本篇文章共分 7 個段落，取材自某本書籍的作者對於「探索」的看法，從遠古人類到現代社會，從各不同行業的認知，最後說明作者本人對於探索的自我定義以及所著書籍內容的範疇。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

What is exploration? 探索是什麼？

1. 探索是人類天性

   We are all explores. Our desire to discover, and then share that new-found knowledge, is part of what makes us human – indeed, this has played an important part in our success as a species. Long before the first caveman slumped down beside the fire and grunted news that there were plenty of wildebeest over yonder, our ancestors had learnt the value of sending out scouts to investigate the unknown. This questing nature of ours undoubtedly helped our species spread around the globe, just as it nowadays no doubt helps the last nomadic Penan maintain their existence in the depleted forests of Borneo, and a visitor negotiate the subways of New York.

   我們都是探索者。我們渴望發現，然後分享新發現的知識，這是我們人類的一部分—事實上，這在我們作為一個成功的物種中發揮了重要作用。早在第一個穴居人癱坐在火堆旁，咕噥著說那邊有很多牛羚的消息之前，我們的祖先就已經知道派出偵察兵調查未知事物的價值。我們這種探索的天性無疑幫助我們這個物種遍佈全球，就像今天它無疑幫助最後一個遊牧的佩南人在婆羅洲枯竭的森林中維持他們的生存，也幫助遊客穿過紐約的地鐵。

2. 每個人都是探險家

   Over the years, we’ve come to think of explorers as a peculiar breed – different from the rest of us, different from those of us who are merely ‘well travelled’, even; and perhaps there is a type of person more suited to seeking out the new, a type of caveman more inclined to risk venturing out. That, however, doesn’t take away from the fact that we all have this enquiring instinct, even today; and that in all sorts of professions – whether artist, marine biologist or astronomer – borders of the unknown are being tested each day.

   多年來，我們一直認為探險家是一個奇特的品種—與我們其他人不同，甚至與我們那些僅僅是「旅遊達人」的人不同；也許有一種人更適合於尋求新事物，一種更傾向於冒險的穴居人。然而，這並不剝奪我們都有這種探究的本能，即使在今天；而且在各種職業中—無論是藝術家、海洋生物學家還是天文學家—每天都有人在測試未知的邊界。

3. 探索未知領地

   Thomas Hardy set some of his novels in Egdon Heath, a fictional area of uncultivated land, and used the landscape to suggest the desires and fears of his characters. He is delving into matters we all recognise because they are common to humanity. This is surely an act of exploration, and into a world as remote as the author chooses. Explorer and travel writer Peter Fleming talks of the moment when the explorer returns to the existence he has left behind with his loved ones. The traveller ‘who has for weeks or months seen himself only as a puny and irrelevant alien crawling laboriously over a country in which he has no roots and no background, suddenly encounters his other self, a relatively solid figure, with a place in the minds of certain people’.

   湯瑪斯．哈代將他的一些小說設定在埃格登荒地 (Egdon Heath)，這是一片虛構的未開墾的土地，他用風景來暗示他的人物的欲望和恐懼。他正在深入研究我們都意識到的問題，因為它們是人類共通的。這肯定是一種探索行為，而且是進入一個作者選擇的遙遠世界。既是探險家又是旅行作家的彼得．弗萊明談到，當探險家回到當初他把他所愛的人留下的那個地方時，那一刻。旅行者「幾個星期或幾個月以來，他只看到自己是一個微不足道和無關緊要的外國人，在一個他無根也無背景的國家裡艱難地緩步前行，突然遇到了另一個自己，一個相當實在的人，身處於存在某些人心中的地方。」

4. 書籍的目標讀者

   In this book about the exploration of the earth’s surface, I have confined myself to those whose travels were real and who also aimed at more than personal discovery. But that still left me with another problem: the word ‘explorer’ has become associated with a past era. We think back to a golden age, as if exploration peaked somehow in the 19th century – as if the process of discovery is now on the decline, though the truth is that we have named only one and a half million of this planet’s species, and there may be more than 10 million – and that’s not including bacteria. We have studied only 5 per cent of the species we know. We have scarcely mapped the ocean floors, and know even less about ourselves; we fully understand the workings of only 10 per cent of our brains.

   在這本關於地球表面探索的書中，我把自己限制在那些從事實際旅行，而且也是以超越個人發現為目的的人。但這仍然給我留下了另一個問題：「探險家」這個詞已經與過去的時代聯繫在一起。我們會回想起一個黃金時代，好像探索在 19 世紀達到了某種程度的頂峰—好像探索的過程現在正在衰退，儘管事實是我們只命名了這個星球上的 150 萬個物種，但有可能超過 1,000 萬種—這還不包括細菌。我們只研究了我們所知道的物種的 5％。我們幾乎沒有繪製過海底地圖，對我們自己的瞭解就更少了；我們只完全瞭解我們 10% 的大腦的工作原理。

5. 各種探險的定義

   Here is how some of today’s ‘explorers’ define the word. Ran Fiennes, dubbed the ‘greatest living explorer’, said, ‘An explorer is someone who has done something that no human has done before – and also done something scientifically useful.’ Chris Bonington, a leading mountaineer, felt exploration was to be found in the act of physically touching the unknown: ‘You have to have gone somewhere new.’ Then Robin Hanbury-Tenison, a campaigner on behalf of remote so-called ‘tribal’ peoples, said, ‘A traveller simply records information about some far-off world, and reports back; but an explorer changes the world.’ Wilfred Thesiger, who crossed Arabia’s Empty Quarter in 1946, and belongs to an era of unmechanised travel now lost to the rest of us, told me, ‘If I’d gone across by camel when I could have gone by car, it would have been a stunt.’ To him, exploration meant bringing back information from a remote place regardless of any great self-discovery.

   以下是今日的一些「探險家」如何定義這個詞彙。被稱為「最偉大的在世探險家」的蘭．費因斯說：「探險家是做了人類從未做過的事情的人—而且還做了科學上有用的事情。」克里斯．博寧頓，一名傑出的登山家，認為探索是在實際接觸未知的行為中發現的：「你必須去到一個新的地方。」然後，代表偏遠的所謂「部落」人口的社會運動領導人羅賓．漢伯里．泰尼森說：「旅行者只是記錄關於某個遙遠世界的資訊，然後回報；但探險家卻改變了世界。」威爾弗雷德．塞斯格在 1946 年穿越了阿拉伯的空曠地帶，他屬於一個對我們其他人來說已經不可復得的無機械旅行時代，告訴我說，「如果我在可以開車的情況下騎駱駝過去，那就成特技了。」對他來說，探索意味著從一個遙遠的地方帶回資訊，而不是任何偉大的自我發現。

6. 探索的重要兩條件

   Each definition is slightly different – and tends to reflect the field of endeavour of each pioneer. It was the same whoever I asked: the prominent historian would say exploration was a thing of the past, the cutting-edge scientist would say it was of the present. And so on. They each set their own particular criteria; the common factor in their approach being that they all had, unlike many of us who simply enjoy travel or discovering new things, both a very definite objective from the outset and also a desire to record their findings.

   每個定義都略有不同—而且往往反映了每位先驅者的努力領域。我問誰都一樣：著名的歷史學家會說探索是過去的事情，尖端的科學家會說是現在的事情。以此類推。他們每個人都設定了自己的特定標準；他們方法的共同因素是，不像我們許多人只是喜歡旅行或發現新事物，他們都從一開始就有一個非常明確的目標，也有記錄他們發現的慾望。

7. 作者對於探索的詮釋

   I’d best declare my own bias. As a writer, I’m interested in the exploration of ideas. I’ve done a great many expeditions and each one was unique. I’ve lived for months alone with isolated groups of people all around the world, even two ‘uncontacted tribes’. But none of these things is of the slightest interest to anyone unless, through my books, I’ve found a new slant, explored a new idea. Why? Because the world has moved on. The time has long passed for the great continental voyages – another walk to the poles, another crossing of the Empty Quarter. We know how the land surface of our planet lies; exploration of it is now down to the details – the habits of microbes, say, or the grazing behaviour of buffalo. Aside from the deep sea and deep underground, it’s the era of specialists. However, this is to disregard the role the human mind has in conveying remote places; and this is what interests me: how a fresh interpretation, even of a well-travelled route, can give its readers new insights.

   我最好聲明我自己存有偏見。作為一名作家，我對思想的探索感興趣。我做過大量的探險，每一次都是獨一無二的。我曾在世界各地與孤立的人群單獨生活了幾個月，甚至有兩個「無人接觸過的部落」。但這些事情都沒有人感興趣，除非是透過我的書，我發現了一個新的觀點，探索了一個新的想法。為什麼？因為世界已經往前發展了。偉大的洲際航行時代早已過去—再一次走到兩極，再一次穿越空曠地帶也一樣。我們知道我們星球的陸地表面是怎樣的；對它的探索現在只剩下細節了—比如說微生物的習性，或者水牛的放牧行為。除了深海和地下深處之外，這是一個專家的時代。然而，這忽視了人類思維在傳達偏遠地區的作用；這也是我感興趣的地方：即使是對一條已經廣為行走的路線進行新的解釋，也能給讀者帶來新的見解。