully I can get to that point where I can make that decision. It’s O.K., to have some doubt, and it’s O.K. to have some nervousness.” A Time/CNN poll last week has Americans, 2 to 1, saying they would like him on the court ASAP. And only 21 percent thought that if he came back and just completely bombed, it would damage his legend. In fact only 28 percent think athletes should retire at their peak.
Sources close to him tell Time that when Jordan first talked about a comeback with the Washington Wizards, the team Jordan co-owns and would play for, some of his trusted advisers privately tried to discourage him. “But they say if they try to stop him, it will onlyfirm up his resolve,” says an NBA source.
The problem with Jordan’s return is not only that he can’t possibly live up to the storybook ending he gave up in 1998 — earning his sixth ring with a last-second championship-winning shot. The problem is that the motives for coming back — needing the attention, needing to play even when his 38-year-old body does not — violate the verymyth of Jordan, the myth of absolute control. Babe Ruth, the 20th century’s first star, was a gust of fat bravado and drunken talent, while Jordan ended the century by proving the elegance of resolve; Babe’s pointing to the bleachers replaced by the charm of a backpedaling shoulder shrug. Jordan symbolized success by not sullying his brand with his politics, his opinion or superstar personality. To be a Jordan fan was to be a fan of classiness and confidence.
To come back when he knows that playing for Wizards won’t get him anywhere near the second round of the play-offs, when he knows that he won’t be the league scoring leader, that’s a loss of control.
Jordan does not care what we think. Friends say that he takes articles that tell him not to come back and tacks them all on his refrigerator as inspiration. So why bother writing something telling him not to come back? He is still Michael Jordan.
参考答案：
不是因为我们害怕看到他会因失误而给他辉煌的生涯画上遗憾的一笔。从善意的角度说，我们想让迈克知道，我们仍然欣赏他，至少在我们的记忆中，他仍然是英雄。事实上，我们不想让他重返球场，即使他是迈克尔·乔丹。我们觉得这是个贸然之举，我们不想看到自信的商标蜕变成一种自负的象征。我们不想让他重返球场，因为没有人喜欢卖弄。失误呢?那将会很有趣。
但是我们是有着225年乐观历史的美国人，我们都是好心人。当乔丹几天前宣布他将在九月重返NBA时，我们曾为之一振。宣布的前一天，他说过：“我盼望能打球，并希望事情能如愿以偿。有些人怀疑，有些人紧张，都属正常。”《时代》周刊和美国有线新闻网上周做的一项民意调查表明，每两个美国人当中就有一个人希望乔丹尽快重返赛场。只有21%的人们认为，如果他的重返导致一场彻底失败，将会损害他的传奇。事实上只有28%的人认为运动员应该在他的运动巅峰时期引退。
与乔丹关系密切的人告诉《时代》周刊，当乔丹第一次谈到重返它与其他人共同拥有的华盛顿奇才队并为之效力时，一些他最信任的顾问试图私下打消他的愿望。“但他们说，如果试图阻止他，只能鉴定他的决心，”一位NBA人士如是说。
乔丹复出所产生的问题不仅仅在于他不可能重现1998年的神话，那一年，他以一个精彩的最后一秒投篮，使球队赢得了冠军，也为自己赢得了第六只金指环。问题是他重返的动机——他需要人们的关注，需要在38岁体力不支时，仍然打球。这一切都有悖于他所创造的神话——一个展示绝对控制力的神话。如果说二十世纪的第一个球星巴比·鲁斯是一个身材魁梧肥胖的鲁莽之夫和酒鬼天才，乔丹则证明了刚毅所能带来的优雅风度，并以此结束了二十世纪。巴比对观众的颐指气使被乔丹无奈耸肩的魅力所取代。乔丹代表着成功，因为他的名字没有被他的政治倾向、他的观点或是他的超级明星个性所玷污。乔丹迷就是典雅和自信迷。
【第二题】
Even after I was too grown-up to play that game and too grown-up to tell my mother that I loved her, I still believed I was the best daughter. Didn’t I run all the way up to the terrace to check on the drying mango pickles whenever she asked?
As I entered my teens, it seemed that I was becoming an even better, more loving daughter. Didn’t I drop whatever I was doing each afternoon to go to the corner grocery to pick up any spices my mother had run out of?
My mother, on the other hand, seemed more and more unloving to me. Some days she positively resembled a witch as she threatened to pack me off to my second uncle’s home in provincial Barddhaman — a fate worse than death to a cool Calcutta girl like me — if my grades didn’t improve. Other days she would sit me down and tell me about “Girls Who Brought Shame to Their Families”. There were apparently, a million ways in which one could do this, and my mother was determined that I should be cautioned against every one of them. On principle, she disapproved of everything I wanted to do, from going to study in America to perming my hair, and her favorite phrase was “over my dead body.” It was clear that I loved her far more than she loved me — that is, if she loved me at all.
After I finished graduate school in America and got married, my relationship with my mother improved a great deal. Though occasionally dubious about my choice of a writing career, overall she thought I’d shaped up nicely. I thought the same about her. We established a rhythm: She’d write from India and give me all the gossip and send care packages with my favorite kind of mango pickle; I’d call her from the United States and tell her all the things I’d been up to and send care packages with instant vanilla pudding, for which she’d developed a great fondness. We loved each other equally — or so I believed until my first son, Anand, was born.
My son’s birth shook up my neat, organized, in-control adult existence in ways I hadn’t imagined. I went through six weeks of being shrouded in an exhausted fog of postpartum depression. As my husband and I walked our wailing baby up and down through the night, and I seriously contemplated going AWOL, I wondered if I was cut out to be a mother at all. And mother love — what was that all about?
Then one morning, as I was changing yet another diaper, Anand grinned up at me with his toothless gums. Hmm, I thought. This little brown scrawny thing is kind of cute after all. Things progressed rapidly from there. Before I knew it, I’d moved the extra bed into the baby’s room and was spending many nights on it, bonding with my son.
参考答案：
即使我长大些，不再适合做这样的游戏，不再对母亲说我爱她，我仍然相信自己是世上最好的女儿。难道不是吗?每当母亲吩咐，我不是总一路跑着到阳台去查看晒在那儿的腌芒果?
当我步入少年，我好像变成了一个更乖更可爱的女儿。难道不是吗?每天下午，当妈妈需要新的调料，我不是总放下手头的工作去街角的杂货店帮她买?
另一方面，我的母亲对我的爱却好像越来越少。有时她活像个巫婆，因为她威胁如果我的学习成绩还没有起色，就要把我送到远在巴哈马乡下的二叔家——这对于像我这样心高气奥德加尔各答女孩而言，将是比死亡更悲惨的命运。有时她又会让我坐着听她讲有关“带给家庭耻辱的女孩”的故事。显然一个人会面对许多变坏的可能，因此母亲决心让我对每个可能都保持警惕。基本上，她对我想做的每一件事都持反对意见，从去美国学习到烫头发。她的口头禅是“除非我死了”。很明显，我对母亲的爱远远超过了她对我的爱——如果她爱我的话。
当我结束了在美国的研究生学习并结了婚，我和母亲的关系改善了许多。虽然偶尔她还对我的当作家的选择表示怀疑，但总的来说她认为我做的事情还算不错。对于她我也这样认为。我们之间建立起一种循环：她从印度写信给我，告诉我各种趣闻，并寄来我最喜欢的腌芒果;我从美国打电话给她，告诉她我都忙了些什么事情，并寄去她最喜欢的香草布丁。我们的爱是对等的——至少在我的儿子阿南德出生前，我是这样认为的。
儿子的降生一下子打乱了我的平静、规律、有秩序的生活，使我措手不及。出院后的六周里，我一直被产后抑郁症的阴影包围着。 当夜里我和我的丈夫抱着哭闹不止的儿子，走来走去哄他睡觉，我开始认真考虑是否要“撤退”。我怀疑自己是否适合做母亲。母爱——究竟是什么?
