韋恩食記

伏尼契手稿
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BC%8F%E5%B0%BC%E5%A5%91%E6%89%8B%E7%A8%BF

閱讀部分
In 1912 a bookseller named Wilfrid M. Voynich acquired a beautifully illustrated handwritten book (manuscript) written on vellum (vellum is a material that was used for writing before the introduction of paper). 
1912年，一個名叫Wilfrid M. Voynich的書商獲得了一本寫在牛皮紙上的精美插圖的手寫書（手稿）（牛皮紙是在引入紙張之前用於書寫的材料）。
The "Voynich manuscript", as it became known, resembles manuscripts written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
眾所周知，"Voynich手稿"類似於十五和十六世紀撰寫的手稿。
However, it is written in a completely unknown script.
但是，它是用完全未知的文字所編寫的。
To date, no one has been able to decode the script and understand the book's content.
迄今為止，還沒有人能夠翻譯文字並理解這本書的內容。
Several theories have been proposed to explain the origin of the Voynich manuscript.
已經提出了幾種理論來解釋伏尼契手稿的起源。

One theory is that the manuscript is a genuine work on some scientific or magical subject composed in a complex secret code.
一種理論認為，手稿是由複雜密碼組成的某些科學或魔術主題的真實著作。
Anthony Ascham, a sixteenth-century physician and botanist, has been identified as a possible author, since many plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript are quite similar to those in Ascham's book on medicinal plants, A Little Herbal, published in 1550.
Anthony Ascham是一位十六世紀的醫師和植物學家，他被確定為可能的作者，因為伏尼契手稿中的許多植物插圖與Ascham在1550年出版的有關藥用植物的書《小草藥》中的插圖非常相似。

According to some other theories, the manuscript is really a fake and its text has no real meaning.
根據其他一些理論，該手稿實際上是偽造的，其文字沒有任何實際含義。
For example, it has been proposed the manuscript was created by Edward Kelley, a sixteenth-century personality who extracted money from nobles across Europe by pretending to have magical powers.
例如，有人提議該手稿是由Edward Kelley創作的，他是十六世紀的知名人物，他通過假裝擁有神奇的力量從歐洲的貴族手中賺錢。
Kelley may have created the manuscript as a fake magical book to sell to a wealthy noble.
Kelley可能會將手稿創作成一本偽造的魔法書，出售給富裕的貴族。
He used a made-up alphabet in a completely random order.
他完全隨機排序虛構的字母。
It looks like a book of magical secrets, but there is no meaningful underlying text.
它看起來像一本神奇的秘密書，但是沒有有意義的底層文本。

Another theory is that the manuscript is actually a modern fake created by Wilfrid M. Voynich himself.
另一種理論認為，手稿實際上是由Wilfrid M. Voynich本人創造的現代假貨。
As an antique book dealer, Voynich certainly had the knowledge of what old manuscripts should look like and could have created a fake one.
作為一家古董書商，Voynich當然知道舊手稿應該是什麼樣子，並可能製造出偽造的手稿。
Perhaps Voynich's plan was to sell the fake as a mysterious old book if he received an attractive offer.
也許，Voynich的計劃是，如果他收到誘人的報價，將其作為一本神秘的舊書出售。

聽力部分
None of the three people mentioned in the reading was probably the author of the Voynich manuscript. 
閱讀中提到的三個人中，沒有一個可能是伏尼契手稿的作者。

According to the first theory, whoever wrote the Voynich manuscript thought they were conveying information so important or so powerful that they used a special code to keep it secret.
根據第一種理論，凡寫伏尼契手稿的人都認為他們傳達的信息是如此重要或如此強大，以至於他們使用特殊的代碼對其進行保密。
That doesn't fit what we know about Anthony Ascham.
這與我們對Anthony Ascham的了解不符。
Ascham was just an ordinary physician and scientist whose books didn't contain any original ideas.
Ascham只是一位普通的醫師和科學家，其著作沒有任何原創性的想法。
For instance, the Little Herbal mentioned in the reading was a description of common plants based on other well-known sources.
例如，閱讀中提到的小草藥就是基於其他知名來源的常見植物的描述。
So, given what we know about Ascham, his books, and the kind of knowledge he had, it seems unlikely he was the author of such an elaborately coded, secret document. 
因此，考慮到我們對Ascham，他的書以及他所擁有的知識的了解，他似乎不太可能是這樣精心編寫的秘密文件的作者。

Second, although Edward Kelley was notoriously good at tricking people, it seems unlikely that he created the Voynich manuscript as a fake magical book to sell to some rich people.
其次，儘管Edward Kelley擅長欺騙人，但他似乎不太可能將伏尼契手稿作為一本偽造的魔法書出售給某些富人。
You see, the creator of the Voynich manuscript took a lot of care to make the text look like a real code; but people in the sixteenth century were quite easy to fool, so it was not necessary to make something this complex.
您會發現，Voynich手稿的創建者非常注意使文本看起來像是真實的代碼；但是16世紀的人們很容易被愚弄，因此沒有必要做那麼複雜的事情。
If Kelley wanted to create a fake for money, there's no reason he would've put so much work into creating a manuscript like this when a much simpler book would have suited his purpose just as well.
如果Kelley想為錢造假，那麼一本簡單得多的書也很適合他的目的時，他就沒有理由將如此大量的工作投入到這樣的手稿中。

Third, we've been able to date the manuscript materials using modern methods — both the vellum pages and the ink on the pages.
第三，我們已經能夠使用現代方法對手稿材料進行標註 — 牛皮紙頁面和頁面上的墨水。
Both the vellum and the ink are at least 400 years old.
牛皮紙和墨水都至少有400年的歷史。
That rules out Voynich as the author.
這就排除了Voynich作為作者。
If Voynich wanted to create a fake, maybe he could use vellum pages taken from some old manuscripts, but where would he get 400-year-old ink?
如果Voynich想要製造假貨，也許他可以使用從一些舊手稿中獲取的牛皮紙頁，但是他將從何處獲得400年曆史的墨水？
So it seems the manuscript was created centuries before Voynich obtained it.
因此，手稿似乎是在Voynich獲得它之前幾個世紀創建的。

回答範例
The reading passage explores the issue of the origin of the Voynich manuscript, and several reasons are offered to support this argument. Although the statement in the article seems reasonable in the beginning, the lecturer casts doubt on it for the following reasons.

First of all, even though the reading passage suggests that the manuscript may be a genuine work written by Anthony Ascham, the lecturer argues that it is a misunderstanding. This is because Anthony Ascham was only an ordinary scientist, which means he can not likely to write the complex secret code.

In the second place, the statement held by the writer claims that the manuscript which may written by Edward Kelley is a fake and its texts does not have real meaning. Nonetheless, it is argued in the listening that the manuscript is not a fake, and it has the real code. The lecturer gives the truth that Edwrd Kelly did not need to make such a complex book to trick others.

Last but not least, the lecturer acutely identifies the weakness in the reading passage that manuscript is a modern fake created by Voynich. The lecturer convincingly points out that the ink on the manuscript has already four hundred years old. Thus, the manuscript was impossibly created by Voynich.

To sum up, based on the evidences presented above, it can be clearly seen that the stances on both sides are different.
Although the contents in the reading passage seems to be somewhat reasonable, further scrutiny leads the lecturer to believe that the statements in the reading passage are not true.

知乎 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/52460186 , https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/38576711
智課 https://www.smartstudy.com/toefl/article/107894.html