剑桥雅思14Test1Passage1阅读原文翻译 The Importance of Children’s Play 孩子玩耍的重要性
剑桥雅思14阅读第一套题目第一篇文章的主题为孩子玩耍的重要性。文章一共16段，大体可以分为3部分：第一部分介绍过去游戏的重要性；第二部分介绍时代改变，人们不再重视游戏；第三部分介绍针对游戏最新的学术研究成果。下面是具体每一段的翻译。
点击查看这篇雅思阅读具体题目的答案解析与其中出现的常考词汇：
雅思阅读真题词汇 剑桥雅思14 Test 1 Passage 1 儿童玩耍的重要性
剑桥雅思14Test1Passage1阅读答案解析 The Importance of Children’s Play 孩子玩耍的重要性
剑桥雅思14 Test1 Passage1阅读原文翻译
第1段
Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life.
一块积木又一块积木，六岁的Alice正在建造一个魔法王国。想象着童话故事中的塔楼和会喷火的巨龙，邪恶的巫师和勇敢的英雄。她正创建一个魅力十足的世界。虽然她自己并没有意识到，但这种幻想正帮助她向着创造力迈出最初的几步，从而对她成年之后的生活产生重要影响。
第2段
Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.
几分钟后，Alice放弃了她的王国，开始跟她的弟弟玩假装上学的游戏。当她扮演老师，指挥她的弟弟团团转的时候，她在通过这种行为锻炼如何管理她的情绪。随后，他们玩腻了角色扮演，开始坐下来玩桌游。这时候，她在了解遵守规则以及与同伴轮流出手的需要。
第3段
‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’
“形式极其丰富的游戏是人类最伟大的成就之一”，英国剑桥大学教育学院的David Whitebread博士说。“它为我们成长为有智慧，具备问题解决能力的成年人奠定基础，也对我们作为一个具备高度适应能力的物种的成功至关重要”。
第4段
Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century.
认识到游戏的重要性并不是什么新鲜事：两千多年前，希腊哲学家文章来自老烤鸭雅思柏拉图就赞美它的好处，认为它是为成年生活开发各项技能的手段。而寓教于乐的观念从19世纪就开始出现。
第5段
But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.
但我们生活在充满变化的时代。Whitebread注意到世界范围内游戏重要性的下降，指出世界上有超过一半的人口如今生活在城市之中。“自由玩耍的机会正变得越来越稀少，而我的童年则几乎每天都可以体验”，他说。户外嬉戏由于以下原因受到抑制：人们对交通风险的担忧，父母逐渐攀升、保护孩子不受犯罪侵害的希望，以及对越早越好观念的强调（这导致学术学习和学校中出现更为激烈的竞争）。
第6段
International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.
联合国与欧盟等国际机构已经开始着手制定一些关注儿童游戏权利的政策，并且考虑这对休闲设施和教育项目的影响。但他们所欠缺的是制定政策的依据。
第7段
‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable – but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real challenge.’
“我们感兴趣的游戏类型是儿童自己创造的、自发进行的和不可预测的-但是，只要你让一个5岁的孩子玩耍，那么你作为研究人员就已经介入其中”，Sara Baker博士解释道。“我们想要了解的是玩耍的长期影响。这才是真正的挑战”。
第8段
Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.
Jenny Gibson博士同意以上观点并指出，虽然在游戏有多么重要重要、以及为什么如此重要的这个谜题中，有一些阶段已经得到了研究，但在它对孩子日后生活的影响上，数据仍然十分稀少。
第9段
Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.
现在，由于这所大学新成立了“教育发展学习型游戏研究中心，Whitebread, Baker, Gibson这些人和一支研究团队希望能够为游戏在儿童发展过程中所扮演的角色提供相关证据。
第10段
‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self-control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes — it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’
“很有可能，游戏推动了儿童自我控制能力的早期发展”，Baker解释道。“这种能力使我们意识到自身的思考过程 – 它影响着我们从事有挑战活动的效果”。
第11段
In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in the long run.’
Baker在一项针对幼儿和学龄前儿童的研究中发现，具有更强自控能力的儿童在探索需要科学分析的陌生领域时，能够更加快速的解决问题。“此类证据让我们认为，从长远来看，给予儿童玩耍的机会会让他们成为更加成功的问题解决者”。
第12段
If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance.
研究者们认为，如果玩耍经历确实能够促进这方面的发展，那么它对于教育实践就至关重要，因为已有证据证明，自控能力是学习成绩好坏的关键因素。
第13段
Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’
Gibson补充到：“玩耍行为也是社交和情感能力正常发展的重要指示。在之前的研究中，我曾调查过，观察玩耍中的儿童可以为我们提供他们健康状况的重要线索，甚至对诊断诸如自闭症这样的神经发展紊乱有所帮助”。
第14段
Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’ Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego*, with similar results. ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.’
Whitebread最近的研究包括开发一种基于玩耍的方法来促进儿童写作能力的提升。“许多小学生觉得写作很难，但我们之前的一项研究显示，游戏性的刺激要比教育性的刺激有效很多”。当孩子第一次跟代表故事中角色的玩偶玩耍时，他们就能写出更长、结构更好的故事来。在最新的研究中，首次利用乐高玩具创作故事的儿童也展现出相同的结果。“许多老师表示，他们之前总是有孩子说自己不知道该写什么。但用了搭建乐高积木的方法之后，整整一年都没有任何一个孩子再这么说过了”。
第15段
Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age.
PEDAL中心的主任Whitebread在20世纪70年代早期接受过小学教师的培训。他这样描述当时的情况：“幼儿教育如同一潭死水一般， 不会受到任何严肃学术讨论或者争议的影响”。现在的情况完全不同，出现了诸如上学年龄这样备受争论的问题。
第16段
‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It’s regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that contrasts with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences.’
“不知为何，游戏玩耍在最近几十年变得不再重要。它被当成无关紧要的事情，或者与‘努力’相反的负面行为。但我们不可忽视其有益的地方。它对人类在艺术、科学和技术方面所取得的成就有着重要贡献。让我们确保孩子拥有丰富的玩耍体验大餐吧”。
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